Review: Red: A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (BEDS 413)

Of all the comics I read for my Canadian Comics class last year, this one was the most unique--and also the most confusing, and the hardest to follow.

I remember very little about the actual story. Red's sister gets kidnapped, and he becomes obsessed with getting revenge. The details are blurry, but that's the basic gist of it. If you want a better understanding, this book needs to be read twice. At least.

I can appreciate what the cartoonist was trying to do. He was pulling from traditional Haida art styles to create the comic, using thick borders that, when you pull the pages apart and rearrange them together, form a larger piece of traditional art. But not only did the swirling borders make it harder to follow the linear narrative, but the art style within the borders made the events confusing to understand. Half the time, I had no idea what was going on. I was mostly making sense of what was happened based on the dialogue and other texts in the book.

Tone: lol what just happened

Enjoyment rating: 2.7

Shelf life: The only reason I haven't sold it yet is because I keep forgetting to bring it back to the uni bookstore for buyback.

TL;DR: Hard to follow, wouldn't recommend.

Until later,

- Justyne

The FIrst Day (Or: How I Spent 12+ Hours at School) (BEDS 412)

I'm oblivious to a lot of things. I forget small details, somehow manage to miss the glaringly obvious, and just in general tend to not notice a lot of what's going on around me. It's a fatal flaw; especially when I noticed--a mere week before school started--that my Tuesday class schedule contained four of my five classes, keeping me at school from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm...a miserable twelve hours.

And guess what the first day of school was? A Tuesday. 

So, for your enjoyment, I recorded my adventures on the first day of school. (This was actually supposed to go up last week, on the first day of school, but me being...well, me...that didn't happen.)

Hour 1: 8:30-9:30am

I have already been up for three hours. (I am not happy about this.) 

My first class is okay; the prof is really chill, being one of those call-me-by-my-first-name, everything-in-the-syllabus-is-a-suggestion-rather-than-a-rule kind of dude. (Aka, my favourite kind of dude.) 

There is no required textbook, becuase my prof feels guilty assigning a $100+ book. My wallet weeps in joy.

The class ends early; I weep in joy.

Hour 2: 9:30-10:30am

I somehow manage to beat the textbook rush and wait no more than ten minutes in line, which will probably never happen again.

I also only spend $60 on textbooks, which will also probably never happen again.

Hour 3: 10:30-11:30 am

I'm already eating lucnh, because I'm hungry and time is a social construct. I watch Grey's Anatomy on my iPad and relish the lack of guilt that comes with not yet having homework. (This will not last long.) (As I am now writing this in the future, I can assure you that it did not last long at all.)

Hour 4: 11:30am-12:30pm

I'm still watching Grey's. Don't judge me.

Hour 5: 12:30-1:30pm

Cue second class. I've had this prof before. She remembers my name, which is shocking. I recognize someone who has been in two of my classes in the past--but I don't know her name, so that's awkward.

Hour 6: 1:30-2:30 pm

My second class ends early, and I am in dire need of caffeine. I go to Starbucks with a birthday gift card. They still have s'mores frappuccinos, and I am pleasantly surprised.

I try to visit the info booth to fix my U-pass, but the line basically stretches from one end of the building to the other. I give up on that idea fairly quickly.

Hour 7: 2:30-3:30pm

I spend my time watching YouTube videos and doodling. Being at school for 12 hours with no homework to do is surprisingly boring. (Coming from the future, I already miss those days.)

Hour 8: 3:30-4:30pm

My third class starts. There aren't enough chairs in the classroom, which is super awkward, considering the class only has 15 students in it.

Participation is required, which sucks, because I don't talk much. (People who actually know me well won't believe me, but this remains a true fact.)

Hour 9: 4:30-5:30pm

I don't have time between my final two classes to grab food. I know this will bite me in the ass in future weeks.

I could really use a nap, but the lecture hall is too small to nap unnoticed. (Not that I would....maybe.)

Hour 10: 5:30-6:30pm

I've had this prof before, too. I think I know what to expect, until she says that we're going on a field trip, and that she doesn't use powerpoints. (

She says she will only spend 15 minutes on the syllabus, which somehow turns into an hour, during which I don't pay attention because I didn't think she would talk for so long. (Oops?)

Hour 11: 6:30-7:30pm

We leave the classroom and go for a walk around the neigbourhood. I shamelessly play Pokemon Go the entire time.

Hour 12: 7:30-8:30pm

Class ends a blissful thirty minutes early, so I can go home and s l e e p.

Tuesdays are very quickly going to become my least favourite days.

Until later,

- Justyne

Micro Fiction Monday: Life (BEDS 411)

I’m used to emptiness. You know—dirt roads, single street-light towns, skies that stretch on forever just to remind you of how far you have to go just to find a shopping mall. I’m used to knowing everyone, and having the entire town’s history imprinted on the back of my hand. I’m used to feeling stuck, in this tiny corner of the world, where insignificance runs rampant. It’s incredible how suffocating fresh air can be.

But here….there’s life here. I see more people flash by in a minute than I see in a day back home. People are walking and talking and laughing and doing. Noises fill the silence, and skyscrapers fill the sky—evidence that there is more in this world than just me. Here, I can stare out my window and see more than just a tractor driving by. Here, I can see different people from different backgrounds, doing a hundred different things at the same time—instead of just the same old farmers in the same old dirty overalls.

A small town has the space to stretch your wings, with nowhere to fly. Here, where buildings stretch higher than I could ever imagine…anything is possible.

