When I was younger (and I mean a lot younger), I predictably didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. When somebody asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer would change every time. At one point, I wanted to be a ballerina. I thought the stereotypical pink tutus were so pretty. I didn't plan for the fact that one has to train very hard for years and years to become a ballet dancer; I took a few lessons when I was four or five but once I realised we weren't going to get past second position and puddle jumps, I got bored and stopped going. (It also helped that there wasn't a single pink tutu in sight—I was the only one who actually wore a tutu to the classes, and mine wasn't even pink!)

I wanted to be a firefighter after reading one of many Robert Munsch books in which a small child decides to drive something that is grossly inappropriate for their age and level of experience. (I mean, it's not every day you see a six-year-old flying an airplane!) The book in question was The Fire Station. I, of course, didn't pay any attention to the ending of the book, where both children end up being punished for driving a fire truck, and focused instead on the good part: THEY WERE DRIVING A FIRE TRUCK. I also didn't think of the fact that most firefighters don't get paid to merely drive a truck.

My longest-lasting obsession was with teaching. I always thought it would be the perfect job for me: I could boss people around and be creative, and I was actually fairly good at teaching and tutoring. It dawned on me years later that I'm probably not a patient enough person to be a teacher, and I quickly dumped that idea.

There were lots of other occupations (usually generic) that I considered for about a day before I moved onto the next one: astronaut, veteranarian, doctor. What gets me is that out of all these things, the only one that's decidedly "feminine" is a ballerina. The others are either stereotypically "masculine" or just plain neutral. I apparently wasn't your ordinary five-year-old girl who dreams of becoming a princess. (Although I'll admit that I may have considered it for a short period of time.)

Now I'm not sure of what I want to be. All I know is that the novelty of my longest-lived dream hasn't yet worn off: I want to be a writer, and I don't see myself ever deciding otherwise.

If you're reading this, there's a good chance that you have one thing I don't have at this time (or at least "this time" being the time you're reading it, not "this time" being the time I'm writing it, which is 5:44 PM on June 28, 2008): internet access.

It's not really too hard to figure out why; it's the summer in the good old northern hemisphere, after all, and so I'm away at The Beach, as I fondly call it, with my bestest friend evar. Right now (your reading now, of course, not my writing now) there's a 99% chance that I'm doing one of these things: reading, eating, swimming, lounging on the beach, sitting in a car, talking with said bestest friend evar, playing Pokémon¹, making up dances in the water (however dorky that may sound), practising my water handstands, or playing games that I only ever play when I'm at the beach². (If not, I'm sleeping.)

So. Because Wordpress is cool like that, having at least one redeeming quality, I've been able to set it so that this post, although I'm writing it on Saturday afternoon, will publish itself on Monday at two o'clock in the afternoon. I'm also working on another post that will be published partway through my trip. I'm not going to tell you when though, so you should subscribe to my RSS feed so you don't miss it. (Heh. Ever so [un]subtle.) Kidding. It's going to be published Thursday afternoon… but you should still subscribe! Kthxbai.

1. Joking! No, really. *shifty eyes* [↩]
2. President, Rummy-O, Hoopla, and my personal favourite, Scattergories. [↩]

I've always hated the insult "you have no life". If you get into an argument that involves that phrase, you are almost guaranteed to look like an idiot. First, let's explore the "diss" itself.

You have no life.

This is generally used by butthurt teenybopper website owners when someone dares to point out the fact that their coding is terrible, that their site looks deranged in any browser but Internet Explorer, or that they're using copyrighted images. I tend to think that if they have to resort to this argument, they most probably have no good response to the statement of "Your site looks really weird in Firefox. Maybe you should change it." Anyway, what does my apparent lack of a life have to do with the fact that I have an opinion? Just because, according to you, I sit in front of my computer all day finding random websites to insult (which I can assure you I don't do) means my opinion isn't valid?

Now, the various responses I've seen to this argument are generally as unimaginative and stupid. People usually take the argument far too literally.

Person A: You have no life!

Person B: Yes, I do. I play soccer, baseball, badminton, lacrosse, hockey, chess, tag, water polo, and volleyball, and I'm on the swim team, and I get straight As in school, and I'm part of the math club and I babysit and I'm in seven hundred and fifty plays and musicals, and I volunteer at the SPCA! I barely have any time to do anything because I have such an overwhelmingly busy life!

Okay, like that has anything to do with anything. You're just going to make a fool of yourself if you say that, because obviously you've taken this random teenybopper's lame insult to heart a little too much.

