Why You Should Eat Organic Food

1. Protect Future Generations
Children receive four times the exposure than an adult to at least eight widely used cancer-causing pesticides in food. The food choice you make now will impact your child's health in the future.

2. Prevent Soil Erosion
The Soil Conservation Service Estimates that more than three billion tons of topsoil are eroded from the United States croplands each year. That means soil is eroding seven times faster than it is built up naturally. Soil is the foundation of the food chain in organic farming. But in conventional farming the soil is used more as a medium for holding plants in a vertical position so they can be chemically fertilized. As a result, American and Canadian farms are suffering from the worst soil erosion in history.

3. Protect Water Quality
Water makes up two-thirds of our body mass and covers three-fourths of the planet. Despite its importance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), estimates pesticides (some cancer-causing) contaminate the ground water in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country's population.

4. Save Energy
Farms have changed drastically in the last three generations, from the family based small businesses dependent on human energy to large scale factory farms highly dependent on fossil fuels. Modern farming methods uses more petroleum than any other single industry, consuming 12 percent of the country's total energy supply. More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate, and harvest all the crops in the United States. Organic farming is still mainly based on labour-intensive practices such as weeding by hand and using green manures and crop covers rather than synthetic inputs. Organic produce also tends to travel a shorter distance from the farm to your plate.

5. Keep Chemicals off Your Plate
Many pesticides approved for use by the EPA were registered before extensive research linking these chemicals to cancer and other diseases had been established. Now the EPA considers that 60% of all herbicides, 90% of all fungicides and 30% insecticides are carcinogenic. A 1987 National Academy of Sciences report estimate that pesticides might cause an extra 1.4 million cancer cases among Americans over their lifetimes. The bottom line is that pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms, and can also be harmful to humans. In addition to cancer, pesticides are implicated in birth defects, nerve damage and genetic mutation.

6. Protect Farm Workers Health
A National Cancer Institute study found that farmers exposed to herbicides had a greater factor of six, than non-farmers of contracting cancer. In California, reported pesticide poisonings among farm workers have risen an average of 14% a year since 1973, and doubled between 1975 and 1985. Field workers suffer the highest rates of occupational illness in the state. Farm workers health also is a serious problem in developing nations, where pesticides can be poorly regulated. An estimated 1 million people are poisoned annually by pesticides. Several of the pesticides banned from use in the United States are still manufactured here for export to other countries.

7. Help Small Farmers
Although more and more large scale farms are making the conversion to organic practices, most organic farms are small independently owned and operated family farms of less than 100 acres. It's estimated that the United States has lost more than 650,000 family farms in the past decade. With the US Department of Agriculture predicting that half of this country's farm production will come from 1% of farms by the year 2000. Organic farming could become one of the few hopes left for family farms.

8. Support a True Economy
Although organic food might seem more expensive than conventional foods, conventional food prices do not reflect hidden cost borne by taxpayers, including nearly $74 billion in federal subsidies in 1988. Other hidden costs include pesticide regulation and testing, hazardous waste disposal and clean up, and environmental damage.

9. Promote Biodiversity
Mono cropping is the practice of planting large plots of land with the same crop year after year. While this approach tripled farm production between 1950 and 1970, the lack of natural diversity of plant life has left the soil lacking in natural minerals and nutrients. To replace the nutrients, chemical fertilizers are used, often in increasing amounts.

10. Taste Better Flavour
There's a good reason many chefs use organic foods in their recipes. They taste better. Organic farming starts with the nutrients of the soil which eventually leads to the nourishment of the plant and ultimately our palates.

