Stop Being Violent On The Internet

Hi internet readers. I know, it's been a long time since I've posted. It's just that I've been terribly busy (no I haven't.) So, today, I'm supposed to be writing my resume, but instead I'm doing 1000 other unimportant things.

Also, it's Remembrance Day. If you don't know, this is the day that Canadians pay respect to everyone who gave their lives for our freedoms and specifically to this post, our right to free speech. Which, of course, includes my right to blog about whatever I feel like AND to insist that everyone reads it.

Okay, so, there has been some controversy about a "white poppy movement." Here, read this COMPLETELY TERRIBLE ARTICLE by the Toronto Sun which is the worst newspaper ever and displays biases and generalizations like it's its job. Actually, don't read that article. Read this one, because it actually gives you real background information. Please keep your eyes out for the word "alongside." It's important.

So, I'm getting to the point, just hold your horsies. I don't personally have a really strong opinion about the white poppy one way or the other. I personally choose to wear a red one, even though it doesn't really seem like it because I usually lose my poppy within 4 minutes of putting it in my coat. I think I've gone through 6 of them so far. Buuut, my opinion on that isn't really relevant.

So, if you didn't read the articles that I told you to read because you don't do everything that the internet tells you to do, here is a quick rundown of some info that you'll need to understand the rest of this babble. Feel free to skip if you're familiar with the situation.

1. A group in Ottawa has been trying to bring back the white poppy which is supposed to represent peace and anti-war.
2. Many people have taken offence to this movement, saying that it is disrespectful to the veterans who fought to ensure our rights to free speech and free lives.
3. Apparently somewhere along the way someone claimed that the red poppy glorifies war.
4. The red poppy people have been rage tweeting/commenting/facebooking for like a full week about it.

Okay! So here FINALLY is what annoys me about this situation. I will write it in bold. Just because you don't agree with someone doesn't mean you can threaten to kick them in the face and wish shame upon their entire existence and the existence of their children and their children's children. Seriously, it's kind of funny, because you're trying to argue against the glorification of violence by threatening violence. Wait, what? That doesn't make sense! 

So, now let's apply this to the bigger picture, because that's how we make changes in the world, or something. (There's a piece of life advice there somewhere, I know it.) I'm going to use some more bold font. Why do we think we can say whatever terrible, rude, violent, mean thing we want on the internet? It's actually so dumb. Yes, it's much easier to say whatever you please when you don't have to look someone in the face or hear their reactions. Why do you think I love pizza places that let you order online so much? (Because I'm terrified of the phone.) But is it RIGHT to say whatever mean thing you want to say to a person? No, it is not right. So stop doing it. Unless it's directed at a celebrity, then it's fine.

There are so many other fun things you could be doing on the internet. If being a total a-hole in the comment section of a website is the most fun thing you can come up with, you should probably go talk to a therapist about your childhood. Maybe keep a journal beside your laptop and you can express yourself there. Surely if your opinion is important enough, whatever you write there will be published as part of your memoirs sometime in the future or it'll be discovered post-apocalypse and be interpreted as some sort of religious text.

So, come on everyone. The internet is a place to come together and share happiness, not to call people names and wish them the worst. Life is tough enough without trolls releasing their troll-sorcery and vexing our first born children.

I Don't Skate

So, I don't know if you noticed or not, but I'm scared of a lot of things. I spend more time worrying about what could happen if I do something than I actually spend doing things. I'm pretty sure I've been this way forever, and it can get really frustrating when my brain says everything is going to be fine but then some little crazy person who also lives in my head reminds me of the 4050 reasons that it might not be fine.

Yeah, I'm terrified of dying in a car accident or falling and breaking my leg getting off the bus. But so is everyone else. The weirdest thing about me is that it's not necessarily the death or the broken bones which terrify me (okay, that's super scary stuff, but just bear with me). The worst part about all of that is that then people would see me, notice me, have to help me, etc. and for some reason that's the scariest thing in the world to me. I just want to go about my business, blending in to the crowd and looking like a perfectly normal human. I don't want to make a scene. I don't want to be different.

Normal. That's the important thing. This is why when people ask me this one particular, no-big-deal-for-most-Canadians question, I have a tiny panic attack. "Want to go skating?"

