Retiring An Awesome Life

The time has come for me to retire this blog. 

I started An Awesome Life almost 6 months ago as a way to help me figure out what direction my life will be headed in next. It has, in the end, helped me even more than I expected it would, ultimately playing a large part in helping me to discover what really makes me, well... me. You know - what makes me passionate, what challenges me, scares me, what just plain grabs my attention and doesn't let go, and even what I do not need or care for.

It's been an insightful journey full of unexpected outcomes and I'm truly thankful that I made the decision to give the whole blogging thing an honest chance.

Writing this blog has kept me focused on always moving forward, never remaining idle. It's inspired me to take a deeper look at what I choose to fill my life with, each and every day, from the obvious such as hobbies I'm interested in and people I associate with, to the less obvious like what quotes or song lyrics I identify with and what TV shows (and their characters) I'm drawn to... and then just about everything in between. 

 I've discovered quite a few patterns, and although there are many, I finally have a sense of organization to my thoughts and interests.  That is something that I'd likely never have been able to get out of any college dilploma or university degree. I don't want to lose the benefits of a tool this valuable, so I will be starting a new blog in the New Year (which, by-the-way is only just over 5 weeks away).

The next blog will be more focused on what I've discovered that I enjoy writing about. I'll be spending the next 5 weeks planning out Phase Two of my "retirement" so that I can get started on it, right away. No hesitations, nothing to turn into an excuse for not having the proper tools or set-up. 

To anyone who has read this blog and offered me feedback, I sincerely thank-you for your help. The encouragement from friends and strangers alike gave me the drive to keep at it for just "one more post". 

Thus concludes Phase One of the rest of my life. 



-J 

Just keep moving.

Day 17: Guilty Pleasures

Bacon - to put it simply, my life wouldn't be the same without bacon. It goes with everything.
 
Baked goods - in particular home-baked or fresh from the bakery. From muffins and cupcakes to cinnamon rolls and danishes, I love it all.
Maple anything - It, much like bacon, goes with pretty much anything. I have been known to drink it right from the bottle, Buddy the Elf style. 
 
Naps - But so many studies show naps as being beneficial in a huge way, therefore I'm chalking this one up to my interest in being healthy. Or something...

Frappuccinos - While my "usual" is a mocha light, I can't get enough of the full-fat, whipped-cream smothered mocha coconut in the summer and raspberry java chip anytime of the year. 

Justin Bieber - Go ahead, make fun of me! The kid is incredibly talented. Although his screaming little-girl fan-base is absolutely horrendous. Maybe he'll hit puberty soon and his fan base will grow a little older. One can only hope... right? 

Duck Dynasty - If you have never heard of it, that's too bad. Look it up. 
 


What kind of guilty pleasures do you admit to having? 

Day 15: A Skill I'd Like to Learn

Videography. Not just any kind - I want to learn the kind that makes things look like a Hollywood movie. I found some people online a while back who shot weddings and made these absolutely gorgeously amazing videos that made it look like they were filming the next Blockbuster hit. It's so cool. Or perhaps I could create music videos of fun occasions. Really awesome ones.

If I come across any websites that show what I mean, I will be sure to update this post! 

 

Any mad skills you'd like to learn?

Day 13: My Favourite Movies

In light of the post about my current TV obsessions, I decided not to say much about my favourite movies. Short and simple, right? Right. Okay, here goes:



Camp Nowhere - A bunch of middle-class kids pretend to go to camp with their parents money and really just do stupid stuff all summer. Like roller blade off of ramps into the lake. Wearing a helmet with lit firecrackers strapped to it. How would I not love this?

Beauty and the Beast - Belle is an animal-loving bookworm who just wants out of her small town. Need I say more about why I love this one?

Back to The Future- In reality I enjoyed them all, but the first was definitely the best.

Elf - The movie that made me finally appreciate Will Ferrell. Also the only Christmas movie I am allowed to watch any time of the year. We once named a Betta fish 'Fransisco' because of this movie.

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation - Can't have Christmas without it... at least twice. Fact.

The Nightmare Before Christmas - Tim Burton is brilliant. Honestly.

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory - The original. Johnny Depp is amazing and all, but the original has my heart. Call it nostalgia.

Jurassic Park - I remember watching this movie over and over as a child for two reasons: I love dinosaurs and this movie was really loud in the home theater my dad put in his basement. It shook the entire house, and it was awesome. RAWR!

