Hey Mom!

Hey Mom! So this is probably going to have a too-much-information vibe.  It might not surprise you that I am not a trained dancer. I have all the grace and coordination of a dizzy octopus.  I do, however, do a zumba style workout once a week in the privacy of my home in order to expand my arsenal of sick moves.  More specifically, in bathroom with the door locked, in my underwear (told you it was too much information).  The reason for this is that I know what I look like dancing and if someone saw me stumbling around, 14 steps behind the youtube lady and her class of spandex clad super humans, I would die. The reason why I do it in my underwear is because I'm already in the bathroom and then I don't have to wash workout clothes... your typical lose-win situation. Now before I get into the rest of this story I would like to inform you of the following: I WAS STONE-COLD SOBER THE ENTIRE TIME. It was late, we had some music on and I thought to myself You know wh...

Hey Mom! So I decided to pour all my momentum from my un-victory reversal into another adult related hurdle which is sleep. I am really good at getting up at the same time every morning (6:15-6:30) however, I am AWFUL at falling asleep at the same time every night.  Now before you go and give me a bunch of logical, level-headed suggestions like Turn off your phone 2 hours before you go to bed or Try melatonin or here's this breathing thing I learned that is supposed to put you to sleep in SECONDS know that I have tried all these except melatonin because I'm not a billionaire and vitamins/supplements are a complete RIP OFF... Listen,  I'm sure you used an essential oil once and it put you right to sleep but it's just more economical to pop a couple benedryl and catch your zeds that way (that's right I said zeds because I'm Canadian as fluff). ***IF THERE ARE ANY MINORS READING THIS DO NOT USE BENEDRYL AS A SLEEP AID... you'll probably pee the bed AND the ...

Hey Mom! The adventure continues! So far this summer has been a summer of learning to adult better. However, I am finding more and more that this is a sort of two steps forward, one step back situation.  Here is my one step back: I got stuck in a jacket for at least an hour at work last week. Now for those of you who don't know... I spend almost no money on clothes (the outfit I am currently wearing cost me $6) so you can imagine that spending 5 whole Canadian dollars on a jacket was a BIG deal.  Some of the folly involved with buying clothes at a reduced cost is sometimes they have flaws intrinsic to their construction. The flaw with the jacket is that it has a sort of flap that fits under the zipper. Now I've had the jacket for awhile and as far as I can tell, the flap serves only one purpose: getting stuck in the zipper.  What this means is that I get temporarily stuck in the jacket every time I try to zip or unzip it (which is really embarrassing because even Fr...

Hey Mom! LAST WEEK: Mack, Wizard of Fish, was down on her luck as she ate expired fish and proceeded to have an out of bowel experience. THIS WEEK: On Thursday night (or Canada Day Eve, if you prefer) I made fish and chips: Marvel at the light flakey exterior, look in want at the crispness of the chips In the interest of being honest I feel you should know I burnt the first two... badly... really badly Now there are a few pieces of knowledge I'd like to impart upon you mere mortals (the fish wizard is immortal, in case you were wondering). 1. I know absolutely nothing about beer. Neither of my parents drink and I played sports for so long and feel strongly that athletes shouldn't drink (unpopular, I know). So I walked into the liquor store looking for a single can of beer (firstly, WOW you can buy a single can of beer?!?), I gazed upon the wall of single beer cans and thought  does lite beer mean it's diet, like it's got a bunch of aspartame in it? S...

Hey Mom! Is it wrong to offer a stranger Pepto-Bismol? I've been thinking about this a lot over the past two days... mostly because this girl was yarfing in the bathroom and I said to myself I should offer her some pepto!  Don't get me wrong I wasn't like Yo lady, want a swig o' the pink stuff? They are chew tabs that I happen to keep in my backpack (for reasons that don't concern you...I am after all a lady). On a completely unrelated note, sometimes ladies get diarrhea. Aaaaanyway, I was standing there (post whiz) thinking about whether it's weirder to offer good ol' PB to a stranger.  I mean it's definitely weird to pass chew tabs under a bathroom stall but which is weirder?  In the end, it didn't matter because while I was standing there musing about the nature of anti-nauseant exchanges she left. So to recap: 1. I am an awful human being who didn't even ask this woman if she was alright. 2. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S GOOD IN T...

