Summer Vacation Begins with a BANG!

Finished, friends! My third year of University is now complete.

I never know when to consider myself belonging to another year of studies. Certainly by September, I shall be "FOURTH YEAR". But for now, what am I? Third Year still? Entering Fourth Year? Just straight up Fourth Year? These are the questions.

So I'm back in Ottawa and headed down to Tobago on Tuesday. Hurrah! I'm excited to see what the future of this summer will bring, and I'm extra-excited to share it with you, internet. It's gonna be a great one, I can feel it!

So not too much has happened. Apart from moving out of Guelph and moving into Ottawa (which I'm still not entirely finished doing...) Easter is really the only thing that happened. It was a lot of fun! I'm happy that Easter was so late this year, because I got to spend it with my family, I think for the first time since I started uni. Dad wasn't here, but everyone else was. Big dinner, big stomach aches... big happiness.

At one point Colin started shooting me with a Nerf gun and I may have taken it and gotten carried away. It was actually super fun and my aim was pretty good. I decided to make things a little more Terminator and brought out the aviators. Clearly, we look pretty badass. And I have no selfie shame, unfortunately. Future Ronnie, please, develop some selfie shame.

So now I think I had better get back to that "moving back in" thing. The clothes are taken care of, but I still have a suitcase full of crap to find a place for...

On that note, I really wish that I could live with fewer things. That modern minimalist lifestyle, y'know? Clean cut, with everything fitting into one bag. Magic. In saying that, Mom and I went to a few thrift stores today and had the best time ever. I just love digging through piles of clothing. I love it so much. I found so many wonderful things! Today's theme was apparently loud tropical print shirts and slightly worn 90s GOLD. Not literal gold. Not even gold-colored fabric. Just golden finds. Golden finds.

And now I have to pack. And also finish un-packing.

Privileged Girl Rants About Stuff and Possibly Sounds Insensitive (and Slightly Flighty).

Guys, the summer is coming and I want to go shopping.

Once this week of final essays and exams is over, I only have four days in Ottawa before I'm hitting up the Caribbean. I never buy anything down there. Maybe because Tobago doesn't have a ton of clothing stores, maybe because I'm cheap, and mostly because I really, really don't like sequins/gems on my clothing. Truth.

So I have four days in which to find the time to get a pair of high-waisted denim shorts. It's a stable that I do not have. Must fix. I was actually thinking that I might head on down to the thrift store and maybe just cut a pair of high-waisted jeans, but typically frayed ends drive me mad, so I'm not sure I could handle it. But we'll see how much the real stores want for them.

In that four days I also have plans to go see the new Captain America movie with my brother, renew my German passport, and organize/store all of my stuff that I'm bringing up from Guelph. Plus packing. I'm not sure how long we'll be in Tobago before coming back to Ottawa so I'll just have to pack wisely. Ooooh maybe I'll do a blog post about that!

Side note: apparently some people, perhaps even most people (not quite sure), don't always have a valid passport? As in, if they aren't planning to travel at all they just let them expire. This is extremely weird to me, obviously because of my family's vagabond-esque style of living but also because it seems crazy to let your passport expire and take away your ability to leave a country. Most of the time travelling trips are planned well in advance but what about spontaneity? The freedom to know that at any time you could hit the road (or the airport) when the opportunity strikes is huge! This is sounding slightly fugitive-like, but there are plenty of reasons to travel unexpectedly apart from avoiding the Fuzz. What about a family emergency that calls you yonder? The only reason I could possibly see for letting your passport expire is if you can't afford the extra expense. I get that. I hate how much passports cost to keep updated. The ability to travel shouldn't be restricted by how much cash you've got in your pocket. It's like there's a monopoly on adventure and personal growth. But if you have the money, keep your damn passport up to date!

And another thing- if you have the ability to get dual citizenship- then do so! That paperwork takes time and effort, don't leave it until you actually need it! Part of my life's philosophy is to be ready for anything. What if you get a sudden job offer in Budapest for the summer? Wouldn't you like to go? Then make it so, number one! Don't twaddle with visas if you don't have to. We live in an incredibly inter-connected world, don't leave yourself out of it.

