Posts (page 2)

When I started college, I was always on MSN. I was always chatting with friends about how they were getting along in school with roommates, and adjusting to being away from home. I was always typing away on my keyboard with someone far away, about anything.

Lately though, my fingers have been moving for something called Facebook. For the risk that someone doesn't know what Facebook is, let me explain. It's a way for you to leave messages for your friends over the internet. It's a way for you to connect with people that you haven't seen in awhile, or that you haven't talked to in awhile. On my Facebook, I have people from highschool that I never even talked to in highschool.

I find myself leaving messages for friends, and leaving little comments on photos, when in fact, I could just chat with the person on MSN.

But my point is this; has a new realm of chat started with the creation of Facebook?

We can thank Web 2.0 for this little creation. We can thank that new found tool, for us connecting with people..even though we barely talked with those people when they were standing right in front of us.

I'm sitting in the I-wing of the beloved Mohawk College, that all you journalists, as well as Wayne, are so happy to be at every day.;...I'm sure, lol.

I'm sitting here with a fire burning beside me in a fireplace. Peopel around me are using the computers, checking their e-mail, looking ast hough they have so much important stuff to do.

I'm sitting here, looking creepy, looking at them.

It just hit me though. I can't believe how fast the time is going. It seems like only yesterday I left Walkerton for Hamilton, and was adjusting to the city life. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was on Christmas Break. I can't believe that it's Febraury all ready. Where did January go?

Take advantage of your time here, kids. The time is going to fly.

Keep having this dream about my old man
Im 10 years old, and hes holding my hand
Were talkin on the front porch watchin the sun go down
But it was just a dream he was a slave to his job and he couldnt be around
So many things I wanna say to him
But I just placed a rose on his grave, and I talk to the wind

But I dont know why they say grown men dont cry
I dont know why they say grown men dont cry, dont cry

This is taken from a song that I've listened to over and over again. It's a song that brings a certain something to your heart...if you couldn't already tell. The song is called "Grown Men Don't Cry" by Tim McGraw.

I remember when I heard it first. I had just frieshly got my G2 lisence, and I was making the most of my new found freedom. A long silver road, with a yellow line flashing beside me, was my day. The windows were down, the radio was up and tuned to a country station. This song came on the radio. Sure, I was looking at the road. Sure, I was watching for signs. Sure, I was looking like I was "living the life of Riley" (who is Riley anyways?), but in that Black Explorer, I was feeling the sentimental pinch of a song  that stole my attention. I stared down the road, but my ears were pasted to the song.

People wonder why I like country music. I noticed it most when I left my little country town, and came to pursue Journalism at Mohawk. When people asked "what music do you listen to?" I would always kind of hang my head, and say that I liked country.

With a dumbfounde look on their face, people say "why?"

It's because of songs like "Grown Men Don't Cry". It's because the songs that you hear on a country station are about the struggles, the heartache, the triumph, and the victories that people experience everyday in life.

In other words "Life is a dance, you learn as you go, sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow." This is a song performed by John Michael Monthgomery entitled Life's A Dance. It's country, and the lyrics are "right on the money" in my books.

So, that's why I listen to what I listen to. That's why when you turn on my television CMT will probably pop up on the screne, and why when you look through my collection of CDs you'll see country stars, and why I'm so in love with Tim McGraw, and why his picture is on my Vox account.

 If you want to see the rest of the lyrics to "Grown Men Don't Cry", here ya' go: http://www.azlyrics.com/m/mcgraw.html

Today, while I was driving to Hamilton from Walkerton, I got a phone call on my cell-phone. After "fishing" for my little pink phone out of my pocket, and stummbling between holding the steering wheel and turning the steering wheel to make a left turn, I flipped open the phone and held it close to my ear.

On the other end of the phone was my mother. She sounded sad. I asked what as wrong.

My fourteen year old mutt, named Toby, had just had his collar clipped to the end of a leash, and was being driven to the vetrinarian by my sad father. My fourteen year old "buddy" had been suffering for awhile from Kidney Failure, and cancer.

