YOW to YYZ to POZ to TAB - An Experience

I'm in Tobago! Still sort of trying to figure things out here. My parents moved (again), but not out of the same area just to a different condo...thing. Basically we're on the second floor now, but the floorplan is basically the same. It's kind of weird because it feels like the same place... but it's slightly different. The best part is that the ceiling fans in this place work really well so we don't really need to use the AC! This is preferable not only for power consumption, but also because air conditioners make me sneeze. I don't know if this is an allergy thing or if we've just had poor AC units for the past five and a half years (what is time??), but where air is conditioned, I will sneeze drastically more than usual. Truth. I'm pretty sure everyone in my high school must have thought me incredibly diseased. Maybe that's why I had no friends! Ha... Ha...

We did find a comfy spot in YOW. Plus coffee.

The flight down was pretty alright. I actually really like travelling and flying. Something about going up into the sky using nothing but the POWER OF HUMAN INVENTION always seems magical. Although for the six hour overnight leg of our flight I did have an empty seat next to me. Bonus! Although being short, I actually don't really have a problem with leg-room. Oh! A secret comfort tip I have for long plane rides is to lay on the foldy tray thing in front of you. It seems weird, but it really helps, especially if your back is getting stiff and you need to be in some sort of a position that isn't sitting in an airplane seat. And if you usually sleep on your stomach then it's kinda nice laying your head down in your arms. The only problem is that it can sometimes be kind of a tight squeeze depending on the type of airplane, and obviously having a smaller torso helps, I guess. Try it out! Don't worry about the fact that it kind of looks weird to those around you.

I didn't really sleep on the plane for more than an hour maybe? That was unusual, but I got caught up reading Animal Farm, and then they were showing The Desolation of Smaug. Who would sleep? It did leave me pretty dead on Wednesday, though. Ah, overnight flights...

So now I'm just relaxing for a bit before getting into the heavy work ethic mode where things are actually accomplished. I've been loving just sitting outside and reading or playing video games. I guess I haven't really been doing very much, but that was sort of the plan, at least for a few days. Overall I'm feeling good, and things are going pretty darn swell.

Routine Booking Procedure. Move Along.

I either started at the beginning of this year or the end of the last, but I've been reading before bed every night and it's honestly one of the smartest decisions I've ever made; for a couple of reasons:

First of all, as an English student, but also as an adult, I struggle on a daily basis to find the time to read 'for fun' and I know I'm not alone in that annoying guilty feeling you get when you know you haven't been reading as much as you want to and you feel bad for doing yourself such a disservice.

Second of all, it's been going around the internet for a long while that you should avoid screens, specifically LED light, before going to bed. Supposedly this light suppresses some chemical or something that makes you tired, so you it's harder to get to sleep coming straight off of a computer screen and/or you don't get the best rest that you could. But no! Stop right there! This is hearsay! Don't trust what's going around on the internet! Be a responsible individual! That's right, guys- let's hit the literature.

*Funky 80's Montage Music*

The literature agrees! I read a few studies and they all seemed to concur that blue light suppresses the production of melatonin, which makes you tired. I'll reference a couple of the articles I read at the bottom of the post if you want to check them out. So there you have it! My second reason was sound. The blue light coming off of your computer, phone, and I would imagine handheld gaming devices is bad news for sleep cycles.

I don't think reading before bed will make a huge difference, but I think I enjoy it even if it isn't helping me sleep. I just like spending time with these cool cats-

I like to have a couple of options when I snuggle under the covers. Mostly I'm reading Don Quixote, but for those nights when all you want is Shakespeare, I have William Shakespeare's Star Wars to provide my fix. Occasionally I'm in a weird mood and I just want to read something really simple, so I like to keep a kind of 'dumb' book ready. Right now my stupid book is shockingly not Star Wars but A Princess of Mars on my Kobo. Oh, Edgar Rice Boroughs. Finally, because it's the end of the semester and sometimes I go to bed panicking about how much work I have to do, I keep a 'work book' next to my bed so that I can go to sleep researching if I need to. Right now I'm working on an essay about The Time Machine, so I'm reading the critical essays in this edition I borrowed off of a friend. Normally I wouldn't read things for classes before bed (the idea is not to think about school) but sometimes it can't be helped.

