Loving politics is like loving life.

In honour of all the political hooplah occurring in the city this weekend, I thought I would do a POLITICS AND LOVE sort of love list this Friday. So without further adieu, I bring you:


POLITICS: REASONING AS TO WHY IT’S BRINGING SEXY BACK


The fact the Stéphane Dion always looks like he’s about to cry
The Shawinigan handshake
Rick Mercer (heart heart heart!)
This photo of Stephen Harper
Oh, and this photo as well
Jack Layton (oh come on, you know he’s cool)
The Marijuana Party of Canada (have to get the youngins interested somehow)
The fact that thanks to direct democracy Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, almost had to change his name to “Doris Day”
That time Danny Williams got pissed at former PM Paul Martin and ordered all the Canadian flags to be taken down from government buildings in the province
That time Danny Williams absolutely burned Paul McCartney on Larry King Live
That time Danny Williams took out ads in national newspapers like the Globe and Mail saying that current PM Stephen Harper was a hack and that we need to call an election
When Danny Williams wears his seal skin coat on the news

Rick Mercer having a sleepover with Prime Ministers


Rick Mercer interviewing Prime Ministers in Harvey's


Rick Mercer taking Prime Ministers to Canadian Tire

Oh Danny boy.

Oh Danny frigging boy.

Now my son, watch out ‘cause this post is going to be a doozy.

In case you haven’t heard (and if you haven’t, are you dead?): MR. STEVIE IS COMIN’ TO DA ISLAND. That’s right, Prime Minister Harper will be arriving in Newfoundland today for the weekend and visiting Stephenville (aw, man), St. John’s (yeehaw) and Port de Grave (I spent last Christmas there!).

Here’s where the political theatre begins!

Harper has requested a meeting with our lovely, soft-spoken, and all around gentle Premier, Danny Williams. Hah. Haha.

OH MAN, THE NEWS IS GONNA BE AWESOME THIS WEEKEND.

Ever since Progressive Conservative Williams started his ABC (Anything But Conservative!) campaign against Harper and his Administration, Canadians everywhere have been asking: WTF?

And us Newfoundlanders are kind of mixed, “Yay, a leader who isn’t Captain Canada!” as well as “Boo, you’re a loud mouth who makes us look stupid.”

But if I were to disagree with anything, it would be that Danny Williams is stupid. In fact the multi-millionaire’s only problem is that he likes to stick his foot in his mouth, but who am I to talk?

They were showing clips of Williams on the NTV news tonight and they showed one of my faves “Well Steve has just broken his promise,” (a reporter makes a comment) “Steve? Well if his best buddy George Bush can call him that, so can I.”

Haha. Hearts my Premier I do.

So everyone if you need me this weekend, you’ll find me parked in front of my television. Popcorn in one hand and sodie-pop in the other as I watch the leader of my country and the leader of my province come to blows.

Errare humanun est.

And I’m finished classes for this semester! Gooo me.

In my last class today (International Poli Sci) I had a test. Which I really didn’t think was allowed so close to exams, but whatevs (totally stole that from you Robyn, since you borrowed my “the suck”, hehe).

Anyway, Croci is a big bag of ol’ Italian fun so I was kind of sad to be finished with that class (note: “kind of”).

He only stayed for the first fifteen minutes of class and then his T.A. came. But before he left he wrote a sentence on the board: “Errare humanun est - sed perseverare diabolicum.” Roughly translated it means “Mistakes are human, but to continue making mistakes is devilish.”

(… I see a new tattoo in the worksss) :)

“This is the last time I will see you for a very long time, maybe ever.” He stated as he walked towards the door (a chorus of female “aww”s when up after that). So after gracing us with a wave and leaving us with this sentence to muse over, he left.

The T.A. began passing out these little tests.

These little tests.

That were one hundred and two questions long.

I seriously shed a tear and thought to myself “you little Italian bastard.”

