IBAAW

Okay, so I'm trying to fix LOADS of stuff, and to be honest, it's not really going 100%! I'm kind of frustrated and irritable, so I am going to bed and leaving a path of destruction in my wake, okay?

I really don't know what I'm going to do. My blog has been pissing me off/ uninteresting lately, and I'm not even sure I really want to continue with it...

We'll see.

It has been crazy lately blog-wise. In fact, you probably haven't been able to see it at all, if you've been visiting! Pretty much, I've been trying to sort out a bunch of stuff before I have to start contributing to the world, sometime after Monday. The main thing was the DNS, because typing www was driving me crazy! So, I've switched DNS hosts, and now you can get here without the www, and if the www is still there, it will redirect to the sans-www address. Okay? Good.

Other than that, I've completed my resume, but I'm still not sure what I want to do! Or what I will be able to do, actually.

I am watching the news, and there is a lady who is training cats. She gets them to do obstacle courses and ride skateboards. It's kind of weird, but also cool. Kizzie must have known I was typing this, because she has come over and sat on my foot. Weirdo.

This entry is all very random, ha ha.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Labels: Journal

... I am mildly surprised. I'm fooling around with stuff, so my site will probably be down a lot while I get things sorted. So... yes. If you're reading this, you're lucky, because not even I will be able to read this after I press 'submit.'

Labels: Blogger

I sat down to a big bowl of Ramen today, and it got me thinking. I did not like Ramen before Katimavik. In fact, I was not a fan of spicy food in general! The rest of my family adored spiciness, but not I. Then, I went to Katimavik, where everyone was pretty much a beginner in the kitchen.

When you are first learning to cook, sometimes spices are the least of your worries. The main goal is to create something that 1) won't kill anybody and 2) is not burned. Good flavour is just an added bonus! Besides, there is only so much flavour you can put into tofu and rice noodles, anyway. And that's where the hot sauce came in. While I never quite got into the world of Tabasco, I did fall for hot sauce's less-hot cousin, barbecue sauce. By the end of the nine months, there was not much that I did not put barbecue sauce on! It tasted good on everything! I especially enjoy the spicy version from Kraft!

Before Katimavik I avoided feta cheese like the plague. I mean, GOAT'S CHEESE? Ew. Imagine my surprise when I encountered it in a Greek salad, and discovered how amazing it was! Cheese had a great influence on me in Quebec. I had always enjoyed it, and often remarked it as my favourite food. However, my experiences pretty much landed in the world of cheddar. In Quebec, I was introduced to cheese curds, which were lovely and salted and squeaky, and I began to explore more cheese options. I'm not sorry, and I've never looked back. Cheese is amazing.

I'd never even touched a sweet potato since I was five years old. I had disliked it back then, so I assumed I still did. Sometime in Katimavik, I encountered them again, and discovered that I liked them. Then I discovered that I loved them when mashed with butter and cinnamon! Now sweet potato and cinnamon is one of my favourite foods!

Katimavik gave me different food experiences and choices. Which is great. I encourage everyone to get out there and try something new today!

Random Fact of the Day: Today is Blog Action day. Unfortunately, my stomach got the best of me, and I've blogged about something else. Still, please check out the Blog Action Day website, for a list of blogs that ARE participating!

Labels: Journal, Photos

Unfortunately, my two month reprieve from everything is drawing to a close. I've begun to search the job websites for suitable employers, and sort of out my resume. I've been thinking a lot more with school, and trying to decide what I really want to do. I'm pretty sure I would like to be a teacher- it's been my plan for the last six months, but I've been trying to consider other options to make sure I am very sure of what I want to do. I mean, this is my career for the rest of my life, probably.

Another idea was presented to me, which was to become an Educational Assistant for a little while. If I take the course full-time during the week, I can be finished within a few months, and start temping at schools. This way, I would get more experience, and have a bit of an "in," with the Board of Education when I do go back to school to become a teacher.

