Princess Jazz

I spent the beginning part of my Easter weekend writing a paper. (That was great fun, let me tell you.) I worked Friday evening and then went out for Fish 'n Chips with Justin at Molly Bloom's. There was live music and the food was good. As we sat there eating, him with a knife and fork, and me with my chopsticks, he remarked that we would make a pretty funny picture. I'm trying to teach him how to be Chinese, and although he can manage with the chopsticks, he still prefers a fork. SomedayI hope to fix that.....

Saturday night I went home to my parents' place. It was great to be back with all my siblings. Things are best when all 4 of us are together. We have so much fun.

Sunday morning was the annual Easter breakfast at my church - Kris even came this year (which totally made my day!) I sang on the worship team (that was a last minute idea) and then we had my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin over for lunch. When checking my email Sunday afternoon I found out that my friend Jessica's father had passed away on Good Friday. So after calling around and emailing people I arranged my plans for attending the funeral.

Monday was spent doing errands with my family and trying to calm my cowboy brother down by assuring him that "we won't be shopping for very long". Ha, he believed us. Later that evening I met up with Justin so he could stay at my parents' place so we could drive to the funeral together the next day. As weird as it was having him at my home, it was nice to have him visit. We played some video games and guitar and just generally hung out. Good times.

And then today. Today was a little different. We got all dressed up and drove the hour-plus to the town where the funeral was being held. It wasn't an overly sad funeral, as far as funerals go. He was a Christian, which always makes it easier to bear, and he had been sick for a very long time, so this wasn't exactly a shock. But still..... I can't imagine being in that place, and having to deal with that. I had no clue what to say to Jess. Even though I felt useless, I just wanted to be there. The service was nice and I feel like they expressed her dad's personality well. I'd never met him, but they gave off a good sense of who he was as far as I could tell. I don't even know what to write about all this. What can you say? There's nothing productive that can be said. I was glad to be there though.

After the service, we ate lunch at some Italian place, and then I had the great idea to get ice cream. Bad idea. We were both on the verge of throwing up we had so much ice cream. It was so messy we had to stand in a parking lot and drip all over the place. And we ended up throwing out over half of the ice cream. Stupid Dairy Queen and their ridiculous sizing. A "Small" should be small. Whatever.

So that was my weekend. Some fun times, some sad times, pretty boring for you all to read. But you can deal with it. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have something more random and exciting to report. We'll see.

I don't have much to say - my life's kind of random right now. I'm writing a paper for Social Work, I'm going home for Easter, and I've been having lots of good conversations lately. I guess that's the most significant and consistent thing in my life right now - relationship building. I've got some awesome new friends, and I've got some consistent pillars of strength in my life as well. Wow this sounds all dumb and poetic. Frig, I'll break it down and try to talk normally.
I've been chatting a lot lately with Embassy staff people (coincidentally all boys), and I feel like we've been "bonding" a bit. I'm happy about this. Also, Jessica came back to visit on Thursday and that was awesome because we/I really miss her. And also, I've been talking with Todd a lot more lately. I felt kind of cut off from him for a little while (distance does that) but recently things have been really good - we talk a lot again and I like that. I'm going to visit him next weekend and I'm fully expecting us to talk our faces off (along with a little bit of making out ;) ). I'm looking forward to that.

I think communication is one of my most favourite things. It's a good feeling to know that you're connecting with someone. This week at the Forum we were discussing Death, and that of course brings up the subject of Heaven and Hell. It got me thinking about Heaven. For me, the most exciting idea concerning living for eternity is that I'll be able to connect with people in a crazy-deep way forEVER! There will be no moving away, no long-distance relationships, no friendships going sour, none of that. Just blissful connectedness between each other and with God. How cool is that? The concept amazes me and makes me more comfortable with the whole idea of dying and leaving this world. (Not that I'm terribly uncomfortable with death anyways, I'll write more about that some other time.) It's just a cool thought.

