Liberating?

Really? The thought that in thirty years, no one will remember a thing you do or anything you've done in your life? You find that liberating? That's one of the most depressing things I can think of. Sure, if you mess up a little bit in a school performance it's not that bad. But the idea that you will pass through time without a single fact remaining about you? That's belittling.

In other news, why does the planet think I need to be completely prepared for my plans in life by the time I'm sixteen? Fourteen, even. Let me explain, perhaps?

In grade 10, I was fourteen. During april of that grade I had to decide what classes I would take in eleven. And what do 3U courses lead to? Gr 12 courses, the ones that you need to pick for your university choices. Not to mention that your grade eleven marks are the ones that most universities will look at first. And if you have trouble, or choose the wrong classes in your third year of high school? Then you've completely ruined your life. Good luck repairing, unless you return for a year 13. Which is NOT a good idea, at least not in my opinion. But I digress.

There is snow outside, it's a good temperature, and I feel like fort building. And so I leave you.

Hmm, autotune...

I love music if it's genuine. Like, real emotions and feelings coming through the music. No matter how good it sounds, if the purpose is making money or getting famous, you can usually tell (crappy lyrics).

And I love genuine instruments. Like, they can do crazy stuff with technology, but there is something timeless and unbeatable about straight guitar and piano and drums etc.

And also, autotune - isn't that kind of like cheating?

It's ridiculous how much emotions affect our bodies. Like fear, nervousness, actually causes your hands to shake of their own accord? WHAT THE HELL?! We should be able to control ourselves.

Or I should be able to control myself, I'm sure everyone doesn't shake when they're nervous.

So you know what?

I few days back I was walking outside and I realized something.

The things I do now, no one will remember or care about later. Later being anywhere from days to years. In a couple of decades, we will all be dead.

Basically -

No one gives a fuck.

It was so liberating.

Transverse

COLOURED FONT! YAY!

I can see where you're coming from with your thoughts of karma and realistic-ness. Novels are, by concept, meant to be a way to see into someone else's mind and thoughts. That's why novels were first written, as a way of understanding someone. Of course, they've branched out and diversified much since then. But the root cause has remained the same, and I think the real reason we just automatically dislike happy endings: we're jealous. The unnamed entity who inhabits the book/movie, the person we are trying to understand, ends up happy. An ending without grief, suffering, or any negativity leaves us- subconsciously at least- feeling that their life is better than ours. We all have our share of unhappiness, so a joyful, happiness, blissful ending is only going to bring out the green eyed monster of envy in us.

That's enough red for now. Sorry for taking such a negative side, but that seems far more likely than suffering=happiness. Sure, a shot of joy after a long period of sad feels much better than a blissful, general contentment all the time. But either that's not true or we're far less intelligent than we would hope, because droves of people are drugging up and therapizing with that bliss in goal. We want to achieve contentment, not joy. Happiness is by virtue, fleeting.

Against Happiness: in defence of melancholy. Fantastic book on this subject.

What are your thoughts on autotune?

I've sat infront of the computer for the last five minutes trying to think of something to say.

But I got nothing.

So I'll just get straight to the point.

Yeah, I see what you mean Jack, stories must be bittersweet.

But why?

Because....

suffering=happiness.

We feel like we need to undergo pain in order to justify our happiness. To compensate for it, balance it out. Sort of like Karma, but not quite.

Good fiction is believable fiction, not really in the specifics of the plotline (magical schools of witchcraft and wizardry not soo much) - but in the characters and general happenings, and free happiness is not believable

Orr you could say, fiction models want we want/expect in real life. Which would be balance.

I remember the first book I read that didn't have a happy ending. The Tin Soldier? Poor guy, I was crushed. I could not believe what I was reading. And then with Charlotte's Web. Charlotte dies!!! I may or may not have cried.

Strangely enough....I now love depressing books.

Actually, I love all books so I guess that statement loses some impact now doesn't it?

Happy endings= bad.

Oh no, he's priming for another depressing philosophical blog! Hurry, set all shields to happiness-filter. Prepare to synchronize all walls into joy-mode. Protect yourself before the sadness can get through!

... too late.

Now, not to be a total downer but I really do not like happy endings. Sure, they have their place in literature and other forms of art- sometimes. But when there is no reason, at all, to have a happy ending other than to justify itself. To paraphrase Douglas Coupland's characters of Gen A, "a happy ending for its own sake is like masturbation of the mind." Amen.

Sure, happiness is good. But when you just write it in to neatly tie up all the loose ends and leave a glow in your audience? Pure and utter rubbish. Looking back, all of my favourite books and movies end on a sour note, and if not then at least bittersweet. Let's look, shall we?

Lord of the Rings- Frodo and Bilbo leave middle earth forever, leaving their loved ones. Not to mention arwen's abandoning the rest of the elves and choosing a mortal life to be with aragorn.