I also keep a mechanical pencil by my bed because academia has ruined me and I can't read without making notes in the margins anymore...

The moral of the story is, if you're not reading as much as you'd like to be, try giving it a go before bed! Some nights I can barely make it through one page before I'm off to snooze-land, but others I'm up for ages just reading. I even found, once I get really into a book, that I've started to go to bed sooner and earlier so that I can read longer before going to sleep. I don't know if its helping me get to sleep faster or get a better sleep than if I jumped off the computer and under the covers, but I do know that I'm finally finding the time for books I have been waiting years to pick off the shelf.

REFERENCES:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2005.00463.x/full

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7450_supp/full/497S13a.html?goback=.gde_3084791_member_244253435

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945711001651

Young Girl Smacked in the Face with Adulthood at 9:05 Yesterday Morning

So I'm twenty now.

Despite this impressive age I've managed to attain, I got excited like a five year old on my birthday. The night before I was giddy, and I spent pretty much all of Friday with a big, stupid grin plastered all over my face. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I started my day with a google hangout with my Mom before leaving for class. And that Spiderman present I've been holding on to? Nailed it. Totally a book.



But I didn't have a clue that it was Hyrule Historia!!! The best part about this present is that not only will it look fantastic on my shelf/beside me forever, but it came at the perfect time. I've been listening to the 25th Anniversary Legend of Zelda Symphony Orchestra CD all month and I've been dying to dive back into Majora's Mask. In summary, I have been in such a Zelda lately, and now I have this. Joy.

What I didn't know was that there was another little surprise in that bag, these lovely, lovely sterling silver (right? I think that's right.) celtic earings. So pretty. If I didn't mention it, I trained my ears to wear earings again this summer. After around six years of never really wearing them this was very exciting and totally worth the pain. Since the summer I've been wearing earrings almost every day, so this was, once again, the perfect gift. All of my gifts were perfect, I guess, because I don't think that something purchased with love for you could ever be less than perfection. Gift giving trumps all.



My whole family, but especially my mother has kind of a thing for anything celtic, so I like that these earrings make me think of her. Also Charmed. But that also makes me think of comfy afternoons couching-it with Mom and plowing through a few seasons of our favorite witch-y show.

As you might imagine, with all this excitement, I was late to my 10:30 class. To my credit, I was only around ten minutes late, but still. Eventually I ran into the two best friends in all the world, and more gifts were given. I'm just going to put pictures of all of them here because let's face it, you can show off on your birthday. It's not my birthday anymore but let's pretend that the rules still apply.

I got some German coffee that I am rather excited to enjoy. Another addition of the summer was a kind of addiction to caffine, which I'm pretty much over now but I do still really enjoy a good cup of Joe. Plus isn't this just the perfect present for a student? The answer is yes- yes it is.



Along with this I got a glorious Clinique Chubby Stick. It's in the shade 'Whopping Willow', which is really (I imagine) just a typo for 'Whomping Willow'. But you guys. This colour. You guys. Let's go full beauty blog on this and swatch it. Oh yes.



I feel I should offer some form of explanation here. Remember last winter when I got crazy into vlogs on youtube? This summer that subscription sphere grew to absorb beauty channels, and now... yeah. Make-up. I cannot wait to get this shit all over my face. It may seem kind of weird for a twenty year old woman to only now be delving into the world of make-up, but just shush. It's not weird at all. I've been busy. Point is, perfect present, because I would never have bought something like this for myself.

But that's not all! I feel like my friends really upped the game on birthday presents this year, to which all I can say is challenge accepted. I got this Star Trek Earl Grey tea (it smells out of this fucking world). I have to say that the tea itself is a ridiculous bonus to the prettiness of the actual tin it comes in. I also got the Teatanic, which is a tea infuser SHAPED LIKE THE TITANIC. I know, right? This gift was perfection because I have this weird thing. I'm not sure how to explain it. Essentially I consider time in relation to the day the Titanic sank. For instance, WWII started in 1939, right? So to give myself some perspective on the world at this time, I just automatically think to myself, 'oh, that's 27 years after the Titanic sank'. It honestly does help me picture the time period even though I wouldn't say that I have a crystal clear picture of 1912 or anything, it's just... this thing that I do. Teatanic!