Needless to say, it was time.

I'll miss that dog. At one point he was just a pup, thinking he could chew the tires off our fourwheelers, or the plastic of my mother's little greenhouse, and then he was a senior. His floppy ears once stood up at every sound that sounded through the bush beside our house. Near the end, his floppy ears hung just a little lower.

If I would have known that this was going to be the last day that that dear old dog would be in my home, I think I would have stopped on my way out the door, and gave that dog another pat, just to say good bye.

This afternoon I found myself flipping through my scrapbooks. Still storm stayed in my home, I found things to keep me occupied.

I'm an avid scrapbooker. In the summer most of my spare time (as well as most of my paycheck) goes towards little decadent stickers, papers, and ribbons that I bond together to make a keepsake. I've become an expert with a pair of scissors, a few stickers, and some pictures.

One of my prize scrapbooks is the one I started last summer. On the outside is a red cover, with a gold ribbon around the outside. Inside are keepsakes from every thing in my life. I've got receipts from a class trip to Quebec City. I've got a picture of my first cat. I've got an appointment card from when I got my braces, pictures of me playing the piano, a pamphlet from my first job. There is a scap of wrapping paper from the Christmas of the new millenium.

There are so many memories in that book.

When you flip open the cover of this scrapbook, you see stickers of bubbles, a bathtub, and some soap. They're pasted onto black bristol board which borders them. In the middle of the page is a picture of me. I don't now how old I am, but I'm young enough to be in diapers...and young enough to have my hands and arms covered in mud. You can tell it's me. If my roots of my blonde high-lighted hair weren't showing, you wouldn't see that the hair colours are the same. I've got the same "I mean business" look on my face that I do now, and it's the same porcelain skin tone.

It's me, and yet it's a total stranger.

I just turned twenty years old. Now I wouldn't be caught dead playing in mud...and if i did wear diapers I'm very sure I wouldn't let my mother take my picture. Things have changed...

The girl in that picture has no idea that her Labrador Retreiver named Toby would be sick with kidney failure, that she would go through the pain of losing her very first cat which was killed by a car, that she would love writing so much that she would decide to make a career out of it, that she would end-up going to Hamilton for school, a place where she swore she would never go. This young toddler doesn't know that when she turns sixteen she'll get her license, that when she's eighteen she'll go to prom and have a blast. This young girl doesn't know that her first boyfriend will come near the end of her 19th year. They'll meet in a bar, and that he'd be gone right before her 20th birthday. This girl doesn't know that she'll make the kind of friends that last a lifetime, that call when you're hurt, that say they miss you and mean it, that have so many nicknames for her. This girl doesn't know that one day she'll be walking out of the dry cleaners and she'll fall flat on her face, with her freshly sewn-up vest falling beside her. This girl doesn't know that she'll be a big fan of country music, but still love the sone "Build Me Up Buttercup", to the point where she dances when no one is watching...and she'll get caught. This girl doesn't know that some day, she'll buy a pair of underwear that says "On the naughty list". Ok, I've gone too far.

Yes, this girl certainly doesn't know what she's in for, and neither does the one holding the scrapbook.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, just like the song goes, is a dance. You learn as you go, sometimes you lead sometimes you follow.

I've learned that it's the little surprises of happiness that makes life grand. It's the little spurts of hurt that makes you strong and makes you wise. It's the people that miss you, and that you miss, that matter most. It's the way you hold your chin up high, when the world keeps trying to push it down. It's the way that you live your life, that makes it the best it can be.

It's only on Christmas morning when I wake-up to find my father sitting in his chair watching television. It's 9:46am, and he's there. He couldn't make it into work today. Just like in the "old days", me and my family is storm stayed.

My blog yesterday talked about how bad the weather is here in Walkerton. It hasn't changed much, but then again it has. The main roads have baracades set-up, the ploughs are taken off the road, and the only roads that you take into town are blocked off. So, it is different from yesterday. Me and my family are pretty much stranded at my home for the day.

