It's my birthday today! I'm now 26 years old. You could argue I'm entering my late twenties, but I'm going to argue I'm still mid-twenties. 21, 22, 23 are early twenties, 24, 25, 26, are mid twenties, 27, 28, 29, are late twenties. 20 is a round number so it doesn't have to be categorized. Three sets of three to divide a decade, it's just math. You could say I'm in my late mid-twenties if you really wanted an age dig, but that's kind of cumbersome.
It was a pretty good year. I helped run the Respect Campaign, I graduated college, did another stint with the Summer Program, got work with Extend-a-Family as a Direct Support Worker and got hired with Facile. Moved out of student housing and got my own place with a couple of friends. And I managed to make seven sunflowers blossom. In the next year I want to take driving lessons and get my G2 and have eight sunflowers blossom.
Don't have much planned for today. I purposely didn't schedule any work so that I could have the day off. My roommates prepped me a little birthday surprise, which was sweet.
I've had some pretty good birthday reveals is the past. It was my birthday during Canada World Youth the day that we were traveling to Mali. We reconnected with the other group and during a conversation, one of the other group members asked me how old I was. I said "21. Wait." I looked at the clock, turned back "I mean 22".
When I was in my first year of college, I was sitting in the Atrium with a couple of friends when some people walked by, spreading word about the International Day of Peace, which was that day. I said "My birthday is the International Day of Peace?" My friend said "It's your birthday?"
By the way, my birthday is the International Day of Peace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_of_Peace
Monday, September 21, 2015
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Spirit Halloween
It's been awhile since I updated! My computer's pretty broken and I've got another one coming in. Before, I would just use a student computer, but since I don't live next to the school and my account is finished, that's not a possibility. Nowadays, I just wait for my mostly-broken computer to be in a good mood. Even now, I have to worry that before I finish writing this, it will decide to start pulling up search bars and plug random combinations of letters and numbers until it drives itself crazy and shuts down.
(Edit: It started writing "vvvvvvvv" over and over and deleted half my post. Two days have passed and I've now started an account with the Kitchener Public Library and am finishing this on a public access computers. They only give thirty minutes as opposed to Guelph's full hour)
However, while my computer's behaviour is confirmed mysterious by my tech-savvy friend, I showed him my phone (which was giving all those strange suggestions) and it turns out that it was pulling suggestions from a combination of Afrikaans and another language that I forget. He re-set it to English.
I was at Conestoga Mall, where they have a shop called Spirit Halloween. As the name suggests, it is completely dedicated to the Halloween season. And apparently there's no Spirit Christmas or Spirit Easter. When the greeter greeted me, I asked her a number of redundant questions regarding whether or not it was a whole store dedicated to one holiday, and she kept saying it was.
There were these ornaments in the shape of spectres that would make some kind of motion if you stood on a button. My friend stepped on a zombie which made crawling motions at him. I stood on a button near a zombie girl, which made her sway back and forth.
I thought mine was a little unintimidating compared to my friend's zombie, and I said as much. I could appreciate th
(Edit: this is where my computer fried on me, I'm picking it up from here. And between my last edit and reviewing what I'd written two days ago, I overheard a librarian explain that the computers to my left give two full hours, and I just got unlucky and chose a half hour one)
the idea behind it, creating a sense of unease by depicting something pure like a young girl and combining it with something unnatural like a zombie. But the comparatively tame motion next to it's adult male counterpart still left it seeming a little uninspired. And I said as much.
Then it said "Help me... Please... Help me....". That gave me a chill. I could appreciate the way it appealed to the human desire to approach and help based on it's seeming fragility, combined with the urge to keep distance based on it's unnatural appearance, combined with appealing to the fear of the unknown as it urged you to question what it needed help from when it didn't seem in any evident danger.
I praised the little girl creature, and told my friend that I'd spoken too soon. My spectre was more frightening than his.
Then it flew at me.
Some of my friends like to jump out and surprise me, because it triggers an old Karate instinct and makes me bounce back into a fighting stance. It's probably not wise to provoke that, but there's some novelty in that I'm always battle ready.