Series One - The Basics
Name: Jasmine
Birthdate: March 10, 1983
Birthplace: London, Ontario.
Current Location: Waterloo, Ontario.
Eye Color: Green
Hair Color: Brown I guess (although I wish it were something much more fun!)
Righty or Lefty: Right
Innie or Outtie: Innie

Series Two - Describe
Your heritage: German
The shoes you wore today: Boots
Your hair: Clean! and in a braid
Your eyes: Wearing green mascara and crappy Quo brand mascara. Girls, listen to me carefully - do not buy Quo products. They're garbage.
Fears: crocodiles and alligators. (I detest them!!)
Your perfect pizza: Feta cheese, red onions, tomatoes. Lots of sauce and not much mozzarella.
One thing you'd like to achieve: Have children

Series Three - What is
Your most overused phrase in MSN: haha
Your thoughts first waking up: I always have 2 thoughts simultaneously: "what time is it?" and "what's my blood sugar at?" Always at the exact same moment.
The first feature you notice in the opposite (or same) sex: the way they smell
Your usual bedtime: late. 2 is a good time to go to bed.
Your greatest accomplishment: falling in love.
Your best memory: That day in Niagara Falls with Todd. We sat and had a picnic. I have a picture of it and that's probably one of my best memories. I don't know though, there have been so many awesome times in my life so far.

Series Five - Do You
Smoke: never even tried it
Swear: very extremely rarely. When I do, it's almost always a joke.
Sing well: I think so, but you'd have to ask someone you has heard me to know for sure.
Take a shower everyday: not usually, but lately yes because my house is so freezing cold it's the only way to get warm.
Want to get married: Yes! I'm getting married this summer.
Type with your fingers on the right keys: never
Believe in yourself: yes. I have pretty stable self-confidence.
Get motion sickness: all the friggin time.
Get along with your parents: yeah, we're tight.
Like thunderstorms: I love them!
Play an instrument: I used to play French Horn, but no more.

Series Six - In The Past Month, Did/Have You
Drank alcohol: I've tried it but I pretty much avoid it.
Done a drug: Insulin :)
Go on a date: I have/had a phone date tonight but I'm waiting for Todd's room mate to get off the phone so we can continue our date.
Go to the mall: I don't think so.
Been on stage: no, unless Karaoke counts. But that wasn't really a stage.
Been dumped: Nope.
Gone skating: No, but I wish I had.
Made homemade cookies: Yes.
Gone skinny dipping: never have.
Dyed your hair: I streaked it to get rid of my roots.
Stolen anything: not that I can think of.

Series Seven - The Future
Age you hope to be married: This summer! (sop, 22)
Numbers and Names of Children: 4 (or 6); Alexis, Julius, Theodore, Isabelle, but these are still very much up for debate!
Describe your Dream Wedding: White and green, reception at my farm. If you really want to know more, just ask me. I'm in the midst of planning it all right now.
What age do you want to die: I don't really care.
What do you want to be when you grow up: a mom.
What country would you most like to visit: I have no desire to travel, but if I did, I'd like to go to maybe India or Greece (and then I could go to Albania.)

Series Eight - The Present
Current Clothes: jeans, a sweater, a Care Bear t-shirt, socks, and undergarments. Sorry, nothing interesting today. ;)
Current Mood: Sympathetic - my mom's telling me a really sad story on the phone.
Current Taste: residual cake frosting
Current Hair: in a loose braid
Current Smell: cupcakes
Current thing you ought to be doing: talking to Todd, but his room mate is still on the phone.
Current Desktop Picture: a scene from Peter Pan
Current Worry: nothing really

*5 Things You Are Wearing*
1. Socks
2. Cheap Stitches jeans that I bought to console myself 2 years ago.
3. a lime green sweater
4. a Care Bear t-shirt
5. undergarments

*5 Things You Can See*
1. my carousel painting
2. random junk
3. manicure kit
4. many many picture frames
5. a huge pile of blankets

*5 Things You Are Doing Right Now*
1. Talking to my mom
2. Chatting online with Todd and Justin
3. Freezing
4. Listening to delirious
5. Wishing someone would crack my back for me.

*5 Things You Ate In The Last 24 Hours*
1. Cookies (for dinner)
2. Chips
3. Peach Yogurt
4. Bagels
5. Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Sidekicks with Tuna

*5 Things You Did So Far Today*
1. Went to my Cults class
2. baked cupcakes
3. had tea with Tanya
4. read boring textbooks
5. talked to Todd

*5 Things You Can Hear Right Now*
1. Todd
2. Delirious
3. Phone fuzz
4. My computer
5. Cynthia moving things around

*5 Colors You Can See*
1. Black
2. Silver
3. Lime green
4. Gold
5. Pink

*5 Thoughts In Your Head*
1. I miss Todd, and cuddling.
2. I think my sugar is low.
3. My vision is going weird.
4. I'm so blessed that both my parents are alive and relatively healthy.
5. I make way too many typos.