The schools in the area are closed. I imagine myself driving through town and seeing children playing in piles of the fresh fluffy snow. I remember when I was a kid and an unexpected Snow Day would pop up. I'd find myself showing my textbooks to the side for the remote, a blanket, and some hot chocolate.

Every so often I'll look over my shoulder, and through the big window behind me, and I'll see streaks and spirals of white snow flowing past the window. Other times I'll look out the window and see glimpes of what looks like the sun trying to come out. It's  strange.

So, it looks like this is going to be another day of being stuck in my home. It looks as though this is going to be another day of 60's music, and domg some homework. It looks like this is going to be another day when Laura goes crazy from boredom....although something tells me this assignment is going to be taking that boredom away.

The song goes like this; "oh the weather outside is frightful". Here, in Walkerton, this couldn't be more true. I look out my window, which looks over two farms, a large lawn, a bush, and a highway, and all I see is a blanket of white. When I open the front door of my home, flip on the light on the porch, and take a good look outside, I see a snow drift on my front porch.

This girl is storm stayed in her house all day...and she's going crazy.

I found myself playing with my hair, trying on every peice of clothing that I own, and even listening to my Mother's CD called "Happy Days of The 60's", which features such classics as "Sugar Sugar" and "Midnight Cofession".

I even found myself in my warm black coat, in my winter boots, and in my warm scarf, with the car keys in my hand. Then I found myself before my mother, who quickly told me that I was too precious of a cargo to die in a snow storm.

So, here I am, wondering just what to do with myself.

I have always been intimidated by the gym. Skinny people, with special excercise clothes, water bottles, sweat bands, and MP3 players clipped onto their clothing were the kinds of people that enter and exit the gym. These people had a certain "look" that goes along with the gym. That certain "yeah I work out, I know I look great, yes I can run faster than you on the treadmill" kind of look. These people enter the gym with a "boom" confidence. They exit the gym because they had just finished using a machine where you climb Mount Everist, and they would have swam across The Atlantic, but someone was using that machine at the moment....and maybe they'll run to their car just to work out some more!

I enter the gym because I thought I saw a friend in there I wanted to talk too, and I exit the gym because I entered it because I thought I saw a friend in there I wanted to talk too. Or in this case, I entered the gym because of a promise to a good friend, and I exited the gym because they don't want you living there.

In gym class through highschool and elementary school I was always one of the last poor souls that panted and waddled their way around the finishing lap, while the rest of the class sat on the sidelines and hoped I would finish soon...afterall they were missing Oprah. I'm only kidding. When I found that the class was getting annoyed, I just lied and said I had done all the laps, when in fact, I didn't. I'm bad. So you can see why this would be "one giant leap for mankind."

But last Monday, I threw on my sweat pants that I had bought for an occasion such as this. I put on my most comfortable t-shirt. I threw on my "not so suitable for excercise but will get me through the torture" running shoes, and then I headed downstairs of Mohawk residence, to the gym.

There I was. All five feet, six inches, walking on the treadmill. I pushed the arrow up. The treadmill went faster. My legs didn't hurt. I pushed the arrow again. Wow. I could handle that one too! Look at me go! I'm excercising! I'm doing fabulous. I've been on this treadmill for 30 minutes.

Then came the guy with the sweaty hair. He had all the characteristics of a excerciser that I listed above. He stepped onto the treadmill.

I thought I was doing great. This guy looked like he was trying to race a deer. He just kept pushing the arrow, that by the time he lifted his finger of of, was about to explode from all the numbers it raced through. 

There went my "boom" confidence.

But yet, I keep entering the gym. I keep going. I step on the treadmill, and I give it a whirl for as long as I can.

Writing this, it's Wednesday, and I have been going to the gym since Monday. Rome wasn't built in a day..and neither was Laura's excercise routine. I think I'll go tomorrow. 

So, this is my first blog. I've never blogged before, I think it's kind of stupid, but for the sake of my online journalism credit I guess I'll give it a try. See ya in class guys.