Politicians are stupid

So I just found out that there was going to be a Caribbean Federation of Islands in 1960, but the guy running for Prime Minister in Jamaica convinced the population that it was a bad idea. This guy was elected as the new Prime Minister shortly thereafter and then guided Jamaica to independence. A Federation of Caribbean islands would have been AWESOME! It would have cut down on travel costs, would have formed a universal currency, and made the Caribbean a more politically stable place, but NOOOOOOOOO. This jerk had to shake everything up, and not in a good way.
I would have moved to the West Indies Federation if it had formed. Boo!!!!!!!!!!

Cold and not sunny,

-Laur

Sky High

So this post is to preach the wholesome goodness that is the movie "Sky High". I have now watched it 27 times. I'm actually not exaggerating, I really have watched it 27 times. It seems that since the boys (Matthew and Benjamin Bongard, the two boys I babysit on Saturday and Monday nights) got the DVD from their parents, it's the only movie they want to watch. And the scary thing is, I never get sick of it. It's an awesome movie. I absolutely love it.

Sky High is one of those movies that was canned by the critics but had kind of a cult following after it hit the shelves. Basically it's about a group of adolescents who have just started high school, but their high school floats thousands of feet above the earth and the curriculum is for either superheroes in training or "hero support", A.K.A. sidekicks. The kids are the progeny of super parents, and the main character, Will Stronghold, is the only son of The Commander and JetStream, his super strong dad and flying ninja-like mother played by the hilarious Kurt Russell and the always lovely Kelly Preston. His friend Leila can manipulate the growth and movement of plants and is a cutesy tree-hugging pacifist. Their other friends can glow, shapeshift into a guinea pig, and melt into a puddle, respectively. There's only one problem: Will's powers haven't appeared yet. He's designated as Hero Support with the rest of his friends when the school coach, played by Bruce Campbell (ALWAYS A WINNER!) discovers that he has neither super strength or flying abilities. When things can't seem to get any worse for Will, he learns that he already has an enemy; Warren Peace, a dark and dangerous firestarter, is the child of a superhero and a supervillain, a supervillain who Will's father defeated and put in super prison when Warren was a kid. During an explosive showdown in the cafeteria, Will's powers emerge when Warren threatens his friends and everyone finds out that Will has super strength. He wins the heart of the student body president, Gwen, but as we soon find out, something sinister is happening at Sky High.

Sky High is as clever as it is cute; Principal Powers is played by Linda Evans, formerly of Wonderwoman fame, and games like "save the citizen" are played in PE class. Dave Foley plays the Hero Support teacher, All-American Boy (or Mr. Boy) and the kids who play Will's friends are hilarious.

Anytime you need a light-hearted laugh, Sky High is definitely worth a rent.

Other noteable kids movies that are good for grown-ups, too: "Night at the Museum", "High School Musical", "The Karate Kid", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Flushed Away". And anything to do with the Muppets, PERIOD.

-Laur

Winter's Fall

For those of you living far away (because I won't send you a copy of the paper, I'm a poor student) here is the link to the Excalibur website, specifically to the page that contains my winning contribution.

http://www.excal.on.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2916&Itemid=99

The poem by Adebe DeRango-Adem is great too, make sure to give it a read.

Enjoy!

-Laur

I win

Well, I entered a short story contest in Excalibur, York's student-run newspaper, several weeks ago and today when I opened the new edition to the literary supplement, I discovered that I had won. After my initial shock and great pleasure, I was somewhat upset that I had received no warning from the Excalibur offices, but now I realize that I'm happier not having known.
The story is pretty PG because the theme of the contest was the Seven Deadly Sins, so I won't post it to this blog. If you would like to read it and you don't go to York, I plan on scanning the page of the paper with both my winning story and the winning poem, written by a classmate of mine from Gender Studies.
I entered the contest as a diversion. Suffice to say I'm quite surprised that I won. I wonder what this means for my future literary career.

Pondering,

-Laur

My very first internet video (don't get the wrong idea)

Look what I created!!!! I went to this awesome website that I read about in Cosmo (the bible) called www.onetruemedia.com and created this awesome video of Shannon and I and our adventures in Cancun last year!

Photo and video editing at onetruemedia.com

Tell me what you think!

-Laur

Sentence adverbials and other scary stuff

I'm studying for my grammar test right now and all the while I keep thinking "what possessed me to take this course? I could have taken a post-colonial and satisfied all my area requirements, but NO!"

I think you can tell how I feel about this course.

Anyways, I'm sitting here, re-typing my handwritten notes into a chart on my computer and it's boring as all hell. Who made up all these rules? I never believed all my ESL friends when they said that English is one of the most confusing languages in the world. It comes so easily to me, especially in speech, that I could never fathom how any language could be easier. Apparently I was wrong. None of the rules that apply to writing the English language make any sense. Each sentence has so many parts, verb phrases and lexical heads and prepositional phrases and all that. Why didn't they teach us grammar in high school? BOOURNS!

