Score.

Today in my teenage angst, I totally scored. People come into the library to donate crap all the time. And its usually just that; crap. Sometimes they actually buy good stuff they see that's in good condition that we can actually use and just give it to us, price tags and everything.  I don't know why those people do that. They really love the library. It's usually Danielle Steel and John Sanford books but who cares. People love those.

The other day someone donated a bunch of CDs. I took one look at them and squealed. Everyone at the library is kind of bored; bored or just really mello (how do you spell mello? Mellow?). From what I understand, they're mello(w) because of a combination their personalities, years of library service, their angst-driven personal lives, etc. So when I get excited, so does everyone else. It's my main role in the group. I get excited. Which brings excitement. The CDs were a beautiful collection of obscure 90's Indie Rock and Electronica. I'm coming around to Electronica. Steve - my co-worker, on whom I will do an entire expose at a later date - said he'd been waiting for this day for a few years now. I asked him, what day? He said that with the depth of music digitalization there was going to be groups of people with scores and scores of CDs that they had digitalized and thus no longer wanted. While there were only six CDs, that day was here. Today, Kathy, the lady who usually goes through the donations to see if they're worth keeping and on whose desk I had left the CD's with the hope that we wouldn't want to keep them, slipped me the pile when no one was looking. I asked how much I should pay for them and she just shushed me and told me to go away. I told her she was my new best friend.

These are my gems.

Talking Heads, Fear of Music

Talking Heads, Little Creatures

Bjork, Debut

Bjork, Selmasongs

Air, the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for The Virgin Suicides

Did I mention they're all in pristine condition? Apart from a few cracks in their cases, that is. What a good day. 

Day 2: Breakfast.

Pomello, pomello, pomello! This is a strictly seasonal fruit that's mostly a grapefruit but way more naturally awesome. It as an inch thick rind and you can't eat the skin because it's grossly bitter. So what you're left with is these fair-sized pods of super awesome citrus juice. Half of one of these babies for breakfast is a pretty great way to start the day.

Nineties child.

Today in my teenage angst, I am a child of the nineties. What I mean by this is that I was an actual child in the nineties. When the nineties began I had left baby-hood and was entering childhood. Because of this, I relate so so so so so so closely with this article.

10 Things 90s Kids Will Have to Explain to their Children
Have you seen this??? It's written by Chelsea Fagan, and I think she is just amazing. What insight for us now as we have somehow, with this as a part of our upbringing, graduated to adulthood.

Photo a day challenge.

I love blogger challenges. Mostly because people give me things to post for thirty or so days. So along side Today in my teenage angst, I'll be posting a little photo awesome everyday.

Today is a photo of yourself. So here it is! That's all.

Goals and things.

Today in my teenage angst, I am oriented toward self-improvement. My friend Michelle is admirably always looking for ways to be better. She's a business grad so she's naturally geared away from laziness. I on the other hand am incurably lazy. So now, after a year of turmoil and self-doubt, I have made goals, plans and resolutions orienting myself toward self-improvement.

Resolutions

• Clean my bathroom every Sunday. Sunday is bathroom cleaning day. Even if I work. That's the deal. 
• Change my sheets every other week. This for real makes me sound like the most disgusting person. I'm not. I'm a little bit of a mess but I'm not disgusting. Changing my sheets is something I've never gotten into the habit of and will forget to do for gross amounts of time. So this year is good habit forming year. 

This picture represents incurable laziness.

Goals 

• My dad and I are running a 5K in May. We run but we don't enter races. This is a motivating tactic to expand our training and general running practices. A 5K isn't much but races are scary. So we're starting small. 
• Achieve 3.5GPA for both my semesters this year. I was close last semester and still might make it as I'm still waiting on one mark. This might be a bit of a stretch but having the aim on the outset of the semester gives me motivation to work hard from start to finish.
• Save tuition for my fall semester at Regina. This is a bigger deal because the school to which I'm transferring doesn't hold the provincial support and subsequent tuition subsidization as the school I now attend. So because I live at home and have generally small needs it's attainable but saving money still requires a decision every month to put that chunk of money away.
• Take my Harmony 4 exam in May or August. That's a vein of classical music theory. The variance in time depends on my teacher. She'll decide when I'm not too stupid to actually write the exam. Oh bless her heart for dealing with me. She's wonderful. 

2012 Book List
I'm always scared to make book lists lest I don't read at all. But I invariably read every night before I go to bed or I can't fall asleep. So I might as well be intentional about it.

• The Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins (we're off to a good start with this one as I literally devoured the first book on New Year's Eve)
• Miss Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
• The Whole Truth - Kit Pearson
• Slaughter-House Five - Kurt Vonnegut
• Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
• The Alchemist - Michael Scott
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - Kate DiCamillo
• The Book Thief - Markus Zusak 
• Wonderstruck - Brian Selznick
• Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell 

You'll notice the overwhelming presence of Young Adult and Juvenile Fiction. This is because I'm largely done with Adult literature. I'm of the opinion that it's a lot harder to write for younger age groups because their cognitive capacity is so much smaller. As a result books end up portraying highly imaginative and deeply philosophical ideas in a much greater light than an adult novel could. Plus there's nobody having sex. That's the best part. So. Anyway. I'm really excited about this collection of books. And it's only twelve. So I'm not over-expending myself here.

I'm really excited about the possibilities of this year. By the end of it I should only have three semesters of school left. I'll be 25. And if my goals list comes to fruition, I'll have accomplished a great deal. This shows me that even for the incurably lazy, having expectations of yourself is not scary, it's healthy. May you, also, expect as much as possible.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year! I'm kind of over New Years. I've had few. Haven't we all. But today in my teenage angst, I gave into blogger peer pressure and followed suit. Here are my highlights of 2011. 

1. I moved home. I'd left to go to University as far east as I could go without leaving the country. I'd never been away from home before and it was rough. When I went back for my second semester, it proved to be too much. I needed a break. So I moved home. Best decision ever.

2. I met these girls! Well actually I knew them before, but not nearly as well as I do now. Their mom has become a friend of mine and I have been lucky enough to spend bunches of time with them. This is at Maria's birthday party. She's on the left. She's four. She's hilarious. Emily is on the right. She's a little less hilarious. More serious and seriously awesome.

3. I dressed as Virginia Woolfe for Halloween. Nobody recognized me at the Library. I put together the outfit for three dollars and studied how to make my face look as sullen as possible. It ruled. As long as I work at the library I intend to go as a literary character who committed suicide. I have some fab things lined up for next year. I skipped out on work and spent Halloween night out with my dearest friend Shaina and watched Halloween. It was totally amazing. I didn't meet Jamie Lee Curtis until Forever Young. Then I backtracked to My Girl. And then I loved her in Freaky Friday. My history with her isn't as long as it could be. So to see her as a legitimate teen in such a beautifully executed piece as Halloween was magical. As were the other cast members. Just kidding. It was outrageous. But still the best.

4.  I saw my frist Cornerstone Christian School musical production. This is my dearest friend Danae all done up as Babette the feather duster. Clearly she's human again at this point. It was the funnest. ALSO! I have a fantastic review of that musical two months in the making. It was seriously so fun. 

This obviously isn't a comprehensive list of the best things of my year but its a pretty darn good start. But it's time to leave it behind. It was fun but there's so much more to come. I'll let you in on the things I'm looking forward to most tomorrow.

Until then.

Double whammy.

First! Christmas with Michelle.



Second. Lessons learned during a viewing of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.