Any Doctor Who finale ever- Donna's lost her memory. Rose in an alternate dimension (though that's really a happy ending for some)

Harry Potter- Dumbledore dies, along with one of the twins (fred or george, I can never remember), tonks, lupin, and like a thousand other people. AND DOBBY :'(

I think that's enough. An oddly accurate representation of my interests, too. But to return to our thesis: any happy ending, unless satisfactorily written in and explained, is eventually going to ruin your book/movie/song(?). Poe, Hemingway, Dickens: no great author would dare to leave a book in bliss. There has to be at least the illusion of some sort of unpleasantry. It's the only way to assure a fantastic piece of fiction.

***Edit: I thought I was going to work so I polished this off quickly, but due to the weather my shift was cancelled. Seeing as everyone else in my family is leaving to go see my brother's gig in Hamilton, that means about 5 hours home alone. The following will be random excerpts developed throughout this time.

Standing on a spinning chair is one of the most dangerous feelings ever.

Surprisingly, oranges and potatoes are not appetising together.

Soy milk doesn't make good milkshakes.

Pixel Perfect is one of the best Disney movies of my childhood ever.

Black parents have the best names for kids ever. Naleighla? Awesome (credit supernanny).

I remember being young and not caring what I looked like!

Those were the good old days.

I also thought:

-mustaches grew out of noses - like, an extension of nose hairs.

-my parents got change back from the cashier cause they were just that awesome.

-you could get pregnant by just deciding it in your head. I wondered if I could have a baby too...

-I DID NOT get why my dad could sleep with his shirt off in the summer but I couldn't.

I remember swinging all over my playground like a monkey - the sand was sinking sand.

Eating plain yogurt and sugar, pretending it was the bears porridge and I was Goldilocks.

Being absolutely fascinated with bubbles. They're still mind blowing - explosive little irridescent rainbow skinned globes. I remember wondering if there was a place for all the ones that float away, a sort of heaven, or neverland for lost bubbles.

I wonder if we actually change when we grow up, or if we're really the same person we were at 5, just with additional layers of experience, regret and fear layered over each other. But if I could peel those away, would 5 year old me still be there?

If you could go back in time and meet yourself as a kid, would you say anything to you?

Mousse and cybersex

Is it wrong to care what you look like?

See, for the first 14-ish years of my life I could really not care less about my appearance. Evidence: when I was 4 I wore only rubber boots and no other footwear for nearly 2 months. They were fast to slip on and off, all about the functionality for me.

But recently- and by that I mean ever since coming out- I have become somewhat interested in the image I project. Some new glasses I got, just got a haircut (I hate those little itchy hairs that get stuck in your shirt collar. HATE.), and I've got lots of new clothes too. I like looking good.

Is that vain? Is it unusual? Definitely not to the latter, but just because everyone does it does not mean it's the right thing to do. Besides, lots of personal appearance products and the like are really quite environmentally unfriendly: hair products, specific washing instructions for delicates: that's a large factor in my decisions.

Luckily, shorter hair= less shampoo and :. less time in the shower. I don't use hair products. As well, t-shirts= ironed on logos, and :. cannot go in the dryer. air drying is very efficient. And finally, glasses= less contact lens wearing. Less solution used, :. better.

So it seems my makeover (a grand name for rather small changes) is not only helping the environment but making me look better. Hmmm.

Putting that all aside: vanity is not attractive. And I feel almost hypocritical sometimes when I put effort in. Like that TV show, What not to Wear. Why even bother? It shouldn't matter what you look like.

But that's the key, should. Though it's true that appearance should not matter, it does. That's no one's fault as much as it is everyone's fault. There's no point in dreaming for a purer, less superficial society: you'll just have to deal with the one we have, which sadly focusses on how people look far too much.

And if you're wondering about the second half of the title? Click here.

Thankyou Anna. I took your advice and absolutely destroyed a box of post-valentines day chocolates. mmhhhmm.

I just finished the reading the Kite Runner. So I'm still sort of inside my head. You know that moment when you finish a book or a movie, when you turn the last page or watch the credits roll down the screen? If it was a good book/movie, man I feel reborn. I feel like I'm emerging out of something, breaking the surface of water and breathing again. And then I'll spend the rest of the day cooped up inside my skull, mulling over parts, replaying scenes - relishing the aftertaste.

So all I'll do is leave you with some lyrics.

Run like a race for family when you hear like you're alone

The rusty gears of morning, the faceless busy phones

We gladly run in circles but the shape we meant to make, is gone.

Love is a tired symphony you hum when you're awake

Love is a tired baby momma warned you not to shake

Love is the best sensation lying in the lion's mane.

-Iron&Wine.

Tautology

A redundancy; embellishment; fecund; logorrhea; prodigality; superfluous; verbose.