No, I don't want to go skating. Why? Because I can't. Except I never tell people I "can't" skate. I say, "I don't skate," as if it's something comparable to "I don't drink" or "I don't hunt humans for sport." When someone says they "don't" do something, it implies that they're making a choice not to do it, but they could do it if they wanted to. But it you put me on a pair of skates, I would end up on my butt in a matter of seconds. Because it's not that I don't skate. It's that I can't.*

I always say it's because I'm afraid of falling and damaging my coccyx or smashing my head or getting my throat slit by someone else who goes skating by, which is partially true. You should see me walk across icy sidewalks. I'm sure it's hilarious and it definitely takes me an unreasonable amount of time to get places. So, yes, part of it is fear of falling and looking like an idiot.

But in reality, I'm mostly scared of failing. And people seeing me fail. It's the same reason it took me a long time to learn how to tie my shoes. The same reason most of my basketball playing career was spent terrified of handling the ball. If I don't try, then I can't fail. And at this point, learning to skate would be a whole lot of me falling and looking dumb and people seeing me do it (because there's no way I'm going out on the ice with blades strapped to my shoes by myself).

Of course, if you don't try you won't succeed at anything either. But I'd rather be a non-succeeder than a failure. Go about my life in mediocrity and stuff like that. (I'm just kidding. No one wants that.)

And I know that everyone went through this. Everyone was four years old and falling down and looking dumb. But clearly even as a young child I was insecure enough to be aware that I didn't want people to look at me and see me falling down. Because what if I was terrible at it? What if I never got good? I'm guessing it was just easier for little Alene to give up, because that way she was only "bad" at it because she hadn't really tried.

One time my class went on a field trip to go skating and I stayed behind. When my classmates returned, we all had to write a journal entry about our day on the ice. Oh, wait, except for me. I wrote about my day spent sitting in the library probably reading Berenstain Bear books and hoping that people didn't notice that I had stayed behind. And then of course we had to read them out loud. The worst part of the day though, came when one of my classmates came up and told me that she was discussing with our teacher and they're both pretty sure that I didn't go because I don't know how to skate. I don't know if she said it in a mocking way or if she was trying to be sympathetic, but I do remember being unbelievably angry and upset. I denied not being able to and was probably kind of mean to her about it. But that moment has always stuck with me.

You wouldn't think something as unimportant as this would cause someone so much stress. But it did. And it still does now. You're probably thinking, "Just go and learn to skate and stop whining." It's not that easy. Plus, really, I've gone this long in my life without it, I think I'll live. And, seriously, I'm a bit higher off the ground now than I was when I was four. Do you really think I'm going to enjoy falling at this point?

This shouldn't be a big deal because I'm sure the majority of the world can't skate since the majority of the world's population doesn't have access to ice or even shoes for that matter so why would they own skates? I'm definitely not the minority when it comes to the entire planet, but I am the minority when it comes to Canada, and since I don't hang out in Africa a lot, I think it's kind of a bigger deal.

It has only been extremely recently that I've been able to admit this to anyone. I dated someone for three years and never told him. I just made up excuse after excuse as to why I couldn't go. I honestly don't know why it's such a big deal. To my friends, I tried to act like I could but I just didn't want to. I don't know that my pathetic attempts really fooled anyone, but I do know that most of them don't ask me to go skating anymore.

So, I guess what this is is just me getting this off my chest. And hopefully it will feel good, because at this point, I'm panicking a bit about it.

Wait, I forgot to tell you the part that makes the entire thing 10000x worse for me. The reasons I never took up skating are the exact same reasons that you'll never see me riding a bike anywhere. I feel like it would be easier if it were one or the other, but it's both.

I guess I'm hoping that I'll get some feedback and people will tell me A. That I'm not alone. Which I know I'm not, it's just good to see real live people who are in the same boat and B. That I'm not crazy and these are rational feelings. Which I know they are because I read about it in a textbook. But again, it's nice when real live people share your problems, isn't it?

*Please don't tell me to "never say never" or some nonsense. I'm aware that I'm physically capable if I just set my mind to it and did it. Please just enjoy that paragraph because it was kind of funny and move on.

