Caveat emptor

I have the worst shopping anxiety of anyone I know. Not that I don't enjoy the prospect of getting new things, particularly when it involves getting pretty things. But it honestly doesn't matter if I spend $100 in one sitting, or $10, I still feel like a wreck after it's all over, unless I just spent either of those amounts on food. Food is a different story altogether.

But let's take today, for example. I told myself that I needed (*needed*) to get a haircut before school starts, since I will be doing placements starting in November, and I want to look professional before then. I also bought two shirts that look placement-friendly, and an accessory to make the shirts more casual-friendly when needed. I bought a few wooden rings and a metal ring with which I want to crochet a belt. My total spent cash for today rings up to about $104.

For someone who doesn't make a ton of money to begin with, even these purchases (and the desperately-needed haircut, since I looked vaguely like if Cousin It actually had a face) make me feel slightly sick to my stomach. It doesn't matter if the shirts are amazing, or if the bangles I bought are going to kick ass, or if the wooden rings gave me the best idea for a handmade belt that will really personalize my looks.

None of that matters, because right now, I am too caught up in the idea that I just spent money.

I do look pretty fabulous, though.

I've always been wary of money in general. S is my rock, and he is also basically my financial backer until I get OSAP in a few weeks. Whenever we get takeout (which is a lot - neither of us are exactly fantastic in the kitchen), I always feel a deep sense of guilt, even over something as trifling as McDonalds. He always tells me to forget about it, since the money is not his, but ours.

Frankly, that just makes me feel worse.

I've also never been particularly well-off. My family has never really been left wanting, but frivolous expenses were practically out of the question. There might be some residual childhood guilt that comes up when I go shopping. That can't be healthy.

Side note: I'm pretty sure a chunk of this guilt is also related to something I did a couple days ago. I went on a voyage to deposit a cheque I received a LONG time ago (I blame laziness and the heat), and as I crossed the bridge before my bank of choice, I saw a group of people who looked a little out of place. The neighbourhood my bank is in is all condos, all the time. It's a fairly well-off area, and this prime real estate is also extremely close to a few major public areas of interest. While this city has a lot of homeless people, they don't generally tend to hang around here.

I honestly don't know if this group of people were indeed homeless, but they did have a sign - "Any spare money or food would be appreciated."

It might have been the weather, or how the stars were aligned the night previous, but I decided to round the corner to the nearby Sobey's, purchase about $20 worth of Gatorade, granola bars and fruit snacks, and return to the group with a simple "these are for you" before I toddled off quickly to reflect on my impulse purchase. I don't intend for this entry or any part of the blog as a whole to turn into some kind of preachy environment, or into a place where I brag about my random acts of randomness/kindness, but what I did made me think a little. I only spent $20, and I probably helped feed that little group for a little while...it's certainly not the most wholesome of meals, but it was portable, and hopefully delicious. And maybe memorable, I don't know.

I felt a double-edged sword of guilt as I walked home. For one, I had just spent money - something of which I am not a particular fan in the first place. But on the other hand, I only reached out to those less fortunate than me today. And maybe I should be grateful for the resources I do have, and a little less selfishly concerned about my cashflow.

In the meantime, it is probably healthier for me to try and just remember that the money is already spent, that it's better if I keep the clothes instead of wishing I returned them as soon as I left the store, and that I can always count my blessings using a currency that is a little more important than cash alone.

Excitement

What little I knew about life when I was 15 can be summarized into three statements.

1) Highschool drama was a Really Big Deal (with capital letters, like so).
2) I was too smart for my own good.
3) The ubiquitous question "What do I want to do when I grow up" had been answered by the call to work with children and youth.

I spent a lot of time at summer camp when I was a child, and I decided at the age of 15 to become a camp counsellor myself. Thinking back on those days, I'm not terribly sure what inspired me to want to work with children, since I was still a child myself, in many ways. I suppose I figured it was a natural progression of sorts for me. Some folks work at camp because they think it's easy. I wanted to work at camp for the sake of working with children in a relaxed and easygoing setting.

I ended up spending four of my best summers working at two different camps. I held a few important positions, and in that time, my dream of working with children had evolved into an urge to teach youth.

That was when I decided I wanted to become a teacher.

