Social activist in the making

I was home this weekend and unearthed my grade 6 diary. As the entry posted below shows, already my social consciousness was growing, though apparently, the injustices of the world didn't exactly keep me up at night.

September 21, 1987.
Dear Diary,
Guess what? Mr. K changed his mind. We're not doing solutions, we're doing plants. Oh well, it'll be fun at least. You know I've been thinking lately about how lucky I am. I mean, I've got a perfect family. A large allowence, all the food and clothes I could want. What more could I ask for? (a winning lottery ticket!) But such is life it's so incredibly unfair. If you don't have white skin your not as good? Wrong! Well, such are the ways of this wicked world. Gotta go! Bye!
Yours truley,
Erin

I had also begun to delve into deep philosophical questions regarding the very nature of reality (and yes, I did use both the words quote and unquote - unquote notice, not end quote - and actual quotation marks. What can I say? I was thorough).

September 25, 1987.
Dear Diary,
Do you think there are aliens. I do! I mean maybe they live inside the planet not outside like us. What about the universe? Does it end? What comes after? Is the universe just a cloud in the sky. Quote "If every 100 years an eagle brushed the top of a 100 foot mountain with just one feather, when there was no more of the mountain just a second has passed in eternity." unquote.
Yours truly,
Erin

But despite the great leaps I was making in my social and intellectual development, I apparently still had a few problems with keeping perspective (FYI, I always got stinking buttloads of stuff for Christmas, way more than was reasonable. Always).

December 31, 1987.
Dear Diary,
I will fill you in eventually I promise. Today Shannon + I went to the mall and I bought a really cool camera. It $28.75 but it was $13.00 less than before. You won't believe this. Shannon is going to England and than
PARIS!!!!
Some people have all the luck. Then again her mother was killed in a car accident. Well today is the last day of the year. We are going ot a movie tonight. Shannon went home and I'm in my room. Paris! Paris in France! What I wouldn't do to go there. And Shannon is going. I mean shit I havne't even been out of North America. The farthest I've gone is Florida. I cleaned up all my Christmas things. I didn't get a lot this year. I went to get that WOB money and guess what. The post place was closed. My god well see you next year!
Love
Erin

Cute pooch!

Look at this super-cute print I got for $4.50 (with a matte) at my school's poster sale. I love it!

And Jesus blushed and said "I don't know this guy, I swear."

Seriously guys, this one doesn't even need me to say anything. It speaks for itself. I found it at
http://datelinehollywood.com/archives/2005/09/05/robertson-blames-hurricane-on-choice-of-ellen-deneres-to-host-emmys/ Oh, Christians. WWJD? My guess is hide in embarassment.

ROBERTSON BLAMES HURRICANE ON CHOICE OF ELLEN DEGENERES TO HOST EMMYS
Lesbian is New Orleans native
Hollywood – Pat Robertson on Sunday said that Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of expressing its anger at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its selection of Ellen Degeneres to host this year’s Emmy Awards. “By choosing an avowed lesbian for this national event, these Hollywood elites have clearly invited God’s wrath,” Robertson said on “The 700 Club” on Sunday. “Is it any surprise that the Almighty chose to strike at Miss Degeneres’ hometown?”Robertson also noted that the last time Degeneres hosted the Emmys, in 2001, the September 11 terrorism attacks took place shortly before the ceremony.
“This is the second time in a row that God has invoked a disaster shortly before lesbian Ellen Degeneres hosted the Emmy Awards,” Robertson explained to his approximately one million viewers. “America is waiting for her to apologize for the death and destruction that her sexual deviance has brought onto this great nation.”
Robertson added that other tragedies of the past several years can be linked to Degeneres’ growing national prominence. September, 2003, for example, is both the month that her talk show debuted and when insurgents first gained a foothold in Iraq following the successful March invasion. “Now we know why things took a turn for the worse,” he explained.
In order to avoid further tragedy, Robertson called not only for the Television Academy to find a new heterosexual host, but to bar all homosexuals and bisexuals from taking part in the ceremony.
He said employees at the Christian Broadcasting Network had put together a list of 283 nominees, presenters, and invited guests at the Emmys known to be of sexually deviant persuasions.
“God already allows one awards show to promote the homosexual agenda,” Robertson declared. “But clearly He will not tolerate such sinful behavior to spread beyond the Tonys.”

Ummmm... what's your name again?

I know, I know. It's been a very long time since I last blogged. But I have a much good reason. I've been writing my comprehensive exams. This is a week long set of exams that I need to get an A on in order to get my Ph.D. Because apparently getting straight A's and scholarships for the last NINE years isn't enough proof for them that I am smart. Apparently, they need me to sit down and write 5 essays in a week to prove it one... more.... time. Gug. Anyway, that's what I've been doing. I've had four panic attacks, two of which occurred in public. And a had a half a panic attack when I was handing my work in. I started frantically checking my essays to see that I had all the pages, that the pages had staples, that I was wearing underwear, that it was actually Tuesday and not Monday, that dog was still god spelled backwards etc. The elderly woman next to me on the subway was sort of looking so I said "I'm handing in my exam and must check it obsessively." She smiled and said, "yes, I know, I was young once too." I said, "I go crazy checking it over and over." and she said "You're not the only one who does it." I love that lady. She made my chest stop pounding for 4 whole subway stops and made me feel slightly less alone in the mad, crazy universe of the subway panic attack.

