paraka

Rick Mercer, I love you. From his rant:

And then it was the government's turn to respond and for this they chose that great parliamentarian John Baird. And did John Baird get up and say why they should survive? No. Instead John Baird stood up in the House of Commons and accused Michael Ignatieff, in front of all of Canada, of owning a condominium in Toronto that, wait for it, has a balcony. So if you're one of the two million Canadians that lives in a condo, with a balcony, be warned John Baird and the Conservative party do not condone your lifestyle.

That totally made me laugh. And really what else is Canadian politics good for these days except for a laugh.

In other news, I'm catching a cold. This is crap. :(

So, things have mostly been silent from me for, pretty much, forever. At first I was just going to take some time off from journaling while all my crazy house stuff was going down but it kind of ended up dragging. :S

I kind of got into a completely different routine at the new house, what with my awesome roommates. I feel especially crappy about it though, since I had just added bunch of new friends through the Terminator friending meme.

Anyways, I know that there's no way I can catch up on 4 months of back entries so, how have things been going flist? Anything major in your life or fandom that I've missed? I'd love to hear from you :)

Personally, things have been settling well in the new house. I've been feeling super creative, surrounded by fangirls, and I might actually take up writing if I can ever finish anything. I just came back from a week's vacation and am sad to be back at work. Oh, and I've been totally sucked into Merlin fandom. :)

So, I woke up this morning in a lot of pain. I don't know what's wrong but my jaw hurts like a mofo. It's the back right hinge of my jaw that hurts, and it's radiating back to my ear. When I first woke up I thought it was an ear infection (I have a history of those and they can make your whole head hurt).

I just came back from the doctor's and she doesn't know what's wrong. She couldn't see an infection, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I couldn't really open my mouth wide enough for her to have a good look, but she didn't think it was a tooth thing. Or I could have just done something while sleeping (like grind my teeth). She told me to ice it, take some Advil and wait. It'll either get better or it'll get worse.

So now I'm stuck eating a mushed banana for lunch.

*smooshes some more*

I can't believe it's Sunday night, why is the weekend almost over?

I went to a beautiful wedding on Saturday. The bride and groom had met when they were both acting in A Midsummer Night's Dream and they actually had the wedding at the very theater the production was held at. In that original production, the groom had been playing Nick Bottom (the one that gets turned into an ass) and the bride had been playing one of Titania's fairies (Titania is the Fairy Queen).

They used a lot of theme's from the play in the wedding. They had a gazebo set up on the stage with fairy lights and gauze, and the ceremony started with the Titania (the same actress from the original production) on stage. The groom came up acting like he was still Nick and asked Titania if he could marry one of her fairies (while making jokes that he had made a bit of an ass of himself last time they had met).

They then called out the bride. The bridesmaids were playing the part of the other fairies, my sister was the maid of honour and was terrified she'd have to wear wings or something, but the dresses were actually very nice, and only the flower girls had wings. My sister had actually missed the dress rehearsal (she had to work that day and it's a 5 hour drive for her, so no way she could make it) and the groomsman she was with had just had knee surgery and she ended up running ahead of him by accident while he fought with the stage steps :P We laughed at her.

Actually there was a lot of laughter in the wedding. The groom is a bit of a goof, so it was expected, but it made the whole thing really fun. Like in the vows, along with the "to have and to holds" they each threw in one of their own. The groom's was to do his part around the house by ordering pizza, and the bride's was to love the groom, even when it means putting up with 8 foot stage props in her living room. :P

And the bride looked absolutely beautiful.

When we heard about the wedding and that it was going to be done in such a non-traditional manner, we all kind of worried, but I have to say, it was one of the nicest weddings I've even been to (well the after party could have been organized better, but the service itself was amazing). It's my habit at weddings to plan my own wedding in the tackiest way possible (in my current plans I'm going to be married by Elvis and do the macarena as my first dance), but I actually found myself thinking that I wouldn't mind having a wedding like this instead.

So much going on tonight, of which I'll write about later, but first:
( Hopefully (Oh please god let me be wrong) Pointless Panicking )

Just got back from Dairy Queen. My mom randomly decided we should go out for ice cream. And I can hear her making cupcakes. I feel like a giant 5 year old, but she'd making them so I can bring them into work. For my birthday. :P

I was saying to raxhel today that it doesn't really feel like my birthday, since normally June is so busy we don't have time for anything. Except I haven't really been busy this year. I guess I took that statement to heart, because suddenly my schedule is looking pretty full. Tomorrow for my actual birthday we're just going to do a quiet night at home. But on Friday I'm going out with lilithilien and we're going to go to a concert. Saturday I'm going to go furniture shopping with my mom (20 days 'til the house is *mine*). And Sunday is the ottawa_slashers monthly meet up but I'm going to have to leave early since we're having my family birthday party Sunday afternoon.

Yesterday I met up with seanchaidh and we went out for dinner, and then headed over to a Starbucks for a write in. Often when I go to write ins, I spend more time distracting people than anything else (yesterday wasn't really an exception) or I'll bring my computer and work on editing a podfic or possibly a vid. Yesterday though, I just brought a note book and pen, and actually *wrote*. I restarted a Terminator fic I'm working on. I've also fleshed out a lot more of the idea. I'm really happy with the little I have down, so hopefully I'll keep writing, and eventually have something I can post. Right now, the working title is "Sex Bot Fic" to give you an idea what it's about :P

And because I haven't done one in a while: Vid Rec.

