The story of my life...

Originally posted by neo_prodigy at Spirit Day

Happy Birthday, bestest best cousin eva!

(And, for everyone, I meant to post an entry before now, but I haven't, and it'll be early Oct. before I do. I'm dog-sitting for my mom and dad's friends while they go out west with my parents, so I'm pretty much living there. They only have dial-up, so if I seem to be not commenting or whatever, that's why. I promise to write a really long exciting entry when they come back!)

Oh jeez, don't even get me started. Well, okay then, here goes:

If I ever win the lottery or somehow come into a lot of money so that I can afford to take a bunch of random classes and things, I would like to learn:

1. At least two other languages, maybe three. Definitely Japanese, probably Mandarin, and maybe Canadian French (even though I took that for years and onjly the most basic language skills stuck). The Japanese is a must, both for nerdiness and because I do plan on going to Japan in the future. I'm even saving up currently for that specific goal. I want to learn Mandarin because there's a good chance that China is going to take over the world soon (probably economically), and it would be nice to be able to talk to our new leaders on their own terms. And French simply because I actually already knmow some of it.

2. I would like to take classes increasing my ability with the trumpet, but I would also like to learn cello, because I love cello. Violin I can take or leave, but cello is amazing. I have a trumpet, but I usually forget to practice anything, so I think my skills have become a little stagnant. There's nothing like the feeling of playing an instrument and knowing you are skilled at it.

3. I would like to learn a martial art. Yep, this is avatar influence (as well as any Jackie Chan/Bruce Lee/Jet Li movie I have seen), just because that show rocked that much. When I was little I was in karate, but it cost too much and I was kind of those "off in her own little world" kids, so the sensei didn't really think I was cut out for it. I had that issue with a lot of things. Now, I'm really interested in it, and I believe that I could focus on it more and enjoy it. What I would like to learn is Tai Chi, real Tai Chi, not the slowed down version (although that would be cool too). I just think that learning a martial art would make me more confident in myself, and it's great exercise too.

4. I would also like to contune learning horse-back riding. In grade 8 I took lessons, and I got the beginning of the canter stage, but again the price and the time (as I was starting high school) stopped me from continuing. While I was doing it, though, I loved it. Canter scared me, but I would have gotten used to it, and I never got to gallop. It's something I've always regretted not being able to continue.

5. Less than the others, but I would also like to learn sewing, as it would be nice to make my own costumes for cosplay, instead of buying them all the time.

This picture needs to be captioned about what everyone is thinking. Like now.



Is this not the most awkward picture ever? Everyone looks bored or terrified or distracted. It's great.

Lots of news, guys. I had Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off this week, and those days were filled with cool stuff.

Saturday, I went shopping with my mom. We haven't had a good shopping day for a while, and thus I spent way too much money, but hey, why work if you don't get to splurge from time to time? So we went to Zellers, where I got some new pairs of jeans (I'm a size 12 now! I'm so proud!), a pretty blue rayon shirt, and some socks and underwear. Yeah, fairly boring but necessary stuff. Then we went to the mall, where I wanted to get Kiki's Delivery Service and Ponyo (haven't seen it yet, but I think it's safe to assume it's good), but I wasn't quite ready to bring myself to pay $30 each for them, so instead I bought the House of M arc (in it's own book) from Marvel, and I'm so glad I did, it was excellent. Dramatic, great art, great story, and enough of it's own story that you can read it on it's own without being too confused. It kind of made me want to start reading X-men comics, which I never really have gotten into before, as much as I love Marvel and read about characters on wiki. We went to LaSenza and I bought nice under things for ridiculously good prices. Just in case that boyfriend ever shows up, ya know XD. Plus, they are pretty, and make me feel good about myself, so who cares if no one is seeing them? We went to Teaopia to get some cold drinks, and then we headed over to Chapters for mom to get a book about jogging (she's trying it for a change). I was planning on getting FMA 22 and 23, but they only had 23 (that's so unlike them *sarcasm*) so instead I bought the first eight (lol) Sookie Stackhouse novels. There's still two out that weren't in the set, so so the series is still going strong. I'm really enjoying the books, the author doesn't take herself too seriously, there are genuinely funny moments, and the heroine is likeable and relatively realistic, which isn't easy to find but very important in first-person narratives. Finally, to finish up the day, we went to visit Nicki at new job to give her her bday present (a murloc plush from World of Warcraft and a DQ gift card) and she gave me my belated present (the movie DVDs of the Xenosaga games, which are very cool and very odd, as they had to cut out and rearrange a lot of the scenes and they don't really make sense anymore, but hey, it's the thought that counts) and then we swung around and got sushi for dinner. It's was an awesome day.