Anyway, during the last week, I've spent about 12-14 hours a day writing the essays. Saturday night, day 5 of the exam, I decided that at 8:00 I would stop and not do anymore work for the rest of the night. Mark and I tried to rent a movie but there was nothing good out. And nothing good on tv. So I thought, hey, maybe I'll read a book. And then I threw up a little in my mouth at the thought of stuffing anymore knowledge into my head. So then I thought, I know, crossword puzzle. And I pulled out my word puzzle book (yes, I have a word puzzle book. Several actually. Yes, I'm a geek). I flipped through and was feeling vaguely panicked by the challenging stuff so I decided on a nice simple word search. You know, where you find the words hidden in the random letters. They used to have them in Chickadee magazines when you were five or sometimes you'd get them at the dentist with words like "floss" and "toothbrush" hidden amongst a page of q's and z's. My point is, it's as easy as the word puzzle gets.

Anyway, I lasted TWO WORDS before my brain threatened explosion and I had to stop. It turns out, I had pushed the old computer to the limit and it was heading toward the picket line (Hey, I like to mix my metaphors!). The only thing I could handle was tv. And not even watching a show. Just flipping through the channels. For two hours. Just me and the remote while Mark sought refuge downloading music online. Two hours of flip... flip...flip... Then I was tired and I went to bed.

Anyway, my brain is coming back today. Enough that I realized I wrote in my paper that the case study woman was emotionally liable instead of emotionally labile. I'm just going to have to hope the examiners don't read it too closely. In case I haven't written about this in the past, I should make it clear here, I HATE SCHOOL. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
GAA! GAA! GAA! GAA! And yes, that is the way I'll explain it once I'm Dr. Ross, too.

Dawson's Creek sucks ass

So since writing about Joshua Jackson and Chad M. M., I thought I'd tune in to Dawson's Creek to see when they were going to get to Chad's plotline. Which by the way, is a really bad plot line because it involves Joey singing in a band and seriously, WTF? Katie Holmes a) cannot sing (did they not remember her attempt to croak out "On My Own" in a sing-talk, off-key fiasco during the beauty pageant episode) and b) has none of the charisma of a band member.

Anyway, I digress. The point is I watched 1.5 episodes and it sucked so hard. The first episode involved the gang catering a wedding with Joey's dad as chef. After the dinner was over, all the little Creekers hit the dance floor, in their catering uniforms. Hello??? Waitstaff do not dance at weddings. I have both worked for a catering company at weddings and have been married. First of all, trust me, if you're staff you're still busy after dinner is over. And then you're tired. Plus, you're not a moron so you don't assume the bride and groom would like to party with you, whom they've never met before and even now only know you as the bringer of food and champagne. Second of all, if the staff had decided to join in the dancing at my wedding, I would have been so pissed off. It's a formal affair that costs thousands and thousands of dollars, not a chance for staff to make-out on the dance floor. Seriously, Dawson's kids. Boundaries.

Then I watched the episode where Andie starts to hallucinate that her dead brother is around. While this episode has some very good sensitive Pacey moments (mmmm....), it is the worst written episode ever. First of all, Andie calls her brother Tim, "Brown." To me, this is a "strategic" plot device which allows Andie to talk to her hallucination and Pacey to overhear from another room and not realize she's talking to Tim. But the reason they give is sooooo poorly crafted. Apparently, when Andie was little she couldn't pronounce Timothy so she called him Brown instead because brown is her favourite colour. Um, what? First of all, what little kid finds brown easier to say than Tim? Seriously, the br sound is hard for little mouths. So that's just crap. Secondly, I do not know a 2 year old girl out there whose favourite colour is brown. Purple, red, blue, pink, yellow. These are all colours children love. Brown? Seriously, he had brown eyes and hair, couldn't that have been why? Or how about that he always wore brown because it was his favourite colour? That would make more sense. Especially since we rarely see Andie wear brown, which is unusual since it is her favourite colour and all. So frickin' dumb.

Then to make matters worse, they provide very lame explanations of her mental health disorder and have her taking only moderately appropriate medication. Apparently Andie's problem is much like her mother's - after Tim's death she repressed her grief so much that her subconscious produced a Tim hallucination for her to talk to. Hmmm. Yeah, in my circles we call that a psychoanalytic conjecture, not a diagnosis. The diagnosis would be Major Depression with Psychotic Features. For which apparently, Andie takes an anti-anxiety drug. I guess we're supposed to think that anxiety brings on the hallucinations? Which it does in real life sometimes but it seems like her major problems are going untreated. That's some good psychiatric care she's getting.

Plus, I hate Dawson sooooooooo much. I hate James Vanderbeek and I hate the character of Dawson. That show would be so much better without him. Seriously. Really, they could have kept Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson and just let everyone else go. That includes you, Katie Holmes, with your crazy couch-jumping boyfriend and your inability to wear a bra that fits properly!