Pre-wedding Weekend

This weekend is probably going to be a bit of a shit show. It’s Sarah’s bridal weekend, which means lots of partying, drinking, eating and celebrating. Sarah is my heterolifepartner. We met in Grade 8 math class (Ms. Barisoff….*shudders*) and just kind of instantly clicked as soon as we met. Like most friendships, we’ve had our ups and downs and after high school we went our separate ways and kind of fell out of touch for a few years. Fortunately, we found each other again and fell madly in love all over again. When she told me she got engaged I was elated because I was so happy that she found someone who accepts her for who she is and loves both her and her kids. Now their wedding is planned for May 29th in which I am the maid-of-honour and I have accepted the responsibility with pride that she would ask me.

Anyway, back to the weekend ahead of me! Yesterday I went with her and Mike to bring her two kids to soccer practice. Holden was a bit of a superstar and had fun, but Grayce wasn’t really finding her niche in the sport. She’s more into dance and swimming and stuff like that. I also think that she may have been overwhelmed by the whole experience because there were A LOT of kids there, and it was the first practice of the season so it was a bit of a gong show. Thirty-something 3 and 4 year olds running around a field trying to kick soccer balls…it would be a bit crazy for the first time.

After dropping the kids and Mike off at home, Sarah, her mom and myself all headed first to Sarah’s grandma’s house to pick up Aunt Leslie and Rosie (two more bridesmaids) and we all headed to the Oasis Hall where the bridal shower is being held tonight. For a couple hours we decorated the hall in a style that would only reflect a bridal shower for Sarah. Unless you know the girl then you probably have no idea what I mean, but let’s just say that the place has a definite “Sarah” feel to it. Lots of red, black, white and silver, with candles and roses and goth-like decor. I think it looks quite rad. Basically tonight there will be 40-50 people all gathering together to bring presents and eat lots of food and cake and celebrate the engagement. She’s nervous about the party because she’s not one to like being the center of attention (definitely not a Leo), but after she gets a good amount of wine into her system, I’m sure it will all be no big deal at all for her. Plus I’ve got her back.

Tomorrow is the bachelorette party! Now this could get sloppy. There’s a school-girl theme to the party which is no big deal because I already have an outfit (Jo’s wedding last summer had a theme in which I was a school-girl). Very convenient. It’s starting off at Aunt Leslie’s house where there will be a “sex party”, or whatever you want to call it. Normally they’re called Fantasia parties but it’s a different company involved so technically I can’t call it a Fantasia party. After that is done, I think the game plan is that we’re hitting the town. Considering this is Trail, there’s a good chance we will end up at a dodgy bar where they’re playing crappy music and the only people in the bar are drunk old men who either don’t want to go home to their wives or are life-long bachelors and have nowhere else more important to be. This could prove to be a very interesting weekend.

Hip Hip....Horray!

Just a quick little blog to make a small announcement. Today we had a bit of a revelation at the house. When I got home from my walk with the dogs, I was greeted by Cadance since my mom is going to be babysitting her for a few hours today. Ever since I got here a few days ago she has been calling me “Paaa”, which is her name for my sister Pam. She calls me “Aunty Paaa”. All Aunties are named the same I suppose in her 2 year old brain. Plus she doesn’t know me very well and she knows I’m an aunty of some kind…it’s just the name that’s a bit confusing. So, even though this is incredibly cute and she seems quite determined that this is in fact my correct name, we have all been correcting her relentlessly by saying, “no Cadance. Aunty Adrienne!” (or Aunty Age, or just Age…anything except Paaa). Her response to this is a little giggle and “Paaa!” while pointing at me.

Like I mentioned before, today was the revelation for my little niece. When I came in the door, she heard me come in and came running for the door. My mom said “who’s that Cadance?” and instead of calling me Paaa she called me “aunty” and went on her way. Then when we asked where aunty Pam was, she looked up at the picture of Pam on the shelf instead of pointing at me. So this is great news! I am no longer Aunty Paaa! She may not know what to call me anymore, but she has officially figured out that I am not Pam but am a whole different name of aunty. I feel like this is a small step for man, one giant leap for aunt-kind.

Always Excuses

Not being in school, or really having any place to be at all, makes me lose all sense of time. Just trying to figure out what day of the week it is can be a bit a chore these days. I guess the jet-lag doesn’t help either. Ok fine. I can’t even blame my slight retardation on that either. For some reason, this is the first time I have not had jet-lag when flying to BC. Usually I am all over the place and unable to stay awake past 8pm when I come here…but this time it doesn’t seem to be affecting me. Maybe by practically skipping sleep during the first 48 hrs I am here was a good way to go. It might have to be a new tradition.

Yesterday was a semi-productive day. My mom, sister, niece and I, all went to do some shopping together in the morning. I guess it’s a weekly ritual for the three of them to do a big shop together, head to the mall so that Cadance can play in the ball-room, and then go out for lunch. I got to join the trio, so I guess that makes me a bit special to be worthy of joining their weekly group. My mom was looking for something to wear to Sarah’s wedding (at the end of May), so while she was trying on clothes I also wandered around the store and tried on a few items. I picked up one shirt, as a complete joke because I thought that it was ridiculous, and tried it on to show mom and Amy. To all of our surprise, it was actually quite fabulous so I ended up buying it. Totally couldn’t afford it, but since it was the only one in my size, I figured that I had to get it at the chance of someone else snatching it up. Plus I am trying to live more by my newish motto, “never hesitate”, so that was my other reasoning for buying the shirt… I like to find multiple excuses when justifying purchasing clothes I don’t need.


After dropping Amy and Cadance off at their house, Mom drove me up to Pam’s house and dropped me off with nothing but a raincoat and sheer determination. Pam lives in upper Warfield and I’ve been wanting to walk Splash down to where my parents live to see how long it takes to do the trek. It poured all day, but after eating the huge lunch that I devoured, I really needed the long walk and of course to put my curiosity to rest. I walked down the main highway for a while but then cut down onto Thunder Road and eventually made my way down the mountain towards Rivervale. It was really weird to walk that trail alone though. Growing up we always walked that mountain quite regularly, but I had never done it by myself before. This time it was just me and Splash, breaking trail and enjoying the great outdoors together. I had to take my hood off because I wanted to able to listen for any animals that may be around…even though the worst we’d ever run into on that mountain were deer and coyotes (but only once). So that got me good and extra wet. Plus when I went to put the hood back on, the hood was filled with rainwater so that was a nice surprise when I pulled it back over my head. I got to the house exactly one hour and thirty three minutes later...shoes full of water and mascara running down my face.

There is a kid singing Journey on Ellen right now and he’s rocking my world.

When my dad got home from work, we sat down together and finally did my taxes (last possible minute at that). He has been the one who does my taxes every year, but this year he was a bit stumped on a couple things so he put off doing them until I got there…plus he wanted to show me how to do them so that I can one day do them myself (more excuses). It’s not as though it’s a hard task to accomplish, Dad just always did them for me. So we hashed them out together this year. Done and done.

