day 30 - movies you can watch again and again

1. Serenity
2. Amelie (Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain)
3. Pride & Prejudice
4. Princess Bride
5. X-Men (any of them)
6. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
7. Iron Monkey
8. Pirates of the Caribbean (any of them)
9. Lord of the Rings (any of them, as long as they're the Extended Edition)
10. Tarzan (Disney version)
11. Atlantis
12. Prince of Egypt
13. Lion King
14. Star Trek (the new one)
15. I'm Not There
16. Beauty and the Beast
17. 10 Things I Hate About You
18. Harry Potter (any of them, with the possible exception of Half-Blood Prince - that one sucked bad in some spots.)
19. Sense & Sensibility
20. Shrek

and thus ends the 30 day blogging challenge. whatever will i do now?

day 29 - favorite tv shows and why you like them

ooookay. this one's EASY.

1. Castle.

reasons i like it: a) nathan fillion. b) cop show. c) awesome characters and great tension between castle and beckett. love it. but i'm still anxiously waiting for castle to ask beckett out.

2. Eureka.

reasons i like it: a) sci-fi. b) general oddballness. c) awesome characters and some tension in this one too, between carter and allison. love this one as well.

3. Firefly.

does this one even need me to list the reasons i love it? really? any browncoat should know why firefly is lovable. so i'm not even going to go into it.

4. NCIS.

reasons i like it: a) abby sciuto. b) cop show. c) awesome characters. and really, tony, you're perfectly happy to hook mcgee up with some girl, but yet you haven't asked ziva out once. doesn't make sense.

day 28- cruise a thesaurus and pick out 10 words you like the sound of

mmmm - words! my favourite!

1. proleptical 
2. maverick 
3. concordance 
4. bisulcated 
5. protuberance 
6. acrimony 
7. occlude 
8. adumbrate 
9. malkin 
10. recondite

day 27- my day job versus my passion

day job: graveyard storefront & production at Tim Horton's. so technically not a "day" job :P

passion: music, painting, drawing, sewing, designing, knitting, researching, finding out geeky details.

gee. not very similar, are they.

day 26- list 10 things that you are thankful for

1. vitamin C & handkerchiefs (why yes, i do have a cold, how ever did you guess?)
2. night off work on friday, so i get to go see my mama in her play
3. turkish delight is going to be sold at the play's concession (why yes, mama's play is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, how ever did you guess?)
4. own apartment, own kitchen, own kitchen sink to keep shiny (thank you FLYlady for that one)
5. the clouds that enabled me to get some sleep today
6. my grandma, who decided that i needed a ride to work last night and then a ride home from work this morning.
7. payday is this week
8. my guitar
9. the snow is nearly non-existent, so i can actually ride my bike to work
10. my friends and my family

day 25- what I would find in your bag

this depends on which bag.

if by bag, you mean the backpack i take to work every night, then you would find:

• uniform, consisting of
• pants
• belt
• visor
• shirt
• apron
• non-slip shoes
• wallet
• phone
• knitting
• hairbands
• change from tips
• notepad and pen.

if, however, you mean the purse that i now very infrequently use, that contains:

• deodorant
• guitar picks
• wallet
• phone
• keys
• miscellaneous junk, including, but not limited to:
• safety pins
• erasers
• tampons
• bullet (yes, i have one real actual bullet and somehow it ended up in my purse.)
• button
• focus on the family fridge magnet
• squashed jones soda lid
• ticket to a bruins game from last sunday that i didn't need because i was part of a booth
• sharpie
• tiny picture of me that ellie drew
• dog collar
• eyeliner
• mascara
• eyeshadow
• burt's bees lip balm

.... yeah. it's time to clean out my purse. maybe.

day 24- post your favorite quote or verse of scripture and why

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.
You take the blue pill: the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill: you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."

and why do i like this quote?
i'm not sure. i think it may be the invitation to experience reality. to leave the world you thought you knew but were starting to doubt, and find out the truth. plus i like the reference to alice in wonderland. heh.

day 23- something you crave a lot

day 22- what makes you different from everyone else

oh my.
different.
well.