Newborn Babies Are Ugly

I'm sure about half of the people who clicked this link did so because they recently had a child or a family member recently had a child or they recently found a child on the side of the road or something and they're thinking, "You, Alene, are a numbskull. Babies are cute. Look how cute my baby is." I should probably start out by saying I'm sorry, people who recently kidnapped a baby, but you are blinded by love and therefore have no say in the matter at this time.

Babies - not talking two year-olds but actual, fresh-out-the-womb babies - are ugly.

Let's look at exhibit A:
















I'm sorry, that's a really terrible example because that is the most gorgeous child I've ever seen. (It's me.) To be fair, I'm not actually "fresh-out-the-womb" here. But I couldn't let you miss out on the opportunity to see this absolute gem of a photograph.

Here's exhibit B, a photo of me right after being birthed from the canal:





















Okay, I actually couldn't find a picture of me that young, but this is close enough. Babies (and I guess old people too if you're going to be an argumentative a-hole) are the human equivalent of raisins. And no one in the history of ever has ever called a raisin "cute."

I bring up this baby issue because I always have to laugh when people comment on Facebook photos and tell someone that their baby photo (you know, the one where the baby is practically still covered in slime and the new mother looks like she just shoved a watermelon out of unmentionable places?) is super adorable. I can't deny the fact that I've done this a time or two. But really, when we say it, do we mean it? I mean, yes, babies are tiny versions of people, which I guess is almost, sort-of, in a way an aspect of cuteness. But they're not mini-jar-of-Cheez-Whiz-cute (those little jars make toast a more adorable meal!) I don't even know the difference between your little bundle of joy and the bundle of joy that ruined my entire Boston Pizza experience by screaming and crying and pooping.

And it's not even like newborns do anything fun. They just blink and blow spit bubbles, which I'm sure is totally great if you're one of the people who contributed the ingredients for making this kid, or one of the people who distracted the doctor while your partner stole it. And that's exactly why recent parents or hijackers (?) of children are not allowed a say in this. You're too emotionally involved.

And here's the other thing - human babies are possibly the wimpiest things in the entire animal world. I think they're second only to baby opossums:

Freaking disgusting, right? But at least opossums have the excuse of only being in the womb for 12 days. 12. That was not a typo. 12 days. Humans are in there for almost 300 (Look, we're learning things!) and they still won't be mature enough to do your evil bidding for at least a few years after they're born.

And of course, there is a point where kids are cute. That point comes somewhere between when they learn to walk and when they learn to talk. Other than that, they're either a raisin, or a dirty, snot-covered brat. (I really do apologize if I offend people. But the internet is a place for honesty and truth-telling.)

Afterword:
Maybe, one day, when I give birth to my own child (fingers crossed that they've figured out teleportation at that point and can just beam the thing out of me) I'll feel differently about the matter. But at that point my opinion will not matter because it will have been compromised by the little angel who "has my eyes." (How the flying Fudgesicle can you even tell?!?! The thing's face is just a bunch of raisin folds that kind of resemble a human being.)

I Didn't Write A Christmas Blog Post (Until Now)

According to some search engine statistics sites which may or may not be completely inaccurate, people were doing a lot of searching for the terms "Merry Christmas" and "Christmas" in the past few days. So writing an* Xmas blog would have been the perfect way to get some serious search engine traffic (if you care about that sort of thing, which I don't even though I share my blog on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Digg, Google+, etc.) But everyone and their cat was writing posts about Christmas. I say cat because dogs aren't smart enough or evil enough to commandeer our laptops at night, let's be serious.

So, writing a blog about how my Christmas went and what Santa brought me, etc. would be, in my opinion, beating a dead reindeer. (By the way, Santa brought me an Xbox and my brothers bought me Lego Lord of the Rings so I'm the happiest camper that ever camped in a warm trailer with electricity hook up and a big screen TV.) I started a post about my favourite Christmas things, including Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses, Love Actually and Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy's Christmas jumpers. But really, I felt like I wasn't actually in love with all of these things as much as I thought I was or as much as I used to be. (Except the candy cane kisses. Those things are amazing.)

