Home for the Holidays :)

I'm home. I got in Friday at 2 pm. I took the bus in, It was 5 and 1/2 hours, which was short compared to the 8 hour trip I had to take for Thanksgiving. It was quite an adventure getting back home, which included my friends staying up ALL night with me and delicious Cinnabon and Timmy's. You guys are awesome.
I slept most of my first day back, I was exhausted. Ok I slept the entire first day I was here. My sleeping schedule is all messed up now, I kind of forgot that most normal people go to bed at around midnight... oh well It's going to get even more messed up when school starts again, I don't need to sleep anyway, sleep is for the weak.

Anyway, I'm done shopping but I still have to wrap my gifts and some little things that I need to finish up -_-; and only 3 days left.... I hope this all works out.

I'm glade to be home. Real FOOD first of all. and of course being with my family is nice. But i don't want to get all mussy on the blog, they i know i love them lots already :)


I'm switching majors next year. I want to switch to painting and drawing. I don't know what I'll minor in, maybe photography or something like that. I'm also thinking about ceramics or printmaking as possible minors, but I don't know if I'm good enough in either to make it. I've kind of been planning on switching since I was accepted to OCAD and not accepted to Ryerson. But I'm thinking about Ryerson anymore. I might do fashion design after I get my BFa in Painting and Drawing but there are academies that I can go to, I don't have to go to Ryerson.

Ok I've bitched about the res food a lot, but what can I saw, -_- I've been eating a lot of take out the last 2 or so weeks and when I'm not eating take out, I'm eating instant ramen noodles, or canned ravioli. There's a stove in the basement, I think, if I get a little frying pan, I'm going to start making grill cheese sandwiches and eggs. I love grill cheese sandwiches. mmmmmmm

A friend and I are planning on moving out at the end of the school year. We're looking for an apartment in Kensington Market. Apperently it's pretty nice there and the rent seems reasonable. All of our other friends are going to be moving out of the res anyway, so there's no point staying. We also want to get a kitty, which we'll probably get from the animal shelter.


That's all I have to talk about for now.

ttyl
~ash
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My Yoga Mat Bag

I made a bag for my yoga mat in September and I never had the time to post an entry about it. I really like it. It's made from thin acid wash jean, which complements my bright orange juice coloured mat.

I don't have much to right about. It has a draw string and strap that's just the right size for my shoulders. It's sung enough to hold the mat rolled up, but lose enough that I can get it on easily. Nothing's worse then a bag that doesn't fit what it was made to fit *cough cough* sleeping bags *cough cough*

Here's the acid was jean, I bought this for my jacket I made for my Ryerson Fashion Portfolio. I still have so much left. Actually I did a school project the other day, using this jean.

It's all cut up ad ready to be sewn. Once again I didn't use any kind of pattern, I just took some lose measurements and cut.

Sewing it on my mom's sewing machine. :p It is getting used, not as often as I'd like,  but what can I say.

The finished product. I'm quite happy with it. Too bad I've only gone to do yoga once since the start of the year :( It made carrying my mat the subway easy though, which is always good.











That's it. My yoga mat bag.

ttyl

Ashley
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Crunch Time

All is coming down on me now.I didn't drop any classes either, so I'm still at full course load (5 classes). I have 4 big projects due next week. This I have a huge headache of course and I'm sitting in this awful Design process class. I'm so sick of this prof and his ultra vague project.

I just had finished a presentation that went... well ya it went.
And tomorrow I have a project due -_- I've been having a lot of trouble with this project, cause i missed 2 of the classes, so I misses out on a couple of chances to get feed back from the prof.

One of the pieces of a bigger project

The project due tomorrow is a proposal for street art. I have to include drawings showing the piece in perspective, multi-view, detail sketches, and what I have here on the right, a layered collage of hand drawn and photography.

My concept is the idea of us being plugged and also my site is union station, so I'm also incorporating the idea of the transportation of people/information. My prof said once that union station is a heart of the city. It's supposed to look like it's made of wires and tubes, coming out of the ground with tubes and wires coming out in all directions.

Anyway, I kind of just wanted to talk about that so i could justify showing this picture, I'm very proud of it XD That and as soon as I'm done this project it's actually easy sailing, I don't even have to cram to study for my exam, I have a whole week to study. :)

This past 2 weeks have really been crunch time though. I haven't had much time to hang out with my friends :( I miss them :p I think I'm going to treat myself with something nice :) usually i take a bath during exam week, but... I don't think I'm going to do that at my res, so I think I'll wait 'til I go home.

I can't wait to go home, I'm still sitting in this class and I'm soo hungry.

ttyl
Ashley
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Being Sick in University

Ya It really sucks. For the first week I manged to super trope my way through it, but by the end of that week i was a wreck, I spent most of my second week trying to re-cop. Although I wasn't as sick, I was beyond exhausted, a couple days i didn't even leave my bed. I knew this would happen, I've always tended to try and work until I burn out. I just wish it could have been a week that i didn't have 4 things due :(

This weekend I've managed to get my act together and I've gotten stuff done. Which makes me feel much better mentally. I think I had an anxiety attack the other day, but I honestly can't say I remember, cause the past couple days have been a blur.

