My weekend in rewind...

I'm gonna talk about my past week in reverse chronological order... go me :-)

Today:

Tierney woke up sick -- so she says -- so I call the school and tell them she won't be attending. By 10am she's running around and wanting to play and stuff, so I'm like, get your stuff on, you're going to school.

Got my laundry money and hit the bulk barn, picked up molding wafers to make little candy lollipops with the kids, maybe tonight, haven't decided yet.

Got home sorted laundry, watched some of the Muppet show. Just clean out my utility closet, and had to throw out a giant box of cat-pee contaminated halloween clothes. Bright side is, the cat didn't get the carpet, and now I have a lot more room in the closet with that box out of there.

Yesterday:

Woke up around 1:30 in the afternoon with a cold/hangover. Myspaced for a good three hours, because I was just NOT feeling at all productive.

around 4:30 I finally decided to get off my ass and wrap some christmas prezzies so they wouldn't all be sitting out in the living room when the girls got home. ran out of tape and tags so had to hit walmart before getting the girls.

Somewhere in this time my parents came over to drop off my car, as I couldn't drive it home the night before. They commented on the odor, and I told them about the closet. Mom recommended picking up some febreze.

Picked up the girls, came home, read some Ramona and put them to bed. Never got around to wrapping the rest of the presents.

Saturday:

Woke up around 8:30ish, and despite my best intentions, only managed to get out of the house around noonish, after running around gathering gifts for the friends I was planning to visit, consoling a friend on MSN on some personal matters, and gathering candy canes for those who were getting only cards.

Stopped by Lori's on the way out of town to pick Sammi and my goodies from two weeks ago. Lori had thrown her back out, so I didn't want to make her stand around for too long, plus I was already running about 2 hours late.

Headed down to Barrie and picked up Joe, with plans to go shopping together. It was nice, especially since we hadn't hung out together since Sammi's going away party. Three and a half month is a long enough time to let dust settle. So we're cool, and just friends. The party made it very clear that there was no future there otherwise.

Dragged the poor guy to Toys R Us, where we had two have spent a good hour and a half, if not two, while he laughed at me while I agonized over what to get the girls, and whether I was spend too much, and whether it would look like I was favoring one over the other. He also got to laugh at my hipocrasy as I criticized parents who spent too much on their kids, then proceeded to have a near-coronary at the check out. Meh. I don't get to spoil them too often, and I still spent less on the both of them than some parents spend on one child. Not to mention, the biggest gifts were bought with the money nanny sent them, so technically it's Nanny spoiling them, not me. :-P Still justifying, all the time justifying spending money. It's post-poverty flashbacks, from times when I had to justify buying gum.

After fighting the hordes at Toys R Us, I told Joe he could pick the next store, so we headed to future shop where he searched for a GPS system and I drooled over TV DVD sets. So many box sets. I had to laugh at the 'Jennifer Aniston' Collection. Who actually said "You know what would be handy? A whole bunch of Jennifer Aniston movies in one collection." They're not even the good ones. They're the crappy first couple movies she made during the Friends early years.

Finally got done shopping and dropping Joe off at home around 6:30ish.. again, about two hours later than I had planned, leaving me very little time to do the visiting I had planned to do... as it was, I had to cut out Jenny's place and Sam's place, but since they didnt' know I was coming, it wasn't a huge loss to them.

Got over to Jamies place so I could give sammi her toy and her holiday gift, and Jamie a card... me the social retard I am didn't bother to bring a card for his roommate Chris though. Sammi got me a new coffee maker, the sweet <3. Good thing I had refused to let Joe buy me one in the walmart. Narrowly avoided a potentially awkward situation as I was leaving Jamie's as his friend showed up. Because I was on the way out the door, I only had to deal with a slightly awkward hello. Still wondering what the reaction to seeing me was. tehehe.

Picked up some food and headed over to Erics place to drop off a prezzie and see a few minutes of Fatal Frame 3, which seems like a fairly freaky game, but I have a hard time getting excited over video games. Maybe it's just me.