Title: Red
Vidder: obsessive24
Song: Red by Elbow
Fandom/Pairing: Merlin - Arthur/Merlin
Why I Love It: This is just such a *pretty* vid. I love all the slow motion shots, and views of red, especially of Arthur's cape. This vid really showcases how pretty the source material is (and totally makes me want to vid in the fandom, even though I have no *time*).
It's also a perfect song for Arthur, his mentality and life. "You burn too bright, you live too fast" "You're a tragedy starting to happen" I mean, isn't that just Arthur?
I love how the vid starts off with Arthur and his father; like an explanation or build up as to *why* Arthur lives this way. To show all the pressure Arthur is under.
Then the vid moves onto Merlin and shows an almost envy within Arthur. And it shows how hard Arthur fights for those around him. But then we get to see how Merlin also fights for Arthur too. Even if sometimes it's in the background. It really bring home that message of them being two sides of the same coin, and I love the ending shot, of Merlin holding Arthur above the water. Such a powerful vid.

God, I'm not having a good day (and it's only 7:15am). I stayed up really late last night working on my BB vid, only to find that the file won't save. The DivX codec goes nuts for a bit then everything just kind of stops and it'll run for hours and advance like 0.02%. I seriously left it saving *all* night and it was only like 30% complete. I have no idea what to do. The deadline for the rough draft is today, and I'm really afraid I'm going to end up flaking out on it (I feel like such a douche) :S

I hate this. Why do computers suddenly hate me?

So not only did I stay up really late working on this vid, I then had trouble sleeping. It took me forever to fall asleep, and once I did I kept waking up. And because I'm paranoid, I got up at around 4 to check on how my vid was saving. Which had me downstairs fighting it some more and took me forever to finally go back to sleep. And I had only been asleep for about an hour when my dad woke me up. I've been using his work computer to do this vid on because none of my vidding programs are working on my computer and he needed to close my stuff down so he could head to work.

I called in sick to work today. I feel guilty about that because my fever is gone and I have this weird complex that you're not actually sick unless you have a fever. However, my head is pounding,my throat aches, my nose is running, I'm coughing up a lung and it feels like I have a large stone embedded in my chest. So sick day it is.

So, I'm now a student again! Yesterday I signed up with Athabasca University, where I hope to get a degree in Canadian Studies. It sounds like a really cool course that covers a lot of material. Everything from history, language, politics and literature. I'm not really sure what I'll do with it, but as I've been told over and over again, half the time they don't care what your degree is in, so long as you have one.
I haven't signed up for any classes yet, I'm hoping to speak to an adviser to find out what courses they suggest.

The thing that's nice about AU (which I'm so going to be calling it :P) is it's a school based on distance education, so I can take it and live wherever.

Right now I'm living in Ottawa and working full time. It's a good job, I enjoy it, and it pays well, but I don't actually enjoy living in Ottawa right now. I don't have very many friends here, most of them live in Guelph, or are online. I'm living with my parents, which is really pathetic, and means I haven't much (or, you know, any) of a social life. I live in the country where there's nothing to do, and it's easiest to do nothing.

Also, I'd really like to travel. Like, a lot. Since I don't have to be in one place to take this degree, I kind of want to use that as an excuse to travel, try living in a couple different places. I have a decent amount of money saved up right now, I was thinking of buying a house, but it would be more than enough to let me move and support myself until I found another job. But! I have a really good job right now. Dilemma.

So, I want to ask my flist what they think I should do.
[Poll #1155347]

Ok, I'm not sure how many of you heard about that *huge-ass* storm that swept through the North Eastern US and South Central Canada, but Ottawa, where I live, was right in the middle of it, and we're still digging out. Last week, we got about 80cm of snow (that's 31.5" for the Americans on my flist), which is crazy. Worse yet, we've already had a huge amount of snow this winter, and it's not going away. So far this winter, we've had more than 4m (over 13 feet) of snow. We're something like a foot away from breaking the record for most snow.

( pictures, for those interested )

These pics were from the weekend, we got more today, and none of it seems to have melted. It's really scary driving around corners, because you just have to go slow, and hope that no one's coming; there's no way you can see around the snow banks.


Also, you know how sometimes Canadians and Americans have different words for the same thing? This is the reason why Canadians have March Breaks, and not Spring Breaks, because chances are, it's not spring when we have our week long breaks from school in March.

So, a few weeks ago, my dad got really sick. My dad hardly ever gets sick, but this time, it was a really back cold. He sounded so bad, that every time he'd cough, I'd kindly tell him "Don't die!".

He's mostly better now, so he has decided to pass his cold onto me. Bastard.

It started off yesterday, with a weird feeling in my throat. Then my lungs hurt when I was running to a late appointment. Now, I can't lie down without feeling like my lungs will collapse. I was coughing up a lung earlier today, and have only stopped now because I took my asthma medicine (which is expired, since it's been about a year and half since I've needed it), but now I'm feeling all jittery.

This sucks.

On the funny side of things though, my parents dragged me to church this morning, and there was singing. They didn't have books, so instead had a power point projection on the wall with the lyrics. I always hate it when they just post lyrics, because it's hard to follow a new song without the sheet music. So I leaned over to my mom, and told her that I think it would be a lot more effective, if they had the lyrics projected on the wall Karaoke Revolution style. That way, even if people don't read music, they can seen when to hold notes, and when the melody goes up or down. And, they could mix in the DDR part, and have everyone dance too. My mom rolled her eyes, and said she'd be happy if they just played something cheerful (all the music had been long and kind of depressing before).
About 2 seconds later, the people at the front wrapped up the song they were singing, and a group of teenagers sitting in front of them all stood up and started clapping, and they break into this cheerful song. I turned to my mom, and told her "Looks like you got your wish" but the really funny part was, when I turned back, they were all *dancing*. Ok, it was more like lame actions to fit the lyrics, but still! How funny was that!? We both started laughing our asses off (as quietly as we could). I was laughing so hard, I went into a mini asthma attack and was practically crying between the coughing and laughing.

Then I glared at my dad, because I totally blamed him for the coughing part.