On Sunday night, I went on the Kingston 1000 Island cruise with the rest of the staff at my job. It's one of those "take a little from each pay cheque and then we use the money to do something fun" things that some jobs do. The other two hotels that are connected to us went too, so in total we were about 50 people. There were other people on the boat too, who I couldn't help but feel bad for since we're kind of a rowdy bunch when given the excuse. Dinner was paid for we just had to pay for any drinks. I had three drinks, and I didn't even get a buzz. Very disappointing. I didn`t even have to drive after because mom was picking me up, and I wasn`t even able to get drunk. Nuts. It was still a blast, though. We took a coach bus up and watched pirated episodes of Two and a Half Men which had Chinese subtitles and which we couldn`t hear anyways. We took pictures on the bus, and then it was stop and go traffic, and since our driver didn`t seem to know the meaning of easing on the brakes, I kind of got motion sick. Eventually, we made it to Kingston and we had about 45 minutes of free time, so a group of us went to a bar. Then we went on the boat and had the tour. There was an entertainer who was pretty good, and then there was dancing, which was interesting because the boat was rocking a bit in the waves. I got my foot stepped on by a girl with high heels, so I called it quits for dancing then. I saw the biggest house I have ever seen, which is apparently owned by the grandson of the guy who invented the pine tree air fresheners. Go figure. The food was pretty good, the dessert was really good, and the drinks were excellent. I think my new favourite drink is Long Island Ice Tea. Yum. Then we came back to shore and took the bus home. There was a lightning storm on the way home with no thunder, so that was kind of cool. Overall, it was a pretty good time.

Then, yesterday, I went to the movies with Kate and Mom. We went to see Inception, which was really good and cool, but a movie I am definitely going to have to watch more than once. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt is adorable, as usual, and everyone was in top form acting-wise. I don`t want to spoil anything, but I would highly suggest seeing it, because it was truly an imaginative and intelligent film, if really confusing for the first while. It`s also kind of cool that the main cast is so small, with hardly any supporting characters. Anyway, we had a fun time, buying candy from the bulk food barn but also getting popcorn and pop. On the way to the movie we saw a deer and on the way back we saw a very confident raccoon on the road who didn`t seem to want to move until I repeatedly honked my horn at him. He gave us quite the disgusted look before reluctantly toddling off.

In other news, I gave $100 to the Red Cross for Pakistan recently. It`s sad how little they have gotten despite the fact that the flooding has affected so many people. They said in the paper today that in the same amount of time as it took the Haiti fund to gain 3 million dollars the Pakistan one has only gained 200,000 dollars. I really think the discrepancy comes down to three factors: Race (westerners don`t like arabs as much as blacks, which is sad when it should be based on need, not who`s getting it), the fact that the quake in Haiti was so sudden and unusual, while floods happen all the time, and the death toll (90,000-230,000 in Haiti compared to 1,600 in Pakistan, but if you think about the disease and germs and exposure that must be involved, I`m seriously afraid that toll is going to go up). So yeah, I know you guys don`t have a lot of money lying around, but if you could encourage friends and family to give even a little, it would probably help a lot. I put it on my VISA, which I will have to pay off this week when I get paid. I also got to save up for new winter tires. Oh joy.

Anyway, guys, I`m feeling better from last time. Sorry for the wordy entry, but I figured I actually had stuff to talk about this time XD. I hope you are all doing well.

Waltzing Matilda. Eat that.

Hey guys. In lieu of an actual journal entry (since nothing that much had happened) I have a questiond for you guys that I have been wondering about: What was the first game you ever bought for your consoles and what do you remember about that game?

