;ALKDSFJ;ASLDKFA; I JUST DON'T KNOW HOW TO FEEL RN A;LSDKFJA;LSKDFJ

ON THE ONE HAND, I AM REALLY HAPPY BECAUSE I JUST ATE SUSHI FROM THE BLUE KITCHEN AND IT WAS LOVELY AND THE PEOPLE WERE AWESOME, AND I'M GETTING TO KNOW* THE NEW PEOPLE HERE, AND THEY SEEM REALLY NICE AND I THINK WE'LL HAVE A GREAT TIME TOGETHER

BUT

BUT

BUT

OTOH, TAMAS, JOANNA, AGNIESZKA, MILENA AND PAVOL ALL LEFT TODAY; ONLY FRANCOIS AND MICKEY ARE LEFT IN ALBERTINE NOW AND I AM SO SAD, AND I MISS EVERYONE WHO LEFT AND JUST WHY CAN'T THEY ALL COME BACK AND WE CAN ALL LIVE TOGETHER FOREVER SOB SOB SOB


emotional deluge under the cut )
I still can't believe this place. I still don't understand how this - any of this - is real. I'm still grappling with the fact that with one plane trip - literally, from August 28th to August 29th - life can change so drastically. Groningen is amazing. The people I live with are amazing. Everything is amazing and I am constantly in awe (and I know, I know, give it a few weeks and see what I'm saying then, but right now I'm living in this crazy happy bubble and everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.)

In the two weeks since I've been in Groningen, I've met people from all over the world. I'm making plans to visit places I've only ever known as names on a map - if that. One of my friends, Hanna, is from Finland, and has graciously mentioned invites to her home near Christmas time. Apparently they can hunt moose there by the light of the Northern lights! There are jokes going around about Oktoberfest in Munich, which I am so, so down for. It's crazy.

And that's probably the most extravagant experience for me: I am surrounded by people - and it's awesome. Over the last two weeks, I've been talking to people, connecting with them, initiating and carrying on conversations - and it's been fun! I never knew just being with people could be this enjoyable; is this what normal people feel like all the time? Even though school is already in full swing (I read three chapters of my Industrial-Organizational Psychology textbook this weekend and I have an oral presentation due on Thursday), I'm able to sit with people and just chill, relax, without stressing about projects or deadlines. I'm actively seeking social contact, which is so novel for me that I'm having a hard time believing it myself. This is so different from anything I'm used to; I smile at people in the mornings, say hi to them, even just sit quietly as they talk around me, all of us just doing our own thing - it feels like acceptance, community, and it's such a completely addictive feeling. How have I never experienced this before? It's so liberating, and I never imagined it could be like this.

P.S.: DUTCH MY LIFE
Mom, Dad and I just got back from a showing of the 2011 CanAsian International Dance Festival at the Fleck Dance Theatre. It was awesome! The first part featured some traditional Korean dancing; the second part showed a woman's search for closure after the death of her master (the dancing was really powerful, IMHO, but I spent the entire thing praying for her strapless dress to just hold on a little longer); the third part featured a man with the most fantastic abs I've ever seen performing a routine in which he whirled like a dervish for 45 minutes. I don't know how to describe it, but it was massively impressive, and also somehow a commentary on meditation in motion. He had these amazing skirts that almost seemed to move of their own accord as he turned; he kept taking them on and off, and throwing the up in the air throughout the performance. But NGL, I was mostly distracted by his abs.

In conclusion: awesome.

Other awesome things that happened today included finally satisfying my craving for Dundas Pizza garlic bread. A;SLDFJKASDHGHGLLSDF I bought some for lunch today, and it was so good. Then [livejournal.com profile] cherishedsaulie  and I hit up the Eaton Centre, where it was determined that I should never be allowed out in public ever again. Not technically my fault, though: you would laugh maniacally and slightly hysterically too if you had seen the Evan Lysacek Is The Swan Queen shoop. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL AND MY LIFE IS NOW COMPLETE.

So yeah, repressing the morning incident, today was a good day.
Well, I am once again back in Kingston. %UHHHHH. I want to say it wasn't as painful as last year, but I can't remember last year, so I won't. (Hey, kids. Chances are, if you're rating your feelings about going back to uni after a break as "painful", it's probably not the place for you. Too late now, though. Onwards and upwards!)

The break was marvelous, though.Read more... )

That's what I want to remember from the break. Fun times with friends and family, Oliver's head warm and heavy on my shoulder, the twins yelling at David and I to build the damn snowman already, Eden's loud and ridiculous proposal in the middle of the street, plotting Inception fic with Nav in Starbucks, being surrounded with so many amazing and brilliant people (I love you all ♥)... and just that winter break was awesome.
*dusts hands off*

Today snuck up on me! There I was, sitting in my chair and checking my email, and BAM! suddenly it's the new year. Happy New Year, everyone! Here's hoping to movements of the "onwards and upwards" variety for 2011. :-)

Original plans for New Year's were of the "going out dancing and getting hammered" variety, but those fell through by virtue of Chloe and I being out of the city for a week prior and no one else having the organizational balls to do anything about it. So I ended up joining her at a friend Caitlyn's house, where, among other things, we danced, made mulled apple cider (Tasty!), played video games and Apples to Apples, watched AtLA, drank copious amounts of tea, ate copious amounts of junk food, made copious amounts of nerdy internet references (over nine thousand!) and generally had a good time. Saw some people there whom I'd gone to school with in grade four. It's interesting to see how people have grown up. 