So, I don't know! I guess it's time to seriously consider my options and start trying to formulate a plan.

Random Fact of the Day: Nearly half of graduates choose a career in a different subject than their major.

Labels: Journal

Dear Aisling,

I am a scholar, and recently I discovered your website in an Internet archive. I'm studying history, and I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about your life. It has taken me several months to learn your language. Here we speak a Global tongue, which I've read is similar to that of your modern day "Chinese." I am quite interested in how you managed to survive in a world where you do not speak the same language. How is it that you've managed to communicate?

I live in the region formerly known as "Alberta, Canada," which is where you live now. I live on a mountain, and from the West facing window, I can see the ocean. Sometimes, with all of the floods and tsunamis, it threatens to climb up the mountain and wash into the prairies. But it hasn't yet.

Our government is controlled by one Global council, that was established after the third world war. They mandate pretty much everything. It is an honour to work for the government. I, myself, submit my research to them to help them run the world better.

The main conflict afflicting us these days are terrorist threats by reactionaries. They believe that the assimilation of former culture is wrong, and that we should be preserving the old values of your world. Many of them have been gathered and sent to the part of the world you know as "Africa." Africa proved to be too much of a challenge for your generation, and by the end of the third world war it had been transformed into a nuclear wasteland. Now it is the site of the largest prison on the planet, and also contains laboratories for experiments comparing the DNA structure of your people to that of ours.

It has changed quite a bit, they've reported. Vaccinations were banned shortly after the break out of the war, and our immune systems developed a way of protecting ourselves without that ancient technology. There are still diseases, resembling what you would know as cancer, caused by the rapid changing of our DNA due to exposure to dangerous chemicals used as warfare, but AIDS is no longer a threat. The government took care of that by commanding quarantine in 2076, and waiting for the virus to run its course.

I'd best be wrapping this up now, as too much information about the future can prove to be harmful to less-developed mind of your century. Just a tip- learn to use the extra 90% of your brain, it will be useful in the future.

Sincerely,

A Future Friend

What do you think the future will be like?

Labels: Exposé, Journal

So, here you have stone cold proof that I have absolutely no will power at all! I swear, I tried to keep the old layout up, but it was driving me CRAZY!!!!

Anyway, I'm back to my old ways of black with a bright colour. The difference is that this colour is not hot pink this time around, but BLUE. Ooooer. It also features a vexel of me, and the old daffodil drawing that is sort of my "logo," these days, ha ha.

Labels: Blogger

Sorry if this page looks messed up, I'm in the process of changing the layout. Durrr.

Labels: Blogger

I have a lot I need to thank Bill Nye for. He taught me, essentially, all I know about science. When my teacher asked me what inertia is, I proudly answered "Inertia is a property of matter," and everyone else went "Bill Nye the Science Guy! Bill! Bill! Bill!" It has just that much of an influence on our culture. One day I was sick during Katimavik, and the next day I went back to the class I was working with, and found out that they had watched Bill Nye while I was away. I almost cried.

And now, for the ode:

Bill Nye.

Your name rhymes with Science Guy,

But really, you're my guy.

If we had lift and drag and thrust and gravity, we'd fly,

All over the dense gaseous atmospheric sky.

And we'd look into each other's eyes,

And the lights would reflect off our retinas,

And into our world of luuurrrve.

Yes, I do realize that Bill Nye could be my father. In fact, he is 6 years older than my father. But still. He helped me pass Biology, and I can never repay him for that.

Random Fact of the Day: Bill Nye won a Steve Martin lookalike contest, and started being a stand-up comedian at night. Then he developed the idea to become Bill Nye the Science Guy. And the rest is history...

For more Bill information, visit his official site, or watch him on YouTube!

Labels: Journal

I QUIT THE INTERNET!!!!!

