A Poem and An Apology.

I will get back to this. Little blog, I have not forsaken ye. I just have school to worry about for a little bit longer.

Anywho, here is a poem to tie you over.

I've never been good with stilettos.

Maybe its just my terrible balance,

but I've always preferred to keep my feet

firmly planted on the ground.

That way I can stand tall

without risk of toppling over.

2011

2010 shall end in a few days. And so, it is time for the standard "New Years Resolution" post. I figured it would be slightly more interesting than the standard "Best of 2010" lists (although I will throw this out there: the best film of 2010 was Scott Pilgrim vs The World, hands down).

Although, I don't know how much of this will be resolution. Rather, it is more like a list of things I would like to happen, or goals I would like to work towards. This is going to be a year of change, as I will be finished university as of April, and once again thrust into the working world.

The first goal can be best summed up with the words "grow up". If you know me in "the real world" I have had various conversations with people about how I do not feel like a "grown up". This is something that continually comes up in my list of insecurities. I often have minor freak outs regarding this.

I am 26 years old. I live in the same house, same room even, that I have lived in since I was 2. I am effectively unemployed, and I still go to school.

I have struggled with this. At times, I feel a distinct lack of progress in my life. I look at peoples' Facebook pages, and they are married, have houses, have fantastic jobs, have children, at my age or younger. It's not so much that I want those particular things right this second, but their lives have changed since last we saw each other. I feel stuck.

On the other hand, I try and remind myself how blessed I am. I have a wonderful family, including a mother who allows me to live at home, rent free, while I figure my life out. She's awesome. I can stay here as long as I want, and save money for when I can actually leave the nest.

I have an awesome boyfriend, with whom I can make a future with. He's also pretty awesome. I have fantastic, lifelong friendships with an amazing group of people.

But back to the resolution - grow up. I guess that goal is to make any sort of progress. This will most likely involve getting a job (which would be FANTASTIC), save any amount of money, or even just gathering materials for when I move out (I've talked with Mom about how I'm hoping to focus on buying things I can use, like vacuums or plates, rather than more books and DVDs and stuff). Any sort of progress will be super.

That's the big goal, I suppose. I have a few others, some of which are better than others. For instance, I want to be more charitable from now on (in thinking about this, it might contradict my saving money goal - hmm) as I feel that I don't really contribute anything terribly beneficial to society, other than the extremely lazy "follow this person on twitter and they'll donate money to charity" type things (speaking of which, follow @abolishcancer and they'll donate $1 to a variety of cancer charities).

This would be the "better" goal, as my other goal is to finish a lot of the video games I have half-played in my library. And upgrade to Windows 7. Some goals are sillier than others.

These are my plans for 2011. How about you?

Merry Christmas!

Understandably, life has gotten a tad bit busy, around the holidays. But I haven't forgotten you, my darling blog readers! I'm working on a Dungeons and Dragons related post, which is turning out to be a lot of work. So in the mean time, here is some Christmas-related awesomeness:

Via ViralVideosNR1

Hello Fashion Lovers!

I have a rocky relationship with fashion magazines.

I'm a tad embarrassed to admit to buying them, even. I tend to pass myself off as "one of the guys", so that should, in theory, wipe those off of the slate. I also like to pretend I'm some sort of intellectual, so the vapid "look at the pretty colours" text should also, in theory, make me want to burn the damn things.

Yet I have purchased every single issue of Lou Lou since it came out. I'm also partial to Lucky. I'm not terribly loyal to anything else, but I always manage to have piles of them taking up space in my room.

Why do I do this? I mostly don't even read them! I'm paying $5 to have a book of advertisements to flip through. And even then, I skip through the last half of the magazine, which is usually devoted to makeup. (I don't get the appeal of reading about cream or eyeshadow or any of that crap. It's a coloured powder. It is slightly different from this other coloured powder! Yay?)

