Cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Salz7uGp72c

Story time!

I've been struggling in my research to find inspiration to really make my troy story unique. I've written a couple more chapters but I kept feeling like it reminds me of this or that authors story about troy, or i'm trying too hard here to make this character different from this or that one...anyway it has been really hard to find that spark lately to keep it fun and exciting. I know this is silly but one of the things I love about writing is that I can come up with great scenes and fall in love with my characters, or one of them tells a joke and i think it's the funniest thing ever until I remember I'm just laughing at my own joke. Anyway, I found this dumb article about Amazon warrior names and was all I should ignore it. No Jackie, this is important. You don't ignore research. The Amazons come to aid Troy, and you haven't read much about them yet. Okay fine. So I read it and turns out they had awesome nicknames, which makes them all together much more fun and much less serious than I was making them out to me. A lot of the Greek and Roman stories also sexualize them so I always imagined them in skanky Xena outfits. This will be much better to work with. Yaay! Here's the article in case you want to give it a quick look.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140923-amazon-greek-vase-translations-science/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fb20140924news-greek&utm_campaign=Content&sf4783391=1

NaNoWriMo

Wow I haven't written in a while. Tomorrow is the Day of the Dead, which means one thing. NaNoWriMo. Can I do it?

Sometimes

Sometimes when I walk down the street or sit on the bus I come across a person who is smiling. I dub these the "Smiley People," or for the sake of having to type less, the "SPs." SPs are alone. They are not on the telephone. Why are they smiling? I hope they just have something to be happy about. That would be nice. But SPs don't just look happy, they look like they are smiling about something in particular. I shouldn't overreact. Everyone has a great day once in a while where we all walk around as SPs. Yet this is unusual. Most of us aren't walking around with a giant grin because we don't want to look like idiots, and we don't want people to think we are laughing at them. This is my biggest problem with SPs. Did they just happen to think of a funny anecdote as I walked by? Or is there something on my face? Did the SP just get that joke Steve told her yesterday? Or is she snickering at my outfit? I just don't get it. Maybe one day I'll ask an SP "I'm sorry, did I do something worth laughing at? What are you smiling for?" and he'll say "No no, my wife just packed me a lunch today with a really cute note in it," and my mind will be at rest. Or he'll say "ya, you've got a giant boogie," and I will know it's me they smile about. Until then, I will not know what brings SPs into the world.

Sometimes I really crave a food. I spend time of money getting all the ingredients. I cook it all up or put it together. Then, a I sit down to it, I'm like "nope, I really don't want this at all. In fact, this is the last thing I want to see right now. Ugh." Then I get really upset about it and don't know what to do.

Sometimes I wonder if tin-foil would actually keep aliens out of your head or not.

Sometimes I come up with something amazing. The single best line for the single best poem ever. The rhyme, the metre, the metaphor...it's all perfect. The perfect twist for a story I'm working on. An image in my head that I am just itching to draw and put to paper. But I'm at work, or school, or walking somewhere. Then when I get home I have forgotten it all. What a waste. Then I get really upset about it for like 10 minutes. Then I stop being upset and eat food and watch TV.

Pringles

I bought some pringles. 3 cans. Hey, they were on sale. The top of the can said I could get a free retro pringles beach towel. Sweet. Oh darn but I need 5 of them. Okay, let's go get two more pringles cans. Be careful, the reduced fat ones give you a t-shirt instead. I want this towel. Full fat pringles. Oh shoot I needed the foil tops for the free beach towel! I threw away the first three! I don't care I'm committed now. I'll buy three more pringles cans. Mailed in my tops to get the towel. So many pringles. I would like to thank Eric and Charlotte my flatmates, Eric's gf Shannon, and my bf Chris for helping me on my pringles beach towel quest by eating pringles with me. Your efforts are much appreciated. There are still two cans left though. Ugh.



Added:

I would like to note that yes, I did notice the irony of posting this after my healthy dinner.

Healthy food?

My mum made a turkey chilli one time. It was good. I donno what she did but I made this:

1 lb-ish of turkey. Butcher had ground turkey breast and thigh, so I got half of each; only since thigh is cheaper obv.

