midnight waters

It has been rather a while, hasn't it. Apologies for that; suffice to say, that there are some things in life that simply don't bear blogging about. I am also rapidly approaching my burn out point with my education at the moment, and highly suspect that no one wants to read about the disillusionment of an English student. It just wouldn't be pretty.

Things feel like they are on the upswing today, and I am going to try to keep them that way. Ain' nothing going to break my style; can't nobody hold me down. Or something.

Recap of the last little while: school, school, school, eyes checked (still worse!), Episode III (about what I thought it would be), home for a rest (yay, home), bits of working at various former jobs (yay, money!), 3 pitch softball with a team called Mantackle, and new books by Giles Blunt. Hurray for the wicked fictitious Algonquin Bay!

I've decided that one of my new projects will be to collect at least one published work from each of my professors who have published works.

confessions of a snarkaholic

I have received provisionary approval from UGoo's Research Ethics Board for my summer project, pending a few minor changes to the wording of my forms. Huzzah for that! Now if only I can find out if THSWSNBN will let me in.

I've been doing ghastly amounts of reading (even for me) these last few weeks, including, at long last, a Shopaholic book. See, by rights, I should (and generally do) have a healthy hate-on for chick lit, but enough of my friends and acquaintances read it that I occasionally feel that I should read one just in case I am missing something. (Plus, a friend of mine from school is writing a paper on the Shopaholic series and commodity fetishism, and it's fascinating, so I want to be prepared for that.)

In the end, though, I always remember (after reading something from the chick lit genre) how much I am not the novel's target audience, which greatly diminishes my relationship with the book.

Fortunately, I have lots of other reading that has been more worthwile, including Barbara Kirschblatt-Gimlett's Destination Culture: Tourism, Identity, and Commodity. It's awesome.

I still hate reality TV, too.

A Good Cause

A few days ago, I received an email from a very good friend, my darling Kristabelle. Normally, I wouldn't pass on a request for money, but this is something that is very real (I'll let Krista tell you about that part) and totally legit. Please, please donate if you can--even if it's only $5--and if you let me know through the comments or email, I'll knit you something as a thank you. Oh, and pass this along if you can, or if you know of someone else who might want to help.

Hey everyone,

This year my family (my WHOLE family) is going to participate in the Canadian
Cancer Society Relay for Life. That's right!! Dad, Meredith, Mark, Kayla,
Chad, Steve, Mitch, Aurora and I will be working as a team to participate in the
Relay. Why you ask? One simple answer: in rememberance of my mother Cheryl
Elizabeth Caldwell-Ellam.

For those of you who don't know her let me tell you a little about her so you
can understand why this is important to us.

My mother was an amazing person. She MADE me and my brothers and sister the
people we are today. She inspired us to be the people we are today. When she
looked at us she only saw our potential to greatness in this everchanging world.
My mother worked hard to ensure that we never went without. She brought us up
to care about each other and other people. My mother did not only focus on us.
When the neighbourhood skating building was condemned and torn down, my mother
got together with the other community members and raised the money to build us a
bigger and better community centre. Just for the neighbourhood kids, that was
us. My mother also came to every single softball game Kayla and I ever played
until she got sick. She never wanted to miss a game. She would cheer us on
again and again whether we won or lost. My mother also worked hard to fullfil
our life dreams. I wanted to fly a plane. My mother said yes and handed over
the money. I wanted to go to Nebraska for a drama festival. She said yes
again. I wanted to go to England. She said "Krista, I don't have the money for
that, but if you can raise it yourself I will help with everything else." And I
did so she did. She made me call her right before we left to catch our flight
and she was awake when I got home at 5 am to greet me. My mother was an amazing
person.

We found out that my mother was sick in September 1999. I will never forget
that day. I could see the pain in her eyes as she tried to tell us that it
would be alright. They could fix her. It wasn't going to be that bad. Everyone
cried. Everyone just stopped and cried together. I just didn't know what to
do. No one did. We just sat and cried.

My mother died in August 2000. That was the saddest day in my whole life. I
never got to say goodbye. I woke up one morning to get ready for work to find
my aunt and uncle had come over, teary eyed, to tell us the horrible news. She
was dead. She was never coming back. I would never see her again. The worst
part is that I hadn't talked to her all that past week. She had been in and out
of the hospital for a variety of reasons and I was mad at her. I am sure that
it was something stupid at the time. Regardless, I am sure that my mother had
forgiven me. Mothers forgive their silly daughters unconditionally. Anyway,
that was the longest day of my life. My family gathered at my aunts house and
it seemed like I was living in a dream. We sat around and did nothing. My dad
came over. I was never so thankful to see him. He was the only support I felt
like I had at the time. My rock so to say. I just wanted to go home and go
back to bed and wake up to a beautiful day where my world kept turning like any
other 19 year old's. That was not to be. My life was changed forever. My whole
family had regrets. We all felt like we were responsible for her death. But we
didn't do anything, we didn't kill her. Cancer did, plain and simple.

So (let me just wipe the tears away from my eys), this year my family is
participating in the Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life. We need your help
and support. I am sending you this painfully personal to ask you to donate
whatever you can so that we can raise money for cancer research. This is
important to me and to my family. So please give whatever you can.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Love, Krista

Click here to donate money to Krista's run.

I never got to meet Krista's mom, as Krista and I first crossed paths about a month after her death, but I have met her legacy in her four kids. My dad survived skin cancer, but not everyone is that lucky--cancer research of all kinds is incredibly important.

sacred cows

Am at home for the next week or so, so expect updates to be sporadic--we are still a one-computer household here. Sort of. This may change when the Squidge gets home, I think.

I've been trying to relax, which has gone reasonably well so far. I've seen both Hitchhiker and the remake of the Amityville Horror, read some very bad books, as well as some really good fantasy. There has also been a lot of listening to showtunes, mostly because I went to Toronto with my mom in her new car, which is the first one that she's had with a CD player in it. Pretty exciting, all in all.

Teen Nerd Squad should also reconvene sometime this week, at a new tea house called Serendipi Tea.

Star Wars soon!