Hey Mom! So as you are well aware I wrote the DELF exam today which is basically just a series of tests to judge what level of fluency one has.  I know normally that these are for you, Mom, but today I'd like to write an open letter to the poor soul who has to mark my exam... thanks for understanding. Dear Poor Soul, I just want you to know I'm sorry.  I'm sorry that I used "gagner l'expérience" 17 times in a 150 word response.  I know that I put the accent on the wrong e (I've corrected it in this letter to spare you further agony). I also know that adding accents to english words does not magically turn them into french words. I won't tell you about the grand ideas I had about reforms to the post-secondary system (but I did).  I won't tell you that halfway through one of the recordings I started imagining that part of the Simpsons movie where he gets money upon moving to Alaska (but I did). And I won't tell you that after reading the ...

Hey Mom! I'd like to start by saying that nobody wanted or asked for this.... You're welcome. Thoughts at 4:30am this morning: So I have 3 back to back to back midterms tomorrow and I haven't slept yet.  I've stopped blowing my nose because I can't tell whether there's more blood coming from the outside or the inside.  Whatever I have has moved into my chest and I think breathing makes it angry.  But you know what? I am the coolest I have ever been. Sure I look like an Animorph Rudolph that probably crawled out of the same hole as the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth, but you know who goes to bed after 4:30 am? Rockstars that's who!  Yeah, I didn't choose the celebrity life but it appears one very specific aspect of that lifestyle which also technically applies to nightshift workers chose me. Boo-to-the-YAH.  I think it's also important to note that I have a tattoo, own a guitar (which I can play 5 chords -- 2 of them are C's) AND have ...

Hey Mom! I'm writing this while I lie on the bathroom floor. Why are you lying on the bathroom floor? Full disclosure, I'm waiting to throw up. I've been fighting it for an hour but I know it's a losing battle.   Why don't you just throw up? Well because I feel like someone just ripped a waxing strip off the inside of my throat so if I order a street pizza it's going to burn like a ginger in direct sunlight.... Ugh close call. Mind if I bare my soul for a sec? I am deeply conflicted because I'm going to go to all my classes this week because I have 5 midterms in 3 days.  So to all my classmates: I am sorry for making you sick. But I want you to know:   I am hitting the handsani harder than a crafty person to Pinterest.  I'm not a barbarian so I don't cough directly into my hand.   I'm trying my best not to breathe near you but the truth is I can't help it.  UUUUUUUUHHHHH that time was really, really close, I'm on the preci...

Hey Mom! So it's three weeks into the semester and we are about to head into the 1st worst week (rhyming adjectives bonus x 1000) .  Midterms are coming, papers are about to be due and we are starting to forget about all the hopes and dreams we had at Christmas.  Part of this is because we are all in school, working, making futurey-adult decisions and applying for summer jobs (except me I have a job... I think).  But the main reason is that our profs keep asking us, stupid, stupid questions thus slowly driving us insane. It's been awhile since I've done a top ten list (I'm still bitter that BuzzFeed took off while my private shaw webspace blog went unnoticed), but I'm back and ready to participate in the generation of numbered lists. Top Ten Inappropriate Questions to Pose to a University Student What are your plans for the future? Well I've forgotten what human food tastes like and I haven't slept in two days but somebody  keeps giving us assign...

