Oh yeah, it's the 'got candy?' jack-o-lantern alongside the 'puking up candy' jack-o-latern... admit it, you wish you'd done it first.
A Chic Peak into StyleCaster
17 years ago
20.10.08
Further Proof of my Genius
Oh yeah, it's the 'got candy?' jack-o-lantern alongside the 'puking up candy' jack-o-latern... admit it, you wish you'd done it first.
19.10.08
Cynical, Judgemental, Single and Barren at twenty-two
Last night I had a nightmare that I got engaged. Not a dream, a nightmare. I walked into a room filled with family members and I was wearing my grandmother's ring on my left hand. I knew it meant I was engaged, that ring has been intended for me for years. I knew my family thought it was a terrible idea from their expressions. I knew I felt sick to my stomach. I felt embarassed to be engaged at only 22, and I just kept trying to explain to my cousins and aunts and uncles that he proposed in public and I felt like I couldn't say no. I don't know who my fiance was, I don't know the circumstances of the relationship, but I do know, the last thing in the world I wanted, was to be engaged- and I was.
This threw me a litte.
I have always known what I want in my life. Very clearly. I know that I have a detailed 5 year career plan very plainly laid out and I am already working very hard to make it a reality. My priority has always been my career and where I want to put myself in life as an independent and successful woman.
I know that I will always put a relationship second until I have accomplished those goals. I am not one of those girls who cries wishing they had a boyfriend, longing for the fairytale of a handsome man to rescue me. I don't need to be rescued from anything, and even if I did I wouldn't need a man to help me do it. If I eventually find someone who loves me enough to put up with my bullshit for the rest of their life than that's just fine by me.
If people want to get married when they're young, they have that right. Personally, I think I would be devestated. My twenties are for me and I will take every opportunity to experience new things and achieve my goals and no relationship is going to hinder that. No apologies, that is just how I feel. Maybe some girls can have it all- the career, the relationship, the drive, but I can't. I know myself and I know I can only focus on one thing right now, and I'm okay with that. This is not to say that if someone came along who I felt I had a connection with I would avoid a relationship. I'm just saying that they would have to understand that I have a very clear plan for myself and they may not fit into it the way they want to.
Though I can't help but have some troubling thoughts lingering at the back of my mind... have I gotten myself so into the mindset of career-first, relationship-later that I am blinding myself to opportunities in my personal life? I woke up in cold sweats after an imaginary engagement... what if I never pull myself out of my career-first, relationship-later way of living I have decided to have in my twenties? Lately I feel as though I have been thrust back into the fifties. I keep hearing about girls I know who are my age getting married, having babies and playing house. I'm sorry if this is socially unacceptable to say but if I were married with kids right now I would wake up and vomit every morning.
Not to say that eventually I would not love to have all those things, a domestic life so to speak, but I feel like in this day and age we as females are given opportunities we should be taking advantage of to move ourselves ahead even more into equality. But where do I stop living for myself and living for someone else? For someone who thinks she doesn't want a relationship I spend an awful lot of time thinking about them- about how I don't need one- but thinking about them nonetheless.
What I don't understand is what would possess a woman to give up her twenties, a time of freedom and expression and independence, to be tied down to somebody? To give so much of herself to a relationship when she could be seeing so many amazing things? Maybe there is more of a balance than I think. Maybe I am cynical. Maybe, just maybe, I have become so focused on driving my goals that I have forgotten what it is I thought I wanted when I was five: to get married and have babies.
But I'm not five anymore, and I have seen too much to forget my place in this world. I am privledged, and I'm going to take advantage of the rights I have to work and be educated and independent that I know so many women in this world still don't have. I think what is really bothering me, what is really pissing me off, is that I'm twenty-two, I'm motherfucking twenty-two, and I am forced to worried about this bullshit. If I don't want to get married and have kids until I'm thirty than that is completely my perogitive. So why do I find myself judging people for choosing the lifestyle so different from mine, which is completely their perogitive? Now I am cynical, judgemental, single and barren. At twenty-two.
So as I sit in my heated home with running water and food in the cupboards, knowing I have health coverage and the right to vote, the right to speak my mind, the right to an education, the right to choose what I want for myself, I can't help but cast a judgemental eye on the same women who have all this but merely get married and have babies. Am I a bad person? Am I an enlightened person? Am I simply shortsighted? For someone who has declared with authority her place in this world, I am suddenly feeling very lost.
This threw me a litte.
I have always known what I want in my life. Very clearly. I know that I have a detailed 5 year career plan very plainly laid out and I am already working very hard to make it a reality. My priority has always been my career and where I want to put myself in life as an independent and successful woman.