Way To Go BC!!!

So on the news right now they’re talking about a new law that is strictly enforcing anti drinking and driving. BC now has the strictest and most aggressive drinking and driving laws in all of Canada. Way to go BC!!!

They have now dropped the legal limit of alcohol that you can have in your bloodstream to be able to legally drive a vehicle. Something a low as one drink in your body can be enough for some drivers to be unfit to drive. If you are caught with the minimum amount of alcohol in your bloodstream, 0.05-0.08, you will get a 3-day driving ban and a $200 fine (if your first offense). If you register above 0.08 then you will get a 90-day suspension and a $500 fine. Also, drivers who blow even just once above 0.08 or three times within five years between 0.05 and 0.08, they have to participate on a rehabilitative driver program and also for one year use an ignition interlock device (think Leslie Mann in 40 Year Old Virgin).



What does everyone think of this? Now I know some people that are totally not good to drive after only have one drink. I once dated a guy who got tipsy after half of a cooler. No joke. I once stopped drinking for about a year, and when I started again, after only one beer I would not allow myself to drive because it hit me so hard. For some people, like smaller men or many women, just one 8oz glass of wine is enough to send you in the range of 0.05-0.08. Sounds crazy, I know! Imagine losing your license from drinking one glass of wine.

I am very glad that they are cracking down on drunk driving. I mean, it’s just such a stupid thing to do and this will probably be a major eye-opener for a lot of people who have a drink or two and think they’re good to drive. Yeah sure, they probably are completely fine to be behind the wheel, but the next guy who has one or two drinks may not be ok and that law may take those people off of the road, even for a little while and teach them a lesson. A drunk driver took away mine and my sisters’ chance to ever meet our grandpa Kotyk, and that wasn’t fair.

Tip of the Day: Don’t drink and drive people. Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to watch out for the other guy anymore?

Back In BC

*Note. This blog was written yesterday but the internet kicked out so I couldn’t send it until today*


3:30 am was my official time of arrival this morning. The trip was long and boring, but I guess an uneventful trip is a good thing to report. The last flight from Vancouver to Kelowna was quite horrid because it was in this tiny tin-can of a plane that was so loud that my iPod couldn't even drown out the noise at all. Plus the guy sitting behind me smelled sooooooo bad. I think it was a combination of stale cigarettes, dirty skin and bad breath which just about sent me over the edge. Landing in Kelowna was such a relief. My dad was waiting for me...well, technically he was hiding behind a pillar in the waiting area, trying to be sneaky...but he's not very sneaky of a guy. I love him anyway. The 3.5 hour drive home was quiet except for the massive amount of deer which were hanging out all over the roads. My dad had to drive about 20kms slower than usual for a lot of the drive because he was afraid of hitting one. Unfortunately I was sleeping most of the drive so I missed out on the majority of the deer he was steering away from. But I desperately needed the sleep.


I woke up this morning about 9am and was welcomed to sunshine. My dad and I took Riz and Splash for a walk and we played down by the river for a good long time, throwing sticks and rocks for them into the water. Whoever named Splash got her name bang-on. She is such a Splash it's ridiculous (just as I typed that she nudged my arm with her snout and gave me one of those wonderful Splash looks). The dog literally knocked me on my butt and attacked my face with licks when she saw me this morning. Nothing like a push to the ground and a face covered with dog snot to start your day off right.

After the walk, me and dad built a giant fire down below the house to burn a whole bunch of twigs and sticks that he's had building up down there for the past couple months. What is it about a giant fire that is so satisfying? The burning, the smell, the extreme heat and the loss of arm hair are all things which are very enjoyable. We also found some wild asparagus growing down below, so I got to munch on some while we continued to feed the fire. Yum yum. I love how much BC is in full Spring swing right now. It's easily about a month ahead of PEI at the moment. Tulips are open, lilacs are nearly there as well and the fruit trees are blossoming. The apple trees over on the flats are starting to bloom which is my all-time favourite part of spring. Five trees all grouped together...and when they bloom, the smell is just absolutely intoxicating. I wish I could bottle it up and keep it for myself to enjoy all year round.


After unpacking my room, going for a 4.5 mile jog and shower, we're now heading up to my sister's for dinner. YAY for dinner!! I’m looking forward to hanging out with the whole Kotyk clan again (plus Jer and Graham).

Cookie Quandary

So here I am, sitting in the Vancouver Airport, twiddling my thumbs and eating snack foods which don't rate too high on the healthy eating list, waiting for flight #3 to get underway. On my last flight I was sitting next to this dude and we got chatting about health, nutrition, Canada's Food Guide, Michael Pollan, organic foods, local growing...etc...so I felt like I had to set a good example in my travel snacks while sitting beside him. My first food was a pear, which was good. The second was some carrots and red peppers that I cut up before I left the house this morning. Also good. As the hours trickled by and two fairly boring movies later, all I could think about was the Tim Horton's chocolate chip cookie which I bought at the Toronto airport that was sitting in my backpack at my feet. So I start weighing the pros and cons in the situation before me. He knows I'm a nutrition student and that I'm all for eating healthy and saving the planet from obesity and heart disease; therefore eating a calorie filled cookie from a franchise which is taking over the country and making people fat with their donuts and cream filled coffees would be a bad thing. On the other hand, it's a cookie...cookies are delicious and I love cookies. The dilemma burned on for a while longer. Eventually I decided that the cookie would win over. What can I say? My love for cookies is just too strong compared to my ego. Damn weak ego. I figured it would be best to be human and eat the cookie in front of him then wait and wait until I landed and devour it in a bathroom stall where no one would see me. Isn't that a lovely picture (just so everyone knows, I am not this neurotic at all. The vision on me eating a cookie hiding in the ladies room was just too funny to not bring up.)

While waiting for a flight, I was watching one of the giant TVs that they have at the airports, and there was a program on CNBC about Google called Inside the Mind of Google, and it basically made me want to drop out of school and somehow get a job for Google. Of course I will need to learn how to use computers properly and somehow enjoy working on a computer, but it would be worth it! First of all, has anyone seen where these people work??? It's incredible! The main headquarters is in Mountainview California, and the place is massive. And I mean MASSIVE! Google made a 4 billion dollar profit last year, so I guess I would have a ginormous headquarters made for me as well. Anyway, there is no dress code for all 20,000 employees, so if you roll out of bed, unshaven and pull on your rattiest jeans and t-shirt and head to work shoeless, no one would say a word about it. When the Queen went to visit the place, it showed some guy giving her a tour and he was wearing faded jeans and a baggy green t-shirt. Man...that's the life. Oh, and another thing! The place has something like 9 gourmet cafeterias in which all of the food and beverages are free. FREE! Gourmet chefs preparing gourmet food for you, and no cost. Google was created by these two young grad students who created it as a project...and now they are basically running the internet as we know it. Everyone loves and uses Google. I have a tab opened right now which displays an image search I recently did on Google. I have no idea how I lived before Google existed. How did we search for things anyway. Unfortunately I had to board my plane before I could watch the rest of the program, but it was really interesting to learn how Google is quickly taking over the world. As soon as they (Google) finish figuring out how to perfect androids (which they are doing as we speak), then it's all over. They have won.