Then I hear the guy behind me go “Oh my God.” And the girl next to him goes “What?” and he replies with “These are all the [expletive] questions from every test we did this year.”

And damn it if Croci didn’t have the last laugh, he had literally just stapled all our old tests together in one giant doomed test. Sassy old man.

Unfortunately for me and Latin proverbs everywhere, I continued to make mistakes.

Rocking the boat.

Sarah says:
school has blown this semester so hopefully when you come back your randomness will make us all happy again haha

Dave -- Uruguay says:
Haha I do plan to have lots of randomness....and I’m planning on being involved in a million projects and random things that I hope to drag you along with

Sarah says:
yussss

Sarah says:
i am seriously looking forward to it like you would not believe

Sarah says:
nobody wants to do anything and when they do it's like going to a movie or something

Sarah says:
i need dave’s messed up shit and whatnot

Dave -- Uruguay says:
fuck that...I plan to be rockin the St. John’s boat when I get back


So, so, so excited! :)

Les fille nuit!

Celebratory times at Meagan's (and Allison's).

Tu-re-lu-re-lu, pata-patapan.

It's Friday and you know what that meansss...

I LOVE LIFE AND THE FOLLOWING THINGS

Going to church with a cool kid (who does cool things)
Books that finally come out in paperback
Spending far too much money on Amazon and Chapters (GOOO CANADIAN DOLLAR!)
Christmas shopping
Finding the perfect Christmas gift for that special someone
Writing Christmas cards (seriously my favourite thing to do during the holiday season)*
Celebrating my Pop's 87th birthday! Happy Birthday Poppy!
Having amazing friends who will help you with your Photoshop needs while they eat supper
Embracing my noobility
Getting super good marks on tests you didn't really study for (Marland + Sarah = luv 4ever)
When school is extremely close to the end of a semester
Dave coming back from Uruguay in less than a month!
Sending my brother tons of Christmas presents in the mail (I bought him Bounce sheets for Christmas, HEHE)
Getting his girlfriend the perfect present that I should buy for everyone because it's so perfect
Hugh Grant
Setting off fire alarms
THIS version of Patapan is the seriously the very best I have ever heard


As always, encouragement to do your own love list. Focus on the positive, mannn. And if you don't have a blog leave the lovin' in the comments, IT'S THE CHRISTMAS SEASON APPARENTLY SO LET'S BE GLAD.


*If you would like a Christmas card from me, I need the address of wherever you'll be during Christmas! So if I don't have it, please MSN me with it (don't be dumb and leave it in the comments). I am notoriously known for my well written cards, so you know you want oneee.

Noobility part deux.

This post is very reminiscent of this post that I wrote almost exactly a year ago. It seems my noobility follows the seasons.

So there I was, sitting in my Canadian Poli Sci class listening to Marland go on about political ethics... when I hear it.

It was a blizzard.

They have a very distinct sound. Different from a regular snowfall (which is virtually noiseless) and snow storms (which have a wooshy sound), blizzards have that dry-snow-against-glass sound. Kind of sounds like a rain-maker.

This is where I started to lose it. It went something like:

Ohmigod. Ohmiiigod. There is a blizzard, A BLIZZARD. IN NOVEMBER. There isn't even any snow on the ground! It's still fallesque! I'm wearing my flamingo shoes, they're going to get soaked through. And I don't have mitts. Or a toque. My hair is going to get all ridiculous. And, oh man, what if it's real bad out and the plows go down the roads? I'm parked on the street, they'll plow me in! I don't want have to shovel myself out with the window scraper again. I wonder...

At this point I'm looking around frantically, wondering why no one else is commenting on the fact that THE WORLD IS ENDING AND GLOBAL WARMING (COOLING?) IS NOW UPON US AT A FASTER RATE THAN EVEN AL GORE HAD PREDICTED.

My Poli Sci friend notices my frantic head motions and deer-caught-in-headlights face and offers me a quizzical look. I of course look at him like he's crazy. Don't you hear that? I silently ask in my head. There's a blizzard happening at this very second!