I know that I will always put a relationship second until I have accomplished those goals. I am not one of those girls who cries wishing they had a boyfriend, longing for the fairytale of a handsome man to rescue me. I don't need to be rescued from anything, and even if I did I wouldn't need a man to help me do it. If I eventually find someone who loves me enough to put up with my bullshit for the rest of their life than that's just fine by me.
If people want to get married when they're young, they have that right. Personally, I think I would be devestated. My twenties are for me and I will take every opportunity to experience new things and achieve my goals and no relationship is going to hinder that. No apologies, that is just how I feel. Maybe some girls can have it all- the career, the relationship, the drive, but I can't. I know myself and I know I can only focus on one thing right now, and I'm okay with that. This is not to say that if someone came along who I felt I had a connection with I would avoid a relationship. I'm just saying that they would have to understand that I have a very clear plan for myself and they may not fit into it the way they want to.
Though I can't help but have some troubling thoughts lingering at the back of my mind... have I gotten myself so into the mindset of career-first, relationship-later that I am blinding myself to opportunities in my personal life? I woke up in cold sweats after an imaginary engagement... what if I never pull myself out of my career-first, relationship-later way of living I have decided to have in my twenties? Lately I feel as though I have been thrust back into the fifties. I keep hearing about girls I know who are my age getting married, having babies and playing house. I'm sorry if this is socially unacceptable to say but if I were married with kids right now I would wake up and vomit every morning.
Not to say that eventually I would not love to have all those things, a domestic life so to speak, but I feel like in this day and age we as females are given opportunities we should be taking advantage of to move ourselves ahead even more into equality. But where do I stop living for myself and living for someone else? For someone who thinks she doesn't want a relationship I spend an awful lot of time thinking about them- about how I don't need one- but thinking about them nonetheless.
What I don't understand is what would possess a woman to give up her twenties, a time of freedom and expression and independence, to be tied down to somebody? To give so much of herself to a relationship when she could be seeing so many amazing things? Maybe there is more of a balance than I think. Maybe I am cynical. Maybe, just maybe, I have become so focused on driving my goals that I have forgotten what it is I thought I wanted when I was five: to get married and have babies.
But I'm not five anymore, and I have seen too much to forget my place in this world. I am privledged, and I'm going to take advantage of the rights I have to work and be educated and independent that I know so many women in this world still don't have. I think what is really bothering me, what is really pissing me off, is that I'm twenty-two, I'm motherfucking twenty-two, and I am forced to worried about this bullshit. If I don't want to get married and have kids until I'm thirty than that is completely my perogitive. So why do I find myself judging people for choosing the lifestyle so different from mine, which is completely their perogitive? Now I am cynical, judgemental, single and barren. At twenty-two.
So as I sit in my heated home with running water and food in the cupboards, knowing I have health coverage and the right to vote, the right to speak my mind, the right to an education, the right to choose what I want for myself, I can't help but cast a judgemental eye on the same women who have all this but merely get married and have babies. Am I a bad person? Am I an enlightened person? Am I simply shortsighted? For someone who has declared with authority her place in this world, I am suddenly feeling very lost.
16.10.08
Any takers?
Since no one offered to buy me that last purse, I'm very kindly offering to let someone buy me this one. I know, I'm that nice.
by the way my mailing address is
68 Stayner Dr
Waverley NS
B2R 1C2
just in case.
6.10.08
15.9.08
Terrible Twenties
It's time that new parents stop complaining about their toddlers in their "terrible twos". Yes, it's an awkward transition... you're coming into your own. You're beginning to understand that you have choices; all of a sudden learning so much so fast. It is a phase of continual questioning and discovery. Yes the "terrible twos" are a stressful time in ones life, but they've got nothing on the strange and violent behaviours of those pesky, newly independent twenty-somethings. It is the same transition period we all went through twenty years ago... a new independence, so many choices all at once, constant discovery... constant misdirection and mistakes along the way... and a few temper tantrums every once in a while. While most children have their sweet sides, they of course have that "terrible" phase, myself being no exception, but through careful examination and study, I am trying my hardest not to let myself fall into the melodrama and misunderstood anxiousness of the "Terrible Twenties".
In conversations with other early twenty-somethings the toddler whine appears and we are reduced to nothing but crying babies... "I don't know what I'm doing with my life now...", "I wish I was back in school, it was so much easier then trying to figure out where to go from here...", "Why did I spend so much on an education? No one will hire me!...", "He said he would call and he didn't!", "She seemed to really like me but I haven't heard from her... what did I do?". It is exhausting. Many of us twenty-somethings are floating through society without a clear path or anyone to comfort us along the journey. Oh, and those twenty-somethings who came right out of university with a career (accountanting majors...) or significant others (undeserving bastards...), we either glare at with contempt or prod for information about how to achieve what they have.