That is only a sampling of the many terms I found that are, essentially, the same thing. Is this necessarily a good or bad thing? I mean, I am in no way condoning a language where there are only seven adjectives (if so what would you choose? curious...) but at the same time there is a certain efficiency to not having synonyms. Of course, they do help prevent unnecessary repetition in writing: no one wants to read something like

The brown dog jumped over the brown fence and then over the brown stream to get into the brown barn

but there must be a peaceful common ground, no? Somewhere between redundant and *take your pick of the above*. At least I hope so.

Now, you may be wondering from whence this reflection came. Actually, you might not be. It's not as if there is any sense or order or flow to our blog. That would be ridiculous. Although, I personally find it far more interesting to know why people find things interesting than the interesting things themselves. In any case, I was merely wondering about how far lexophilia can go. I've professed as myself that I love words, but there is a difference between love and obsession.

Example time! I love words. And like words, I also love, say... star wars. Ok? But my love for those things doesn't mean I automatically love everything about them. if family guy made a star wars spoof (which they did, and I saw it) I will not love it immediately. In fact, just the opposite. It was rather rubbish- excluding the doc who reference. brilliant- and that may or may not be related to my loathing for family guy. It's trash.

What I am slowly, circumspectly getting at is the difference between love and blind. Of course, the former is the latter. And yet if someone told me they loved *insert example here*, and I remembered something involving *insert something here* but it was terrible; would that other person enjoy this something?

Indefinite clauses are not helping. let's try this again. my friend Pasha loves words. And I can respect that. But if some random (pitiful noun, but accurate) mentions a word she likes, let's say "precocious" [love it too], then she loves whatever this random does. I may be slightly off base here, but she sent me a link to a youtube video that I could not stand. The singer had a raspy, abrasive voice. The lyrics weren't bad, but that one clever adjective doesn't redeem the suckiness of the rest of the song does it?

If you only like something because it's about something you love, is that appreciation or selective ignorance?

Returning to adjectives from a different route: George Orwell's 1984 is a futuristic novel (it was written in the fifties) about an overbearing Big Brother. And this government agency, in an attempt to prevent uprisings or resistance, removes select words from the language- which is a global constant at this point. Inasmuch, the idea and concept of freedom or liberty is removed from the language along with the words. They have whole departments dedicated to the editing and deletion of these dangerous words, but of course this is a slippery slope to censorship. The ministry of truth has nothing to do with verity, but rather in lying to the masses. There is a lack of language to accurately express their feelings, and so they don't feel anything at all.

Parallel to the REAL WORLD (because novels are fake, apparently?); in the few, backwoods countries where gay marriage is not legal- thank god I'm canadian (GO GOLD MEDALS!)- there is no word for the bond that longstanding couples share. They are far more than boyfriend or girlfriend, but husband/wife is not only inaccurate but little more than a mirror of hetero relationships. Until there is a word to truly describe just how gay partnerships work, there will never be true equality. The 26 little symbols that make up any idea or concept in the english language are slowly becoming the only way to convey thoughts. from a passing thought in my mind, to the way I write it down, to the way someone reads it:

Imagine a picture, splendid with colours and nuances. then send it through a scanner, but this particular scanner has only black and white shades and pitifully low resolution. On the other side, the picture is restored as best can be to full colour and detail, but the quality is not quite the same. That's how the alphabet works. And without the proper words, the picture itself can't even be sent.

Let's lighten the mood here. From our mutual friend Anna, who would like to join our blog in part: her input.

ATTENTION PLEASE
NEW BLOGGER AHEAD/prepare for skill

3...2...1...
blast off

so today is Fat Tuesday, also know as Mardi Gras or "The day I stuff my face with any kind of trans or saturated fats within arms' reach"
.'. THA BEST

My father has graciously agreed to order my all time favourite, 'Wings Up!'
and yes it is actually spelt with an exclamation point because it is so flippin' good. If you haven't had Wings Up! you have yet to discover the bliss that is chicken wings. *FUN FACT*: The flat wings or less experienced counterparts of the drumsticks are actually referred to as BANJOS... who knew? (the nasty gothic chick at the Upper Middle Wings Up! knew)

You'll never want to sink your teeth into another piece of meat; the glossy orange lucious meat chunks are sweet yet meat which is exactly what I love in chicken form. So in your spare time, get some Wings Up! and be satisfied.

Enjoy your fat Tuesday, don't be a pig...
just kidding be as much of a pig as you can possibly be it's the whole point of FAT Tuesday.

Act fat
Get fat
BE fat
(then sit down and feel like crap because you'll put yourself down and look in the mirror and call yourself fat and squish yourself in a ball of self pity and dread the unbearable stomach ache that is developing in your body... that's what I'm gonna do anyways, and it'll all be worth it :))

AP

Synapsis

The pairing of two homologous chromosomes during meiosis, prophase 1. I don't know, the word was floating around my head for some reason.

