My trip down South(ern Ontario)

Well, it may not be Mexico, Florida or anywhere tropical... but it's still warmer than Ottawa, there's barely any snow on the ground and the bubble tea is of quite impressive quality!

Yes, it's good to be back in Welland.

Case of the Mondays

Reading week starts today,
I still have to go to work.
I wrote the introduction to my essay today,
and I'm not in Florida.

... stupid cold Ottawa...

stupid Mondays...

MY NEW POSTER

I see a white wall and I want to paint it... red?

Though I should probably be working on my modern thought essay, I discovered the following when I read up on painting one's room red, which is what I spent my afternoon doing. . .

Choosing a colour to paint your room:

Red - Bright and bold, red suggests vitality and aggressiveness. It can be a bit overwhelming for an entire room, but if you have a bedroom that you want to convey amorous vibes, it's a unique way to go. Deep, subtle shades of red such as burgundy and maroon are perfect for living rooms. At its worst, red is: too dramatic.

I guess even red paint at its worst is better than the colour I'd originally wanted to paint my room:

Black - You probably like heavy metal, S&M, or some combination thereof. Either way, it's way more than we want to know about you. So don't paint a room black. It'll freak people out. Black walls also tend to look dirty because dust shows up very clearly.

A combination of heavy metal and S&M ... yeah.. that's me allright...

We used to have this bedroom at my cottage that was painted black. It was absolutely the coolest room in the entire building. Man, I miss that cottage damnit. Like, the nasty, uncomfortable, yet totally awesome green couch in the master bedroom, the windows in there, the room where Minzer always used to hide under the bed and Pam would drag him out by his tail, the tiny room with the board games, rummoli, MAD magazines, rotary phone, only flushing the toilet after number 2s, and that freaking AWESOME black room. GAH, we should have kept those curtains...

... memories..

Regardless, the new room's looking pretty good as it is, red. Though there are some spots that look darker than others, and Mike and Milton are saying it's probably because we only put on two coats, and only one can of paint, but whatever... I think it looks awesome and so do they. It'll look especially good with my new Walk the Line poster hung up. (FINALLY)

That being said, I'm going home this weekend to see my daddy perform in the PCOS's rendition of 42nd Street. Any of Brie's back-home-blog-readers interested in tickets should let me know. I'll be going Saturday night, if anyone cares to join. :) It'll be a good trip back home, but a quick one, so that I can be back on time for work and to go the the orchestra! (How cultured am I?) Except that my accompaniment for the performance is worried I won't shut up through the entire performance thus embarassing him and his tremendously talented beau. (Thanks for the vote of confidence...)

Anyway, busy week ahead, so I'm going to try and make sense of Carl Schmitt's text here and hopefully pull off as well a grade as Thomas More got me... (not likely, but there's always hope!)

(Big HAPPY BIRTHDAY shout-out to Seanners who turned the big 22 yesterday. Hope all is well, even though I'm sure you don't read my blog)

Hallmark

Valentine's day,

Roses, despite the bad crop...
4 course, amazing dinner
Delicious wine,
and a magazine with Zach Braff on it.
sweet

I love Hallmark holidays!


************

April should be good,
we're getting things planned here:

Birthday
Easter
Pam's birthday
Joint-birthday party w/Scott(?)
New apartment = house-warming party
Franz Ferdinand in Mtl. (?)
End of work term
Road test for G
Last and only exam of this term
Trip to Niagara
Possible trip to NL with Laura(?)

Guess we should get through February and March first.

GOTTA GET READING

Glimpses into the past/present

I often wonder what's become of people I used to know.

Have you ever just gone and checked out old friends' and acquaintances' MSN MySpaces in an attempt to have a brief glimpse into the lives of people who were once involved with your own? It's quite remarkable to see certain transitions. I wonder things like, why does she have a beard and sideburns? Why does she try to show those off so much? How come he got a tattoo? Why is he still jumping into oncoming traffic? They're still hanging out there?

Then you wonder if they're out there having a good time with their lives, and if they ever take a minute to think about you, or how you've influenced their lives, even if in the slightest way.

Most of the time, I don't think they do. I assume people are just too busy, self-involved or distracted. But that's just what I think.