Got home around 9ish to get ready for my parents party. As I'm getting all dolled up I realize I can hear a faint meowing, and I look around for Spartacus. Shaking the kitty treats, I realize that he's stuck somewhere. Utility closet. Must have snuck in there why I was grabbing the candy canes. Opened up the closet and there he was, along with a terribly foul odor.

Got myself sexy and went and picked up Dan and we headed to my parents place where we drank, mingled, my sister took a kajillion pics on my camera, and people sang bad karaoke, and I fielded numerous questions of 'Is that your boyfriend? No?! Why not?' Gah. Good times though, I'm a bad influence and let dan Drunk text message, still waiting to hear what the fallout from that was.

Friday:

Took the girls out to lunch and tobogganning. Spent twenty bucks on snowpants, to go down the hill ONCE before one child started crying because she got snow in her face and the other one announced that she had to go pee. Good times.

Went to the Kings Wharf to see the childrens production of Tom Sawyer. My nephew had a part in it as Ben Rogers, and I was surprised to a net friend in the production as well. We had gone out once, really sweet guy, but it wasn't 'there'. Picky picky I know. It was nice to go up and say hello again though.

During the scene with Tom Huck and Becky in the gold mine, after they find the Gold, when becky said her line about dying in the cave, my sisters BF's son, who is five, pipes up "Meh, They'll die rich." Too funny. Really good production. Again rekindled my interest in community theatre. Maybe next year.

Where I am coming from...

So many of you know me, some not as well as others. I know that after being on Myspace for almost a year, it's may seem a little silly to be posting what may seem like an 'introductory' blog, but I thought it might be a little fun for you all to get a little peek into part of the way my mind works, so I'm going to talk a little about my dreams and aspirations.

For the past couple of days I have been on here bitching about the big giant motherass assignment I had due on Thursday (the one that I handed in at 1pm today, THANK GAWD). I'm currently a student of sociology in my third year of University. I was originally a psychology student, but I have been taking sociology courses since my first year. In some ways the two disciplines are quite similar, and in other ways they diverge greatly. They are both studies of human behaviour, but psychology focuses mostlyon the individuals thought processes and behaviours, where sociology focuses more on interactions between people on the micro and macrosocial levels.

I left Psychology halfway through second year, because I realized that I had more of a passion for sociology, as well as enjoying the research methodology more. After the three years that I have been exposed to this discipline, it's safe to say that I am of the Social Constructionist mindset, with Marxist tendecies. That is to say, I don't beleive in anything. Or more accurately, there is very little I take for granted as 'natural' anymore.

People make the mistake of thinking that when someone says something is not 'natural' that you mean it is wrong. I try not to make value judgements as to what is right or wrong. I like to think more along the lines of what is 'harmful' or 'harmless'. Most of the time now, when I say 'natural' I mean congenital, something that is built into you at birth. There is very little I concieve as natural anymore, I tend to find evidence to the idea that pretty much every value, norm and idea about life we have is constructed in some way. I guess this idea I derived mostly from the courses on Sexuality, as well as sociology of the Family.

I think the problem that many detractors of Social Constructionism have is that it sounds so much like a big conspiracy, like people conciously set out to spread ideology. It's so much more subtle than that. Most of the norms we take for granted, for instance gender roles, are so embedded into our psyche that we are unaware of the socialization that is taking place. When you tell a little boy that he can't wear a dress because he is a boy, that's conditoning him to accept certain behaviours as masculine. It's not a concious thing though, because we concern ourselves more with teaching our children conformity, not in the name of perpetuating the construction of gender, but in the name of making life more comfortable for our children. It's not a concious thing. Social construction means simply that norms are created through human interaction, not handed down by some divine entity.

As far as my Marxist tendencies go, I say that because I do beleive that there is a dominant class, a power elite that works to perpetuate their own power. Why not? If I had a great deal of power, I would fight to retain it as well. I also beleive that some of the hegemonic assumptions that we live with day to day are perpetuated through certain agents of socialization, such as the media, namely the tool of advertising, for the benefit of major corporations. I could go on for days about this.