Random Fact of the Day: The Internet and technology, in general, are making me angry today, and driving me absolutely crazy!!! I seriously want to poke out my eyes when I look at this layout, and any other layout I am working on. Breast cancer awareness is important, yes, but this pink is driving me bonkers, which is saying a lot because pink is my favourite colour.

Also, my old computer crashed and took my music files with it. Not too big of a pity about the computer, since it was destined for the electronics recycling depot anyway, but now I have to find all those music files again so I can re-build my media library on my laptop.

All of this makes me want to just give up with computers altogether. However, I am addicted to blogging. So here is my new blog:

http://www.freewebs.com/aislingzpage/index.html

....

Oh, alright, I'm kidding, but sometimes it just seems like that route would be so much simpler.

Labels: Journal, Rant

So, our dining room table seats 8. (It can seat 10, but for the sake of timeliness, let's just stick with eight, shall we?) This afternoon at our Thanksgiving meal, we played a game where each of us chose a bunch of people that we would invite to our fancy dinner party, and here's who I chose:

Ellen DeGeneres: She is very funny, and I love her. Ha ha. I watch her show all of the time, and she makes me laugh, and I'm sure she'd make my other dinner guests laugh as well.

Emma Watson: Well, I kind of feel obligated to her since my fan site dedicated to her did help me reach the depths of fame I hold today. Ha ha. No, really, I love Hermione, and I think it would be interesting to talk to her about growing up in the spotlight like she has.

Zac Efron: He's cute.

Reba McEntire: I've recently begun watching her show, "Reba," and have rather enjoyed it. It's about a mom, Reba, dealing with her ex-husband's cheating/marrying/new baby/moving next door, and her kids, including one of her daughters, whom also has a baby at the same time as her ex-husband! Also, she's an amazing country singer, so much love there!

John Krasinski: He's cute and funny and nice and the star of my favourite television show! I think he'd be nice to talk to, and easy for everyone to get along with.

Anderson Cooper: zOMG, I love Anderson. I think I've mentioned my love for him before. He is SO SMART. Smart guys seriously turn me into jelly. Normally, I don't like them to be too much smarter than me, but this is an exception. I also found him quite funny on Regis and Kelly. He is the complete package.

Regis Philbin: I have been watching Regis practically since I was born! I love him, and he is definitely coming to my dinner! He would be a riot, in his quirky way. OMG I cried when he went for heart surgery, it was so sad, and I didn't even have a T.V.!!! I got to see some of the footage from We Heart Regis Day, and that is when I realized how much I love Regis.

And then, obviously, the last chair goes to me.

Also, this is just my pop culture list, ha ha. Obviously there are other lists for historical people (Gandhi, FDR, Pierre Elliot Trudeau...) and musicians (John Lennon, Bob Marley, Elvis...) and so-on, but that could take years!

What I want to know today, is, if you could choose any 7 guests at your fancy dinner party, who would you choose?

Labels: Journal

Well, it's the Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and lately I feel like maybe I haven't been expressing how thankful I am for the aspects that make my life pretty great. Luckily, they've created a holiday to remind us to be thankful, even though, sometimes we forget. Now, if only they had Pay Your Taxes Day or Send Your Mom A Mother's Day Card Day, where we could eat a huge feast and get things done.

So, what am I thankful for?

I am thankful for a really great year. Katimavik was a definite challenge, but it was something I will never forget, or regret. I've learned a lot, I've made great friends, and really, what more can you ask for? Having the opportunity to travel around the country was a dream come true. When I was younger, I thought I may never even visit Eastern Canada, and now I've lived there! Also, included in this, I am thankful for the friends I made during Katimavik. We may be far apart, and busy, but we've been through a lot together. Nobody else understands our Katima-experience more.

I am thankful for my family. My parents were really supportive of me going away for nine months, and of me taking time off when I returned. My brother took over for some of my responsibilities at home, which he may not have had a say in, but was still quite nice. So, I'm thankful for that, and I'm thankful that they still deal with me, even when I'm acting like a selfish brat.