Micro Fiction Monday - Freedom (BEDS 404)

I keep my eye on the horizon. It stretches forever; I’m not used to it. I’m used to concrete towers, buildings stretching high into the sky, people visible from every corner and every coordinate. Business and busyness, cramped and crazy, where the closest thing to freedom is stepping on a balcony as high as you can get. Where you try to see everything, but can only ever get a fraction of all the uninterrupted movement. Flatness is foreign to me.

But here, flat is everywhere—where the tallest building is a storey and a half, and I can see the end of every street I turn onto. Where the greens outnumber the greys, and the sky is so blue that it seems more like a cartoon backdrop than reality. The air smells different, tastes different, feels different. Here, freedom is seeing the world open up around you, its limits beyond your line of sight, if there are even any limits at all. Freedom is reaching up towards the clouds, because they’re so close that touching them is somehow closer to a reality than a mere possibility. Freedom is reaching out on either side, and never touching another soul.

Freedom is feeling like, at any moment, you can jump and never come down.

The True Meaning of BEDS (BEDS 401)

My first blog post of 2017, and it's a mere four months before 2018 begins. Ain't that awkward.

A lot has gone on in the last eight months, and through it all, the blog kind of fell to the side. It became that eternal item on my to-do list that never seems to get done, along with, "clean your room" and "start working out someday, maybe".

But as another September rolls around, and thoughts of my annual blogging challenge begin to resurface, I am reminded of the true meaning of the season: to blog every damn day, no matter the length or quality. What better way to get back into the swing of things than half-assing a bunch of posts at the last second to gain some momentum?

So now, we're going to conveniently ignore the fact that it's technically September 2nd, and take the plunge together, in the hopes that the act of blogging every day will prompt a new wave of regularly-scheduled updates.

Until tomorrow,

- Justyne

Review: What Light by Jay Asher

"People think what they want. That's what I've had to accept. I can fight it, but that's exhausting. I can feel hurt about it, but that's torture. Or I can decide it's their loss." - Jay Asher, What Light

My initial intention was to read several Christmas-themed books, and schedule them for upload throughout December. Obviously...that didn't happen. So instead, I come sliding in on the last Wednesday of the month to bring you the only Christmas-themed book I actually got a round to reading!

What Light follows Sierra, whose family has owned a Christmas tree farm since before she was born. For eleven months of the year, she lives in Oregon, helping her parents grow and chop down endless rows of trees. But come Thanksgiving, they pack up and migrate down to California for the holiday season, where they open a tree lot to help families find the perfect tree. Although having two lives always means missing one, Sierra can't imagine living her life any differently.

This Christmas, though, there's also Caleb--a boy with a past and an affinity for Christmas trees, who won't get off Sierra's radar. Any relationship possibilities are already complicated by an expiration date--but the future is uncertain, and it may be Sierra's final Christmas in California. Is any relationship worth saying goodbye?

This book. Was. Adorable. It was an adorable ball of cheese, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially after having to go three+ months reading nothing but the texts required for my university courses. (I mean, some of those were also very good. But still.)

I'm going to re-state this, because it's worth emphasizing: this book is so cheesy. Sometimes unbearably so. But when you've been buried under school-induced stress for 13 weeks, unbearable cheese is pretty much exactly what you need. I also found that there was no real overarching conflict through the story--it was more comprised of several smaller issues that resolved themselves quickly, which meant that the climax was...well, not very climactic. It was more of a calm story, with less tension than other similar romantic comedies.

That being said, it was still very well written--pulled me in, and I couldn't get enough of Caleb and Sierra. (Because, again, they are adorable.) There was potential for it to do more, but what it did, it did well.

Final rating: 3.8.

Until later,

- Justyne

Review: Shoplifter by Michael Cho

"What will you do now?""I'm not sure. Whatever it is, I know I have to find it, instead of waiting for it to fine me." - Michael Cho, Shoplifter

Hello, friends! Book Review Wednesday returns with another mandatory school reading! (Hip hip!)

When Corrina Park finally got her English degree, she had a plan--move to the city, get a day job to eliminate crippling debt, and write, write, write, until she becomes the author she always wanted to be. Five years later, though, she's still working at the same ad agency, no real friends, no romance on the horizon, and she hasn't written a real word since graduation. Bored, tired, and frustrated, she starts shoplifting from the local convenience store to shake things up. Soon, she develops the perfect strategy, and slipping magazines between the pages of her newspaper soon become the highlight of her days.

Petty theft is far from the meaning she's looking for, but how can one find themselves when they're lost in the crowd of a big city?

First of all, it was really, really hard to disassociate this book with my future. Notice the keywords--crippling debt and English degree and author...I mean, good 'ol Cho here is basically acting as a mystic determining destiny. It is very, very easy to picture myself falling into this same trap, which is utterly terrifying and also somewhat comforting, considering that she ends up in some form of inner peace by the end of it. (Uh...spoilers?)

I think, out of all the books I've been reading for my Canadian Comics class, this one (along with Two Generals) had some of my favourite styles in it. I loved the two toned look, the "lost line" style, and just the way he drew the city scape in general. (I'm writing my end-of-term research paper on Shoplifter's city setting, so that last bit isn't really all that surprising.) It was just very aesthetically pleasing to read, especially compared to some of the other, more disorienting styles I've encountered in the course.

One of my biggest problems with this read, though, was that the resolution seemed almost...too quick? Her frustrations took an almost 180, resulting in a very neat and tidy resolution that didn't really...fit with the way the rest of the book had gone. I did like the ending, though, and how open and hopeful it felt. I thought it left Corrina in a very good place, far enough from where she started to give us a good resolution (even if it did feel sudden), but not far enough that we were introduced to too many different plot points.

Final rating: 3.5/5.

Until later,

- Justyne