This fall, I finally start Teacher's College. I would have gone right after my undergrad degree was over, like most other teacher candidates, but I wanted to get my Master's Degree first. Turns out, doing that degree actually gave me teaching experience that I could put on my applications. Go figure.

That's why I'm in the Big City. I will be attending Teacher's College here. Now that the necessary pre-registration bureaucracy is over, all I get to do for the next three weeks is wait in anticipation for classes to start.

Given that I don't do much else with my time, waiting in anticipation almost feels like torture. I am finally so close to realizing my dream, it's like I'm now in the waiting room for my lifetime goal. Everyone hates waiting rooms.

I'm sure that if I could see the future at age 15, I would be pretty pleased with myself.

In Defense of Gaming

So, now that I have sufficiently warmed up this blog with introductory posts of stories related to my everyday life, it is time to create a post which has been stewing in my brain for a long time now.

I'm a gamer.

(Pause for effect.)

Okay, that is probably not shocking. I wish it was, but the reality is that we live in a generation of gamers of all ages and genders. The fact that I'm a female gamer will probably make its way into its own post at a later date since there are many issues to discuss on that front for which I do not have adequate space today to post. Video games have become so mainstream that there are theorists out there that believe that gaming can be used to save the world (if you have the time, watch the YouTube video posted in that link, since that speech is riveting enough to be a mustsee for gaming naysayers).

Alright, now that you know I am a gamer, let me take a few minutes to tell you what I am not.

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I am not...

* Anti-social

There still exists this nasty stereotype of gamers as people who shun others in lieu of escaping into their digital worlds. While there are indeed gamers who are introverted to the point of self-isolation, the statistics, if they existed, would likely tell you that there are apt to be the same number of anti-social gamers as there are anti-social people who have other hobbies.

Gaming these days is extremely social. Take, for example, the simple existence of the Wii and of party games such as Mario Party, Raving Rabbids, Wii Sports (which comes with the console upon purchase), Wii Sports Resort, Rock Band and its affiliates, and for the adventurous, Super Mario Wii and Super Smash Bros Brawl. These are all multiplayer video games that exist for the purpose of jovial socializing with others. And for the most part, they are designed to be easy enough to learn so that anyone can play.

In the online world, there exist Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) that, *gasp*, contain the very word multiplayer in the title of the genre. World of Warcraft is, these days, one of the more popular MMORPGs. I will return to WoW as an example later in this post. MMORPGs on the whole literally force you as a player to interact with other players through events such as randomized groups, organized larger "raids" for content that is challenging and requires teamwork to accomplish, and battlegrounds, designed to pit a massive group of players against the opposite faction. These are not single-player events.

I am not trying to glibly imply that there aren't anti-social people who play MMORPGs and decide against engaging in the social aspects of the game. Interacting with others is indeed optional. But in real life, isn't interaction with others while out and about optional anyway?

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I am not...

* Undisciplined

No sir/ma'am, I am most definitely NOT undisciplined. I have two degrees. I attained excellent averages in both, and will be starting a third degree this fall. Gaming, if anything, has actually taught me discipline and determination in many ways.

Let's go back to World of Warcraft for a second. WoW has a feature called "dailies". "Dailies" are daily quests, missions which you can complete and repeat every day. There are many reasons that one might do "dailies" each day: to gain reputation with a faction of choice, to learn new unnecessary-but-fun skills (such as extra cooking recipes), to earn gold in order to purchase something in the end, or even to earn achievements.

Achievements are basically exactly as the name suggests. They are accomplishments, recognition for doing something. There is an achievement for doing 50 total daily quests (not in one day, of course...you wouldn't have that kind of time), 200 total daily quests, an achievement for doing at least one daily quest each day for 5 days, and the list does indeed go on.

Imagine the real life applications of either of these systems. I tend to treat chores as "dailies" in my everyday existence. That might sound slightly childish, but go ahead and raise your hand if you actually enjoy cleaning the cat litter. Viewing everyday chores as dailies, and rewarding myself for doing them via achievement rewards such as trips to Starbucks, walks around my neighbourhood, or extra gameplay time on the Wii...there is no doubt that this idea strikes you as one that encourages motivated and productive everyday maintenance. MMORPGs can, in fact, teach you how to be a motivated and responsible person. I'm not joking.

Oh, and before you go and tell me that this practise of motivated chore-doing and rewarding already exists, let me go ahead and just say that you understand my point.