So, here's the sad thing about Christmas at this stage in my life: I just don't really care about it that much. Whether this has something to do with the fact that my parents recently sent me an email trying to convince me that Santa isn't real (they just want credit for the amazing gift he brought for me) or because I'm extremely lazy and lifting my arm to hang crappy decorations made by kindergarten-age-Alene is just way too much work, I don't know. (Another side note - my family didn't have a tree at all this year and guess what? I got no unnecessary arm exercise because of it. All of my arm-energy went to lifting my fork during Christmas dinners. Win.) Maybe there's just so much other stuff happening right now that Christmas kind of gets overshadowed. Or maybe, Xmas just isn't actually as exciting the 20th time around.

I'm not saying that I don't like being with my family, because that's my favourite thing in the whole world. But, I believe that you shouldn't need excuses (like Christmas or raiding a closet to find the sweatpants your cousin stole from you) to see the people you love. And I'm not saying that I don't love watching people open the gifts I bought them, even if the smile on their face is completely fake because "Sweet Jolly Ranchers, ANOTHER candle, Alene, seriously?"

I didn't ask for anything this year (except for a KNOPE 2012 campaign poster which I did not receive. I'm gonna go drip my tears all over my new Xbox controller about it.) The only things I want out of Christmas are alcohol (got lots of that), a cheese ball (I saw one at dinner, but I don't know that anyone opened it, which is upsetting. Or they opened it and I didn't get any, which is even more upsetting.), some good laughs (check), and A KNOPE 2012 CAMPAIGN POSTER, MOM AND DAD! IT WAS ONLY LIKE $12 ON NBC.COM!

So, where am I going with this? And why have I started so many of my paragraphs with "So?" I feel like my English professor would be punching me in the back of the head if she were reading this over my shoulder right now. She also says that parenthesis are a waste of time but I like to interrupt myself a lot and sometimes dashes just don't format the way you want them to. Sorry, what was I talking about?

Christmas.

Does Christmas get old? Yeah, maybe. My mother says it starts to get interesting again once you have kids, so here's hoping Christmas remains boring for a few more years.

Some people love Christmas for the gifts, other people love it for the food. Because you can't buy and cook a turkey any other time of year (pause to let that sink in.) And I mean if you're really in need of a gravy fix there's always KFC. Except that I think every tsp of KFC gravy takes 2.4 minutes of your life. That's the secret ingredient in KFC chicken - human life force. Still tasty though.

I actually prefer Easter to Christmas, probably because there's a lot less snow and a lot more finding chocolate eggs in random places for the next week (or the next year, which HAS happened.) And Easter hasn't been completely taken over by consumerism and AMAZING deals on KNOPE 2012 CAMPAIGN POSTERS, MOM AND DAD! At least I don't think it has. I mean, every type of chocolate bar has now converted itself to egg form. But egg-shaped Hershey's cookies and cream chocolates are the greatest thing in the entire world so I'm not complaining. Okay, maybe Easter is selling out too, but in a more delicious way than Christmas.

So, (damn it!) let's conclude this babbling. Christmas is a time for giving, sharing, loving and smiling even though you didn't get the gift you wanted. And no matter how consumerized it gets, you just have to remember that Christmas is not defined by the gifts, or the money, or the digging your car out of the driveway so that you can get to dinner (that has nothing to do with consumerism except that why the hell don't we have a snow blower?) It's about sharing the love and opening the damn cheese ball.

*Grammar Side Note - Do you pronounce "Xmas" as "Christmas" or do you say, "ex-mas" because I have no idea and the pronunciation dictates whether or not I should have used "an" or "a." I pronounce it "ex-mas" so my fellow grammar nazis can leave me alone on this one, okay? Also, I think I have some major comma mistakes happening in this little footnote. My apologies. 

You'll Probably Never Catch 'Em All

I write this at the risk of sounding super lame (I'm just kidding. Everyone loves Pokemon.)