Why does stale popcorn taste so good at odd hours?

I'm dead tired and my eyes are terrifyingly red (they tend to do that when I don't get enough sleep, it's so damn irritating). I look high. Or like a demon. RAAAAAARRRRRGGHHHH.

AND I can't even make this a short post, because I have to talk about the song, the colour brown, another song, and my day. Jack forced me to write today, even though it's still technically the weekend. Pouty face.

OK I'll start off with the new song. Love Reign Over Me by the Who. I heard this on the car ride home and it completely blew me out of the water. Imagine shining wet pale underbelly, a frantically flopping, spastic, shocked little fish. That was my brain. When I heard this song it's absolute and utter brilliance hit me like asphyxia.

First of all, there are soft soothing rain sounds in the intro. Who doesn't love nature noises? It's coupled with strong and sophisticated piano that makes you expects some fancy classical piece. Then comes lyrics, atmospheric synth(I think) and electric guitar. Next come in all the elements of a normal nonetheless excellent Who song. Their guitar stuff, I don't know it just sounds so, friendly to me - I lovelovelove it. Then it has the most intense climatic ending ever, the drums are unbelievable. SO GOOD. If you end up listening to it, make sure you get the full version off of their ultimate collection or something.

Next, hmm. Well I went skiing today. I was twitchy and restless and zoning out all day, but the second I'm on the top of that slope.

Oh man.

What a rush. You have that first tip forward, this tentative little push, then gravity gets a grip on you and your off. It's so engaging, you're always watching ahead for little hills and ice patches, gauging your balance and gently switching your weight from one leg to the other as you try and evenly zigzag down the hill. If you let yourself go, the speed is unreal. Unreal. Huge adrenaline rush - your heart is your mouth the whole time as you're one slip away from somersaulting violently headfirst over your skiis downhill. You're crouched down to lower your centre of gravity right, and the pose feels almost predatory, primal. This feeling is encouraged by the unnatural speed, my hair was whipped out behind me by the wind into these lovely wild shapes. You'll be hurtling down one hill and eventually try to slow down, stretching one ski out infront of you at angle that brings you into a wide curve, trying with all your might to keep the pressure constant so that the friction might slow you. My thighs were sore as hell. Everything is so instinctual, the alertness required as you feel for the ground moving underneath you and constantly adjust to it, your legs like springs that absorb every motion and keep you upright.

Not counting my dreams - it's the closest I've ever been to flying.

Next, the colour brown. I understand where you're coming from Jack, it is kind of confusing. I don't know what to say as for the official status of brown. But I can say that this apparent conundrum (lovely word by the way) of it's lack of connection to any other hue is in actuality reversed. Not a muddy mess of pigment - you need to specifically mix a colour with it's complementary colour(whatever's opposite it on the colour wheel) in order to make brown. Or at least to control the type of brown you're aiming for. So orange and blue, red and green, blue and yellow. I love the variation possible in brown, you can have warm earthy tones, disgusting puky brown, sophisticated beige brown, solid wooden browns, warm sandy browns, etc. Mixing colours is tremendous amounts of fun.

Lastly, You and Me - Dave Matthews.

It must of been a nighttime thing, I listened to it during the day and it wasn't the same. But as it is nighttime, I can tell you what I get from it. Here is a peek inside my brain.

Just the intro itself holds so much promise, the guitar is so anticipatory, leading up to something.

Gonna pack your bags, something small, take what you need and we'll disappear. without a trace we'll be gone, the moon and the stars can follow the car.

Slipping away in the middle of the night? So goddamn exciting. Leaving no traces - nonexistence is appealing sometimes, you know? Have you ever been in the backseat of a car, your chin cupped in your hand as you watch the moon follow you through the car window?

And then when we get to the ocean, we gonna take a boat to the end of the world.

The boat part makes me think of Where the Wild Things Are, one of the most amazing movies I've ever seen.I imagine a dark sea, a diminutive boat with one tall sail. Haphazardly floating and somehow surviving across endless oceans, the seven seas, the great big blue. Infinite skies and sunlight, and then...

The End of the World. What a beautiful concept. Earth suddenly falls away and ends as the water rushes out into a gaping eternal void, shimmering spray touched with rainbows fills the air. There is a perilous little outcropping of rock on the edge of this chasm, a surprisingly sturdy island where our boat has landed.

When the kids are old enough, we gonna teach them, to fly

You have to love the audacity of this guy. Us people, we can't fly, we're ignorant unimaginative, hopeless, faithless, barren, disgustingly sensible - earthbound. But apparently...

You and me together, we can do anything, baby, you and me together, yes, yes.

I see dark little winged shapes swooping through the waterfall's mist.