Anyways, today I have class from 2:30 to 5:30 and then I write this test at 7. Hopefully I can get home at a decent time tonight so I can work on analyzing a passage from Macbeth. I watched most of Polanski's 1971 film version of the play yesterday in SMIL, and am now thoroughly traumatized. Apparently he made the move right after his wife was murdered by Charles Manson, so I can see why he may have been disturbed as a director. Scary stuff.

What dagger is this?

-Laur

An ode to Jason Statham

O Jason Statham, you are so beautiful

Whether it's in The Italian Job as Handsome Rob

Or Frank in the Transporter 2,

I'll go see your movies despite your acting non-skills

Just to see you drive a car and save the world.

Not my best work, but I think it gets the point across. If you're not looking for anything cerebral, check out Transporter 1 or 2, or Crank. If you want something a little more witty, check out The Italian Job.

Now, out of my fantasy world and back to work.

-Laur

The man in South Korea who sits on a hill contemplating the meaninglessness of existence says...

I was assigned my quasi-creative final assignment in Contemporary Literature class on yesterday, and I've been contemplating what I'm going to do with it ever since. My friend J sat next to me in class and upon reading the assignment sheet looked at me and said "you need to help me, this stuff is easy for you artsy fartsy english majors!" J is taking this class as an elective. She wants to go to law school (maybe). But now I'm thinking about what she said, and I realize that she was wrong. This creative stuff isn't so easy. The ideas come, but the execution of said ideas is far more complicated.
The assignment says you can do one of 2 things: you can adapt a text or genre from the course into a medium of your choice (as long as it CAN BE DONE) OR you can create your own text/art form/etc from a genre we explored on the course. In September when Stephen, my TA and professor for the course, explained how we could go about completing the assignment I began thinking about what I would like to do. Then, in our last lecture of first semester, inspiration struck me! It was a guest lecture on digital poetics, and I was captivated. I would write my own poem and then animate it using Flash or Shockwave (with the help of technologically-minded individuals that I know, of course). I didn't decide to do it because Stephen said he would be ridiculously impressed if any student attempted it, seeing as this is the first time Digital Poetics had ever been on the course. I did it because I think my words in poetry, which come to me few and far between but intensely when they do, would be really cool in motion.
But now I'm having trouble deciding what to write about. One of the poems we watched was about a man in South Korea who lost his job and renounced all his possessions and family and went and lived in this commune with other unemployed people and sat on a hill contemplating the meaninglessness of existence. The way the poem was animated was so clever, so hilarious, that I almost missed the message behind it. I want to do that, but I can't image what I could write about that would be effective.
The assignment isn't due until March 14th, so I'm taking suggestions. Feel free to contribute your input about what should or shouldn't go into my digital poetry. And comment if you know how to use Shockwave or Flash, PLEASE!

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

-Laur

Summer dreams

Sometimes I dream about York. Isn't that a strange thing to dream about? This is the York I dream of, the one where the Common is green and lush and the fountain is dancing in the sunshine and the frisbees fly past your head every minute.

Instead campus is decked out like the North Pole, the temperature has dropped significantly and I am COLD COLD COLD!

So for now I suppose I'll dream about York in the warm sun of fall instead of the York Pole.

I hate winter.

-Laur

Time for a haircut, and other such epiphanies

Here is the latest from a batch of Laura and Emily pictures. You can see from her pose why she's so super. Not.

My bangs are too long. Today after a very exciting Shakespeare tutorial involving TA Lee Danes' dark side and the soliloquies of Hamlet the non-revenger and then a very disappointing gender studies tutorial on "Disgrace", I went to work (as quickly as possible as I had half an hour between the end of class and the beginning of shift) and dropped into mind-melting boredom. Other than a few high-maintenance customers and a great conversation about Georgian culture with Marika, there was really no excitement at all this afternoon. So I was standing at the cash desk, twirling my hair around my finger in predictable bored-girl fashion, when I realized that I needed a hair cut. Another $40 down the drain. Or I could do it myself and wind up looking like Boy George circa 1988. No thank you.

Last night at around 2 am I was woken from a dead sleep by a drunken phone call from one of my pub-frequenting friends. Our conversation went something like this:

E: LAURAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!

Me: Hi E. Are you out pubniting?

E: YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! (pause) Laura, you're cute heeheehee! LAURAAAAAGHHHH!

Me: E, honey, what time is it?

E: (very long pause) OH MY GAAAAAWD!!!!!!! WERE YOU SLEEPING?????

Me: Well, it is 2:00 in the morning, E.

E: I'M SO SOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRYYY!!!!!!! ARE YOU MAD AT ME?????

Me: No, but I would like to go back to sleep. Are you coming to see me at work tomorrow?

E: YEAH! Sing me a song tomorrow.

Me: Okay, goodnight.

E: LAURA, I LOVE YOU! YOU'RE SO GREAT! GOODNIGHT!