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It depresses me slightly that in spite of my adamant defense of gaming and the nature of gamers, people will probably continue to associate it with such traits as anti-socialness and laziness, among other negative attributes which I, sadly, do not have time or energy to dispute any further this evening.

Gaming is no less a legitimate hobby than crocheting, or canoeing, or reading, or creative writing, or playing ultimate frisbee.

Oh wait, I do all those things too.

On Friends and Losing Touch in the Land of Web 2.0

Today, I discovered that an old friend of mine, someone who was one of my first friends on Facebook and who at one time or another was a friend, a co-worker, a highschool chum and a confidante has de-friended me on Facebook.

I'm not going to lie, it hurt me a little.

However, the first question that popped into my mind after the hurt itself subsided was the inevitable "when was the last time we actually spoke?"

That answer depressed me more than the realization that she might no longer be in my life.

The internet is a different place these days than it was even 10 years ago. It has become a digital meetingplace for those who have lost touch with each other via sites such as Facebook, Livejournal, Twitter, Tumblr, even Blogspot. The internet is simultaneously a place to flaunt oneself and a place to hide; you can customize your anonymity to a fault. Facebook, as I mentioned in my first post, is particularly to blame for this phenomenon of reconnecting with long-lost people of all kinds - highschool friends, family, university friends, even former teachers and professors, and we seem to take pride in collecting friends on these social networking sites like trading cards or pokémon.

There are just as many benefits to this evolution of the internet as there are drawbacks. The obvious benefit comes from the idea of reconnecting with someone who has been recently lost, but more recently found again. Childhood friends fall under this example. I, for one, found a few childhood friends on Facebook and friended them under the presumption that they would accept me as I am, almost a decade and a half since I last spoke to them. That they would even remember me, for that matter.

The drawbacks are notable and significant. After you get past the stage of "catching up", what happens next? Say you live in a city several hours from these people, with no feasible way to meet up for something as simple as a cup of coffee. Then all that remains to connect you with these fragments from your past is a website, which is neither eternally permanent or tactile. To remain in touch, you must submit to the idea that you have to talk to them over the internet, without the clear benefits that come with human interaction. Say you or your friend cease to use Facebook for an extended period of time, what then? Then you find yourself back on the shelf of friends they "used to know", or you forget their birthday or neglect to congratulate them on their marriage/baby/graduation, or you remember, but it goes unnoticed. You become simply a fly on their wall. Then the day will come when they decide to cut down their friend list, and your name will appear, and they will de-friend you, since your presence in their life is no longer necessary. As when children decide to trade cards, and a card which was precious to you a few months ago is suddenly disposable.

And life will go on as normal, since these actions occur as footnotes to your existence. They are insignificant in themselves, until the day when you realize you are no longer a part of someone's life.

Facebook is a fine tool for connecting with people with whom you have lost touch. But then it becomes your responsibility to keep the connection alive, and even to find a way to connect with these people away from the keyboard, as alien a thought as that might be in this technological age.

Because despite popular belief, behind each keyboard of a person you "friend" and "de-friend" is a human being.

Coffee

There are a lot of things on my desk right now. My monitor and keyboard take up most of the space. I also have a hand-crocheted pencil case, a bottle of lemongrass and cardamom body lotion (for stress relief, since I do get stressed a lot - I blame my grad degree), a random crochet hook, the case for my fiancé's (hereafter addressed as S) copy of Dragon Age: Origins, my battle.net authenticator and, depending on the time of day, I usually try to sit here with a cup of coffee.

Today, I'm drinking instant coffee.

I don't think there's an adequate emoticon to demonstrate that this is not my ideal cup of coffee.

However, this cup of instant coffee (proving once again that instant does not always equal awesome) is representative of a way that I am now trying to save money.

You see, I love going to Starbucks.

Yes, I am very well aware that my drink of choice at Starbucks costs a whopping $3.78 total in Canadian funds. However, this summer, I have been fortunate enough to be able to count my daily Starbucks trips among my tiny list of luxury expenses. S, since S actually has a decent-paying salary job, has been helping to support me financially as I transition from grad school to teacher's college, which I will be starting in less than a month. He's okay with that, as long as I pay for my own coffee.

Which I have been.