To ring in the first day of 2011 (!!), David and I went out for breakfast with Oma. SO MUCH FOOD. (And then I went and exercised forever, omg.) Tonight, we made sushi again. So much deliciousness, holy.

Today has been awesomely chill, in that all I've done is ignore my exchange application and dick around on the internet, hooray! Yuletide is eating my lifeeeeeeee! 33 pages of Discworld and Good Omens fic! I'm a little bit in heaven right now. ♥

While in the midst of my Sherlock/Discworld/GO fic-reading spree, I realized that something's changed for me in fandom. When I was new(er) to LJ/the internet, fandom was for me a mainly individual pursuit. Sure, I had my (fledgling, tiny) flist and there were communities I checked regularly ([livejournal.com profile] remusxsirius , anyone? Holy hell, I used to have muscle memory for typing that address.) and authors I adored, but when it came down to it, fandom was basically me reading fic, and that was it. It wasn't anything I would call "lonely", because fandom, I don't think, could ever be lonely, that's the whole darn point of it, but I will perhaps call it "narrow". Aside from the occasional capslock-tastic comments on fics, I didn't really interact a lot with any other fans. (This is not to say that I do so to an extreme now, but I digress.) But then time passed and there were new fandoms to explore. Macros took over everything. The TDK party posts were probably where I learned that fandom didn't have to be solely individual. So many people! So many comments! SO! MUCH! CAPSLOOOOCCCCCCCKKK! Then Star Trek '09: the fic was amazing, the artists were top-notch, but I was still constantly distracted by thoughts of HOLY GOD LOOK AT THOSE PARTY POSTS GOOOOO~ ALSO THE KINK MEMES. Yuss. Fans interacting with other fans! An anonymous epistolary free-for-all! APH eating may brain for a looooooooooooooong time. :D Bit by bit, I learned that fandom didn't have to be all about the fic. Yes, fic is my drug of choice, but hey! The people are awesome too!

This was really driven home for me by [livejournal.com profile] ontd_skating . Suddenly, the Kink Meme almost took a backseat to the other members of the comm. Seeing so many people talking to each other and suddenly being aware that - hey! - I could join in too! It was novel. Before, fandom had always been comforting because I knew that there were a bunch of people out there in the world with whom I shared interests and opinions - the fic they wrote proved it. But with my dawning awareness of things like the APH/Inception/Star Trek/[your fandom here] Kink Meme and places like [livejournal.com profile] ontd_startrek  and [livejournal.com profile] ontd_skating  (SO MANY LULZ), I realized that yes, fandom is made up of people with similar and sometimes obscure interests - but fic didn't have to be my only connection to them. I realized that I could actually interact with those awesome people and take an active role in my personal fandom experience. Whoa.

This realization only solidified with the Epic Adventure that was Skate Chanada 2010 (and guys, I could never make a "Fuck 2010 List", because despite all the other stuff that happened, SC made my year unbelievably awesome). HOLY SHIT, THE PEOPLE POSTING IN THE COMM ACTUALLY EXIST IRL!!  AND THEY'RE ALL AWESOME!! That was the sum total of what was blowing my mind throughout that weekend. The discovery was so obvious, but just ~*~SO WHELMING~*~ I don't evan. SC was also a major bit of fannish involvement, I think. I have never spent that much money on anything fandom related before, but ;LAKSDJFALKJTA;TLKAJ; soooo worth every penny. :D (I don't even want to say that it was a once-in-a-lifetime event because I'm just MISSING MAY BROS so hardcore rn (wish I could have been there for NYE akdjfasld NEXT TIME) that I will definitely be on board for any reuniting that may happen in the future).

So fandom has evolved into a much bigger social conduit. It took me a while (as it always does) to catch up to the herd, but now that I have dusted off my Twitter account for SC, and since fellow-LJers seem to crop up where I least expect them IRL (hello, [livejournal.com profile] lovebanshee , [livejournal.com profile] thatdayismine  and [livejournal.com profile] ironychan !), fandom is more about connection than ever. It's this giant ridicu-mazing thing that makes me run out of adjectives and that I don't think I could ever properly define, but I'm really glad and honoured to be a part of. Fandom, being in it, and what I've learned and the people I've met through it, has helped shape who I am now. A little cheesy? Yeah. But not without truth. Taking a leaf from P. Chiddy (hay, don't look at me like that, I've been PChiddy-holmed) in DJBijoux's flawless, stunning, gorgeous, perfect, etc. remix:

HEY, FANDOM: YOU'RE REALLY, REALLY PRETTY, REALLY NICE. REALLY PRETTY, REALLY NICE. I HOPE I CAN ALWAYS KNOW YOU FOREVER!! 8D (<- PChan eyes!)

HOOOOOOOOOOLY CRAP, I JUST FINISHED READING TERRY PRATCHETT'S UNSEEN ACADEMICALS, THE LATEST INSTALLMENT IN HIS DISCWORLD SERIES, AND I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT IT THAT THE MOST COHERENT THOUGHT I CAN MUSTER GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lj cut for your safety: none of this will make any sense unless you've read the book/are familiar with Discworld. Also, spoilers for Unseen Academicals, but you knew that already. )

*I am sure there are other people who respond to above-average levels of excitement in the same way I do. I just haven't met them yet.
**This paragraph is also technically a Tyranny.

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