Summer

This summer was insane. It was both the best and worst of my life to date. And I haven't recorded any of it, apart from that last, rather angry post. I was angry, and sad. It's just so weird.
But I'll begin at the beginning, because thats the only really proper place to begin a story. This summer started with two weeks of fun. After exams, I started hanging out with some friends, not exactly my usual group, but not baddies, like you're thinking. It was me, my best friend Lollie, her bf of the time, Pip (not his actual name, but besides the point, all bf's of hers will be referred to as Pip from now on) , and Pip's best friend, Benjo (again, not his actual name.) We hung out in the parks around our houses, of which there are many, we joined pickup soccer games and spend our evenings in the basement of my or Benjo's houses, watching movies. Well, me and Benjo watched them, Pip and Lollie generally spent that time making out, and eventually taking the mickey out of them for it got boring. Occasionally, we were all joined by some other friends, always guys, because thats just how it worked out.
Because we were often pushed together by the fact that the other people hanging out with us spent a lot of our hangout time snogging, me and Benjo became friends. Good friends. I'd met him back in November, at the place where I go to listen to ska and dance, through other friends, but we'd never really talked. Besides, he was different in June than he'd been in November. Quieter, more thoughtful, a bit less overly impulsive. And I liked it. And, after a while, I liked him. But, me being me, I didn't really say anything about it, we just carried on like we had been, as friends.
One cool Thursday night in the end of June, the last Thursday night in June, actually, the four of us plus one other friend were hanging out in Benjo's basement, watching a movie called Cloverfield.
Now, if you have not seen Cloverfield, I recommend that you go see it. However, if you are prone to motion sickness, squeamish, pregnant, arachnaphobic, prone to nightmares about monsters taking over cities, pacifistic, if you have heart problems, if you live in New York City, if you don't like the song West Coast by Coconut Records, if you're morally against drinking and skanky outfits, if you think high heeled shoes are a misogynistic plot to keep women unstable, unable to run, reliant on men, and out of touch with nature, if you get bored extremely easily or have the attention span of a gnat (which is actually surprisingly long, for what you'd think of a gnat, but short for a human) or if you just plain don't like indie monster movies, this movie is not
for you. Personally, I loved it. I fall into few of the categories above (being the high heeled shoes one and the skanky outfits one). But anyhoo, I digress.
So, the five of us were sitting on the couches in the TV room in Benjo's basement. Or, more accurately, Benjo, I and the other friend were sitting on one couch, (in the order me, scrunched into the corner, because I like corners, Benjo beside me, and then way over at the other end of the couch, the other friend, who likes his bubble rather a lot) and Lollie and Pip were half lying down on the other couch, macking and whispering sweet nothings, etc, etc, etc. (Ick. PDA much, guys.) And when the movie was almost over, Pip and the bubble loving friend had to leave, as they had a curfew. And so we paused the movie and said goodbye, and then returned to the movie, but now Lollie, who had no idea what was going on at this point, was falling asleep on the other couch, and then she was sleeping on the other couch. And so, when the movie was over, we turned off the TV, and I looked up at Benjo, and I kissed him, or maybe he kissed me, who knows how these things start?? And then I kissed him again, or he kissed me, whichever, who cares about the details. And this may have gone on for quite some time, except for the fact that Lollie stirred, and then she woke up entirely, by which point we were sitting quite a respectable distance apart. And then we remembered that we were late getting home too, so we said goodbye and left. And then that Sunday, we ended up kissing again, while hanging out at Lollie's house.
And then I left on Monday for what may have been the most informative and illuminating two weeks of my entire life. I was working as a dishwasher/bathroom cleaner/ all around slave kid at a Christian camp on an island just a few hours ferry ride from my hometown. Well, town doesn't really do Vancouver justice, but you get the gist of it. And I'm not sure whether I'm any denomination of Christian, whether or not I believe in God, whether or not I believe in the Bible or Jesus or anything of that nature. I was once informed by a friend that I was Jewish. He just looked at me one day and said so. Not that he was really telling me, or asking me, he was just stating it to the world, maybe to see how it sounded. I kind of liked the sound of it, which is interesting, but I'm not really Jewish either. I'm not really any kind of religion, which is just fine with me. Regardless, through a series of fortunate and unfortunate events akin, I had ended up in a Christian camp, where we had prayer every morning, first thing, and Bible studyish in the evenings, after Watch, which is, quite honestly, pure magic. I don't know if I believe in God, or if I believe in him, then think he's worth worshipping, but I would like to think Him (Her, It, whatever) for creating this belief, this faith that brings people together in a way that changes you life just to witness it. And so I was sleeping four solid hours a night on the front porch of a broken down old cabin, because it was nicer outside, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and waking up a couple of times with deer who thought that my blanket was a strange sort of food. I spent a night on that porch shivering through one of the biggest wind storms I've ever seen, one that cracked a few trees, broke a gate completely off it's hinges, and went straight through my blankets and clothes. I worked about 8 hours a day for no pay, I washed dishes and cleaned bathrooms and took out garbage and went on food runs and cleaned the grease trap and turned the compost, and spent HOURS mopping the basement when the grease trap flooded, and learned to deal with idiots, and learned how to mop, and learnt the wonders of Sheila Shine, and laughed so hard that I though my ribs would crack. I twisted my wrist, took a flying skid in the mud while running downhill that ended in me flying six feet and bumping my head on the road, mildly concussing myself, I got a bug bite on my eyelid that swelled so that I couldn't see, so I was given Benadryl for it (which I, not being allergic to anything, really, had never taken before) and as a result, couldn't walk in a straight line and was sent to bed, where I slept for six hours solid, a record for my entire time there. I learnt every word to Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, and sung it at the top of my lungs in a big field with friends that I'd just made. I tried to wakeboard, and failed miserably. I was late for curfew nearly every night; I was always off doing something. I got to listen to Lollie wail over yet another Pip, this one who'd already broken her heart once, and who is an extremely charismatic ass. I was scarred by boys bathrooms, and told people about my panic disorder, which I never do. I had the some of the most amazing and rewarding experiences of my life, and learnt things that I now realize I needed to learn. And after two weeks of overworked insanity, with a knees down tan and a permanent coat of grime from the terrible showers, I hugged my mentors goodbye and got on the boat home. I'm not ashamed to say, I cried when I left. And, as we pulled away, I realized that I could never go back, not really. I had learnt what I was supposed to learn there, and that was it. I had to try something new. I had to find a bit more of myself somewhere else. And sure, I'm working there for a weekend in February, for pay this time, and maybe I'll visit next summer, or spend a weekend of paid prep work in May, but essentially, I'm not going back for very long at all. I feel like that place is just over for me, now. Done. Everything but gone.
