Gloryfades.org

A very belated Merry Christmas and happy New Year to everyone who celebrates out there! I - once again - forgot to update this blog along with my livejournal. Perhaps one of my new year’s resolutions should be to remember more often?

So I’ve had a lovely holiday. It’s not over but in a half week’s time I begin my final “official” semester at Ryerson (since I will be doing distance ed during the spring semester). I’m nervous because a lot of things are going to happen this year. Things will change, hopefully for the better, but you really can’t tell until you’re looking back at it. Whatever happens I hope I grow as a person, learn some interesting things and (could it be true?) move out finally!

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything down! Exams have begun so life has been a bit hectic. However, I’m glad the essays have all been handed in. I’m a little embarrassed by the last one I handed in (today) but the guy is an insanely easy marker so I’m not terribly worried. Still, I feel a little guilty cause I feel like I’m insulting him with the tripe I’ve handed in. However, my level of caring has dipped well below zero so it’s no longer a real concern of mine. As long as I do well on my exams I’ll be happy. Besides, I haven’t gotten anything lower than a B all semester so I’ve been doing well, I dare say.

By the way, I highly recommend Sarah McLachlan’s Wintersong if you’re looking for new Christmas tunes. I know I’m heavily biased since I idolize the woman but she really does know how to make a pretty song, especially for the holidays.

Speaking of the holidays, I’m wallowing cause I’m a bit cash-strapped at the moment. I’m sort of late in the game trying to find a second job but so far it hasn’t been too concerning. I’ve found ways to make money other than my normal job so I should be able to get all of the presents I’m planning to get. Which reminds me. I should probably think about what I’m getting everyone. Right now I have no clue what I’m getting anyone. All I know is that I’m going cheap this year, lol. I hate to be a big cheapo but it sucks when your income is low. Next year I’ll hopefully compensate because I’ll have a full-time job!

As the semester is winding down I’m thinking a lot about the last three months and things that I’ve accomplished in that time. In the past my semesters have been rocky but this past one has been really good. I’ve learned to focus on my work and for that I’m happy. I thought I would list the few things that I’m proud of about this semester because I think it’s worth noting.

1. I’m proud of handing in my essays on time. While “on time” is a relative term in the world of academia I’m happy to say that I have not gone over extensions and I have not been penalized for handing anything in late.

2. I’m proud of going to class. I’ve had issues with this in the past, not going to class. I’d get over skipping classes and end up missing more because I was ashamed for having already missed one. This sort of thing often would snowball and I’d really miss out. While my attendance record this semester hasn’t been perfect I have not let it depress me (which is the problem because once I’m upset, I don’t want to do anything) and I have pushed myself to go to class even when I know I’ll be late. That was often a problem too - I’d miss classes because I knew I’d be fifteen, thirty minutes late for the beginning and I would be embarassed even just thinking about showing up late.

3. I’m proud that I haven’t missed any history seminars. All Ryerson history classes have four seminars which are worth 20% of your grade. Missing one is the equivalent of removing 5% of your grade. In the past I allowed myself the opporunity to miss one seminar because I didn’t feel it was important enough. This severely impacted my grades and I’m really proud of myself for not allowing myself to do that again.

4. I’m proud of myself for not freaking out entirely over my OSAP fiasco. While I may not have a loan anymore I have family who will step in and help if I need it and I am eternally grateful for their support. This is by no means a gift, though. I intend on repaying every dime they give me. On the plus side, though, that’s $2,000 I won’t have to give back to the government (plus interest!).

That’s pretty much it. It’s not a huge list but they’re important to me. I’m really happy that my final year is going so well, even with an extra course added. I was worried that all of this work would really bog me down and make my last year really awful but (for now) I’m doing alright. I just need to get through my exams and I’ll be alright.

Weekend is here and I’m pooped to the max. Today I handed in a crappy English essay and watched Once Were Warriors in said English class. If I had known it would be a movie day I may have stayed home and downloaded it. I decided to stick around, though, and watch it with everyone else. I had already paid for parking, after all. :/ Anyway, the movie was good. I haven’t finished the book (shhhhhh) but the movie was really raw and frightening.

For those who don’t know, Once Were Warriors is about the Heke’s, a Maori family living in the Auckland projects in New Zealand. My knowledge of Maori culture and life until this semester was minimal, at best. While I’m sure this movie and book are definitely the grimmer side of being a Maori it does present a really interesting comparison to the native population of Canada. I can see that it isn’t just our aboriginal population that was marginalized by the colonialists, a fact that really shouldn’t surprise me but still does. The movie was incredibly sad and pretty much ruined the book for me. It’s probably going to be hard getting through the rest of it cause it deals with a lot more violence before the end.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to say, really.