He tries to go back to listening to the lecture but I can tell he's only half paying attention and is intrigued by what sort of drug I could possibly be on. So I try to calm down and tell myself that obviously there was a weather warning on The Weather Network this morning, and obviously I just missed it and that's why no one else is freaking out because they were prepared for it.

And then I notice that the girl in front of me is eating a Jos Louis.

A Jos Louis encased by a rustling cellophane package.

A rustling cellophane package that sounds a lot like a blizzard (for some reason).

. . .

WHO EATS JOS LOUIS' AT 9:30 IN THE MORNING ANYWAY?!

I will wade out.

Modern Canadian Fiction 2150.
Literary Theory and Criticism 2815.
Introduction to Political Thought 2000.
Parties and Elections in Canada 3700.
Corrections in the Criminal Justice System 1303.

NEXT SEMESTER'S GOING TO BE A BLAST. NOT.

If you're saying "but Sarah, why are there two English classes there?" Well in addition to the Political Science Major. And the Law Minor. And the Criminology Certification.

I'm kind of maybe.

Sort of.

Considering the possibility of.

Doing a double Major in English and Poli Sci.

If tragedy's appealing, than disaster's an addiction.

After reading this article I decided to offer up a little of what happened to me while I was up North. I wanted to put the article into context, so after reading this post (and I realize it's a mouthful), I'd encourage you guys to go back and read the article by The Canadian Press.

-

Since I've returned from Nunavut I have started a million blog posts about what it was really like to live there. I've been asked a thousand times "What's it like up there?" and my answer is usually along the lines of "Oh cold, but nice" or something like "It was pretty rough, but I got used to it."

People have asked me how cold the temperatures got (-41 was as low as I saw).

People have asked me if I saw polar bears (not ones that were alive).

People asked how hard it was adjusting to a place that didn't speak my language (more difficult than I could have fathomed).

And people question whether I learned any Inuktitut (ii, qanuippit?).

Nobody asked me how many times I witnessed domestic abuse occurring right in front of my eyes (easily a half a dozen times).

No one inquired about how many sleepless nights I suffered because the noise of my neighbour beating his girlfriend senseless kept me up (countless times).

When I first moved into my brother's apartment, he warned me about "Mr. and Mrs. Fuck You". He told me exactly what would happen, Mr. Fuck You would come home drunk around 2ish when all the bars had shut down and start banging on Mrs. Fuck You's door until she let him in. They would then proceed their rounds of "fuck you" "no, fuck you" until he would beat her into submission.

Darryl told me not to call the police, that he or his roommate had done it a number of times and the police had kindly suggested to them to stop as there was nothing they could do as long as she stayed with Mr. Fuck You.

Here's where it gets tricky.

I ended up meeting that girl and her son outside of our apartment building not realizing she was Mrs. Fuck You. I got to know her (she's only two years older than me) and we became "friends". Her son was a sweet little boy who went to my Day Care, barely three when I first met him.

When entering my apartment once we ended up riding the elevator together "I didn't realize we lived in the same building!" I exclaimed, excited at the prospect of having a "friend" whom I didn't have to dress in a parka to visit. She seemed embarrassed, something at the time I couldn't understand.

When we both stepped off the elevator and walked to doors facing one another, I had to use everything in me to keep myself from saying something I shouldn't. "See you around" I semi-whispered, shutting the door on her almost apologetic face.

After finding out she was Mrs. Fuck You, living in that apartment was almost unbearable. There was one night I will never forget for as long as I live.

I came home from work at around eleven one night, collapsing into bed literally with all my clothes still on. At the time I was battling an infection and working from eight in the morning until eleven in the evening. I needed every second of sleep I could get.

I was awoken by their screams around two o'clock. They lasted until six thirty that morning.

