money woes

i'm excited.
i'm leaving for a week long bike/camping trip around manitoulin island.
(so in case anyone actually reads this, i'll be on hiatus beginning july 1st)

so i'm excited about that and i'm ecstatic about moving into our new place.
3 of us.
at 30 yrs old (on avg.) we're going backwards in life.
forget the house in suburbia, the suv, the 1.5 kids and a dog.
we're jack, chrissy & janet. i think we may even have a mr & mrs roper.
now all we need is a larry.

all this excitement leads to being more broke than i've been in a while.
i mean, quitting a full time job to go back to university pretty much broke me, but this hurts.
but i don't feel nearly as stressed as i would have felt about it, say, 2 years ago.
it's bizarre but refreshing.
stress is the number one cause of CVD. and CVD (leading to heart attack/stroke) is the number one killer in north america, you know.
and i've honestly been trying to live a somewhat stress-free life in the last little while.
it came with the "big change".
don't get me wrong, school got a little stressful there, especially during exams.

but honestly, i have really been trying to mellow out in the last few years.
not let trivial things bother me. not let the things that aren't that important to my well being be a let-down.
and i think it's working.

Music to my ears: Adorable ~ Against Perfection
Food for thought: Strange Heaven by Lynn Coady

everybody has the list

you know, i've done some great things with my life.
maybe i'm feeling overly optimistic today, but i'm pretty happy at what i've accomplished and what i've seen in my 29 years.
there's still so much i want to do--travel more, as would most--but i can't really complain.

things i've done:
-ran a marathon...in portugal
-got my black belt in shotokan karate
-jumped out of an airplane
-learned how to skate a mini ramp at 25 yrs of age
-a 4 ft high double teeter totter on my mtn bike (busted up my face pretty bad, but lived to tell about it)
-a whole heck of a lot of acid, and survived
-snowboarded in 4 provinces
-graduated college for photojournalism
-travelled most of canada, 1/2 of the usa, ireland, portugal, venezuela and the bahamas
-gotten photos published in the paper
-returned to school a year ago to pursue a degree in nursing
-seen many, many, many concerts and live bands
-fell in love with my soulmate

things i would still like to do is going to take a while to compile.

In reality: Harriet the tortoise dies at 175

a hornet fell on me today but did not sting

sitting in the park today, i met an old sheepdog named thurman. even all that hair couldn't cover up those eyes.

i finally finished reading Genome: The autobiography of a species in 23 chapters.

the last 2 chapters spoke of eugenics and free will.
it was so interesting to learn of all the scientists who glorified the case for eugenics and the politicians that put eugenics into practice--putting laws into place to stop the stupid people from breeding.
this, of course, led to insane asylums and sterilization...putting the crazies away so they couldn't procreate; for some countries, like Germany, the laws allowed 70,000 already sterilized psych patients to be gassed, to free up beds for their soldiers during WWII.
needless to say, Hitler was a fan.

of course, even though many of the sterilization laws were changed, people are still, to some degree, practicing eugenic medicine today.
for example, older mothers-to-be, because of their "high risk" of Downs babies, can receive amniocentesis to check the unborn baby for a duplicate of chromosome 21 (which is indicative of Downs Syndrome)...if present, they are conjoled into aborting the fetus.

anyway, fascinating stuff. read it.

Music to my ears: Explosions in the Sky ~ Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever
(good sittin in the park & readin music...the kind where watching 3 butterflies play makes a beautiful moment -m.)

Words to live by: "Either our actions are determined, in which case we are not responsible for them, or they are the result of random events, in which case we are not responsible for them" ~this is Hume's fork, subsequently named such after this dilemma that plagued the philosopher David Hume

i have a friend with a drug problem

at 29 years old, i'm finally feeling comfortable in my own skin.

and just as i've changed my whole life, one of my best friends has a crack addiction.
i want to save her. but i can't. until she wants to be saved.
but she's almost ready.
i want her to come here so i can lock her in a room and play the part of johnny cash's mother-in-law and hold the shotgun while her crackhead boyfriend tries to come get her or her dealer finds her.

i feel completely helpless.

Music to my ears: Atmosphere - Satan Hates Beauty
Food for thought: still reading Genome...

everything is for sale

the undeniable stench of stale urine.
and i watch as you spit on the floor of the subway while the guy next to you wolfs down that footlong sub.

Music to my ears: The Mars Volta - deloused in the comatorium

Food for thought: Genome-the autobiography of a species in 23 chapters by Matt Ridley

Words to live by: "The fear of freedom is strong within us" ~Germaine Greer

In reality: Big Brother is watching you (tell me something i didn't know)

i am the stone goliath...

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Stone Goliath Your Superpower is Radiation Your Weakness is Ice Your Weapon is Your Stellar Amplifier Your Mode of Transportation is Seahorse

What's your Superhero Name?

teen rebellion is just another product

i watched a pretty good pbs documentary today called the merchants of cool on the symbiotic relationship between teens & the media.
basically it left me with the question of whether there is room anymore for kids to start a counter-culture.
there may be, but it's such a small window of time before the ideas are bought up, re-packaged, and sold back to us. this is when it turns mainstream. and that gap is getting smaller. especially with music.
it's just one big feedback loop....which leads to the old chicken or egg adage: is the media really reflecting the actual world of kids/teens or vice versa?
anyway, as interesting as it is, i'm still procrastinating on that damn essay about female body image in the media, in particular Dove's "campaign for real beauty".
argh.

Music to my ears: Fugazi's End Hits
Current food for thought: The Rebel Sell: why the culture can't be jammed by Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter

Words to live by: "Step off the straight and narrow career-and-materialism groove and you just end up on another one--the groove for people who step off the main groove. And that groove was worn indeed...Everywhere we imagined ourselves standing turned into a cliche beneath our feet." ~ Naomi Klein, No Logo (start of the chapter on The Youth Market and the Marketing of Cool when she's lamenting on the fact that upon finishing highschool her and her best friend wanted to "do something" but everything had been done already)

In reality: (or is it?) this is just screaming lord of the flies or alex garland's the beach meets survivor.

procrastination at its best

i am supposed to be writing an essay right now.
i am "critiquing" (i hate that word, hence the quotes) an ad. i am attempting to write 6-8 pages on why the Dove ad campaign--you know, the "real beauty" ads--are not really that radical to the advertising world. they're still selling a product. a commodity.
just because they put women on their ads that don't conform to the popular ideology of "beauty" (ie: inherently thin and white) doesn't make Dove an overnight feminist entity.
especially when the newest ads are for firming lotion. so, what? it's okay to be not thin and not white, if you firm up? please.

anyway, this is great
there were these giant billboards on the gardiner expressway when the campaign first came out that had people voting, complete with live counter, on whether the woman pictured was fat or fab.

this is a mini-post, not conforming to my usual, because there is more to come on this subject as i begin my essay rant. this should be fun.