SuperficialREALity

A Little Opera Goes A Long Way

superficialreality — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:08:12 +0000

This is a song title by one of Adam Young’s projects, Sky Sailing. You probably know him from Owl City. Anyways, it’s midnight on the eve of when I get my retake results, and I’ve exhausted all of my freaking out potential (so far). I’m trying to get myself to accept that I sat the exams all the way back in November, and it’s January now so there’s nothing I can do to influence the grades. I’ll just have to deal with what happens. If I pass, FANTASTIC. If I don’t, that’s fine. I can go back to Ontario and finish the 5 credits it would take me to get one of their diplomas, which is just a semester. No big deal. Either way, I’m not entirely screwed. Either way, in 4 years I’ll probably be training at the OPP college (police), freaking out about my results from there as well. Life goes on. What this is post is all about is just accepting what happens to you, and working to make your dreams happen despite your circumstances. You see, if I fail the IB again, then I just get my Ontario diploma, go to a less-than-amazing college, and still wind up with some sort of degree in police/criminology/whatever that will enable me to go to police academy. If I don’t, I go to a somewhat-more-amazing college, come out with a degree in criminal justice/criminology/whatever, which will also enable me to go to police college. I’ll still hopefully work in my ideal field at the end of this ordeal, and that’s what I’m really caring about now. So it’ll all be okay, I hope.

As for the title, I am applying it to this post and to my current state of mind in that whatever shit happens, a little opera/positivity goes a long way. I could very well be on the verge of tears right now, eating ice cream and picturing a future in French fry cooking. It would be totally justified too. But I’ll just be on the verge of tears if I have to sneeze again, because son of a bitch does it ever hurt to sneeze with a broken nose. I’m only 18 years old and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let my grades now set the tone for my whole life. So I’ll go to sleep now, go to the doctor’s tomorrow to get more pain medication (I sneezed a total of 17 times today, my god), have lunch with my father, and come back to this laptop to check my results. And all will be fine.

PS, posting this at 5pm the next day. Got my results back, I FRICKIN PASSED.

Death for my birthday.

superficialreality — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:56:50 +0000

Gosh it’s been a while since I’ve written a post on here about music. If you go through my posts, just even by the titles, you can see how I’ve changed from this angry music-obsessed 15-year-old, to a less angry, still music-obsessed 17-year-old. I happen to think it’s interesting.

Anyways. There’s this fantastic song by Say Anything called Death For My Birthday (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBlxMhWJirE). The lyrics tell the story of a man as he goes through life. On his 24th birthday, he asks God for death on his birthday. His life goes on, he has a baby, he enlists as a soldier (a friend of his is killed) and still he wants death for his birthday.

And yet, when the day comes that he has a heart attack, he says “Oh sweet Lord, you know I deserve this/Just one more, just one more birthday.”

The message I took away is that despite all the shit that you get in life, good things come along and happen. And when the time comes for you to die, you don’t want it to come.

Emotions will come and go, you will feel terrible, you will feel alone, but above all, you must appreciate life.

Anyways, this was something I wanted to post here because my birthday is in a few days, so it’s really important to me. As far as my belief system, you only get to live once, and you don’t want to be sitting on your hospital bed thinking “Why didn’t I do all of those things? Why did I think my life was going to last forever?”

5 Sentences of Reassurance.

superficialreality — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:43:09 +0000

Sometimes, when you’re questioning yourself and decisions you’ve made, all it takes is an element of your past to make a surprise appearance to reassure you that you’re on the right track. It makes you think, what if I had done things differently? Would I be any happier? If you answer no, then congratulations, you’ve made the right choices. Life without regrets, right?

Way too much information right here.

superficialreality — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 20:46:40 +0000

I sort of have a BUNCH of jumbled up thoughts and need to make sense of everything. Therefore, a string of 2 or 3-liners that generally don’t have too much to do with each other.

When having a dream about being a superhero, gliding across the rooftops of a very tall city, and your sidekick tries to jump to the rooftop you’re on, sort of half-lands, slides down and eventually drops a REALLY HUGE distance, making you wake up, is it meaning that you let someone down in your life, or that you’re just afraid of something?