I had to get a sick note to cover the week I missed. It was a long wait at the walk-in clinic and I almost fell asleep in the waiting room, but I finally got it. It cost $20, which I wasn't too impressed about, what could that possible cover, the doctors time is covered in his salary, and the piece of paper wouldn't be more then a couple cents :( I don't understand. So I now have the most expensive piece of paper ever, tacked up on my bulletin board. XC

I need to go back to doing work now,  just wanted to give a little update on what was going on with me.

Ashley
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Going Home for Thanksgiving

We are now at the half way point in the semester - Week 6 out of 12! I have been running my ass off everyday to get homework and projects done. My marks are "standard", which means they are crap compared to most of my high school mark, especially if you look at my high school art marks. I think high schools need to do something about this. Grades have become so over inflated in the past couple years, this is ridiculous. They think that mumbling a quite warning of our grads dropping %15-20, when we start university is enough to prepare us for what we are about to face, is ludicrous.
SO anyway, I would like to discuss that more, but I nothing constructive to say about it. :)

I came back home for Thanksgiving and I brought my very dear friend with me :) It was an exhausting weekend, and we didn't get any homework done and worst of all we had a midterm the day after thanksgiving -_-; We tried to study on the way back to Toronto, but we both ended up passing out on the way home. I studied that night until my brain went numb. I studied a little bit that morning., but I'm right in the middle of a cold, so this has been a challenge. I felt I did ok on my midterm, I must at least pasted. Right? :-/

I had a good time in Ottawa and it was nice seeing my family again. I can't wait for Christmas :), especially cause when i come up for Christmas, i wont have work, so i can actually relax... and not to brag... I have a whole month off :D nah nah nah nah :P I'm really looking forward to doing all that Christmas I want to do, with no school stress :) I want to back cookies and watch back to back Christmas specials and play with the kids :) weeeee :) I'm also going to paint. I want to paint a bunch.

I'm locking myself in my room this weekend to do homework, I have quite a bit to do and I'm still feeling quite sick. I completely lost my Friday because i slept the whole day hoping that it would make this cold go away :(
Boy was I wrong.

Well, back to work for me :)
There's a little something I've been meaning to post, but i still haven't gotten around to it... well you know it is, I'll get to it eventually.

Ttyl,
Ash
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First 3 Weeks of School

I was going to post on the first day of classes, but you can imagine how busy it was....
Then i intended to write about the whole first week...
Here we are 3 weeks in to the semester and i still haven't posted anything

Yes I've been busy with school work, but it's not just that, a big part of it is that when i am done my school work the last thing i want to be doing is sitting in front of the computer for another hour writing an entry or going on facebook, etc. I've been spending a lot of time cultivating my human interactions. XD hahaha, ya... no I've just been chilling with people. It's a lot easier to de-stress when your with relaxed people then by yourself, who as all stressed out and uptight. :p

I've had a steady stream of work to do, but I'm finding it manageable at the moment. It's more manageable then high school homework, because I know I only have one thing due a day, except on Tuesday's (I have 2 lectures Tuesday, so there will never be anything to hand in those days) and I can actually spend all day working on something at home instead of being stuck at school doing nothing useful for hours on end.

I have a job now. It's a campus job. My title is Student Monitor. Pretty much I fill in where ever they need someone. So for the next 2 weeks I'm selling textbooks. Other things that might come up is supervising art shows, supervising the computer labs, if they need to set up a show etc. It's like being on call, but they have to take into consideration my class schedule. I had my first shift today. It went.. well? not really, but it was too easy. I got there a little before 8:30, and picked up the box, then i went to the class I was supposed to be selling them to. The prof tells me he hasn't introduced the book to the class, and to come back next week.... that makes next week their only chance to buy the book... oh well their loss. So I turned around with my box and went all the way back downstairs and returned the box of books. Then i came home, cause my class wasn't til 3:30. ya, nice... the prof was kind of a douche about it. w/e

I've been wondering around town with my friend when we have time. We went to Chinatown, and Kensington market and down Bloor St a little bit. I went to the Eaton's Centre with another friend. I obviously didn't spend any or very little money when we were out :( My biggest expenses have been lunch and art supplies. The next biggest will probably be my Internet bill... and i got a good deal on it.

My new phone is working beautifully. :) The only thing that makes me sad is that it doesn't work in the subway, but what can I expect really?

I'm thinking about getting a tattoo, but that's not really a new thing. One of my friends was talking about getting a tattoo and so the plan is to get our tats together. I would like to make it clear that I am NOT getting a tattoo just because she is. It is something I've been thinking about for a long time, the timing now seems right and going with someone else will make it less scary. The only problem is that what I want to get is going to be outrageously expensive and possible take more then one session. Ya so we going to start saving now XD eventually I'll have enough. I figured while I'm at it I might as well get my ears pierced since I've never had them done. All in due time.

That's all I have to say right now. I'll try to update again in about a week or 2.

ttyl,
Ashley
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2nd Day of Orientation and New Phone!

