7 - in which a panda discusses Christmas

Christmas has come and gone, the yearly parties have ended, and now all that's left of 2011 are a few measly days of December. Allegedly, the world is ending in 2012 so I guess we may as well make the best of that year in all aspects. On the 1st, we are going to my great-grandmother's house to celebrate with my dad's side of the family. A small gathering but it shall be a lot of fun as it's always fun to hang out with the multitude of cousins and their kids.

For Christmas Eve, we went to my uncle Albert and aunt Sonia's house. It was different than our usual Christmas parties for many reasons. Firstly, my aunt Sonia's family was mostly over, we were the only ones from Albert's side of the family that were there, which made it really awkward. And secondly, the food was not traditional quebecois food but latin American food, which was good too, I'm not complaining, but it was weird nonetheless. We helped Laura (Sonia's mom) make empanadas while we waited for the other guests to arrive. Basically, we stuff pork, peas, egg, raisins and an olive in little dough dumplings and bake them. It was hard work, I soon gave up and retired to the snack table to eat veggies. When Cindy and her kids arrived, my cousin Fany and I spent our time playing with Kaylee and Amber, mostly hide and go seek, and hot potato. It was fun. When dinner was finally served around 10 pm, my cousins, sisters and I played cards (Passe l'ace, it's our favourite game, but we didn't have nickels so we bet with pins lol) until they offered us a small gift - a scarf and mitten set each. Really sweet. Then we went home cos it was rather awkward. The reason why there weren't any other members of my mom's family present is because they fight quite a bit and they tend to not talk to each other for quite awhile when that happens, so...

anyway, moving on to my other Christmas. On Christmas day, we went over to my cousin Steve's house, where he and his girlfriend and their daughter Kaylee-Rose live. They live in my great-grandmother's former house which has been completely renovated to include a huge kitchen and 3 bedrooms on the second floor. Which works out great because baby #2 is on the way :). We'll find out on January 13 whether or not this baby is a boy or a girl. Partially hoping for a boy if only because Steve's brother Jesse has 4 kids and only one of them is a boy, so Sky needs some male cousins I think! Anyway. The usual suspects were all present, minus uncle Danny because he was ill and so was my sister Tarah. My cousin Jennifer couldn't make it cos she was in Miami, but otherwise everyone that's usually there was there. We had the usual Christmas dinner - tourtiere, ragout de pattes de cochon, pate aux patates, turkey, etc and it was delicious. Genevieve, Steve's girlfriend, actually made all the tourtieres this year and they were great! She even made all the desserts, including some chocolate-peanut butter-marshmallow squares that I snatched the recipe off of her cos they were so delicious. I spent most of my time talking with my cousin Kassandra and playing with the babies, checked out some photos from my cousin Terry's vacation to Mexico and sang some carols with my aunt Caroline. Our Christmas' are never too intense, we just have a great time together and that's all that matters :).

I look forward to New Years.

6 - in which a panda finds new inspiration

So, since the last few depressing posts of Twitter vomit as well of confusion with grad school, I have mostly sorted out my future. Now all I have left to do is get to it, so to speak. I have decided to abandon a future as an academic historian in favour of a job that may grant me more working opportunities close to home - that of the academic librarian or archivist. You see, I can still be a historian if I want to, publishing books on the side and that sort of thing, so all is not lost.

I was looking into applying at the MLIS program of McGill University (Masters of Information and Library Sciences). It's a two year degree with four classes each term. Need to start harrassing professors for reference letters and all that jazz, sort of in the style of "hello professor I am aware we haven't spoken in years but I got an A in your class so can you write me a letter stating how amazing I am so I can get into grad school please?". How exciting, the profs must be so happy to receive such requests every year but then again they had to do it too so I'm sure they understand.

