Sunday November 13th, 2005 @ 3:06 PM
I have very little self-discipline...

    I always have to bribe myself to finish essays. Promises of one game of minesweeper after each page, a glass of Coke after each body paragraphy, an hour break when I'm half-way through.
    C'mon lazy self, just half a body paragraph and a conclusion to go!!
    The problem is, my lazy self isn't stupid. It knows that its "reward" for finishing this essay will be studying for tomorrow's test and doing Tuesday's assignment. And when that's done, two more essays by the 24th, and one more by December 5th. :P
    Bribery's not effective enough as a motivator. Maybe I should start withholding meals and bathroom breaks instead?? ;)

~Shayla

Wednesday November 9th, 2005 @ 2:53 PM
Shayla kills essays dead.

    So I've been STRESSING over this stupid essay for poli sci... And when I mean stressing, I mean I was ACTUALLY concerned for a while that it wasn't going to be a good essay. And I can't have that, because I've never gotten lower than 80% on a poli sci essay, and I don't plan on starting.
    It's just that there's like NOTHING on this topic... And why? Because it's Canadian politics, and no one writes about Canada. Not even Canadians, it seems. :P
    But it's all good now, because today I wrote myself an essay outline and went to chat with my TA... And it turns out I am still a genius (you can all relax now, it's okay), and this will STILL be a good essay. In fact, a very good one.
    Hey, it's not being conceited, it's being honest. ;)

~Shayla

PS. And while we're in essay season, good luck to everyone on their essays. :P

Friday November 4th, 2005 @ 5:20 PM
I got this from Laurie from Ward:

List 50 things about you, when you are done, tag 5 others ...I don't really care whether or not you do it...