However, the penny-pinching miser in me loathes the idea of spending almost $4 on coffee on a semi-daily basis.

But it is not really the coffee that keeps me buying into their overpriced (yet delicious) swill.

I love the experience of buying coffee.

No, this isn't some philosophical crap. I just love the atmosphere of coffee houses, whether they be mainstream like Starbucks, or more local and independent, like Jimmy's Coffee a block away. There is an aura around the coffee drinkers of these establishments, like an aura of complete and total satisfaction. Coffee does that to people.

Also, the extroverted attention seeker in me coyly enjoys being recognized by the cashiers and baristas, even if that implies that I go to Starbucks far too often. Depending on who is working, they might even have my coffee ready right as I get to the counter to pay for it. It's a nice bit of friendliness to start my day.

So, as you might guess, sitting here with a mug of instant coffee does not quite cut it. This mug doesn't give me that satisfaction of being a part of a community, and it doesn't provide that friendly human interaction which seems so simple, but can really improve upon one's day.

It's not that bad, though. The container, which provides 80 cups of coffee, cost the same as one tall iced cafe mocha from Starbucks.

I'll just have to cope, I guess.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Books

To say that I love literature is a grave understatement.

However, this is the first summer in a very long time where I have been able to actually read for the sake of reading.

I finished my graduate degree in April. I had been a grad student since 2008, and most of my time had to be dedicated to reading assigned texts as opposed to texts read for pleasure.

Not that this was a problem, most of the time. I read some interesting things about the conflicts related to the European Union, and in that vein, I also got to read some interesting fiction written from the late 19th to the mid 20th century.

Yes, all interesting. All not really stuff that I enjoy reading.

My literary tastes are old-fashioned. I enjoy 19th century French and English literature the most, but I also enjoy authors such as Agatha Christie, and her brand of popular mystery fiction.

I blame PBS.

You see, when I was a child, my parents would watch things like Masterpiece Theatre, Hercule Poirot movies and specials, and whatever was shown during their fundrasing telethons. This used to frustrate me, since being a child, I much rather preferred watching...well, anything else. I would have even preferred the news to most of what was featured on PBS on Sunday evenings. I probably would have even preferred a whole TV station devoted to watching grass grow, honestly.

But one day, the PBS telethon showed a rather interesting concert. I didn't entirely understand what it was, or what it was about, at first. A few minutes in, I found out that it was the Les Miserables 10th anniversary concert. The music kept me interested; I'm a musical learner.

In my young age, I slowly grasped the plot. There was a man who got in trouble, but then he was set free. He met a very lovely, angelic-looking woman who had a sick child. The angel woman then got sick herself and was very sad, and the man promised to take care of the child when the woman went away. He finds the child, who is staying at a hotel of some kind, with a funny-looking man with a large nose. The funny-nosed man made the child do chores all day long. The hero saved the child from having to do chores all day long, and she began to grow up with the man who promised to keep her safe. When she gets older, she meets a man and they fall in love. And in the middle of all of this, there is some kind of big fight and a lot of men die, but the girl and her new boyfriend live happily ever after.

That's how I understood the plot, at age 10. I found out the play was actually based off a book. A couple years later, I read the unabridged version of the aforementioned book, and my taste in 19th century French literature was nurtured, as a literary sapling of sorts. It's still my favourite book. I was fortunate enough to have the brain power and creativity necessary to complete two whole research projects (undergraduate and graduate) on elements of that literary classic.

Long segue aside, I'd like to come back to the original point of this post.

I do get distracted easily.

...

What was I posting about again?

Our intrepid blogger glances at the title of the post.

OH yes.

Because I have a lot of free time nowadays, I have re-picked up the hobby of reading for pleasure. My fiancé bought me a Kobo as a graduation gift, and I have devoured it ravenously, like a homeless man devours a generous feast given to him by a wealthy benefactor. I named it Steve. It comes with 100 "classic books", which might seem boring to the average contemporary reader, but to me? Needless to say, I've enjoyed every "classic" title that I have read so far. Unfortunately, the Kobo doesn't really come with any classic French titles, but I don't hold that against the poor machine. Only the people who put the books on it in the first place.

I mean, come on Kobo developers. You couldn't put Emile Zola on there? No Hugo? Not even any Franco-Canadian authors?