1 half an onion. Chopped.

>Cooked onion in olive oil, added turkey and more olive oil as needed. Cooked turkey. Added salt and peppah. Added:

1 cup of water

2 cans of beans. I had 1 can of black beans and 1 can of great northern beans on my shelf, so I dumped out the water, rinsed and used those.

1 big can of diced tomatoes.

The frozen corn that was left in my freezer. Probably about a cup or so.

1 tbsp of tumeric. It's good for you.

1 tsp of cinnammon. It's good for you.

1 tbsp chilli powder. This is chilli.

1 tbsp cayenne pepper

2 big long giant squeezes of sriracha. I put this in at the end. It needed more spice. Needed more salt, too.

Once it was boiling I turned the burner to low and left it for an hour stirring when I remembered it.

Turned out really yummy. Fed me and chris and had three ziploc tupperwares of leftovers. It's a bit watery though, maybe skip the water part? Or add rice to it. Oh you could add rice and make it into burritos. That would be great. Nom Nom.

Really liking the Trews this week

Pt 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_m98GAdqKM&feature=youtu.be

Pt 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v5WlY8Uf5U&feature=youtu.be

Really enjoying Russell Brand calling out Hannity. Also, he was married to Katy Perry? Weird. I wish more people called out Fox for turning war into entertainment. Jon Stewart I guess.

Looong week!

But tomorrow is my friday! I can't wait.

My goal these days is to be a better person, namely to put myself into other peoples' shoes more. I always catch myself being short with people who are short with me, for example, but that doesn't accomplish anything. A little more effort on my part to be cheerful will not only improve my general mood and outlook, but the people I interact with as well. It's pretty hard, actually. When you're tired and cranky and serving people all day and someone comes in 5 minutes to close and asks for a drink and I sometimes catch myself being a little impolite. It's not their fault they're mean and come in when they know I'm closing. They've had a long day too and just want to treat themselves a little, and I need to be friendly no matter what time of day it is. When I order my food and someone messes it up completely by putting cilantro in it, I need to understand that some people actually like that crap and not be shocked, but just take it in stride. I guess it's just hard sometimes when you interact with 300 people in a 8.5 hour shift 4-5 days a week to be nice to everybody you encounter in your life. But that's not an excuse to not be nice to everybody I encounter. I know I never will be. Never have I met anyone who is friendly all the time. But I want to try harder to be. I want to look back at the end of each day and say to myself, "I did my best, and I was at my best." That way no matter where I end up in life, I can feel fulfilled.

My back is KILLING me lately. I also need to make sure I'm lifting things properly and strain it less. I'm getting to that age where you can't abuse your body anymore without feeling it later. A sore back today means throwing out completely 5 years from now, so I have to be careful with myself. On my self improvement phase, I am also exercising more (might be part of the soreness as well). I find that when you work out more you have more energy and are generally in a better mood, so to improve my mind I am striving to improve my body as well. It is a pain in my asshole. Exercise is my kryptonite. Hopefully I will be better though!

Le Sigh

I really freakin miss Italy. I miss Siena, where I felt like I was transported to the early Renaissance. I miss Florence where I saw La Primavera and realized he painted so much gold into it and how massive it is, and the Birth of Venus has so much more detail than I realized. I miss Rome and the history and energy of it. I miss the cathedrals, the grandeur, the over-the-topness of everything. I miss walking on cool marble and tile mosaics. I miss the food. I almost miss the smell of sharp tobacco and too much perfume lol. I feel like I belong there, or at least I belong there part-time. I'm so grateful to my folks for putting down the money for me to be able to go there, and my mum for putting up with me dragging her about and talking about painting and sculpture and architecture by era.

Yet here I go to the beach at night with Eric and his friends and drink a beer and light a fire and sing along with a guitar while I listen to the conversation and the waves playing on the shore. I sit in the sun in the sand and see snow capped mountains in the distance and seals and otters dancing in the waves. I have so much and am so lucky, but still want more. I suppose that's good. School starts again in September and wanting is the best motivation to succeed; but I need to focus more on what I have now and how wonderful it all is.