Through their screams and the sounds of fist meeting flesh I could hear the music from a children's show blasting. It seems they weren't the only two in the apartment that night.

It took everything that was in me that night to not barge out my apartment wielding some sort of weapon along with a slew of threats. I am a confrontational person by nature, but I knew this was not my battle to fight.

I stood at my front door with shoes on my feet (I didn't need to change as I was still wearing the clothes I had on the day before) for about a solid hour that morning. My hand on the door knob while I listened to those kid's shows play on.

I never saw her or her son for about a week after that. And even then I wish I hadn't.

Her face was still black and blue, her glasses broken on the right side. Three teeth were gone from her mouth.

I never spoke more than a passing "hello" or "how are you" to her after that.

When I moved to another apartment and the same scenario happened again, I made sure to never look the battered woman in the eye.

If I remained detached, maybe I could get some sleep.

Doing our cool things at Baird park.

Love you long time.

It'sss Fridayyy! Meaning love list time!

I LOVE THESE THINGS LIKE A MONKEY LOVES SIGN LANGUAGE

When my Mom puts opened McCain's juice in Mason jars so I don't pull the very common move of spilling juice everywhere
Clementines
Drunken hockey games with the family
Friends who find you Photoshop in like five seconds (heart)
Professional art portfolios
Multi-generation families in The Sims
Bowling in the park
Swinging on swings
Taking beautiful pictures with my point-and-shoot camera (I haves da talent, and as soon as I lift the photo ban on TLBTC, I have some doozies to show you)
Weekly dates with true loves :)
Being a member of The Cool People Who Do Cool Things club
Aero Bars (even if I can't master the stupid bubbles on the tongue thing like in the commercials)
This show (DON'T MAKE FUN OF ME, I FEEL BAD ENOUGH ALREADY)
Finishing paintings! (gah, thank goodness already)
Playing MASH with Allison in Itern'l POSC
Eating Bottlecaps in Intern'l POSC (root beer ones = best candy ever)
Having your brother home
Having your brother buy you things
Having a cool brother :)
The fact that I only have one more test and one more paper due before exams (this year was mighty, mighty QUICK)
Seeing yogurt boy's new RIDICULOUS haircut (HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN THIS?!)
The video for Viva Forever by the Spice Girls (don't those pods look like Kinder Egg things?!)
The fact that I still have the original and untouched Spice Girl fairy stickers that came with that CD (WHICH I BOUGHT IN 1998. . . sicko)

Re: Boys are dumb.

My loverly friend did a very short and poignant blog post a few days ago. It was extremely accurate and after years of personal research I have drawn the same conclusion:

Boys are dumb.

Now this was never up for debate, Meagan just felt it was important to emphasize at the time. I thought I would add to her post. And my added comment would be:

Girls are dumb.

Like really dumb. We fall for the wrong guys with the right hair. We fall for the guys who couldn't give a crap about us, and are very likely drooling over the girl sitting next to us.

And when a guy does show some interest? We either think they're a) desperate, b) creepy or c) too good to be true, so we decide it's not true and give 'em the ol' chuck-a-roo.

I am the queen of dumb sometimes.

I'll be blinded by fantastic hair and excellent musical tastes and glasses (oh, those bloody glasses!), and it will be weeks before I realize something like, oh, they deal drugs.

Sometimes we even go into creepy semi-stalker mode. I'll be the first to admit I've done that once (Beautiful Guy of 2002?) or twice (Poli Sci Guy Fiasco of 2006? We were all there when THAT dream turned out to be a super dud). And if you are going to pretend you don't sit at tables and talk about the hot guys sitting around or whatever you are a dirty, dirty liar.

We are a shameful gender.

So ladies, I am calling us out. WE ARE STELLAR. AND WE ALL DESERVE A NICE BOY WHO IS WORTHY OF OUR LIKE. So please do not settle for the super-duper duds just because they're there.

Fall for the Josh Groban look-alikes who write you songs and draw you pictures.