1. I rarely finish what I start, although that's something I'm really trying to change... So we'll see how this list goes. ;)
2. I like to think about what kind of [tree, animal, flower, TTC subway stop, smell, food, song, movie genre] each of my friends would be, as well as myself.
3. I think a lot about the children I want to have, especially in regard to the kind of parent I want to be, and the lessons/values I want to pass on to them.
4. I've never experienced the death of someone close to me (except for my great grandmother, but I was too young to really understand/experience that).
5. I believe that no amount of practice or teaching can make a good musician out of someone with no talent (especially if they're tone deaf).
6. I dream big. My possible life goals include being published, and becoming an elected MP (independent, of course).
7. Once when I was young, I listened to the stupid opinions of others and lost a true friend. I live in fear that secretly I haven't become a stronger person since then, and that I'll lose someone else this way.
8. I have always liked myself, and I think I always will.
9. I like to break down people's personalities and explore them, especially when I'm high.
10. I believe that Michael Ende is the single greatest author of all time. All books seem stupid and worthless (my own, when they are written, included) in comparison to his.
11. I can recognize the people who are closest to me by smell.
12. When my Ward friends left last year for university, I came to realize that over time I will lose or grow apart from most of the friends I make in this life. I take great comfort in at least having two stable friends: Katie and Andrew.
13. I don't like people very much in general. Nothing personal, just that there aren't many people whose company I prefer over being alone. If you're reading this, you're probably one of them, so be happy. ;)
14. I tend to be out-spoken and opinionated, but in fairness I'm also very open minded and will hear and potentially be swayed by a stronger oppositional argument.
15. I don't feel safe living in a house without a dog.
16. I want and I try very hard to be a good citizen (by that I mean a citizen of humanity) and person.
17. I expect people to want and try very hard to do the same, or to at least present a good argument as to why they do not.
18. I try not to be a hypocrit. I never ask of my parents anything that I would not allow my own children (now that I'm 19, this applies more to what I expect of my younger sister).
19. I can almost always say exactly what I want and mean to say.
20. I have a very difficult time believing in organized religion, but I will always be spiritual and will always believe in God.
21. I think understanding at least the recent history of thought is imperative to understanding oneself and the way one thinks. We tend to assume that people have always been and thought the way they do today, but really we have been influenced by different "isms": liberalism, conservativism, utopianism, utilitarianism, romanticism, feminism, modernism, postmodernism, etc.
22. I don't care WHAT people say -"The Lord of the Rings" was both boring and pointless in my opinion.
23. I believe that brand names only strengthen consumerism and conformity, and create a visible divide between rich and poor. Moreover, I've seen and experienced this first-hand (Anne, you remember grade eight, right??).
24. I believe that different parents and parenting styles are right for different people. My parents and their parenting style was the best possible for me, I think.
25. My dreams (this time I mean dreams as in what happens to you when you sleep) are generally very strange, detailed and elaborate.
26. I feel like I know what I want in life, and this gives me a lot of comfort. I know the person I want to be with, and I know what I want to be, professionally.
27. I've had sexual fantasies and crushes for as long as I can remember.
28. My most common non-sexual fantasies include telling off people I don't like, being a shape-shifter, randomly climbing on stage and singing "We Will Rock You", and giving a final speech before I tragically die.
29. I have never felt any great urge to travel (besides a week in Cuba here and there). I love Toronto and Canada and I don't ever want to leave.
30. I always figured that I'd either learn to play guitar, or I'd marry someone who plays. It makes me really sad that my children won't grow up in a house where someone plays, like I did.
31. I have no tattoos and no piercings. I used to have my ears pierced when I was seven, but I let the holes close about six months later.
32. I am a true night person. Left to my own schedule, I would wake after noon and stay up hours past midnight every night.
33. I feel that I appreciate nature more than most people, probably because as a child I spent two months every year living up north.
34. My sister and I plan to live next door to each other when we're older, so our families will be close. I believe it's best for children to be raised within a sort of community, and this will allow for that in some way.
35. I get a little uncomfortable in situations where people "serve" me, like in restaurants and salons.
36. I'm not afraid of clowns, probably because when I was little I associated them with my father. I think my first memories of humour probably came from my father.
37. They say that you're attracted to someone like your parents of the opposite sex, but for me it's backward. I see myself a lot like my father, and Andrew a lot like my mother.
38. When we were younger, my sister and I used to try to trick my mom into saying which one of us she loved more, but she never would. We would ask her what she would do if she were in a boat, and there was only room for me or my sister, and she said that she would put both of us in the boat and swim beside it.
39. From living in my house, I learned that two things are sacred: books and music. You don't draw/write in books. When someone is playing music, even if they're not very good, you don't interrupt them.
40. I don't believe that anything in life is black or white, or that any person is completely good or bad.
41. I think it can be good to feel pretty and ugly at different times. When you feel pretty, you feel confident. But when you feel ugly, you feel liberated, like you're saying to the world, "This is how I look, and I shouldn't have to look any other way. I don't have to conform to society's harmful expectations. I don't have to make appologies for myself."
42. I try not to judge new people by what others say about them. I find that much of time, people just aren't giving them a fair chance.
43. My favourite thing about Andrew is that he accepts himself, flaws and all. He doesn't deny or appologize for the way he is, and it makes it very easy for him to accept others the way they are.
44. Katie and I make a very good team. Without Katie, I wouldn't do anything too risky. Without me, Katie would always get caught and get in trouble.
45. I like to think that maybe Katie and Andrew and I are a sort of trinity: Andrew is fact, I'm theory/framework/perspective, and Katie is experience.
46. I think we live in a society that undervalues silence, stillness, boredom. People on the bus these days have their MP3 players, their cell phones, their gameboys. Before these things were invented, people used to sit on the bus and look out the window, or at people, and just think and reflect. People today don't think for themselves because they don't find time to think at all.
47. Watching people at the mall respond to parents with children re-affirms my faith in humanity. People will go out of their way to hold the door for parents with strollers. It makes me happy that as a society we still tend to values SOME things, like parenthood.
48. Watching people on the subway between Broadview and Castle Frank station re-affirms my faith in humanity. When the train goes over the bridge that overlooks the Don Valley, a lot of people actually stop what they're doing for a moment to look at the scenery.
49. I don't think it matters WHAT you think, so much as HOW you think.
50. I believe that it's only in the rare moments when we really connect and communicate with other people that we are truly human.