Yesterday I had my last day of orientation. It was ok, it wasn't as exciting as the first day. I think a lot of people were exhausted. I went and did yoga in the park, then there was an Aboriginal Drumming Ceremony, which was really neat. Then I went to the DIY sketchbook workshop. I was getting tired, so I went to get my photo taken for my student ID and then I went home. I had a late lunch and then went to pick up my new phone. :D I'm quite happy with it.

It's pretty and has a cute little ring when I get a text. It was difficult to find a place that sold phone cards for it, but i found one that was up the street about a block away. I know that doesn't sound to bad, but do you know how many convenience stores there are here. I walked in too at least 5 or 6 before getting there.

I've met a bunch of interesting people here and at school. I say this cause everyone always asks.

Oh and I got my first reading assignment today XC I got an email form the prof with the book list and what she wants us to have read by Tuesday's class :( I'm not sure when I'll be able to pick up the book either, I think the book store is closed this weekend. Gerr. The book is for my Art History Class and it's $131. :(

I have a project post coming up. :) If the html isn't being a bitch, I'll have it posted tomorrow. :)

ttyl
Ashley
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First Day of Orientation

I had my first day of orientation today. It was fun, but really exhausting. I met a lot of people. holy crap. SO many people. I got some free stuff, and free food. That's always a major plus :D I'm going to go to day 2, because they have some interesting activities that I want to check out. In the morning there's going to be yoga. Then there's going to be an Aboriginal Drumming Ceremony, which will be pretty sick. That reminds me, in my home town there's a forest that's going to be cut down, and they had an Aboriginal blessing ceremony for the forest. I really wish I could have made that, but it was around the time I was moving. :( Well anyway, There's going to be a couple of workshops, including making your own sketch book (I just used up the last pages in mine), then making your own chopsticks. After that I plan on going to get my student ID card photo taken. I went by the place today and the line went all the way around the 2nd floor. @_@

And it looks like after that I'll be able to go pick up my new phone. I'm ditching my current service provider *cough*virginmobile*cough* because they kept saying they fixed the problem with my phone and the new number, but it was never fixed. I can't be here with NO phone what so ever. It's making my life very complicated. You'd be surprised how many things I fill out that require a number... some of those may be raffle tickets *cough cough* but anyway. (Free art supplies, who could say no to that?)
It looks like I have almost everything sorted out. Once I get my student ID, I'll be able to get my metro pass and I'll be all ready to face a new school in a new city!

That reminds me, I took the subway to school for the first time. It's actually pretty straightforward. The only thing I'm worried about is getting something like eastbound and westbound mixed up. It can be really disorienting being down there. And once I got up to street lever I ended up going the completely wrong way, the walking direction on the TTC travel planner were wrong (or possible poorly worded, as the case maybe) I was almost at Ryerson when I realized I was going the wrong way. XD The guy handing out the school agenda at OCAD thought that was amusing. Which btw, the school agenda are actually pretty awesome. I don't know what to do know, cause I spent a good couple hours customizing the one I bought... oh well.

Yay for nonsesical ranting.

That's it for tonight, I've got to get to bed. I went to bed kind of late last night....

~Ashley
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(and the drama llama that was bothering me is gone. I'm quite glad it came and left, I was being quite foolish before he showed up)

I'm here!

So the day has finally arrived! I'm now living in Toronto. I got here yesterday and I unpacked my room with help from my mother. We had to stop by a mall to pick up an odd or end that I forgot about. I took the subway for the second time ever. It's actually really easy and fast. I don't have wifi in my room at the moment, so I'm using the wifi in the student lounge. The lounge is in the basement of the building and you can hear the subway trains go by XD
It's pretty quite, which is nice :) The bed seems ok, a little on the hard side. The wall paint colour is... intresting, but I covered it with posters.

After my mother left at noon, and i wasn't really hungry so I skipped lunch. I made tea, and talked to my boyfriend. I told him about all the shit I have to do this week, when it hit me. I should get started! So I started by going to my bank to drop off my birthday money. It was a farther walk then I anticipated. My feet were killing me by the time I got there and I still wanted to go to the mall that was the opposite way. So I trek back up the street, past my res and continue on to the mall. The mall is a lot closer to my place then the bank is, so it wasn't so bad. After walking in the mid-day sun for half an hour I welcomed the over air conditioned building. First I had to find a kiosk for my cell phone provider, because not having a local number is the root of all the other problems that need to be solved. I got that set up, and the guy said that it should activate in about 15 min. ... Well 2 and a 1/2 hours later (which is right now as I write this) My phone knows it has a new number... but the mobile network doesn't seem to... yay... I'm sure it'll fix it's self... if it doesn't I have a number I can call to fix it... but uhm no phone? ... Like I said it's all good.

The next thing I did was find a store for my Internet provider. I got that all set up and made an appointment for the guys to come set it up. When I got home I opened the box and said to myself "this is easy!" I started to set up and it was all easy and dandy until I got a message saying that the DSL wasn't turned on for my phone line and to contact the provider... I guess I'll wait for the guys to come Tuesday to set it up. Darn... :( The only problem is that I gave them my new cell number to contact me... and It doesn't work at the moment... shit
Like I said, I'm sure I'll get the phone issue solved well before Tuesday.