I'm thankful for you, person reading this! Without you, this space would be... well, probably still existent, but definitely more boring. And, if you're a Snark member, with a layout reflecting 2005, with incredibly bad (worse) coding.

Even if you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, or if you're not celebrating until November (you American, you!), tell me, what are you thankful for?

Random Fact of the Day: A mosque in Toronto is telling Muslims not to celebrate Thanksgiving, since it is not a Muslim celebration.

A two-part article on the mosque Web site says Muslims should also "stay completely away" from "Halloween trick-and treat nonsense," Christmas, New Year's, anniversaries, birthdays and Earth Day.

"How can we bring ourselves to congratulate or wish people well for their disobedience to Allah? Thus expressions such as:Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday, Happy New Year, etc, are completely out," it says.

Okay, so I can see how Christmas might not be celebrated, but Earth Day?! What did Earth Day ever do to anyone?!

Also banned, it says, are: watching sports or soap operas, walking dogs, family photos, wedding bands, Western hats, mingling and shaking hands with the opposite sex.

Okay, so I guess I can't be Muslim. *Crosses off list.* Are there any Muslims out there reading this? Or does anyone out there know more about this religion? I must admit, I am somewhat ignorant when it comes to this. I just want to know if most people are doing this, or is it just a radical article being put out by some fundamentalists? Anyway, here is the source!

Labels: Journal

I was cruising the Internet today, and stumbled across a certain site that posts private photos of the young actors in the Harry Potter films. This site began quite a while ago, and focused mainly on seventeen year old actress Emma Watson. Some of you may know that I ran an Emma Watson fan site myself from before Philosopher's Stone was released, until just after Prisoner of Azkaban was released. So, I obviously am somewhat interested in her, especially since she embodies one of my favourite literary characters, Hermione Granger.

What I found on this site today was despicable. Not private pictures this time 'round, not that it's a big deal since they've been posted on gossip sites such as ONTD, which has made them to become somewhat run-of-the-mill, but alleged excerpts from her emails, detailing a very personal time in her life!

Now, there is no proof that the things posted on this website are real, other than the fact that they claim to have been contacted by a very real law firm regarding this matter- mainly the hacking of Emma's alleged Hotmail account.

Whether the excerpts posted on the site are real or not, is not the issue I would like to discuss. What I would like to discuss is, what if they are? How would you like your personal emails to be broadcast? I know it happens to "normal," people all the time, but this is so much bigger, because Emma cannot be considered "normal," and neither can the size of audience this information may receive. There are Emma fans the world over, as well, as Emma haters, and just everyday Joe Blows who don't really care, but may want to take a gander at the emails from the Harry Potter girl. Those are potentially millions of people reading her personal thoughts without her consent. This is not a BLOG setting, this is email. Email should be considered at least a little bit more safe! I think it is disgusting to post these kinds of things about ANYONE, but especially about a YOUNG actress, who essentially hasn't done anything wrong, except allegedly send angry, hurt, and personal emails to her boyfriend, which really, is done by practically everyone at one point!

On the other hand, if these are fake, that means that someone is out there passing it off as truth, just to profit from her! Profit how? Well, not money-wise, probably, since I don't see any way to generate cash from these emails without solid proof. So, they must be trying to profit by boosting their status online. How shallow is that?

Anyway, I am quite angered to see Emma getting this kind of dirt shovelled on to her plate. She doesn't need it, she doesn't seem to deserve it, and... ugh.

Obviously, she will never read this, but I would just like to say that I support Emma, even if some of her supposed fans are a bunch of douche bags, and I hope she knows that she does have some really great, non-obsessive fans out here, that just wish her the best with everything.

Random Fact of the Day: In countries with a constitutional guarantee of the secrecy of correspondence, e-mail is equated with letters and thus legally protected from all forms of eavesdropping, says this Wikipedia article.

