medals and scars

In Giant Killer Shark: The Musical, they sing, "Let's get drunk and compare scars in a slightly homoerotic fashion." Like in so many movies and situations, they wore their scars with pride like medals. Reasonably, they were proud of the things they had gotten through - especially if they had gotten hurt.

But what if they scars aren't physical? Can we really compare those? Can we ever be proud of them? Lately, I've been noticing that in the way I act, I've been metaphorically limping a bit. I'm noticing that when I want to do something one way, I'm strongly impeded from doing so, because of the things I've "gotten through".* The physical scars we compare are supposed to tell a story, but hopefully, they don't really leave people very broken. A trick knee or a weird fingernail may be inconvenient, but a fear of relationships or rampant insecurity can really affect one's life.

People do compare emotional scars like break-ups. Like the Bittergirls. At Sharron Matthew's cabaret, Mary Francis Moore and Alison Lawrence were talking about the Bittergirls being a movement of people talking their break-ups, and how talking about it and seeing that your problem is not old is supposed to make you not feel alone. That's not really the idea behind comparing physical scars, of course. I think the analogy can end there.

I don't know. Can I just resolve to stop acting scarred (Whoa. That word is really close to "scared")? Will that help even?

I should end with a joke. Umm. Uh. Okay, it looks like I'm fresh out of emotional scarring jokes. Anyone know any?








*Ambiguity noted.

when i all i have is on the floor divided

I think it's time to take stock of everything. Camp is over this week, and we are frantically trying to come up with ways to get rid of materials so we don't have to pack them up. And, as I have a huge tendency to read into things, I consider this as a metaphor for my life.

I feel like I'm taking stock of myself. This is Huge. It's not like I'm not constantly trying to better myself, but I've noticed over the last few years I've grown a lot, but not all the changes in me have been good. So, how are things going to change again when I move back in with my parents and attend a school with many people younger than me? What are the changes that have happened? What hasn't changed? Should these things change?!

I was going to say that part of taking stock was my friends, and I'm wondering whether this is a big mistake. Friendships should be organic, right? But, then again, is it bad to decide to keep in touch with some while admitting it probably wouldn't work with others? In a way, taking stock of my friends is like taking stock of myself - the people who have changed me, for the better or the worse.

I'm moving back to Stoney Creek in a little over a week. I don't have a lot of stuff - I can fit it all into a backpack. I might even be able to take the GO train. But I feel like my thoughts are too much for my brain and my emotions are too big for my heart. I really need to sort through. Chris said goodbye to Toronto in his blog and he's moving to BC. I'm moving an hour away and I'm moping too. But it's more than that. Everyone around me is transitioning.

Whoa. I think I need to sleep. Today's blog was undirecting meandering. I know the situation's not dire. I just need to take a break and breathe through all of this soon. Sorry, friends. If you want an interesting blog entry, you should read my seester's. She's very smart.

i have a friend named christopher crazypants

So, I did something bad. I have a tendency to make plans and then change them. This weekend was no exception - I made a million plans, then could only make half. On that other half was my dear friend Christopher Crazypants' farewell concert.

Let me tell you about Chris. I met Chris in high school, and he was always this vibrant presence. People would always say his name and be excited, because he was fun and fun followed him around. We were in band together and one day he asked me to accompany his flute on the piano. Thus began our friendship.

Over the last few years, Chris has gone through so much - enough to make anyone selfishly driven. He has big dreams, but he always was there to talk to me about mine and to encourage me to pursue them. Chris is a wonderful friend.

Now, Chris is going to UBC to study flute, something that he's wanted and worked for for a long time.* He deserves it so much, and I am so proud of him. But, this all means one thing. Chris is moving far away, and if all goes well, he probably won't be back in the area. Selfishly, I am sad. I'll miss him so much.

Anyway, this is my public apology for missing Chris' concert. I love you so much, Chris. You've added to my life, and I hope I have and will continue to add to yours.


*Awkward sentence noted.

another adventure

Here lies another tale of Esther - the young girl blessed and cursed with wittiness and awkwardness (respectively).

One day, Esther had the opportunity to obtain a key that would help her battle the curse of low self esteem, awkwardness and tactlessness. That key happened to be a special dragon - one with the power to battle the curse through laughter and sarcasm. The trick, however, was to win the dragon over. In order to unleash the dragon's power, one had to get into the dragon's cave, and in order to get into the dragon's cave, one had to be invited. So, ironically, our hero had to battle her curse for the key to help her battle her curse.

Knowing that the dragon's power would be invaluable, Esther decided to try.

"Who disturbs my slumber?" mumbled the dragon as Esther approached.

