The Simple Things (BEDS 008)

I like a lot of things. And when I really, really like something, I get very, very passionate about it. When I get passionate, I get excited, and when I get excited, I get loud. And when I get loud, well...it gets really hard to shut me up.

But there are some things I love a lot that I'm very quiet about. These things are simple, small, everyday things that I don't really think about, until I see them and think, Holy CRAP I love this so much!

These things include, but are not limited to:

1. The light of a Christmas tree in a dark room.

2. The satisfaction of having perfectly wrapped a gift.

3. A blue, cloudless sky.

4. The first snowfall of the year, and all the magic it brings.

5. The satisfaction of singing "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan. (Especially when you imitate all the different voices.)

6. Cheesecake. Just cheesecake.

7. Spinning around the room in a brand new dress, because screw all of you I'll be a princess if I want.

8. Singing in the shower (but only when no one is home, because I'm not very good).

9. The feeling of wearing brand new clothes for the first time.

10. When you look in the mirror partway through the day and your hair is on freaking point.

11. The wear and tear on a favourite book.

12. When you accidentally draw a perfectly straight line.

13. When the pages of a book absorb your very consciousness and you just can't put it down.

14. When the day ends and you can't help but feel proud because of all you accomplished.

15. A really good, really long hug.

16. The smell of a new (or old) book.

17. When you find the literal perfect song for how you're currently feeling.

18. Blizzards and/or thunderstorms.

19. Blankets and hot chocolate.

20. Pumpkin. Pumpkin everything.


What are some of your favourite things?

Until later,

- Justyne

School Year Resolutions (BEDS 006)

My reign of terror freedom has ended. Today, my friends, I return to school.

The start of a new school year, as we all know, is full of hope. Beautiful, sometimes naive hope that, "This year will be different!" It's like the start of a new calendar year, but less depressing, because the hope of Christmas is still on the horizon. I find that making resolutions in September makes way more sense than making them in January, actually, because by the time January rolls around, the freshness of the school year has worn off, everything is dead, and literally all anyone wants is to get back to summer, when they don't have a 25 page term paper due and only 24 hours to get it done. 

Hence, my School Year Resolutions.

I'll be frank with you: these mostly stay the same every year, because I suck at resolutions and could really stand to improve pretty much every aspect of my life, academic or otherwise. But I'll still share them with you, anyway, because who knows--this may be the year that they get done.

(Stop laughing.)

2016-2017 SCHOOL YEAR RESOLUTIONS

1. Stop procrastinating, maybe. Somewhat. Okay, at least start the damn term paper more than just a couple days early.

2. Keep regular blog posts going throughout the school year. This includes book reviews.

3. Try and finish NaNoWriMo. Without crying.

4. Keep my room (relatively) clean, so that you're not prompted to go rage-cleaning the day before your exam. (Instead of studying.)

5. Stop zoning out during my lectures. This is very important.

6. Maybe talk to people at school for a change. I don't know, something to think about.

7. Take better notes, so I can actually understand what I wrote down three months from now. (Also: saying, "I'll definitely remember what this means" does not, in fact, make it true.)

8. Consider studying for exams earlier, so that I'm not tempted to sneak a peek at my notes at work. (Not like I've done this or anything.)

9. Stop spending so much money on food.

10. Just try to survive the school year relatively unscathed.

So how many of you are going to school, and what are your school year resolutions? Comment below and let me know!

Until later,

- Justyne

Micro Fiction Monday: A World of Magic (BEDS 005)

I live in a world where magic exists. When I was thirteen, I was presented with a choice—continue to live in complete mediocrity, or move to the place where animated movies are set and fairy tales are inspired by.

Needless to say, I chose the latter, and my life became an adventure. I have ridden on broomsticks and magic carpets, I have fought dragons and danced with princes and learned that once you sprinkle pixie dust on something, in never comes out.

The world is not without its dangers, of course. I have scars from close encounters with daggers and swords. Falling from flight often leads to a concussion, and dragons are far scarier than they are mystical. Many people would say that leaving the world I know, leaving my home, is not worth the life of adventure I live now.

I would disagree. Sometimes, the “home” you thought you had is nothing but another scar. I have mastered this world, I have grown into it. It is no longer the realm of fairy tales, but of reality.