Quick background! My mom works with a kindergarten kid who loves Pokemon, so we were at Walmart fairly recently looking for Pokemon cards for him.
Now, I am an avid Pokemon lover, I would never ever deny it. (Some may call me a Pokemon Master, I dunno.) I can name all original Pokemon, pretty close to the correct order. You can test me on it later. I recently got my wisdom teeth out and spent most of my recovery time playing Pokemon Crystal. (I KNOW, this was after the introduction of new characters, but I've come to accept the first additions.) I'm not embarrassed to admit any of these things. ANYWAYS, looking through the Pokemon section of Walmart, THIS is that we find:

I don't even know what this is. Pokemon used to be cute and awesome. This thing is just confusing. Is that a dragon? What?! No, this is a dragon:

Cute but also awesome. See how that works?

So, I decided to check out some more of these new Pokemon. Here are some of the more ridiculous ones that they've recently come out with:

This thing is just a flying sarcophagus.

  

These two remind me of some monsters from Yu Gi Oh (I'm going to pretend I don't know the name of the Yu Gi Oh look-a-likes, but I definitely know them.) They're just way too intense and terrifying. Remember, I said CUTE is key.

This is an ice cream cone. They called it Vanillish. When you start making monsters that look like delicious treats, that's when you need to stop. I think?

These guys are wearing clothes. Where did you get your clothing, little pokemon?

Honest to goodness, this guy is called Garbodor and he is a pile of garbage. Who was like, "yeah, let's make this dude, he's like a walking pile of trash. That will be awesome."

This guy is actually super cool and I approve of him for some reason.

So what I'm getting at... well, I don't really know. But my inner child is sad about these new things. Wasn't the point of the game to "catch 'em all?" How is anyone supposed to catch them all when they keep making new ones? (Although the people who are making these things are definitely catching all the money, am I right?)

I've spent over half my life enjoying Pokemon and I don't feel like the original 150 ever get old. I don't know, they were just awesome. If I think about it too hard, I actually get a little sad that we just have boring cats and dogs and Ash and Misty and friends got awesome pokemon as companions. (Please don't think I'm weird and lame. I'm only saying what everyone else has thought before. I think.)

And when you really think about it... how f****** dumb are the people living in the land of Pokemon? Are you telling me that you didn't notice that there was this giant pile of garbage running around? Someone just happened upon it one day and now it's abundant all over the place? No.

So, I like to ruin fun children's things and think about them too much. But what do you think? Yes or no to the new Pokemon? Do you care? Do you even know what I'm talking about? Comment away, my friends.

Being A Grown Up

The surprisingly difficult things that you didn't realize were difficult until you had to do them yourself. Maybe most of these were only difficult for me. Yes, okay, actually, let's start over:

Things That I Found Surprisingly Difficult Once I Had To Do Them Myself:

Hair appointments. #1 reason I find this hard to do is that I absolutely hate the phone so making appointments is scary. (That being said my mommy made my last hair appointment so this is a moot point.) I hate that you can hear a voice, but you can't see a face. And I hate the way my voice sounds. I don't want to sound like an idiot. And it's super unfortunate that there's no way to edit the stupid things you say on the phone. Plus when I get there I always panic and I don't know what to tell the hairdresser. 

Cleanliness. The fact that I'm sitting here in sweatpants that haven't been washed in who knows how long, with piles of clothing and empty bottles surrounding me and unwashed dishes on my desk says it all. (That's a real photo from my dorm room last year. Things have not changed.)

Ordering Food Over The Phone. (Because this is an option now that I'm out of the small town scene.) Again, with the phones. I hate them. And then you have to go meet the creepy delivery guy downstairs where he'll probably kidnap you and take you away to be his sex slave and live in his yucky pizza-box-filled basement.

Laundry. Everyone agrees with laundry, but a lot of it might have something to do with having to go all the way to the basement of the building you're living in to actually do the laundry. Or at least that's how I feel. And everyone else using the laundry room is always an idiot! I've found it very tempting to just go out and buy new underwear every week.

Grocery shopping... Alone. I never know what to buy and I always find that I buy too little or I buy a bunch of stuff that I don't even actually want. Plus, it's scary, going into that big place all alone, facing all the intimidating old ladies with their reusable bags and Air Miles cards. They mean business, but you're just a little university student trying to get her Mr. Noodles.