• i sing random songs at random times at work
• i knit (which for my age group is not too common - i actually had some friends laugh at me because they brought me along to a bar, and i brought my knitting along to the bar too)
• i like to make bread from scratch - i made another batch this morning at about 3am, and it's turned out better than the first batch did, so i'm reasonably happy about that.
• i live at night and sleep during the day - that's different from most people :P
• i remember stuff. really well.

the thing is, there are probably people out there who match some of these, maybe there's even someone who is the same, point for point. so i'm not different from EVERYONE else. but you take these and all the other things that make me ME, and you have a unique person, but i don't have the time or the brainpower to list EVERYTHING about myself, because i would have to do that in order to show exactly how i'm different from everyone else.
oh well.
this will do.

day 21-a picture of something that makes you happy

 

the things in this picture that make me happy:

my camera

and photo editing.

day 20- write a letter to someone

[please nobody get offended at the beginning, kay? keep reading to the end before you judge me.]

dear beloved tim hortons customers:
i would like to say thank you for contributing towards my paycheque. it's much appreciated. because of you, i can pay rent and eat food.
however. i would like to make note of a few things.
first of all, it's an everything bagel. herb & garlic is a cream cheese. let's not get them mixed up, okay? because when you ask for a herb & garlic bagel, we kind of get confused, since you can put herb & garlic on pretty much any kind of bagel you want.
speaking of which: i do not understand cinnamon raisin bagels with herb & garlic on them.
secondly, you can ask for a double double all you want, but we still need to know what size it is.
third: no, we can't take your [insert name of disposable item here] through the drive-thru window. there's a garbage can just before the speaker box for a reason.
also, if you're in the drive-thru and we ask you to wait a moment at the speaker box til we can take your order, that is not the cue to tell us you want an extra-large french vanilla and a regular ham-and-swiss on white, toasted, extra ranch, no tomato, and a box of twenty timbits, half sour cream glazed, half honey cruller. because we can't take that order.
and if we ask you to speak up when you're in the drive-thru lane, it's because we can't hear you, not because we're stupid.
lastly, the vanilla dip has a name.
 
BUT.

if i didn't enjoy serving you your four-by-fours and boston creams, your sausage breakfast sandwiches and your ice capps, i wouldn't still be doing it. yes, sometimes you frustrate me. yes, sometimes you irritate me. but sometimes you bring a smile to my face.
and i honestly enjoy hearing the order "two large double doubles, extra-large triple triple, extra-large double double, and a sesame bagel toasted with herb & garlic," every morning at 2.30-3ish, and being able to say, "you know your total, please pull up to the window!"
some of you only turn up once in a while, some of you are regulars. some of you order exactly the same thing every time, some of you like to switch it up. it doesn't matter. i still like you. you're all awesome people.
so thank you, tim hortons customers.
please keep coming back.
just get your order right, kay?

day 19- write about a sweet memory from your past

so i was racking my brains and couldn't think of anything. but then i was snacking this afternoon and thought, hang on! how about a literally "sweet" memory?

it was when i was in maputo, mozambique.
we were at the iris ministries orphanage.
and one night we all gathered in this covered area, i don't even remember if there was a name for this place, or where it was in the layout of the orphanage, but there we were, a handful of white people in amongst a ton of african kids, watching The Lion King. and the kids were handing us pieces of sugarcane to chew while we watched the movie in the dark.

and the reason this memory came to mind? stupidstore - er, superstore - was selling pieces of sugarcane about 3ft long the last time i went grocery shopping. so naturally i grabbed a piece, and that's what i was snacking on this afternoon.

i know, it doesn't look like much. but believe me. it's tasty. and it's raw. hah.

day 18- plans/dreams/goals you have

some of this i already covered in the bucket list but we'll do some repeats. cos i'm going to be typing as i'm thinking.

1. write a book
2. go to school
3. own a house/apartment
4. not being klutzy any more would be amazing (as i spill part of my bowl of cereal on my leg - at least it's not a hot drink!)
5. a dream would be to have all the time and money i needed so i could just do art and sew stuff. far-fetched, i know.

