The Gap Between My Teeth and The Big Picture
This past weekend, I had a crack-of-dawn dentist appointment. My yearly check-up, as it were. My capable and friendly dentist boldy declared – for the first time I had ever heard in my life – that my teeth were in tip-top condition. Evidently, my New Year’s resolution to keep on top of my flossing was working. That said, he mentioned that if I wanted some vanity work done, I could schedule an appointment – a teeth bleaching/whitening session to clean up the sparse coffee and tea stains on my teeth (that I personally had not noticed) and a filling session to close the gap between my teeth, the one I’ve had since I was little.
Now, I didn’t take his recommendations very seriously first, but now that I’m at home, comfortable and contemplating his suggestions, I’m wondering the broader implications of his obviously very innocent suggestion.
I’ve had a gap between my teeth for as long as I know. It’s very unnoticeable, but noticeable enough that it could be a blemish in what I think is my generally presentable appearance. The roots of this gap go to when I was a youngin’ – I was a chronic thumbsucker until I was about 6 or 7. Embarassing, I know, but I think it really was a nervous thing, because I graduated from sucking my thumb to chewing on my nails, and I only chew my nails when I’m stressed out or nervous (although I’m working on that for a New Year’s Resolution this year as well, and so far so good…another post to come on that whole mantra cum life perspective change soon).
It’s odd because I feel that fixing the gap between my teeth isn’t a huge deal and not something nearly as superficial as you know, getting ginormous breast implants or skimming that last 1/2 of fat from your thighs with liposuction. But isn’t it? A gap between your teeth is such a minute thing, so unnoticeable probably to the majority of the population, so why even consider changing it? Sometimes it freaks me out how utterly enamoured our society is with perfection, but at the same time sickened of it. We criticize fashion magazines and advertisements for air brushing models, but at the same time we often squirm at seeing things that are less than desirable on the glossy pages of magazines. And we say that we want to see real-sized models, but then we do and comment that the clothes hang poorly on her. We rever certain individuals for having a certain look or quirk; something that sets them apart from the rest – a mole was Cindy Crawford’s – yet we also chastise others for looking too alien and unique.
Obviously I’m making some broad, sweeping generalizations with this. But as I read more and more and learn more and more, I’ve increasingly come to the realization that everything in society is contradictory. The demarcations and divisions are very vague and everything is a shade of grey. It’s kind of cool but a headache at the same time.
List of Lasts, 3/6/10
Last book I read: White Teeth by Zadie Smith, and The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene (for class)
Last movie I watched: Shutter Island. I thought it was super scary, but I’m just a fraidy cat.
Last trip I took: Mount Baker for some snowboarding during the Olympics. I miss it 
Last productive thing I did: Write an essay for my fashion class…last night!
Last thing eaten: Banana with peanut butter as an after dinner snack, nom nom nom!
Things I Am Loving: Philosophy Body Wash
How uncharacteristic of me to blog with something plausibly useful and not complete and utter rubbish.
Anyways – I was so unbelievably lucky to win “The Cookie Exchange” Philosophy Body Wash set from Anya of the fabulous Vancouver-based style blog, I’m the It Girl. I’ve been a big fan of Philosophy products ever since I laid my greedy little paws on them – their famous face wash Purity Made Simple is my go-to and their skin cream Hope In a Jar is so good, Oprah likes it – but I never had a chance to try out their body wash/bubble bath/shampoo combos.
Now, I’ve never tried it as a shampoo as the idea of using the same product to clean my body and hair sends chills down my spine (yep, I’m a diva) but this stuff, as a body wash or a bubble bath? It’s the SHIT – figuratively, of course. Foams up like a dream, makes you feel squeaky clean, and smells divine! I tend to deviate away from “sweet” scents such as the ones Philosophy’s body line is known for (the scents included in The Cookie Exchange are Snickerdoodle, Sugar Cookie, Chocolate Chip, and Oatmeal Raisin) but I was really pleasantly surprised to see that these scents did NOT make you smell like a cake (because again, I think it’s weird to smell like something edible), but instead leave you smelling fresh and clean and WONDERFUL.
Seriously – this stuff is amazing. The only thing that makes me cringe is their price tag. At $23.00 (CAD) it’s a bit of a splurge, especially for someone like me who grew up using good ol’ Ivory bars (and still do…) But thankfully the regular sizes are quite generous and would probably last you a while. I assure you, if you’re looking for a nice treat in the bath or shower (c’mon, you deserve it!) you should check out Philosophy’s line of body washes!
Photo credits to Sephora
Crystal Balls
I suck at this blogging business (cue beginning of usual self-depreciating paragraph). I guess keeping a regular record of the happenings in my life just isn’t for me; clearly my penchant for blogging is much more sporadic than I would like. As usual I would like to bring my school defense up to the stand, for the past three weeks I have had the most ridiculous concentration of assignments in my life – week 1, paper; week 2, 3 papers; week 3, 1 paper 2 presentations and an exam, and this week (week 4) I have three papers all due on Thursday/Friday.