You and I, we're not tied to the ground, not falling but rising, like rolling around. eyes closed above the rooftops, eyes closed we're gonna spin through the stars, arms wide as the sky. we're gonna ride the blue all the way to the end of the world.

Aha you and me to you and I. It was on purpose, he's not stupid.

Tied to the ground has given me an idea for a painting. And everything in this verse is complete bliss, love made tangible - it's uplifting and endless qualities described in something as physical as flight. Ride that blue all the way to the end of the world.

chorus again, the instruments sound so plain happy, his voice is pleasantly raspy and I dunno, real. It's like he's inviting you on this trip with him, from the very beginning.

Something small, till we reach the end of the world.

And those last few guitar chords. I'm glad you liked what I said, it was the only way I could think to describe it.

Mhhhhm. They make me want to cry and laugh and love all at once.

27.2%

When I first think of set? My initial reaction would be that of badgers. To be honest, that's a sett: badgers live in colonial burrows that are collectively known as setts. But if we're discussing set as letters and not phonetically, I immediately think of a shelf filled with knick knacks. Somehow together, a shared characteristic of some kind. A set.

I listened to the song. And...

I appear to be missing something. The song isn't having any huge effects on my psyche. The song just washes over me, pleasant to the ear but certainly not enlightening me or having any effect equivalent to that you seem to expect. What do you get from it? I just... there's nothing. It's a song, nothing more.

But your concluding sentence made me really happy. It was so deep and philosophical, but then it ends with insides. Such a childish word, that sentence makes me think of something like:

The only universal concept, experienced by everyone, is yuck.

A combination of the reflective and the juvenile. Mine isn't quite as good but I hope you follow.

Oh, the percentage in the title? that's nothing. Just the amount of knitting completed on my scarf. Maybe I'll upload a picture sometime later, I figured that if I really want to finish I should post my progress here. An audience watching me is definitely going to induce a stronger work ethic on me, there's no doubt. It's a lot harder to let something drop when you have told people. Embarrassment is a powerful tool.

Is brown a colour? This has bothered me for years, honestly. It doesn't appear to be linked closely to any other colours, while green/purple/orange/blue all have some relation to others. But brown is just all by itself. It's the colour you get when you blend all your paints together and you end up with a muddy mess of pigment.

And yet, the only non-colours are white and black. So I suppose brown can't be a tint or shade... the only conundrum is the lack of connection it has to any other hue. Can you help me out on this sasha? I'm rather confused by the whole thing. Hopefully your artistic eye can help.

Set.

A collection of items, namely cutlery, shining silver dinnerware is what pops up into my head first.

Then I think of volleyball - setting the ball for someone to spike into the opposing teams court.

Then I think ready, prepared.

What about you?

Connotation and denotation, fascinating stuff.

Which ties into perceptions and perspectives and what not.

Which makes me want to try something.

Jack (and anyone else who wants to)

listen to You And Me by Dave Matthews. Listen intently, put your head down, close your eyes, let the music envelop you, allow your mind to flow.

Tell me what happens in your brain when you hear this song.

(you have to go first because it was my idea)

I don't know what it is about this song, but I seem to feel compelled to listen to it at nighttime (LOVE the double ts in that word. So symmetrical and sharp, but not overly so because of the rounded n and m encasing it. Mhhh). It's really quite beautiful. And it takes me somewhere else.

Maybe I subconsciously love it before going to bed because I'm dream prepping.

Here are the lyrics

Wanna pack your bags, Something small Take what you need and we disappear Without a trace we'll be gone, gone The moon and the stars can follow the car and then when we get to the ocean We gonna take a boat to the end of the world All the way to the end of the world  Oh, and when the kids are old enough We gonna teach them to fly  You and me together, we could do anything, baby You and me together yes, yes  You and I, we're not tied to the ground Not falling but rising like rolling around Eyes closed above the rooftops Eyes closed, we're gonna spin through the stars Our arms wide as the sky We gonna ride the blue all the way to the end of the world To the end of the world  Oh, and when the kids are old enough We gonna teach them to fly  You and me together, we could do anything, baby You and me together yes, yes  We can always look back at what we did All these memories of you and me baby But right now it's you and me forever girl And you know we could do better than anything that we did You know that you and me, we could do anything  You and me together, we could do anything, baby You and me together yeah, yeah Two of us together, we could do anything, baby You and me together yeah, yeah Two of us together yeah, yeah Two of us together, we could do anything, baby  Something small, till we reach the end of the world.

Those last few guitar chords do something beautiful to my insides.

Soliloquy

I've always been a big fan of shakespeare, and I find myself constantly amazed at how talented he was. But again and again, I find some things about him less than genius. Such as:

Whenever characters have speeches by themselves (hence the title). I know that theatre is not real life, and that you need to learn somehow what all the people are thinking. Soliloquies do serve a purpose, but that doesn't make them any less annoying to me. No one does that, but even more so they tend to be boring. of course, there are definitely some shakspe-philes who will burn me at the stake for this but I can't stand them.

or:

The new evidence every so often saying that he didn't make it all up, or he stole the plotlines from someone else, or that he made errors in his writing. I almost don't want to listen to these, I would prefer to have never heard them at all. Is that irrational?