... it's three in the morning. this is all i can think of right now.

day 17- someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why

so this is the first blog challenge day that's late so far - but i had a busy day for an excuse.

plus i couldn't think of any one person. especially cos i wasn't sure if fictional people were allowed.

at first i thought Bono - cos he's a rockstar. and it would be fricken awesome to be Bono for a day - i think. besides the opposite-gender thing. anyways.
and then i thought of Isis Mussenden - she did the costumes for Narnia. and i would know that cos i'm a geek. and i would love to do that.
or then i thought it would be awesome to be a librarian or a museum curator or something for a day, not a specific person but a type of person.

but if i could be a fictional person, i would be Arwen, or i would be Harry (short for Angharad) from The Blue Sword.

day 16- a picture of yourself

wait - didn't i do this already?

oh well. i don't mind an excuse to take pictures of myself :P

day 15- put your ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play

halfway through the challenge - i haven't missed a day so far. go me! so. an iPod one. here we go.

1. Things I'm Gonna Do - Rasputina
2. Already Home - Thousand Foot Krutch
3. Come Clean - Eisley
4. Come Back Down - Lifehouse
5. Fight Inside - Red
6. Relentless Intolerance - Demon Hunter
7. Wait - The Afters
8. Acoustic #3 - Goo Goo Dolls
9. How We Quit The Forest - Rasputina
10. If Only - KT Tunstall

so easy.

clicky here if you want to hear them on my grooveshark playlist!

day 14- a picture of you and your family

i actually don't have a picture of just our family altogether. odd, considering all the squillions and bajillions of other miscellaneous photos i have, that i don't have one of our family. so here's one with me and my siblings and my grandparents and my cousins on my dad's side, no parents.

and one of the recently extended-even-more family on my mom's side.

day 13- your 5 favorite books and why

oh man. how do i choose. i love books. i love finding new books.
but. there are some that i will read and reread and reread.
so this is the list.

1. The Riddle-Master Trilogy [particularly Heir of Sea and Fire]

i love these ones because they're epic fantasy with brilliant characters, and i always discover some new detail every time i read them.

2. Busman's Honeymoon

this one i love because it's a Lord Peter mystery (and i just love those in general) but it's also a love story at the same time, and it just makes me happy.

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

this one makes my list of favourites because of the ending. i just love how it ends. it couldn't have been better.

4. The Space Trilogy [particularly That Hideous Strength]

well now. first of all, it's C. S. Lewis. so that makes it automatically awesome to begin with. and then there's space travel, and angels - excuse me, eldila (singular "eldil") and Oyeresu (singular Oyarsa) - and the end of the world, and just awesomeness. read it.

5. The Blue Sword

oh my gosh. i freaking love this book. and i don't know if i have a why. i just love it. i read the prequel once and i love this one better. it's a fantastic book.

man i love fantasy. and yes i cheated by sticking trilogies in. but really. i can't just pick five books.
anyways. gotta go make dinner.

day 12- write a poem to someone you love

i know you miss me
and i want to let you know i still love you,
and that i never stopped - 
but you know that,
don't you?

some songs on the radio
make me think of you and chuckle to myself
"... do i really feel the way i feel?"
and i know you'd chuckle too

so many memories
holding hands, walking down a road
lots of adventures, just you and me
both recent and long ago
and so many songs sung together

i'm looking forward to many more years
and many more adventures
clever plans and silly songs
visits and movies and inside jokes
i'm so glad i get to share them with you

and you know i'll always love you
you'll always have a special place in my heart
cos i'll always be your daughter
and you'll always be my dad.

day 11- write a bucket list of things you want to do before you die

1. see Wales
2. ride a rollercoaster
3. get a tattoo, if not several
4. go on a road-trip
5. dance in a cemetery in the moonlight
6. cut my hair into a mohawk [if only for a day]
7. build myself a coffin bed
8. learn the violin [and own one, too!]
9. get laser-eye surgery
10. learn how to be neat
11. finish all my UFOs
12. join a group of LARPers
13. write a book

(I am keeping the strikethroughs current, as of May 8 2013.)

day 10- songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad

oh boy. a song day. my favourite. i was going to go All Out and pick a bunch of songs for each mood, but i don't have much time left cos i still have to sleep before work. so here it is.

HAPPY.
Light Up The Sky, by The Afters.

SAD.
I Don't Love You, by My Chemical Romance.

BORED.
DwarfStar, by Rasputina.

HYPED.
Dark Holiday, by Dommin.