But this girl... came at me in such a way that I couldn't perceive it as human motion. With my senses frazzled, I screamed, covered my face in my arms and jumped backwards off the button, deactivating it. The whole store was staring at me.
I haven't screamed in years. I didn't even know how I sounded when I screamed. I can't remember the last time I've been so terrified.
After we walked away, a staff member came and stood on the button in front of the zombie girl (presumably to test and see if it was too frightening for public display after my fit). Looking at it from afar and knowing what to expect, I was slightly humiliated to see that the girl doesn't really move all that much when she jumps at you. She just kind of lurches forward.
Worst part was when some young boys told me to try out a giant tarantula ornament, telling me that I'd think it was "cool". I guessed that it was going to jump at me too, and they were just trying to get me again thinking that I might be vulnerable to jumpers after my previous display.
I was right. Without the aspect of surprise, the gimmick has no potency though.
(Edit: It started writing "vvvvvvvv" over and over and deleted half my post. Two days have passed and I've now started an account with the Kitchener Public Library and am finishing this on a public access computers. They only give thirty minutes as opposed to Guelph's full hour)
However, while my computer's behaviour is confirmed mysterious by my tech-savvy friend, I showed him my phone (which was giving all those strange suggestions) and it turns out that it was pulling suggestions from a combination of Afrikaans and another language that I forget. He re-set it to English.
I was at Conestoga Mall, where they have a shop called Spirit Halloween. As the name suggests, it is completely dedicated to the Halloween season. And apparently there's no Spirit Christmas or Spirit Easter. When the greeter greeted me, I asked her a number of redundant questions regarding whether or not it was a whole store dedicated to one holiday, and she kept saying it was.
There were these ornaments in the shape of spectres that would make some kind of motion if you stood on a button. My friend stepped on a zombie which made crawling motions at him. I stood on a button near a zombie girl, which made her sway back and forth.
I thought mine was a little unintimidating compared to my friend's zombie, and I said as much. I could appreciate th
(Edit: this is where my computer fried on me, I'm picking it up from here. And between my last edit and reviewing what I'd written two days ago, I overheard a librarian explain that the computers to my left give two full hours, and I just got unlucky and chose a half hour one)
the idea behind it, creating a sense of unease by depicting something pure like a young girl and combining it with something unnatural like a zombie. But the comparatively tame motion next to it's adult male counterpart still left it seeming a little uninspired. And I said as much.
Then it said "Help me... Please... Help me....". That gave me a chill. I could appreciate the way it appealed to the human desire to approach and help based on it's seeming fragility, combined with the urge to keep distance based on it's unnatural appearance, combined with appealing to the fear of the unknown as it urged you to question what it needed help from when it didn't seem in any evident danger.
I praised the little girl creature, and told my friend that I'd spoken too soon. My spectre was more frightening than his.
Then it flew at me.
Some of my friends like to jump out and surprise me, because it triggers an old Karate instinct and makes me bounce back into a fighting stance. It's probably not wise to provoke that, but there's some novelty in that I'm always battle ready.
But this girl... came at me in such a way that I couldn't perceive it as human motion. With my senses frazzled, I screamed, covered my face in my arms and jumped backwards off the button, deactivating it. The whole store was staring at me.
I haven't screamed in years. I didn't even know how I sounded when I screamed. I can't remember the last time I've been so terrified.
After we walked away, a staff member came and stood on the button in front of the zombie girl (presumably to test and see if it was too frightening for public display after my fit). Looking at it from afar and knowing what to expect, I was slightly humiliated to see that the girl doesn't really move all that much when she jumps at you. She just kind of lurches forward.
Worst part was when some young boys told me to try out a giant tarantula ornament, telling me that I'd think it was "cool". I guessed that it was going to jump at me too, and they were just trying to get me again thinking that I might be vulnerable to jumpers after my previous display.
I was right. Without the aspect of surprise, the gimmick has no potency though.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Seven Sunflowers
I was wrong about the DVD, VHS and board games being here when we moved in... They actually belong to one of my roommates. The house is still decorated and furnished.
All seven of my sunflowers blossomed before I left student housing. The final one blossomed on the day of the move. That's my record for successfully blossomed sunflowers, beating my previous record of one.