I normally have a strong policy that I want to know as much as possible. There is very little I don't want to learn: in the cheesiest way possible, knowledge is power. Why someone would turn down an opportunity to learn something new is usually incomprehensible to me, and yet in a select few circumstances I could understand. My idols, for example. not that shakespeare is my idol. But other writers, actors, just people I like in general. Discovering something negative about them is always such a conflict to me. I can't help wanting to know everything, but if you have looked up to someone for a considerable amount of time, only to learn that they, I don't know, cheated on their wife? beat their children? Could you honestly tell me that you would be glad to know that?

I don't think I would be. But at the same time, I would be unhappy not to know it either. There's a difference between total ignorance and lack of knowledge: if I never heard rumours or whispers about, say, Douglas Coupland's sex scandal (don't worry, completely hypothetical) I would be happy and unaffected. But if I heard it somewhere, then of course I would try to find out as much as possible. A perverse fascination drives us all, we cannot help wanting to know more, even if it isn't the best thing for us.

Oh, and sasha: we'll agree to disagree about karma. I feel like bringing back the random words: set. It has a good many definitions (the most in the english language I think), let's see which jumps into your mind first? I believe there are 137 different meanings; which is the first for you?

I'm currently listening to Gnossiene no. 1 by Erik Satie, and it's eeriness is a wonderful accompaniment to the howling winds outside. Howling winds bringing blankets of snow that I will likely have to get up early for and shovel off of people's driveways. Good thing I like shoveling. It's therapeutic, you know?

I have to say I disagree with your views on karma Jack. I'm sure she's not a bitch - I think of her as more of an impassive, fair and impartial judge, with wise eyes and a tired mouth.

Anyways, in my opinion, karma is not really give and take, eye for an eye, or tit for tat. It's not about the equivalence of negative and positive actions on a personal, immediate scale -not about retribution.

It's the ultimate totality of one's actions. A ledger of sorts. Eventually we will face respective consequences for our actions, whether good or bad, but not necessarily in this life. A grand total in which negativity outweighs positive could result in you being born as a goat in your next life. Or at least according to Buddhist philosophy.

So I'm in love winter right now. I have this picture in my mind from the weekend, let me try and paint it for you.

A warmish day, the sun is surprisingly strong, at least from the safety of my doorstep. I am sitting outside with a mug of green tea and my sketchbook - the evaporation is condensing on my glasses and the world is suddenly frosted and flat.

The road is randomly streaked with light here and there, as the sunlight reflects glaringly bright off of patches of melting ice. There is so much light, it's flooding in everywhere, the sky is absolutely cloudless and flat, although my limited view is obscured by tangles of tree branches.

Their bark looks like dry skin.

There is a cast iron pot type thing, meant for flowers. It's a lovely charcoal black, and the contrast created by this busy white light is just breathtaking, the lines are so clear, the shadows sharp and crisp. I simply must draw it.

Behind it, a drop of water falls every minute or so. I watch it slowly well up in the seam of the eavestrough, gleaming like unshed tears, then suddenly pitch towards the earth. Here comes the moment of impact, the downward force is reversed and the drop explodes upwards into little pinpricks of light.

The air is so fresh and clean.

2 hours later, the pot is finished and my fingers are brittle like twigs. Goodbye sunshine!

Disorienting darkness hits me like a slap upside the head as soon as I enter the door. What a summertime feeling, that brief blindness when you come in to relative darkness after being outside.

I will now hopefully be lulled to sleep by the gentle ebbs and flows of Warning Sign by Coldplay.

Goodnight people (Noella and Jack).

Reciprocation

Karma's a bitch. And you will all learn that, because the only reason I would get loaded with homework in all four of my classes the same night I worked? I obviously must have grievously offended basically every person on the planet. And as that would include our followers (including Kristina- I know who you are now ;) ), I apologize sincerely for such. Although, and this is where karma confuses me, but where is the equivalence? If I were to do something that is, say, a level 4 to someone. And then the karma returns and I get hit by a 5- am I not 1 behind now? Am I allowed to hurt them back with a small 1-valued action without punishment? And if I were to offend 3 people with a 4 each, does that count as a total of 12 against me now?

You don't have to answer. I'd prefer you did, but if you're really so busy that you can't then feel free.

Why do notebooks have spiral bindings? They are such a pain to undo and get at the delicious valuable lined paper inside. Conflict of interests, no?

I like Regina Spektor. You should too.