I’m sort of coming to terms with the fact that I genuinely don’t think romantic relationships are for me. I think of them like gladiator sandals: everyone I know loves them, has had a few pairs, and continues to actively seek them out. Me? They hurt my feet, blister like hell, and I simply don’t like them. I feel like I would be bored or annoyed the entire time.

Baking is the one activity that will constantly turn out great if you mix the ingredients properly. Even if you make your own substitutions (like cocoa powder in bran muffins!), it will generally taste yummy and feed you for a week. What else in life guarantees that?

Gaslighting. It’s a fascinating concept that people deal with everyday. It’s the whole “Oh my gosh, you’re so sensitive! Stop overreacting! I was joking! Sheesh, get a grip on your emotions!”. I’m definitely not blowing this out of proportion, but psychologists have deemed this as a form of emotional manipulation. Just give that a think next time you rush to calm someone down. They may be totally entitled to be pissed.

Christ I need to clean my room.

And last but not least, how do people know social protocols? If I don’t understand how to act in a situation, I’ll make a joke about how awkward the situation is, hopefully try and laugh it off. Are there underground classes I’m missing?

A fresh start.

superficialreality — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 04:12:48 +0000

I’ve got to resit two exams. There, I’ve finally admitted it without glossing over it with “I’m taking a gap year to find myself, to explore the world, blah blah blah”. There’s nothing particularly glamorous about my situation, I’ve simply got to get down to it and study hardcore so as to have much better grades in Biology and Psychology. I must say, it really does suck having to come back and sit through a couple of high school classes while my friends are partying it up during Frosh Week. But you know what I have that they don’t?

The luxury of failure. Once you’ve hit rock bottom, the only place to go is up, and that’s exactly where I plan to go. Prior to receiving my IB results, I had the next 10 years of my life all figured out, a plan so solid I would never have dared deviate from it. But since the main core of that plan involved me studying Psychology in university (one of the exams I did awful on), I can rewrite my future as I live it. It’s the sort of thing I read about in novels, but never thought about doing myself. Adventure, whims, the ‘why not’ mentality, they’re magical and alluring. I plan to capture these and never let them escape me.

I’m only 17 years old. I’ve got my whole life ahead of me, so it’s about damn time that I start to really live it.

Realizing what an idiot you were/probably still are.

superficialreality — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 05:24:29 +0000

Did I really think my black hair dye made me seem like a badass?

Unfortunately yes. Also unfortunate is the fact that it highlighted how far I’d fallen from my normal self. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we all look back and say “Damn, I was such an idiot.” It’s a part of growing. Once you can accept how stupid your choices were (seriously Michele? How could you have believed that the gamer nerd who rarely left his basement lost his virginity at 13?), you can enter a new phase of moronity (if that’s not a word already, it should be.)

I’ll probably look back next year and cringe at my bangs, smacked myself for friendzoning him (sometimes people who are too nice freak me out, and that’s all I’ll say on the matter), wish I hadn’t gloated so much when winning that fishing bet, and hope that next time I won’t start off my spiel to convince my aunt of a trip with, “There’s this really inexpensive train from Istanbul to New Delhi for around $250 and it passes through Iran and Pakistan!”.

Honestly, I have never seen someone shout “NO!” faster in my life.

But I digress.

I’ve decided to live my life with no regrets. So even if I look back and think “OH MY GOD, SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD SELF, HOW COULD YOU BE SO DUMB?!”, I won’t allow myself to regret it, because I have to accept the choices I make, and deal with what happens as a result of my choices. And if it was a stupid choice (and believe me, I’ve made plenty of those), then I take it as a learning experience. Translation: Next time, don’t ever wear ratty old snowpants to go toboganning, because they will rip, and you will flash almost everyone.

Life without regrets and hakuna matata. I like it.

The travel bug.

superficialreality — Sun, 08 May 2011 00:05:40 +0000

Cuba, France, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Bahamas, Italy. All countries that I have had the opportunity to visit and explore the different cultures. So far, I have travelled in Europe and North America, due to having lived in both continents. However I want to travel more.

