My week was really busy so now I just want to relax.

Hey guys!

I'm back from Ottawa for the time being. I had a lot of fun there. Canada day was packed with people as usual. I saw one guy that was carrying a sign that said free hugs and brohoofs which I thought was funny. Also for some reason there were a bunch of furries walking around getting their pictures taken with people. It was pretty amusing. The fireworks were beautiful they had these really cute fizzing gold ones that I adored.

Also there happened to be a special Van Gogh exhibit in the Art Gallery when we were there so of course I went to check it out. I love his landscapes, the flow of his brushstrokes is really pretty. I ended up buying a print of Bedroom in Arles that I'm going to hang in my apartment somewhere, probably in my bedroom. 

Oh, and I went rock climbing with my sister for the first time. It was in one of those gyms with the fake rock climbing walls all over the place and it was really cool. We only went bouldering which is where you don't go as high and you don't need any ropes or anything. It was really fun, but really hard at the same time. I definitely want to keep going and try to get better at it. Lol, but let me tell you, was I ever sore afterwards. It wasn't that bad at first, but the next day my arms and shoulders were so sore that it hurt to move, push doors, or even lift my arms over my head.

I finished WGWG, and another book I bought called Awaken. The idea behind Awaken was really good in my opinion, very suiting for today's society. It takes place in the future when violence had escalated so much that people started isolating themselves in their homes and doing everything online instead. And it seemed relevant because even though it hasn't gone that far yet in reality, it doesn't seem like it's very far off from happening. I also ended up rereading The Darkest Powers series in one day, which was stupid because I stayed up really late to do it and now I'm done the story.... I should have spaced it out to enjoy it more...

Oh and I got all my marks back and my diploma for high school so that's cool. I'm very pleased with all my marks, all low 90s or high 80s.

Katie, that's cool you donated your hair. I did that once when I was younger. You liking your new hair or regretting it? Also I tend to just use the shift key for capital letters, unless its for like a whole sentence in capitals, but even then I forget the caps lock key half the time.

Adam, I liked your post idea. I'm not going to write a letter to myself, but I went back to look at my first couple posts. It's kind of strange reading them now. I feel like a different person now even though I haven't really changed all that much.

DFTBA

Kayla

Siege of Sarajevo

On the way to Thunder Bay for the Easter long weekend (Happy early Easter by the way) I happened to turn the radio on to a channel that was talking about the Siege of Sarajevo. Today happens to be the 20th anniversary of said siege, which was the longest siege of a capitol city in the history of modern warfare. This all happened either before I was born or when I was still just a baby, but hearing about it still touched me. In memorial the city is holding an event called the Sarajevo Red Line, in which they are lining up 11,541 red chairs to represent the men, women, and children that lost their lives. The one thing that caught my attention the most was the fact that Sarajevo was a city that had a lot of culture and artistic values. And even when there was bombing and shooting happening all around them they managed to hold on to that because it mattered to them. Take this picture for example: 

This man is Vedran Smailovic who became known as the Cellist of Sarajevo because he would go around the city and just choose a spot to sit and play his cello even if there were buildings being blown up right beside him. And the thing is, people would still stop and listen to him, they wouldn't just be running for cover. They weren't really safe anywhere in their home city so they still went out to see musicians and dancers and singers because they weren't going to let the fighting stop them from enjoying themselves. I don't exactly know where I was going with this, but it just seemed so... so inspirational or something and I wanted to share it with you guys.

In other lighter news, I'm in Thunder Bay right now and my sister has come back for the long weekend which is cool. Only bad thing was that we had to bring my cat with us and she hates traveling so that was a drag. I kind of feel sorry for always having to drive with her since she hates it so much, but if we can't get a sitter than there really isn't anything we can do. 

Katie, I remember playing medic when I was little, we would always get more than one person to pretend to be the doctor and touch the people who had fallen down at the same time so that the other team didn't know who was the real one. I don't agree with the adults reading only adult books thing, I think that just because it's targeted at a specific age group doesn't mean that other ages can't read it and appreciate it. In fact, if they really were at a higher intelligence level and whatnot then you would think that by reading them, they would get more out of it than the average teen reader. Which wouldn't be a bad thing at all. Also, I'm not quite sure what to think about the whole Y generation thing. The article I skimmed seemed to make a lot of sense from my personal experience (ie/ less prejudice, more technology use, spend more money, etc), but I obviously have a very narrow view of what our generation as a whole is like and some of the things I could argue against as well. Basically it's hard to generalize a whole generation like that because there will always be people who don't fit in to what they say.

Adam, glad you seem to be in such high spirits, I hope this past week has gone just as well. 

Kate, I hope you get/have already got your book back. I'd hate for something like that to happen.

Kira, yeah that murder thing was true, there's an article about it somewhere online, but that was only based off of the fact that there were 5 murders in one year and the city is fairly small. Also don't worry about grades or anything, I'm sure you'll do fine. I can honestly say that I have never really put 100% effort into my work and I've been getting marks usually from high 80s to high 90s (never got a final mark less than an 83). It often makes me wonder what marks I would have if I actually tried a bit more. I've never really hurt myself really badly before, I think I was a very cautious child. The only scars that I have are on my hands and they all have lame stories behind them. I have two from cutting myself from cooking and one from burning myself while making grilled cheese. You know the little metal bit on the umbrella that you have to push to close the umbrella? Yeah, my worst scar comes from me getting my finger caught in that. Besides that I scraped up my knees really badly from tripping in a gravel driveway (lol) and I got three stitches once because I got a really bad sliver in my leg and they thought a piece of wood was still in me so they had to go look for it, but they didn't even find anything.

Campion, I hope you have fun at the taster course. And I can relate about the friends thing. None of my friends are going to the same university as me which sucks majorly.

DFTBA

Kayla

PS - We're finally going to be getting rid of the Canadian penny, so that's cool I guess.