Hey Mom! So I am sitting in a room full of brightly coloured plastic chairs on wheels and I think that I may have truly lost my mind. Look at this chaos:    A few key features of what I am calling "The Crayola Disaster Unit": slide out cup holder ooooooh Wheels that do not lock in place  aaaaaah Weird penguin armrest things uuuuuuh? For those of you who are not aware, I was (am) that person who needed (needs) to sit in the same seat every class (also I should clarify that by needs I don't mean in a medical condition kind of way -- i.e. OCD-- I mean that I'm a very tightly wound individual and I find solace in assigned seating arrangements).  Anyway, now I can't even sit in the same seat every time because the seats are not fixed, so I have to settle for getting a red Crayola Disaster Unit every time but guess what? That sounds really infantile!  So now I have to pretend like I don't care what colour chair I get (even though I fluffin...

Hey Mom! So once again I did not die on the first day of school!  What I am consistently surprised by, is how often smart people can be so stupid.  One of profs spent a bunch of time (squiggly equal sign 20 minutes) talking about how much research he has done in learning styles, how he is using a revolutionary lecture structure AND how he puts everything on the internet because knowledge should be free. And immediately-directly-within-the-same-breath (redundancy points x 1000) he tells us we need to purchase (with our actual money) a textbook that he wrote!  Does nobody see the problem here?!? Am I losing my mind? Is he trolling us? I think he is trolling us.  He has to be trolling us.  Right? Please, please tell me that this is some sort of sick joke. Please (just imagine like a sugar glider or a puppy with eyes welling with tears) tell me there is some reason left in these cavernous halls. Just as an aside.... sometimes I wish I was born in the victorian...

Hey Mom! First day of a new semester means so many things.  Firstly, all my new years resolutions with be immediately nixed.  Secondly, I will be on sleep withdrawal for the first two weeks of class (symptoms include increased caffeine intake, irritability and inability to accept emotional hardship).  It also means for the next 24 hours or so I will be gripped with a constant, nauseating anxiety.  Let me paint a picture of my madness for you: I am worried. What if I go to the wrong classes? What if I forget a pen? What if I accidentally registered in the wrong class? What if the class suddenly ceases to exist? What if the entire university is a fake like that movie I saw that one time? What if everyone in my life is actually trolling me an whenever I leave the room they just laugh and laugh? WHOA, whoa I need to calm down. I am nervous. What if my classes are too difficult? What if I buy the textbook early but don't use it? What if I wait t...

Hey Mom! I am an emotional being.  Videos of dogs being united with their owners make me cry.  I don't really keep a diary but I do bottle things up until  I can cry while watching scrubs and process all the emotions swirling around in my little, tightly wound heart. And I shouldn't have to apologize for that. When the machines rise and take over the world (and they will rise and take over the world), everyone will blame themselves except me.  Why?  Because while other people will be disgusted at their own callousness I'll be over here like "I told you 10 years ago that those robots were going to end up hurting someone's feelings. In fact, I find that my own feelings are still hurt that you didn't take the time to really listen to my concerns." What I will apologize for is drinking coffee on an empty stomach. Caffeine typically doesn't affect me, I don't use it to pull all-nighters (I find intense fear of failure usually does the trick).  Ho...

Hey Mom! Ok I am giving myself 10 minutes to write this... Ready? Go! HAPPY BLOGGIVERSARY! Now I know we normally celebrate the last weekend of August but this year has been nothing but madness so far so we will have to do cake next Thursday!  Currently I am less than a week away from my MCAT exam, taking 5 classes (3 of which have labs), working and pursuing my dream as a modern day bard.  So basically I am really busy being unsuccessful at multitasking. Now it takes a special kind of talent to be going into my 5th year of a 4 year degree so let me pass on my wisdom to you: TOP TEN UNIVERSITY SUCCESS TIPS 1. Do not transfer schools, it is the equivalent of burning money. 2. Do not smash your head through the passenger window while someone rolls the car... your brain does not appreciate the hostility and will seek revenge via headaches and forgetting literally every thing you need to remember. 3.Being in university is like paying someone to punch you in the stoma...