Julie's AC is working. I don't have AC in my house. Random fact.

School is an exciting prospect but daunting. It's always hard to balance time and money and work and studies. Better check those lotto tickets I've got. I'm at a point where I'm okay as things are, but would be in trouble if anything happened like my work burned down or my house did.

Oh shit I just jinxed myself. KNOCK ON WOOD ok safe.

I need to relax and enjoy the rest of the summer but damn it's going by so quickly. I need to go to SFU and talk to them about transferring there in January. I hope it will work out, but the transition to uni will also mean harder to get the A's and more moolah. Gotta trudge through it though. I hope to get into grad school a few years from now with enough scholarship to not have to work while I study, so I really have to work hard. But for now, I still have a month to relax and only worry about work, which is going well I think. I have my six month review coming soon as starbucks supervisor so we will see what he tells me, and until then all I can do is try my best. But I feel like if he had problems with anything he would have told me already so I'm expecting an average to positive review. Although saying that now means I may have jinxed that, too. So my house will burn down and I will get a bad review. Where's that wood table..stretch..wood has been knocked upon.

Some of the regulars at work are really nice and lend me books to read. The guy likes historical setting murder mysteries. The latest is "A Leonardo da Vinci Mystery" series by Diane A.S. Stuckart. A young girl in renaissance Italy runs away from home so she doesn't get forced into marriage. In order to study under Leonardo she disguises herself like a boy. They discover a body and the mystery takes hold. It's light and lots of fun to read.

Downloaded a beer app. Untappd. You can add me, Gremlin11 is my username. I don't drink much so I don't have much but you take a photo of your beer and rate it and then you can see what your friends are drinking and what they like or don't like. Kinda neat I guess.

Starbucks has a seasonal limited time coconut mocha frappuccino. It's disgusting (full of syrup as is everything) but delicious as all hell. Try it but just one time so you don't have a heart attack or get diabetes. Then go back to drinking the iced unsweetened green tea which is good for you.

Welp I need a shower, I'm covered in sweat and syrup and coffee (probably smell great though, sweet and coffeelike) so off I go.

Italia!

Italy was fan-freakin-tastic. I want to go back. Never before have I stood on one spot and seen 2000years of architecture all at once. Super cool. I saw Bernini's, Bronzo's, Botticelli's, and Bruneleschi's. I saw the Ninja turtles' work at it's finest. I saw the spot the senate met and walked on the oldest road. And now I'm back in Vancouver, a city that is sadly lacking any nice architecture and only likes contemporary art (I do not). I was in awe the entire time. Luckily, I threw a quarter into the Trevy so I know that I will go back one day.

It's an Earth Thing

I think it's kind of neat how liquid moves sometimes. I have a nice hot chocolate going. The microwave is on one end of the kitchen so I need to turn around the opposite direction to leave the kitchen again. I do my 180 quickly but carefully so as not to spill the liquid, executing my turn around the mug rather than moving the mug around me, and watching it in case I spill. I move, the mug moves, but the hot chocolate stayed facing the same direction, at least the top half of it. Like when I turned, the mug moved around it without disturbing the contents. Cool stuff. Yup I just wasted a minute of your life.

In case you're bored or something

An excerpt from my article review homework. In case you're wondering why I hardly blog these days. So busy with work and skool!!!

