I nearly ran out of tape, but I made it

I'm graduating today, so I don't have time to write much. Although I'm looking forward to seeing all the people that have been my family the last 4 years, I'm not looking forward to walking across the stage, because I don't have any shoes with treads good enough to ensure I won't become, "that girl who fell." I've spent 4 years cultivating the "that red head girl who wears a lot of green...and sometimes blue" image. Not that distinctive, I know, but dependable, like the colour green...or blue.

Graduation makes me nostalgic. Only 4 years ago, I had freshly graduated from my undergraduate program and was looking forward to exciting new adventures. If I have a fault, it's that I tend to be overly optimistic. I imagined that this new school would be like a hidden utopia nestled in North York. On nostalgic days like this I could almost imagine I was right. But I wasn't right. I was very wrong. Even if the heating system in the building hadn't been menopausal, the school still would have had some work to do to get to utopia. But that's okay, because now that I'm leaving, like my undergrad, it will slowly morph itself into the wonderful experience I wanted it to be. That is the magic of memory.

During the last 4 years, I've learned many things. Number one among them is the importance of crying. I had considered trying to drink enough at formal to replace the tears I shed over the last 4 years, but thought that dying of alcohol poisoning might not be the best way to celebrate graduation. I think it's a way though, and will consider it the next time I graduate from somewhere that seems to relish in repeatedly crushing my soul. That was another key lesson. For 4 years the school would intermittently smash my soul, and I would pick up all the little soul pieces and try to figure out how to put them back together. It was problem based learning. Eventually, I was able to eliminate the less essential parts of my soul, replacing them with shards of awesome. Yes, it's mainly held together by bits of string and scotch tape, but my soul is now 19% more awesome than it was 4 years ago. So now is the opportunity for me to thank my school for so thoroughly destroying my spirit, because, coming in, it was a mediocre spirit, at best, but now it is awesome enhanced.

So, what have I learned, other than what it feels like to have your soul repeatedly pulverized, and how to most efficiently repair it with odds and ends you find around the house? That's a good question. Well, I learned that anytime something goes wrong, saying things like, "there's nowhere I can be that isn't where I'm supposed to be," or, "this is part of my path," or, "this happened so I can learn," will comfort me more than I imagined possible. For example, if something goes wrong and I miss the subway, I'll think, "chances are if I'd caught that train, it would have been the train where a bear would have eaten me." Or if someone rejects me, I'll think "chances are they were a bear who would have eaten me." The point is, there are bears around every corner, and the only thing preventing you from becoming their delicious dessert is a string of seemingly unfortunate events.

Today's happy song is Ramble on by Led Zeppelin, which has, for a long time, been my favorite end of the school year song. I also like it because I'm a fan of all kinds of rambling, both the verbal kind and the kind that makes your feet hurt. The Lord of the Rings references are also a little bit awesome, because, even though I haven't actually gotten through the books, I respect those that are so open in their devotion to fiction. If I wrote a song, I would reference Fraggle Rock a lot. It wouldn't be as cool as Ramble on, and would probably contain more instances of the word "radish" than any other song in history. Actually, I don't need to write a song, because it already exists. It's called the Fraggle Rock theme song. Crap, I think I just wasted two happy songs in one day. Oh well, I guess it's a special day. I'll just have to turn a horribly depressing song into a happy song later on to make up for the loss. I'll try to find one with a high casualty count, just because I like the challenge.

C-c-c-curly! (hopefully)

Tonight is graduation formal. This means that after publishing last night's post, I spent an hour trying to put hair curlers in, despite holding a deep-seeded belief that they were doomed to fail and that I would probably have to just straighten it at the last minute. There's nothing like feeling like your sleeping on pillow made of large pebbles and yet knowing that it's unlikely to have any benefit whatsoever. So I ended up dreaming that each of my dreams cost 5 cents each and the ones I had were just previews, so I'd wake up 5 seconds after they started, since I wasn't willing to fork over 5 cents for something I usually get for free. The point is, I'm a little sleepy, which is definitely going to add to my looks at formal. The best part is, I knew that's exactly how this whole curl thing would go down, but did it anyways, because the idea of actual curls is so mystical to me that I have to try even futile efforts that will keep me up all night. I just really want to boing them.

The most exciting thing about formal is that I'm in charge of the buses. I jumped on that task, because, who doesn't want the power of bus? Also, anything that involves me checking people off a list while wearing a fancy dress amuses me. I don't know why. But it really, really does. It might just be that I'm looking forward to the first person who tries to mess with me, so that I can shut them down (in a fancy dress). I've been practicing the line, "Get off the bus, motha trucker!" all week. I've nearly perfected it, but for the optimal furrow to my brow. You see, when dressed all fancy-like, a perfect brow furrow is imperative to intimidation.