I'm excited to be sitting here in BC. Leaving PEI this morning was hard. Even though I know I am in Vancouver right now, over 4,000 miles from where I was this morning, it still hasn't sunk it yet that I'm not going to Charlottetown again until September...over 4 months from now. The unfamiliar somehow became familiar and my old familiar was forgotten for a little while. I will be very happy when it returns :)

Panic Packing

I've officially decided that packing sucks! I began the whole packing process yesterday, but it mainly consisted of unloading my desk and my winter clothes which will be staying at the house while I am away...so that part was easy. Today I began tearing apart my closet and dresser and deciding which things stay and which stuff comes along. My first realization was that I have a lot of useless junk. I'm not a hoarder of any king really, if fact I generally throw out as much stuff as I can because I really don't like clutter (especially when you have a jail cell bedroom). I think what got to me was the shoes. I have somehow accumulated quite a few pairs of adorable shoes, all of which I want to bring back with me. I know that I will probably not wear most of them even once for the entire duration of the summer, but because I am a girl and am complete rubbish, I always have the nagging voice in the back of my head saying "but what if I need those shoes at some point!?!?!" and then I start to panic at the thought of not having that particular shoe waiting for me in my closet. Why do I have to be such a chick sometimes?

My second realization when packing is that I am going to have to leave some crucial articles of clothing behind. The first one was my lovely Tool t-shirt that Shawn got me for Christmas a couple years ago. I love that shirt and I wear it quite regularly here, but I know that when I get it home to BC that I will rarely wear it because of all of the dog hair that will cover it...which will get me all flustered because I don't want my black Tool shirt all covered with white hair. So I have had to part with a lot of clothes so far which is giving me some major anxiety (note the shoe dilemma mentioned above). What I don't want is to bring more than the 2 allowed pieces of baggage onto the plane, so trying to get all of my useless junk into two suitcases is proving to be much more difficult than expected. Was everyone else aware that Air Canada is now charging $100 for every extra piece of luggage that you check?? And why do I own so many pairs of socks and underwear anyway? How did this come to be?

My third realization is that packing sucks. Oh wait. I already mentioned that. I guess there wasn't a third realization...packing just sucks and I wanted to say it again one last time. I cringe at the thought of finishing it.

So in exactly 24 hours I will be probably sitting in the airplane, waiting to take off from the Charlottetown airport. Hopefully my 2 pieces of luggage will be safely stowed in the aircraft with me and all will be well. I guess this will be my last blog from PEI until September. Hopefully my loyal PEI readers will continue to read this to see what kind of shenanigans I get up to over there. I bid you all farewell for now.

It's In Me To Give

So I went down to the Canadian Blood Services today in desperate hope of giving blood. I drank lots of fluids the past couple days, worked out my arms this morning and used a squeeze ball the entire walk to the clinic. I was mildly successful with the donation. Better than last time anyway in which they couldn't even find a vein. They were able to get some blood out of me, but not the full amount that they like to get. I started off strong, everything was flowing and filling and life was good...but as time went by, the blood just stopped pumping as hard so the nurse just decided to stop. I am a bit bummed out right now because I really want to be able to do this on a regular basis, but it just doesn't seem that it's in the cards for me. I have been sick the past week which means that my body has been using a lot more energy and fluids to keep me going (aka, the snot factory has been in full force), so that could have reduced my blood volume enough to deplete the blood flow. I asked the nurse if it was even worth me continuing to try since I am such a high maintenance, pain in the arse patient and I've had only a tiny bit of success. She said to try to give it another go, so I am going to try one more time, but this time when I am not sick and after I drink an obscene amount of water beforehand. Like I'm talking so much that I can barely walk and end up looking like Violet Beauregarde after she eats the forbidden piece of gum. I'm going to do this. I am. It's in me to give...I just can't get it out!

Last night a group of us gals headed to Baba's Lounge to enjoy Open Mike. We got a couple pitchers of Sweet O and made a bit of an event of it. We were the somewhat distracting table at the front of the room, but considering that the place was quite dead, it didn't seem like a big deal. The night was planned around the girls being able to finally get the chance to see Chris and Kyle play, but Chris got the evil disease that I've been fighting (how he managed to catch it I will never know.......), so his voice is retired for the next few days. It was a major bummer that I didn't get the chance to hear him play since it was the last chance that I will have to hear him play there until September, but these things happen. Sickness happens to the best of us from time to time. We were also fortunate enough that the people who did sing were actually pretty good. Sometimes there are so really, really dodgy performers (as I shudder slightly at the thought of them), so it was great that the girls didn't have to witness that. Apparently they're all going to go again next week so make sure that they get the chance to see Chris play before he heads off to BC to reconnect with me. I hope they do.

I Salute You

I have an announcement to make. I am very pleased to say that there is a 37.07% increase in views to my blog, which makes me very very happy!! For about a good month my numbers were in the negatives, which means that less and less people were checking this place out every day. I understand that everyone has their own lives and probably don't have the time to take a few extra minutes to read a blog revolved around me and my boring life...but I am so happy that more of you guys are using your precious time to stop and check out what I have to say. You make me feel so special! Thanks everyone. For this, I salute you!

Today was day one of packing up the room. It was weird to do because I'm coming back in the fall so I have to decide what stays and what goes with me. This proved to be much more difficult than I anticipated. There are so many stupid little knick-knacks in my room and while I would love to take them all back with me, it's just silly to bring back 10 little cow figurines just because I like having them around. Plus I began taking down all of my pictures off of the walls (because I doubt Sarah wants to spend the summer looking at pictures of my friends and family...although she is in a bunch of them). I love that she wants to keep my Edward Norton poster up though. LOL. Yes....I'm 26 and I have a poster of Edward Norton in my room. Deal with it! He's just so nice to look at. Anyway, the packing is going quite smoothly. My jail cell bedroom is starting to look a bit bigger with less crap floating around it. But, the emptiness reminds me that in three days I'll be saying "goodbye" to this island and heading back to the mainland of BC. I'll be missing my lovely friend. I sound like a broken record these days. Boo hoo!! I'm leaving my friends!

Speaking of which, my lovely roommate Sam is heading home for a few days, which means that when she gets back to the island I'll be long gone. So tonight is our last night together. And how are we celebrating. Lots and lots of booze. Wish me luck!

