01.27. April 2, 2011

wow.

I feel like taking a few days away from my blog is

terrifying.

a lot has happened since my last post.

I guess the biggest challenge has been my Harriet the Spy moment.

Michelle Trachtenberg (currently of villainous Gossip Girl fame) played Miss Harriet the Spy back in the 90s, next to Rosie O'Donnell.

In Harriet the Spy, Michelle Trachtenberg gets her diary busted into by her whole grade three class. 

They find out all her secrets.

Fast forward to 2009-present. Michelle Trachtenberg plays the horrible, mean-spirited, gorgeous but devious 

Georgina Sparks who lies, spies and cheats. 

Need a refresher? You can watch the videos to help jog your memory.

Start at 6:50:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tUKXChkGAs

and then what cute little harriet became (0:00- 1:15):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU5XOW6XrVU&feature=related

i was on a scary path.

I was Harriet, and well on my way to Georgina Sparks territory.

So I did what Harriet didn't:

I came clean.

fessed up

before I got caught.

The worst thing about shedding all your lies is picking up the pieces after.

number of people  friends who have opted to ditch out on me in the last year: 3 (at least)

that's the worst part. I think that I can control all these different scenarios, but I can't. 

I lie and manipulate and tell half-truths, and when that doesn't work?

i run like hell out of winnipeg.

.ugh.

but. I do feel better for it. For finally telling the truth to people about who and what I am. I wish this was a teen romance movie and I could follow up the last sentence with: "a vampire".

but it's not. i'm just an old lame scaredy cat who doesn't want to hurt people's feelings & who tries to control situations so that no one ever really knows what's going on with me.

This is terribly convoluted. 

apologies.

in short (is it too late?): telling the truth hurts and sucks. even best friends can't be expected to hang on if you are never honest with them

never tell them anything about yourself

hide things

sigh. it's a big lesson.

Nicolas and I both had an acupuncture appointment on Friday morning followed by brunch at Casa del Popolo - my favourite resto-bar in Montreal so far. We've been there before. This time was extra special because I was so down-in-the-dumps and it felt nice to talk. At the end, I asked if he thought I was a bad person. If he judged me.

he said he didn't. 

& I believed him.

& it's hard to find people who just don't judge

The acupuncture was my second appointment, and I haven't felt any huge shifts or changes, though the certified acupuncturist did tell me it may take a few appointments. He's a lovely man from France (whose accent I understand well enough to speak with him strictly in French. Which is good, because communication seems key when I have needles in my wrists, feet, chest, and head!)

I'm hoping. wishing. waiting. that this will be a significant step for me in my battle against anxiety.

I'm also muchos busy in other ways right now. First on the plate is wrapping up school (4 essays to do by April 28th)

Booking flight to Uganda with my mum and, as of today, my Kwagala partner and longest friend LEIGH!!!

SO excited. It'll be her first time even though she's been part of Kwagala from the start. So that means planning a trip in Uganda for a newbie!

Then, my mother, who knows just when "enough is enough" for me, has decided that a 10-day tour through wine country France is just what is needed for two ladies.

The $400 seat sale from Montreal-Paris return helps!

Thank Agnostic God for my Mum and her sixth sense. Anyway for a trip that includes Uganda and France, it's less than $2000 per person. How lucky am I to spend a month with two of my favourite people?

I say it often but it really is true:

the world balances out for us.

Speaking of friends and balance, a dear friend has really pulled through in the last little bit. We met in university and became instant friends - so much so that we butted heads sister-style. 

incredibly though she is someone who knows all those terrible things about me. calls me on them.

& then is still there at the end of the day for me.

it's been really nice to have her daily texts, emails, tweets.

Anyway, her world's been balanced out because she is doing this project called Project Peace, that will profile 12-15 young people doing enormous things with their lives. I love the way she puts it

"telling the stories about the people who are too humble to tell it themselves".

So by next February she will have a BOOK! and it already is shaping up to look monumental.

(I would say I'm biased because she profiled Kwagala in it, but I also know her end goal is so incredible, and her project seems so cool that I'm putting my bias aside just this once!)

Her name is Dani. To find out more about Project Peace please look up the blog at:

projectpeacecanada.wordpress.com

Also in balance's news:

I woke up with an ear infection this morning. It wasn't so much the pain that bothered me as the dizziness! I literally collided with the wall at 10:15 this morning. It was problematic timing because I'd signed up for my very first photography lesson with a beautiful Russian woman willing to take me under her wing! It was scheduled for 14:00 (so Russian) and she wasn't too impressed that I bailed only three hours before.

However, she has given me a second chance so Monday night I start my FIRST EVER PHOTOGRAPHY LESSONS!!!

So month plan:

-school & homework

-finish up the internship

-go to uganda

-go to france

-start photography lessons

-get a visit from my step mother!

-behave myself. become more whole. be the better person i want to be, even if it's scary

-take chances

-find a job

-find a kitten

-just kidding

-but not really.

This is getting impossibly long. But do you know what feels nice? Seeing how many people are looking at this site. Especially since I don't talk to many people anymore.

Don't be strangers - comment away, even if your comments are anonymous!

unh. 

i know i'm doing the right thing. i know i am.

it just sucks.

this is a creating-phase.

i am creating the life i want and need to live.

learning curve.

i'm going to go paint my nails and read textbooks.

a photographic post to come after my first photography lesson? oh yes!

.xox.

à bientôt

k

01.14. February 24, 2011

I spend my day in meetings.
I spend my evenings researching people's stories.
I spend each day trying to make so many other people of so many different countries lives potentially better, that sometimes I forget to think about me and my life.