My theory, all along has been: Who the fuck cares what they have? Who cares that we're floating aimlessly, career-less and relationship-less. I think this is exactly what your twenties are for and anyone who isn't completely depressed about their life is missing out on an experience that builds character and makes for halarious facebook albums along the way. In order to keep this fresh outlook on the time of your life when you will be making the least amount of money you ever will, it is important to remember that things are going to get better, should you choose to tough it out through these early to mid twenties. In order to that, you must have goals. Today, I wrote down my goals in all areas of my life that I think are deserving.
1. Social (Of course it's first.)
My goal here is clear... I've moved back in with my parents after four years of being away at University. Other then just plain staying sane, my goal is to keep in touch with my University friends. It sounds simple, but I have a feeling it will be difficult. People's lives get busy. People drift apart. I don't want that to happen with the people who were with me on my journey to becoming who I really am. So I have listed all the people I care enough about to keep in touch with and I will contact them on a regular basis. And yes, I cut people who I have recently realized weren't all that great. Mostly because I never saw them sober. So maybe they were, but I'll never know.
2. Physical
I got a trainer in June. I am going to keep working with her twice a week and keep going to the gym three times a week solo. I actually enjoy it, so I'm thinking I can keep up with it. It's not the excersize part that's hard for me, it's the not eating crap food after the bar part I suck at. But I'm drinking less, so I do less drunk eating. Cutting back on drinking is the only way I can afford my trainer anyway.
3. Spiritual
I don't know how spiritual this is, but I'm going to give myself more time to read Christopher Moore books. Even if it's just a chapter a night before I go to sleep. It's me time, and that suits my spirit just fine. And I'll be nicer to people. Maybe work on my road rage. I'll drive spiritually.
4. Financial
This one sucks, because anyone who knows me, knows this is my biggest hurdle in life. But here's the plan: Pay off my credit card, and keep it down. Which means putting 40% of my paycheck on it until it's significantly low and then not letting it get maxed out anymore. We'll see how that goes, because honestly, I have shopping issues. Clothes call to me. As do shoes. And purses.
5. Education
My dad is always buying me business books and bugging me to read them. So I'm going to. I'm going to spend my lunch hour at work reading at least 25 pages of whatever he decides to throw at me. Accomplishes many things: enlightenment, building self-confidence in business abilities, shutting up Father.
6. Work
Right now I am only kind of, half in a position I would like to be in. I work for an Indie Newspaper (a very well respected one, mind you), but I am the manager of Distribution and Events. I would like to be full time events, and at a large events company. I would like to stick it out at the paper for 6 months to a year and then try to move on to a full time events position. After my best friend Jess is done her Masters in Montreal we plan to start our own company. We've already started planning, I am hoping we can get it going in 2010 or 2011. Waiting until then, which is a time we will be mentally and financially prepared to start our own company, is a pretty big challenge for me because honestly, I was never one for patience... and patience this will take.
7. Family
I need to spend more time with my cousins. I love them and I don't see them enough. My cousins on my Dad's side are having "Cousin New Year's 2008 Slumber Party". I'm going to organize it. I suggested matching pajamas for all of us. The cousins in their thirties didn't really go for it. Nor did the ones in junior high. None of them did actually.
8. Personal
Since this is pretty open and I have no relationships, ever... I decided to extend financial. I'm going to set aside 10% of every paycheck as a "Move the fuck out of my parent't house already" fund, and put aside 30% for my trip in Novemeber to visit Jess in Montreal. That leaves me 20% (after 40% goes to my credit card) for my "personal" life. Which includes brunches with my gay friends and drinking beer and watching football with guy friends who are undatable. Just reading this makes me feel better about my life already.
So there are my goals. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic... I think. I will pat myself on the back. And now that they are out there for, I would say my readers but I know generally no one sees this except for me and people who browse through pages and briefly stop and look at pictures of my attractive best friend, but nonetheless, now that my goals are out in the world I feel a sense of responsibility to achieve them. I am now being held accountable by... cyber space, I guess? How about I will just hold myself accountable. I am after all, the only one in control of my terrible twenties, and the path I have laid for myself to escape them in one piece. I hope I read this in eight years and laugh...