School-wise, I have inspiration again in the sense that if I don't get these papers done, I fail, as they are both worth 50% (well one of them is worth 70%). I completed a ten page draft on women and brewing industry in late medieval England and have still about 10 pages of notes to expand on, so I think I will hit the 20 page mark with no difficulty. As for the other paper, I am a little more apprehensive as I received a B- on the midterm despite thinking I understood the concepts. Perhaps this weekend shall be devoted to re-reading both books and writing the entire essay much as I did last weekend to produce a working draft. Hurray for 13 hour days! It's the best idea though, as that paper is 12 pages and is due the 13th. Getting it out of the way early would be best so I can study for my history of Africa exam the 16th as well as submit my final medieval paper the same day.

Hobby-wise, I completed a drawing for the first time in MONTHS and I am rather proud. I can't say what it is though as it's a secret gift for my lovely friend in Sweden. However, I find myself suffering from writer's block when pertaining to the wonderful land of online RPing that I do. I may have to drop the hobby until the 16th as I saw last night it kept me up until 2 am. Furthermore, RP itself has been annoying me more and more, it makes me stressed, and a lot of the people there cause drama for no reason which makes me even more stressed. I actually think a lot of my unhappiness this term has been because of RP, which is unfortunate as I quite enjoy the hobby usually, I don't know what's wrong exactly, but I may have a hunch.

Now, I am off to dry my hair and eat a snack then head for class, an entire evening of presentations, good-golly-gosh aren't I lucky. And mine is tomorrow. Faaaantastic. Well, a student must do it, grit your teeth and bear it! :)

5 - in which a panda learns to stop Twitter spamming

People have hard lives.
A lot of people internalize their sorrow and stresses cos well.. quite frankly, who cares?

I'm one of those people who needs to vent anywhere to feel better. When something happens to me and I have no one to talk to, I need to vent. But it's not right to use Twitter or any other social networking outlet to do so.

I need to learn that and become more mature and learn to not become a huge nuisance to everyone, because that will just suck. :(

I don't want to lose friends that I've made because I am a total whining spaz.

I will thus be cheerful even if it kills me. I will grit my teeth and bear any irritation with a smile. In the end, being happy is only how you think of your life, is the glass half empty or is it half full?

3 - in which a panda discovers that grad school is not the answer

So, the other day, my good friend Selina writes to me that she's been on a frenzy looking up various schools all across the country and even overseas about master's degrees in History. It made me realize with a start that if I do intend to go to grad school, I'd best be looking and weighing my potential options, and fast. Ever since I entered Concordia University back in 2008, I had a dream - a dream of becoming a food historian that would change the world, write novel after novel about rare or exotic foods and spices and how they came to be used and why they were and are still important in the lives of people today. I was determined. I was dedicated. I bought lots of food history books on Amazon and tried to write all my essays for class on the topic of nutrition or food culture. Then, I got accepted into the Honours history program, and my world shattered.

Honours seminars are the worst way to learn. They are based on favortism and appearance, not even about what you write. It's about reading 3-4 articles every week and discussing them in great detail. What are we learning exactly? I'm not sure. To critique and tear apart the works of famous historians? Sure, it would be fine to just point out the thesis, however the teachers are looking for an intelligent chat, where all the students attempt to out-do the other with a smarter comment each time. I'm a person who learns through observation, listening and personal research. I have been accused of being a 'baby', having 'vapid opinions' and many other things in these classes simply because I choose to listen and take notes on the conversation. Some professors awarded higher participation marks to students who visited them in their office more often, which I see as favortism. Also, several of my friends were very chatty and brought up reasonable points in these classes and received the same low participation grade as I, who never spoke. It chalks up to which opinions the teachers agree with most. Professors have laughed about 'regular students' (i.e.: those not in honours) and said that we were different, we're special. Unfortunately, I don't agree with the whole 'ivory tower' mentality.

And so, I don't think I can do grad school. I do not want to be a part of a system that insults others, that is incredibly competitive, where you likely won't make any friends due to everyone competiting for the little available jobs post graduation. I don't want to sit in seminars and act smart and try to one-up every person who speaks. I want to learn. I want to study history because I love it, not because it's fun to insult other people's views and works. I want to make people's faces light up when I present strange and unusual facts in classrooms or museums. I want to help people find the books they want. I wanted to write creative textbooks about food and spices and the histories of them... but it seems I cannot do that without my degree and reputation as a scholar, which is obtained by suffering through graduate school and doing more of this bullshit which is 'Honours History' that I have described earlier. I cannot. I am not that kind of person.