So I came home from that, steamed the grime out of my pores, and slept for two days straight. Well, not exactly, I woke up a couple of times to eat. Then, nine days after I got home, I was off again, this time, on an aeroplane, zooming across this enormous country that we call Canada, to spend time in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Cape Breton, a few hours in Port Aux Basques (or was it Rose Blanche??) and a week or so in La Poile, a tiny fishing output in The Middle Of Nowhere, Newfoundland.
So, for me, this was HUGE. I'd never been on a plane before, and now I was suddenly at the YVR airport, Vancouver, for all you's out there who don't know what that means. I'd never been to the airport either, and it was so huge and full of uniforms and scanners, and people who knew exactly where they were going and what they were doing, with their sleek, professional suitcases. I felt like a bit of a bumpkin, with my already messy braids, my servicable non-tourist denimn jeans(not touristy!! I despise tourists, although they pay for a good amount of my city!!) my men's button-up shirt, and my overstuffed, ridiculous lime green and black backpack, which has travelled a fair distance with me and has served well the entire time. The backpack's name is Roderick, in case you were wondering. So, I was running through all sorts of security, and checking in my backpack, relinquishing it to strangers who said that it was going on the plane, and I only half believed them, even though I knew enough to know that they were right. I just don't really trust anything anyone says, but I had my money, my camera, my ID, my notebook, etc in my carry-on, so it was no big deal. It's just clothes, really.
So I was on this plane, screaming down the runway, and when you go down the runway, it makes sense that you would keep going down, but, against all odds and laws of gravity, instead, we were rising up into the air. Very weird. Kind of novel, really. And then we crossed BC, then the Rockies into Alberta, which was flatly frightening, and so was Saskatchewan, and so was Ontario after that. I know what you're thinking, you're going 'HA!! She calls herself a Canadian and she missed a province!!' But you're wrong. I didn't forget Manitoba, I simply don't believe in Manitoba. And so we landed in Toronto for all of 45 minutes, and I instinctively didn't like it there. Being born and raised halfway up a mountain (which isn't half as impressive as it sounds) and near to the ocean, I hated the flat dryness of it all. It looked like someone had taken a bone dry sponge and scrubbed the land with it. Except for the Great Lakes. They were wet, for sure, but they seemed...wrong. I don't know. Like, they seemed too big to be lakes, but they were most definitely not oceans. The Great Lakes just rubbed me the wrong way. Actually, so did the rest of Central Canada, which is saying something, because this country is ENORMOUS. And after our nasty layover in Toronto, we were in a lovely city in Nova Scotia, the capital, actually; Halifax. Well, we weren't in Halifax proper, and we didn't pass through it until the end of the trip, but thats for later. We landed in the beginning of darkness, and by the time we'd got our luggage and made it outside, it was fully dark, and the air was thick and warm with pea-soup fog, the kind of thick, heavy stuff you never get on the West Coast. We reached the rental car, and after a few minutes confusion, managed to get the keys to it, and figure out how to use it. Then we packed in our bags (their three enormous duffels and my little backpack) into the trunk, and we were off. Our interior clocks said that it was early, only six or so, even though it was ten pm there. So we drove, and then we stopped a couple of hours later, to try to decide where to spend the night, and we opted to keep driving on, so we drove through the thick fog, and slowly the other two dropped to sleep, the little one first, and then Lollie, until it was just the driver, who was extremely focused on the foggy, under-construction highway, and me, who was stretched across the back seat, my long legs resting on the edge of the other door, across the lap of the sleeping Lollie, hunched down with my hood up, looking out the window at the sky, and all the millions of dead stars. No, really, actual dead stars; most of the stars you see in the sky are dead, they burned out years ago, possibly centuries or millenia, but they're so far away that the light hasn't died yet. So we drove, and drove, and drove, five hours nearly straight in near silence, until we reached Glace Bay, Cape Breton. (Thats the big island thats part of Nova Scotia, for those of you who don't know) We arrived at 3 am. And what could we do then?? We woke Nan up. At 3 am. An I-have-no-idea-how-old grandmother. Why?? Because what else?? So we got inside, and we all said hi, and our niceties, and then we all collapsed into bed, still in our travel-grimy clothes and fell into a dead sleep.
We all showered in the morning, and spend a couple of days there, seeing the sights; we saw lots of boats, and water and such. We went to the beach once, and I found loads of beach glass and this really cool rock with the print of a seashell on it. Not a clue what it is or where it came from, and quite frankly, I don't give. It's unique, and strange, and beautiful, and I found it myself, and that's what matters.
From there, we had a few more adventures. Lots of time on the road, driving through warm fog. We slept on an air matress in a living room with two other people, I tried moose, we explored a haunted house (which i will detail later, complete with pictures). We drank too much rum that a drunk guy bought us, and danced until 3 am. Good times. I got covered, head to toe in mud when i was ATVing, and went slogging through bog to see an old graveyard. By the time we got home, I felt years older than I ever had. As we came in over Vancouver, I felt so happy, just because I could see my city. And I'm telling you, she's beautiful. Best city in the world.
By the time we'd landed, my head said it was 4 am. I was covered in travel grime, and ridiculously sore and full of muscle cramps and supporting a Melatonin'ed, sleep-derpived ten year old. I was hungry and dirty and every other weird thing you get from travelling, and I was also so happy I couldn't keep the grin off of my face. This was probably the best summer of my life, as well as the worst, but why not see the best of it?? I wouldn't take any of it back, not one single second of it. And now school has started again, and life is back to normal, except for a couple of scars and some awkwardness. And now its back to square one, but a different square one, this one more like corn starch and water, if you get my analogy. If I stop moving, I'll sink.