Go after that ridiculously hot guy (who might very well be gay) that serves you your Grande Non-Fat Peppermint Latte at Starbucks.

Pick up that dude you've been eyeing in your chem class since like week one.

Let's quit the dumb already.

Try as he might, he's unable to speak.

For the last two months I've been in like super-blogging-overdrive. It's a beautiful thing. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and I've been uninspired as of late.

This might have to do with the fact that I reinstalled The Sims II and was given a new expansion pack for it (OMGSPLOSION, Seasons is awesome, a must need for any avid Simmer). I like to be productive virtually instead of literally.

It might also have to do with my abnormal sleeping habits. My body has forsaken its insomnia and taken up sleeping all the time instead! I will update later about zee visiting of doctors.

It could also be that I formatted my computer and lost Photoshop! Thus I am unable to do pretty captioned picture posts.

Now you might be saying to yourself, "but Sarah, you just did a pretty captioned picture post yesterday!" And to that I would say: "I did it in effing Paint". And working with Microsoft Paint is about as fun as getting curb stomped, so it will never happen again.

So photo strike starts today on The Little Blog that Could, until I find myself a nice free copy of Photoshop. To inspire my lovely friends whom I love dearly with all my heart and who are so awesome in all ways possible: I offer a reward to the person who gets me a nice free copy of Photoshop! A very awesome reward. I will take pictures of said winner with said prize and then do a pretty captioned picture post, thus lifting the photo ban.

I love you. Please help?

Hockey night in [St. John's].

In other news, want a quick way to excite a crowd of Newfoundlanders? Put some jig music on, stick some of our limited newer generations on the ice, and let them wave the independence flag around! This seems like something Danny Williams would concoct. . .

My birthday cake, completely devised by the mother.

(She even got the smile - go Mom!)

Its assault only failed of success because dead men can advance no further.

No other province or territory feels the effects of Remembrance Day like Newfoundland does. At the time of the World Wars we were the Dominion of Newfoundland, a country separate from Canada with our own military force.

I had a whole spiel written about how the deaths of most of this provinces' able bodied men shaped a society doomed to fail.

I had written paragraphs on how today we still are condemning ourselves, Newfoundland consistently having the highest enlistment rate in the Canadian Armed Forces.

I'm so sick of us fighting other people's battles when we can't even win our own.

"There were only 225,000 of us in 1914, when the War began: fewer than 35,000 were males between, say, 15 and 30 years of age - the men who became soldiers. Some two thousand joined the Royal Navy.

In all, 12,425 men came forward to join the Regiment, and 6,200 actually served in its ranks. Six out of every ten became casualties. 1,304 - one in every five, 20% - were killed or died of wounds. 2,300 more - another two-fifths - were wounded.

The First World War took a terrible toll of human life and suffering, but no Dominion or Colony, and no country, paid a higher price than Newfoundland. . ."

Newfoundland suffered first as a country and now later we still suffer as a province. I won't ever forget that.

Overshadows all of this weeks love list material...

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

You sigh low.

Very few things reported in the news make me want to cry. I watch the destruction of thousands occurring everyday overseas and I stare at the newspaper like it’s just told me the sky is blue.

Although I’m probably one of the few people my age who keeps a diligent eye on what is happening here in Canada and around the world, I sadly remain apathetic to the facts.

But today in a rare occurrence, I found my eyes welling up with tears as I read of the horrible death of an RCMP officer in Kimmirut, NU.

Every single aspect of this story got at me, like it was taken straight from the horrible scenarios I sometimes conjure in my head.

“A 20-year-old Mountie was shot and killed in the line of duty in Kimmirut, a small community in Nunavut. Const. Douglas Scott became the second RCMP officer within a month to be gunned down in the region. His death comes as the national police force reviews its back-up policy and questions swirl around the practice of sending inexperienced officers to Canada's high Arctic. . .”

