Nov. 19th- A Day In History

Another Friday hits and I find myself blogging. It'd be pretty cool if I could make a habit out of this. I never will.

Anyway, huge news in the life of moi; I got my very first offer to a university today. My very first, very real offer. Yup, looks like the University of Glasgow would love to have me in their Zoology program (provided that I meet the terms and conditions outlined). Conditional or not, though, it's an offer; one that I've been getting pretty panicky over. I love knowing that there's somewhere I can go- it's like everything's finally paying off. Hard work really does equal success, eh?

Of course, my dad was kind enough to remind me that my international/overseas (BIG BIG MONEY) status may have had something to do with my offer, but I really don't care. I'm so happy I was literally jumping up and down earlier; so the geeks out there know I must have been rather excited.

Zoology was also my second choice- I'm going for vet med, but that happens to be ridiculously hard to get into in the UK (so go, Guelph, go!). My policy on applying was try everything and see what happens. So far I've applied to nine different programs at seven schools (aha, 7 of 9...).

All this Uni stuff is very exciting. Right now I'd say it takes up at least 75% of my idle thoughts, which isn't very good for someone like myself, who has a very bad tendency to over-think things. It's worst in the mornings. I'm amazed how easily my mind accepts the possibility of every single clock in my house being slow. Anyway, so when I'm thinking about Uni, I'll often find myself thinking about what could be. Mainly if I didn't take vet med. ...Or any sciences. I think a lot about what it would be like to take something like a degree in Art or English, which of course, compared to the sciences, would be like getting a degree in toast-making. My English teacher, who's one of those really nice teachers that people like to take advantage of, insists that I go into these fields (mostly English). I've never really considered myself talented at either of these subjects until recently, so I'm a little apprehensive about it. I think of English and Art as fun courses, too, and making a living out of that seems a little far-fetched. I mean, getting an English degree would be swell if I wanted to become an English teacher.

My mind is still set, but just like there's a parallel world where every clock, watch and cell phone in my house is running about 10 minutes late every morning, there's a parallel me out there whose just been offered a place in an English program. Well, good for her, but mainly good for me.

Cause I got an offer from a University.

Oh, another thing I've been wrestling with; this blog. Do I tell others to read it, or what? On one hand, having people in my life reading my blog would prohibit me from speaking about them (at least negatively) in it, but on the other hand I have one follower, who is my best friend. I'm not exactly swimming in the readers here...

sinX = Holiday Celebration?

Oddly enough, yesterday was a more satisfying Friday than today was. Yesterday I felt the sweet release of all responsibility, and yesterday I felt that any homework I had could be easily ignored until Sunday.

Today I just feel tired.

Not the nice, lazy, cozy sort of tired that comes from fuzzy pajamas or a nice couch-nap, but the cold, worn out, threadbare energy that comes from school. I'm tired.

I walked into math class on Wednesday this week- you may remember it as the day before Remembrance Day, to find the ceiling of my math class adorned with the baubles, garlands, and weird wreath things of the holiday season not nearly here yet. Everyone in the class was very excited, whereas I was sort of annoyed. It was Wednesday. You may remember it as the day before Remembrance Day, which is to say November, or no where near Christmas yet.

Anytime before December is just silly to be putting up Christmas decorations. Silly like how early Dollarama switches their holiday isle. However, there is one fact I had to consider on Wednesday (the day before Remembrance Day) before giving my math teacher a good ol' WTF stare.

This is Trinidad.

West Indies, Caribbean. A place where Halloween is sluffed off for the Hindu festival of light, Diwali, and Remembrance Day is a couple of sentences over the PA system. Christmas, though... That's a big deal in Trini. Stores down here make Dollarama look last minute in their holiday preparations. I think I saw Christmas stuff down here as early as September. The thing is that Trinidad is made up of an incredible amount of races, and they celebrate basically all of the holidays associated with the different peoples and religions. That's why I get days off for Christmas, Eid, Diwali, Easter, and Carnival (that's another post). But this is because there are people here who want to celebrate these things. North American holidays like Halloween are just starting to appear in Trinidad (although I'm not sure if they'll ever catch on), and Remembrance Day was only mentioned because

I attend a Canadian Private School. So in Trinidad, it's really not that strange for Christmas decorations to immediately replace the Diwali ones.

Having lived here for a little over two years, I understand this, but I still settled for an annoyed look at the ceiling every now and then.