Tomorrow is another busy day... and/or another day of disappointment... Tomorrow the financial aid office starts handing out OSAP. They only see 120 students a day for this. That means I have to be there at 8:30 am sharp to get in line. It takes 10-15 minutes to see each person. I think I might take a book with me...

It was a really busy day and I still have a drama lama to deal with. I thought I left him at home...

I haven't gotten around to putting up posters, cause they are all sill curly from being rolled up :(

My orientation is is the 1st and 2nd of September then I'm not sure what happens. Guess I'll have to see.

~Ashley
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Making a bag of Potpourri

First of all I'd like to start by asking, who the hell came up with the spelling for potpourri? I think I will shoot them! =_=

 Anyway, on to what this is about! I had a pile of dried roses, I received these roses (freshly cut of course) for my graduation back in June. Sadly it was time to finally put the roses out of their misery, they were shedding petals and leaves everywhere.

 I saved the petals from 4 roses and made potpourri with it. I made a bag for it today. The only thing that I don't have is some rose essential oil, so I'll have to add that later.

Here is the lace I used to tie the bag.

 And this is some stitch detail. All done by hand.

And the finished product....

I'm glad I took the time to do this today. It's been awhile since I've actually finished something I've started. I didn't take long to do. Maybe about 1 hour.
(and by the way, it took longer to format this blog post then to make the silly thing. I had to do most of it html coding, which I'm very proud of myself. It's been 4 years since I've touched html code. Blogger really needs to work on the formatting issues with Compose mode)

~Ashley
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Update: School stuff exploding in my face...

Not anymore :D
yay!!!!!
I talked to the guy for the Faculty of Design and he said that they are opening up more sections for the winter semesters! That means everything is all good. I just have to tell osap and resp that I will be registered full time and everything will be good! :P I hope
yay!!! Today was a good day :)
That's what I chanted to myself last night before going to sleep "Everythings going to be all right" XD

Stay tuned; because I'm going to be posting a project I've been working on today, later. (Don't you like archaic phrases?)

From a very gleeful Ashley
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Music that makes me think - A Home Grown War

I used to post songs I really liked on Facebook, and I'd put one or two words summing up the emotion or feeling that went with it. I think I'm going to try the same thing here.

I was digging around in an old playlist when I found this one again. It's been months since I've listened to it and I've been meaning to put it on my Mp3 player.
This song is called "Count Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of The War Drum" by A Perfect Circle, from their album "Emotive".
Along with the song's really long tittle, it has a somewhat disturbing but true message. The masses being nothing more then sheep, blindly following it's leader. "[I will] Isolate and save you from yourself " is the last line in the song. The oil extractor thing(picture to the left) turns and brings up a red substance. The red stuff is blood, and there are 2 different means for what this blood represents. The first, obvious one, is the raping of the earths natural resources. The second, it's the blood spilt to obtain this oil in the wars out east. The last part, with the sheep jumping off the cliff into the fire, has been interpreted by many people, as a Holocaust representation. If you listen closely to the music, you can hear sound bits that I believe to be a Hitler speech. If someone knows what that is, I would like to know. And while your listening for that, you will probably come across the sound of a women moaning. A lot of people have commented about that on message boards, but no one has a theory to why it's there. The only thing I could come up with is something I've heard before, the moaning women represents sex, and sex is a human distraction. "Go Back to Sleep." That seems to fit well with this theme.
The music video helps you understand what the song's about. The song lyrics are here.

It's obvious a political song. eMOTIVe was a political album, which included a depressing, but neat version of John Lennon's Imagine. The music video for this one is good, and it defiantly fits the tone of the song, but it has some weird baby dolls that kind of freak me out.

Ok, so if you've gotten this far, that means you actually watched the video for "Count bodies like sheep...", right? If you haven't I really think you should.Scroll back to the top and click that link. (but please come back here after :) )

There's another version of this song. "Pet" from their album "Thirteenth Step". The artists say this is like a part 1 to "Count bodies like sheep..."(Thirteenth Step came before Emotive) I really like the music in this, it's a little less hypnotic.
 As "Count Bodies like sheep..." is about war, "Pet" is about drug abuse. It's as if the drugs are signing this song to the drug addict.

A little band news... A Perfect Circle is supposed to be returning from their now 6 year hiatus, but that was announced 2 years ago. :( How long do I have to wait?