As much as I complain, I love my education, and I would love to continue it as far as it will take me. My ultimate goal is to specialize in media studies, one because it fits in so nicely with my pop culture addiction, and two, in light of the theories of social constructionism, it is interesting how this approach begs the question of art imitating life, or life imitating art. More accurately, life imitates art... but art tends to feed into hegemonic ideologies.

Anyway, yeah. That's a little bit of me. Sociology whore. I'm rambling... but anyway. I'm going to watch a movie I think... first one in weeks.

HUZZAH for the shopkeep!

Woot! Proofing and Formatting tomorrow then I am officially done, and I won't have to write about social theorists for at least another month.

So ends the final chapter in the oddessey known as 'Andie attempting to give two shits about social theory."

It's always the last minute I manage to pull the work out of my ass.

That's right. That's not fat down there. It's unwritten essays.

One small ray of light.

SWEET JESUS I GOT MY EXTENSION...

Apparently my prof did email me, I never got it, but I spoke with him just now and he's giving me until Monday.

Mother of Gawd, I want to be done NOW. NOW. But at least I know I can get it done by monday, and I won't have to scrap the class. Woot.

I can't take this stress, I'm so exhausted... I've burst into tears no less than three times today. Gawd, Gawd, Gawd. In the home stretch now, and this takes a teeny bit of pressure off.
I'm off to finish this shite so I can finally rest.

My imagination's having puppies.

Give me back my brain dammit. Hell give me back my life. I don't want to think about Marx and Conflict theory, or Durkheim and structural functionalism... all this shit has pushed useful concepts out my brain.. I tried to discussion a weekend visitation change up with the boy and I couldn't grasp the concept of This weekend and Next weekend.

I can't live off four hours sleep. I had to beg and plead at my brain today to function.

I got caught doing 75 in a 50 today. The cop let me off, thank god. The look of sheer embarassment and utter exhaustion maybe made him feel sorry for me.

Anas won't return my email asking for an extension. This shits due tomorrow. I'm freaking.

I need sleep. So. badly.

I just want to hang out with my kids -- who are starting to feel the stress -- and do xmassy stuff and watch movies and read books that arent' about how fucked up our world is.

I want to look into the mirror and not see the dark circles and stress rash and not see the mess piling up around me.

I don't want to think anymore. I don't want to write anymore. I don't want to breathe eat and sleep sociology. ANYMORE. Let this semester end soon. SOON.

On a side note, I took tierney to the book fair today and bought the girls Ramona the Pest. I can't wait to read it to them. The illustrations on the new editions remind so much of Reagan it's too cute for words.

Urg. Just Urg.

I hate Fucking Drama.

I hate fucking group projects.

I'm too damn old for this SHITE.

I think I'm gonna be sick.

Come on, wednesday. Then I can put all this idiocy behind me.

We're all living for the weekend

Well this was a fun weekend, that's for sure. Well worth putting off all the work I have to do :-)

I picked up Sammi and Eric in Barrie on friday after working my arse off on the group project that's due on Tuesday. That's done, now all's left is to present. Although shite is gonna hit the fan, if our ousted group member (just one, we let the other one back in, because as it turns out, he did have all his shit together) shows up. Gah, I hate drama.

So we drove up here, dropped our stuff off at my place and headed out to the Harbour legion for Karaoke. It was freakin dead so it allowed me a chance to break out some stuff that's a little more edgy than the usual Legion fare. My voice has been effed up so I stuck with more fun stuff than anything really challenging... If I recall, I did:

REM - Imitation of Life
Dead Milkmen - Punk Rock Girl (which was friggin fun)
Everlast - Black Jesus
Ramones - I wanna be Sedated

There's one more, but I can't remember. Sammi and Eric got up and did some stuff too, they seemed to have a pretty good time.

After the Legion closed, we hit last call at Shananas, it was pretty busy there.

Saturday, spent the morning watching Clone High on DVD ("Helping people out is what John Stamos is all About!") then went out for lunch/dinner at the kings buffet.