"I'm sorry for waking you," said Esther, apologetically. However, Esther quickly remembered that the dragon did not care for apologies. That was one thing she had been specifically instructed to do - never apologize. So, thinking quickly, she changed her tactics. "I had no idea that you'd still be asleep at one o'clock in the afternoon. What are you, a grad student?"

The dragon looked offended as Esther looked past him to see his many drafts of meaningless theses sitting on his desk. Esther smiled, hoping that she had made a relevent and tactful joke. The dragon began to cough. Esther ducked, expecting spurts of offended fire, but was then surprised by a very different sound - the dragon was laughing. Surprisingly, the Sarcasm Dragon appreciated sarcasm.

Understand that this was no mean task, for though her blessing gave her a quick wit to come up with quips, her curse took away the common sense of when it was appropriate.

The dragon gave Esther an appraising look and said, "Why don't you sit down?"

"No, thanks," Esther said. "I look skinnier standing up." The dragon gave a silent, questioning look. "I know! How is it even possible that I could look fatter than this? It's like if I sat down, I would break anyone's theoretical idea of the fattest person ever."

"No, that's not true," the dragon said out of politeness.

"Really? Because that's what my ex-boyfriend used to say." Once the dragon realized that Esther was joking (he was very polite), the dragon started howling.

Yes, Esther thought. I can use the curse of low self esteem to win over the dragon! Perhaps, this won't be so hard!

The whole situation looked very promising at this point, and Esther was looking forward to entering the dragon's cave, and unleashing the full power of the dragon's sarcasm to fight the curse. Esther and the dragon exchanged some more insulting comments, and the dragon asked Esther to return the next day.

Unfortunately, Esther was very unpatient. She thought that she should try and speed up the process by upping the intensity of her sarcasm. So, when Esther came in the next day, she said the most sarcastic, mean things she could think of, thinking that it would only make the dragon let her enter his cave faster. He laughed, many times incredulously, but Esther, because of the curse, did not notice. She only noticed that he was laughing.

Sadly, she had forgotten that all this time she had always been toeing the line between outrageous and tactless. And now, with the more intense sarcasm, she had begun to push the limit.

Now, Esther and the dragon had been joking around, and the dragon made an especially biting comment, which Esther didn't mind. Esther never minded any insults, usually, because the curse gave her such low self esteem that she usually agreed with them. However, Esther believed that she should act very offended to continue the bite of the comment.

"Shut up," Esther said, playfully, and she reached into her bag and threw the first thing she could find to throw, which was her snack, artificially cheese flavoured rice cakes. The dragon was, as many dragons are, very big and very strong, so Esther was sure that throwing something at him would be no big deal - no more than a playful expression of offendedness.

She was wrong.

As the powdered cheese hit the dragon's face, he began to freeze.

"What's happening?" asked Esther.

"Powdered cheese?! Don't you know that dragons and powdered cheese creates an endothermic reaction?"

Upon a tiny bit of reflection, Esther remembered the very first lesson in high school chemistry - dragons and artificial cheese flavouring causes freezing. Instantly, the dragon began to freeze, starting with the shoulders.

"I'm so sorry!" pleaded Esther.

"It's okay," said the dragon shortly.

"No, I'm really sorry. Oh no, I'm such a jerk. I am SO SORRY." Of course, Esther had forgotten the first rule of dragons - never apologize - and had now, broken the rule three times, on top of creating extreme discomfort for the dragon by freezing him.

The dragon's shoulders were now completely frozen. Esther was very flustered, and tried sarcasm again, which didn't work because the dragon's sarcasm powers were now gone as the powdered cheese did its work, and then tried apologizing again and again. This upset the dragon's internal chemistry so as to speed up the freezing. The dragon, being very polite, excused himself and rolled the very heavy stone that blocks the door to his cave.

The next day, Esther came by to see if the freezing had worn off. However, the dragon was very busy with his thesis, and though the freezing had worn off mostly, frost still remained on his shoulders. It would seem that this meant all was lost because this frost made the dragon immune to Esther's sarcasm. She no longer had something to win the dragon over so she could unleash his powers against the curse.

It is unknown whether the frost is permafrost, but Esther had lost hope. She would have to find another way to battle the curse of low self esteem, tactlessness, and awkwardness.

what do you do when you can't sleep?

You change your blog slightly! Yay! New links on the right. If I missed you, let me know.

toronto is cool

Hey, look! Colour! I went to High Park on Thursday and saw Comedy of Errors, and I loved it. Generally, I always like live theatre, but this was really fun. Some of the actors were 'meh', but Ins Choi (someone I met once) who played some merchants and the "saffron-skinned" Dr Pinch was really good. Ooh, and the Dromeos (pictured on the left) were Awesome.