The main idea of this article is that radiocarbon-dating shows that the period of overlap between early Neolithic and late Mesolithic was a brief one and not drawn out (in England and Wales) as previously thought.
The latest Mesolithic sites date to 5400-5500 Before Present. The Neolithic appears in southern Britain between 5400-5200 BP. The Neolithic brings new innovations in material culture such as pottery and monument building, but the biggest difference between Mesolithic and Neolithic sites is, of course, the domestication of plants/edible grains and animal husbandry. It was previously believed that this process was a timely one, and that domesticated plants and animals were gradually introduced into the diet. Red deer and hazelnuts are examples of wild foods characteristically found at Mesolithic sites, whereas Neolithic sites feature refuse from domesticated fauna and cattle. Furthermore, coastal shell middens, which were essentially Mesolithic garbage dumps, show evidence of a great amount of marine remains. These appear to have been abandoned by the Neolithic revolution, implying that diet had shifted from marine to farmed food. On top of this evidence, we have stable isotope analysis of human bones. This provides direct evidence of diet over a person’s lifetime. The carbon from the food we eat makes its way into our bones and is stored in bone collagen. This will reflect the protein of a diet in the last 5-15 years of a person’s life. Richards and Hedges analyze the data from the stable isotope analysis to determine whether their diets were composed mainly of marine or terrestrial protein. They found that from the early Neolithic sites there was a lack of marine food, even though the sites were coastal ones. The Mesolithic sites, however, had people who ate primarily marine diets. The fact that the Neolithic sites do not have people with significant marine protein in their diet proves that this adjustment occurred rapidly and not over a longer period of time.

Italy? Me?

So since my dad came to see me and we did the ski trip, and we did a ski day in Vermont this Xmas, my mom was gonna visit me in Vancouver too. I was looking forward to it, show her around my hang out spots, make her come watch my karate class, lol. So when she said there was another option, I was thinking I dunno, I was hoping to still work a couple days that week, might have a couple classes, hem haw. Then she launches into how she's got another business trip coming up in Siena and how if I wanted to and could get time off I might go with her and spend a few days in Rome and then go to Siena with her where she'll be in meetings the whole time but we'd have one dinner together anyway, and I could take a train to Florence for a day and etc. And my jaw is on the floor. And she's like: "hello? hello? are you there?" and I: oh I should probably pick my jaw up and try to formulate a coherent speech pattern. "yah yah I can get time off yup no problem I will MAKE it work!

So as long as everything goes as planned with her meeting and stuff, I'LL BE GOING TO ITALY IN MAY! WOOP WOOP!

Time to dig up my old art class notes and classics books lol
yippee!

In other news, it's raining. Yup, who'd have thought, rain in Van. But things are blooming (sorry mum, you'll be missing the cherry blossoms I guess) and starting to look really nice and springy. Unfortunately that means the spidey's are making their resurgence and my allergies and unstoppable.

School is winding down, one week left before examinations. Also have to sign up for summer classes next week. Time is moving way too fast! I can't keep up! My civ's class skipped all the Greek/Roman stuff which is irritating. I get if there's not time to cover everything, but then cut out one of the Peru lectures and one of the Mesoamerica! There's only 1000 years to cover anyway! Other than gypping me of my passion lol I have enjoyed all my classes this year. College is so easy, guys. I'm popping out 90's and still able to work 32-35 hours/week. It'll be a small struggle probably once I transfer to uni. We'll see how things go. I need to go talk to people about how to transfer too, maybe I can apply to grad school sooner, who knows. Otherwise I'll keep doing the second degree thing until then.

Last night was supposed to be a study night but I was asked to work, and I need some brownie points that new people need so that I'm well liked and people owe me favours when I need time off. But seriously, this girl I covered for called in sick at 115 for a 230 shift. Nicole, the other supervisor, calls me all frantic like "please please you can start at 4!" she had already tried everyone else, and I was like okay I guess I can not study. So that was a good shift but still a pain in my plans. At least I spent my morning talking to my grandma and mum.

Welp, Gotta go write a quiz and an article comparison. (For the latter, it really helps to have a PhD roomie in the same field. "Eric I need articles." "OOOH! Okay! Where do we start!" and it takes him 20 mins to find something he likes and that will work for me when it would have taken me an hour or more. Then he sits down and gives me a run through on them. "This is this guys argument. This is why he's right. This is the counter argument article. This is why this guy's a moron. This article explains why the second guy is a moron and the first article holds up." etc. So then I sit down and read them until the science stuff makes some sense to me and write a small paper on the arguments presented. I link it to some of the units in class. Nice and easy! So he essentially saves me like 3 hours of work. I should buy him dinner.)

Miss you all!