Living Up To The Hype

I believe that everyone in this world has some kind of amazing gift or ability that makes them special and unique and separates them from everyone else in this world. For some people it's so ridiculously obvious. For example, Michael Jordan. The guy was/is one of the best basketball players to ever live (but definitely not the best baseball player). On the flip side of that, there are people who have these abilities to do small and random things that will probably go unnoticed by 99.99999% of the population, but is admired and appreciated by those who know that person intimately. For example, my sister Pam is a pretty fantastic gift wrapper. Every single gift that she wraps is colour coordinated and beautiful. Whereas my gifts are practically unwrapping themselves because the crappiness of my wrap job doesn't hold them together very well (this is why they created duct tape!). This is something that most people in this universe would never know about Pam, but we know it and appreciate it.

My weird little gift that was either bestowed on me from birth or drilled into me as a child, is my Super Mario skills. You may laugh now, but it's true! I am quite fantastic at it, especially Super Mario World. I hadn't played in years and years, and recently Chris downloaded a huge amount of old school Nintendo and Super Nintendo games onto his laptop, and as soon as I started playing, it was like I had never quit. I could remember the most outlandish little tricks and secrets which just astounded Chris (who is a self proclaimed mad-man at Mario). Now, I am obviously not the best player in the world, but I like to think that I'm fairly awesome.

So now the big dilemma here is that Chris has been playing a lot of this new Super Mario Wii game lately with his friends, and he somehow managed to tell a bunch of his buddies how great I am at Mario...so now the rumour is out amongst them all that I can beat everyone who wants to challenge me. Ugh. Yesterday I was at Kyle's house with a few people who were all playing Wii, and this guy who I didn't even know was talking about how good he is at Super Mario World, so I asked "how good?" and he said "well, apparently no where near as good as you...I've heard the stories." Ok, so now I am feeling this immense pressure to waaaaaayyyy up my skills so that when one of these dudes, who are basically strangers, wants to play against me, I had better be utterly amazing. Living up to the hype just may get me in the end. I am fairly good at not buckling under the pressure though.

I must admit that the new Wii Mario game is pretty damn cool. It came out way back in November, but I have been living under a rock for the past many months, so I'm just learning about the whole thing. I really like that it has a lot of the personality of the older games incorporated into (like the bad guys, music, worlds....), but with a cool new-age look and feel. Plus the new little gadgets are rockin' and I love how you can play with 4 people on the same screen at once. I'm quite sure that most people hate having so many players on one screen all bumping into each other and accidentally pushing each other off of cliffs (yeah, I did that a lot last night...sorry guys but it was my first time ever playing Wii), but I think it majorly ups the degree to difficulty and keeps you way more on edge when you're playing. I'm a die hard Super Nintendo lover to the end, but I give this game two thumbs up.

The Last Coffee Date

Today I got the opportunity to help out with the recipe contest I mentioned a while back. I met up with three of the ladies from the PEI Healthy Eating Alliance to create the four recipes that made the final cut. Each recipe had to celebrate local farms and have some consideration for healthy eating. The recipes were; a berry smoothie, lobster stuffed potatoes, vegetable potato salad and a potato pizza. I was in charge of the pizza, which proved to be a very challenging feat. First of all, the proportion of the ingredients for the pizza dough was completely wrong and I ended up making a make-shift dough (luckily I've had lots of experience of messing up recipes when I worked at the bakery, so I was able to create something not half bad). The dough had grated potato in it, and there was not nearly enough flour and other stuff to accommodate the amount of soggy potato, and the potato should have been thoroughly dried and wrung out, but it wasn't described to do so in the recipe and I had to follow the recipe exactly to ensure I was making what it suggested...let's just say that in the end it turned out passable for pizza dough. There was a panel of four judges (including me, which I didn't know I was doing until they told me to sit down and start eating) to test each recipe and decide which came out on top. I can't say which recipe won because the announcement isn't out yet, and what if by some insanely small chance someone from that school, or knows someone from that school or is a parent of someone from that school, somehow miraculously reads this blog...then I would get in trouble. And that wouldn't be cool. They'd never let me volunteer ever again which would be tragic. But the experience was fun and the entries that the kids sent in were adorable, and I want to thank the HEA for letting me be involved. Thanks guys!

After testing the recipes and saying my goodbyes to the ladies, I headed down to meet with Jo and Andrea at Leonhard's bakery for some coffee and sweets. Leonhard's is this lovely little German bakery that opened up in Charlottetown a while back, and everything there is so authentic and homemade and delicious...what they failed to mention is that as of April 12th they are no longer open on Mondays. Booooo. If they were considerate enough of an establishment then they would have called to tell us this little tidbit of information before we got all excited at the thought of eating there ;) So instead we headed to Beanz and had some warm drinks and sugary snacks to keep us energized. I'm going to miss those lovely ladies when I head to BC. I'm glad I got to have one more sit down chat session with them before I head out on Saturday. The last coffee date. Le sigh.

It's been quiet around here the past couple days. The weather has been crappy so I've been feeling a bit of cabin fever coming on. Plus the fact that I have this stupid cold isn't helping at all. I feel as though this may be the most unproductive I've ever been in my life. I am going to be working with SNAP a couple days this week, which I am looking forward to. Plus I'm going to try to give blood again on Thursday, and I am really really hoping that I am successful this time around. Last time I was all pumped, sitting in the chair and ready to go, only for them to be unable to find a stupid vein in my stupid veinless white girl arms. It was heart breaking and they told me to try again at another time. My plan is to drink just an insane amount of water for two days in advance (fill those damn veins until they nearly burst), and also do an intense upper body workout right before I go in hopes of getting my arm veins jacked. I really hope this works or else I am a complete and utter blood donor failure...which would look really bad on my resume.

One More......

Ok, seriously. How could I not show this cake as well? Way too cute for words.

Too Many Questions

I just need to start this off by showing this picture of this amazing cake! One of the blogs that I follow regularly is "Cake Wrecks", which shows pictures and describes some hideously ugly and atrocious cakes that people create. Also, sometimes they display pictures of absolutely astonishingly beautiful cakes. Today they had this one, which just made my heart soar. I think that since I watched City Slickers yesterday that this cake just pulled on my heartstrings especially strongly. Ok, moving on.

The question of the day is, why does being sick make everything seem so much harder?? I've been fighting a head cold for three days now and even though it's a really mild cold, it just seems that the world is against me. Yeah, I know that my cells are using lots of energy to fight off the evil bacteria and are in warp speed trying to create and replace the white blood cells...but I'm pretty sure that the stairs got a lot steeper in the past couple days. Not that I don't need the exercise, but steepening the stairs is just cruel for someone who wasn't ready for such a change in the house. And then there's the whole showering dilemma. Is it really worth the effort to shower only for the satisfaction of not smelling like a hobo?? My only suggestion to fix this is to have baths. There is far less energy that has to be put out when you're just laying there, rather than actually standing for those precious and very lengthy minutes. The second question of the day is, why does being sick make us so pathetic sometimes?