Speaking of fancy dressing, I'm not sure how well I've planned it out today. I mean, I bought a dress, and I put the curlers in, but as far as I know right now, I might be wearing paper bags on my feet and earrings made from the bones of small animals. Actually, that second one is unlikely, because I live across from the mall, so animal bones would be much harder to acquire than any random pair of earrings, but you probably get my point. I'm comforting myself by reminding myself that you don't really want to look too good for this, because you don't want peoples final memories of you to be "Damn, why does she have to look so good. I'm so jealous." I'd prefer them to get together years from now and say, "Hey, remember that ginger that only wore one shoe to formal, because she realized she'd lost the pair as she left the house?" It kind of has a Cinderella flare to it, minus the prince since 87% of my class is female. Also, glass shoes are horribly impractical, and an excellent way to end up with a severed tibial nerve.

Happy song of the day. Well, formals always make me think of high school prom, and just before my prom was when I discovered exactly how much I love Joni Mitchell, a love that has only grown since then. I wish I could say Song for Sharon, since it's the only Sharon song that I have, but it's very long and not even I can stretch it enough to classify it as happy (introspective, maybe?). So, for today, I'm going to go for Judgment of the Moon and Stars, the Travelogue version, because the orchestra helps. Again, not exactly happy, but, I like imagining shaking my fist at lightening and being a forest fire, because of the futility and the destructiveness, respectively.

So, while finishing this post, I noticed I had a new e-mail, which always excites me, then usually disappoints me. This time it was notification of a new comment on my blog though, which is always exciting, or so I thought. I started reading it and was confused. "Excellent topics, I really like this topics. Can you publish more articles?" This seemed odd. First, what topics, friends that are robots? Grass-eggs? Novel forms of messing with your childrens lives? I don't get it. Also, how many more articles do you want? I'm writing everyday? Then I did get it, because they followed with an ad for a chiropractic clinic (I've since deleted it, for fear of viruses). I was so very sad. So, I decided to do some online stalking, and figured out through my excellent online stalking skills that they came across my blog through the search term "carpal tunnel syndrome". Having had carpal tunnel syndrome, albeit briefly and guitar hero induced, I don't like my people (yes, my people) being preyed on in blog form. To my mysterious poster, if you ever read this, I suggest that you scan for the following words in a blog before you attempt to advertise: kill, robot, evil, crack bottle. This is not an extensive list, but simply a few that might have clued you into the fact that my readers are unlikely to be searching for your clinic anytime soon, and that if they were, you'd likely not want them to find it.

Now I'm afraid that since I mentioned severed nerves, tomorrow there's going to be a comment from a bargain basement neurosurgeon.

Grad photos = lie

My graduation photos were taken today. I hadn't put too much thought into them; in fact, I'd barely managed to remember to book them, which is why I got stuck with an early morning slot. But, my blasé attitude all changed last night when I realized: This picture is going to be around approximately...umm...forever. Long after my classmates have forgotten my witty retorts ("No, you are the one who is stupid") and aptitude for confusion, all they will be left with is this lone image of me.

"Damn," I thought, "maybe I should wash my hair or something." So, I got up early to get ready, but started thinking again over my morning coffee. Isn't making yourself up for a single day to take a picture to represent your time here until the end of days just lying? I mean, I've spent 4 years suffering to finish this program, and I didn't do it with perfectly coiffed hair and brilliant eye makeup. I did it with blood, sweat and tears (literally on all three counts...yes, even the blood, actually, especially the blood). And then I thought, "Am I suggesting that my photo shoot prop should be blood? Wait, I'm confused."

I think what confused me was the part of me that's a little vain (and not sure how to find blood at such short notice) and, therefore, isn't sure that the accurate representation of my natural appearance after these four grueling years is something that should ever have photographic documentation (the best description of my appearance upon waking would some sort of zombie-catfish hybrid...or if you want an image a little more easily accessible to the average person - I look like death). So, instead of trying to work out the confusion, I decided to make compromises. For example, I allowed myself to pluck my eyebrows...but only one side (I guess I should say, "pluck my eyebrow," but it just sounds wrong). Or, I could put on eyeliner, but I didn't let myself do it well (okay, that wasn't so much a matter of compromise as of skill, but the impact is still the same). Unfortunately, in the perfect illustration of exactly how bad I look on a daily basis, this half-assed effort was rewarded with countless compliments on my appearance today (secretly I wonder how many people substituted "Hey, you look less like a corpse than I'm used to," with "Hey, you look...umm...nice hair").

Anyways, it's still a lie. In reality, I look like death. But, in our graduation composite I will probably look like the living dead, a vast improvement and blatant distortion. In a few years I'll pay for it when I've had time to rest and live like a semi-normal human being (read: when I legitimately don't look like death) and I meet up with my school friends. They're not going to be able to compliment me on how unsickly I look, because they will have been looking at my lying liar of a grad photo for so many years. So, instead of having many years of people saying how good I look, I got just one day of hair compliments, and now I'll go through a lifetime of nothing. Then I'll die.

Stupid lying grad photo.