While we're on the subject of holidays, I celebrated Diwali for the first time this year! By that I mean that I lighted the little Diwali candle thing (called a diya- thanks wiki.) The picture isn't mine; I wasn't that forward thinking (it was Guy Fawkes Night, I was watching V for Vendetta and wishing there were fireworks) but it's similar, and me and Dad enjoyed lighting it. Apparently that was me welcoming Mother Lakshmi into my home. I'm so sorry to any Hindu's who read this- I'm quite sure I butchered the holiday and it's meaning.

I also had some sweet flour Diwali treat things and they tasted pretty good. My math teacher's Hindu (which is how I got the candle). Normally I hate her but she was in a nice, no-homework mood on Diwali, so it was cool.

So it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, I guess. Right now I'm going to focus on some weekend Chrono Trigger.

Three Strikes and We're Out

As of this September, I am an only child.

It doesn't really sound too surprising that though I've known this day would come since forever, it never really clicked. I couldn't even imagine life when all of my siblings entered the brave new world that is higher education. As a little shout out to my fellow youngests, I think that being the last to leave the nest is one of the harder burdens life places on us. A family separated, even on the nicest of terms (like university) is like the leftover scraps from a Sunday roast. Those left behind after the feast huddle together in shared little containers since they don't need the big plate anymore. It's not completely over, they can still be reheated and reunited in the microwave, but it just doesn't taste the same. No matter how close it is you still spend most of your time in the refrigerator.

It's an awkward comparison when I think about it too literaly (sounds like some post-apocalyptic survivor story - screw the matrix, we're really leftovers in the fridge), but right now I feel like the scraggly strips of roast someone left behind on their plate.

In my experience the parents always cry when they drop the first born and second born and so on off at the campus, or worse (and in my case) the airport. It's the younger siblings job to look on proudly, with a smile that says 'Good job! You finally made it!' The parents will always have a harder time than the siblings. I've never been alone to deal with the parental aftermath of saying goodbye before. I came home from school and my parents were sitting around, saying nothing. I didn't figure out why until I said something and discovered the terrible echo in the house.

Last weekend we moved me into my second brothers nicer, brighter, and bigger room. I still turn the wrong way at the top of the stairs, but I'm slowly adjusting. It doesn't look like my brothers room anymore, but my ownership of it feels weirdly temporary. I suppose it is; next September my mother gets to cry her last baby goodbye. In some ways I see this as a good thing. In most ways I see this as a good thing. Other times I don't want to think about what it'll be like for my parents, that boundless pride mixed with overwhelming sadness, and dusting off another empty room every once in a while... Progress is progress, however, and growing up is impossible without the crucial 'moving on' phase. Still, I wonder how they'll fight the echo when I'm not there to be loud.

We spend a lot more time together now, I think. We watch shows (V, currently). We invite people over for dinner. We don't play cards anymore (something that was once a nightly ritual for my family). Euchre is a four person game.

It's not all doom and gloom; like I said, we hit the microwave every now and then with phone calls and the wonders of Skype. But there's an awful lot of fridge time... Then again, it's only September, and the perks of being an only child (the disappearance of the want/need barrier) are a nice comfort.

As a side, I give you a view from my new bedroom window. It looks far more impressive in real life. Still, only in Trinidad, eh?

Perpockemint

Have you ever noticed that female clothing - pyjamas in particular - never seems to have any pockets? Whereas the male equivalent always has a ridiculous amount of pocket-space. I'm not really going into a big rant about the gender inequality of pyjama pockets here, I'm more just complaining about me not having anywhere to put my half-used tissue in the morning.

It's like whoever made these clothes just assumes that we don't need pockets. That we're never going to throw our cellphones in there, and we're never going to be in the situation where someone gives us something that we really don't want at the moment. At the very least, we'll never be in these situations while in our pyjamas. But the thing is that while in pajamas you're in your pocket-needing prime! It's the time of the day when you're least likely to have a bag or a jacket or something WITH pockets around you.

I have two older brothers, so my whole life I've been getting their old stuff, which of course includes pyjamas, so I can say (at least from my own experience) that I have only very rarely come across a pair of boys pyjama bottoms without pockets. Alternatively, I have only very rarely come across a pair of girls pyjama bottoms with pockets.

Also, pyjamas is spelt with a 'y'. What the fuck.

So I figure there must be some sort of explanation for this. Maybe we're supposed to keep things somewhere other than conveniently placed folds of fabric. My first thought is that we could put stuff in our bras (you know, the way the bad girls do it on tv?). But then that theory's dead because most females don't wear bras with their pyjamas (plus we can't all be bad). I suppose house coats have pockets, but I live in the Caribbean, so fuck anyone who wants me to run around in a fucking house coat all day.