In conversations with other early twenty-somethings the toddler whine appears and we are reduced to nothing but crying babies... "I don't know what I'm doing with my life now...", "I wish I was back in school, it was so much easier then trying to figure out where to go from here...", "Why did I spend so much on an education? No one will hire me!...", "He said he would call and he didn't!", "She seemed to really like me but I haven't heard from her... what did I do?". It is exhausting. Many of us twenty-somethings are floating through society without a clear path or anyone to comfort us along the journey. Oh, and those twenty-somethings who came right out of university with a career (accountanting majors...) or significant others (undeserving bastards...), we either glare at with contempt or prod for information about how to achieve what they have.
My theory, all along has been: Who the fuck cares what they have? Who cares that we're floating aimlessly, career-less and relationship-less. I think this is exactly what your twenties are for and anyone who isn't completely depressed about their life is missing out on an experience that builds character and makes for halarious facebook albums along the way. In order to keep this fresh outlook on the time of your life when you will be making the least amount of money you ever will, it is important to remember that things are going to get better, should you choose to tough it out through these early to mid twenties. In order to that, you must have goals. Today, I wrote down my goals in all areas of my life that I think are deserving.
1. Social (Of course it's first.)
My goal here is clear... I've moved back in with my parents after four years of being away at University. Other then just plain staying sane, my goal is to keep in touch with my University friends. It sounds simple, but I have a feeling it will be difficult. People's lives get busy. People drift apart. I don't want that to happen with the people who were with me on my journey to becoming who I really am. So I have listed all the people I care enough about to keep in touch with and I will contact them on a regular basis. And yes, I cut people who I have recently realized weren't all that great. Mostly because I never saw them sober. So maybe they were, but I'll never know.
2. Physical
I got a trainer in June. I am going to keep working with her twice a week and keep going to the gym three times a week solo. I actually enjoy it, so I'm thinking I can keep up with it. It's not the excersize part that's hard for me, it's the not eating crap food after the bar part I suck at. But I'm drinking less, so I do less drunk eating. Cutting back on drinking is the only way I can afford my trainer anyway.
3. Spiritual
I don't know how spiritual this is, but I'm going to give myself more time to read Christopher Moore books. Even if it's just a chapter a night before I go to sleep. It's me time, and that suits my spirit just fine. And I'll be nicer to people. Maybe work on my road rage. I'll drive spiritually.
4. Financial
This one sucks, because anyone who knows me, knows this is my biggest hurdle in life. But here's the plan: Pay off my credit card, and keep it down. Which means putting 40% of my paycheck on it until it's significantly low and then not letting it get maxed out anymore. We'll see how that goes, because honestly, I have shopping issues. Clothes call to me. As do shoes. And purses.
5. Education
My dad is always buying me business books and bugging me to read them. So I'm going to. I'm going to spend my lunch hour at work reading at least 25 pages of whatever he decides to throw at me. Accomplishes many things: enlightenment, building self-confidence in business abilities, shutting up Father.
6. Work
Right now I am only kind of, half in a position I would like to be in. I work for an Indie Newspaper (a very well respected one, mind you), but I am the manager of Distribution and Events. I would like to be full time events, and at a large events company. I would like to stick it out at the paper for 6 months to a year and then try to move on to a full time events position. After my best friend Jess is done her Masters in Montreal we plan to start our own company. We've already started planning, I am hoping we can get it going in 2010 or 2011. Waiting until then, which is a time we will be mentally and financially prepared to start our own company, is a pretty big challenge for me because honestly, I was never one for patience... and patience this will take.
7. Family
I need to spend more time with my cousins. I love them and I don't see them enough. My cousins on my Dad's side are having "Cousin New Year's 2008 Slumber Party". I'm going to organize it. I suggested matching pajamas for all of us. The cousins in their thirties didn't really go for it. Nor did the ones in junior high. None of them did actually.
8. Personal
Since this is pretty open and I have no relationships, ever... I decided to extend financial. I'm going to set aside 10% of every paycheck as a "Move the fuck out of my parent't house already" fund, and put aside 30% for my trip in Novemeber to visit Jess in Montreal. That leaves me 20% (after 40% goes to my credit card) for my "personal" life. Which includes brunches with my gay friends and drinking beer and watching football with guy friends who are undatable. Just reading this makes me feel better about my life already.
So there are my goals. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic... I think. I will pat myself on the back. And now that they are out there for, I would say my readers but I know generally no one sees this except for me and people who browse through pages and briefly stop and look at pictures of my attractive best friend, but nonetheless, now that my goals are out in the world I feel a sense of responsibility to achieve them. I am now being held accountable by... cyber space, I guess? How about I will just hold myself accountable. I am after all, the only one in control of my terrible twenties, and the path I have laid for myself to escape them in one piece. I hope I read this in eight years and laugh...
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