Despite this lovely and amazing invention, I don't think it will replace printed books. I love the feel of crisp pages, the satisfaction of seeing a mound of pages representing your reading progress, and the feeling of completion when you close the covers the final time. Nothing will replace that. But this Kobo is pretty neat.

It's actually a dream of mine to convert a room in my future house into a magnificent library, like those described as being features in English manors in the 19th century. Steve doesn't hinder that dream at all; if anything, I'll keep buying books, but I will create a special shelf for Steve, the Kobo.

To conclude this miscellaneous, stream-of-consciousness-style post, I want to provide a list of my top 5 books of all time. I assure you, this is the hardest part of the post by far. Though keeping my concentration comes a close second.

Aeritone's Top 5 Books of All Time

5) Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

I actually only finished reading this a few days ago, thanks to Steve the Kobo. It still makes this list, simply because it's everything I have loved in books set in 19th century England. There is romance, intrigue, a huge manor, amazing descriptions of the English countryside, and the theme of overcoming adversity.

4) Les Fleurs du Mal, by Charles Baudelaire

I suppose this is cheating, since this is actually an anthology of poems. However, this was my introduction to French poetry, and Baudelaire's poems on spleen and love still move me today.

3) The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Yes, this is a children's book. However, it is studied by philosophy majors and 10-year old French students alike. The plot is simple, endearing, and whimsical.

2) Curtain, by Agatha Christie

Poirot's final mystery. It is a fitting conclusion for a wonderful popular character.

1) Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo

I feel that little explanation is needed here. It's seriously just an amazing book, probably one of the best of all time.

Trains

It's very likely that I am fully addicted to the internet. Then again, I am also addicted to self-expression, so the internet is a good outlet for such things.

I'm on a train.

Not a great start to a blog, to be certain, but there you have it.

I don't ride trains a lot. But as my family lives in one part of the province, and I now in another, train travel is going to be a necessary convenience if I want to reconcile one part of my life with another.

This particular train will not only carry me from Point A to B, but also through a very important town.

This is the town that housed my highschool, my first job, the river I spent many hours canoeing upon, and many many other elements that truly shaped me into the person I am today. As I pass through the town, I see these things pass in a flash by my window, but the residue of their appearance weighs on my mind.

A side note is needed here. My trip home to visit my parents was a brief affair, punctuated with necessary bureaucratic rites of passage, and the obligatory collection of mail from my university. But during this visit, my parents also forced me to sit down in the garage, in an effort to sort through one or two of the many many boxes that now resided within that enclosed space and take some items back with me to my new apartment in the Big City. As tedious a task as this was going to be, I decided to make the most of it.

As I sorted through the first box, I came across my grade 12 yearbook, the fondest momento I have from my entire highschool career. I remember making it my mission that year to get it signed from as many people as possible, likely with the assumption that since I wouldn't really see many of these people again in my life, it would be a decent idea to contain their memories in a small comment and signature somewhere inside the pages of that yearbook. It struck me, as I sat reading that great symbol of my teenage years, that this was one of my best laid plans.

I saw signatures of friends, distant acquaintances, castmates (as I was an active member of the drama club in my four years), teammates (the same comment goes for my participation on the rugby team), and various other classmates, and as I read through them, it hit me that each comment and mark carried with it a distinct and cherished memory of that person, no matter how well I knew them. Any negative memories of highschool (the awkwardness, the puberty, we have all been there) had been replaced in that second with fondness, and a realization of just how much I never realized I missed these people. How much I missed myself in that wonderfully memory-filled time.

When you leave highschool, everyone tends to make the same promises. To not lose touch, to hang out every summer/winter break/insert holiday here, to keep one another updated on life's small developments. Luckily, with the invention of Facebook, these elements have become easier, but regardless of that innovation, there are still those people who fall off the grid entirely, and your memories of those people are reduced to blips and quick faint images, much like how you see scenery passing along on a moving train.

Of course, this train is ultimately carrying me toward the here and now, the Big City, in which I will soon follow my new path toward higher learning. (Even higher still, I suppose, since I already hold an undergraduate and a graduate degree, but that's an item for reflection at a later date.) New memories will be created, but it feels significant that this train exists, and that every time I use it, I will be carried time and time again through this significant town. It seems to serve a constant reminder of those formative years, and that I should carry the memories of the people and places within those years in my heart as often as possible.