MAD.
Dear X, You Don't Own Me, by Disciple.

day 9- something you're proud of in the past few days

1. making bread all by myself
2. getting [somewhat] unpacked
3. biking to work - 1/2 an hour one way, and that's if i'm going fast.
4. getting through a shift at work while training someone - and it was just me and her the whole night - and we didn't do too badly either! go Zoa!
5. making good [&healthy] food - seems i'm following in my mom's footsteps :)

 those are things i'm proud of right now.

oh and i have a story from work.
i got to work on monday night, and one of my coworkers noticed that the roots of my hair are ... well ... not black! and this is the conversation that followed.

She: are you blonde under that? [it should be noted for the sake of accuracy that i am not exactly blonde. more of a light brown. but in comparison with the black, it does look more like a dirty blonde.]
Me: sort of, yes.
She: you shouldn't dye your hair. the blonde looks good.
Me: but i like the black better than i like the blonde.
She: i don't; it makes you look gothic.
Me: ... that's ... kind of ... the point.
She: but it makes you look dead. do you really want to look dead?
Me: [lols] i guess if you want to look at it that way...
She: don't gothic people want to look dead? and act dead?
Me: i suppose some of them do, but not all ...
She: [isn't really listening to me] so if you want to look dead, and act dead, then maybe you should just BE dead. i mean it. go kill yourself.
Me: [trying to laugh at it like she's joking - but she's so not] i don't want to be dead.
She: well, you're trying to look dead, so maybe you should just finish the job.

.... i'm trying to decide whether this should come under the category of harassment, or whether i should just leave it - she has a kid, so once he achieves teenagerhood, i suspect she'll be changing her tune just a little - but this was the first sort of anti-goth perspective i've heard from anyone since i discovered Goth.

and for the record, i don't intend to follow through on her suggestion at all :) i believe it was spoken from a position of bias, prejudice, and a lack of understanding, and as such, has no merit in my situation. actually, let me rephrase that: suicide has NO merit in ANY situation. there is always some other way to deal with problems.

so there.

day 8- short term goals for this month and why

oh man.
i don't do the goals thing much.
i know one of my goals is to get my boxes unpacked and stuff set up and so on, and i should think that would have a fairly obvious "why".
another one would be to find a schedule that allows me to get enough sleep while still getting stuff done. again, a fairly obvious "why" on that one.
i also need to go talk to someone at UFV. or something. to try and figure out what to take for school. oi.
and i also need to finish my WIPs, as mentioned in day 4 - because it's depressing, knowing they're sitting there awaiting your attention.

day 7- a picture of someone/something that has had the biggest impact on you

how do i pick just one thing or person? every place i've been, every person i've met, everything i've done has made an impact on me somehow.

domestication!

day 6- favorite super hero and why

oh dear. this one will be a little harder, i think. cos when i was a kid, we didn't really watch any superhero movies or read any superhero comics. so everyone knows the story of superman, or batman, or all these other superheroes, but that wasn't really part of my growing-up experience. the most i think we watched, superhero-wise, was larry-boy. larry-boy and the fib from outer space. larry-boy and the rumour weed.
good times.
but.

i recently was able to watch Batman Begins, and i find myself intrigued by him - a superhero ... who's not super.
he wasn't bit by some weird spider like Peter Parker, he didn't come from a different planet like Superman, he didn't have whatever the Hulk had (radioactivity? help me out here.), he's not a mutant like the X-Men. he's a regular human who just happens to want to fix the world - but has awesome gadgets for doing so.
yes, i admit, the black and the bats kind of make me happy too.
but that's not the only thing.
my sense of justice is also liking the vigilante persona, where people get what they deserve.
and he conquers his fear of bats by becoming one, in a way, which is awesome. people are by nature fearful, and they tend to avoid their fears, rather than facing them dead-on and saying, "i'm going to identify with this".
so yeah.
regular guy who pushes himself to the limit. and comes out on top.

so i'd have to say, my favourite superhero is Batman.

day 5- a picture of somewhere you've been

how about several places i've been?

First, BC Canada - where I was born, and where I live now.
Arbroath, Scotland, a two year sojourn.
The next two are Maputo, Mozambique.
Then Dondo, Mozambique.
Hole-in-the-Wall, South Africa.
Johannesburg, ditto.
And last, BC.