If I don't make a change soon...

...I may become a hoarder.

Zoe snubbing Penny

I live with two cats, not 27, so I'm not a crazy cat lady... Not quite anyway, but I'd love to someday have two cats that snuggle with each other. Right now that's not happening (if you've met my parents' cat Zoe, you understand). I think when I get another cat someday I'll have to hold auditions to determine snuggling potential with my cat, Penny Lane. But it could be tricky having to reject kitties that Penny doesn't take to in a snuggly way, leading me to have an obscene amount of cats, becoming a cat hoarder.... Okay, I'm already a crazy cat lady.

My boyfriend already thinks I'm a hoarder because my room, while usually quite tidy, is jammed with stuff- way more stuff than I need. I find it very difficult to purge my material belongings, and I shop a lot, mostly online. My closet and dresser are full of clothes and I probably only ever wear about 3/4 of my whole wardrobe. I'm also very sentimental, and I've kept every ticket stub for every movie, concert and play I have ever attended, as well as just about everything that was given to me as a gift, even if I no longer have use for it, or never did.

I'm conscious about waste and what happens to things I no longer have use for. And yes, I do realize that the environmental and social problems with consumerism are full cycle, not just on the landfill end of things. (Re: The story of stuff). While I do try to make conscientious purchases, I buy way too much stuff I don't need, and I try to make up for that by reducing the amount of stuff I contribute to landfills, which is why,

• My work apron is full of paper scraps I'm saving to recycle at home.
• My old desk is on my parents' back porch because I'm going to put it up on kijiji... someday.
• I have a few bottles of random body lotions sitting around my room that I've received as gifts, that don't fit with my views on animal testing, and I don't know what to do with them (anyone know of a shelter that accepts donations of personal hygiene products?)
• I have a milk crate full of old Spin magazines I'll never re-read, and I think recycling them would be a waste, but I worry that if I scatter them in waiting rooms around my community to broaden the musical horizons of my fellow citizens I may cause them to eventually end up in the trash because I don't know if all the dentists, doctors, and other professionals with waiting rooms in Whitby recycle or not.
• There are two dead plants and a bouquet of dead flowers on top of my bookcase that I'm too lazy to do anything about because I refuse to simply toss them. They must be composted but just... not today. The compost bin is in the backyard, and it's cold outside. Maybe tomorrow. (The dead flowers actually still look pretty. The plants, not so much.)

So I'm lazy, materialistic, sentimental, and conscientious. I really hope that the last trait can counteract the first and balance out the middle.

I need a jolt to get me out of my current lazy funk, and I think I'm going to get it really soon. I took the Global TESOL course in December and right now I'm looking for a teaching job abroad. I can't take very much with me, and I'll be gone for at least six months, so I'm going to do a massive clean out of my cluttered room. There will be 3 piles: going, staying and goodwill. I'm going to do my best to ensure that the third pile is the biggest. It won't be easy, I may cry, but I think it will be an important step for me to really grow up. I'm not going to have all this stuff when I go teach, and I'll have to learn to live much less materialistically. Then, when I'm done my travelling teacher adventure (after however long it ends up lasting), I'll be able to move back to Ontario with less physical baggage, and perhaps less emotional baggage too. Right now I actually feel the weight of all my stuff holding me down, and I think it will be very psychologically freeing to have less stuff.

Before I begin this purge I need to mentally prepare. I will picture myself in another country, enjoying a new lifestyle, taking in new sights, sounds, tastes and adventures. Then I will picture myself in a quiet moment of my new life, looking out the window of my apartment (which in this fantasy overlooks a beautiful valley in Japan) reflecting on home and what I've left behind. It will be bitter-sweet as I will miss my family and friends dearly, but I will be really proud of myself for letting go of my fears, insecurities, and the security blanket of clutter I've had all my life.

I just got an email, it's a job offer. I'm ready :)

Support Our Troops

I just found a video of Noam Chomsky discussing the slogan "Support Our Troops," and I think it's a good (though a little rambling... which may make it even more fitting) follow-up to my blog post about Remembrance Day.

And the Oscar goes to...

It's that time of year again! Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 2011 Academy Awards, which airs on February 27th. And thus today starts my challenge to watch as many of the nominated films as possible before the show.