Went grocery shopping, where sammi got beat by a mechanical santa then Sammi and I went off to a Passion Party hosted by my friend Lori (aka the little witch), which was a friggin riot, and I bought fun 'me-time' toys, including one that hooks up to an MP3 player and works in time to the music. MICHAEL STIPE!! MICHAEL STIPE!! hahahaahhhaaa (inside Joke). It was friggin crazy fun, so I'm hoping to host one myself in the next couple months. I have a lot of pervy friends who would enjoy this :-)

Afterwards we came back, and Nic and Dan come over and Sammi had hid a dirty note in Dans room, which upon being found resulted in a whole lot of homoerotic fun, and hilarity ensued. Watched a bunch of youtube, and Nic brought over copys of his new CD. Good times. Eventually ended up watching some kids in the hall, about 5 episodes from the first season. Good times.

So today I drove them back home, we went to Erics (with the kiddies in tow) to look at some pics from a fashion show, then Sammi and I and the girls went to McRaunchies for dinner then drove home. Tierney and reagan told me stories for bedtime for a change, complete with shadow puppets. They're bloody cute those two are.

So tired, and I have a big paper due, so it's gonna be a stressful week, but after that I only have exams to worry about until january. Huzzah.

a train a train a train a train... would you, could you?

No time to blog lately... been crazed with work. Okay, that's not entirely true. I've posted a few on the Mog Which is a fun little music site which I was recently introduced to. They are but short, music related blurbs. Random here and there thoughts.

Otherwise, I am again ass-deep in deadlines. Drama is about to ensue with a group project I am working on, as those of us who have been contributing have decided to put our collective foot down. The shite is gonna hit the fan real soon. I also have a ten page essay due next Thursday -- a comparative essay on two major social theorists. I woke up from a nightmare that it was due today. Scary. Although due in a week is pretty scary too.

I'm Having company this weekend! Sammi and Eric are gonna come up and hang out with me this weekend, I'm really excited. Legion karaoke, and kids in the hall and beers and for a little while on Saturday Sammi and I are gonna ditch Eric (Don't look at me like that, he's had forewarning of this ditching -- it couldn't be helped) and go to a sex toy party at Lori's! Yay! I've never been to one, should be fun. I cleaned the house from top to bottom yesterday and clean ALL the sheets and blankets to ensure that the last stragglers of tierney and reagans little 'Friends' were completely and totally obliterated. HAHA! DIE FUCKERS! So, sammi, if you're reading this, fear not. it was more a safety precaution anyway.

Still dealing with the occasional wave of loneliness, but it's okay. I guess it hits me more than usual lately because I'm not distracted by the fun of seeking out prospects. In total frankness, I don't know if I could sustain a relationship at this point in my life anyway. It's just that it's been so looong.

I get this way around Christmas and new years, just cause it brings back some not so nice memories. January marks four years. It'll pass. The wedding anniversary passed this year without notice. Good for me.

It's neither this or that, actually it's a collection of things...

Two hour lecture in Modern Soc Theory about the 'three faces of cruelty' (being ferocity, callousness and acetiscism) follow by a forty minute film on the history of punishment. Yay. Someone slit my wrists for me, please.

More cases of mistaken identity. Apparently cute guys DO just smile and say hi to me for no reason. Thought he was one of Sammi's friends from her going away party. Turned out to be a random guy from the library who 'stole' a chair from me last week. Seem nice enough, I introduced myself after explaining my mix-up.

One out of my last three assignments complete, a three-pager (yay for the short ones) in response to a study on polyamoury. Toyed with the idea that the assumption of monogamy just sets some couples up for failure. This was for Sex roles. Will hand in tomorrow morning, not-so-bright and early.

Finally free of Magical Trevor. For the time being.

Transcribed the lyrics to The Headstones 'Nickels for your Nightmares'. That song is truly a testament to Hugh Dillon's smack addiction.

Ignored on the MSN by one who shall remain nameless. Think I'm gonna take the hint.

Me go sleepy sleepy now.

filibuster vigilantly

I've had This Shit in my head for the past two days straight now.

Curse you Magical Trevor.

******

I must be getting old. Was looking at CD's to buy and I only recognized THREE songs on this years Big Shiny Tunes compilation.

******

School related stress. This shit better be worth it in the end. Anyone know anything about Symbolic Interactionism?