Person A: You don't have a life!

Person B: If I don't have a life, how am I breathing? Huh? Huh? If I typed that thing about how your layout is ugly, then obviously I'm breathing, because to type something I'd have to be alive, and to be alive I'd have to be breathing! So obviously I have a life! Duh!

Are you aware of the presence figures of speech in our world? Maybe it's time to start now if you honestly think you've just made a compelling argument. This person is referring to your social life, not your I-have-a-beating-hard-and-breathing-lungs life. They mean that you do nothing but sit in front of your computer all day looking for websites to insult. They don't mean that you're dead. Because, well, they're not stupid enough¹ to think a corpse is typing messages in their cute little tagboard.

Person A: You have no life.

Person B: lol ur mama/lol ur face.

Don't bring the person's face/mama into this. This is even more of a blaring "I HAVE NO REAL ARGUMENT" sign than the original one; even if their mama is fat/ugly/stupid/whatever you say, and even if they are ugly themselves, it has nothing to do with the argument at hand (and of course doesn't change the [in]validity of their argument).

Person A: You must not have a life!

Peson B: No, you have no life!

Sigh. Must I say more?

The only acceptable response to this is

Person A: You have no life, loser.

Person B: lol. *leaves*

1. Well, probably not, anyway. [↩]

It's both a curse and a blessing to have rediscovered Polyvore. It's fun, addictive, a great time-waster, and an awesome way to find new clothes. Its major downfall lies in the fact that, well, it's an awesome way to find new clothes. Whenever I use it, I can't help but discover new clothes that I have have have to buy. What exactly do I want so badly? All of these things:

Seeing all these gorgeous clothes makes it harder and harder to save my money, which I used to be really good it. It's also hard to accept that fact that we do not have DeliA*s in Canada. How completely unfair is that?

If someone can a) give me money, b) buy me all of the above, and/or c) make DeliA*s come to Canada, I will be your bestest friend and provide you with a neverending supply of cookies.

I'm sure most people know that I love to write and I'd love to be a published author. However, I always lack the motivation to finish anything. I'm constantly coming up with ideas and starting to write, but that's only left me with a very large collection of 5-page-long "novels".

Recently, though, I began to work on a new idea¹. Instead of starting to write it as soon as it popped into my head, however, I carefully outlined it, chapter by chapter, and wrote a few character shorts as well. Around the same time, I found Catherine's writing blog, which was a huge inspiration to me. I love reading her posts, and I find them inspiring. I'm working on starting my own writing blog, although I'm not sure if it will ever go live.

I've realised that there will never be a day where I am guaranteed to be in a writing mood. Instead, I'm going to work towards writing a bit every day², maybe 1000 words.

I'm very serious about this novel. In the past, I've finished a few, but I haven't had the heart to go back and edit them. I'm going to be ruthless with this one: I'll write it without looking back, and then I'll edit as many times as I need to before it's perfect. After that, who knows?

As you can see, I've added Catherine's awesome word counting script to the sidebar³. It displays the progress I've currently made—as of June 21, 2008, I've written 17,200 words out of my goal of 65,000.

Wish me luck in finishing Faceless!

1. I'm not going to tell you anything about it yet, if it all, because I prefer not to talk about my writing unless it's finished and I know I love it. I will tell you that its working title is Faceless. [↩]
2. And this won't be hard now that I'm almost on my summer vacation [↩]
3. Although it only shows up on the home page. [↩]

1. I'm thinking of switching this blog to Expression Engine. I currently have a local install of it on my other laptop, and I've liked it a lot so far. It does take some getting used to, but I'm going to play around with it for a while and see what I can come up with.
2. I've really been wanting to take some photos lately. My current camera isn't the worst, but it's really not very good either, so I've been holding off photographing anything. I'm strongly considering purchasing a Canon Powershot A460. My friend has one, and I love it. If this happens, which I hope it will, and soon, expect more photos, and possibly a small photoblog.
3. I've decided to participate in 101 Things in 1001 Days. I'm not sure how easily I'll finish, or if I'll finish at all, but I have an issue with failure so I think I can push myself. My list is located here, if you care at all.
4. Thursday is my birthday. I won't be blogging then, because it's also the night of my semi-formal, and I'm getting ready with my friends before then, which adds up to no time to blog! I probably won't post tomorrow, either, so I thought I'd just throw that out there today. May everyone have a great Thursday, and happy early birthday to Sarai, who has the same birthday as me. (I'm not a stalker, I just have a good memory!)