...

FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

Late Evening Stupor

Do you ever think about point of view, about the story of the earth?? Each of us sees the world as, more or less, our story, in first person, everything that happens to us, everything we think and do and hear about. But sometimes, we try to look at the big picture, and even that is biased because we see it through the lens of our experiences. No one could ever really see our world for what it is, because everyone has their own bias, no matter how much they try not to. And even if someone from another planet were to see it, they would have their own bias. Only a celestial type of being would be able to see it for what it was, maybe. And even then, it'd have to be a celestial being that we couldn't comprehend, one that has no body, or thought, or personality, only raw life force and the ability to gather facts.
Strange thoughts. Whats your take on it??

Death and Life and Loneliness

In March, or was it April, over Spring Break, I went to stay with my Tia y Tio in Victoria for a couple of days. While I was there, they got a phone call saying that their son had died in a car crash. They hadn't seen him in a long time, and he had some problems, but still, he was their son, and they loved him unconditionally. I saw my aunt's face when she heard, and thats one of those things that I will never forget, that look of complete pain and sorrow. She looked like the sun would never shine again, and it shook me all the way through. I stayed at a friend's place that night, and then came home the next day, but it stuck with me these four months. And then today, I found out that their son's, my cousin's, girlfriend had died in a car crash a couple of days ago. The same cause of death, only four months apart, and people who had been dating. What are the odds?? And it makes me think, what if her death wasn't accidental? What if she was just so emotionally shattered by his death that she caused her own? I guess we'll never know.
I never even met her, but I still feel sad for her, for a life ended too soon, for her friends and her family, just like I felt bad when my cousin died. I hadn't seen him since I was a toddler, I don't even remember his face. I just remember the way he smelled, and the doll he gave me, and his black runners. I remember sitting on the arm of the old brown sofa in our house that we lived in then, holding my new doll and looking up at him and his girlfriend of that time. I remember that she was blond and wore a jean jacket. I still have the doll they gave me. It's funny, the things you remember.
I find myself talking to dead people sometimes. Not like having a conversation with them, not like a psychic, but more like just chatting, in case they can hear me, when I'm walking to the bus stop, or cleaning the bathroom, or washing the dishes. I talk about what I know about them. I talk about their families sometimes, whats going on, in case they can't see it for themselves. It makes me feel better, I guess, the knowledge that maybe I'm making them feel better.
The last three and a half years, so many people I know have died. There was one week, a couple of January's ago, when a whole bunch of people I knew died; a man named Ken Moore, who I'd known since I was a toddler, my friend's Grandma, the Nan of the guy who sat next to me in school, even my pet hamster died that week. It really shook me. I was only twelve, and it was like the entire world was slowly dying off. Every morning for the next couple of weeks I woke up and wondered if anyone I knew had died overnight. It's not a good way to live. It makes you sad, and scared, and lonely. You separate yourself from people, in case they die next.
I used to have dreams when I was a little kid, about my mum leaving me alone. It was always the same dream; I was playing on the rocks outside of my sister's school; I was too little to go to school yet. I was wearing my red party dress and my white stockings and my little black mary janes, with my hair down, which I hardly ever did, because it was so long and tangled so easily. I was jumping from boulder to boulder, like I always did. My mum was talking to another adult while I played. I was jumping, and I landed wrong and slipped and cut my knee, ripping my white tights at the same time. I can remember when that actually happened. I got blood all over my tights and had to throw them out. But when I really did that, my mum picked me up and took me into the school and cleaned and bandaged my knee. In the dream, though, she just looked at me, and got on her bike, her old yellow and silver one, and rode away, with my standing there screaming after her. I remember waking up from that dream crying in the dark, and climbing into my sister's bed, because I was too afraid of being left alone. I had that dream again last night, for the first time since I was a little kid, probably for the first time since I started kindergarten. I'd nearly forgotten about it, and then I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, crying in the dark like I did when I was little. But my sister moved out a couple of weeks ago. She's not here anymore. I have to grow up and deal with it myself.

Growing Up

So this is growing up. Making these difficult decisions, making calls that you don't have to make. Doing things for other people, giving up the things that mean the most to you so that other people are happy, even when it means sacrificing your own happiness. Right now, I'm so sad that I feel all raw inside. I've given up something that I've been looking forward to for two years, to save my family stress. A lot of stress, and I feel glad for them, but I'm still selfish enough to be sad for me. I feel like my heart is breaking, and I feel guilty for feeling sad. It feels so self-absorbed of me. I guess that every once and a while, you need to take a little time to be sad, and then you have to suck it up and get on with your life. It's been less than 24 hours since I made that call, and it's still too fresh. I can pretend, but every so often, I need to let it out. Or maybe I don't. I guess I'll just hold it together and pretend that it's all okay. I can do that.

Self-Involvement.

People are all so self-involved. Everyone thinks that they're totally misunderstood and tragic.
Take my parents, for example. They're fighting, loudly, and not caring that my little brother is crying himself to sleep, because they're too busy proving that they're the martyr. It's maddening.
I had to go tuck him in and get his reading light and close his door so he can't hear them, and his blinds so that he doesn't wake up with the sun. And my dad's just banging on about how he brings in the money and we're a bunch of ungrateful little shits, and he made my mum cry. And I'm angry.
Most people, when they get angry, it's hot, like a fire. Instead, I get an icy coldness filling me. I know it's bad when I can't feel my face, like now.
I hate it here. I envy my sister; she gets to leave in a week.