Pat on My Back

SO today in martial arts class my Instructor said to pull out the mats. I'm like aw geez, this guy never does tumbling that's why I like his classes lol so I pulled out the mats as the coloured belts are doing their cool moves with the bow staff. Of course it was tumble time for Jackie. So he gets a black belt to come and help me. She says I have everything down for my Roll Routine 1, let's work on cleaning it up a bit. I said that's great let's do it. We start with my front right side roll. She challenges me to start it from standing straight up and walking right into it, nice and smooth instead of bending into it from the start. Okay, check. Next, break falls. Work on my hand positions a bit. Great I'll try and improve; it went on like this. I've got down what's expected of a white belt, time to spruce it up so it's cleaner and more controlled. I think dancing gives me a leg up on this one, it's easier to remember sequences and you know what to look for when someone shows you a move so you can try to imitate it better. SO anyway, instructor comes over to see what's going on after getting the other people going on their things and check out my break falls too. Then the whole class has to rolls (haha!) so they go and do theirs and then I do mine, and as I start it, the instructor says "that is a really good right side roll. Like, really good. I'm actually kind of upset that a white belt can do it that well!" in a joking way. Later he asked if I'm in gymnastics, or was. I said no as it's been 15 years and I can't even do a cartwheel. He's like so you're just naturally good at it? and I'm like well...I drill these most classes so maybe that's it. BUt still feels nice to be told you rock at something. Win!

I like this instructor, his classes are good. He pushes you like he knows how hard you can go. Some people push you too hard, and some not enough. But he seems to know everyones limits. He also explains things really well and shows me everything. Like I was trying a hook kick today and most instructors keep showing you how to do it, but he has me punch him and he hook kicks my arm away. So now I know how I can use it to defend myself, and how to do it properly. Sometimes I've learned a move without being sure how to apply it in a real situation but he always explains that which is helpful. Last week he was smelly tho, a skunk somehow got into his house and sprayed everywhere. hheehehehehehehehe. You always LOL when it's not your house.

School is going well, doing well in it, have to decide really soon if I'm taking summer school or not though, like in the next few days. I probably should, but it would be nice to have time to bum around. Thing is I'm more productive in the summer than the winter so school might be easier. It's easier to motivate myself when it's sunny to get things done.

I'll post more of my story soon too!

That's all folks!

Achilles?

I dunno man, it's like the Greeks worshipped him. but...all the literature makes him sound like a whiney, spoiled, brat. I'm not sure how I want to play this. Any thoughts? How have you felt about Achilles in myth/stories/tv?

OWEE

WORST HEADACHE EVER. one of those throwy upy migraines. not pleased. made it through my shift. made it home (barely). The sidewalk squares were starting to look like those stupid stairs in mario 64 that you can't climb before you've reached the level...keep going endlessly. ugghhhrawr.

Dad's visit was amazing. went to cap suspension bridge and whistler. miss him already. miss katie thomas. she used to offer to kick me in the shin when i have a headache. take my mind off my headache and focus on the shin pain. i should facebook her that :)

yup. that's all i can write when i'm hurting. love you everybody

Job!

Hey everyone!
I am starting my new job today, so wish me luck! I got hired on at starbucks as a shift supervisor. I know, I know, going to the Dark Side. I'll have to pronounce it granday now even though it's grande, like in french with a silent e, because there's no accent on the e on their menu. I'll have to finally learn what all the other ridiculous sizes are that can't just be small medium large. And I have to pretend like I enjoy burnt coffee. On the bright side, supervisor means none of the min wage BS, and I really like their tea selection. Also, maybe I can learn them how to foam milk properly and not burn it, in a nice sly way so that nobody catches on to how I'm making them do things properly. Anyway, one step at a time, first will be that annoying training garbage about food safety and how to make coffee. So wish me luck! Hopefully this will work out better than the last one; I admit it really made me a worry wort.

In other news, my dad's coming to visit on the 3rd!!!!

And exams are coming too aaaaah! But I'm really liking being back in school again.

Yikes

Yikes! been a while since I posted. Sorry folks. All is good, starting school on Monday, job hunting, new room mate is nice. Looks like everything will be good (soon as someone hires me)! Hope everyone had a great Christmas!