“Finals, Man…”

‘Twas the night before a final, and I was kinda freaking out, kinda wanting to go binge-watch Homeland.

You see, Carrie Mathison gets something about finals. She gets the attitude I have towards the profs that push me to this point:

 

If only I could call them. If only.

Basically, here’s how the pre-final experience goes:

10:30AM: wake up, and roll over.

10:31AM: nick nack paddy wack, give a dog a SOCIAL SECURITY CHEQUE BECAUSE THE DOG CAN’T AFFORD A BONE ANYMORE what

10:32AM: i’m gonna go na-nights again.

11:30AM: hello world.

11:31AM: it is raining and I don’t appreciate this.

11:32AM: I should probably eat.

11:33AM: I should probably study.

11:34AM: I should probably get a haircut and call my mom.

11:45AM: OH I’M SORRY WERE YOU EXPECTING PROGRESS? HAHAHAHAHA SO WAS I.

12:00PM: Do I have any bananas left?

12:02PM: I do not.

12:05PM: [search through friends list and see who would bring me a banana if I paid them in smiles and mediocre hugs]

12:05PM: I am also out of cookie butter and this is really, really tragic for everyone (read: me, myself, and I).

12:10PM: what’s [insert a type of affection] got to do with it?

12:11PM: Homeland.

12:13PM: buffering.

12:15PM: hi. still buffering.

12:17PM: I feel like I should’ve been offered some sort of valet parking service for the amount of buffering going on here.

12:19PM: WHY UBC INTERNET>asdfjkl;

12:25PM: I ate a whole Toblerone last night and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

12:35PM: I’ve watched a 1/4 of the episode and the rest is still buffering

12:40PM: Discover High School USA!

12:41PM: This show really isn’t that funny, but here I am.

12:51PM: Wow, the episodes are only ten minutes long.

1:01PM: It really doesn’t get any better.

1:05PM: guyz, Homeland (kind of) loaded

1:06PM: Is anyone else craving a loaded baked potato right now or is that just me?

1:07PM: It is just me.

1:58PM: I finished Homeland. I feel like, really productive.

2:05PM: I’m really hungry and I should probably go eat.

2:06PM: Do you ever just count the holes on your wall and wonder how they got there?

2:06PM and-a-half: Do you think they happened during finals season?

2:07PM: Do you think penguins get lonely?

2:30PM: acquire food.

2:32PM: inhale food.

2:33PM: food mini coma

2:35PM: should I get a happy planet?

2:36PM: WILL I BE HAPPIER ON THIS PLANET IF I-

2:36PM TTASTE WAS GOOD.

“Ate my dog, taste was good!”

2:38PM: Wow, I really should be getting more exercise.

2:40PM: What is exercise without the proper gear?

2:41PM: answer: an interpretative dance of the badly dressed

3:01PM: it is raining and I regret this decision. seriously.

3:45PM: I’m at Wreck Beach staring into the ocean.

3:47PM: [whispers into ocean] tell me the secret to my exam tomorrow

3:55PM: The ocean didn’t respond and I am feeling so attacked.

3:57PM: THERE IS A DOGE. IT IS RUNNING WITH ITS OWNER WOW.

4:15PM: I do hate stairs. I hate this.

4:29PM: SHOWER

5:00PM: I’m feeling sexy and free like glitter is raining of me.

5:14PM: DINNER

5:45PM: guyz, i called my mom finally.

6:03PM: I have arrived at the land of studies.

6:07PM: where do I sit.

6:10PM: seriously. where did all of these people come from????

6:20PM: I am back where I started and I need you all to know that this is not what I expected, I mean who are all these people, who do they think they are just paying tuition and using the library. NOT OKAY.

7:15PM: Oh, I didn’t see you there.  Why, yes, I’ve been studying and not researching Lindsay Lohan’s most recent antics. (she’s recording with her sister Ali and Duran Duran.)

7:17PM: Based on these comments, people are not super pleased with Duran Duran for this move.