Habits

It's funny, the little things you get used to , and don't even realize it. I had a hat sitting on top of my TV, a funny, floppy paper one that I made myself. I'm quite proud of it, and I quite like it sitting there. But the sun was getting in my eyes when I was out in it today, so I came and got my hat to ward it off. And then my TV looked weirdly empty. Strange.
It's the same with my library card. I had the same one since I was a little kid, and I'd memorized the number. But my old card cracked, so I had to get a new one, and it has a different number, and it really threw me off.
It's the same when I get a new notebook, or I move around a piece of furniture in my house, or reorganize the dish cupboard to throw off my family, and I end up throwing myself off.
I guess it's the same with habits. I tap the ledge in my stairwell on the way down it every time I come down. If I slip and go rolling down the stairs, which happens upon occasion, I have to get up and walk back up the stairs and tap the ledge. It's just one of those things.
I wonder if that transfers to the way you act. Like, if you're always a little bit sarcastically evil, are you always truly like that? Is it just a way to cover what you're actually thinking?? A way to make people laugh? Maybe give yourself some inside-my-own-head time when you're in public. And can you stop it? Can you break yourself of that habit?

Insanity??

I've been thinking a lot lately about what exactly constitutes insanity. Is it when you're walking to the bus stop carrying your shoes and talking to yourself?? Or is it when you waltz alone in your living room to Doug and the Slugs?? Or is it that little voice that you hear late and night, saying 'Is there room in your head for one more?? Or perhaps it's forgetting to eat for three days, or maybe realizing that when you sync it up right, Dark Side of the Moon seems like it's narrating The Wizard of Oz. Or perhaps it's talking on the phone while sitting on top of the washing machine. Or maybe it's when the person on the other end hangs up and you still sit there, listening to the dial tone for half an hour, thinking of nothing.
And who gets to say, really?? I mean, sometimes you have the more definable types of insane, like schizophrenia, but even that can be iffy sometimes. What if someone just seems schizo, but really they're just lonely?? Or maybe trying to get attention?? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that schizophrenia isn't an actual condition, because it is. I'm just saying that things aren't always set in stone.
So, what do you think?? What's your definition of crazy??

Poetry

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I'm a total poetry nut. Points go out to whoever can tell me the author of the poem below.

since feeling is first
who pays attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
-the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for lifes not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis

What I Want

A while ago, a friend asked me what I really wanted. People are always saying what they don't want, but who really knows what they want. What they want to happen, who they want, how they want things to turn out. And I realized that I don't really know everything that I want. People are confusing, and the only thing I want is to figure them out. It's all very confusing, it feels like everything is twisting and swirling and changing around me, and I'm standing still. It's like when you're in the car and it looks like all the houses and mailboxes and what have you are moving, and you're standing still. Except that they keep twisting 360 degrees instead of just in a line on either side, and I don't know which ones I want and which can just leave, and which are gone and I want back, and I just...don't know.

Leaving

I'm listening to: Vindicated by Dashboard Confessional.

My sister is at her grad banquet right now, the last grad thing she has, before she leaves the school for good. I was taking pictures when she left, and the only thing I could think was 'God, she's so beautiful.'
Since we were little kids, my sister has been my role model, my favorite person in the world, the way I cope with living with my father. She makes me laugh when I'm sad, and dance when I'm exhausted.
My sister is everything that I want to be; confident and beautiful and talented and self-assured, and she knows who she is and where she's going. And where she's going is away. I'm so proud of her, but at the same time, I'm sad, because she's leaving. And I'm not. And I'm really going to miss her.

So, I'm supremely confused. And tired. And having guitar issues. But mostly confused. My friends have got me all twisted around. I've decided that it is the fault of males. Maybe we should just kill all the guys. And then, slowly, all the women will die, and in a hundred and seven years, we will have killed off all the humans, and only half the deaths will be murders. It's the perfect solution!! We'd be gone, and we could leave the world to another race, maybe one that wouldn't fuck it up the way we have.