Another thing I have to do in Ottawa is organize my Dad's socks. He specifically asked me to do this because he says he can tell that they're different, but his eyesight isn't good enough to match them up properly. Apparently he would have asked Mom to help, but she wouldn't have cared. Evidently, he assumed that I would be sympathetic to his non-matching sock plight. I am. No one should have to live with two different socks on their feet. No one. I'm coming to help you, Dad!

Loser Tries to Explain Herself, Comes Across Even Sadder

This winter (and last fall) I've been wearing the heck out of my Stark toque, and while I've worn it I've been asked a lot of questions about Game of Thrones. Now, I don't mean like once or twice, I mean like all of the time. Sometimes the people asking me are friends, sometimes complete strangers in line at the grocery store. The most common question is "when's the new season starting?", but I've also had gems like "Is Tyrion (or the funny dwarf guy) still on there?", "What's the name of that cool chick with the dragons?", "How many seasons are there so far?", and "Didn't all those guys die (lol)?".

Kind of an old picture from last September but I didn't want to take a new one. Focus on the hat. The hat. Ignore awkward pose. I was studying. Ignore it. The hat. The hat. 

When I bought the hat, I never would have imagined this result. It's not that weird, but it's unexpected. I thought the hat would be no different from the likes of a STARWARS t-shirt, which seems to go through society without bringing up any questions, but it's not. Maybe just the fact that the word 'Stark' is written across my forehead rather than my chest is enough to call more attention to it, and maybe this speaks to the universal acknowledgement of Game of Thrones that everyone knows about it, and, apparently, has questions. To my credit, I've accepted my role as a compendium of knowledge about the show, and I answer questions about the new season like a walking advertisement, but I still think it's really fucking weird.

Anyway, back to blogging!

Oh, I miss blog time. Did you guys know that I blogged more in 2013 than I have all of the years since I started this blog? I was wondering why that was the case, and I don't think it's just because I was particularly interested in blogging last year, I think it's because my life is more exciting these days. No wait, that makes me sound like a loser. My life just has more happenings. I'm doing more things. This isn't helping, is it?

Reading week has gone away, and I miss it terribly. It's not so much the free time that I miss, but (loser time again) having people around.  Being back in Guelph I keep wanting to tell people arbitrary things about my day, like the other night I swear I felt the ground shake in my kitchen. I know it didn't, but I felt it. It was weird, but not at all important or significant. If I lived with friends/family I would have told them about it. But I don't. It would have made for a really odd and hard to understand text. So I didn't say anything. To anybody. And I miss banal conversations with people around me!

Doughnuts and Buffy. Man, it was a good week.

We also found a T-Rex in the living room. I'm telling you, it was a fucking exciting week.

(Loser time) I'm just  not around people that much anymore... Which sounds... bad? I see people in class, and I talk to them, but... that's it? Kind of. Sometimes. This semester has been reminding me a lot of first year, actually. I guess the main change is that one of my closest friends is away on exchange this semester (it's so cool- she's in England- she's so cool- it sounds amazing). She was my go-to pal for... actually pretty much everything so her absence has impacted my life quite a bit. She also reads this blog. I MISS YOU, MAN.

I'm making this sound really sad and awful, but it's not that bad. I have a lot of experience as a hermit and that is at least partially because I don't mind the lifestyle. I'm not huge on socializing, especially unexpectedly. Not unexpectedly in the "oh no, surprise encounter!" sense but more of a if I'm not in the mood to talk to people and I come across people I'm not very good at people. I am a homebody and I do appreciate time spent by myself, but over the holidays I spoil myself with a constant availability of companionship that I miss when I'm in Guelph. Hopefully that explains my situation a little bit better. I'm not drowning in the loneliness, a lot of the time I'm pretty fond of lone-ness, but I miss my best pal and my fam, which wouldn't be bad if they weren't all gone at the same time. Make sense?

Reading it over I still sound like I'm either crying myself to sleep every night or am in fact a weird sociopath that hates people. I guess I can't express this morning. I'm happy, internet! I swear!

I swear!

Oh, I just remembered that I sat down to write this to update you on my job search. I got one job (for next school year) and didn't get the other. So overall I'm thinking yay! Employment!