As for my actual day, after classes I went shopping with friends and had the best time considering that I have no money, and then I actually had to go to a student involvement training thing on campus for like two and half hours. Not my favorite birthday activity, but hey. We got free dinner. After that it was off to finish The Hobbit with tea and my personal favorite, cake. My friend baked this for me last night. It's true. She baked it for me.

The only thing better than how pretty it looks is how delicious it tasted. And it was full of apples. Guys, I love apples. She baked this. We ate it while we watched The Hobbit. It was like a dream come true.

As a side note about that movie, does anyone else feel like it's sort of a dream when they watch it? I feel that I was waiting for this movie to be made and to come out for so many years that sometimes I still can't believe that it's actually a thing that exists now. Every time I watch it I'm struck by this happiness that this is a thing that exists in real life, not just in my head. It's like when I was little and I got a Buffy the Vampire Slayer advent calendar in the shops. That was a thing that existed, and I was there when it did. Happiness!

After the movie I caught a bus home and played Majora's Mask for about fourty minutes before going to sleep. It may sound like a boring way to end a birthday, but to be honest I think I've done something exciting every Friday night since school started and it was euphoric to be able to spent this Friday scarfing down an amazing cake with some friends and enjoy my favorite story ever happen on the screen in front of me. Ending that magic with going to sleep in my own bed was icing on a fabulous birthday cake.

Birthday #20: Successful.

Even Better Than the Iron Maiden Song - Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I'm hoping to add a little more content to this blog and thought that diving into the world of reviews was a good place to start. It's another one of those things that I've just always wanted to do. : )

The concept for these reviews is to keep them short and sweet. I'll touch on a few quick ideas regarding the novel, and hopefully inspire some of you to pick it up. I will also endeavor to keep the posts free of spoilers, so I will never go into detail about the plot, though I will discuss the setting. I'll post a review as frequently as I read a new book, which you're about to discover is really not as frequent as it ought to be for an English Student.

Without further ado, I give you review number one!

A few days ago I read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which is a book that doesn't really need an introduction, but I'll give you one anyway. The classic science fiction novel shows a dystopian world where people are not born, but decanted from bottles. People are segregated  into a strict and genetically-enforced caste system while the World Controllers work to keep us all in an infantile state of blind happiness through drugs, sex, and other base pleasures. Already sounds like something I'd pick up in an instant, but as you undoubtedly know, what makes this dystopian society so interesting are the striking similarities with  our own world today. The thought is that Huxley's predictions are actually coming true.

This is a fantastic thought to have in your head as you read. It creates an atmosphere of panic and urgency around the novel. What if you're reading the future? Obviously that's the question any good dystopian wants to ask, but Brave New World is one of the few which has been receiving answers in the affirmative. The novel  starts off with the aspect of society that I suspect may have been the most outlandish when the book was first published in 1932 - the Hatcheries and Conditioning Centres, specifically the fertilizing of an egg artificially and without sex. This is wonderful. You start off reading this book that's supposed to tell the future and the first thing it does is succeed. It's enough to get you started, to get you thinking, and even to get you believing it for a little while.

This beginning of the novel is fantastic, but not just because of the science - which falters, as it is wont to do in science fiction, but not out of this world. I should actually talk about the science a bit. As a biology student at university, I do notice and appreciate when a novel grounds it's ideas of new technologies in actual science. This gives science fiction, and particularly dystopias, that semblance of realism the readers need to really believe it. Huxley mastered this trick, and everything that he comes up with (if it hasn't already come to pass) is grounded in real discoveries and well-known science fact. The biologist in you will appreciate his imaginings in the hatcheries, and the psychologist in you will get a real kick out of what he does in the conditioning centres, and there are many more examples of this as the book goes on to expand on the world. But as I mentioned, this is not the only reason why the introduction to the novel is brilliant, it's also because of Huxley's style, which is clever and sneaky and cruel when it wants to be. I found endless enjoyment at how the introduction that seems to introduce the world is also introducing the main characters of the tale. There's a part where he switches between about three or four different scenes constantly, at times sentence by sentence, but he keeps it together so well and uses it to make his point in so creative a manner that I think it might be my favorite part of the book. (I've written a multi-scene scene kind of thing before, but nothing like what he did with it. Entirely going to try and bring some of that into my own writing.)