Day One of Unproductiveness

In 186 hours, I will be boarding my plane to fly back to BC for the summer. The closer and closer the day comes, the more and more my emotions become scattered and confused. Obviously I am thrilled to go back to my home province to enjoy the summer where the weather is hot and dry (compared to the drizzly and miserable summer I lived through last summer), and I get to see my friends and family. I love my family and miss them tremendously living so far away. Sarah's bachelorette party is coming up at the end of April which will be a gong-show, and then her wedding at the end of May should be an event to be rememebered. Plus, going home means I have the chance to go see Gill, or give her the chance to come up to visit me...something I missed out on last year because I was in PEI. So yes, I am very much looking forward to going to BC. Oh, did I mention that it's 22 degrees in Trail right now and it's zero degrees in Charlottetown???

On the other hand, the closer the day comes to my departure, the more saddened I become at the thought of leaving the amazing friends that I have here. The other night at Open Mike, I was just sitting back and analyzing the scene around me and started thinking about how much I was going to miss seeing that crowd of people every Wednesday night. It's kind of the same crew every week and you get to know them fairly quickly and look forward to seeing them there. A lot of my friends back home have moved away to larger cities, so seeing them will be more challenging. Here, they're basically all within a close distance which is extremely convenient for everyone. I can pretty much walk to anyones house from where I am living within a half hour. I can't say that about BC. I wish I could pack everyone up and take them back with me so that I can be the selfish jerk that everyone knows and loves to me to be. That's my one and only option at this point.

So last night was Sam's birthday party. She somehow survived the evening even though she wasn't feeling up to par. She's my hero, that's for sure. We were a bit disappointed that only about 1/2 of the people that we were expecting to show up actually made an appearance, but we made a good time of it anyway. Everyone looked gorgeous by the way. We have a sexy group of friends here.

The one thing about having extra time on your hands is that you always seem to get less done. How and why does this happen? Today I had the whole day to be productive. But what did I do instead? Got out of bed around noon (which is so incredibly rare), went to a very late lunch with Chris, followed by some suit shopping at Moores. I have come to very much enjoy going suit shopping. Watching a guy try on suits is just extremely sexy. No denying it. What's hotter than a guy all decked out in a suit? After that we just walked around downtown...then he dropped me off at my house where I wasted the day away watching Six Feet Under and downloading music. A whole day wasted with unproductiveness. It was a weird feeling. I don't think I could get used to it.

Tip of the Day: Just because the dictionary claims that a word doesn't exist, that should never stop you from using it. Case and point: "unproductiveness"

Parties and Celebrities

First I want to give a shout out to my mom and dad who are celebrating their anniversary today. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! I love you!

I've had a busy couple of days...mostly because today is a pretty important day and I've been trying to make sure that everything is ready for it. Today is Sam's 21st birthday party and we're throwing a bit of a shindig here tonight. So the past two days I've been running around trying to pick up this and that, plus get some things done that I've been putting off due to needing all the time I could spare to study for exams. Now that exams are over (HEHE!) I have to do everything all at once because I've been procrastinating for two weeks. Anyway, I walked many miles around this town, picking up cupcake ingredients, balloons and other odds and ends...only to have the birthday girl come down with the stomach flu/food poisoning the night before the party. Oh Sam. What are you doing to us!?!?!? I'm kidding Sam. I love you. It just really really sucks that she's sick on the day of her birthday. Of all the days!!! Poor girl. I keep telling her that we can pull the plug on the whole operation (even after I meticulously decorated 36 cupcakes), but she says "no". She wants to see people and be social, so we're going along with it. I'll keep you posted on how the night ends up going.

Last night was Open Mike at Baba's, just like every Wednesday night. Both Chris's and Kyle's parents showed up to watch them play, plus Chris's sister and brother in-law went as well. They had never seen them play before so it was kinda cool to be there to see everyone witness the magic of Chris and Kyle for the first time. Plus it was a really quiet night at Baba's so the guys got to play extra long, which was a nice surprise. I'm guessing now that school is basically over, that a lot of people are heading off the island as quickly as they possibly can (like I will be in 10 days!), which means the talent is getting more sparse around here.

So I got an email from a woman who works for the PEI Healthy Eating Alliance about an inquiry I had made a few weeks ago about volunteering for this big recipe challenge contest that they're doing in the elementary schools here. March was Nutrition Month, with the theme being From Field...to Table, meaning that they were supporting local farms. So the contest is that the kids have to submit a recipe which has to be healthy, tasty, original and made with mostly local ingredients. When I heard about it I send an email to the HEA asking if they needed any help. So now I get to go on Monday to help produce the top 4 recipes and judge on which one should be the winner. I'm pretty pumped to be able to help. The recipe that wins, the kid who submitted it will get to make the recipe with Chef Michael Smith at their school. That's an awesome prize to win! This is all going down on May 13th, and I was asked to join the festivities, but I will be in BC. This is a major bummer. Go to BC and start my job....or meet a famous celebrity chef??? If only I could do both.

Where's Alice Cooper???

I am done. DONE! No more tests, no more assignments, no more studying. Je suis fait. Lo sanno fatto. Am terminant. Olen valmis. Ich bin fertig. Or at Kaylynne would say, "DUNZO!" It feels good, there's no denying it. I wrote my last exam this morning at 9am and it took about an hour and a half to complete. I feel like I way over studied for that test...well...maybe not so much that I over studied, but I was definitely studying the wrong material for that she had on that test. Not as though what she was asking was hard, it just wasn't what I was focusing on when reviewing the material. OH WELL!!! I'm quite certain that I did just fine overall and am not regretting the work that I put into it. Done and done.


Now I'm planning in shaving Chris's head in a few minutes. The guy has this incredible mop of hair (almost at thick as mine) and has a hard time controlling it, so we're gonna just shave it all off. Shaving another person's head is something that I enjoy quite immensely. I think it's my way of living vicariously through them because I have always wanted to shave my head. Not that I think that I would end up discovering that I am one of those amazingly beautiful bald girls who never knew how much they suited having zero hair...it's just one of those strange little desires that we all have. Some people have always wanted to run a marathon while others want to perfect a chocolate mousse recipe. Me. I want to shave my head. Do I have the guts?? Perhaps. Not sure yet. Chris has always wanted to have a mohawk but never did it, and today is his day. I'm excited for him. I guess I always wanted to have blue hair and I finally got the nerve (and ended up loving it), so that's one step in the right direction I suppose.