And now, though this is the shortest post in the history of our blog (all 15 posts), I honestly have nothing else to say. So I'll leave you now rather than make it any worse on you having to read this trite, sporadic nonsense.

List

Why thank you kindly good sir! Your analogies on adjectives were most enjoyable, you've completely changed my perspective on them. And the math feats you described were absolutely astounding.

About Douglas Coupland, well I've put some of his books on hold - I should be getting them from the library tomorrow. Shampoo Planet and something else...

Very excited.

My current reading list

-2 Douglas Coupland

-the Kite Runner

-Atonement

-Johnny Got His Gun

Hmm now I'm in a listing mood.

Movies to watch list

-Pans Labrynth

-The Beach

-Romeo and Juliet

-Avatar

-Lord of the Rings series

To Play List (on piano)

-Postcards From Far Away

-Bohemian Rhapsody

-Hotel California

-Piano Man

[these won't happen for a long time, I'm have a practical and theory exam coming up]

Colours I See Right Now List

-orange

-green

-blue

-white

-grey

-blackblackblackblackblack

Random Thoughts Passing Through My Head List

-my eyes are tired

-I almost spelt tired as tiered - wedding cakes -

-spell check says spelt is incorrect. Spelled? Oh. Right.

-the white B inside the orange blogspot icon sort of looks like a sidewaysish heart

Sounds I hear Right Now List

-wind and possibly rain buffeting the side of my house

-ticking of clock

-assorted hummings and whirrings of laptop

-gentle clicking noise of keys as I type

-rumbling of my stomach

I think I 'll go have a mug of hot milk + honey. Good stuff that is.

Pythagoras is SO BADASS

Once again, I am amazed at your talent for stream-of-consciousness descriptions. Who else could take such a mundane experience and wax philosophical for paragraphs? Well, Douglas Coupland probably. But we both love him, it's ok to compare you to him. In fact, I'd call it a compliment.

I was just working on some review of gr 11 introduction to functions (I'm in advanced functions [12 class] now because I love math so much) and I just had a bit of a eureka moment as to Pythagoras and his genius. I'd like to think that I know a little bit about mathematics- a prodigy even, if we want to go hyperbolic. But there is one great difference between prodigy and genius: a prodigy can learn, very quickly and easily, what others have already discovered. Genii, however, discover new things entirely. that is what truly separates the likes of Einstein, Euclid, Darwin and others from just intelligent people. They actually created a whole new concept: that's just outstanding. The sine law, for example:

sinA = sin B = sinC

a b c

states that the sine ratio of an angle divided by the length of the side across from it is equivalent no matter what values you substitute in. Now, that seems very simplistic now. But Abu Nasr Mansur, a Persian mathematician from the 10th century, discovered this from nothing. During the 900s, where there was hardly any education or knowledge at all, this guy created a whole new formula that can be used to learn values for any triangle at all. That's incredible. The pythagorean theorem, a² + b² = c², is amazing too. It's inconceivable how you would learn that. Did he make an observation that there was a relation? Did he just notice randomly that they were all equivalent? Did he strive for years to find a formula that could be used to solve triangles? Not much is known about his work, other than his credit in discovering this. All I can say is, no matter how intelligent I am, there is no way I could ever create something like that. Even Karl Gauss, a schoolboy in medieval germany, who discovered how to find the sum of consecutive numbers: add up all the numbers between 1 and 100. This should have taken him hours to do, but this ten year old got the answer in less than 3 minutes. Unbelievable. He revolutionized how people do math, and he hadn't even hit puberty. Just... words fail me. I don't know why people don't find these feats more impressive.

As for verity... I don't really have many thoughts about it. My first impression is that of a name, it seems like something you would name a little girl. Probably dark haired and fair skinned: snow white would be a perfect verity. But after some contemplation, it means to be truthful. An adjective, a word that can never live on its own but only used to describe a noun. Adjectives are like the sad puppies of grammar, never solo but always following other words around, improving and explaining them. They're the needy partners in a relationship, the ones who need love and more love. or maybe it's not like that at all, maybe adjectives are more like servants who live to please their master; that seems more likely. After all, adverbs deserve a place in this relationship as well: they're the jack of all trades, describing verbs, adjectives or even other adverbs. I suppose they would be a slave, or maybe just a worker slowly rising along the employment ladder. Working odd jobs, doing whatever they can until they finally reach the break even level and they get other adverbs describing them. Striving to reach higher and higher, like rabid dogs battling each other to be nearest their trainer.

So that's what I think of verity.

Rocky Mountain High - John Denver

Yup. John Denver. Cause I'm cool like that.

His music is actually mindblowing, if you don't mind the country twang...

"Colorado Rocky Mountain high,

I've seen it raining fire in the sky.

The shadows from the starlight are softer than a lullaby,

rocky mountain high."

Ohh and the guitar just makes me so unreasonably happy. Good stuff.