Sunday, October 30th, 2005 @ 2:48 PM
After a weekend of drunk/high philosophical rantings...

    If I had one wish, it would be that everyone in the world made it their daily goal to revive someone's faith in humanity through their own personal actions.

~Shayla

Tuesday, October 25th, 2005 @ 11:10 PM
Vanity will come back to bite you in the ass...

    In a moment of spontaneity and madness, I got a perm. I asked for big, soft curls starting below my ears, but I ended up with small, tight curls all over my head. Then I came home and cried and my mom took me back to get it fixed. It’s still a little curly, but it looks okay now.
    The moral of the story is that spontaneity is a hairstyle only Katie can pull off.

    If you’re true friends, you won’t ask me what possessed me. You’ll just tell me about the worst haircut you’ve ever gotten in an attempt to make me feel better.

~Shayla

Saturday October 22nd, 2005 @ 6:41 PM
Here's MY answer...

    The reason I brought up the question in the last entry is that Andrew and I were talking about it. Here's the reason(s) we came up with (the God parts were mine, of course :P):

• Sometimes people do bad things to good people. God loved us enough to give us free will, and sometimes people use it badly. But it would be worse to have no free will at all.
• Sometimes bad things just happen to good people (like natural disasters, disease, etc.) without human involvement. In these cases, I think we just have to accept that this is the way of the world, but we can take comfort that even though we don't understand why these things happen, some higher being understands. It's part of a greater chain of events that we can't see, but that doesn't mean it's not there. We only see the bad side of it, but we can have faith that there is a another side, a better one, that we can't see yet.

~Shayla

PS. But this is just what Andrew and I came up with. I'm still interested to hear all of YOUR answers.

Saturday October 22nd, 2005 @ 3:55 AM
Here's my new question...

    Your child asks you why bad things happen to good people. What is your answer?

~Shayla

Thursday October 20th, 2005 @ 12:41
Click. There are too many windows in the computer lab.

    Oh my God I feel horrible this morning... It's really bright outside today. My birth control causes light sensitivity -it can make you feel horrible on a day when you have a pounding headache + lack of sleep. :(
    This morning just feels like little snapshots of things that happened, fragmented places and people.
    Click. Driving to school. Dad's made the same joke twice.
    Click. Walking up the stairs. I'm obligated to walk faster because the guy in front of me keeps holding the door for me.
    Click. My history prof is talking. "When Paris sneezes, Europe catches a cold." Either he's talking faster today or I'm writing slower.
    Click. Memories of last night. Andrew and I are stoned and watching music videos and discussing how black women have nicer bodies when they're young, but when they're older they turn into fat black women.
    Click. Memories of last night. Did we really eat twenty-six McNuggets?
    Click. Memories of last night. Andrew smells so good it makes me crazy.
    Click. My history prof is still talking. Damn, what was the word he just used? Thesis, antithesis, and... what did he say? Oh yes, synthesis.
    Click. Drinking Lime-Green Iced Tea. The good thing about a terrible headache is that you can drink fast and know that brain freeze can't possibly make your head hurt more than it does already.
    Click.
    I think the flash is making my headache worse.

~Shayla

PS. Thank you all for your comments in the last entry. I've talked to Andrew and thought a lot and I feel better.

Monday October 17, 2005 @ 4:57PM
Thanks for the wrench, Grandma...