After the shaving, I'm heading back to town to pick up Sam (Sam who I used to work with at the store) and we're heading to Maritime Beauty. She needs to pick up some things and I've never been, so I thought I would tag along. Then it sounds like there's a handful of people coming over after we get back to my place to get some waxing done. Waxing party!!! Nothing like viciously yanking some body hair out of my body to celebrate the end of the semester. Why do we do this to ourselves again? Oh yeah. Vanity. I nearly forgot.

Spouting Sexuality

I've been trying to study for my last final exam (Human Sexuality) for about an hour, but there's a topic that's on my mind and unless I rant about it now then I'll never be able to concentrate on studying. 30% of my mark for this final exam is based on a take-home exam paper that I had to write about my personal ethics and philosophy of life in regards to sexuality and on some particular topics that the professor outlined for us to discuss. She wanted us to comment on where we stand on the topic of homosexuality and how that was related to our moral/ethical/religious beliefs. After re-reading my paper, I realized that trying to get my opinion out about this topic left me ranting and raving and I am hoping that I didn't come off too strongly.

There was once a time where, in a religious stand-point, homosexuality was just completely against nature, abnormal, a sin and against God's will, and for being attracted to the same sex you would be either burned at the stake or banned from the church. Then it got to the point where they decided that if that person wanted to repent and "become heterosexual", then their religious communities would accept them once again. Doesn't saying that you are straight when you are actually gay go far more against nature that the creation of a gay person? If there is this almighty being who is all-creating and all-knowing, then wouldn't he know what he was doing when he created this person in the first place?

I would also like to point out that they have now realized that there were some misinterpretations in some "holy books" about issues surrounding homosexuality and were taken out of context. Isn't that special.

So the next issue that was brought up in the text-book and in my paper is how many religious communities are taking another look at their attitudes towards homosexuality and that they are starting to interpret their teachings so that homosexuality is not abnormal or against anyones will. But, then they go and say that it's completely fine if you want to be gay, as long as you remain abstinent, then this will be seen as being obedient to God and will in turn prevent rejection from the church. Seriously?!?!? So now it's ok to be gay, but they can't ever have sex because sex should only be between a man and woman?? That's like saying it's alright for a dog to have a tail as long at it never wags it. It's completely unfair.

People are people and we should all have equal rights to everything, especially religion. If it is now legal and acceptable for two men or two women to marry, then they most certainly should be accepted by their religions. I totally understand that many religions are 100% accepting to all types of sexuality and that's awesome. I just wish that people would get out of the bedrooms of people because it's so not their business anyway. Maybe people would be more religious if they felt more accepted. And don't even get me started on convesion therapy. Seriously? Conversion therapy? Now you're just desperately reaching for anything to grasp onto.

I really hope that I didn't offend anyone with this discussion. This is just my opinion on a very contraversial topic.

Fuzzy Peaches and Peanut Butter

Something that you don't hear a whole lot of anymore are huge, long-term friendships that sustain crazy obstacles and still manage to come out strong and full of love. There are lots of people who maintain close friendships throughout their lives with people from high school, which is great because high school is a very important time for a lot of people and they meet very influential friends during that time (unlike me who only learned one thing from high school - high school sucks!). No, I met one or two amazing core friends in high school who I love and adore to this day and will love and adore until the end of time.

But what I am really talking about here is a friendship that I have had with a certain someone since I was 5 years old. My life-long best friend Gill (one of the many Sarah's in my life...this one has just known me the longest and I always call her Gill). Her and her mom moved to Rivervale from Colville, Washington, when I was 5. I don't know how long it took for us to become attached at the hip, but I'm thinking the attachment occurred quite soon after they joined the neighbourbood. Well, technically we could never really be attached at the hip because she was always a good foot shorter than me. Gill basically became my 3rd sister immediately since she was always at our house, sleeping over all of the time and eating many meals around our kitchen table. Oh, and if you ever invite her over to eat, make sure you have plenty of time allotted for meal time because she is the slowest eater I have ever met in my life. She always had weird little food idiosyncrasies, like peanut butter on pancakes.



I remember the day she moved away like it was yesterday. I walked over to her house really early that morning, three houses down the street, with a huge bag of Fuzzy Peach candies in my pocket (her favourite) because I knew that you can't buy them in the states. I remember standing around and watching them do the last minute packing that had to be done, and then hugging her with every ounce of energy that I had. I walked home feeling numb, knowing that my best friend was moving back to the US and that I might never see her again. That thought was terrifying. I went into the house, walked downstairs, put in a sad movie and cried for 2 hours straight. How do you enter high school and start dating boys without your best friend to support you along the way? Plus I forgot to give her the Fuzzy Peaches.

Now she lives just outside of Seattle with her husband and 2.5 children (baby #3 is due on June 15th). I was in her wedding party when she got married and have been down there to visit a few times. Definitely not nearly as many times as I would like to, but we do try to stay in touch as much as we can. Two summers ago she surprised me with a visit up to Canada with the whole family, which was amazing. She has such a fantastic family and I am so happy that they will be having another son so soon. Weekly emails keep us up to date with the silly details of each others lives (we both live vicariously through each other I think. I learn about husbands and kids and she learns about...well... I have no idea what she gets out of me to tell you the truth). LOL. Maybe she'll tell me after she reads this.

I guess this is my tribute email to my life-long friend Gill. I wish I could live three houses down from you again and spend my days waiting to see your ponytail bobbing back and forth as you lope down the street to my house to visit. I love you to death and can't wait to come and visit this summer.

Tip of the Day: Friendship is like a good bra: hard to find, supportive, comfortable, always lift you up, makes you look better and always close to your heart.

You're Terminated.

Two down and three to go. I wish I was talking about margaritas at this point, but unfortunately I am referring to exams. Today I write Advanced Foods (done) and Dietary Behaviour (ETA=2hrs and 15 minutes). Luckily Advanced Foods was open book so there wasn't the whole panic portion of the exam that tends to hit me somewhere about 24 hrs prior to writing a test, so that was a nice change. I've only ever written two open book exams in my life and I must admit, I wish I had more of them. The one negative aspect of them however, is when you don't know the answer and can't find the answer and you start to get that vision in your head of them throwing you out of university for flunking an open book exam. Should there be a mandatory rule of immediate expulsion following the failing of an open book test?? Perhaps. That would be sad. Anyway, test #2 of today starts in a couple hours and I really should be studying. Just 10 more minutes??

My dad called last night to tell me that I received a letter from Cominco telling me that my start date for the job is May 5th and I will be working in the Melting Plant. I mean, to say that I will be working in a place called a "melting plant" sounds pretty sweet indeed. I have this vision of the scene in Terminator 2 where the T-1000 follows them all into that big steel mill where the huge battle occurs and there's giant vats of molten steel bubbling and steam and loud noises coming from every direction. Yeah, I know it won't be like that, but that would be pretty intense! Turns out I'll be driving trucks and fork-lifts around, doing deliveries and stuff like that. My dad says it's a fairly decent job and I should have no problems there. I trust him. And if I suck at the job, the worst that can happen is I'll be terminated....