Lost World - The dinosaur on the loose on mainland hahahahaha it makes me laugh every time.

The first 3 American Pie movies & American Reunion - The Stifmeister, and all of this one-liners... and that ridiculous laugh. I think I need to go put on some American Pie now...

Eurotrip - The source of many things I say on the regular: "Error", "buon giorno", "mi scuzi", "Miami Wice",  "Ah, Berlin", "For shame!" and "Hapi Djus!" come to mind at the moment. It's even the source of what I call Mike 90% of the time: "Mieke". My life wouldn't be my life without this movie.

The Chronicles of Narnia (mostly The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe). They did a good job at making the books come to life, mostly sticking to the original stories. That doesn't happen too often.

Vicki Cristina Barcelona - I don't really know why I love this movie, I just do. Maybe it's Spain, maybe it's the adventure, maybe it's just the beautiful accents of Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz. It has a rating of 7.2 on IMDb, so I'm clearly not the only fan.  




And there you have it. What are your all-time favourite flicks? 

 

Day 11: Current TV Obsessions

This post took quite a bit more time than I'd originally anticipated. I really thought that this was going to be a short task, completed without too much time being spent pondering it. Wrong. Instead, I found myself analyzing my choice of shows and in what category I would place them, both terms of what draws me to watch them and what keeps me returning. My list of shows turned out to be rather... uhm... long, I guess you could say. So I chose to narrow it down to just a few.

These are the shows that currently have me biting my nails until the next episode, in order starting with which plot takes up the most of my daydreaming:

1) Gossip Girl
I really didn't think that I'd ever be able to handle watching a show with a title like "Gossip Girl", but after many people suggesting I give it a shot, I did. While I don't think it's the best show ever made, I can't help but get sucked into the sarcasm and scheming of a very well-dressed and easy-on-the-eyes cast. It's a fast-paced, multi-layered, scandal-ridden guilty pleasure of mine with more than a hint of a dark side. And pretty shoes. 

2) Sons of Anarchy 
I think it's safe for me to say with total honesty that I consider SOA to be one of the best shows ever created. Ever. This show is incredible on so many levels from the writers and creaters all the way to the cast and crew, and definitely everyone in between. The fact that the creator couldn't get his message out in a typical 60-minute show and chose to do a 90-minute show instead just goes to show you how action-packed this show really is. So much happens in one episode that you'd be totally screwed if you missed just one episode. That kind of creativity doesn't come along everyday, so if you have never seen this show: I strongly recommend you give it a shot.

Be warned though - there are a lot of "immoral" things that take place on this show so if no-holds-barred manipulation, drugs, sex and violence offend you, I take back my recommendation. Don't say I didn't warn you! 
 
3) Dexter
Slight gore-factor and endless plot twists with a boat-load of sailor mouth, make Dexter a hit in my books. Deb is my favourite. She has the most epic potty mouth. Worse than me, by far! It kinda makes me feel less guilty about my own colourful language. Call me crazy, but Showtime knows how to bring it on in the face of the easily offended.  
 
4) The Walking Dead
Lots of blood, guts and gore. Lots. It's a good look at what would likely happen to civilization if the zombie apocalypse ever actually happened and I think that's what makes it such a favourite of so many. I never read the comic books, but the show is a big winner as far as I am concerned!

5) Person of Interest
I think I'm about ready to declare this show a nail-biter. On it's second season of vigilante crime-fighting, I can honestly say that I look forward to what happens next in this show. While it may not haunt my daydreams as much as the plots of the others (especially the first two!), I'm interested to see where they decide to take Person of Interest.



This was one of four lists I have for the shows that I watch. Time for an intervention, maybe? .... oops?...! 


What TV shows do you obsess over, maybe just a little more than you ought to?  



  

Day 08: Occupations I Wanted As A Child

1) Marine Biologist - Specifically, I wanted to work with the creatures that are found in the water. This started as early as when Flipper was on TV and Free Willy was in theaters (1995 and 1993, respectively). I went to Sea World in 1995 as well and distinctly remember petting the dolphins and stingrays, and I think that officially sealed the deal for me - I wanted to do that all the time! 

I only know went in 1995 because the date is stamped on the back of this ticket. P.S. That's the difference between 1995 & 2012. Crazy.