Well this post was intended to be about one song, I ended up talking about 3... I really like this band if you hadn't noticed. If you guys like it, I think I'll do a couple more posts about other bands and songs in the future. I should warn you though, I like a strange variety of music, including a surprising amount of Eurotrans and Eurodance. Maybe I'll spare you those guys. Or not...:P

~ashley
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School Plans are Expolding in My Face

I feel like Charlie Brown sometimes....
It started last Friday when I was trying to solve 2 simple problems.
1. I forgot to say that I had a permanent disability(Learning disabilities count apparently) on my OSAP forum.
2. For some reason I couldn't sign up for the winter courses (I already signed up for the fall ones, so I wasn't too concerned)

I need to say that I have a permanent disability to get the grant that is award to those with disabilities. I started by phoning the financial aid office, because I was told that they can fix it. I did. When I finally got through, the person at the other end told me what to do and that I had also messed up another part of the application. I accidentally selected that I was a crown ward... which I'm definitely not. So I have to send a letter to them stating that I made 2 errors on my OSAP forum.

Ok, so that's done and taken care of. Thank god.

It turns out after much confusion, that the courses I tried to sign for were all full. When I realized this (which it took about 3 weeks for me to realize) I signed up for the other ones, but i still have 3 mandatory classes that are full, that I can't sign up for. I pretty much had a melt down by this point. What the hell am I supposed to do if there are 3 classes that I can not take because they are full, but I need them to go on the second year...

After sending about 5 different emails to the registrars office, re-wording my question each time, I finally got a real answer. They passed the buck off the the faculty of design saying that I have to make an appointment with them to have this solved.
The only reason this has been as stressful as it is, is because my RESP relies on the fact that I am a full time student in both semesters. (Actually so do OSAP, I believe.)

In conclusion, I Charlie Brown'ed the whole dame thing.

to be continued...?
~ashley
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Long over due pictuers from my vacation

We spent the first week of our vacation in Quebec, visiting family. It's a 9 hour drive up through Montreal, Quebec City and along the St. Laurence.
Our cottage was along the beach, so we had a campfire out there almost every night. The tide came up really high every day, sometimes almost the the back door of the cottage.

We spent the second week in Nova Scotia. Halifax (our first stop) was another 9 hour drive from where we were in Quebec. We stayed in Halifax for 2 days. There we visited Citadel Hill and the harbour. Then we went to our next cottage and from there we visit Peggy's cove and the ocean beach. We also went whale watching.

 ~ashley
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Green movment isn't about the green

or should I say it's more about the green(money).

So many companies have jumped aboard this new fad, seeing the great marketing potential.

So as these corporations wave the green flag, claiming to support the environment, they take advantage of the uneducated consumer (which is most of us).
One of there main marketing tactics is to design a little logo, usually involving a tree or a crude depiction of the planet, that they stick on all of there products. Upon see this logo, consumers make a connection. The connection is that if it has a picture of a tree then it must be good. The company doesn't have to explain what the logo means, they know that the consumer will make an assumption based on the picture and the little catch phrase. As a general rule, these logos tend to be completely meaningless.

I never gave a lot of these logos much thought until on day a friend pointed out that the logo for the Heart&Stroke Health Check didn't mean what most people thought it meant. Now I don't want to put down the Heart&Stroke Foundation, because they do good, but you still shouldn't take this logo for face value.

If you have ever picked up a bottle, box, or bag that has the Health Check logo, check the back. It states that the company has paid a fee to the program. ("A fee is paid by each participating company to help cover the cost of this voluntary, not-for-profit program") From what I understand from the chatter about this, is that pretty much anyone can get this logo on there box as long as they pay enough.

Anyway, I digress.

The point is that an kind of "green" logo you seen on the corner of a box, unless it's a government run program (but then I still remain sceptical), it might be a shame.

I'm not an envior-hater, quite the opposite actually. I'm a pretty big hippy. What I hate is when people take wonderful, beautiful things, like the environment, and twist them to scatter fear into the general masses. Have you ever wonder how many times the government used the global warming fear factor to gain popularity.

I may be wrong, and if you believe I am, I would like to see the hard evidence. Other then that I'll probably disregard it. :) That's just how it works.

Maybe I'll have something happier to write about next time, but I needed to get this one off my chest.

On one final note: You should never stop doing your part to help keep your little corner of the world beautiful, and the best place to start is to arm your self with knowledge. (I'm not claiming to be an expert, you shouldn't take what I've said at face value either.)

~Ashley
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To go inside a tree

I wrote this last summer, and I felt that since summer is nearing an end I would post my tribute to trees

To go inside a tree and fell it’s energy

Flowing up and out of your body

The bark scratches and burns the skin it scraps

The fibers beat with the life of this tree

I feel the leaves extend from the ends of my hands

The sun warms the top of my head

The wind passes around me

The tree

~ashley

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Looking for a Place to Live Part 2

So I didn't take an pictures while in Toronto, but I did find a place to live :)

The New Horizon Tower. Ok so it's not a going to be a real upbeat place, because part of it is a seniors home, but its clean and has really good security. (plus house cleaning :p)

The trip was exhausting, but at least most of this preparation stuff is done. Now I have to start thinking about packing. It's not a very big room, so I can't bring to much. Right now I'm looking at acquiring a mini fridge. I think this will be helpful because the meal plan doesn't cover weekday lunch, and I don't want to be buying lunch out everyday. I'm also limited to what I can make, because all I have access to is a microwave.