Tip of the Day: Corny jokes will always have a place in the world.

The End is Near

This morning as I was laying in bed, deciding whether or not I wanted to face the world today, I came to the realization that on Tuesday the 13th, two major feats in my life will be complete. Number one: I will be done my third year at UPEI. Number two: I will be complete my P90X program. I'll admit that I'm happy about the first finished feat, but the second one is a bit saddening for me.

I've been really enjoying doing the program and look forward to getting out of bed to do whichever video is waiting for me (except YogaX which is still my nemesis, although it's gotten a lot easier to get through the past few weeks). I think what freaks me out about the whole thing is that after writing my exam on Tuesday morning, I'm going to have to come home and do all of my measurements to see if anything even changed in regards to my body. I haven't weighed myself once since December which is a bit frightening...and by "a bit", I mean "holy crap a lot!" I used to weigh myself every Monday morning at the gym, and now I could be anywhere on the map. My guesstimate as to what my measurements are going to reveal is that there won't be a lot of changes. I know my biceps will be larger for sure...but mostly everything else will be really close to the same. I have definitely noticed some physical changes in the way my body looks and I am tighter and more defined in some areas, but I think that my weight will be about the same as when I started.

I'd like to do the program again, but this time do the Leaner program, and also invest in some weights and eat better this time around! I know that my diet made a huge difference as to my overall results of the completion of the program. Maybe in the fall I'll start it back up. I think my summer is going to consist of more outside exercise and some visits to the gym. Sure I'll do a P90X video here and there on days I have some extra time and energy...meh. We'll see how it goes. I'm just pretty sure that my work schedule won't allow such strict workouts as the program would like. Speaking of which! Apparently Cominco is making phone calls now telling people their start dates in May! I'm so excited to finally learn when I start and what section I'll be working in. It had better be awesome, that's all I have to say.

Tip of the Day: Being more versatile makes you less vulnerable.

Ocean Adventure

Ok, so minus the white fuzzy hair and the large black noses...basically, this was myself and Kaylynne yesterday afternoon. As we were laying out in the sun trying to study (but failing miserably due to the loveliness of the weather), Kaylynne came up with the brilliant idea to go to the beach and jump into the water. I hesitated for a minute, weighing the options of staying and studying or dying of hypothermia from swimming in the ocean...and hypothermia ended up winning hands down!

So we took a trip to Brackley Beach, super excited and pumped to do something so stupid (and to have a study break), and as we got closer and closer to the beach, I think both of us started to slightly regret being such brave hot-shots and really started to think about how cold this was going to be. But we'd gone that far already. No turning back now! The beach was beautiful and made me start to get excited about the approaching summer months. Kaylynne was the first to jump in; which she did with some slight yelping, but that's understandable. After she ran back to the shore, it was my turn, so away I went into the icy waters. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but still, my goosebumps had goosebumps which were also promoting goosebumps. I think swimming at Kootenay Lake every summer has built up my goosebump building ability. Anyway, it was my first time every swimming in the ocean, so it was pretty cool to finally be able to do that.

Yeah I know what you're thinking. I've been living on PEI for 2+ years and have yet to swim in the ocean?? It's very sad, but true. The first summer of school I went back home to BC so didn't get a chance to go to the beach. Last summer when I was here, I had very few days off from work, and the ones that I did have off were full of rain and wind, so it wasn't the best of beach-going conditions. It was a very unfortunate and unproductive summer.

After the jump in the ocean, we drove back to the house where I shivered and shook for most of the rest of the day. A lovely Easter dinner was had at Chris's later that evening, which was truly great. His family is very welcoming and enjoyable people and the meal was delicious. It was nice to be able to have a real sit-down meal with actual people who have actual conversations around the dinner table. Much different than my dinner-for-one meals of me sitting in front of the TV watching The Golden Girls.

Tip of the Day: The Golden Girls is a show of epic proportions and if I ever hear anyone talking smack about it, then get ready to feel my wrath!



Holy crap my first final exam starts in 16.5 hours. I suppose it's time to stop staring at my books and get to reading them.

Always Listen to Mom

So yesterday evening I felt as though I deserved a study break, so I went for a nice walk down around the boardwalk to enjoy the amazing weather and the view of the water. A woman was approaching me with this dog that reminded me of Splash,(which of course made me smile) and she got as far away from me as she could, (even walked right off of the sidewalk) and snidely said "nice hair" and just kept on walking right by me. I was slightly blown away by this comment. Yeah, PEI is about 20 years behind in basically every way possible, and yeah, people here are a bit sheltered from the rest of the world. But there are far wackier hair-dos then mine on this island, and 99.9% of them are on decent and wonderful human beings. So...why would she go out of her way to make a cynical comment to some bleached blond chick with some blue in her hair, whom she has never met before??? Why do people have to do that? Also, it's not as though this was some 14 year old brat who was trying to make a statement by being overly mean. No. This was a full-grown woman who was easily in her late 30's-early 40's and has had plenty of time to grow a personality and a good set of basic morals.

I hate that there are people in the world who get off making other people feel like shit about themselves (if you're reading this, pardon my French grandma). I mean, this woman didn't make me feel like shit because I truly don't care about what she thinks about my hair, but if she's able to make a comment like that to me then she's more than likely able to say it to someone who actually may care about what other people think of them...which can be really damaging for some people. It's just so uncool. Why do people have to be like that? Open your mind, open your heart and accept people for who they are. I'm sorry I can't a perfectly straight brunette ponytail like you lady...I like my hair. Deal with it.

Like my mom always said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all."

Blue and Batty

At one point yesterday, it was 19 degrees in Charlottetown. That is just mean! The one time of year that we students are stuffed inside the library, dorm-rooms or bedrooms, up to our noses in studying for exams, is of course the one time the temperature reaches the high teens. That's just uncool.

Yesterday was a fairly decent day overall. I went out to breakfast with Sarah, Jo and Andrea, which was enjoyable. How I am going to survive the summer without those ladies? After breakfast we went to Lou Lou's where I walked around toting a cow-print bag for about a 1/2 hour. The fact that I was able to walk out of that place without buying it is nothing short of a miracle. A cow print bag people!! It was amazing, and only $20. There's a good chance I'll be heading back there in a few days because I lack will-power and I will be wanting to break free from studying at one point and a trip to a clothing store will be a great distraction.

Anyway, after breakfast and purse drooling, Jo came over to my place and ended up dying my hair. She put a largish streak of blue in my hair. I'll admit that the second I did it, I thought "what have I done?" but now that the shock has subsided, I enjoy it. I've been wanting to do something silly with my hair for a long time but just never really had the guts to do it...for some reason I was feeling gutsy yesterday. After the blue hair bonanza, I went to the library for a few hours to get a little work done. Usually I go to the library only when I have work to do that I really don't want to do but needs to be completed.