I wanted to try and make a new layout for gloryfades.org today but I couldn’t come up with anything decent. I’m gonna try again before the end of the night and hopefully think of something. I’m still hanging onto the blog on that domain with my dear life. No one really reads it and I don’t really update it as much as I used to (not that I updated it much to begin with :X). I hate having to choose between LJ and gloryfades.org because I want to put my thoughts onto both of them but sometimes I just can’t.

Well, reading back that last sentence made little sense to me. Once before I couldn’t write about certain things because I didn’t want a certain person to read it. Since then she has departed from my life and (hopefully) does not visit my website anymore. I could simply cross-post my entries into both accounts … Seems logical. I have no idea why I didn’t think of that earlier!

I’m not really sure what I set out to write tonight. It’s been a long week and I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. I’m distracted by several things - my exams are coming up and I’m starting to get nervous, I have a lot of bills to pay and not much money to pay them with, and Christmas is coming and I do not have that much money (again).

This is an unusual day for me - instead of going elsewhere today the first thing I opened up in my browser was this page. I feel like updating this website, by gum! Well, it’s not like I haven’t been continually updating the website, actually. I’m almost a Nazi when it comes to my book list. Ever since I started that project I’ve been really conscious of the amount of books I read and the quality of the books I read. I think I have great taste in literature, much like I think I have great taste in music. However, everything is subjective when it comes to personal taste so others who look at my list and see nothing from say 19th century Industrialist England (well, there’s Dracula) would think I have a real shitty taste in books.

In any event, regardless of what you think of my tastes, I quite enjoy my little list. It’s certainly not definitive but it’s got most of what I’ve read in the past year or so. I wish it were longer but it wasn’t until recently that I paid off my library fines and began taking books out again. Beforehand, I was so sure that I had a $40 fine that I just continued to buy books. I rationalized the spending by explaining to anyone who questioned it that I was building my own library, thank you very much.

Onto more interesting topics, though. I had a lecture today in my African Diaspora class that I rather enjoyed despite the fact that we did not write any notes down. I wasn’t excited about going to the class because it’s the only one I have on Monday’s and the entire class takes a grand total of an hour whereas the commute is somewhere in the region of two to two and a half hours.

Despite my hesitance to go, I’m still glad I went cause I really like this professor. I’ve talked to other people in the class and they’re not thrilled by his lecturing style which is comprised of overheads (Oh God, the dreaded overheads!) and free-style lecturing. Tangents abound but I still enjoy it. Most often the tangents are still within the frame of the lecture anyway and every so often he gives us a glimpse into his past life.

I don’t often admit this but I’m intensely fascinated by Americans. Not just American bigheads, the ones we all know, but ordinary people in general. I like their accents and I like hearing their stories from their childhood in Missouri or California or Michigan or wherever because I’ve grown up with these ideas about Americans - everything’s larger than life, a melting pot of an American Dream where people are rude and ambitious and sometimes even downtrodden. It’s all a mishmash in my mind and when I get to meet actual Americans I just drink in whatever they have to say. Perhaps when I one day visit the US of A I’ll stop being so googly-eyed but until then, whatever. I like hearing stories from Newfoundland, too, so it’s not just one country. Heck, it doesn’t even matter where you’re from. If it’s not Hamilton, Ontario, I’ll totally listen to your life story, pal.

I wish I could sit down with him and listen to his lifestory cause every time he gives us a glimpse into it I want him to stop lecturing and tell me more.

Alright, so I’m at the library in Ryerson and I should be researching for my essay but I felt compelled to post a little since I haven’t posted anything in over two weeks.

School is officially underway and I’m officially unemployed. A part of me really enjoys the not having to work part but the other part of me is really beginning to stress the fact that I’m about to have no money whatsoever. Especially when my bills come in :S I mean, I do have a small amount of money trickling into my accounts but it’s really not enough to live on. I find out tomorrow though if I’ve got a job as an Arts lab monitor which will pay well enough for me to be tied over until I find something a little meatier.

As for other things in my life, school’s awesome. I’ve got a great semester ahead of me and I’m already underway with all of my work. Like I said, I’m in the library right now to do some research for my essay. Two of my essays were assigned the first day of class which inspired me to get my ass in gear. If I can finish at least one essay before the end of January I’ll be really happy. If I can finish both of my major history essays before the spring break I’ll be jumping for joy. So I’m getting my butt in gear. I’ve already done a good chunk of research, I just need more As for marketing, I’ve buckled down and taken one marketing course *blushes* I hate it so much, but I’ve got to grin and bear it, I think. It helps that this semester I’m finally in a marketing class with a friend and the assignments aren’t impossibly boring and tedious. Plus, they aren’t really hard. It’ll be great. I can’t wait to get my first really good marketing grade.