Remember how I mentioned that my last day of Day Program in the Summer Program was on a Blue Moon? Well, the night I moved out of Student Housing was the night a Harvest Moon. One life stage ends with a blue moon, and another with a red moon, hmm...
All seven of my sunflowers blossomed before I left student housing. The final one blossomed on the day of the move. That's my record for successfully blossomed sunflowers, beating my previous record of one.
Remember how I mentioned that my last day of Day Program in the Summer Program was on a Blue Moon? Well, the night I moved out of Student Housing was the night a Harvest Moon. One life stage ends with a blue moon, and another with a red moon, hmm...
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Moving Day
Well, yesterday I moved out of student housing, where I'd been living for two years and had shared living space with a total of twenty different roommates over that timespan. When I showed up, I had only two suitcases and a backpack. Now that I'm leaving, I've got three suitcases, two backpacks, five garbage bags and some miscellaneous stuff. And I threw out a lot of stuff and made a number of house donations to future students because I couldn't be bothered to move it all. It's crazy how you build up possessions. By the time I'd moved all my stuff out, it didn't even make the house look much different, just showing that everyone's got a similar kind of buildup. And of me and the two people I'm moving in with, I wasn't the one with the most stuff either.
And even though three people just moved in with their own stuff... the place is furnished. Really nicely, too. It has a lot of neat personal touches and the impression of a family that had been here a long time, although I hear the family before us had only been here briefly. There are decorations, board games, books, a DVD and VHS collection etc,
I finally took the industrial-sized panini press and beer machine from the house, which belonged to my first generation of roommates.
All of my delicate stuff survived the move. My stick from Chisasibi, my drum, masks, and animal carvings from Mali, my paintings from the Summer Program overnight, my certificates from Ways2Work, Katimavik, Canada World Youth, and Human Services Foundation and my diploma from Social Services. My spice rack. My raffle-won French Press, wine glasses and cheeseboard all made it.
But by some twist of fate, my spice rack did not survive the night. I'd successfully gotten it to the other side and had propped it up on the counter. It had survived in student housing propped up on a counter just like it for months, and then after everything was over, one of the people that helped us move bumped it and one of the glass bottles broke.
Do you remember me blogging about how I got this classy spice rack with specified bottles that had the leaf of their respective spice engraved in metal on them? And that I got a bunch of spices just to fill the rack? Tarragon and turmeric were the only ones I didn't know, and tarragon was the most expensive and hardest to find on the rack. I got it in a little glass bottle the same size as the bottle I wanted to put it in, just to complete the collection. It was my show spice.
As soon as I heard her say that one of the spices broke, I said "It better not be tarragon".
It was tarragon. I don't even know if I want the spice rack anymore, since it's now incomplete.
And even though three people just moved in with their own stuff... the place is furnished. Really nicely, too. It has a lot of neat personal touches and the impression of a family that had been here a long time, although I hear the family before us had only been here briefly. There are decorations, board games, books, a DVD and VHS collection etc,
I finally took the industrial-sized panini press and beer machine from the house, which belonged to my first generation of roommates.
All of my delicate stuff survived the move. My stick from Chisasibi, my drum, masks, and animal carvings from Mali, my paintings from the Summer Program overnight, my certificates from Ways2Work, Katimavik, Canada World Youth, and Human Services Foundation and my diploma from Social Services. My spice rack. My raffle-won French Press, wine glasses and cheeseboard all made it.
But by some twist of fate, my spice rack did not survive the night. I'd successfully gotten it to the other side and had propped it up on the counter. It had survived in student housing propped up on a counter just like it for months, and then after everything was over, one of the people that helped us move bumped it and one of the glass bottles broke.
Do you remember me blogging about how I got this classy spice rack with specified bottles that had the leaf of their respective spice engraved in metal on them? And that I got a bunch of spices just to fill the rack? Tarragon and turmeric were the only ones I didn't know, and tarragon was the most expensive and hardest to find on the rack. I got it in a little glass bottle the same size as the bottle I wanted to put it in, just to complete the collection. It was my show spice.
As soon as I heard her say that one of the spices broke, I said "It better not be tarragon".
It was tarragon. I don't even know if I want the spice rack anymore, since it's now incomplete.
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