Another thing I'll probably get is a small book self. Other then that, everything is pretty much provided for. :) I even have my own toilet and sink. :P

 ~Ashley
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Stopping the use of the R-word

I took the pledge to stop using the r-word in my everyday languge.

I pledge and support the elimination of the derogatory use of the r-word from everyday speech and promote the acceptance and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities.

I find the use of the r-word by people my age disgusting. It's completely insulting and it has a negative people it  effects.

You can take the pledge and find more information at http://www.r-word.org/

~Ashley
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The drama lama is eating cold soup for breakfast

This is a metaphor for something, but I can't remember how to explain the metaphor.

Pretty much this week has gone to hell in a hand basket. I screwed up big time and I hurt someone very close to me. I want to say things are getting better, but I'm not sure.

I've been a big ass much of this summer, and I feel really bad about it. I finally got my wake up call today.
I hope this motivation lasts tell tomorrow. I'm ambition tends to be a wavering thing, something I'm going to have to learn to deal with. :(

I just wanted to say sorry. And I'm going to try harder to get my shit together. Everyone has been trying to help me and I haven't been giving them the respect they deserve.



~Ashley
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Looking for a Place to Live Part 1

Well, my classes start in a month and I don't have a place to stay, yet. I've been freaking out a little, but things could be a lot worse, so I guess I'm not too worried, yet.

It looks like this weekend I'll be going down to go check places out. I worked out a list of places to check out. It's not a long list, but I guess it'll work.

I started my search for a place to live even before I had received acceptances/rejections from all the schools. At the time I had received my acceptance from OCAD, but I was still waiting on Ryerson. Since they're both in the same neighbourhood, I figured I'd might as well go ahead and look for places to live.

One place I found was a student Co-op, i heard from someone who had stayed there that it was a good place, and the rent rate was pretty good. So I sent my application... and never got anything back. I emailed them twice since asking if they had received my application and asking specific question about some of there policies. That was months ago...

So I moved on to looking at other places. My mother said she phoned them today, and apparently they have 10 rooms left, and are emailing everyone on the waiting list.... I guess I was on the waiting list. wth?

Anyway, there was another place that looked awesome, it was supper cheap, I did have to cook for myself, but still, half the price of any other place, and it came fully furnished... They are full. :(

Next place I looked at is this half retirement home, half student residence, and although the rent is more, the rent includes a meal plan and furniture, and pretty much everything and more then a regular student residence. This is one of the places we're going to check out this weekend.

If this doesn't work out my last option is a bachelor app somewhere... which wont be cheap or easy...

I'll update on the progress of my search at the beginning of next week, I hope that by then I can say I have a place to live for the 2010/2011 school year.

ttyl,
~ashley
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New design?

What do you think about my new design? I've bee working on my header for a while now, I'm still not completely satisfied, but it'll do. :) I also rearranged some things that were bothering me.

Comments or suggestions?
thanks
~ash

Quebec and Nova Scotia

I spent the last two weeks on vacation with my family. I left my camera at my mom's house so I can't post pictures at the moment. :(


The first week I spent in the little town of Saint-Flaive, Quebec. My family comes from that area. We go down to visit them every year. It's about a 9 hour drive from where I live. We rent out a tiny itty bitty cottage right on the water front.  It's so pretty, but it can get kind of chilly. Every night we have a little fire on the beach. My french really sucks, so sometimes it's had talking to my family, but we try. :) It was a very busy week and so i guess there wasn't all that much resting.


Sorry if my entry is a little dysfunctional, but I'm just distracted today.
But anyway...


The second week My brother and I went with my mother and her family to Nova Scotia. We spent the first 2 days in a hotel in Halifax, then we went to the cottage we rented for the rest of the week. We did a lot in Nova Scotia as well, so there wasn't much rest either. But I had a lot of fun :) I went swimming in the ocean (sort of, it's really cold, so I kind of just popped in and then out) and we went to Peggy's cove, and we shopped in Halifax and went to Lunenburg one day to whale watch. Actually the whale watching was totally spur of the moment :p

After all this I really need a vacation from my vacation. It was exhausting but I had fun.
My only regret is not reading enough, I brought like 10 books and I only got through half of the first one. Oh well, I guess still have a month before school starts.

~Ashley
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A little bit of Ashley's Philosophy

I've been reading about philosophy, specifically the book called Shopie's World, and it's really cool. I've been enjoying it. I don't know what else to say at the moment.

But I have 1 idea that i have to get down in writing before i forget.
I've come to realize that it's not that we're(as in people) lazy, it's that the things we do in life have no purpose. Let me explain. Example: we lose the remote for the tv, but everyone is to lazy to just get up and change the channel, but it's not that we're lazy, it's that tv, what we watch has no purpose and deep down we know that, so why would we put effort into. Another example; EVERYONE insists on driving to work or school despite the fact that they could also walk, bus, or bike. School and work have a illusion of purpose, why would i put real effort into getting somewhere i don't want to be to do work that doesn't directly protean to my life's needs (not wants, NEEDS).