7:25PM: You are really interrupting me, and I was studying so nicely.

7:35PM: OH MY GAWSH. A FWRIEND? I DIDN’T KNOW I HAD ANY LEFT.

7:40PM: and then I was all NO WAY.

7:45PM: and then she was all YES WAY.

7:50PM: basically I wish we were brushing each other’s hair at this point. That would be comforting before finals.

8:30PM: I AM SO GOOD AT FLASH CARDS.

10:03PM: I want the record to show that some guy literally just asked me where the best place to poop was in Irving.

10:03PM and-a-half: is this a social experiment? am I being punk’d? Where is 2005 Ashton Kutcher?

10:04PM: he says he can’t make it to the fourth floor.

10:04PM and-a-half: he’s just going to “go for it.”

10:05PM: concluding statement to the conversation from him: “finals, man.”

10:07PM: oh no the end of the world as we know it

10:08PM: my phone is at 2%

10:09PM: WHAT EVER WILL I DO???????

10:11PM: welp, time to pack up. this was really solid.

10:16PM: you know, this studying thing is so good. I should do it more often.

but in all realness, let me just say: GOOD LUCK ON YOUR FINALS, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. YOU GOT THIS AND I BELIEVE IN YOU SO MUCH. SERIOUSLY. LUV U BYE. xoxo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New York Dreams

Sunday

It’s 12:38AM, and I lie here listening to the sound of a party in the distance.  The bass is somewhat absent in what is the neighbour’s son’s College graduation party.  People’s taste in party music has always been fascinating to me.  It’s weird being alone in the basement of an Upstate New York house, on a mattress.  A few days previously I was stressing about my final Creative Writing 200 assignment, and the state of my personal life.  I lie here knowing that the end of the summer term left me more alone than I had originally thought.

Loneliness is a fear I have.  Why? Because most of the time I think too much, and before you know it, I wake up having a panic attack.  Sometimes my dreams are not too kind to me, but we can’t blame them for telling me things that I am too afraid to admit to myself.

I thought this trip thousands of miles away from everything would be like a trip to rehab, to be perfectly honest.  I expected to go to a place with no internet, just the company of a pool and the scorching sun.  Perhaps rehab is a hyperbolic comparison, but who doesn’t like a good hyperbole?

My brain was making all kinds of situations up, probably to distract myself from the fact that this would be the first time I flew alone.  My journey to the New York/Newark airport was memorable for sure, thanks to my connection in Chicago at the Orly Airport.

Chicago Sunrise

 

I had the pleasure of being on a red-eye out of Vancouver.  I trapped myself next to the window and fell asleep after I found out that the $9.00 internet did not let me watch Netflix [sigh].  We landed at 5:00AM Chicago time, which is about 3:00AM Vancouver time.  As groggy as I was, I managed to get myself through Customs, and on to the train which would take me to the terminal where my connecting flight was.  Once there, I discovered that my 1.5 hour wait for my flight had become a 3.5 hour wait.  I trudged to the Starbucks nearest to my gate and drowned myself in a caramel macchiato.  No one at my gate seemed too happy due to the delay, so I decided to go sit with people flying to Denver.  Sitting with people who weren’t mad at United Airlines really helped my psyche — that, and the caffeine I had just ingested.

I slept all but fifteen minutes of my flight from Chicago to Newark, and woke up feeling human again.

The sight of my mother in the arrivals terminal brought tears to my eyes.  I think the only thing I really didn’t like about flying alone was not having a shoulder to sleep on during the flight.

I lie here, in this cool basement, surrounded by my family.  Not directly surrounding me, but they lie only two floors above me.  It’s comforting.

There are moments that have happened today that I will never be able to recreate:

-When the navigator steered my mom and I in the wrong direction and we ended up knee-deep in the Bronx, for instance.  The entrance of the area so congested, and humid that there were men selling bottles of water to the people stuck in Saturday traffic.