For me, the first console I bought was the Playstation, and besides the demo disc that came with it, the first game I got for it was a LucasArts game called Herc`s Adventures. It was a pretty campy game and it didn`t take itself too seriously. Pretty bad graphics too, but it was early Playstation. You could be Hercules, Jason, or Atalnta and you had to find the Goddess of Spring, Persephone, who had been kidnapped by Hades so that spring never came. There was a two-player version, so my dad and I played that for hours. If you died, you had to go to the underworld and work your way back to life, but if you died ten times it was game over. So you had to beat the game before you died ten times. You can see the difficulty. I did love that game though, as I was really into Greek myths when I was kid. The game played a good homage to them, despite being very silly.

The second console I bought was the N64, and I believe the first game I bought for that was Pokemon Snap. I think you all know the gist of that game. You wnet around and took pictures of pokemon for Professor Oak, and he would judge them, as accurately as he could. You could get through the entire game in about three hours, but it was a fun three hours.

The first game I bought for the Playstation 2 was Baldur`s Gate: Dark Alliance, which is a pretty kick ass game even by today`s standards. You could be a female elf, a dwarf, or a man, and you had to do various tasks for people that would involve going into dungeons of some kind. The game had really good graphics, a neat leveling system, and a two-player option as well. My two male cousins played the two player for a long time, and besides fighting over picked up items and stealing kills, they got the furthest in it I have seen in that game. I have no idea how much more there is to the game, but it`s fun and it was a good investment.

So yeah. What games did you guys start with?

My little Ford Focus is called Rubedo, after the character from Xenosaga. My car is red, and little, and ummm... cute? Plus is has a spoiler, which makes it kind of hip, so I think it fits. I want to get a green Toyota Matrix next and name it Enzo (from Reboot).

Welp, what can I say? Life has been... life-like? Work has been normal. A friend of mine at work had surgery and started going to school part-time, but she's fine on both counts. That's about it. Oh, wait. My boss asked me if I would like to be trained as an "emergency" supervisor. This is both a good and bad thing. Good because it means my boss thinks I do a good enough job that she thinks I can critique and correct other people. Plus (not sure though) there may be a pay increase. Bad because it's kind of a tricky job, with more responsibility (which always freaks me out), and some people I am sure will not be happy, especially the other supervisor, because I'm sure she will see this as me moving in on her territory. Plus, there's a lot of organization involved. Either way, I told my boss I would do it, but she hasn't mentioned anything more about it, so I don't know if it's going to happen. And by emergency, she meant that if something unusual happened and neither she nor the other supervisor could come in, I could take over. Yay?

What else, what else? I've been playing Pokemon like a fiend lately. I want to beat Platinum before I buy Soulsilver. Apparently the next set of games is called White and Black, which I think is kind of odd for names, but that's just me. Besides the fact that Micheal Jackson's "It doesn't matter if you're black or white" pops into my head every time I think of it. Which was also a really weird song for him to sing too, considering.

I had my friends Nicki and Dana over to have a Reboot marathon, because Nicki was starved of good television as a child and never saw ANY of it. The poor girl. We had a good time doing that and playing SNES and eating nothing but junk food. We got through the first season of Reboot. I wanted to get farther, but Nicki is not the sit and watch things for hours kind of person like I am. She had to keep getting up and dong other stuff XD. Oh well, we'll finish the series eventually.

Mom and Dad are going to Toronto next weekend for their anniversary. I have to work, as per usual on a weekend, but they very rarely do things together and treat themselves, I'll let t slide XD. Besides, I have AN to look forward too. My costume finally arrived and it fits great (pictures soon)!

Watching X-files right now. Really enjoying this show. When it's creepy, it's really creepy, when it's funny, it's really funny, and when it's dramatic, it's very dramatic. It can be very gross, however. Besides that, playing a little WoW, saving up money, watching random stuff on Youtube, exercising, and all that jazz. Having Kate over tomorrow because I got the day off! Yay! Love you guys, talk to you later.

George Takei is officially awesome. Not that he wasn't before, but you know XD.


God, that made me lol so much. Anyway, seeing my peeps Kate and Paul tomorrow, gonna rock out!!!

That is all.