This year spring was a little late to start, which was rather disappointing as winter started promptly in October and didn’t let go. We really made up for our mild lack of winter last year by keeping company with at least four feet of snow at all times this winter. By the end of April when there was still snow on the ground we decided to go up to the lake with some friends to ‘encourage’ Spring to show it self – it seems to have worked.
When I first started this blog one of the things I casually mentioned about myself was that I didn’t own a smart phone. The unfortunate thing about that is that we live in a consumer society where both planned and perceived obsolescence come built right into many of the items we buy. My little flip phone had long since past the perceived obsolescence phase, and I was getting made fun of for having it quite frequently. Fortunately perceived obsolescence doesn’t work that well on me, and several other people, and I will use products until I break them, which is probably why manufacturers got greedy and came up with planned obsolescence. My phone was coming up to about 4 years of age, which wasn’t a huge deal to me, it still was capable to sending and receiving texts and I could phone people on it. It did it’s job, and that was fine with me. The part that wasn’t so good was that it wasn’t holding a battery charge as long as it used to. I could reset the battery, and it would charge a little longer for a little while – but it was certainly fading. Another big problem was that I didn’t have long distance on it and in order to get long distance I’d have to go on a plan – and most plans were just as expensive as one with a data package would be anyways. One of my main arguments for staying with a basic cell over a smartphone was that my monthly fee was only $30/mth and most of my friends were paying at least $60/mth + for their smart phones. When my cell phone provider came out with a pay per use data plan I was sold, my bill hasn’t been more than $40/mth since February, and I can check my email or the weather if I feel the need to.
So as you can see from my flip phone on the right, I used the hell out of it. For my new smart phone I stayed with Samsung because I do like them quite a bit, it’s one of their Galaxy models but it’s the “Ace” so it’s a baby compared to most of them, which is ok – because most of the Galaxy phones are huge if you ask me, they are practically tablets. The Galaxy Ace is pretty comparable in size to an iPhone, which I really like – but I like the Android operating system better so I’ve been pretty happy with it. The apps are nice too, I have one that is helping me practice my French, and another I can use to count my calories, and did use for the first 2 weeks… and then it got tedious… maybe I will try again. It’s nice to know it’s there at least.
Another thing I really enjoy is that if I see something really funny or that strikes me in any particular way I can take a picture of it and upload it to the internet right away. I have always been one to carry my camera with me anyways (and I still do that) and these pictures from the camera are obviously lower quality and have more of a throw away art feeling to them, but they’re still funny to me. After posting them to facebook for a while I decided to make a tumblr account to post them to as well, because contrary to popular belief not everyone is on facebook – and certainly there are people who I don’t have on facebook who might enjoy these pictures. So that tumblr can be found here:
http://www.tumblr.com/blog/smcwrites
As for me – I guess I haven’t been around here too much lately again, but the good news is, my final exams are over! I have a bit of a break from University now until the end of June when I have signed up for a photography class twice a week. I am really looking forward to that and perhaps it will provide some material I can share on here. I am also looking for a job. At one point I had three jobs. Now I have one, that I work about 2 hours a week at – I do love it, but 2 hours a week doesn’t pay the rent. So I will keep that one and keep looking for another one to replace the full time one I unfortunately lost due to budget cuts (I lost my other part time at the Derek Zoolander centre for kids who want to learn how to read good due to that too – tough times people!) Here is a video that explains planned and perceived obsolescence if you wanted a good explanation. It’s from the documentary The Story of Stuff, which is really good if you have the time to watch the whole thing.
Hope everyone is having a great spring – out here in Saskatchewan we are still experiencing the winter that will not die, but the snow is trying to melt at least… I thought I saw some grass the other day. It wasn’t green, but it was grass. There’s hope?!
So now that we are into the last phase of that chunk of time I like to refer to as “Decebuary” and I have delivered two whole papers to my profs I figured hey time to take a moment to make a post. Of course I am cheating a little because the content that follows is actually from one of those papers, but I think some of you might enjoy it – so I decided to share. Two of the second year English classes I am taking this semester are a class on Satire and a class on Canadian Speculative Fiction (mostly Sci-Fi, but Speculative Fiction encompasses a little more than that as a genre). Both classes are incredibly interesting and the profs are wonderful. This paper is from my satire class. I have also just upgraded my phone to a smart phone and joined this decade. I didn’t think that was going to happen any time soon, but my old Samsung flip phone was coming up to 4 years old and wasn’t holding a charge like it used to, so do you really want to buy a battery for a $40 phone when a new battery is going to cost at least that much? Planned obsolescence is no fun. Also, a big part of what was holding me back were the cost of data plans for smart phones but I’m with Virgin and they now offer pay per use on data, plus I didn’t have long distance on my old phone – so switching to my new phone actually made my talk and text plan cheaper and includes long distance, and then I only pay for the data I use, which is still very reasonable so my whole bill should still be around what I was paying for my old non-smart phone so I was sold, stuck with Samsung still. So hopefully I will be able to keep up with blogging more now too, because there is a WordPress app – it’s very cool.
So as for my paper, we had to view a video clip from a list of videos our prof gave us. I was thrilled when it contained the likes of Rick Mercer, Sarah Haskins, Ze Frank, and Mitchell & Webb. I had to go with Mitchell & Webb in the end because I am a huge fan and I have a decent amount of background knowledge on the content matter. So here is the video followed by the essay I wrote on it, enjoy:
It’s been a while since I wrote a top 5 list or an earth friendly list so I figured I would give you all a two for one on that front today. These five products are all things that I use either daily or at least very regularly in my own life that are both eco-friendly and people-friendly, so what’s not to like? And because I use them myself I can feel good about recommending them all to you.