That's all I have for the moment

~ashley
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Picking courses

So i had yet another interesting experience. Picking my courses for September. Despite all the hassle, I really did enjoy the freedom it gave me. But unlike most schools, I don't have much freedom first year as to which courses i can pick. I don't have an electives. :( But i was looking at the electives available 2nd, 3 and 4th year and there are a lot of really interesting things available. I'm starting to think I should do my undergraduate at OCAD and then do my masters at Ryerson for fashion. I don't know, I guess I'll have to see how much I love OCAD. If i do my transfer I might be set back a year anyway... so what's an extra year on top of that :p and I'd have my masters.
So back to course picking... :p
I spent all evening making sure i didn't have overlapping courses or classes that were back to back. I also made sure i didn't have a late night class followed by an early morning class. I'm curious to see how having classes at like 9:30-10:30 will effect me. If i wake up early i have a tendency to fall asleep when i have downtime. So for example, on a normal school day i get up between 6-7 am. When i get home sometime between 3-5pm I usual fall asleep on the couch. Ok, or if i go to Japanese class (i get up at 7) i come home at 1 and fall asleep on the couch.

I have 7 studio courses and 3 liberal studies. The liberal studies classes are 2 art history classes and 1 essay class. :p There were 3 levels of essay class, ESL (which i wouldn't be able to take), then there was a mechanics, then essentials(the one i took). Mechanics would have been easier, but i think i probably would have clawed my eyes out... They cover grammar, sentence structure and paragraph formation D: I guess we'll see, ether I will be content with a little challenge, or I'll die.

I'm excited for the studio classes. One of the classes I'm taking is  called "From Graffiti to..." which looks at...well Graffiti and textface, stuff like that :D

The only thing that kind of sucks is that each class is about $530 :( I know all class in Canada are about that in cost, but it still sucks... :P oh well i digress....

~Ash
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University

I was accepted in to OCAD (Ontario Collage of Art and Design) a little while ago for Graphic Design. I was waiting on Ryerson's decisions for Fashion Design before I made my decision. I found out a little over a week ago that I was on the wait list. :( So I accepted my wait list position and the offer to OCAD. I now have to wait until later in July to see if I got a spot in Ryerson. SO I'm planning for OCAD, and hoping for the best. Fortunately for me, if Ryerson accepts me, I wont have to change any of my plans, Ryerson and OCAD are on the same street and I'm planning on living in Co-op that is near both schools.

Despite OCAD not being my first choice, I'm kind of excited. They have a lot of neat things there, but they also don't have a bunch of stuff, like res. blah Finding res for my self has been an adventure.
Well anyhow, I guess I'll update on my university status later. Ryerson has tell Sep 7 to make final decisions on the wait list -_- but in the FAQ they said if you don't hear back by mid to late July, you probably wont hear back at all.

That's all for now,
Ashley

Discovering Religion Part 2

So this week, I read about Druidism. It was interesting to contrast it to Buddhism. I feel even more drawn to Druidism, mostly because it deals with very modern issues, such as the environment and consumerism. The reason for this being that Druidism practised today is very new.

The original Druids of pre-Christian Britain have been long dead, and because they believed in teachings being passed on by word of mouth, many of these stories, songs, prays and teaching were lost. The only records we have of the Druids are the things Julius Caesar had written. During the first Druid revival period, which was during the Renaissance, many people searched for documents and became increasingly interested in Celtic lore and story. Iolo Morganwg, aka Edward Williams, wrote the Gorsedd, claiming it was the real Druid prays. After his death, it was revealed that the whole Gorsedd was fictional. For a while many neo-pagans used the Gorsedd as their kind of "scripters", but it eventually fell out of favour, because many people did not wish to practise based on fictional stories and prayer's. (My research was done from a book called What do Druids believe?) It's very free of dogma, and is open to all beliefs.

Anyway, druidism feels natural to me, as if it's something I already know and have always believed in. I want to learn more about natural healing and such. If I had done better in science in high school, maybe I could be going to university to study natural healing, herbalism and midwifery. I could always go back after I finish my design program. oh wow, thinking about it I have a lot of Celtic/Druidic hobbies that I want to get into. For one thing there's the harp. I've wanted to play the harp since i was 5. No kidding, I was it on Disney's Fantasia, and I wanted to learn so bad.

I've been very much influenced by my ancestors as well. I'm part native American (like 1/16, not that much) but I'm interested in their beliefs about nature and the spirit world. I don't know much and I'm trying to figure out were to go to learn about my ancestors.

Well, for know I am happy with my learning. I'm might pursue Wicca next. My grandmother is Wiccan, so there's a family connection.

To be continued...?

Discovering Religion

Recently I've started reading about Buddhism. I have also begun to read about the Druids and other pagan and neo-pagan religions. I have never been very religious, as my family never practices. When my brother and I were born,  my parents decided that we should choice our own religion, thus we were never baptized. My father, Roman Catholic, the norm for French-Canadians, turned Atheist. His reasoning was personal. I guess I can say he's not totally Atheist. More Agnostic, because he still celebrates Christmas with us. And we, on my step-mothers request, give blessings to god for our meals, which my father encourages my brother and I to take part in. I never recite the whole prayer though, I can't thanks god for my food, something inside of me tells me it's wrong. Flame me if you want, but I was raised agnostic, and was never taught the meal time prayers, so this concept seems awkward and unnatural to me. I wouldn't mind using the Japaneses pray Itadakimasu. Which I believe comes from Shinto and translates simple as Thank you for the food.