I could honestly write forever on how this makes me want to get a megaphone and stand in front of Parliament until someone looks out the window and questions what I’m doing. Because it looks like no one is asking questions. And when they are, they’re not the right ones to ask.

People inquire how the RCMP could send an inexperienced officer to the north. But no one is questioning why this is even an issue. We send soldiers who are fresh from boot camp to Afghanistan. Is Canada less safe than a war torn country?

There are so many things wrong with how the north is being governed. I’m just wondering how many more people have to lose their lives before someone figures this out.

Ode to political profs.

I am currently taking two Poli Sci classes, International Political Science 2200 with Osvaldo Croci and Intro to Canadian Politics 2710 with Alex Marland.

Now Marland and I, we’ve been in love for quite awhile now. Well, I’ve been in love with him. To be honest we’ve never had a conversation outside of the political spectrum (unlike lover English prof and I last year, who is well missed), but none the less I still find myself fancying the guy.

Allison and I have had many discussions over the possibility of him being gay. He’s always immaculately dressed and is extremely poised to a fault. We both agree that if he is indeed gay, it is a DEFINITE injustice to women everywhere. Hot. Sauce.

Today in class we covered electoral parties and systems. He decided a good way to illustrate different points would be to use puppies. In birthday hats. He would describe “So this lonesome puppy in the pink hat, he’s a single-party system. Where as this basket of puppies in green polka-dot hats represent multi-partied systems.”

He totally reminds me of Ze Frank, although today’s puppy infusion is more reminiscent of Cute with Chris. I’m going to tell him he should start a video podcast. LADIES WOULD TUNE IN.

And then there’s Croci. Croci is on the other end of the spectrum in that he’ll probably remind you of your Poppy. He likes old man sweaters and [I’m assuming due to the topics of his conversations] Catholicism.

Croci has the most bizarre responses to questions. I absolutely die laughing at him. Mostly because he’s not even trying to be funny, it’s just how he thinks.

A girl asked today in class “Can one of the five founding countries of the UN leave it?” And instead of a simple answer he responds with a typical wacky one: “Well St. Paul was hit by light while riding his horse on the way to Damascus, and he became a Christian. So if one of these countries were suddenly hit by light and decided to throw away this power they created for themselves, than I guess so.”

. . .

HOW CAN YOU NOT LAUGH AT THIS BEING SAID IN AN ITALIAN ACCENT? THERE'S NO WAY YOU CAN’T.

I was only half listening to a question about a half an hour later when I heard him reply "Well that's simple, less guns, more butter."

Library date at the QEII (third floor).

I want to live where soul meets body.

Self-righteous rant time:

I don’t like Facebook. If someone doesn’t know that about me, it’s safe to say they’ve never even met me. I remember the good ol’ days where shortly after you’d meet someone they would ask “So, do you have MSN?” Now it’s “I'll write on your wall when I get home, lolz.”

It pisses me off to say the least.

That being said, I’d just like everyone to know that my pictures should never be copy/pasted out of here. If you desire a photo, you can let me know instead of thieving it out of my blog. RAPSCALLIONS.

But even then I don’t want any of these photos to go on Facebook. If you want photos for your Facebook, buy a camera and take your own.

I’m not being mean, I’m being pony-like and telling how I feel. So feed me a carrot and let’s move on, okay?

DO YOU LIKES DA CREATIVE OR DA MATH, EH?

Okay, so I've mentioned this to like everyone and I keep forgetting to post it. Which way do you see the girl spin?

For the longest time I could only ever see her spin clockwise (creative = right-side thinker), they say if you try hard enough you can see her spin in both ways. I COULDN'T DO IT. But then I started doing math equations in my head and she spun the other way. It’s crazy.

If you can only see her spin counter-clockwise, try thinking about art and music. The human mind is so COOL.

Leave a comment/let me know which way she spins for you. Everyone I know is both creative and mathsy so I’m interested to see what happens for you guys!

Papa Gandhi.