There's also the whole feminist/ body issues thing. I most certainly do not look like the women in these magazines. In fact, most of the stores and clothing depicted wouldn't even fit me (apparently I am "plus-sized", according to most retail sizing, I disagree and am of the opinion that I am average). These women are genetically "blessed", heavily Photoshopped, and caked in makeup. But they are what society considers beautiful, and while I know logically how ridiculous that is, I have been conditioned to agree. Only recently, and I mean VERY recently, have these magazines been devoting A SINGLE (yes, one) page to "plus sized" women. These magazines in no way represent me, physically.

And in no way do they represent me intellectually, either. The articles tend to be extremely brief, filled with bad puns and exclamations (!!!), telling me that I absolutely have to own a cheetah print this month or be completely and totally shunned by my peers. Or how I need to where 6-inch heels so that I can appear slightly thinner (I'm not fooling anybody). Don't even get me started on the "How To Please Your Man" articles (which give terrible "generic" advice, by the way).

And yet here I sit, staring at a pile of magazines that take up space on my bedroom floor. If I have so many reasons to deplore them, why the hell do I keep buying these things?

The reason is art.

I appreciate the "art" of fashion. I love that each individual piece of clothing can be a work of art on its own (and no, it does NOT need to be expensive). I love that combining it with another item creates a completely different work of art. I love the endless combinations can create endless different works of art, that you get to inhabit each and every day. My closet can attest to this.

I buy fashion magazines to see what combinations others come up with. I get ideas for my own "art". I might decide that I need a motorcycle jacket, because I don't have one yet and I can really do a lot with that, all because of what I saw in a magazine. They inspire my own art.

Now, I don't really look at the "high-end" fashion magazines (any appreciation I have for these beautiful pieces is immediately stymied by the $4000 price tag next to them). I look for things that are attainable. I'd rather see an example of a great $30 dress which I could actually buy than a $300 one. It's all beautiful, but only one is practical enough to get me inspired.

This also, by no means, implies that I am fashionable. I am far too practical for that and will choose comfort over style 95% of the time. I endeavor to make that comfort as funky looking as I can, however. The "fashion is art" attitude is why most people can very easily peg me as an arts student.

What I'm saying is, I really shouldn't be so embarrassed by this habit I've developed. In their way, they help me create tiny works of art every day. That can't be so bad, can it?

My 2010 summed up in 90 words.

It's surprising how accurate this is.

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The Code is in the Kidneys

There is so much information in our bodies.

It's true that our brains hold a gazillion bits of information (and even more of the useless variety). It's true that every part of our anatomy sends information back and forth to the brain, telling us things like "that's too hot" or "that's broken" or "time to reproduce more cells".

That's not what I'm talking about.

There is a fair amount of talk about the effects our cell phone signals have on us. It may cause cancer. It may not. That has yet to be proven.

The point is, think about how much information is passing through you. WiFi signals, cell phone signals, even the remote control to your television send out invisible beams of data.

There is someone's banking information being passed through your kidney as we speak. Two long lost friends are connecting again via Facebook through your gall bladder. Someone is downloading Lady GaGa mp3s to their iPod via your appendix. Someone is calling a cab through your liver. Someone is playing Halo 3 with a guy in Japan through your intestines. Someone is "sexting" through your spleen.

Peoples lives are being lived through you, and you've never even met them.

We talk about the global village and how the world is more connected than ever, but it goes further than that. We are connected via the hundreds and thousands of people that our information passes through to get to someone else.

It's a wondrous thing, in a sense, because it is yet another thing that connects us to other people. Their information is inside of you, and your information is inside of them. It's also a dangerous thing, as it could very well be killing us. It could cause cancer, or another ill-effect we won't become aware of until twenty or thirty years from now.

It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. We are all connected. What you put out into the world passes through so many different people to get to someone else. The air you breathe in is full of data.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

A brief interlude...

Well, since I made my mom cry with the last post, I thought I'd write something that is not SO dramatic and serious. That will come this week. In the meantime, I shall sit and squee about the Mass Effect 3 trailer.

It's SO PRETTY!!!