-The look on my father’s face as I snuck up behind him, and yelled ‘SURPRISE!’  He had no idea I was coming out to see him for Father’s Day.

-Winding down the night with the company of my extended family surrounding me, as they laughed at how I held a pool cue.

All of that makes the fear that I had seem so unnecessary.  Sure, there will be hours alone while I’m here, but everyone is only an iMessage or a Snapchat away.

I lie here alone, trying not to drift away in my thoughts of what could’ve been my past summer term.  I’m trying to dream up what I want to do when we go into the city, instead.  I still don’t know, there are so many options.  Instead, I listen in again to the faint guitar in the distance, at the graduation party, and I realize that facing the loneliness is not as scary as I thought it would’ve been.

Phreshman Year

hey, so i totally disappeared for a month, and i apologize for that, but sometimes writing is not really what you think it should be and you have like loads of things that you’ve started blogging about that are just sitting in your draft folder that don’t actually turn into anything.

click. clack.

So, I’m going to be super narcissistic and write about my uni lyfe. cause it’s all happening. and it’s happening fast.

here are the things about phreshmen year that are making me tick. and tock:

Identity Crisis

I had a pile of clothes and hangers on the ground today, because like, i dont actually know what my style is anymore. I mean like things are preppy and then some things are punk and then some things are straight up leopard print. like, what is MEE-OW?

but, like stocking up on more black, grey, white, and navy is always a thing close to my heart.

and then im like WOW i should be more social. i should friend more people on facebook and take an active role in making a name for myself. why dont more people like my profile picture? i need to instagram more. i need more friends on snapchat so that i can snap them more selfies of me eating out of the nutella jar.

and, then my writing style is a constant identity crisis, because there is how i’m writing right now, super casual, and then there’s also like write-your-seven-page-paper writing and then i’m all “pinkies up, fishes, we must attempt to convey poise and class.”

and sometimes i feel like the colour ink i choose is indicative of my life or something, and like i lost my fave ever red pen during reading week last week and read too much into what the symbolism of that might be and like omg my life is falling apart.

//but then i realize that i can actually buy another one.

i’m just out $6 because kewl pens are rlly expensive, and life lesson: swag costs money, kids.

Classes in General

So, honestly box, I’m not a huge fan of really any of the courses I’m taking right now, except for German.

–which, like really sucks.

——- because i’m paying money for them

———- and paying money for things that you aren’t getting swag out of is like eating biscuits without gravy. you feel me? (side note: honey butter is also acceptable)

but seriously, fri3nds, real talks,

take courses you like. and don’t take a coordinated arts stream unless you absolutely know what you want to do with your life.

because I most certainly do not, and here I am like knee-deep in a creek of ice cold media jargon.

Dreams

what are those????

no, seriously, I walked by Toys ‘R Us last night on Broadway at like 10PM when they were closed and it looked really bleak and I was like: “dreams die in there…”

But, seriously my last year of high school was all:

WOW. D R E A M

 

And this year has just been like:

Profs, tho.

 

So cheers, to the broke student life, and being realistic, and for getting shut down by profs. WINNNNNNING.

..tears

Food

I will never shut up about food, because seriously i can’t figure out how to do the thing most of the time.

I mean do i buy a whole pizza at mercante????? go to vanier caf? go to triple o’s? cry about the knorrs sidekick that is the pasta dish at Ike’s? rant about the sad selection of muffins at stir it up/ buy every candy imaginable there? go to the sub and survey every place ever just to decide that what I REAAALLY want is Tim Horton’s?

like,

what do>>>>????

 

Time Management

Let’s talk about that later.

seriously,

if i don’t plan most everything i basically fall apart and just end up napping the whole day or just marathon-ing Girls or something

Tangents

Full disclosure, I had to go to Tumblr to find that, and then I forgot my password, because I’m usually on my phone when i go on tumblr, and then i had to go check my Gmail, and then there were a bunch of other emails like the fact that Ingrid Michaelson is coming to down again, and is going to venue, and yet again, i will not be 19. and then i just pouted for a sec.

and then i went on youtube, because they also emailed me.

and then i forgot what i was doing.

and then i sort of reflected on the Oscars tonight and I still can’t decide how I feel about them…

DOES THIS EVER HAPPEN TO YOU?