Migration is a common pattern that occurs across species. Birds typically living in Maine will migrate to Florida for the winter. The blue whale migrates to tropical climates to mate and breed, spreading their enormousness across oceans. Humans, however, have learned to adapt to their climates. And yet we still travel.

Travel is an ever-changing dynamic, with small towns becoming popular tourist destinations within 2 years and small former tourist hubs falling into ruin in the same time span. We travel to experience cultures different from our own, to sleep in a hammock on a beach and eat curried tofu balls. It’s just a way of escaping our daily, hectic lives.

And I really want to travel to South America. I want to rent a truck and camp out in Chile and Argentina, sleep in the aforementioned hammock in Belize, trek the Bolivian salt flats, climb Ecuadorian mountains, visit Peru because I have 6 desktop wallpapers of its landscape that is just begging to be seen in person.

Maybe I’m young and can convince myself that a master’s degree doesn’t need to be completed right after a bachelor’s degree (sort of a university gap year). But honestly, just get out there and travel. I have this personal philosophy that drives my travel bug: I must have been to at least as many countries as my age. Fortunately for my bank account, I’m only 17 and have been to 19 countries so far. If you’re 53 years old and haven’t been outside of your town, I think that’s a shame. This post isn’t designated to take down those who haven’t been outside of their country, just to motivate you to explore the world. If you’re from Timmins, Ontario, rent a car in Halifax and just drive around the Maritimes: it’s less expensive than going to Mongolia, but you still get a different culture.

Our world is so big and diverse, it’s hard to imagine not wanting to explore it.

30 day song challenge!

superficialreality — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:15:49 +0000

I’m bored, sick and should be studying. But whatever, it’s interesting. The official facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/30-Day-Song-Challenge/120874111270003?sk=app_4949752878

Day 1: Your favourite song = Good to You by Marianas Trench ft Jessica Lee (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEYdyPc8Mjo)

Day 2: Your least favourite song = Billionaire by Travis McCoy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aRor905cCw)

Day 3: A song that makes you happy = Smile by Uncle Kracker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arLwtHj3Ta0)

Day 4: A song that makes you sad = You Are Loved by Josh Groban (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGLSk3AVcUU)

Day 5: A song that reminds you of someone = You Give Love A Bad Name by Bon Jovi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrZHPOeOxQQ) reminds me of L.H. and all the times we sung it at E (:

Day 6: A song that reminds you of somewhere = In Love With A Girl by Gavin Degraw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3of_EN0XpxI) reminds me of BC with my best friend, awesome times!

Day 7: A song that reminds you of a certain event = La Gasolina by Daddy Yankee (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4KGVY69keA) reminds me of the first time I danced with a boy

Day 8: A song you know all the words to = Dirty Little Secret by The All-American Rejects (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPDcwjJ8pLg)

Day 9: A song that you can dance to = Dynamite by Taio Cruz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUjdiDeJ0xg)

Day 10: A song that makes you fall asleep = The Saltwater Room by Owl City (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKpmgQ2sEXA) is my favourite lullaby.

Day 11: A song from your favourite band = Sing Sing by Marianas Trench (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zotSNtqORaQ)

Day 12: A song from a band you hate = Viva La Vida by Coldplay (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE) is the only song I can stand by Coldplay, and that’s because there is an awesome piano/cello version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkQqXO_OFYY).

Day 13: A song that is a guilty pleasure = There’s Gotta Be More To Life by Stacie Oricco (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUOcQnWbk_U)

Day 14: A song that no one would expect you to love = That Ain’t Classy by Classified (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onL_IJU9ISw); I generally hate rap, but this song is just great.