After the library I headed home to procrastinate a bit...then went out for the night. It was Chris's sister's birthday yesterday so we went over there for her party. It was my first time meeting people in his family (besides his mom and dad whom I met many months ago). I wasn't nervous or anything, and everyone was very welcoming and the food they had out was delicious. Chris's sister married into a Lebanese family, so most of their special occasions revolve around amazing Lebanese food. I look forward to spending more holidays with them :) Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to meet Chris's other sister which is unfortunate. I just really want to meet all of his family and get to know them because I'm leaving for the summer, and he's coming to BC for most of it as well, and I guess I just want them to know the person who is dragging their son/brother away for so many months. Also, the first time Chris is going to meet my family is when he moves to BC. Now that's pretty scary. If they hate him then they're stuck with him for 3 months. Not that they'll hate him...but still. That has to be a bit intimidating for him. He's a tough guy though. He can survive the crazy Kotyk clan. Let's hope so anyway.

I just realized that when mid-terms were going on, the ever-distracting Olympics were is full swing. And now that finals are happening, an ever-distracting heat wave is in full swing. I think the universe is trying to tell us something. School is silly and we should all quit.

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

Well, it finally happened. Semester #2 of year #3 has come to an end and classes are officially done. I knew the day would come eventually, but now that it has come and gone, it still hasn't sunk in yet at all. I just completed my take-home exam question for my Human Sexuality class, which should have been a reminder that I just wrote 30% of my mark for that final exam...and yet...I feel nothing. Weird. I think knowing that I have to write 5 exams in the next week and a half is a constant cloud hanging over my head that I don't have the time to be excited that I'm almost done and that I have tons of work still to do. Yuck. Writing that paper for that exam was hard! The material wasn't difficult at all because it was merely my ethical opinions about various topics and religious views about sexuality, but it was excruciatingly hard to keep it within the amount of pages that she wants us to hand in. Her format says "3-4 pages"....yeah. That didn't happen. Mine is 8 pages long. How does she expect us to talk about so many things in only 3-4 pages? C'mon! Yes, I tend to rant when I am talking about something I feel strongly about, but still. Give me some space to write in. Hopefully she's a bit lenient about this. Plus it was really hard to write this paper and not appear that I'm standing on a soap-box saying that everyone else is wrong and stupid and I'm the all-knowing voice behind the curtain. This is not what I was aiming for at all. A few days ago, this particular professor went out of her way to tell me how much she has enjoyed my writing throughout the semester (we had to send her weekly journal entries), so I am hoping that she enjoys this paper just as much.

So yesterday was April Fools Day (Happy Birthday Splash!) and our group in our Advanced Foods class had to do our presentation about our mac and cheese project. We were originally going do a great big prank for the teacher, but ended up doing a minor one instead. The presentation was a power point, and we had certain topics to discuss about the mac and cheese experiments (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion), and I was in charge of talking all about the discussion. So, when it was my turn, the first slide of course said "discussion", and when we turned to the next slide it was this picture of this sexy vinyl-clad woman all tied up on top of this table with a blindfold and her mouth all covered up, and the heading said "Bondage and Discipline 101" with various facts about S&M and a few other things. At first I pretended that I had no idea what was going on, and then I pointed to one of my friends in the class/crowd and said "Oh Jess! This is from that class we took last Saturday night!" The funny thing about this was that about 70% of the class was completely confused and had no idea how to react (picture uncomfortable teeth-gritting grins and eyes darting back and forth waiting for some kind of social cue). Meanwhile the rest of the class was laughing hysterically because they know the kind of ridiculous people that we are. Oh, we also all had matching shirts on as well depicting a macaroni noodle and a block of cheese reaching towards one another, with the words BFF and a heart underneath them. We're a bunch of dorks and I'm the first to admit it. I'm just really hoping that the instructor for the class doesn't dock us marks for not taking the project seriously enough or anything like that. It was a fairly easy-going class, so we felt it would be alright to have a little fun on the last day of classes.

Yesterday afternoon I walked around Charlottetown with Sarah while she handed out resumes, looking for a part-time job for the summer. I love love love hanging out with Sarah because she is so easy-going and fun to talk to about anything and everything. She's just a bubble of laughter and can make any situation enjoyable. Also, walking around with her handing out resumes made me look forward to looking for a new job in the fall when I return to PEI. I know that sounds really weird, but I am excited to find out where I'm going to end up in the fall in regards to work. I am really hoping to find a job as a waitress because tips would be great! But really, just the new experience and new people I am going to meet will be enough to satisfy me at the moment.

Tip of the Day: Optimism may be the only way to curb the definite anxiousness of having to study for exams. That, and denial.

Cougars vs. Pumas

This topic has been coming up in every conversation these days, and I think it's a great topic to talk about; older women dating younger men. It's classic! But now there is a new line of "cougars in training" called Pumas who are rocking the scene. These are the 30 something women who are educated, have life experience and are looking for a good time. And men seem to love these women as well, so it's a win-win situation! I think the real dilemma here is, why aren't more women doing this? Let's discuss some of the pros to dating younger men shall we??

Alright, there's the obvious one. Men die first. Sure it sucks, but it's just biology and there's nothing we can do to stop it. If you date/marry a younger guy, then you're less likely to be left alone and go senile since it's more feasible that your man will be alive longer to enjoy the golden years with you. This could be a bad thing though if after 50 years of being with him you're sick of looking at his wrinkly butt. But I'm trying to be optimistic here...so let's move on.

The next good thing about dating a younger man...ok...I have to say it because everyone is thinking it. Women have their sexual peak later on in life whereas men have it when they're younger. So the only way to get around this is for two people to meet when they're both at their sexual summit and just enjoy life and the moment.

Another good thing about dating a younger guy is that it's a huge ego boost to have a younger guy be attracted to you. You may be getting older and noticed a new crease there, some extra saggage there, and suddenly you're overwhelmed with the idea that you're getting older and still single! Who will want me now?!??! When an attractive guy approaches you and has no idea who Pauly Shore is because that was "way before his time", at first it may make you feel a tiny bit awkward, but after that feeling alleviates and you catch your balance, there is definitely a slight swagger in your walk for the rest of the night. All gals need an ego boost every now and then.

There's lots more about how younger guys seem to appreciate older women more than girls their own age and the relationships are more exciting...but I think I've said enough. I might be biased on the topic because I am dating a younger guy (though only by 2.5 years, so it's no big deal), but I also want to point out that my sister is dating a guy 5 years younger than her and it seems to be going pretty great (your secret is officially out Tweed. Sorry!) I think that there's a stigma about this whole younger man-older woman thing and it just seems to silly.

What does age have to do with love anyway?

I think the real question here is, who would win the younger man in the big scheme of things? The cougar or the puma?? Now that would be a fight I would pay to see.