Why must you always come at inopportune times? You'll pass me by for days, even weeks, on end, and when I'm away without access to a computer, you turn up. I'm forced to either write down the flood of ideas entering my head, which hurts my hand (I'm really not a good pencil-and-paper writer), or else I can just forget the ideas completely. Or, worse yet, I'll suddenly have an amazing idea at three o'clock in the morning but forget all about it by the time I'm actually awake four and a half hours later.

I guess I shouldn't be looking a gift horse in the mouth—at least I have you sometimes. More often than some people, actually. I generally have you fairly consistently: once every three or four days. But here's the thing: I'm not the worst off, but I'm definitely not the best off. Don't even try to hide the fact that you favour some people, letting them have more than their fair share of yourself, usually every day or two! And, really, you'd think that you'd be a little more fair in dealing yourself out. Are you deliberately trying to taunt me, or do we just live in different time zones?

I'm begging you: please, please, please consider me as a candidate the next time you're up for grabs at 4:00-6:00 PM on weekdays at 10:00 AM-10:00 PM on weekends. I'll be eternally grateful, and I'll try really hard (for an hour, at least) to not complain again.

Sincerely yours,
Clem

The one thing I have always (and probably will always) hate about myself is my voice.

I find it to be very high-pitched and irritating, and I don't seem to have any control over it. It slips around, up and down, which just annoys me. Everyone hears their own voice differently, and it doesn't sound too bad in my ears, but when I hear a recording of myself I want to crawl under a table and not come out. Apart from people who phrase everything as a question ("So I went shopping? And I saw these really cool flip-flops?"), mine is probably the single most irksome¹ voice out there.

I remember, when I was five or six, hating my voice, but for a different reason. I asked my dad if I sounded like a boy, and he said kind of. I decided this was the worst thing ever. I was a girl who had a boy's voice! O noez!

To this day, I can't stand hearing myself talk. I know this is a very strange thing to hate about myself, but I'm sure that most people have something about themselves that they can't stand but that most people don't find particularly horrible. (I'm not sure if others hate my voice as well, but I have to hope I'm the only one!)

So my question to you is: What is one not-very-important thing about yourself that you wish you could change?

^{1—Okay, okay, I really wanted an excuse to use that word.}

I've been coveting the iPod Touch for quite some time now. I asked for it for my birthday, with absolutely no expectation that I would actually receive it. Much to my surprise, my wish was actually granted! I know I looked amazingly excited when I opened it, saw the "8g" on the box, and realised what it was, but I'm sure it also seemed like I couldn't quite believe it.

The iPod Touch took a tiny bit of getting used to, but now that I'm used to it, I think it's awesome! It has so many awesome features and applications, including Safari, Youtube, email, coverflow, and the fact that when you're playing music the screen just looks awesome. The only thing I'm upset about is the lack of games and the fact that you can't currently download any off of iTunes.

Anyway, I'll spare you all this talking and leave you with a few photos of my new favourite possession.

Read the rest of this entry »

I started off on Freewebs. The first incarnation of this site was born there on June 6, 2006—almost two years ago. Since then, I have learned an amazing amount, and I am, of course, no longer with Freewebs.

I'm appalled by the sites that are hosted by Freewebs, though. They're mostly pagebuilder, and they are mostly run by people who are incompetent and who obviously have no idea how to speak English properly. The sites take approximately forever and a day to load and bring up the dreaded rainbow cursor on my iBook, which is equivalent to the hourglass on Windows. They're also plastered with ads that blink obtrusively in my face. Fun times.

One of these sites is Advice From Hannah. The first thing I notice upon loading her site is a flashing ad, which obviously she can't help if she wants to stay on Freewebs. The layout is most definitely pagebuilder, and the text is huge. I'm not stupid and I'm not blind—I can read it just fine in regular 12 point font. Reading this supersized Arial black-on-white text makes my eyes fuzzy.

Scrolling down, I notice a huge red heading saying ***NEWS!*** Then there's the navigation section, with links to mostly pointless pages like Song Lyrics and Things to do in Walmart. Strangely enough, the red text isn't linked. The site has one saving grace, which is that the owner has semi-decent grammar. Also, it helps that my birthday, June 19, is displayed in large letters on the homepage.

Then there's 101 ways to get rid of your annoying neighbor…, which is strewn with random and pointless content, spelling errors, and flashing graphics. There's also the charming little "two people who are better than YOU!!!", in purple Comic Sans no less. And, yeah, like telling your neighbour your idol is Sadaam Hussein is going to get rid of them.

Freewebs fails, simple as that.