The reason I think Toronto is cool is that the cast was so not totally white, and though I'm pointing it out, it really wasn't that big of a deal - even the identical twin Antipholuses were not the same race. Too often, I think we see groups of white people and think it's totally normal. If we watch television, and only see white people, it's just how it is. Sometimes, when they're looking to add diversity, they add a black person.

I think a lot of time, this is fine - if it represents the people its supposed to. But any sitcom is certainly not watched by all white people, and in Toronto, any theatre event is certainly not watched just by white people. I'm not saying we should go out of out way to hire "ethnic" people - I'm just saying it shouldn't be an issue - like if it's Shakespeare, why should anyone have to make sure that the person wearing the period costume is white?

Perhaps, this is a selfish topic. I mean, I want to go into musical theatre and I don't want to do Miss Saigon forever. But, hopefully, if I was white, like I believe myself to be, I'd still comment on how cool Toronto is for its unapologetic diversity. I remember at theatre camp last summer, I brought this up as an issue, and the fabulous Mary Francis Moore said that I shouldn't let it restrict me, that I should feel free to do the monologues I wanted. When I met Ann Harada on the West End in London, she told me that it (being Asian) helped her more than it hurt her. So maybe I shouldn't be worried. The world is changing. Things aren't as hard as they used to be for people who are (racially) different.

ask a ninja's not depressing

but I like them, and you should too!
http://askaninja.com

rilo kiley's depressing

but I like them, and you should too!
http://rilokiley.com

I have a friend named Esther

Okay, this isn't one of these weird blogs, where I refer to myself in the third person, or make up some fictional ideal of myself. I actually have a friend named Esther.

Last night, I was on my way to meet a group of church people for prayer and then Esther called me and then we decided to pray on our own. It was fun. Esther makes everything fun. When we get together we call ourselves the Esther Club and occasionally accept other members.

Esther is very different from me. It seems that she has a gorgeousness that transcendent of herself. Not that she isn't pretty, but her gorgeousness seems to be bigger than that. She always dresses coolly (she even owns a fashion store), she has a high voice that she adds interesting inflections to and a delightful little laugh at the end of many of her sentences.

I just think she's cool and that it's funny because we have the same name.

friend crushes

Am I the only one who gets these? Every once in a while I'll meet someone who I wish was my best friend. This person will be someone I want to hang out with all the time so I can benefit from their presence. Very often this is a guy. In fact, in my case, it's always a guy that I'm not attracted to, and I'm not completely sure why.

Off the top of my head, I can think of five cases of these friend crushes that I've had. I think it might be a problem or some form of my warped reality. It seems like I am not attracted to the people I like the most .

But then again, I wonder if this is a defense mechanism on my part. I used to get these insane-oh crushes in high school and beyond high school I decided that they just had to stop because it was stupid - I'd get too excited and unreasonable and just totally crazy. So now, maybe when I really like someone, I decide that I'm not attracted to him because a friendship is way easier to pursue than something else and I have a better chance of seeing this person on a regular basis.

I'm not really sure that's true. Anyway, it kind of comes together like any of my real crushes, where I start to get to know them, then get scared that I came on too strong, then run away.

Am I unique in this? Am I really the only person who meets people who they really really want to be their best friend? Validate me, internet!

once upon a time...

Once upon a time, there was a girl born in a land called Stoney Creek. People came from lands near and far to greet her and to marvel at her already evident potential for awesome. Because of the significance of her birthday, instead of fairies coming to cast spells, Jedi knights came by instead.

"She shall be witty and charming and make people laugh wherever she goes," claimed one Jedi.

However, one Jedi was not so nice. Seeing the fantastic blessing bestowed on her, he decided that he must do his best to counteract it.

"Perhaps, these things shall come to pass," he said ominously, "but she will be so socially awkward and tactless that her wittiness will be met with confusion, her charm will be met with pity, and her humour will be met with nervous laughter. And so, despite her gifts, she will be continually self-conscious and insecure."

As the ladies and gentlemen present gasped, the Jedi quietly left the room. Thus began the adventures of Esther. As she grew, she become more and more aware of the raging spells inside her. The spell from the second Jedi has yet to be broken, but with every adventure, she gets a little more power to battle it.

i'm like a robot

...in that I need electricity to live. I didn't realize I was so urbanized! The power went out for an hour, and I was in pieces. I was desperately trying to heat my take-out curry over a few tealights and a fruit bowl (it was made of metallic wire). At first, I thought I was an urban girl scout, but after that didn't work in the first two minutes, I got impatient and decided that living without a microwave was inconceivable. How can I be expected to wait more than five minutes to reheat food?

I hope this is the closest I come to camping in a while.