I suppose there's a chance though. If I do it..someone else must.

Havarti

• 
  
• Swimming in the winter is awesome. Consequently, I also used to think that Jalapeno (pronouced a la TPB) Havarti cheese was also awesome, but now I'm having my doubts. Especially when attempted in sauce-form.
• A big Happy birthday to Mike the man DiscoDawg and his long-lost birthday-affiliate; the Hungarian Hornet, Bachodude. (Apologies for the delate in blogfully representing this special day.)
• Things are getting pretty desperate here. I'm d/ling Scrubs because I've watched all of my dvds. Life is tough, let me tell ya.
• Also, what's with Valentine's day coming up? Damn you Hallmark!
• AND I DIDN'T MENTION THIS PART YET :
• The bro and sisinlaw are havin' a youngling.
• Much rejoicing and a trip to Scotland ado!!!
• SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!

• Seriously though, Congrats guys! Brie sends much love and hugs!

Oh, and also. My goalie was tested positive for illegal performance enhancing (hair growing) drugs.

GO HABS GO!

Old

What the hell am I doing, already being a bridesmaid? Dina - I'm going to get you for making me feel all old and stuff. For what it's worth, at least she isn't making me wear seafoam green. (like that commercial.. remember? yeah... THOSE were the days) Anyway, check out the dress she's going to let me wear:

If it looks half as good on me as it does on this broad, then I'm all set!! :D

I guess this brings about a discussion on new beginnings. I officially live in two different apartments as of today. The hard part is going to be moving all my shit out of this one into the new one. I think this will bring some seriouly good changes to my time in Ottawa, because let's face it, my history, since I've moved to Ottawa, has not been built upon having great roomates. I mean, most of them were good, but everyone has their breaking point, I think. Everyone gets to the point where it's like, if you don't know someone well enough, and you're still living with them, the relationship has the possibility of going to ways: If you made the effort to get to know the person, you can build a friendship that could potentially last a long time. But this can't be entirely dependent on your actions, it has to be reciprocal. If, for example, your roomate doesn't make the attempt.. and say, gets drunk alone, has sex loud enough that you can hear it when you're trying to take a dump or makes you want to throw them off the balcony, OR, say, they, being deeply involved with another individual, ignore you, leave school, work in the chocolate business, get married and move away OR sicken you by the their general outlook on life, women, religion, politics and society, well then... the relationship doesn't have much chance of flouroshing. If, on the other hand, an effort is made - then potentially a lot of good can come from it. But again, it's not entirely dependent of one individual. I suppose this is the ridiculous nonsense I try to rationalize as I leave a big chunk of who I am in Ottawa behind and try for a totally new way of existence. Starting with the new job and now with the new apartment, I'm looking forward to what's to come. Even if it means going to school in the summer, at least I know I'll even have a couple new pals there to help out when the going gets tough and what not, and to share in common enjoyment of silly things, like Trailer Park Boys, or ... jokes about buying cookies and such. But now I'm just babbling.

I had lunch today at Baton Rouge, we took one of the ladies out who will shortly be taking off on maternity leave. It was a lot of fun. This new place is so much better than the last... the work is more satisfying (abeit still not totally connected to PoliSci), but the people there make me feel, and I know this is corny, like I'm actually part of a team. It's good to feel that way. One of the ladies I worked with even said she would for sure take me back if ever I wanted to do another work term with them. I mean, I've not even been there a month, and I'm busy as hell there, but it's just GOOD, you know? Except, it won't give me much time to work on my work term report... not like making ID cards did... in the middle of July, .. when everyone's gone on summer vacation... and I was enjoying the weather indoors, ALL SUMMER LONG!!! But that's in the past... let's get over it, shall we?

Happy birthday to Paul Okrutny tomorrow. I'll be working all day so I probably won't get the opportunity to say it to him. I hope Romeo Dallaire sends you a card or something, now that you two are best buddies.... wish I were best buddies with someone like Romeo Dallaire, but NO, I have to be best pals with a girl making me feel damn old lately, (doesn't this tie in nicely) but who, I'm sure, is going to be dancing on a cloud for the next year or so, even though she's driving me nuts asking me for all these measurements and deposits and wedding gifts and .... nah, I'm just kidding. LOFE DEEDEE.