My mother's house is different. Although my step-father is Roman Catholic, also the norm for the Irish, and my younger half-siblings are attending Catholic schools, we don't pray before a meal, and it's been a long time since he's made us go to church :p I guess my mom is technical a Catholic now, because she was married in a Catholic church to my step-father, but that whole issue was rather iffy, due to the fact that she already had children (out of wedlock on top of that). So I'm not really sure how that worked, meh, what can I say.

 My boyfriend and I were discussing marriage a couple of times, and being that neither of us a religious or want to associate with a Christian church, it was generally agreed upon that we're not going to get married in a church. It's not that we don't agree with the teachings, I fully agree that we should not lie and we should not harm others. It's how the church brainwashes people, and all the corruption that has risen from the church particularly the Catholic church. After discussing this with him, though, I felt at a loss. What kind of marriage would we have? What would we do? I don't just want to have documents sign in front of a jp and then have a party with family a week later, it's not the same. As my boyfriend explained it, I want to have a fairytale wedding. :p ok so yes I do, I want some sort of ceremony with my family and friends to be apart of. :p I could always have a Buddhist wedding XD and yes they do have weddings. There are monks licensed to oversee the ceremony, just like Cristian priests.

I'm sorry I f this blog seems generally theme less at the moment. This idea for a blog entry came to me while I was trying to fall back asleep. I did intend for this to be a blog about me growing up, didn't I? and I feel that this has been kind of an important part, that may or may not take on a significant role in my adult life. And I'm not censoring what i say ether, the whole reason I started a blog was so I could put out my raw emotions and just get them off my chest and on to "paper", where people may or may not read. I just don't care. :)


To be Continued...

My Projects

Currently I'm still in high school and I'm looking for a summer job so that i can pay for art/fashion school next year. :p
I was considering starting a small business that would do fashion and costume accessories, but decided that that's a project that can wait for a year or two, I need real money when I start university. I'm thinking about applying to a coffee shop. A couple of my friends told me that they could see me doing that. (and I recently have become addicted to gourmet coffee (I'm a tea drinker!!!!))
My job search was going to start at the begin of April, but I volunteered to be head costumer at our schools play. We're doing Romeo and Juliet. Classic high school cliche, right? WRONG! Our drama teacher/play director has a vision of an alternate universe R+J. He's retained the original Shakespeare verse, but left out the tights and fruity collars . They're all bad ass, leather jacket waring, bickers in the midst of a gang war. Sounds like Westside Story? Wrong again! There's no dancing or musical numbers. Just pure Shakespearean, leather jacket, badasser-y here!

My future projects are quite ambitions and it'd be a miracle if I finished them by the time university is done.
I want to start that small business I mentioned earlier. I also want to start a web comic. I don't know what it would be about, but it would be fun to do. It is possible to make a living off web comics, or more specifically the selling of merchandise of the comic. Sometimes the comic is picked up by a publisher and you get royalties, like the guy who's doing MegaTokyo. (Megatokyo, Vol. 1) I've noticed a trend that if the artist can make it 1000+ they mange to do it for a living.
Another ambitious project of mine is vloging, specifically make-up tutorials.
omg now that I think about it there's a lot I want to do. I want to learn how to make soap, and candles and pretty paper... hahaha, I'm feeling very ambitious. XD maybe I'll actually get to do some of this stuff soon. i found this awesome website with tutorials on how to make soap. This website dose not just teach you how  to make soap, but also other at home mixtures, like hand cream and bubble bath.

Ya so that's my rant about things I want to do XD You get to look forward to reading all about this for the next couple of years, assuming I mange to sustain this blog through university :p

~ashley
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First Blog Entry

Blah, ok so I just spent over an hour try to come up with a blog name. I wanted to somehow incorporate my two favorite hobbies(that I'll one day be payed to do ;) )
What are those hobbies you ask? Art and Fashion

I've been pretty serious about the visual arts for about 5 years now, but at the same time i realized that I love clothing, and designing clothing. I swear if it wasn't for the Barbie Fashion Designer Game for Windows 95, that I used to play contently when I was 5, I probably would not have become an artisan-went-stupid :p

You can imagine the difficulty I will have to face when it finally comes down to choosing between Fashion Design School or Art school. My first chose is still Fashion Design, I'm just waiting for that acceptance letter. I should be hearing back from them within the next 2 weeks.
Ok I'm just going to say it now, I know I sound really naive and unwise, talking as if i already received all my acceptances and now i have to chose, but honestly, there's not much else I can do except keep up my hope. Before I received my acceptance to art school, I was freaking out, I was certain that my portfolio was shit and that I would never get accepted. Well I did. And might I say, I was quite ecstatic when I found out :p

anyhow to be continued... :p

~ashley
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