I've been in university for almost 3 years and have yet to attend any sort of pub night. After last night's experience, I think it merits at least one visit. Who knows, perhaps I'll make a drunken phone call or two myself.

GOOODNIGHT!!!!!

-Laur

South Africa

I've been reading a lot lately, and one of the books I just read is called "Disgrace" by J.M. Coetzee, an academic from South Africa. Coetzee (pronounced Co-ets-ah) is an Afrikaaner South African who, unlike most of his brethren, fought against apartheid when most supported it. As a result of both his anti-apartheid beliefs and his writing, Coetzee has pretty much been exiled from South Africa and while his books have garnered critical acclaim all over the world, he is hated by all in his home country.
I never really had an idea of what South Africa was like when I was a kid. I knew that people from that country in Canada were mostly white and had pretty accents, but nothing else. "Disgrace" gave me a really candid look at a country torn apart by racism and horrible crime, and people who refuse to change. My friend D (we won't name names) has been dating a girl from South Africa quite seriously for the last few years, and last year went to South Africa with her for an extended period of time. The horror stories he returned with haunted me for days, especially the ones about traffic accidents and bodies being removed from the ground in plain sight. I also read a story in grade 9 about a house in South Africa that the owners armed to the teeth with security devices to keep black vagrants from breaking into their home. What they didn't take into account was their curious young son, who tried to climb the cement fence to see what was on the other side and wound up being gored by barbed wire. It was a haunting story, made all the more sad by my new understanding of South Africa.
In a country where the reported rape rate is highest in the world and the government refuses to do anything worthwhile about AIDS, how could you ever progress? How could you ever rise above a short, brutal life?

Thoughtfully yours,

-Laur

Sex and the GTA?

I'm watching the first episode of Sex and the City in my Contemporary Literature course. How entertaining!!!
In lecture before this we discussed how the fantasy of Sex and the City has drawn so many people in. The book, which we read for the course, is considered to be the trendy, up-and-coming genre of Chick-lit, but apparently not a very good example. James, my prof, says that it isn't as revolutionary as we all think it is. I was kind of hurt by that. I didn't think it was revolutionary, just highly entertaining. Anyways, I've decided to just watch the show, love the characters, and enjoy.
Then I got to thinking about our city. Sex and the City takes place in Manhattan; what about the GTA? Do we have unmarried, independently wealthy, career-driven women running around trying to find the perfect man? Do they meet at Golden Griddle for brunch on Sunday mornings to discuss the death of romance, the modelizers, the country homes in Caledon and the private jets? Maybe I know one of these women and I never realized how closely her lifestyle paralleled that of Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Charlotte York and Miranda Hobbes. Weird.
Next time I got to Cora's for breakfast I'll look for a table of seemingly single women and wonder.

Welcome to the age of uninnocence.

-Laur

To boldly go where no one has gone before...

I have a confession to make...I have a tiny crush on Wil Wheaton. I know he's old and kind of a geek now, but I still adore him.
Who is this Wil Wheaton, you ask? Why, he's Ensign Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I borrowed the first season of the show from Richard, the guy I babysit for and an avid Trekkie, over the winter break and slowly worked my way through all the episodes, including the very interesting 'Encounter at Farpoint'. Now I'm into Season 2 and there's no going back.
Why do I like Wil Wheaton so much? Well, I've discovered that it's not so much Wil as it is Wes. Wesley is just so cute! He's such a genius but he's so socially inept, for example in an episode called 'The Dauphin': he meets a girl that he falls head over heels in love with from afar, and when he can't figure out how to woo her he asks a succession of his older bridge-crew friends what they would do. Worf explains in great detail how Klingon women roar at their suitors and throw heavy objects, and Riker and Guinan set up a very cheesy example of romantic language and come-ons for Wes in Ten Forward. Of course the romance is ruined when Wes discovers that his beloved is a shapeshifter who can turn into a giant hairy monster at will, but still...so adorable!
I've decided that if I ever had a chance to go on a date with Wesley Crusher, I would take him out for sushi and bubble tea and then we would sing karaoke. Very Asian, I know, but I think he would enjoy it.

Winberg out.

-Laur ;)

VFC Memories and Camp Nostalgia

Rachel Wayne, if you're reading this, I'm having a personal crisis of sorts and I need the moral and ethical leader of VFC to help me solve it :P
I recently received my camp contract and renewal letters from the City of Vaughan in the mail. They raised my pay rate and even though I'm dead set against going back to camp this summer, the money is very alluring. So I was chilling on facebook, culling out my groups because of something Emery Finkelstein said, and I decided to visit the Vlad Fantasy Camp group, for old time's sake.
It made me laugh so hard I thought I would puke.
There were good times during the summer, really, there were, but there were also times that I'm still having trouble getting past. Like the duplicitous head administration, skulking upstairs in their smelly offices, and the hell they put us lowly specialists, counsellors and directors through. I loved the people, the methalyne blue, the dunk tank and the krazy karaoke, but can I face going back to a workplace that tried to kill my soul?
CONUNDRUM!!!!!!
-Laura