Anyway, Brie goes to sleep now because she works a double tomorrow and gets the keys to her new place.

Everybody was kung-fu fighting... (and so forth) (MMMMMMmmmmmmm JD)

Does anybody read this?

Whipeout!

Let me tell you something . . . I am in LOVE with THIS man:

Ugh.. I've been watching so much Scrubs lately, I feel I should switch out of poli sci and into medicine... but I've never been good at science, and it's just flat out a silly idea to begin with, so I'll just stick to poli sci for the moment. . .

But what's so good about poli sci? I mean, who is there to look at in politics? (because that's what's important!!!) All the attention is focused on freakin Harper now, and he's not particularly pleasing to the eyes (albeit better than Martin was) and how HORRIBLE was it that he was sent to the (not private) hospital the other night for an "asthma attack." 1) Faking an illness shouldn't a priority for your political agenda and you probably shouldn't joke about shit like that. 2) Even if it was a real asthma attack, I mean, great. Our new prime minister is a sissy! Fantastic.

That being said, I'll now mention something completely off topic. The Rideau Canal was open yesterday for like, a couple hours on account of the fact that it had been cold for a bit, but now it's back up to like 5 degrees which is MENTAL, but also pretty fucking awesome!! Except that I didn't spend anytime outside today.. but yesterday... yesterday I went skating for the first time in 2 years because I was too lame to go last year. Anyway, After a hard time getting Mike's skates on (a former hockey player, eh?! pfft...) we skated for quite a while til we found a BeaverTails stand that was suprisingly still open at 11 pm, which is awesome. The whole event built up to this most ridiculous moment when I was racing Mike to get to the bench, and, in spite of our continual comments on how the canal was starting to thaw and there were patches that weren't quite skate-able on the ice, I got stuck in one of these sed spots and took the most amazing whipe out. I was quite impressed! Although I think my neck is paying for it today, it was still v. blog worthy.

And how I'm going to hop into my hideous green and yellow circus-like polo shirt and head down to the Rideau for some good ol' fashionned popcorn bitchin'. Too bad I lost my hat. No stress about that though, I'll just take my mind off of it by thinking about staring at this man...:

Oh yeah... that's what I'm talkin' bout!

Whole lotta nothin' going on...

It used to be that I would always have something to write about, but now I can't really think about anything,

I can tell you I was surpised to see a photo of Stephen Harper with a kitten today.

What was surprising, is that, he wasn't trying to eat it, you see...

Whatever. The new job is keeping me real busy. Every day while I'm working hard, they let me listen to music, whether it be CDs or the radio online. I've been listening to the Edge a lot. Radio stations in Ottawa re nothing compared to what we have back home. I guess little things like that are making me a little bit homesick, but, to be quite honest, I don't really have time to be homesick. It sucks because next week, I won't have Shannoon to e-mail me, so the days are probably going to pass a lot slower. Even though I'm a lot busy now than I was working for CRA, it still helps to be able to have some remote connection to a social life outside of work, when you're stuck within its walls.

I don't want to mention anything about my upcoming move for fear that it'll be jinxed like last time. GAH, for some reaons my internet is so slow tonight, and it's making me want to shit my pants, so this is where I leave, good fols, with a hope that soon I'll have enough time to sit down and write something that has some value.

END TRANSMISSION

Nothing to complain about

I don't know why I haven't had anything to blog about lately. Something must be wrong with me. I mean, normally I can find something to complain about. . . ANYTHING. . .

like, bad dreams about weird butterfly-like insects ripping off the flesh of my forehead,

or at LEAST the weather, but last week the weather was great... not like tonight where I was forewarned by the weather network that I'd be walking home this evening with ICE PELLETS falling on my head. Gee, that was comfortable.

Maybe it's the 3 hour Tuesday lecture I should complain about, because other than that, Tuesdays are pretty good in my books, because, no matter how long or shitty the day at work was (which it wasn't, because I enjoy my job (so far)) or how long the lecture is, and how annoying those 3 kids in class who never shut up are, or how painful the ice pellets falling on my head are, there are always two truly amazing people waiting for me to get back to the apartment.