Now, this world of magic is my home, and it’s the people I’ve met that have made it so.

The Five Year Plan (BEDS 004)

You know what I suck at? Long-term planning. I am physically incapable, it seems, of planning everything beyond the end of tomorrow. Like, I just can't do it. I have many a talent, and that simply isn't included. I had a weekly planner mousepad, once. I thought it would help.

It didn't.

I tried so hard. I would sit down at the beginning of the week, carefully consider my work schedule and school schedule and literally everything that I had going on in my life. I would judge how long a task would take, and plan an asburd amount of extra time for it. In most cases, in fact, it was actually a rather reasonable schedule.

But something would come up, as something always does. I would miss one item on my to-do list for the day, and then suddenly the rest of my week would be invalid. Because guess what: each item on every to-do list for the rest of the week was dependent on me getting that one freaking thing done on Monday!

"So just bump it all back a day," you say. But guess what! I can't! It's all there, in ink, permenently visible to my vulnerable soul! I can't just change it. Do you know how long it took to discover this delicate balance of regular updates? Three years! Aka: TOO FREAKING LONG.

So you can see, from my inability to efficiently plan for the week, why I would dislike the idea of a 5 Year Plan. I don't think I've even broken into Year 1 yet--I'm still rooted in Year 0! I can barely plan for today, let alone five freaking years from now. (Plus, I'll be, like, twenty-seven. Twenty-seven! I don't want to think about that, thank you.)

How do you even make a five-year plan? That's the sort of thing they tell you to do in your first year of university, when your eyes are still full of hope and the combination of student debt and a retail job hasn't killed your soul yet. That's the sort of thing that they tell you to do in high school, when you still think adulthood is going to be the Best Thing Ever. (Spoiler alert: run away.) I'm pretty sure you have to have your life together to even think about making a Five Year Plan.

Me? I avoided my desk for three days because of a giant spider I watched crawl across it earlier in the week. I am the very opposite of put together.

I mean, don't get me wrong--I have goals. I have dreams. I'm a semi-functioning human being. I like to think that I'll get accepted into an international program in Walt Disney World, and spend all of next summer working there. I like to think that I'll have my university degree by the time I'm 24. (Okay...maybe 25.) I have ideas for more tattoos that I want to plaster my body with. I find myself considering moving back to the East coast after graudation.

And somewhere in between all that, I like to think I'll get published.

But in the last couple years I've learned a thing or do--namely, it's okay to take things one thing at a time. I work better when I narrow my focus, weedle my to-do list down to a single day. I can't let myself get caught up in everything I have to do tomorrow, next week, next month...just to complete a deadline that I've imposed on myself.

I don't have a Five Year Plan. But I make goals based on the seasons, I pick my passion and run with it, and somehow manage to get stuff done along the way. Maybe not as much as I hoped, but something is better than nothing.

There is no time limit. Just a list I made at one in the morning, and the hope that I'll complete it sometime in this lifetime.

Until later,

- Justyne

IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF YEAR (BEDS 003)

YES, SIR, FRIENDS, YOU HEARD RIGHT! There are now only ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!

I do this every year. Y'all already know this. The second my birthday passes, I whip old the 'ol Santa hat and start blasting those Christmas carols nonstop through to December 25th. (Except not really, because I think my roommates would probably kick me out, and I rather like having a roof over my head.)

What is it about Christmas that motivates me to drive everyone around me insane? It's the jingle bells, the jolly tunes, the cool crisp air that comes as the season draws closer. It's the first blanket of snow on a quiet morning, the sparkle of streelights against the frozen crystals after the sun sets.  It's the way the night sky looks before snowfall--like dawn is fast approaching, when it's still several hours away. It's the satisfaction of a perfectly wrapped present, the glitter that covers my desk after writing out a hundred cards. It's the light of a Christmas tree, the warmth of hot chocolate under a heavy blanket, the fuzzy Christmas specials that air every year.

It's the excitement. It's coming upstairs on Christmas morning to my little sister perched eagerly in front of Santa's gifts. It's the mad rush of decorating sugar cookies, and inadvertently covering every square inch of the kitchen table in icing. It's the quiet peace of Christmas afternoon, when the madness is over and all that's left is the company of your loved ones. It's the joy of seeing your favourite people light up at the sight of the Perfect Gift.