Healthy eating. Pizza pockets are easier than salad, okay!

Finding someone to talk to. We're going to get a little serious, just for a sec. It's tough to talk to other university students about your problems because they have lots of problems of their own. Not having your mommy there all the time to chat with is tough, at least for me.

The emergency room. Last year I accidentally sliced a tiny piece off the end of one of my fingers. (See pic.) There was blood everywhere and I was freaking out because I thought it was a lot worse than it actually was (I thought my finger was going to have a chunk out of it forever.) But despite the bleeding,  I was absolutely terrified to go to the hospital without my mom, so I didn't. Everything is fine, now (except now when you look suuper close, my finger is a weird shape, I SWEAR!) but I'm not going to be able to skip the emergency room in more severe cases like if a bookcase falls on me or if I accidentally cut off my whole arm with a rusty saw.

There are definitely a lot more of these things I'm going to discover as I get older. I'm super lucky that I can call my mom or dad up almost any time and ask them how the heck I'm supposed to do this stuff. I'm sure I'll repay them someday (when they turn 65 and I don't immediately send them to a nursing home.)

I Hate Halloween

I'm being forced to attend a Halloween party this year and I am a little bit on the unimpressed side. I do not like Halloween. I do not like costumes. I do not like free poisoned candy. I do not like fake blood and organs served on platters.
I don't know when I first discovered my dislike for this day. Maybe I had some bad candy once. Maybe someone chased me with a chainsaw while I was out trick or treating (oh, wait, that DID happen. Every year) or maybe I'm just kind of a wimp (true.) Whatever it is, I don't like Halloween, and I'm quite positive that I never will like it.

Costume Stress
I have very powerful memories of how stressed out I would get about choosing my costume as a kid. What if the other kids thought it was stupid? Picking a costume is a BIG DEAL people! Anyway, despite this stress I believe I usually changed what I wanted to be on the day of Halloween and my mom as forced to deal with helping me pick out a new one. And the thing I finally decided on was usually unbelievably lame. Or that's how I remember it anyway. (Except for when I was a Power Ranger. That was sweet.)

Mask Smell
I don't know if this is actually a real thing or if I've just invented it in my head, but do you notice how disgusting Halloween masks smell? Even new ones, they're all plastic-y and disgusting. But it's the old ones that are the worst. Like, the one that your dad wore to the Halloween dance when he was in grade 10 and for some reason decided to keep. (Or, in my household, the terrifying Brian Mulroney mask that I really hope has seen it's last days.)

It's Scary!
I'm all for scary story reading and I love writing creepy tales, but something about Halloween decorations creeps me right out. I guess I prefer to imagine the scary stuff in my head, instead of having to look at it. That being said...

Halloween movies that aren't scary but it makes me anxious even thinking about them:
- Beetlejuice
- The Addams Family
- Edward Scissorhands
- When Good Ghouls Go Bad (Or really any R.L. Stine film/the Goosebumps TV show. I loved the books though.)

Something about these films just makes my insides crawl around all funny. They're all movies that I first saw when I was little, and probably around the same time. I don't know if there was a life event happening at the time that made my memory of these bad or something, but whatever it was, these movies are ruined for me. I can't do scary movies in general. When I'm forced to watch them I'm quite positive that I barely come out alive. Although I want to know the twists and stuff, I just can't deal with the scary. I'm just not into that kind of entertainment.

Let's get all technical here for a sec. Maybe I'll actually teach you something for once. There are a lot of studies that have been done about sensation seeking (i.e. watching scary movies, roller coasters, etc.) Most of them claim that there are various genetic things going on that make someone interested in sensation seeking or not. (i.e. dopamine levels and personality traits like introversion/extraversion.) I strongly believe that I am genetically hardwired to love sitting at home and typing away on my laptop, scoffing at that dude who just jumped from the edge of space. (If you want me to go into any more details I'd gladly mail you a copy of my psychology textbooks for a small fee of $400.)

Okay, now that we've learned something (that's scary) we can bring this thing to a close. I just wanted to let you all know that for Halloween this year, I'm being cotton candy, the most least scary thing in the whole wide world. And I'm going to go around and spread my non-scary cheer everywhere I go.