God wants me to drink coffee Q.E.D.

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but blogging everyday is not easy, especially while juggling a life full of random hurdles. But, I'm a stubborn person, and I said I would write everyday, so that is what I shall do.

An example of my persistence: when I was in grade 4, a teacher told us a story about a 6th grader trying (and failing) to read the unabridged version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and said no 6th grader could ever get through the book. So I, always one for a challenge, found a copy of it and started reading, determined to prove that I could do in grade 4 what no 6th grader could handle. I read about 12 pages, and all I can remember was that it was about some sort of expedition or something...I don't really know. All I do know is that I thought "Where the hell is my monster?" and put it down forever. Oh, wait, that's not a good example of my persistence.

Actually, it's strange that I was upset about the lack of monster, considering this was only a few years before I couldn't sleep for fear of Raptors eating me in the night and shortly after the phase in which I would hide in terror when my brothers put on the soundtrack from Ghostbusters 2 (The song "(Your love keeps lifting me) Higher and Higher" caused pretty severe panic attacks for a disturbingly long time after that movie). I'm lucky the beginning of that book was so excruciating, because I probably wouldn't have slept for most of my childhood if I managed to get to the monster.

A better example of my persistence would be the day that I decided I needed a new bookshelf right away, so I walked to Canadian Tire in a snowstorm to purchase one. When I'd found one, I thought, "This isn't too heavy, and the walk isn't so far...I think I can do this." I was a thousand kinds of wrong. Actually, that's a lie, because I did eventually make it, so, I was at least one kind of right. But, regardless, it was pretty ridiculous.

I hadn't reached the corner outside the store before my arms felt like they were on fire. As I mentioned, there was a snowstorm at the time, but despite the very real potential for frostbite, I have never been more certain that I was about to spontaneously combust than I was on that walk. Because of this, I had to stop approximately every 5 meters to set it down in the snow...until about halfway through the trip, when I realized that the box had disintegrated on the bottom and everything was falling out. So I had to flip it over, and continue in 5 meter spurts, until it was clear that the other side was going to lose it soon.

This was the point where I nearly fell into the fetal position crying on the side of Sheppard Avenue, which is not the cleanest of street sides. The one reason I didn't is I realized that the box would completely break and all the pain and suffering would be in vain. So I started running. Well, more like rapid waddling, but the point is, I had come too far, and I was going to get that MF home if it was the last thing I did (such a statement felt quite real at this point because I was fairly certain death was coming soon, due to the aforementioned combustion). Long story short, I made it (that's right, it's an actual for real story about persistence...and you totally thought I was bluffing again). I ended up temporarily leaving it outside, hoping that any thief that might wander by would assume it was garbage. I was lucky that it would be hard not to mistake it for garbage by the time I got home. Now I have a beautiful shelf with slightly watermarked edges. Yay persistence.

Thinking of that shelf, I'm glad that I managed it that day, because it was a key player in the closest experience I've ever had to magic. I love coffee. But that is not the magic of the story, just an important thing to note. Ever since I started drinking coffee, I've had my latte mug. I don't know where it came from, but when I moved out of my first apartment, it was one of the random leftover dishes that seemed to belong to no one, so it ended up belonging to me. Since then, it has gotten me through every late night paper, every exam period and the majority of my post-exam hangovers. So, you can imagine the pain it would bring me if I were to break it one day.

I think it's obvious that this story begins with me dropping my all important latte mug. Actually, I knocked it off my desk. Then I tensed every muscle of my body as it managed to bounce off the floor, flip over and land upright teetering on the edge of my shelf. The statistical odds of this happening have not been calculated, as far as I know, but I'm going to guestimate that it's 1 in eleventeenzillion. Below is a diagram of the fall and a picture of the mug after it landed.


Yes, I'm aware that my mug picture is more sketchy than that photo of Bigfoot, but at the time I only had my cell phone camera, which is not that great to start out. To make matters worse, I don't actually know how to get photos from my phone to my computer, so I ended up using my webcam to take a picture of the picture, which was difficult, because the phone kept on reflecting my computer screen, so I had to carefully turn off the screen with my mouse hovering over the capture picture button, but if it took me too long, my cellphone display would shut off and it would all be for naught. The point is, stop creating magic mug conspiracy stories and start spending more time teaching me how to work basic technology.