The thing is that even if this problem with pyjamas could be sorted, I keep noticing that more and more of my normal clothes have no pockets in them. Either I'm a very unlucky buyer or there's some kind of pattern here! Even my school uniform has no pockets! School, the number one place for random odds and ends that you don't need right then but will probably need in a second!

I'm a hands-constantly-in-pockets person too, so when I find myself in a situation with no pockets, my hands get confused with the lack of a place to be, and I end up looking like I'm having some sort of fit.

I think the only real solution to this is to ban all non-pocket-having clothing. Really, is it that much of a hassle to throw some pockets in there? What kind of a world is this where you can't even get a pair of pajamas with some decent pockets in them?

(Answer: A world where laundry doers needn't fear the dreaded kleenix bits all over everything.)

The Vapors = Walking to School in the Morning

Every time I find some new music, I go through the compulsory few days (weeks) of "OMFG THIS IS ALL I EVER WANT TO LISTEN TO. EVER." before I revert back to normal and add the new stuff to the list of things I listen to. The problem is that listening to music is probably the easiest thing in the world to multi task with. Everyone has songs and such that remind you of other things, but it sucks when you get stuck with a reminder that you really don't want to be reminded of.

Take Billy Talent. Anything and everything Billy Talent immediately brings my mind to FFX. Specifically, Mt. Gagazet. Trying to get up that damn hill with that ungodly encounter rate. Sadly, Pendulum's The Island - Pt. 1(Dawn) fell victim to Tokyo Mew Mew. Owl City's Fireflies makes me think of that one guy I really liked who really wasn't interested. The Beatles' Your Mother Should Know is waking up at 5:30 in Grade 11. Gorillaz's On Melancholy Hill is now the dreaded song of treadmills.

It's like any song that you set as an alarm clock, at first it's all "waking up wont be so painful if I'm listening to this!" then you reach the inevitable stage where every time you hear the song you cringe and think it's morning. Lonely Rolling Star from Katamari STILL makes me paranoid that my phone's going off, and I changed that a few years ago. I suppose the only way to avoid this is to either do nothing when listening to music, or only do really cool things. Make sure you're listening to a good song when you do something awesome.

Otherside by The Red Hot Chili Peppers (one of my favourite songs) has always made me think of Dollhouse. I wasn't watching Dollhouse while listening to it, it just really seems to fit. Less the lyrics and more the sound. Because of that, The Other Side by Pendulum (another favourite) makes me think of Dollhouse as well. This isn't a bad connection or anything, I've just always wondered about it. I think all songs named with something about other sides are automatically awesome.

It's like television and movies and everything. I think children must enjoy watching stuff so much more than we do because they don't have the nagging voice in the back of their mind "I KNOW that guy from somewhere! I'm sure of it!" for the whole thing.

They Call Him Flipper, Flipper, Flipper...

It's my birthday soon. I know, I know, I'm excited too. My birthday is on September 27th, which is a very cool day. Not only is it MY birthday, but it's also Google's birthday, Avril Lavigne, my cousin Adrian, my best friends aunt, and best of all, Bill Colter, the weatherman from Global News.

Anyways, this year I asked for a tablet so I could try out doing some art on my computer. I don't pretend to be anything like an artist, but I do dabble, and we all know the fun that comes from dabbling. I'd been anxiously awaiting my present when my parents decided to be AWESOME. 'Cause I got my present now. In JULY. Nice job, parents. Buying my love is COMPLETELY the right way to go about things.

Truthfully though, they gave it to me now because they know that when I go back to school I wont have any time for fun because I'll be so busy 'working'. I, uh, didn't argue the point. They seemed so proud. So I get my prezzie now and cake on my birthday! Double win! Hurray!

Onward with the point of this whole post; before I told you about it I figured I should draw something to post with it. I thought it would take me a really long time to get used to using it, but so far it really isn't bad. I'm using a Bamboo (adorable name): Pen & Touch or something? I know nothing about these sorts of brands, but it seems to be good. The drawing surface is nice and big and everything. Pretty much my only concern is that the pen tip is wearing down really fast. It came with two replacements, and it seems like I'm going to need them sooner than I thought... I wonder if all pens are like this or if it's the brand? Or me, I could very well be pressing too hard. In any case, I heart my new tablet to pieces.