So what are my options? Get internships or part-time work in museums and archives? Try to perhaps stay at my dad's company and become a salesman? Go to massage therapy school or cooking school and obtain a degree and work hard at another career? I don't... know. The world is so vast, there's so much I'd love to do, but which path to follow?

I am thus a confused panda. But writing out these thoughts is always helpful.

2 - in which a panda discusses the weekend

So, this weekend I was fortunate enough to go see the Lion King musical that is playing all month until early September at Place des Arts. It was very beautiful and amazing. Everyone performing was so graceful and so talented - the actors they had controlling the animals, in particular the giraffes and the cheetah were so cool, I loved how they pulled it off. Some songs I felt there could have been more substance, more movement, for instance "I just can't wait to be King" was very bland I find, despite the fact that the two young actors for Simba and Nala sang very well, particularly Nala. All in all, I really enjoyed the performance.

The entire time though the girl next to me just would not shut up. I understand that she's a child and might not have seen the Lion King movie before, but everything that would happen, like Simba would walk in centre stage. "What's going on dad?" Or the scene would go black after a song. "Why did the lights go out, dad?" ... I wanted to kill her !!! I KNOW that's horrible of me but she wouldn't shut up, I heard her voice loud and clear throughout the entire musical and the urge to injure, maim, or seriously injure, as Dobby would say, was rising. Luckily, I managed to restrain my anger.

Following the performance, my parents and I went to Chinatown to my favourite bakery, Harmonie. They make the best pastries, but their bubble tea is mediocre at best. Parents were too lazy to go to Magic Idea or L2, so I told them to order there. Dad didn't like his, it was blueberry and very bitter, the best flavour was maman's, honeydew, very creamy. Oh well. So for their first try in Chinatown, they didn't like it! :( Maman said she wouldn't want to come eat 'Shabu Shabu' if it's like this, which upset me because it's not at all the same, but I guess they just won't get it. Parents can be very stubborn. Especially about other issues which transpired this morning, but I'd rather not talk about that. Not the time yet, and being so upset by it, I may write something I regret.

Yesterday, I bummed around all day and played Pokemon like a derp. Didn't get very far, I am a mediocre trainer at best. XD But I finally got to restart my game cos some dude at Game Buzz that I went to see on Saturday before the Lion King told me how to erase my game. (It's not a simple matter of saving over the file, folks, you gotta delete your game by pressing Up, B and Select at the same time on the title screen.) So yes.

1 - In which a panda introduces herself.

I'm not sure why I'm attempting a blog, as it seems that whenever I do so, I write faithfully for the first few weeks or months, usually once or twice a week, with lots of different topics and ideas and goals and ambitions. After two or so months, the posts become once in a blue moon, and then disappear altogether. So, perhaps this will happen again but hey you never know.

Alright, they call me Panda, feel free to call me by that name as well.

I am twenty-two years old, born in February, female, a 4th year history student at Concordia University.

I enjoy many things, namely food, food history, cooking and baking, geography, languages, anthropology, genetics, anime and manga, cosplay, writing, doodling, video games, reading and playing sports such as volleyball or horseshoes.

I love stuffed animals, bookmarks, snacks, hugs, holding hands, walking in the rain, hoodies, scarves, mittens, and boots.

I struggle with several things, namely a short temper, self-esteem issues, easily-wounded pride.

My favourite animal is the panda. Big dogs, crows, penguins, and sheep are high up on the list as well.

In short, I am a nerd, a dork, a derp, and just an ordinary girl trying to enjoy life to the fullest by participating in activities I enjoy and hanging out with the people I love.

Got some bamboo to munch on,
this is panda signing off,
ta ta.