*5 People That Rock*
1. Jesus/God
2. Todd
3. my homegirls
4. Justin
5. Tanya (note that these are not really in an order, and there are many many many more people that I wish I could list)

So I'm currently in the Student Life Center waiting for Ridesafe so I can go home. I came from an Embassy Prayer planning meeting (which went well and was productive - yay!) and I figured I could wait in the quiet of the SLC and get caught up on some horrible but necessary Gerontology reading. How I was mistaken - the SLC is a giant party! There's some sort of festival going on which consists mostly of dancing from what I can see. But it's all good because it's beautiful brown people, in their beautiful Indian clothing, doing some very fun-looking dances.

It's so cool to be exposed to so many different cultures here at university. Growing up in my town, everyone was white. There was one black kid and one korean kid when I was young - and both of them were adopted by white families. Moving here for school was a bit of a culture shock, for two reasons. One - moving from the country to the city was a very big adjustment. But bigger than that was the shock of all the different looking people. Half my school is Asian/oriental, and another good sized portion are Brown. It's so cool to see the different expressions of their cultures; the food, the clothing, the languages. So Cool.

Anyone who knows me well knows about my love for immigrants. I think Canada is blessed to be so open to diversity. I've been thinking about this lately. how boring would our country be if everyone was just the same? It adds so much dimension to our communities and our country as a whole to have all the different cultures, not only present, but evident. It's neat that people can retain some of their own culture upon immigrating here. I know that if I were to emmigrate to some other country I would definitely want to hold on to my Canadian identity.

All of this rambling is just to say that I'm glad that we are the way we are as a country when it comes to the issue of cultural diversity. It's a cool thing to have a special unique heritage and to be able to celebrate that.

^That sounds like it could be the title of a break-up song about broken hearts. But what I'm referring to is real live red blood. That's right... I have yet another glucometer, and i'm stoked about it. (For those of you who are lacking the terminology, a glucometer is the little machine I use to test my blood 3 or 4 times a day.) As a member of the CDA (Canadian Diabetes Association) I get newsletters and stuff. The most recent letter came with a coupon for a free Freestyle Mini glucometer if I only bought a box of the test strips. So after dropping $90 on the strips (which is actually a good deal, I think my normal brand costs $106/box - and I get it all back from the insurance company anyway -) I got a free meter. I like it because it's tiny. Really it's juts ridiculously small. And apparently it hardly needs any blood to take a reading (yes!). AND... I can test on places other than my fingertips, like my arms and legs and hands. I've had other meters that could supposedly do this but I could never get them to work. Apparently I have no blood in my arms. But maybe with this new one, it'll work, which means my fingers can take a much needed break.
All of this probably isn't that interesting to any of you but to me this a great new (practical) toy. I guess I shoudl stop complaining about the useless CDA. Most of the time they suck but then every once in a while I get these sweet hookups and they prove their (sort of) worth.

I'm feeling good because I accomplished a lot on my paper today - more than I had planned! Also, I'm happy because I ate a lot of good food. Mmmmm. Snitzel and spaghetti. I discovered a better way to eat spaghetti today: chopsticks! Sooooo much better than a fork. I don't think I shall ever go back. Those asian people are genius.

I HATE the fact that I'm continuously forgetting to take insulin for what I eat. How am I becoming this dumb? I forget and then all of a sudden when I can't stop yawning, I think "Why am I so tired?" and then I realize the answer "Because my body is choking on all the freakin sugar in my blood!"
Dang.... I've GOT to start remembering this stuff. It's just a little bit important for my survival.
So now, I've pumped enough insulin into me to cover all the food I ate and I'm off to start drinking water like mad. If I drink enough water I can dilute my blood. (Sort of, it's a bit more complex than that but it works.)