The first thing I did was a picture of the TARDIS. Being my first attempt at using it, that picture will hopefully never see the light of day. Apart from that I've been working on the main reason of my getting a tablet rather than just thinking about getting one, which is that my best friend, Thingbe and I are starting a webcomic. I hope to have a few comics finished soon so we can start posting. The plan is that Thingbe will write and I'll draw (here's hoping I'll be able to keep up with her intense writing skillz) and we'll grow to such incredible popularity that we'll be a recognized voice in the gaming world causing us to be invited to E3 and the San Diego ComicCon every year while getting awesome jobs as voice actors. Yes, yes we are that cool. Or we will be. Y'know.

Anyways, I didn't have anything drawn to do a post with, so I thought I'd come up with a cool new profile picture since Emperor Palpatine is awesome, but less than original and it'd be really neat to use something that I made. I couldn't think of anything so after much deliberation, I came up with a penguin (get it? get it?). Since that seemed incredibly dull, I decided to personalize it (which isn't easy with a penguin) so it turned into a penguin in SPACE.

Tah Dah!

Indeed, the Magic Penguin has a name, and that name is Flipper. Together, it's a nickname of mine that's way longer than my actual name. Go figure.

It's a little rough, yeah, but I'm fairly proud. While drawing it I found two things that I didn't know about drawing penguins:

1. There's pretty much one way to draw a cartoon penguin.

2. No penguin looks right without a bow tie.

I think it looks too much like another penguin, but I can't think of one to match it, so I'm just going to assume that it's fine.The only thing I know for sure is that the beak is definitely inspired by Topper from that one old Christmas movie with the song that's like "Put one foot in front of the other~!". Man I love that movie. Santa Claus is coming to town or something? In any case, I think I'll try this out as my dp for a while, see if it fits.

Oh yeah, and one last thing: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is an amazing game, probably one of the best out for the Wii and I have no idea why I didn't play it years ago.

Doctor Whoed.

In six days I watched seasons one to five of the 'new' Doctor Who series. I would be proud of this, but I have a feeling that I could and should have done it in five, but as my brother was kind enough to explain to me, I found it difficult to continue on the fifth day because I was going through David Tennant withdrawal.

I have one thing to say to anyone reading this who hasn't watched Doctor Who; WATCH IT. I was a little sceptical about it at first, but now I really don't know how I ever lived without it. Really and truly it's one of the most interesting and creative shows out there, especially today, where television has become something of a joke with every show falling into one of two categories: reality TV, or something to do with ghosts/vampires. How exciting.

From the first episode, I was drawn deeply into it, and I place it all on The Doctor, who in six days has become one of my favourite characters of all time.

One of the greatest things about Doctor Who is that every Doctor changes the show in almost every way, so it never get's old. Even though each episode follows the same basic plot line of "The Doctor and his companion go somewhere in the TARDIS and do something cool." I wont start on how absolutely incredible the tenth doctor was to the series, but I will say that those of you who've watched it know EXACTLY what I mean.

I did have one problem though, and it was so strange to everyone that I talked to about it that my brother told me I must have watched the show wrong. Maybe I did and maybe I didn't, but either way, I DIDN'T LIKE ROSE. Most people I talked to responded with "But I liked Rose!" or "She was better than MARTHA." For me, Rose was a Fred (from Angel). Everyone seemed to love her, and I mean LOVE her, without having any real reason for it.

The eleventh Doctor. I still sort of feel that he isn't the best, but having finished the fifth season, I don't think he's that bad. He's his own Doctor in his own right, and I like him. Although I do think that he had a rather violent experience falling down the ugly tree at some point in his childhood. I think what really made me sad was finding out that Robert Carlyle was on the list for possible eleventh Doctors, and he WASN'T chosen. Although I suppose he could have been busy doing SGU anyway. So come on everyone, ROBERT CARLYLE FOR NUMBER TWELVE!

The TARDIS is another one of the high points of the show, for me it became like Serenity in that it was a beloved character of it's own. Who doesn't love getting attached to space ships?

Finally there's THE TITLE THEME. It pissed me off when they changed it slightly for season four, but the fifth season made me hate it a little. I loved how lame the old one was, with the corny-sounding beeps and whirring noises typical of classic science fiction. They seemed to be continuously trying to make it "cool". I don't like cool. I liked the lame-ass geeky version. I liked it A LOT.

Oh, I lied, I have another thing to say to people who haven't seen Doctor Who, if you're gonna watch it, awesome, but you MAY consider waiting until closer to Christmas or else you'll be like the rest of us, sitting around with around six months of going cold, cold turkey on the horizon.