So life is good. To the surprise (and delight?) of my family I cooked a real dinner last night. I invited Gord and Tatjana along with my sister and my niece over to share the yummies. My father received a turkey for Christmas which we didn’t need so yesterday I decided to attempt a roast turkey dinner. Suffice it to say, I did good. I think I did reaaal good, to be honest, cause I really enjoyed my food. The gravy turned out, the potatoes were yummy and the turkey was juuust right. Not too dry, not too moist. Plus, my salad was kickass. I loved it at the very least. Now I’m inspired to cook more. I’ve got a book at home that I can’t wait to crack open. It’s got recipes that are easy enough for a beginner like me to muddle through plus some fancier things that I can try with the help of my mother when she comes home.

Speak of my mother, she comes home in 8 days from Poland. She’s been gone since January 4. I miss the lady, I do admit. We’ve been butting heads lately but you really don’t realize how nice it is to have a mom until she’s gone for a little while. I appreciate her a lot more now that I’ve gotta share the house with just my dad, lol. So yes, can’t wait for her to be home.

So that’s my life in a nutshell. Anyway, I should be off because I’ve got an essay to research!

I’m at a crossroads and it’s putting some strain on my relationship with my mother.

I was supposed to spend the next semester at McMaster instead of Ryerson to accomodate this job at the CIBC. Well, I learned yesterday that that’s not going to happen. The courses I picked were non-transferable. I had already taken enough of those kind of courses to not need anymore. Wait, no. I need one more history course and that’s it, I’m done with all of my liberal studies courses. Whats left are all those marketing courses I’ve been putting off taking because I loathe marketing with such a fiery passion. I was so optimistic in my first year about marketing. Now I can’t stand the bloody subject!

Well, my fate at CIBC rested upon those transfer credits. Now that I cannot take those courses at Mac I need to start looking at my other options. I could continue doing this part-time thing, if I really wanted to, but it’s not something I’m keen on doing. I want to go to school and have a part-time job, yes, but not have a job and go to part-time school. After three years at Ryerson, the idea of leaving it now has really been a hard one to take, also. I love everything about Ryerson: it’s shoddy (for the most part) architecture, the wonderful instructors, those wonderful ladies I’ve come to know and love … none of that is something I want to give up.

So, I’ve decided that I’m going to quit CIBC after a month of working there. It will be two months by the time I quit at the end of December. No sense in jumping the gun completely. I’m off school for the Christmas holidays, so I may as well work fulltime and have money for presents.

My mother, on the other hand, seems to think that I’m capable of going to school and working at CIBC at the same time. Next semester I’m going to bite the bullet and take five courses again, a full courseload. I don’t want to take an extra two years to finish school unless there is some real added advantage to it (like majoring in History, which if Ryerson plans on shaping ACS into that, I will be doing!). I’m going to be taking all of those professionally-related courses that I deferred for as long as possible next semester cause I can’t (nay, I won’t) put them off for any longer. I need to stop hiding behind history as much as I don’t want to!

Boo. So, my mom and I have been a little testy with each other lately. I’ll take the blame for most of it cause I do have very little patience when it comes to her and school. After she walks away, muttering curses under her breathe, I end up feeling like shit. Last night, she actually stopped speaking to me for a bit :S That was really upseting. She never stops speaking with me!

The other problem is that I want to move to Toronto. I can’t do that unless I take out a line of credit to pay for rent (at least for the first few months). She thinks this is a bad idea, which in the grand scheme of things is probably true because it’s another debt that I’m adding to the hump on my back, but I feel its something that needs to be done. I’m entering my last year of school and I haven’t been on my own once. Travelling doesn’t count, either! Most people say it’s a bad mistake, moving out, but I think it’s a mistake that I need to learn on my own turf. I can’t have someone hold my hand the entire way into adulthood. It’d be nice, but I’m beginning to feel a little crowded in this womb. It’s time I went out on my own.

So I’m a little stressed out. I’ve got a letter of resignation I need to write, a resume I need to re-write, a personal line of credit I need to apply for AND … I have exams coming next week :S At least now that I’m down to three courses, it’s only three exams. But still, one of those exams belongs to Dr. Kislenko, and I always come out a little woozy from one of his exams.

So if I don’t update again for a long-ass time … it’s probably because I’ve imploded from stress, or because I’m in the process of moving, or something along those lines. Something .. not fun :S