I'm trying very very hard to focus on my paper but there are so many distractions! There is always something more interesting to read, or someone to talk to, but I have been doing pretty well so far I think (except for the hour that I spent at the Embassy Office keeping Steve company. What a whiny lonely boy.) But, I've already written 4 out the requisite 10 pages, so I'm feeling pretty good. Good enough, in fact, that I think i'll quit early and go for coffee with Steve at 5. I feel as though I deserve a reward for finally getting my butt in gear. : )

I skipped out of class early tonight so I could work on my paper at home, and as I was alking across campus I saw the weirdest thing. Spiderman was running around shooting people with webs from his wrist. True story. There was a guy dressed in full spiderman gear complete with tights and face-mask, who was shooting something (probably water?) out of spidey-gloves.
Very strange, and yet very cool. University is a crazy place with some very crazy people. It's reassuring to know that we have superheros looking out for us.

I figured out how to edit my links, so if you look over to the right, you'll see some links there. Two are craft sites that I use frequently, and one is a gallery of all my crafts (mostly knitting) so you can check it out to see what I've been up to.

If you have a site, or know of a site, that I should link to, let me know. : ) And that brings me to my second point - I have enabled comments. Most of you probably know how they work but some may not: just click on the word "comments" at the bottom of each post and you can enter your thoughts for all to read.

K, I need to work on my paper now.

I friggin hate school. I'm in the midst of working on a huge gerontology paper and I'm being reminded of how much I hate school and how glad I am to be graduating in a month and a half. But the depressing thing is that I'll likely be back in school next year. Granted, it will be college so it should be more practical and therefore more enjoyable, but still, it's school. Frig.

I've been slacking in my schoolwork for over a month now, and this week is my time to catch up. If I don't put some serious effort out over the next few days I'll be totally screwed. I have a 10 page critical review due a week from tomorrow and i'm just starting to gather articles. Aaaaahhh. For some reason though, I need this kind of pressure to get stuff done. When there's no pressure, I'm a slacker. Maybe someday I'll try to remedy that.

So, I said I'd post more about the retreat. I guess now is a good time (anything to procrastinate researching, haha!). We did a neat exercise called the Labyrinth, where we walked along a set-out path with different stations encouraging us to think about different aspects of ourselves and our faith. Some of the stations were just there, but some were really meaningful. I feel like I worked out some stuff within myself and came to a greater understanding of myself. I found some things in my subconcsious that I didn't really notice before. I like times of self-discovery like that. I feel like I've been blessed with the unique ability to be very in tune with my physical body - I always seem to know what's going on - and I'd like to be more in touch with my spiritual self. I like to know where my soul is at, what my spirit is saying. I think that knowing yourself can lead to a greater sense of satisfaction in life and much deeper joy than if you just live life for the sake of living. I guess that's in line with the quote "the unexamined life is not worth living." (Who said that? Plato? Socrates? I don't remember.)

..... all of that was basically to say that this weekend away was beneficial. Also it was a lot of fun! We wrote stupid songs, sang karaoke (which was made especially entertaining by Steve's performance of Wild Thing!), and just hung out a lot. The food was amazing and it made the weekend just that much better. Anyone who knows me well knows how important food is to me - I guess that's part of coming from a German family. Food is a huge part of German culture. So, my thanks go out again to Mel and Gary for the awesome meals and baking!

Now I really should go research. :(

I just got back tonight (5:30) from a Embassy retreat. It was such a good weekend. There was a good mix of hanging out, getting to know people better, fun competition (even though I generally detest competition) and spiritual reflection time.

I want to post more but I'm distracted at the moment and really should be reading my textbook. So.... I'll write more later.

I realized yesterday that if I don't start catching up on schoolwork very soon, I'll be completely screwed. Therefore I am very busy reading up on contraception, abortion and other related topics for my Human Sexuality class. I'm glad I'm taking this course - it feels like practical knowledge, unlike the rest of university. But reading about the different abortion techniques this morning was so hard. It's such an awful thought that people are routinely killing unborn children, and then to read about how they use vacuums and forceps to tear the fetus from the uterus is almost too much. It's shocking and revolting and it makes me sad that Canada is so much in favour of this. What a messed up world we live in.

I'm now off to read about hermaphrodites and intersexuals. Should be interesting.