    Just when you think you've got it all figured out, someone always has to go and throw a wrench into the machine, right?
    My grandparents were over yesterday, and I got sucked into a conversation with my mother and grandmother about religion and marriage. I envy my sister, who had enough sense to purposely avoid the kitchen during this time. :P
    Anyway, the content of the conversation is not important, except that it got me thinking about whether or not I want to be married in the Catholic Church. I mean, I'm Catholic and I went to a Catholic school and was confirmed and all, but I don't really go to church anymore. I have a lot of faith in God, but I'm just not so sure about organized religion.
    The decision about whether or not to get married in the Church never seemed an important one (I doubt my parents care... maybe my mom), but now I'm thinking about what place I want the Church to have in my life after marriage, as well as during.
    I want my kids to go to a Catholic school (if they still exist in Ontario when I have kids :P), and I think it's important for them to be brought up with some form of spirituality. More specifically, I really hope they believe in God in some form or another. But if I don't plan on actually going to Church and taking my children to church, can they even attend a Catholic school? More than that, is it important for them to receive the Catholic rites and sacraments if I don't even believe in the Church?
    I've reached a point where my beliefs seem to contradict themselves -not within myself, but within society.
    I tried talking about this with Andrew last night, and it just went badly. It's always bothered me a little bit that Andrew has virtually no spirituality, but of course I'm not about to pressure him or push anything on him because that just seems wrong. I asked him if planned on getting married in the Catholic Church, and he said that his family sort of expect him to, and he always figured he would. And then I told him that most priests expect people who want to be married in the Church to actually attend Church, and he said that maybe he would go back to the Church for that purpose.
    Is it just me, or does that just seem morally wrong? Even if we did go back to the Church, it would only be because we wanted to get married in the Church, and we probably wouldn't go anymore after we were married. What's more, Andrew isn't even Catholic. I mean, sure, he was confirmed and he went to Catholic school, but he doesn't believe in God.
     Even more than I think it's wrong to "cheat" the Church by attending for a period just so I can get married in the Church, I think it's wrong to get married in the Church and make vows before a God you don't even believe in. I tried talking about this with Andrew, but he just doesn't understand. He doesn't care, is what I mean. It bothers me that he would have no problem using and making a mockery of someone else's religion and Church instead of standing up to his family.
    While the difference between Andrew's spirituality (or lack thereof) and mine has always bothered me a little, this is the first time it's ever really been a practical problem. :(
    So I'm eager to hear what any of you have to say on this one, about both marriage and raising children in/out of the Catholic Church. Think carefully -some of you may have to deal with similar issues in the future.

~Shayla

Tuesday October 11th, 2005 @ 1:00 PM
Once again, society pisses me off...

    I'm experiencing a re-shuffling of values and ideas. I think it's partly due to school, partly due to David Suzuki, partly due to the point in my life...
    I've decided to become an anti-consumerist (don't look that one up... I'm not sure if such a group actually exists or if I've just invented it). I'm sick of our stupid media-money-consumerist society.
    Consider that this is how our society works: people pay enormous amounts of money to have whatever the media tells them they need. The media doesn't tell people this in order to aid them or make the quality of their lives better -it just wants the profit. And our consumerist, constant-upgrade, disposible society is killing the environment by depleting resources and not replacing them. What's more, governments don't do anything to stop this system because 1) they want the GDP (money) these companies bring in, and 2) politicians only serve short terms, and won't risk their re-election by passing an unpopular bill that will lead to short-term unhappiness and long-term good (which will be reaped long after their time in office).
    So what I'm thinking is, what do I really need? Thanksgiving just passed, and we've all reflected on what we already have, but what do we all really need?
    And the answer is: basically, nothing.
    So I am boycotting as much as I can. I can never boycott everything and be self-sufficient (it's just not feasible, nor is it the optimal way to live, really), but there is a lot out there that I DON'T need, and WILL not support.
    So down with brand names, because they perpetuate this ridiculous obsession with mindless consumption. And down with large trans-national corporations (except maybe Canadian ones... I'm not against supporting my country), because they lead to monopolies, and all the money I spend there will go into the pockets of the rich, while their employees will be paid minimum wage. And down with voting for political parties who only care about the economy (this is a big one for me -remember, I voted Conservative last time), because what's the point of having money when you don't have a high quality of life, and universal healthcare, and environmental protection, and a good school system?
    Goddamn it, five million North Americans will phone in to vote for their favourite reality TV character, but why does no one seem to care about the destruction of society and the environment?

~Shayla

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