I once bought a bottle of soap from The Body Shop that said “Soap for people who love planet earth” I thought it was a little funny, shouldn’t we all love it?
The title of this post is a throw back to one of the songs I mentioned in my last post (and no it wasn’t the one by The Killers – there’s a hint, hehe). This is, of course, the annual Christmas post. We were back out at the farm this year. We decided to start rotating holidays, and since we were at my parents for Thanksgiving (which gave us those lovely sandstone and autumn beach pictures) we spent Christmas with Shawn’s family – which meant what it usually means – lots of meals, and lots of laughs. Here are a few of my favourite pictures from our 5 day trip (it didn’t seem that long – but I guess it was!) which I will end with a slide show, enjoy!
Oh gee, what a cheerful title you might be saying. Well, I figured best to be honest right off the bat. I suppose I could have been a little more politically correct and said how to dislike the holiday season less, but no – it’s actually the Christmas season that makes me rumple up my nose and get all cranky so I will leave the holiday season out of it. This year I’ve had better luck with my grinchy tendencies, of course I still haven’t decorated – but I will get there. I am sure, sooner than later, Shawn will pull the wreath out of the closet and hang it on our door, and I’ll take our boston apple topiary out of it’s box and put it on the table and ta da! Decorated. That’s actually one of my tips – I am sick of looking of regular Christmas trees so I actually have one that looks like this:
That’s it in amongst all of the presents – the apple and berry thing. My parents won it at some Christmas party they were at and wanted nothing to do with it so I scooped it up and have been very pleased with it ever since. Presents bring me to my next point. Shopping and just being in the vicinity of malls and shops from about October to the end of December is a major contributing factor to my holiday misery as I am sure it is for many people. My friend Emily said she went to one of our main malls in town to get a present for her sister and she couldn’t even get inside the store she was going to, there were too many people! Who are these people, and why are they so crazy? And from October to the end of December? We don’t live in that big of a city, how can they possibly shop for 3 months solid? Statistics Canada was projecting that many people would be spending a little less this year, but a report released from the Bank of Montreal forecasts Canadian shoppers to spend an average of $1,610 this year – which is up from the $1,397 spent last year. That’s insanity if you ask me! My solution this year? Online shopping: amazon.ca is my friend – they even offer gift wrapping and will deliver to my family members who live out of town. I feel better just thinking about it.
It’s been a while since I had a photo post where I just touched base with what’s been happening around here so I figured I’d take some time from studying for finals and post my autumn pictures. We’re in the full swing of winter now so it will be nice to reflect; although I guess it’s not technically winter for another 19 days, try telling that to all of the ice and snow that’s been outside for the last little while. First I guess I will start with a picture of a giant egg.
I figured that I’d better not keep my blog followers waiting around for just any kind of content; and while I could make up all manner of excuses like an extensive schedule of post secondary papers, work non-sense, and an increased yoga schedule (because that’s all true) I have instead decided just to give you all what you came here for – weird culinary stuff. I apologize if you are the other percentage of my readership that comes here for book reviews and/or photography, there will be more of that to come, I swear! In fact I have it on good authority from my class mates in Bio-medical Ethics this semester that the two classes I picked for next semester are quite easy. I just for some reason decided to pick two really challenging (but very interesting) classes for this semester and they are sucking up all of the spare time I seem to have. But I desperately need a break, my group project is done in the a fore mentioned ethics class and I am rounding the corner on my last Anthropology paper (up next, studying for finals in December!) so I think I can write to you a little bit about cow tongues, because that is fun – right?!
Highland cow (Photo credit: kyz)
Voluntarily of course! Jodi worked very hard and got accepted to go on a one year exchange with the Rotary Club to go to Finland. People always ask me why Finland? Well I’m not entirely sure but that is where they were able to find her a host family is the best answer I can come up with, her first choice was Japan as my sister has been an avid fan of many things to do with Japanese culture from a every young age but the Rotary exchange program doesn’t exactly work that way from what I understand. Basically you give them a list of countries you are interested in, you go through a lot of interviews and all sorts of other processes, and as I mentioned there has to be host families available – and in the end they matched her up with the host country of Finland and that was the end of the story! It’s an excellent opportunity to live aboard and learn about another culture so she took it
This summer I devised a list of classic literary pieces that I wanted to read. I didn’t finish nearly as many as I’d hoped but this was one I did finish and I am very glad, since I originally started reading it back in high school. Orwell’s Animal Farm was required reading in my high school and I had really enjoyed it so I decided to pick up 1984 on my own but for whatever reason at the time I never ended up finishing it so that’s why I put it at the top of my list this time around. I was particularly tickled that the edition I picked up from the bookstore had comments on the back from both Jo Brand, who I am familiar with from British panel shows, and Margaret Atwood – who according to Reader’s Digest you can’t say she’s a terrible writer if you live in Canada, but during my first year English classes I did just that (much to my professor’s delight!) but in looking ahead at my degree required courses I am going to be reading a lot more of her work, so maybe I will have to start liking her – OR at least develop an appreciation for her work, moving on.
Orwell did not disappoint, much like Animal Farm, this book was very difficult to put down and I found his portrayal of a dystopic and bleak future very fascinating. The way he described the technology, the architecture, the food, even the clothing was very believable and easy to visualize – and yet I found it hard to believe that this book was written as long ago as it was, Orwell was quite the visionary. It held many inherent truths about the world we live in today that were just as true in his day and no doubt will continue to be true into the future and I am sure that stands as a testament to why this piece of literature has stood the test of time. The story line itself kept me intrigued and always guessing and the ending took me completely by surprise. If some how, like me earlier this summer, you haven’t already read this book – I strongly recommend that you do. From someone who isn’t a super huge fan of novels and fiction, I thoroughly enjoyed this one – it makes you think, and I like that.