Well I got even more surprises for my birthday today. First off, as I was leaving for school I checked the mail and found a package from Todd with a mixed CD he made for me. I absolutely adore mixed CDs because it's like having a little part of the person who made it with you. This cd has a lot of sentimental songs for which Todd wrote up little explanations. I love that! Also, it came with a very cute ducky card which I am going to frame and hang in our apartment next year. The best part though was a compliment Todd wrote up for me. One of the most recent times we were hanging out he gave me the best compliment I've ever received, so for my brithday he wrote it out for me. I'll keep it forever. This was an awesome little something to receive on my birthday. We'll celebrate for real whenever we see each other next, but it totally made everything feel real to receive something from my man. ; )

After Embassy staff, Justin gave me gifts and he went a little over the top but it was very much appreciated. From him I received "A New Kind Of Christian" and "The Story We Find Ourselves In" - both books that I very much wanted to read, so now I definitely will. Also, some Jelly Belly jellybeans and a couple bookmarks (a hippo and Princess Jasmine).
We also had some good talks about God and church and life.

Friends are good, and God has blessed me with some very good ones!

Cynthia took me out for dinner, and Lyndsay gave me a picture frame and some more killer Care Bear socks! Yay for socks!!

Well, goodnight y'all.

I really like the smell of clean laundry. I keep sniffing my sleeve because it smells so good!

Also related to smell- last night I was waiting for the bus and there was a guy also in the little bus shelter thing and his cologne was very extremely strong, but also very nice. So I told him he smelled good and asked what kind of cologne it was. Is that weird? I don't know, I tell random people they smell good all the time. I figure it's kind of the same as saying "hey, nice shirt." People usually enjoy compliments.

Here's some kind of exciting news for the day - it's my birthday! I'm 22 today. It doesn't really feel birthdayish though, but i'm totally fine with that. I guess my mind is other places. My housemate Cynthia left me a gift on the kitchen table this morning and I opened it first thing this morning. I got the raddest Care Bear socks EVER. They have fuzzy pink stars on the back. Also, a very hip Care Bear calendar which I put up right away and I plan to incorporate some of the pages into a purse when the year is up. And finally, she also gave me UNO which is the best card game of all time. And I loves games, so this is good. Yay for nice room mates!

Now I am off to clean my room - I did 3 loads of laundry last week and just dumped them in a pile on the floor. So I think it's time to put it all away. I'm tired of choosing my clothes from a heap on the floor.

Today was a great day. I worked 9-3 and it was pretty fun. Very relaxed, just hanging out, playing with toys, etc. It was an especially good shift though because Greg was working as well and he's by far my favourite staff to work with. It's frustrating though because I never have anything to say to him. I think he's cool and all but we really don't have much in common, so conversation topics are limited and I end up being all quiet. (Which for me is pretty unusual.) But whatever, that's just the way things are I guess.

After work I went out for dinner with my friend Victoria. She took me out for my birthday, and gave me a sweet cookbook called "Cooking for Two" which will come in very handy next year. It's sad that we don't hang out so much anymore, but whenever we do I always enjoy our time together. She's an amazing girl. I told her tonight that if she were Catholic I think she could be a saint. She didn't quite agree. :)

Then I came home and talked to Todd for a long time. He's fun to talk with. I wiped out on a patch of ice today and killed my hand. I have a HUGE bruise. I told Todd that I needed him to kiss it better so he sent a kisss through the phone. What a funny guy. He probably won't be thrilled with me posting that, but he can handle it. :)

That's all I have to say for now.

Wow, it's been way too long since I've done anything on my site (www.princessjazz.i8.com .) I realize that I dislike my site and so I think I'll abandon it completely and just use this. We'll see how that goes. For the past few months I've had no desire to keep up a blog, I guess I've been knitting too much. I'm totally addicted to reading about other people's lives (there are 4 that I check pretty regularly, some on a daily basis) but there's only so much to read. I catch myself checking back multiple times throughout the day hoping for updates and being frustrated with boredom. So. . . I think a cure to that would be to post my own stuff. Hopefully between that and knitting I'll never be bored. :)

So for my first post since this new resolution, I want to share a funny quote. Today Todd and I were discussing how I enjoy creating awkwardness, and this was his description of how I handle awkward social situtaions: "You take situations where there's this fragile sensitive awkwardness and you throw a brick right through it!" It's funny because it's true, and a lot of people find that annoying (I know I would if I weren't me) but luckily Todd can handle it. (Unless it involves his parents and then he TOTALLY cannot handle it! So far I'm respecting that, but someday, when I'm comfortable enough with them....watch out.)

I think that's all I have to say for now. I may be back though because I have time to kill between classes and I forgot to bring any knitting with me. I think I just might die.