I have had a bit of a head start though. After watching the Golden Globes I got some of an idea of what films and actors would make the nominations list. Some were no brainers, such as The King's Speech and Black Swan, but I also thought Anne Hathaway might be nominated for her role in Love and Other Drugs, especially since she is co-hosting the awards this year, but it didn't work out that way. I enjoyed the film though, so I'm not too upset that watching it didn't help widdle down my list.

The List
There are 56 films nominated this year, compared to 58 last year, and I have already watched 13: Alice in Wonderland, Black Swan, Blue Valentine, Day & Night, Exit through the Gift Shop, Harry Potter, How to Train Your Dragon, Iron Man 2, The Kids Are Alright, The King's Speech, Salt, The Social Network, Toy Story 3.


Therefore, I have 43 films to watch in 34 days. All I can say is thank you Academy, thank you so very much for not nominating Burlesque for anything. I really didn't want to sit through it. THANK YOU!!


http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/83/nomineesByPicture.html
http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/83/nominees.html

Blue Monday

Are you depressed today? Today is known as Blue Monday, the 3rd Monday in January, supposedly the most depressing day of the year. It is "the combination of weather, holiday debt, and the inevitable failure of our New Year’s resolutions," and, I'm assuming, the fact that it's a Monday, that make for "a widespread, crushing case of the blues."

Tyson on a cold December eve.

Why point all of this out? Apparently calling attention to how much today sucks is a marketing strategy to sell trips to sunny destinations, which makes sense- and today is mighty cold so I'll bet it's working.

Personally, I don't work on Mondays, so they're not all that terrible for me. Friday is actually kind of my "Monday" because I usually work all weekend. I didn't make any New Year's resolutions, so therefore I didn't break any either! Looking out into the world, what's out there to depress me today? Well, like I mentioned, it's cold. The temperature apparently dropped down to -28 degrees celsius last night with the wind chill, and it's currently -8 but feels like -16, according to The Weather Network. However, I don't actually have to go outside, so who cares. Well, a 66 year old woman with dementia froze to death early this morning wandering around her neighbourhood. No one answered her calls for help, no one called the police, so this tragedy that could be avoided sadly was not. That's depressing.

I read about that on the Toronto Star's website, which listed the following as a couple of its "must read" articles earlier today: "Justin Beiber has a new haircut;" "Starbucks gets bigger U.S sizes." These topics were not only deemed newsworthy, but "must read" news. Wow. That's depressing.

However, I'm still not really depressed. That's because I've been productive, tackling over half the items on the "to do" list I made for myself last night. But that's just me; I'm at my lowest when I feel like I've wasted the day. Sure, I take lazy days, but they're pre-assigned as lazy days. I don't like when my days ear marked for productivity are drowned in a sea of procrastination or lethargy- which is kind of how my day went yesterday.

Sunday January 16th: I planned on going to the library from 1-5 (its open hours on Sundays), but had a slow start and got there at 1:30. Then I had a hard time focusing, and when I finally did focus on writing an essay I hit a roadblock that I couldn't motivate myself through. I wrote as much as I could without fighting my white wale, and then gave up.

So, feeling defeated, I went to work hoping to make at least $50. I already made enough over the weekend to finish my "pay off my Visa bill without dipping into my savings" fund, but I wanted to have some extra cash for this week. Unfortunately, it wasn't busy, I only had 2 tables, and went home with an extra $15 in my pocket. Great.

Thus, I wasn't entirely happy last night when I got home. How did I turn that around? Well, I watched some of the Golden Globes and decided to get a head start on my "2011 Oscar Nominated Film List" (yup, I'm doing it again!) before the nominations are out by making assumptions based on the Golden Globe nominations and wins. So, I watched Black Swan. I also watched The Social Network the night before, and though they're both not exactly feel good movies, it felt good to know that my "to watch" list is a little shorter (I will be very surprised if they don't get Oscar nods).

Then, still not feeling great, I made a to do list for Monday January 17th. The tasks were small, but being able to check off so many little things led to an overall productive feeling, and I'm much happier today than I was yesterday. Thanks, past Colleen!

I make to do lists all the time, but they usually consist of a bunch of really big time consuming tasks and a few small ones. I cross off the little guys and the big ones remain. Mocking, belittling, challenging the presence of the smaller tasks on their list. So then I make a new one: rewriting the big tasks, adding a couple new small tasks, and the cycle continues.