It’s funny because when I’m in the midst of all this assignment writing and stressing and drinking a bajillion cups of coffee and pulling my hair out and trying to hide out in the UBC library so I can stay overnight (half kidding) I absolutely despise being a student. But then I finish and I get that feeling of accomplishment; that despite this seemingly unsurmountable pile of papers, presentations, exams, research projects…I TOTALLY DID IT. And I think besides that, being a student is amazing just because your job is to learn. How kick ass is that?
I bring this up now because recently I have been giving some thought as to what I want to pursue following my graduation. As of now I’m on track to graduate in 2011 or 2012, with a BA in Communication with Honours (although recently I’ve been throwing around the idea of minoring in Dialogue). I’m almost positive that I do not want to go into a Communications-related field as a career (i.e., public relations/marketing/publicity/broadcasting, the like). However, I don’t know much beyond that and recently I’ve begun toying with the idea of going into grad school. Any form of grad school really, as I’ve been thinking about law school since I knew what a lawyer was, but also possibly a Masters program. As to what I might study, I think I’d want to do something Communications/Sociology related, maybe public policy even. Anyways, my point is…what is an interesting/good program to look at? There’s just so much information out there that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. It’d be so helpful if someone gave me a direction to look at!
Besides, that though…10 more days till California.
Organization, organization, organization
I haven’t updated in a million light years and I apologize but in my defense, HOLY SHIZA has life gotten hectic. I’ve recently accepted another (second) job as a receptionist at an office downtown, and though I initially believed the workload would be doable it is starting to eat away at my study time meaning that it’s time for me to go into overdrive! Luckily so far I have been fairly apt at keeping everything on schedule and being productive 99.999% of the time (William and I’s dates currently usually consist of studying and/or doing some kind of leisurely activity that we believe will stimulate our minds because let me tell you, our minds need stimulating!)
That said, my weeks of doom are coming up in approximately 2 1/2 weeks (AKA midterms/papers time) so I’m starting to feel a mild sense of apprehension with perhaps a little dash of fear. I am attempting to compensate and abate these anxieties by being super organized – you know, post-it notes on everything, to-do lists galore, scheduling and compartmentalizing my time – and I’m feeling pretty good about it now. But still it feels like there’s a little tiny bit of anxiety hiding away somewhere that occasionally decides to go out and have a party and wreck havoc with the level of productivity I’ve got going here.
Anyways – the question I’d like to ask you (in light of all this stress and work!) is two-fold: firstly, what do you do that helps you stay organized and secondly, how do you manage to incorporate leisure/social time?
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
For those of you who are unaware, I have been a hardcore Harry Potter fan since the books came out – when I was about in fourth or fifth grades. I devoured them like I devour chocolate covered pomegranate; quickly and with no abandon whatsoever. As such, I’m sure all of you can imagine I’m quite the devout fan and though I have grown older (and hopefullly wiser, though I’m sure that would be up for discussion) I have remained quite devoted to the fantasy world that Rowling has created.
Subsequently, I approached the news that my beloved childhood novels were being adapted into films with the highest degree of caution, knowing that they would never, ever, ever be able to live up to my expectations. I haven’t gone quite to the lengths that some of my friends have for their most revered fandoms (one of them refuses to watch the Twilight films, which in retrospect I find mildly humorous as the books are, at least in my opinion, rubbish, but I will save that for later) as my curiousity always gets the best of me and as a result I’ve seen every single Harry Potter movie that has been released. The first and second passed with not much notice on my part, the third seemed a little out of place in terms of consistency with the previous two, and the fourth and fifth I felt were most well done but certainly not nearly at the level that the books were.
Therefore, I was quite pleasantly surprised to see the trailer for the sixth book – Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – and eagerly awaited its release to see whether it finally would perhaps be within my expectations; tonight, I was able to finally get to a movie theatre to discover if it really was worth all the hype.
And the verdict? To be honest, I thought it was only okay; and I think I have may been most disappointed with this film more than any of the others because it got such good reviews. My biggest gripe with all of the Harry Potter movies is that they – despite the fact that they have fairly long runtimes, HBP being about 2.5 hours long – feel rushed. That, admittedly, is something obviously quite difficult for the filmmakers to overcome seeing that each Harry Potter installment spans approximately a year and well, to fit a year into about 2 hours is no easy feat. That said, I still feel that they could have done a better job at signalling the passage of time and transitioning overall, the film just seemed really (for lack of a better word) jumpy.
And I don’t want to point fingers, but honestly, Ginny was so tame and quiet in the movie! That is certainly not how I felt Rowling portrayed her and definitely not how I pictured her. The entire Ginny/Harry line was completely off, and I think a very large contributing factor was that the portrayal of Ginny was completely off (in my opinion, at least). I also wished that they included more quidditch in the film because in the books it was a large contributor to the development of Ron’s character. AND most importantly, there was not nearly enough background information on Voldemort’s history! A huge chunk of that book was devoted to Voldemort/Tom Riddle’s backstory and I felt that it was absolutely crucial to contextualize not only Voldemort himself, but how the rest of the wizarding world was positioned in relation to it.