That's right...

Rick Mercer and Zach Braff.

*sigh*

(WHAT? You didn't think I was going to say Mike and Moses did you? What are you? CRAZY?)

Anyway, one new Mercer report + 2 new Scrubs = a Happy girl.

And speaking of happy girls, I'm going to be one of them again tomorrow upon the arrival of the Polish prince who, for years has been promising to come visit to Ottawa provided I went and visited Hamilton. Well guess what Pawel, I ain't going to Hamilton!! (because it's smelly!) Moohoohahahahhahahaha. I win!! *More evil laughter*

Anyway, I'm pretty exhausted, so I hope this post will hold me over for the next... well, until I think of something clever to say. It's funny how those things become harder to think about when you're working a 9-5 not-so-creative-but-still-mentally-demanding-PublicServantJEORB.

Right. Tah.

Freakin' ICE PELLETS!

My Space

Just so's y'all know, and if anyone is interested, I posted new photos on my MSN MySpace. Here's the URL if anyone's interested in taking a peek:

http://spaces.msn.com/members/maisondefromage/PersonalSpace.aspx?_c01_photoalbum=showdefault&_c02_owner=1&_c=photoalbum

I don't actually know if that'll work, but whatevs -> worth a shot.

They're the first two rolls from my Holidays, starting off with the staff screening of Narnia and our Secret Santa gift exchange (everyone look at all the amazing stuff I got from the Dollar Stores...) then they go on to things like Christmas parties and NYE, hanging out with pals in the good ol' Niagara Peninsula.

Started my first day at my new job today, which was kindof good and bad all at once. Didn't help that the day began in a snowstorm, but I suppose that's the price you pay for living in Ottawa. I'm looking forward to going skating on the Rideau, however. Heard a bunch of theater folk went out and did that while I had the pleasure of well... working at the theater, so that kindof sucked. I guess they were all out for Will's birthday though, so that's fun. A big Happy Birthday shout out to Will for turning old enough to go to the dépanneur for some important concessions.

On that note, I feel like I did my duty in watching the Leader's debate today. I'm pretty excited in that all I have to do to vote this time around is head down to the lobby of my apartment building. Freakin' sweet.

I start back at school tomorrow and let me tell you, I am NOT looking forward to that. The whole co-op thing seems a lot more amusing when you don't have to worry about grades, in my opinion. But thanks to the University of Ottawa's great fun idea of having year-long courses, it means I'll still have to freak out about writing my papers and taking my mid-terms (even if it is only one class a week) but, all while doing the whole full time job thing (and part-time as well, but that's my own bad, and it's probably as ridiculous a decision as say, going to university and college at the same time, right? Sound familiar?)

I went to Montreal the other day for a Habs game with some people from my old job. It was awesome to be one of the only Habs fans on the bus full of Sens fans who all came home miserable on account of their 4-1 loss. It was, quite satisfactory, I must say. That was a day FULL of good news, let me tell you, but I have to keep my mouth shut about the other stuff, so shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

And on the subject of good news: TWO NEW EPISODES OF SCRUBS TOMORROW NIGHT! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

And I leave you with a sample photo from our trip back home:

(@ Fresco's in Ste Cts. for NYE dinner)

Prehistoric Birthday Fun

Happy Birthday to a very good friend who was just recently attacked by a dinosaur trying to steal his BK... and WON!

Glad you kicked that dino's ass and hope you enjoyed your

early-twenty-something-ieth birthday, completely unharmed, boss!

Back to Reality

Driving back to Ottawa from a lovely few week Christmas Holiday was probably one of the best trips I've had coming back to this city. Everything seemed to go well; songs were being sung, people were chatting, we arrived safely and all was well. We got home, and enjoyed an evening of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, and then, as if to say "Welcome home Brie," a shitload of snow dropped, along with the temperature in an effort I believe was meant to say the following:

Brie, you may have enjoyed yourself over your little vacation.
But that all stops now.
So take that.

And I did.
And I will continue to take it, because I can't control the weather.
But one day...