I didn't make any New Years Resolutions for 2011, but I think this should have been it. New plan, inspired by "Blue Monday" and the fact that I don't have any broken resolutions to be sad about: start making separate to do lists. Separate the big tasks from the small ones so that I can reap the feel good benefits of productivity on both a large and small scale. Also, I think this will help with motivation momentum, and keep me from getting overwhelmed by the big stuff and the white whales.

I'll leave you with "Blue Monday," by New Order. Enjoy, and happy Blue Monday to you all!

Ode to a summer "funemployed"

My "funemployment" lasted from the end of April until September, and now that I'm part of the workforce again serving at East Side Mario's I can evaluate my decision to be jobless for four months.

After my Europe trip I moved out of my apartment in Hamilton and into my parents' house again. I did so without a job in Whitby and without any prospects or intention of looking for a job right away. That makes me sound like a bum, but in my defense I was also taking two online courses over the summer that demanded a lot of my time. However, looking back on my summer I can see that I could have successfully juggled school and a part time job. And probably also a gym membership.

Those four months were great! I went to Europe; enjoyed my last couple of weeks in Hamilton by going for hikes, exploring waterfalls, going to the aviary, and having a picnic on the escarpment with my sweetie; visited family; went to Cobourg beach several times in the hot summer months; celebrated birthdays; went to seven concerts; camped at Sandbanks; went to my family's cottage; relaxed; had fun; and when necessary I went to the library, studied, wrote papers and an exam.

The positives:

• Flexibility and freedom. School was my only obligation and since my courses were free-form and individual I could plan school around fun. I planned my library trips on days that my friends were busy. When plans were made with friends or family I was always available, so I almost never had to say no to summer fun! 
• Relaxation. I have a habit of spreading myself too thin and becoming a big ball of stress. I work best under pressure, but it makes me a little crazy. I didn't get stressed out this summer because I was never overwhelmed, because I was never very busy. I think this has had a lingering positive effect on me, because even now that I'm juggling work, school and a social life, I feel much more capable of balancing everything, and I don't get as stressed out as I used to. It might help that I'm living rent-free... but I think my relaxing summer helped too.

The negatives:

• Lack of income. This one is obvious; no job=no money. I knew that my Europe trip would eat into my savings quite a bit, and I was okay with that. But I thought that since I wouldn't have the same expenses living in Whitby with my parents as I did living in my apartment in Hamilton I wouldn't notice the lack of income so much. Unfortunately fun often costs money (even a trip to the beach costs money for gas and snacks), and since I had a lot of free time to fill up with fun I spent a lot of money.
• Lack of motivation. I had all the time in the world to get school work done, and I usually didn't. It was very hard to motivate myself since a) my assignments had no deadlines, just a final end date for the courses, and b) I had no other obligations so there was nothing to keep me from procrastinating and putting off school work. I also put off other things in my life I wanted to achieve while I had so much spare time simply because I couldn't find the motivation.
• Inactivity. There is some merit to having a routine and obligations. Now that I have a job I am more active not only on the days I work, but I want to accomplish things on my days off too. When every day is a day off it's very easy to spend them very lazily. I gained a few pounds over the summer, which I attribute to having a much less active lifestyle in Whitby than I did in Hamilton. In Hamilton I had to walk 10 minutes to take the bus to work or the library. I also walked to friends houses, to get groceries or do any other shopping, and I did a good amount of walking while at work (as all servers do). This doesn't sound like much but it added up, and cutting out all that walking had an impact. I also consistently worked out with the EA Sports Active Wii game in my living room, and though I tried to keep this up after moving home it quickly became another thing defeated by laziness. I didn't get a gym membership because of the cost, but I think I would have had a hard time motivating myself to go anyway, and it would have been a waste of money.

I don't like regrets and I look back on this past summer very fondly. I spent quality time with friends and family, kept up good grades, soaked up the lovely weather, and even got a tan! Now it's cold, I'm pale again, I'm working, and I even have a gym membership. I think that my current situation is much better for me. I'm "funderemployed!" I work part time, I'm still working on online courses, and I have a pretty good work-fun balance going on.


In conclusion, "funemployment" is great for taking trips or seriously tackling something in your life unrelated to work (ie: learning a second language, learning how to cook, etc). But you have to replace work with something else that will keep you going. Basically, you need a reason to get out of bed in the morning (instead of noon) other than driving to the beach to play and nap. It's a slippery slope of laziness if you let it be! But maybe time to relax is what you need, and if that's the case my advice is to wait until summer; it's the best time to unapologetically embrace laziness.