  
2) Veterinarian - I was born an animal lover. My first two best friends were a cat named Tiffany and a dog named Crystal. Although my mother was very strict about the amount and types of animals that were allowed in the house, I don't recall a time when I didn't have one kind of pet or another. I was also an avid horse rider and rode both English and Western style, and even almost went to a private equestrian school - until I found out it was all girls. Could you imagine? I understood how completely crazy girls were at a young age. 

3) Firefighter - My grandfather was a firefighter, so I naturally had a brief moment in time where I wanted to follow in his footsteps.

4) Writer - When I was a kid, I read at a rate much faster than my class mates did. I was reading Mercer Mayer books to my senior kindergarten class and had a library card because I actually wanted one. As such, writing my own versions of the stories I had read quickly became a favourite way to spend my time. Consequently, my favourite assignments were book reports and creative writing. Weird kid, no?

5) Actress - I'm sure this spawned from my love of reading and bringing my favourite stories to life. It didn't hurt that I had a friend who was equally as interested in pretending as I was and we'd spend our days acting out various movies and TV shows. We got pretty elaborate sometimes, I even remember rounding up a bunch of neighbourhood kids to do a film production of one of the Star Wars movies! I did the whole drama class and drama camp thing in elementary school. I was in plays at both school and at an outdoor theater. Eventually I had a talent agent and had a few extra roles in a commercial and a couple of films (nothing major). I still miss it, to this day.

6) Zoo Keeper - Working with tigers and zebras and giraffes would be so cool. So cool. 

7) Archaeologist - Spawning from my general interest in all things history and culture, I was (and still am) fascinated by museums. I would have loved to have been present for the finding of an important artifact. But more specifically, I really wanted to be a: 

8) Paleontologist - Blame The Land Before Time and Jurassic Park for this one. Dinosaurs are seriously Awesome. I even have a whole Wanelo collection for Dinos and Dragons.

RAAWRRRR!

  
9) A pet shop owner - A (gasp!) properly run one! That's all nice to animals and helpful to people and stuff. It may still happen, some day. Who knows?

10) A candy shop owner - Willy Wonka style. Do I really need to explain this desire? Hell, I'd still enjoy that!

11) Private Investigator/Spy - Probably inspired by Inspector Gadget and Nancy Drew. Likely the cause of my appreciation for TV shows such as Chuck, Missing, Gossip Girl (think about it!), Person of Interest, Suits, etc. 

12) A ballerina. Not because I am particularly girly (hah!), but because I love the way ballerinas move. It's such a graceful form of dance. It didn't take me long to find gymnastics which gave me the grace, strenth and balance of a ballerina without the tutu and weird shoes.        

HMS Bounty: A Ship Lost at Sea

For those of you who know me - this may just be the regular ole Jessica-babble. To those who don't already know me - I have no idea what you will think, but there's one thing you should know about me: 

I spent my high school years sailing on board the sail training vessel, St. Lawrence II, training fellow high-schoolers how to man a tall ship. There really is no other way to put this: this was the most profound, amazing, incredible experience I have ever had. Each and every day I think about what I learned as a sailor. I remain in close contact with several of my former crew mates, and when something happens in that world (good or bad), it hits home in a serious way. 


Enter Hurricane Sandy. 


Today was (and still is) a sad, horrible, emotional day amongst the tall ship sailors of the world. From what any reports have said (and against all of our faith), the HMS Bounty has succumbed to Hurricane Sandy. Even worse: two crew members were reported missing after they were swept overboard while abandoning ship. One was "rescued", but unfortunately didn't make it out of the ordeal with her life, and one other - the captain - is still missing at sea.

Many, many, many people are passing judgement right now. Stop. Just stop. Nothing else matters when there are missing crew at sea. Once (if) they are all accounted for, then it will be a far more appropriate time to start judging and launching investigations. No matter what you may think right now, there are so many (SO MANY!!!) deeply affected by the events of the last 24 hours. Please, remember your humanity.

I, along with so many others, am completely and utterly heartbroken by the fate of the HMS Bounty. To even try to imagine that happening to any of us is our worst fear. Our hearts, thoughts, and prayers really are with the crew of the Bounty. You have not left our minds all day. Roll-calls have been made (always looking out for our crew, past & present) memories have been shared, tears have been shed. 

There is nothing more to say.

Bow of the Bounty, Canada Day Weekend, Toronto, 2010

What a beautiful ship!

HMS Bounty, as seen from the freeway while driving through Boston, Summer 2012.