Of course, the film wasn’t completely rubbish. In fact, I thought it was quite entertaining on the whole; the beginning scene with the destruction of the bridge was awesome and I loved that they included lots of interaction between Harry, Hermione, and Ron, because it really sets the stage for the final installment in the series. I also thought that Tom Felton did a brilliant job with Draco – he was exactly, exactly as I pictured him. Lavender was amazing too, so lovesick and pathetic in a funny sort of way.
But to conclude, I would just like to say: WTF why did they burn down The Burrow?!
Done 
CELEBRATION!
I AM DONE SCHOOL.
I felt like this was a momentous enough occasion that it merited an entire blog post to itself; today I had my last final of my second year of post-secondary education in my Kinesiology class. Needless to say, it was quite easy and I’m fairly confident that I did well in that class, cross fingers.
Cheerio!
Now I await my grades, woop woop.
Distractions
At the moment, I should be writing a 10-15 pager on the New International Division of Labour in Major League Baseball and how it exemplifies Arjun Appadurai’s Theoretical Framework of the 5 scapes, and also how globalization is essentially a driver for profit-making.
But as you can clearly see, I’m not.
In my defense, I’m on page 10 and I’ve only got about 2-4 pages to go, and it is only approximately 4 o’clock on Monday, meaning I have a good 22 hours or so to finish it up before it’s due.
Unfortunately, while I am writing this there is a nagging voice at the back of my head saying “you. should. not. be. doing. this.” TOO BAD. As such, I’ve decided to devote today’s entry to the oh-so-fabulous and mostly mundane things that take up my time and distract me from the things I should be doing – oh, like writing a paper, for instance. Aha! Another list:
- Facebook (duh)
Honestly, I don’t even know what magical force somehow magnetically draws my fingers to type “www.facebook.com” every 15 minutes or so, but I can tell you that I HATE IT. There isn’t even anything on it to look at (really), except for pictures. Yeah, I love the pictures that people post on Facebook. However, I can see a new social networking medium that is starting to consume more and more of my time (and possibly replacing Facebook, oh the HORROR!) and that is… - Twitter
As you can see, I have my lovely Twitter feed inserted into my blog because I feel it is THAT vital to my life. When I was first introduced to Twitter I was kind of apprehensive as the idea of blogging every few minutes like some people do kind of freaks me out, but it’s so much more casual than actually blogging and SO MUCH EASIER. That said, I’ve always been a really wordy person so sometimes I find it impossibly difficult to fit my thoughts into what – 140? 150? characters. In any case, I think it’s a whole lot of fun, and I love seeing the links that other people have to share! - Online shopping
Especially on Sephora and Forever 21. This is a double-edged sword because not only is it a time waster but a HUGE money waster, because I always end up buying stuff I don’t need (I’m talking to YOU, Forever 21)! Coupled with crazy shipping costs and I’m pretty much an unproductive, broke-ass student wasting time online! But seriously, online shopping is one of the greatest inventions known to man, besides Steve Jobs (yes, I’m convinced he’s a robot) and you know, the wheel and penicillin, and all that jazz *cue Chicago dance sequence - Cleaning
Now here’s a little something I love to do when there’s something I really hate to do. It’s this weird thing of mine, cleaning when I’m supposed to be doing homework, and I don’t mean just tidying cleaning, but the whole nine yards cleaning – vaccuuming, windexing, dusting, reorganizing and alphabetizing, sanitizing (insert other cleaning-related verbs here). I think I justify it by arguing (in my head) that it’s also something productive to do. But honestly, it’s totally just an excuse. Go self-argumentation, where would I be without you. - Watch House/The Office/Mad Men/How I Met Your Mother/Gossip Girl
Especially bad since I own DVDs of almost all of them, meaning they are readily accessible and waiting for my lingering eyes and grubby fingers to grab them and insert them into the oh-so-sleek and appealing DVD player for my own personal viewing pleasure (weird sentence, I admit). But seriously, there’s nothing like a little B + S and xoxo Gossip Girl, or better yet, BARNEY STINSON, to take you out of your rut!
Here is unfortunately where my list will have to end; however, I do not create it under the pretenses of it being at all exhaustive. Given my short attention span for anything and everything, this list really does have the potential to be miles and miles long (but I’ll spare all of you that).
Time Goes By
Tear. My younger brother graduated from secondary school today. I’ve only been to two commencement ceremonies prior to this one; the first was for my best friend / “cousin” (we call each other cousins because everyone thinks we are), and the second was my own. I didn’t think this one would be much different – but it was. I felt so old, which is weird because it’s only been two years since I myself graduated from secondary school and entered the thick of things that so many people like to call the real world.
It was especially odd because as I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in a really tightly knit community and all the kids knew each other, and we were all close – when we were kids, that is. Today I saw all those faces but they were older, more mature, more ready. Now that I myself am older I feel like I appreciate the milestone of graduation so much more; when I was in the twelfth grade and ready to cross the stage it just seemed like another day, another step to go through to get to wherever I was supposed to go. But really, it’s a celebration and supposed to be a moment to be cherished. I hope my brother realized that.
I sound like such an old bat.