DO YOU EVER JUST DROWN ON THE INTERNET IN WORDS AND GIFs and FEELS and PEOPLE.

UGH.

 

But, honestly, this is a cool time. and a not cool time. but mostly cool.

and i gotta just remember that.

let’s all raise a Starbucks and clink paper cups.

[clinks]

 

 

 

 

Can We Have a Sec?

yoyoyo,

welcome back to another introduction lacking all direction and purpose. it’s basically like a Nickleback single. thanks for reading. this is the part where I tell you where I’m going with this, but I don’t really know.

SO bingo-bango-bongo. here we are during second week of second term, and my life has resumed some form of normality again.  I mean as much normality as possible after getting like somewhat close to feeling like kind of dyeing all of my hair like peacock blue, when i was super foggy, from the amount of congestion in my head last week. (translation: i wasnt thinking logically. Clearly periwinkle blue is a WAYYY better option.)

Random Thoughts on Life:

But, yeah, things are normal. Back to sleeping in my classes, not eating enough at peak times during the day, y’know basically back to true Hot Mess form. (woo shameless self-promotion)

Speaking of which, two of my fave TV shows are back on the tube/i can now watch them (il)legally online: SHAMELESS and GIRLS. (which were actually both kind of average, but like averagely okay, like hitting up The Honour Roll in the SUB.)

basically me when I saw all my non-Vancouverite friends after the holidays.

Me at all my new profs, and classmates.

This is the part where I get up on stage and I’m like “wow, it has been a great year, but a particularly great year in cinema.”

Basically the Golden Globes summed up. Then there was some solid J-Law action, and like Robin Wright was really on-point when she was basically like “you dont need to hear another list of random names, thank you to everyone, and you know who you are.”

So, I was basically thanked in an acceptance speech on Sunday night. So, you’re totes welcome Robin, I don’t know where you’d be without me, either.

Classes and Such

I’ve joined the ranks of the those taking five classes this term, and am now taking FIVE WHOLE COURSES.

Wow, cool.  Sorry. Just had to say it twice because then it might actually sink in or something.

I’m taking really cool courses like:
-Journalism 100A
-Film Studies 100
-ASTU 100A (omg. literally the coolest. the mandatory curriculum is really sexy.)
-German 100
-Philosophy 101

No, but real talks, my courses seem really dope this term.

But, basically anything is better than the hell that was Music 128. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Please collect buckets of mouldy twinkies instead. That was that course summed up. A really sweet thing like music that was covered in mould. cry.

Also, I will be really typical and university student-esque for a sec and rant about the cost of books. wow. that was a lot. like ow. my wallet has a concussion now for like 8-12wks.

I also got totally scammed by this chick who sold me her used German book, and like avoided telling me that I wouldn’t have online access, which i NEED for the course. So thanks for screwing over a first-year. I really hope karma gets you bad and like someone spits on every single slice of your pizza from Mercante.

Clothes and that stuff

It’s January, and it’s dark at like 4PM every day, so I’ve just been wearing a lot of black. Except today I wore some navy.  It was really ground-breaking.

Also, someone commented on my sweater today and I acted really nonchalant after the fact, but it was actually the best part of my evening.

Also, my skin hates me.

And I’ve been really lazy with the razor lately and have cut my face a bunch of times. yay so cute. i love bleeding for 5 minutes on end.

The End or something

So yeah, that’s where I’m at.  Back being on top of  some part of the world.

Basically I am living proof that the whole “New Year, New Me” slogan is total crap.

Let’s all raise a glass to that.

Happy(?) Holidays

Greetings, and welcome to back to The Wasteland.

Today, I will attempt to articulate more of the things that actually go on inside of my head.

