Sunny Saturday

Tomorrow is supposed to be gorgeous and sunny. Not to mention I have appointments with craiglisters to go look at bikes but have nobody to drag with me. I need exams to be over so I can have some friends again...so basically if you are free tomorrow let me know so we can play. I also must add that I am addicted to Mr. Freeze Jumbo freezies lately - more specifically the white one which I have discovered is Cream Soda flavoured! yum yum! I wish I had more to report on but today was rather lame. I worked, watched more episodes of Psych, had dinner, watched the HABS WIN and played on Sporcle, a highly addictive website whose tag-line is "mentally stimulating diversions."I highly recommend it because it is a great way to kill time without feeling too guilty since it is very educational. Here was my

favorite quiz of the day -"Antonym Movie Titles."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So back to my summer, which is currently very planless. I have two goals for the next week:

#1. Find a super duper awesome location to travel to with friend Lisa at the beginning of July

#2. Find tons of fun local activities in Montreal to keep me busy until then

1989 - When blackberrys and facebook didn't exist

So today I turned 20 years old....a pretty big milestone.

I got loads of texts, BBMs and Facebook wall posts but very few calls. I wonder if an electronic birthday greeting is really equivalent to a phone call from a BFF?

Oh well, either way I had a great weekend but I am not stuck at home sunday night of my birthday doing way too much homework and fasting.

Which is Worse?

That my election campaign group on Facebook has only 13 members?
Or
That more than half those people are my friends... who can't even vote?

Obviously...

So as part of the journalism curriculum, first year students must attend a play. Our whole year went to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Segal Centre. This theatre is notoriously attended solely by jewish elders, aka old jewish women with short white hair. Based on this reputation, a few of my friends were teasing me about the fact that they assumed by grandmother would be there. I assured them she wouldn't and told them to stop stereotyping the token jew in the crew.

Well sure enough, the joke was on me. My grandmother called to tell me she too was going to see the play. So when I picked up my friends, I had to admit to them that despite anything and everything I had said earlier that week, my grandmother was front and center in the audience. Not that you could find her among all the other little cute old ladies with white and gray hair sitting next to her.

I was a good granddaughter and went to say hi just before the show started. I ended up meeting half the theatre but its okay cause I love my grandma so I kept a smile on my face as strangers pinched my cheecks.

Summing it Up

A friend pointed out that my blog has lacked substance lately. I agreed, so decided to share a few of the things that made my week oh so pleasant.

Tuesdays there is always a conference for first year Journalism students. This week we had the lucky treat of having recent journalism graduates from 06/07 who are currently "working journalists". I was so impressed one worked at the Gazette, another at Global, CTV, Chom, and CJAD. After they introduced themselves and spoke about their careers, I was so inspired. They then spoke about how they haven't had a weekend or summer in two years and shared embarrassing moments and career costing mistakes they have made. Hearing their first hand accounts and their honesty of bad experiences freaked me so much that after the conference I was ready to switch into psychology.

Signing onto facebook and seeing a friend request is something I used to look forward to. However, recently there has been an epidemic of campers adding me. I mean this is expected in August and September but by October I thought I was free from 10-12 year old girls requesting my facebook friendship. Clearly I was wrong. Not only do they add me 100X a day, but they flood my newsfeed, and my photo albums so that I can no longer do any discreet/effortless stalkage.

Public transport was my worst enemy wednesday. I had my first university midterm at 1015 downtown. I left at 915 more than enough time to get there and get a little studying in before the exam. But instead the bus arrived at 925 so full that standing on top of someone was the only option. Of course, a crowded bus is expected at rush hour but not when you live on the route's second stop. Hoping to do a little refresher on the bus was clearly no longer an option. I dealt with my frustration by realizing I still had the metro portion where I could do a little studying. So I get to the metro and hop on the cart just in time to hear that the orange line is down for an undetermined amount of time. Cool. It is now 9:40 and my class and midterm are so soon that I begin to freak out and contemplate heading out to find a cab. I decide to wait it out but I'm so nervous that I will miss my exam, that studying while waiting is no longer an option. I decide I will wait two more minutes. It is now 9:47 and I can no longer wait. As I am about to get up and go, the doors thankfully shut. But by then I am so nervous I stare at my watch the entire rest of the ride. With no studying done, I get to my exam just in time. This seems like a happy ending unless you know anything about me which means emily + nerves = death. I will be surprised if i get more than 25% on my midterm. Fun times.

So I don't really think this vent session counts as substance but it is a little more personal than my Top 3s. I am just thankful that tomorrow is Friday. Hopefully the weekend will bring me and this blog some more excitement...

Goodbye Summer

Today was the big day...
I had my first Journalism class: Writing and Reporting I.

I was hoping that one of the assignments would be to start a blog but my teacher informed us that it is a newspaper writing course. Print journalism only! Guess not then.

Highlights included getting the window seat on the shuttle bus, making my first University friend and surviving the heat in my jeans.

Bad vibe of the day was being awoken by a phone call at 5:30am from a blocked sender. When I answered, I overheard two girls with familiar voices in a conversation about a topic I no longer remember. After saying "hello" to no response, I assumed it was a pocket call by strangers. BUT NO! Moments later this girl on the other end screeched and said "Oh no! I just called Emily White". Then, they hung up before I could ask who was there.

My curiosity concerning the mystery caller has ruined my life not to mention the fact that summer is officially over. Thankfully, I have Thursdays and Fridays off to recover from today's traumatic events.

Corn Roast Kind of Weekend

My last weekend of freedom before entering the world of higher education was spent secluded up north. Cell phoneless, internetless, and friendless was not how I intended to savour my last bit of vacation. Unfortunately, Labour Day weekend / Grandma’s birthday is not a time you disobey your mother’s request to have you up at the country house. Despite my mother promising that I could spend the weekend in town, I knew that she was just saying this as a way to guilt me into coming. So on Saturday morning I packed my bag and headed up north. The lack of cell reception or internet connection could have been tolerable had I had a friend along for the weekend. After exhausting my “resources”, I found out that all my friends and my acquaintances were occupied with frosh recovery, their part time job, a wedding or their own form of family fun.

Upon arriving at the country house, I was welcomed by an ecstatic mother who was assured by my presence that her guilt still worked. Expecting the worse from this weekend I was relieved to see clear blue sky. Figuring this was a sign of things to come I relaxed and decided to make the best of it. Big mistake. Three hours later I found myself drunk at a corn roast with hicks averaging the age of 65. Cool.

At least all that intense partying left me ready to head back to school...

Summer of '98

In June of 1998, I spent two weeks at YCC, a sleep-away camp up north. I was unaware then that these two weeks would determine where I spent the rest of my childhood summers. This past Saturday I returned home from my 11th straight summer at the Y Country Camp.

One would think that after over a decade at camp, I would be ready to move on in life. This is not the case...
In truth: I am addicted to camp.

This addiction seems a little childish considering I begin university in a little over a week. I am going into Journalism totally unprepared because I rarely write. Friend #1 Jamie thought a blog would be a good way to get me into the habit of writing daily. This seemed liked the perfect solution and with the help of friend #2 Bram, I created The Whiteboard - in hopes of becoming an avid writer.

Problem: it took me three days before I finally wrote something...