Oh well, I guess what I'm trying to say is that shit happens, and that even though I had a great time back in the good ol' Niagara Region for the Holidays, one must always remember that play has to be earned, I suppose. And I guess that's what I'm doing here. Earning my play time.

Play time was pretty sweet over the Holidays though, I must say. Except for everyone in my family getting the flu. . . but seeing the WHOLE family countered that, watching the 40 Year Old Virgin over and over did too. So did catching up with old pals, and finally spending some time getting to know new ones. And.. I'm homesick already...

I'll post some photos of the fun times that were had as soon as they get processed. But for now, I'm going to go watch some Scrubs, because I'm addicted and I like to imagine Zach Braff naked.

So, because I missed blogging when I should have been saying this:

Merry Christmas all! And all the VERY BEST for 2006!

Random conversations with myself

Go ahead Brie, Try!
Try and find your pencil case among the disater area that is your bedroom.
Try to find me among the garbage you'll have to pick up
before Saturday
because that's when we're entertaining.

What's entertaining with all the excuses?
or if there are none,
it doesn't stop me from finding my pencil case any quicker
and starting to study.

This is procrastinating.
Blogging is procrastinating.
I resolve that after today
I'll stop all the procrastination.

A New Year's resolution
that will last until the summer time at least
because I don't have school
until then.

Until then... where the hell is my pencil case?

Peanut butter jelly time

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DINA!! (not Josephine!)

May God Bless you on this, your birthday, with all the

gaming action your little fingers can handle!

Right, now that that's out of the way - exams have made it impossible for me to post lately, which is sad, because I have a lot to say, about Walk the Line, about stupid useless Secret Santa, about Narnia, Rent, King Kongbos and so on and so forth, but, I'm just to darn tired... so I'll stick to that theme and tell all a bit about the dreams I've had lately. For some reason, exam season is a good time for me to remember dreams, probably because I'm not sleeping properly, normally I don't recall any of them, so here we go:

I dreamt I was going bald, I had very little hair, and it was really gross, because you could se emy scalp and it looked all old and dry and crusty. It was really nasty. I did some research and came up with the following tidbit of information:

"Losing Your Hair"

http://dreammoods.com/

"To dream that you are losing your hair, denotes that you are concerned with the notion that you are getting older and losing your sex appeal/virility. You are preoccupied with aging and your appearance. Losing you hair also signify a lack of strength and that you do not possess the power to succeed in an undertaking. You may be feeling weak and vulnerable. "

Also, a couple nights ago, I dreamt that my mom and I were attacked, while we were driving in this minivan. We were attacked by these two kids who, looked familiar and I'm pretty sure it's because they used to be in cadets. It was really weird. I mean, we managed to get out, just because the human mind is capable of many things when it comes to manipulating one's dreams, but I did some MORE research and found out the following:

"To dream that you are being attacked by someone, signifies questions on your character and the need for you to defend yourself. You are feeling stressed, vulnerable and helpless. You may also be faced with difficult changed in your waking life."

Weak... vulnerable...stressed... a Jedi knows not these things!

Although I'm still debating whether or not I buy into this Freudian dream interpretation malarky, it still seems to make a lot more sense sometimes...

Like, the sense that it would make for someone to buy a gift for their Secret Santa that that person would actually enjoy, for example, that seems to make sense. Doesn't it? I would think so. More updates to come about that.

In the meantime, I'm off now. Tomorrow is my Shift # 3 left @ my soul-sucking job and I'm going to need some rest so that I can make it through it.

Dreaming of less GST

. . . and I thought it was bad when I had some random dream about a parade for Tony Blair in Scotland. . .

WELL. . . things just got worse.

LAST NIGHT, I dreamt I met Stephen Harper somewheres in Alberta.

And he was a really nice guy, articulate, intelligent, chatty, polite. . .

. . . fun even!

And when I woke up from that dream, I thought to myself:

Oh shit...

THE CONSERVATIVES HAVE FIGURED OUT THE WAY TO BRAINWASH US WHILE WE SLEEP!!

We're all doomed.