Another one of my favorite things is the huge part played by the works of Shakespeare. It's hard to go wrong when you incorporate the Bard, but 'Brave New World' (actually a quote from The Tempest - how did I not know this??) did some really neat things with his influence and the timeless quality of his works.

It's a very quick read, as the book isn't terribly long, so I definitely recommend it for a summer afternoon. I consider myself to be a slow reader and it took me two afternoons and a morning. As to whether or not it actually tells the future… perhaps not. I'm too much of an optimist to buy into it completely. However there are a few things in there that I could easily see coming about, along with a few things that already have, and a few that are too horrible and too possible for comfort, which is great.

This is one of those books that's been sitting on my to-read shelf for what seems like forever, so if any of you are in a similar position I can confidently tell you that the next time you browse for a new title, I hope your finger lands on Brave New World.

CARINA Cantina

One of the best ways to find a good book is to ask the people who never read. While avid readers can list off dozens of books that you know you'll never have the time to read, a few of the non-readers will tell you that although they don't have the patience/time/interest to read much of anything, there was this one book that they couldn't put down. There was just one book that caught their eye, and was wonderful. That's why I love people who don't read even more than those who do. For a book to catch their eye, it really has to be something special.

Of course, as an avid reader with no time to read, I'm reading the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, which I of course recommend to anyone interested in one of the best examples of great storytelling in existence.

I got accepted to the University of Western today! Exciting, I know. Although happy as I am to finally be accepted to a school that I can actually afford going to, it's still sort of bittersweet knowing that Guelph, where I really want to go, has yet to let me know the time of day. Still, you never know, I certainly wouldn't mind going to Western, so maybe you'll see me posting about my life in London, Ontario six months from now (so close!), giving you the ups and downs of majoring in Animal Behavior.

While on the subject of schools, my course-load for the last semester of grade 12 has been really quite nice lately. I have only three courses, two of which are Communications Technology and Earth and Space Science, so the only hard subject is Chemistry. Although I do suspect that my lack of work is due to the fact that we're doing Organic Chemistry right now, which is incredibly easy (and therefore I love it). That and Carnival, easily the biggest holiday in Trinidad, starts this Monday. I'm hoping to see it this year before I go. I don't really think that being in anything is something I'd enjoy (not even going 'on the road'), but I do want to see it. The majority of Carnival I'll leave for another post. It's a five day weekend.

More exciting right now is the trip that my Earth science class is going on! I'm going to a star party! My art teacher (I love it when art gets associated with something awesome like space) is involved with an organization called CARINA, the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy, which already sounds awesome, and they host these parties on a regular basis from what I understand. Trinidad has got to be one of the best places for seeing stars. You may remember earlier postings of the wonderful mountains that are literally everywhere you look here.

I remember first coming out of the airport and thinking "FUCK it's hot" right before jaw-dropping at the mountains. The site we're going to is atop one of these majestic beauties, at an old tracking station that my Dad tells me was built by the Americans in WWII. The sky should be clear and free of interfering lights from towns and such, and the best part is that Mars and Saturn are supposed to show up. I'd be upset that my favorite planet, Jupiter, is a no-show, but I've seen Jupiter before, and Saturn should be cool (just not as cool as my main man). One of my brothers left an old telescope in his closet, which I stole before finding it broken, but this led me to the discovery of my Dad's binoculars. I adore finding old things from my parents. Like when you're a kid searching through old drawers of stuff that you never knew existed. Finding the binoculars was like finding the slide rule all over again. Only they didn't require hours of Wikipedia to figure out how to use. So, I spent the day watching people at the local grocery store, and investigating the houses on the mountain, waiting for some sort of catastrophic event to take place. No murders occurred, so I didn't get to go all Rear Window, but it was still a lot of fun. I can't wait to use them next Saturday at the star party. We're supposed to show up in time to see sunset. I love sunset because there's that certain time where the sky turns that one colour that tricks you, and for just a moment you're on Tatooine.

And yes; eventually everything ends with Star Wars.