STAR WARS Identified... With Twi'leks!

I went to the STAR WARS: Identities exhibit at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum last week! I heard about the exhibit in March, so the excitement as been building up for a while now and I'm happy to say that I really enjoyed it! If you're in the Ottawa area I highly recommend the trip out to see it (and if you aren't in the Ottawa area, the exhibit should be heading to other cities soon).

Top among my favorites at the exhibit was Anakin's podracer from The Phantom Menace. Big and impressive props are always a winner for me. I think scale is my favorite thing about movie or television related exhibits. I love being able to stand in front of the podracer and appreciate how large it actually is, or discover that Chewbaca is in fact ridiculously tall. How did he even fit into that cockpit. I don't know. In any case, seeing them in person is like creating a new moment or a new experience with something that's been with you for a long time, which, for many of these guys, means as far back as I can remember. Plus podracers are totally awesome.

Of course one of the best experiences was going face to face with the actual Yoda. One of the things I noticed when we got home and (naturally) started to watch all of the movies, was that there weren't any cool things from the gungans, or the new clone troopers (aside from a few neat concept drawings/sculptures), because of course, there are essentially no props. You can't come face to face with  Jar Jar because he never had a face outside of a screen. So I think we can officially list the lack of physical props as another negative of relying too heavily on CGI. I'm not going to attack the prequels, but I do think that puppetry is the way to go for realism, and puppetry with CGI enhancements might be even better.

They have Jaba's eyes. Just his eyes. Apparently that's all that's left of the enormous puppet built for Return of the Jedi. There's just these two big eyes on sticks, staring at you. I found them so incredibly cool, and I think they might have been my favorite thing in the whole exhibition. I don't know why, but my mind just keeps going back to them.

They still have his eyes.

I feel obligated by eight-year-old Ronnie to mention Padme's clothes. They only had three of her outfits, and my pictures didn't really come out (in my defense, lighting was shit and I was, according to my family, "taking way too long") but I still loved loved loved this. I can't be the only one who derived at least part of my love of Star Wars from the pretty outfits. They had so many clothes. It was so pretty. We're talking Leia's slave outfit (which included cute little boots I've never noticed before!), Leia's Hoth outfit, Padme's ceremony gown from Phantom Menace, her Attack of the Clones outfit (with wicked-awesome poncho wrap thing), and a random but gorgeous senator outfit. They didn't have Leia's Bespin outfit, which is, for whatever reason, my favorite. And  they didn't have Padme's classic red gown/headdress or Leia's classic white outfit, which was odd. But still. So pretty. I was so happy. I said earlier that I wasn't going to attack the prequels (even if, perhaps, I should) because one thing that the exhibit did remind me of was that I loved all of the Star Wars movies growing up. Phantom Menace came out when my brother's and I were kids, and we loved them. We didn't care that there was an annoying kid, or that the plot made little to no sense, or that none of the characters had any depth whatsoever. It was still Star Wars and we loved every second of it.

The exhibition does cost a pretty penny to get in, but if you're a fan of the series then I think it'll be worth the money to see some really cool stuff. : )

The 'Identities' part of the exhibit relates to the interactive activity they had were you 'build' your own Star Wars character. I really liked it! It was essentially a real-life self-insert, and I wish they had this for everything. Everything. It also reminded me of why Star Wars: The Old Republic is so much fun - because you're immersing yourself in that wonderful universe. You started off by choosing your species, and they recorded all of your choices in a bracelet you wore throughout so that at the end, you could see your character and their bio which was emailed to you. Naturally, I was a Twi'lek. I think we can officially say that a new life-goal is to write a book centered around the life of a Twi'lek. Anyway, as you went through the exhibit you chose your characters skills, upbringing-style, planet of origin (Bespin, of course), mentor, occupation, friendships, as well as other things, and ultimately you had to choose whether or not you would align yourself with the dark or light side of the force. My family and I mutually agreed that it would have been way cooler if the exhibit took all of your choices and told you what side of the force you came out on, but it was a really neat activity all the same. Check out Onnie-Ka, my Twi'lek senator. Because senators can be cool too.

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.)