Some bizarre caffeine-induced dreams

I dreamt my landlady came into my bedroom, with a strange man in a pink dress shirt that was too small for him came, while I was sleeping, and starting picking apart how messy my apartment was. They left just as I was able to say: "Didn't you know that we decided to keep the apartment?" but they had walked away. The apartment was a lot longer than it really is, and a lost messier and as I followed them to the living room, they were just tearing everything apart. This dream made me hate my landlady even more than I already do. She's such an idiot.

A while ago, when I told her we were going to vacate the apartment, she told me I had to get my dad's permission (because he's the co-signer on the lease.) I was like.. dude, my dad's 8 HOURS away, he's not going to come all this way to sign... but before I could say anything, she was shut down by another lady who works in the office who was like: "No she doesn't. She can just leave a note, fill out the proper paperwork and that's it. She doesn't require the co-signer to do anything..." I was like, YEAH!! IN your FACE!!!

I also remember a time before we moved in, when we first met ths idiot landlady... we walked up to one of the buildings, so we could check out one of the bedrooms and decide if it we were interested in renting. I noticed the building was very near a street called "Ellendale" and being that my roomie was named Ellen, I was like.. "oooooooh, I know why you want to live HERE, Ellen..."

The stupid landlady interrupted and was like "this isn't on Ellendale, it's on Clearview." Or something completely stupid like that. What an idiot. Maybe this doesn' t make any sense to anyone, but I'm so tired from a night's worth of disturbed sleep due to the insane amounts of caffeine that was introduced into my system while at work last night. The stuff helped me write a big portion of my group project as well as a summary required for one of my classes today, but it didn't help with the whole sleeping thing.

Anyway, then I had a dream about two guys; one that I used to know and one that I'm currently angry at. It was weird to see these two people together, and I don't quite understand what it means in my head, but if I find anything out in books or websites about dream interpretation, I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

And now, off to another insanely busy day...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

A quick post after a VERY long day to wish my mommy a very Happy Birthday!!

BUG HUGS n' KISSES

to the best Mom EVER!!!!

Mom's plea for Zimbabwe

First: A message from Mom:

Since I don't really have time to read anything in the news lately, my mom wants me to pass the message on to everyone that the shit is hitting the fan over in Zimbabwe. She urges everyone (including myself) to visit Amnesty International's site http://www.amnesty.ca and do whatever's possible in helping to persuade the international community to get off its' ass and prevent yet another atrocity in Africa.

(She didn't use such colourful language, I should mention)

Here's a little bit of what's going down over there:

"Today in Zimbabwe, hundreds of thousands of people are internally displaced and destitute, not because of a war, an earthquake or a tsunami, but because their own government has forcibly evicted them, demolished their homes, and destroyed their property and their livelihoods. These acts, totally unjustifiable under international law, have been widely condemned. However, African States have remained conspicuously silent and have not demonstrated the political will to respond to the human rights crisis in Zimbabwe. "

On this note, I've finished my third essay about the Rwandan genocide tonight. And I can't help but think that, up until first year, I had no idea that violence of that magnitude had ever occured apart from during the Holocaust. Call me naive and uninformed, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that, they don't teach this stuff in history classes in high school. Maybe it was just my school, because people in Ottawa seem more informed about so many things "international." Maybe it's the proximity of the Parliament, where everyone goes to protest his or her grievances. Maybe it's the multicultural population. Regardless, someone should be passing this information down the school board so that kids can learn about these things and learn that they are wrong. And then, instead of ONLY teaching them things that happened over 50 years ago (I'm not saying we shouldn't study History, I think it's VERY important to study History so that it doesn't repeat itself...) they should probably receive lessons on the pertinent PRESENT happenings, and NOT ONLY those taking place in Canada, (like the Christmas, no February, no November, no January, no WHENEVER the stupid election's going to take place...) (Sidenote, did anyone see all the Westerners boo-ing Martin @ the football game tonight?)

Here's a SMALL exurp from my essay (actually, it's the concluding sentences)

"The prevention of violence implies a responsibility from the international community, who promised to “never again” allow for such grand-scale atrocities. Rwanda is but one of the failures of the international community to execute this principle."

*Note the double-entente with the word excecute. It's reaching. Not very obvious, but I think if I can make a connection someone else can too. (Hopefully that someone will be the prof)