So, cool, since like we’re all saying it and stuff, I’ll like give into peer pressure, and acknowledge the fact that I had to throw away recycle my 2013 page-a-day calendar.

This of course means that like the holidays are now officially over and that we are supposed to move on with our lives and start something new, and deal with the repercussions of the holiday season, which no one really acknowledges.

I mean, they’re supposed to be filled with joy and cheer and all that, but what if they’re not?

Well, folks, then you are proclaimed as a grinch, and everyone forever just writes you off for the season.  But, like there are some serious happenings:

a. ca$hMoney$wag

Not gonna lie, I kinda spent the panettone amount of money, on my wonder bread budget.  I mean, I was just really behind on my shopping after a certain point and things got out of hand.

Not like it’s serious, don’t worry y’all, it would just be nice to not have to go into the New Year being super frugal.

It’s cool.  Walmart does have Mr. Noodles, though. And I hear those jazz sticks mix well with bologna. also side of ranch with that. hey girl.

b. Food

It’s the time of the year to “indulge” and “treat yourself.”  Stuffing your face full of Stovetop is completely acceptable.

–Flash-forward some time and you’re now expected to work out every single day and become some new person, with some great new bawdy laik wow omg.

But, real talks, I have a box of Himalayan pink salt caramels that aren’t going to eat themselves.

c. Persona

You’re totally expected to be this new person, who is super optimistic and positive, after the holidays. With all these goals, and new healthy activities. And then if you don’t do them you’re like a failure or something. I don’t understand.

I mean, yes, it’s the first of January, but be your own person or something, and don’t let a calendar dictate to you which days you want to bring change into your life.

You’re not going to dramatically change overnight.

UNLESS:

– you buy a month’s supply of Proactiv. sponsored by Justin Bieber, Jessica Simpson, Adam Levine, or everyone else who doesn’t actually understand what severe acne is.

-Or, like cut off three and half fingers…

so transforms. much change.

 

d. Drama

So much family time is bound to end in some skeletons coming out of the closet, right?

Same goes with your friends too.

Let’s not forget about “holidayting” a person: only dating for the holidays, because of loneliness.

But, like on the bright side, who needs cable with all of the drama happening in your life? I mean cancel your Netflix too, and save yourself $8 a month, and go buy some bags of ice for all the burns your friends dealt out.

And, like that fancy grade popcorn, none of that microwavable stuff. You earned the bag of white cheddar stuff for all of the cheesy, romantic nonsense that discharged from the mouths’ of the “holidaters.”

the struggle is real…

So holla. The holidays are a weird time.

I’m just gonna go eat soup and take some selfies until school starts.

 

The Late Night Snack Chronicles: Croutons/Ice Cream/Nutella

Hello, and good evening, to all the wonderful peepers that are now glazing over, whilst reading this sentence!

My name is Derrick, and I am a late night snacker!

Even at the ripe age of eighteen, I have yet to figure out how to eat proper meals throughout the day – and it is this that gives me the “hungry horrors,” on basically a daily basis, at sometime around 9PM.

Tonight was no different, I am sad to say.  The cupboards were just seductively calling my name!

Tonight’s object of desire: Croutons. Yes, croutons.

But, not just any croutons, Cabbage Patch kids, I’m talking Fresh Gourmet Parmesan Caesar, Multi-Grain ones (A.K.A. Salty Crunch City, USA).

But, then, those led to me just grabbing the tub of Bryers Vanilla Ice Cream from the freezer. Because where is salty, without SWEET!? (Seriously, try to answer that question.)

And then I was all, “BUT VANILLA IS SO PLAIN.”(we’re trying to spice up our love life, okay?)

So, the jar of Nutella showed up to my party, and basically everything was just popping. Like, we basically danced all night to the best song ever. And mutual enjoyment was had by all.

But my stomach is totally going to be hungover in the morning from all this excitement.

All in all, though, I REGRET NOTHING.

~MAY YOUR LATE NIGHT HUNGER REST IN PEACE.~