Labels: Journal

You may notice that there is even MORE pink than usual around here these days! That is because October is the month for breast cancer awareness, which is a very important cause, because breast cancer is a non-discriminatory disease, which means that it can affect anyone.

You may not know as well, the story about the daffodils in the header image (which is the same one that's been around for a few weeks now). Daffodils are my favourite flower, and I've always received a bunch on my birthday from my parents. The reason for this, is that, in spring, the Canadian Cancer Society hold their daffodil campaign, and they sell daffodils for cancer research.

Personally, I have never had an experience with cancer, and neither have any of my family members, but it is a very scary disease, that could happen to myself or someone I love one day. While I also like to give to other causes such as AIDS research, it is not as likely for me to acquire this disease, as long as I take care of myself. This is not the case with breast cancer.

Random Fact of the Day: It is important to be informed about breast cancer. Please visit the following sites for more information:

• Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_cancer
• Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation: http://www.cbcf.org/
• Breast Cancer Society of Canada: http://www.bcsc.ca/
• Canadian Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.ca
  

Labels: Journal

Hey everyone!

I know some people out there have been bummed with all of those articles about copyright infringement floating around. It's almost becoming impossible to claim you haven't seen one, and at this point, I'm sure about 30% of your comments consist of something like "Celeb layouts are illegal!!! Read this copyright article." To which I'm sure you respond "zOMG, it's MAH site, and if I wanna put picz of HiLaRy DuFf on MAH site, I WILL. It's mah site 'yo. I payd for it!" To which someone else probably responds "Yes, but did you pay the photographer for that photo of Hilary DUff?" And you may respond "Yeahhzz I did, he's my uncle Bubba, yo!" to which I respond "You are a liaaaar."

But never fear! For there is a way to keep your swirly brushes busy around another (non-illegal) photograph of someone pretty.

I am now offering Aisling Brock PSDs! You have my full permission to use them on your awesome, formerly-Celebrity-focused layouts, and I promise not to sue. (Unless they're used in, erm... porn, or something more illegal than celebrity photo theft...)

For the launch of ABPSDs, I give you the first of the collection! Please feel free to download and use to your fuzzy little heart's content!

Click here to download!

Labels: Exposé

My mom told me about this story yesterday, and I absolutely fell in love with some of the boys at Central Kings High School in Halifax, NS.

A group of boys, David Shepherd, Travis Price, Chris Spencer, Nick Sullivan and John Kenneally, grade 12 students at CKHS hit the local discount shop, after a group of bullies at their school threatened to beat up a grade 9 student on his first day of high school, for wearing a pink polo shirt. They cleaned the shop out of every pink tank top they could find, and the next day at school, gave them away in the front foyer. Loads of people took them, to protest.

"The school looks cool," Sullivan told the King's County Register. "There's pink all over the school."

David Shepherd, the mastermind behind the plan said that they decided to do this because,

"It's our last year and we want to make a difference. At a young age, you don't know the difference between playful teasing and bullying. Doing it over the colour pink is just so stupid."

The principal of the school, was quite pleased with the protest, and stated,

"It doesn't surprise me at all they'd want to do this - we have some great kids."

Emphasis mine.

Along with some obvious jerks who were too insecure with themselves, and needed to take it out on some poor niner.

Anyway, a big round of applause for these awesome grade 12 boys, who decided to take a stand, and not let their school go on being a centre of torture. Oh yeah, and here's a picture of them:

Lookin' good, guys! Keep up the good work, and good luck with your last year of school!

The source of this story, other than what my mom told me, can be found, on The Halifax Daily News website.

Random Fact of the Day: The word "pink," was first used in the 17th century to describe the colour of the Dianthus flower family. Pink is also my favourite colour. If you would like to learn more about this hue of excellence, including it's hex codes and historical influence, please hop on over to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink.

Labels: Journal