Jack, the only problem with the punishment you've come up with is - I am not sarcastic, or critical of books. It would be a more suitable punishment for yourself, as they're both traits you possess. I'll do it if you want to, but I doubt you'd get much satisfaction out of it.

BminE

Be Mine?

The sheer numbers of the youtube community amazes me. Popular videos have so many views, and when you stop and think about it - woaah, ALL THOSE PEOPLE, it's kind of crazy.

There's a new guy in my English class who looks sort of petrified all the time. Or most of it. But anyways, I wonder if he has any idea it shows. We all think we have control over our faces, but we really don't at all. Whether it's twitches in the corner of the mouth, eye creases or lack thereof, widening of the eyes, even the amount of times we blink, and of course not to forget eyebrows, those wonderfully expressive little strips of hair - our emotions are usually written, unwittingly scripted into all these little nuances of facial expression. Have you ever been lying in bed or staring out a window thinking about something important to yourself, when all of sudden you realize how tense the muscles of your face are? You realize this, and you have to make a conscious effort to relax these facial muscles (which by the way, there are a ridiculously surprising amount of) and you feel your whole face like, drop. I wonder what this mystery face looks like - I will never know. Which is probably a good thing, it's likely some contorted yet spaced out weird little expression everyone is lucky they've never seen.

I'll leave the lexophile a word.

Verity

Touché

I don't actually have any witty asides here to mention, only that with our new formatting the font I selected is trebuchet, which if pronounced with a french accent and has the "reb" cut out, is said the same as my title. That is all, just an observation I came to make.

I haven't had much feedback from our readers, but seeing as this is a blog, I feel your punishment should be constructed in writing in some way. how else are we to know that you actually did it? And personally, I would love to see you review some trash... I'm going to give you an open ended choice. Find the worst book you ever read, and review it as if it were fantastic. Heavy sarcasm is helpful, no doubt. So hopefully you know what I mean and you'll get on that sometime in the future.

Now that Sasha has revealed her not-so-covert love of one Republic, maybe I should match it with some musical tastes of my own? And who better to choose than All Caps, a band I am very fond of. It's composed of two member, Kristina and Luke, whose respective youtube pages can be found here and here. Now isn't that some talented linking? I think so. They have one album out, Songs in the Key of Email, and they are currently working on their second record which is to be released any day now! BminE, yet another clever reference. I think I'll leave this one for Sasha if she can figure it out. Make no mistake, I am very much excited for this new release.

But you may have noticed, I didn't really say what music genre they play. That's difficult to say: if I tried my best, it would probably be nerd-electric-dance-wizard-techno-rock. Which is to say, they write dance-y electronica songs about some notably nerdtastic subjects. Eg: epic zombie love ballads, an ode to snow days, Voldemort Fangirl (don't wanna be a death eater) and Do You Like Me, the memorable story of a prepubescent girl passing notes in algebra class. Clearly, this type of stuff really appeals to me. If you're interested in buying their albums, or any other youtube musicians really, I suggest you check out the DFTBA Records site. They have albums and EPs from the likes of charlieissocoollike, nerimon, hexachordal and other youtubers.

Now, on to some less interesting subject matter. I have to go quantify physics equations into significant digits. Oh the joy.

Addendum: if you aren't into the youtube community, I apologize for the content of this post.

All This Time - OneRepublic

Yes, the title of this post is what I'm currently listening to. Their new album Waking Up is refreshingly different, I'm quite loving it.

One extra post constitutes as a punishable offence? Fine then. I wonder what you guys are capable of coming up with...

SPEAKING OF SCARY MOVIES - who's seen an ad for Shutter Island?

Martin Scorsese + Leonardo DiCaprio = geniosity

Well DiCaprio is pretty amazing in general. I could rant about the amazingness of Blood Diamond here for a long while, but don't worry, I wouldn't do that to you. Well actually, I probably would, I just haven't seen it in a while.

Anyways, I have to go see Shutter Island in theatres, I just need to find someone big and reassuring I can hide my head behind for the scary parts.

Uhoh Jack. The cold turkey sounds like an excellent idea. I would suggest more than a day even.

Too much of anything is not good.

Wow I sound like my mother.

Yeahh, not much to add to the public funding of religious schools debate. Other than I agree with you.

Do you think they'll get rid of that anytime soon?

So I was waiting to get into my music theory lesson and heard the clock ticking, and I swear I thought it was a man chewing. Can you imagine that?

Crunch, Crunch, Crunch.

Tic, Toc, Tic, Toc.

Who came up with tic toc anyways? I'm listening to my clock right now and it sounds nothing like it.

Onomatopoeia that's it!

I think it's hilarious that onomatopoeias differ from language to language. In french, a dog barking is ouah ouah, not woof woof. o.O

I'm not used to judging the size of these and I have school tomorrow, so I shall end this post now.

Goodnight!