Day 15: A song that describes you = She’s A Lady by Forever The Sickest Kids (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGW_4jaawGY)

Day 16: A song that you used to love but now hate = Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzo-EL_62fQ)

Day 17: A song that you hear often on the radio = Firework by Katy Perry (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJuMBdaqIw)

Day 18: A song you wish you heard on the radio = Kerosene by Miranda Lambert (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB7ONnfIjaI)

Day 19: A song from your favourite album = Never Too Late by Three Days Grace (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL2ZwXj1tXM), from Big Shiny Tunes 12

Day 20: A song that you listen to when you’re angry = Face Down by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ux6SlOE9Qk)

Day 21: A song that you listen to when you’re happy = Summer of ’09 by ALL CAPS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nut8YzXkaQY)

Day 22: A song that you listen to when you’re sad = Home by Michael Bublé (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbSOLBMUvIE)

Day 23: A song that you want played at your wedding = All About Us by He Is We ft Aaron Gillespie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZgVBh-vuvE)

Day 24: A song that you want played at your funeral = Young by The Summer Set (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIg9Xy5EOUw)

Day 25: A song that makes you laugh = I’m A Kitty Cat by Mr. Cat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpxIZstD_bI)

Day 26: A song that you can play on an instrument = Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7UrFYvl5TE). I can play it on the guitar!

Day 27: A song that you wish you could play = A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwkej79U3ek). Wish I could play it on the piano.

Day 28: A song that makes you feel guilty = Save It For The Bedroom by You Me At Six (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPV8qgM5TC0)

Day 29: A song from your childhood = Us Against The World by Play (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDsH34o5IZY)

Day 30: Your favorite song at this time last year = Underdog by You Me At Six (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fcAns_hqtM)

Whabam, 68 people deleted from Facebook in one shot.

superficialreality — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 23:37:14 +0000

To be honest, I was once one of those people whose sole goal was to get the highest amount of facebook friends possible, without creeping on strangers I don’t actually know. And also to be honest, I’m a bit of a facebook creep, as we all are. When I’m bored I may facebook stalk someone and pass judgement on their collection of car pictures or how wasted they got last Saturday night.

But tonight when I was bored, instead I looked at the number of friends I had (369), and thought “How many of these people do I actually give a damn about?”. The answer was not very high at all. So I began a preliminary clearing of my facebook friends, the first I have ever done. I deleted people I haven’t talked to in over 2 years, people I was barely friends with in the first place, and the facebook creeps I’ve accumulated over the years, placing them on limited profile, but accepting them nonetheless to up my friend count.

This was all because I just thought about the term ‘friend’. On facebook, this term is used very loosely, with that whiny annoying bitch you’ve always hated being classed as a ‘friend’ on your facebook. Seriously, do you really want to hear every single detail about that girl’s life? Instead of posting a rant in CAPS LOCK about how this is facebook and not Twitter, as I’ve always been tempted to do, I simply deleted her. The girl who slept around with the guy I was crushing after and who types like a 12-year-old? Gone. The ex-boyfriend and his ridiculously close-minded brother? Both deleted without a single hesitation. I’m not friends with these people, so why should they be privy to my life?

Seriously though guys, I really recommend just going through your facebook friends and removing people you simply don’t care about. It’ll weed out the annoying bitches from your facebook friends, and no one really wants them in their friend list.

Morals

superficialreality — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:11:45 +0000

Morality is stereotyped as being something associated with religion. People think morals are things like not swearing, not associating with ‘bad’ people, not drinking of smoking, keeping your virginity until you’re married.

But morals can just be for normal people. They’re not always associated with religion.

Morals are just a way of setting boundaries for yourself, from not becoming something you dislike. One of my morals is to never ever do any kind of drugs. I have some friends who think this is silly, think that “minor” drugs like marijuana and cocaine (which is so not a minor drug) are fine to just try. But I stick to my moral, and have never ever tried any of these.

I’m of the opinion that if you don’t understand someone’s moral, can’t wrap your mind around it, you should at least respect it. You shouldn’t be belittling them, saying that “It really doesn’t matter”.

It matters to that person.

And if you can’t understand that, then you should not have begun an affiliation with that person. Friendships and relationships are built on mutual understanding. If you don’t get why someone has a moral, and you don’t even respect that, then there is a fundamental flaw in your friendship. Sooner or later it will end, and honestly it’d be better if it was sooner: that way, neither of you wastes any of your time.

But really, when it comes down to it, if you’re someone who has morals and you’re proud of upholding them (regardless of peer pressure), then congratulations. You are much better off without someone in your life who can’t respect an integral part of who you are.