Shame

You know how theres things about you that embarrass you, they make your cheeks burn with shame, and you don't want anyone to know? And then somehow, awfully, they're accidentally brought up, someone asks whats wrong and you can't explain, and suddenly you have a terrible web of non-lies, things you wish were lies, and you don't want to say them.
Ashley Jenn, if you're reading this, stop NOW. Or I'll want to know why. You know who you are. If you read this, I will know, and you will die the worst death I can invent. And you know how creative I can be.
I have a panic disorder. I get anxiety attacks, where I can't breathe, and it's like the most intense fear you've ever had, beyond that, gripping you and filling you until the fear is the only thing in the world. It's the scariest thing that has ever happened to you. And it happens reasonably often. It often happens when I worry about people I know, or I get stuck, or I lie, which, let me tell you, has made me very honest indeed. But it also happens sometimes for no reason, or, as stupid as this is, when I have to do band testing.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. Whenever testing time rolls round, I can feel the beginning of an attack, sitting there on my chest. Sometimes, I know that it's coming, and I can excuse myself, and go somewhere private, and take deep breaths and remind myself that I'm okay. And I'm glad for that, because that fear, that out-of-control terror, that's private. That's something too raw, to close, for anyone to see, or know about. I feel them coming on, a heavy weight like a steel ball in my chest, I start breathing shallower, I get dizzy, sometimes I start to cry a little, and I have to get out of there.
It's one of those things, one of those evoutionary glitches, that makes my life harder, like anaemia (a lack of iron in the blood, makes you tired all the time, and sluggish, and you have to take icky meds). And it's the scariest thing that will ever happen.
I started getting the attacks when I was eleven, when my sister was in the hospital with brain damage. I don't know if I've mentioned that before, I'll explain it later. Anyways, I was taking on a lot of responsibility for the family; cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, looking after my little brother, on top of my everyday life stuff; school, Guides, choir, friends. And there was one day, when I'd gone and picked up grocerys after school, and I was making dinner. I was the only one home so far, my brother was at his friend's, my father was at work, and my mum was at the hospital with my sister. I was making pasta with homemade white sauce, and the phone rang, and then the pot was boiling over, and my friend on the phone was yattering on about her current 'crisis', whatever it was, and then I burned myself quite badly on the stove, and I was running it under cold water and trying to stir the pasta, which was sticking to the pot, and then the sauce was burning, and I realized that I'd forgotten to pick up the french bread, and then suddenly I couldn't breathe. I thought I was having a heart attack. I thought this must be death. I'm dying. It felt like there were barrel rungs around my chest, pulling tighter and tighter, squeezing the air from my lungs, and my mind was full of nothing but absolute fear. I lay on the floor, with the tap running and the pot boiling over and the sauce burning, trying to get air into my lungs. After a minute , or maybe an hour, time seemed unimportant, pushed aside by more important things, it subsided, and I could think again. I sat up shakily, and then stood. I remember leaning on the counter for a full five minutes before I snapped back, realizing that I had basically mutilated dinner, and the burn on my wrist was stinging. I thought that I was going mad, but I never mentioned it, probably for that reason. I might be cracking up, but I had to be strong for my family.
It was a long time before I realized what these attacks were. I was thirteen, and I read a book called The Nature of Jade, by Deb Caletti. Now, I know what they are, but I haven't told anyone, not even my mum, because they'd send my to psychiatrists, and psychologists, and all sorts of people who'll ask me questions and try to psychoanalyze me. When you have something like that, people treat you different. They treat you like glass, like you might collapse at and time. And I don't want to be The Sick Girl, or Tradgedy of the Week. I am not my disease. So don't pity me, and if a friend reads this, please treat me like you always have. And if an enemy reads this, still be a bitch to me. Cuz I deserve it.

Changes and Futures and Confusion and Wishes

Everything is changing so fast that I can't keep up. Life's not passing me by; it's trying to run me over. My sister is leaving for college in three weeks, to live on her own in a different city, on a different piece of land, with her own life, and it makes me think. It's not long until I go, and time passes so fast. Me and some of my best friends were talking about that, after this stepping up thing we had a couple of weeks ago. It's kind of like a rite of passage, that ceremony, even though its stupid and little. And the four of us were all talking about where we were going after we graduated, and what we were going to do with our lives, and it was weird and scary and exciting and happy all at once. I do know what I really want to do: I want to be a creative writing teacher. Not in schools, where you need a teaching degree, but extracurricular classes, or working with Gifted kids. I know that there's nowhere near the amount of stuff that Gifted kids should have, especially in high school. You only really get Gifted stuff from Gr.4-6, and thats it. I wish that I'd had that opportunity, to have writing classes.
But to be a creative writing teacher, you need to have written something, something published and relatively impressive, or any time you try for a job, you get laughed at. And I do want to write. I want to write more than anything in the world; writing is a default state for me, and it is the thing I love most in the world, but I just don't see how that could really happen.

Friends

I'm kind of confused right now. There's one of my friends that I'm worried about. She's just kind of coming into her own right now, and she's hanging out with some girls that treat her really badly, and shes really self-conscious, not that she needs to be, shes gorgeous, and she's just kind of awkward sometimes, and I feel bad about it. I know that it's her journey, and she has to face it, but sometimes I wish that I could tuck her away and protect her from the world. We've been friends for years, and I feel like we're growing apart. She's kind of weird about my friends, I guess. I think that it might be because we're all so loud and weird and outgoing, and she doesn't know them, and I can kind of see how we might scare other people. But the people I hang with, there such a great group of people, I think they'd really make her more confident. I don't know, maybe I'm just stupid. Whatever.

WOW

Someone actually commented on my blog. To comment on it, you have to have read it. What I want to know is...WHO???
So, life is, I guess. I had a fantabulous evening after my shit week, so thats good. And tomorrow is Lynn Valley Day. If there's anyone out there who knows what that means, ^5. It's the celebratory festival of late spring in the area of North Vancouver, Canada, where I live. So, basically, I go every year and goof off and eat those addictive little mini doughnuts. So, yeah, fun.
Nothing really deep tonight, just not feeling it. Maybe tomorrow. And whoever made the comment, it was good, so tell who you is, purlease??