Jake Gyllenhaal gets all sweaty in Persia!

When I sat down to watch Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time this evening, my only real expectation was that Jake Gyllenhaal had better be hot, and he better be doing some LOVELY looking twists and turns and possibly even flexing. On that level, the movie was SPECTACULAR, and Jake Gyllenhaal should never put a shirt on again as far as I'm concerned (the cape, however, he never has to take off). I'd have loved to spend the entire movie focusing on nothing but this, but sadly there was in fact a female in the movie, and it was a speaking role, meaning that it did drag on at parts. This is where I started to actually THINK about things, and Jake Gyllenhaal has a hot brother in Persia is not a THINKING movie, it's a Jake Gyllenhaal I want to stroke you late into the night movie. So with thinking came this really terrible thing that just wouldn't leave my mind. This thing is known as REASON.

The ENTIRE main plot of the movie makes absolutely no sense. If any one of the characters were to just sit down and put their penis' aside, then this whole movie wouldn't have happened. I'll start at the beginning, which means spoilers for anyone reading this who hasn't seen Jake Gyllenhaal takes his shirt off in Persia.

So you know that part, at the beginning, where Jake Gyllenhaal is supposedly "framed for murder"? Yeah, see, that's the part that is in every way, BULL.

First off, he's the one who gives this "poisoned robe" to the king, yeah? So under what circumstances would they NOT have assumed it was him? He's supposed to be a cute little ruffian isn't he? Not INCREDIBLY stupid, right? If HE was supposed to be the one killing the king, then he would have done what the brother did, which was pass it on to someone else to give to him. Or he could have been SUPER clever like the bald guy, and pass it on to someone else so that they could pass it on to someone ELSE. Yeah, they'll never see that one coming. Of course, none of them DID, so what I am saying...

Secondly, as the third ADOPTED son of the king, he had nothing to gain from killing him, except offing the one person who seemed to like him. He wouldn't have gained the throne, there were two brothers who were up to bat before him. Later on in the movie, they seemed to realize this fail and tried to make some sense out of it by saying that he was "stirring up a rebellion" and that he therefore wanted to take the crown. But couldn't he have stirred this rebellion comfortably from his palace when he WASN'T walking around with a price on his head? They already showed in the beginning the good relationship he seems to have with his men, the 'common folk' so really, starting a rebellion (if he was so determined to do so) wouldn't have been out of his grasp. So I ask again, WHY KILL THE KING?

This is why I feel that in that scene there when the king gets killed and everyone freaks out and tries to kill Jake Gyllenhaal, if ANY ONE OF THEM had just thought for a moment about whether or not it makes any sense for HIM to kill the king, then maybe they would have realized that the plot of this movie was shit from the very beginning. The nice thing is that at the end, the whole movie didn't happen, so yeah... that was pointless...

However, this doesn't mean that I didn't like the movie. Jake Gyllenhaal has Long Hair in Persia was an AWESOME movie. For cereal, there's OSTRICH racing (and STROKING!). It was so incredibly hot that I will no doubt watch it again, but I'll know better than to let myself start thinking next time. Because really, this movie wasn't made for my brain, it was made for... other parts. And right there, it succeeded. : ) And now I wanna watch Brokeback Mountain.

Maliens?

I've made a discovery!

If you find yourself without food, get a mango tree. I swear to you, these things produce fruit like something out of a video game. IT IS INSANE.

Personally, I don't really like mangos very much. So it's just cruel fate that our mango tree happens to hang right over my bedroom. Therefore you can imagine where the mangos land when they fall. You'd be surprised how LOUD a mango crashing down onto your roof is. It reminds me of Signs, when the aliens are walking around on the roof and you hear their footsteps. So with the mangos, the BANG! Clatter clatter clatter! Of their journey from branch to roof to ground is basically the aliens invading right over my head. Just like in Signs,

IT SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF ME.

Basically, my thought is that I'm screwed, because eventually I WILL get used to it, whether I like it or not, and then I'll be laying there in my bed trying to sleep and the aliens really will invade but I'll just be shaking my fist, "Damn mangos!". Of course, the alternative is that every time a mango falls I'm shaking in fear and preparing myself for the invasion, but I'd much rather lose some sleep if it means upping my chances of survival overall.

Now don't get me wrong, it'd take a lot more than a slight feeling of preparedness to save yourself from an alien invasion, but that's another post. In the meantime, just watch out.

The Mangoliens (Alieangos?) are coming.