A song just reminded me, unwillingly, to consider myself too.


"We're just holding on to nothing
To see how long nothing lasts...
There's one road to the morning
There's one road to the truth
There's one road back to civilization
But there's no road back to you."


Sigh.
It's gloomy out. I'm a bit sad, I must admit. I wish it were warmer out. I wish I had a few more things in order. I wish I felt more of a spark. I changed everything, and I love it but I guess I miss little thrills. Like forgetting you lit a candle in a room and going in and realizing how nice the room smells.
Or having a note from someone slipped under your door, so when you wake up in the morning, you have a message.
Or having a delicious cup of coffee brought to you when you don't expect it.
Or someone taking a nice photo of you by surprise.
Or discovering a really nice new song.
Or completing a project you've had on the go for awhile.
Or getting something new, no matter how big or small, and smiling at how fitting it is in its new surroundings.
Or finding an old pair of jeans that still fit.


Maybe I'm too romantic. Not just in the love sense, but in the sense of wanting lovely things. I romanticize the future where I see days full of sunshine and energy and smiles - genuine smiles. I see chasing a significant other or kids or nieces or nephews around a  kitchen table. I imagine painting a room and having a party while doing it. I imagine being older and still going to the playground to swing on swings.
Even on the days without the sun, I see warm cups of coffee and herbal tea, looking out a beautiful bay window outside. I can hear the sound of cars splashing through puddles. Smelling the earth after a heavy rainfall. I imagine my head falling onto something - a comfortable shoulder, a cozy pillow. I imagine warm slippers and early mornings and good novels and better music.
The funny thing is though, is that I'm not afraid to approach that future now (with some obvious adjustments). I want to have long, energetic days. Satisfying days. I want scrabble dates and glasses of wine and long conversations over cups of coffee and trying experimental cuisine in the kitchen. 
I know there's hardship - heck, I spend all my days, in some way or another, focusing on just those hardships: personal and international. 


I feel like feeling beautiful. But I don't.
Maybe I should exchange all my clothes for new ones.
Or get a new haircut.


I wish I were more creative. I wish I could change some things, take some things back, do things I never did. Anyone who says it's possible to live without regrets has never used their imagination. They almost certainly have no sense of trial and error. This just stopped making sense.


How do you stay become creative? How do you make yourself feel beautiful and worthy and loved and romantic?
blah.


I'd apologize for the post, but reading is a voluntary thing.

01.12. February 15, 2011

Good day
I'm feeling creative right now. So, naturally, I put my hair in a high pony tail (figure one), put on the music du jour (Wye Oak's album The Knot), and have considered taking up cooking, photography, wine tasting, and trendy-shopping.
The only problems I've encountered in these plans has sprung from the non-money well (making this less a spring well and more like a dried-up-icy-cold-dead-inside winter well).

The good thing about having no money to spend is that I am not spending any money. The bad thing is that I'm now only going through the motions of living (woe is me!) and not actually having all the best possible fun in Montreal.

However, this has allowed me to start working when I get home in the evenings on internship stuff, I finally cracked open the LSAT prepper, not to mention the three academic courses I'm taking. God help me that I start calling them "academic courses". Blech!
I received an 85% on my first assignment, and dear family, before you even think about asking where the other 15% went, it was OUT of 15 and I received 12.8/15 and if you want to know where the other 2.2 marks are because you are sticklers for detail, ask the prof!!!!!

Last night I came home to home-made lasagna (allowing for ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, cheddar and swiss cheese to be melted into the mess). Oh my gooooooodness. Also, a lovely 2008 Malbec blend, followed by Dexter re-runs. I went to sleep with a huge stomach and a very definite smile.

Woke up today to let the fumigator in (I never mentioned lovely readers...we have bed bugs. Just like everyone else. Sadly, we don't have pro-active Greg Selinger to come up with a province-wide epidemic plan. So we depend on the Polish, the oil can used in the original screening of the Wizard of Oz and a hose stolen from our neighbour's yard. This is our exterminator.)
Anyway, the wonderful thing about bedbugs is you get to wash everything, for $1.75 per wash and $0.25/ three minute dry cycle. If you've never seen $34 in quarters, get bedbugs, because that's how much the laundromat will set you back. If you're privy to my Wanted lists (not of the vengeance variety), you'll know that I specifically requested laundromat-friendly clothes this year. Which is exactly what my dear brother provided me at Noel with some beautifully gawdy-gone-Posh sunglasses. So, when no one was looking today at the laundromat, I took pictures of the machines, and, then, of myself. (Narcissism suspicions? Confirmed. Comma over-use? Likely.)

In these dire times, I can only want, so I have decided to torture myself before launching into Kwagala 2011 Sponsorship updates (which is pretty much just one big email to my grandmother!) by perusing the internet for cute buys. That does read buys and not boys, for the skeptics out there.

The Boots, not the label

Speed Flash for my camera to become aforementioned photographer

Wallet 

Desk lamp

These glasses.

everything this lovely lady is wearing

Everything in this picture.

Oh my. Valentine's Day 2009 (recently single.)

Productive high pony-tail

To make & drink more cappucinos

Happy to have received: mugs with cute heart on it, plus chance to paint my nails today at laundromat.

And some eye-candy

Le Laundramat

Lunettes a la laundromat

Trendy advertising at the L-Mat - turns out, kind of a trendy place

23. Montreal.

Really, is it so bad to just want to look and feel great, while living in one of the greatest cities, with a bit of spending money?!?!!??!

I am going to counter my selfishness now with Kwagala work. I think mostly I just want to look trendy while I work hard.

A bientot!