Revolution

Revolution-everything goes in a big circle, and nothing changes. You feel like you did something by participating, and maybe thats the whole point- to keep the masses content. I protest, even though i know that it will change nothing, because I'm 15, and 15-year-olds don't have a say in what happens in our lives, because we're too stupid and naive to know anything.

Maximum Ride

Because it brings a smile to my face.

"I once ate 9 Snickers bars in one sitting. Without barfing. That was a record!"

"Hardly a special talent." ter Borcht said witheringly.

Nudge was offended. "Yeah? Let's see you do it."

"I vill now eat 9 Snicker bars," Gazzy said in a perfect, creepy imitation of ter Borcht's voice, "visout bahfing."

Ter borcht wheeled on him as i smothered a giggle. It wasn't funny when Gazzy did a pitch-perfect imitation of me, but it was hilarious when he did it to other people.

"Mimicry," ter Borcht said to his assistant. "write dat down."

walking over to Iggy, he poked him with his shoe.

"Does anysing on you vork properly?"

Iggy rubbed his forehead with one hand. "well, i have a highly developed sense of irony."

ter Borcht tsked. "You are a liablility to your group. i assume you alvays hold on to someone's shirt, yes? Following dem closely?"

"Only when I'm trying to steal their dessert." Iggy said honestly.

"Write that down," I told his assistant. "He's a notorious dessert stealer."

ter Borcht moved over to fang and stood examining him as if he were a zoo exhibit. Fang looked back at him, and probably only i could see his tension, the fury roiling inside him.

"You don't speak much, do you?" ter Borcht said, circling him slowly.

Fittingly, Fang said nothing.

"Vhy do you let a girl be de leader?" ter Borcht asked, a calculating look in his eye.

"She's the tough one." Fang said.

Dang right, I thought proudly.

"Is dere anysing special about you?" asked ter Borcht. "Anysing vorth saving?"

Fang pretended to think, gazing up at the ceiling. "Besides my fashion sense? I play a mean harmonica."

ter Borcht locked his gaze on me. "Vhy haf you trained dem to act stupid dis vay?"

They weren't stupid. they were surviors.

"Why do you still let your mother dress you?" countered snidely.

The assistant busily started writing that down but froze at a look from ter Borcht.

The scientist stepped closer to me, looking down menacingly. "I created you," he said softly. "As de saying goes, I brought you into dis vorld, and I vill take you out of it."

"I vill now destroy de Snickuhs bahrs!" Gazzy barked.

~pg. 139 Maximum Ride Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Maximum Ride

Missing Piece

I just got off the phone with my best friend, Lollie. She's in the UK for a month. It's only been five days so far, but I miss her so bad already. This is the longest we've been apart since we were nine and became friends. It's like she's a part of me, and I didn't realize how much I'd miss her until she was gone. I have another 15 days all by myself. It'd be easier if I was at school, with things to distract me. Instead, it's spring break and I'm spending most of my time here in my room, on the computer, writing, or asleep, or outside running. None of these things make time go by any faster. I honestly think these have been the longest five days of my life.

Wicked Awesome

30

Knees

15) I am secretly afraid of a lot of things. Its just hard for me to admit that I'm afraid of anything.
I hate showing any sign of weakness. The world has to see me as strong, no matter how I am inside, I can still look like I've got it all together, all figured out, so no one sees how confused and breakable I really am.
16) I don't think anyone will actually ever read this. Thats why I'm writing it. If I thought people would read this, I wouldn't write anything half this personal. But I like the idea of some random person reading it, someone I don't know, and getting a bit of a sense of who I am. For some reason that really appeals to me.

Shins

I can't understand why it's so hard for people to listen. You'll say something, and they just subconsciously omit what they don't want to hear. It's like the whole world doesn't want to face it's problems, so it just pretends they don't exist, and its MADDENING!!
Sometimes I worry about Lollie. She gets swept off her feet so easily. Like a dust bunny really. I'm just worried that she jumps into things that she'll regret later, and she doesn't listen when I tell her that maybe she should just slow down and breathe a little. She gets so caught up in the latest thing, whether it's a guy or an adventure, or a mad plan, she'll just rush in, and then she gets dropped on her ass, and I have to help, and I feel bad for her at the same time that I want to scream because I told her that this would happen. She's so fragile, and she hides it so well. I'm just scared that someone will break her, she's so fragile.

Ankles

Today was my last competition ever. We came in second, same as Nationals last year. It just so feels so strange and final, you know?? Lots of things seem to be ending right now, and the only one I don't have mixed feelings about is winter. I'm glad for winter to be gone. I'm just not sure about the rest of it. I'm not sure about a lot of things. Like college. Me and my best friend have been planning for ages. We wanted to move to London, yes, London, England, and go to university there. But I won't have the money. Her family is paying for her schooling, so she doesn't think about that, but I have to. London is expensive, to live there and go to school there, and I don't want to have to spend the rest of my life paying off student loans. And I won't be qualified to get any decent jobs until I get my journalism degree, which will take about two years. And even then, jobs as a new journalist are not a given. And I just don't know how I'm going to do it. It's harder than I thought, to work out how you're going to live your life.

Feet

I just finished my last EVER cheerleading practice. It feels weird, knowing that I'll never have another one. It almost doesn't seem real. I'm such a different person know from when I started, and cheer was a constant. Now I know that I need no constant except my existence, but it still feels weird. It used to be my escape. Now I'm escaping from it. Trippy.