To my beloved St. Lawrence II, may you never see the depths of Davey Jones' Locker. 

To Claudene Christian, may you rest in peace.


To everyone else, I hope you catch you all of the flip-side of this storm. 

School of Awesome

 Well, summer holidays are officially over and everyone in my town has gone back to school. This year I have decided to take some time to do a bit of "schooling" myself. I am using quotations because I'm not actually going to an educational institution. While I did go to college for one semester a couple of years after I graduated high school, it honestly wasn't for me. The thing is, I love to learn but I despise school. I always have. It's not that I'm not good at it, it's that I feel very boxed in and suffocated, maybe even a bit like a part of a herd of cattle. Everyone pays thousands and thousands of dollars to be force-fed the same information by the same person in a giant class where the teachers and professors don't even know your name and nothing is tailored to how you learn. Absolutely none of that sounds appealing to me in any way, shape, or form.

I know far too many people who owe ridiculous amounts of money for post-secondary education and yet very few of them are putting that education to good use. For many, there just aren't any jobs in their field of choice while many others realized that what they once thought they wanted, is no longer the case. This is not the path that I wish to take, so I am making my own. I am debt free, I still have more than half of the money in the bank that I started my summer with, and my credit cards still have a $0 balance so I am now going to spend a bit of money on customizing my own form of education.

I have a few things that I'll definitely be learning and working on and a few more things that I'm seriously considering, but I'm not going to share all of my ideas just yet. For the next 4 or so months, I will be using my weekdays to work on some serious personal development. I will be breaking my day into 6-8 one-hour-long segments in an attempt to focus myself and be more productive. During each of those segments, I will choose one topic to really focus in on and do as much as I can during that hour. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I can do something incredibly awesome, I just need to focus myself. Really, really focus myself. 

I've had the whole summer to reflect on my life and this is honestly my best move. If I put myself a few thousand dollars in debt for this, I really don't see how that's any different than all of my friends who owe tens of thousands of dollars for diplomas and degrees that most of them don't even use. In fact, I think it's much better. I'll be able to learn what I want, when I want and I won't be spending anywhere near the amount of money that they have and will. The real challenge here is to stay focused on my goals, as I am very easily distracted and lose confidence in my ability to do great things. I think a lot of that is due to who I choose to surround myself with. Don't get me wrong - I love my friends and family, but unless they are truly supportive of what I am doing and are going to be encouraging, not skeptical, then I honestly need to not worry about them so much. Life is far too precious to listen to doubters and nay-sayers. 

"Remember: Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway."  - Eleanor Roosevelt

I will be updating this space at least 5 days a week, so if you'd like to follow my journey and maybe learn some new things or share your knowledge and experience with me, I welcome you with open arms. Perhaps you will even be inspired to do something similar! To anyone who wants to keep asking when I'm going back to work and rolling your eyes when I tell you my hopes and dreams: piss off.

I Fired My Job & Hired My Inner Child

Yesterday was my last day of slave labour at my life-sucking job. 

After several years of working for yet another greedy, game-playing company, I finally hit rock bottom. It. Got. UGLY. After writhing around in the darkness way down at the "bottom"(begging for it all to end), for what seemed like eternity, reality finally tossed me a lifeline: I realized that I needed to get out - fast - or die a slow, miserable death. Simple as that. So I picked up what was left of my self-esteem and willpower, crunched some numbers and decided that I could afford to ditch "real life" for at least half a year. And now I am doing just that. 

Today my new story begins, and it's going to be full of all things Awesome.

My goal is to spread the Awesome while learning more about myself and the planet I call home, and I hope you choose to join the adventure. But I should probably warn you:

I'm blunt, sarcastic, and I have a twisted sense of humour. I love food, drop more than my fair share of the f-bomb and may give you the impression that I'm a cross between a drunken sailor, a 5-year-old and a crazy cat lady. I take a lot of pictures, own a lot of shoes and drink a lot of vodka. I love markets and tall-ships and creatures of most kinds and books and home made things and pretty cars. I like to make cupcakes, colour pictures and do puzzles. I'm all kinds of A.D.D. and it's pretty Awesome. 

If you're still reading, then you must be at least slightly amused so keep watching this space. You never know what I'll be up to next! 

In the meantime, bear with this mess as I figure out how to blog (It will probably help if you get as drunk as me). And maybe enjoy this photo of me trying to teach that Boyfriend guy how to brush his teeth:

Until tomorrow....