Christmas is and probably always will be my favourite time of year--the day I lose my Christmas spirit is the day humanity has lost all glimmer of hope. Until then, I will continue to count down the days in my overly-eager anticipation.

And you'll stick around and enjoy it, because you don't have a choice.

Until later,

- Justyne

AND A HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (BEDS 002)

Welcome, friends, to my birthday weekend--a four day event, and the final four days before university returns to take over my life! I'll be straight with you--I have no idea what's going on, or what's going to happen, because it's currently still August and I'm trying to schedule as many of these damn blogs as I possibly can before I get too caught up in procrastinating my homework. (There will be cheesecake, though.)

But I do know one thing--today, as you all are reading this, I am 22. I am older than little ten year old me ever thought I could possibly get, and probably younger than the future fifty year old me could ever remember being. I am the age that Taylor Swift wrote a song about, an age that is once again a digit higher than that of my best friend, until she catches up with me four months from now. I am one year above the legal drinking age in the states, and 4 years above the one in my home province.

Every time my birthday comes around, I think, "I can't believe I'm this old." 22 is not old, yet it is, because I have never experienced an age any older than what I am. I will continue to think this every time a birthday comes around, every time my younger sisters reach milestones that I can hardly believe that I've already passed. I will continue to think that I only graduated a year or two ago, when in fact my old high school is now filled exclusively with people I have never gone to school with. I will continue to think that middle school was only a handful of years ago, when in fact it has been a near decade. And I will continue to deny that, with every passing year, the number of friends whom I have known for a decade climbs higher--because the fact that I am old enough to know someone for a decade is scary as hell.

But no matter how old I get, I will always use my birthday as an excuse to treat myself. I will eat cheesecake for days, and I will sleep in, guiltlessly, as long as I want. I will open presents and spend gift cards and ignore the fact that school is waiting for me at the end of it all. I will watch all my favourite movies and gorge myself on chocolate and play Sims until my computer craps out. I will surround myself with my favourite people and party--or chill--until I get sick of all of them (or until they get sick of me, whatever comes first).

And then, after all is said and done...I'll start counting down the days until Christmas, because there is not a single day that I love more than December 25th.

Until tomorrow,

- Justyne

Traditions (BEDS 001)

On September 1st, 2013, I took a walk to the nearest Tim Hortons, with my laptop in tow, and plopped myself down for a writing session that ended up providing me with more work than I originally anticipated. During my pre-writing procrastination session, I stumbled upon an event of sorts. The "Write Fifteen Minutes a Day" challenge (or WFMAD, for short) was started by miss Laurie Halse Anderson on her own blog 6 years prior. The goal was small and simple--commit to writing fifteen minutes a day for one month. Easy, right? At face value, sure. But when do I ever take the easy way out?

I accepted the challenge, but with my own twist. Under the assumption that one blog post would take me approximately fifteen minutes to write, I decided to upload a new post on my blog--which, at the time, had only been in existence for barely six months--every day in September. Little did I realize at the time that my poor blogging skills would result in much scrambling over the course of the month, and that this spontaneous challenge really deserved a lot more thought than I initially gave it.

But when do I ever think anything through?

Still, though, I perservered, and came away from the month with thirty new blog posts and the new appreciation for only having to upload once a week. (Of course, that quickly became twice a week...but that's another story for another time.)

A year later, the challenge returned--refreshed and revamped, I turned it into my own little event. From then on, I referred to the month as BEDS--or Blog Every Day in September. 2014 yielded a slightly less successful year, but I still walked away with 26/30 attempted posts going up more or less according to schedule.

In 2015...well, I kinda skipped 2015. We don't talk about 2015.

But now I'm back, with the Fourth Annual Blog Every Day in September Challenge! There will be tears, there will be laughter, there will be complete and utter chaos as I struggle to remain on course for the month--all while going to university, because yes, friends--I am that insane.

Mondays and Wednesdays will keep their regularly scheduled content, but every other day will be a complete free-for-all that will undoubtebly result in many, many shenanigans. So buckle up and prepare for the ride, whatever chaos it may bring!

Until tomorrow,

- Justyne