14) I love to take pictures. I'm taking photo this year at school. I have my own camera, albeit a shitty one, and I never go anywhere without it. I want to be a journalist in foreign countries, reporting on poverty and wars and riots, telling people here about them. Making them care, even for just a few minutes. Making them think. I'll take my own photos, too.

Since I have to be up at 6 tomorrow, (6!! I know. On a Saturday!!! I know. Nationals!! I know.) I will be sleeping now. Sweet dreams.

Hola!!

hola, chicos y chicas. Como estas?? Okay, so I'm not fluent in Spanish. In fact, I barely speak it. But I will. I've only been taking the class for three weeks, so cut me some slack, guys. Look at the paragraph I can write!!

Buenas noches!! Como esta usted?? Me llamo Gabrielle. Soy de Vancouver, y me vivo en una casa. Me gusta leer y escribir. Tambien, me gusta bailar mucho. Y tu? Hasta luego, Gabrielle

Isn't that cool?

So, about me.

1) I am not your typical high-school whore with her skirt up to here. No. Not quite.
2) I am a cynic, as opposed to your typical teenage romantic. I have a boyfriend, but I have no use for love. Anyone who thinks they're in love is kidding themselves.
3) On a lighter note, I love to write. I write songs, novels, short stories, poems, and lots of other stuff too. I might post some of my work on here, I'm not sure.
4) I like to read too. And I will read anything; poetry, plays, sci-fi (a little), fantasy, and lots of socially relevant girly books, if that makes any sense. Like Sarah Dessen. I love Sarah Dessen. Her books make me so happy. Hate Spinnerbait! If you got that, laugh.
5) I wear jeans. That is an important fact about me. If you ever see me wearing something else, I want you to drop dead, okay?? Unless, of course, it's the first Friday of May, which is National No Pants Day here in Canada, and I wear respectable boxers for that.
6) I named this blog because of one of my friends, Nassim. She always calls me butterfly, neither of us know why. There was no inside joke that started it, in case you were wondering. Which you probably weren't.
7) I am severely ADD. Like, I'll be talking about abortions, and then I'll start talking about Fruit Loops. Seriously, that exact thing happened a while ago. Actually, it's not true ADD, it just looks and smells like it. Really, I just make thought connections really fast, so that it sounds like I just randomly switched topics, but really I went through a whole logical thought process to reach my current point.
8) I am the creator of some of the most awkward moments in the universe. I'm not sure if this is the fault of genetics or my enviroments, but crickets always chirp around me. You know, how crickets only chirp during awkward silences?? Yeah, thats me. The cricket queen. Maybe I should make a crown.
9) I like the TV show Friends. I don't want to like it, yet somehow I can't fight the magnetic draw of it's stupidity. It's really embarrassing, actually. Speaking of embarrassing, there was this kid in
my Spanish class the other day who forgot his lines, and then tried to say he was embarrassed in Spanish and accidentally said he was pregnant. Only me, the teacher, and this guy who sits in front of me and is fluent laughed, because we were the only ones who got it, until we explained. Wow, off topic. See what I mean about the thought processes??
10) I'm just about to leave for my last ever cheerleading practice. Please don't judge me on the basis that I'm a cheerleader. It's actually really cool. I'm just getting a bit tired of it, and this is the last practice of the season, because Nationals are this weekend, and then I'm not trying out for next season. Here in Canada, high school cheerleading isn't as ridiculous as it is in EE UU.
(EE UU means the USA, in case you didn't realize. It stands for Estados Unitos, or the United States. Spanish is working it's way into my brain.) We stunt, which is holding people in the air, or throwing them. Our school's cheerleading teams condition more than our basketball team, and our basketball teams are some of the best in the province of British Columbia. So.
11) Sometimes, okay, all the time, I'm a little weird. Sometimes I'll go on about something, and people will be like, "why are you asking what kind of muffins my cat eats??" So if you run into anything you don't understand, you're probably not the only one. Or maybe you're just stupid, I don't know.
12) I'm big into music, all kinds. My favorite bands of the minute are Jimmy Eat World, Puddle of Mudd and Lifehouse. I spent most of my school day today listening to the Beatles, because I love them. My best friend always has a boy that she wants, and they're usually attainable. Easily. And so of course they have to have codenames, because we're so mature. And the current one I named. And guess what I named him?
Desmond. If you can tell me her name to go with his, I'll give you a cookie.
Mmmmm. Cookies.
13) I am a caffeine addict. Well, not actually an addict. (anymore) (no really, i used to be) But I seriously have issues with staying awake without coffee or tea in my system. I need caffeine in bloodstream until about 11 am. Wow, I really like the way numbers come out in this font. 1234567890 Look, they're all different sizes!!! oh, look!!@#$%^&*()_+ those look different too!!

Okay, so maybe you can tell I'm overtired. So, I'm going to log off in a minute. But I'll write more tommorrow. I'll write lots, every day, and whenever I can't think of anything to write, I'll add more things to the random things about me list. Which is that weird, untitled thing you just read. Hopefully anyone who reads this blog likes it. If anyone reads it. If. If is good. (if you got that, laugh. You're not the only one who likes Disney movies) So, hasta manana, amigos!! (that means 'see you tommorrow, group of friends that includes at least one boy)