Hi.

Hey. How are you guys? Do you still blog? What sort of writing material are your lives yielding?
Are you happy?
Have you been reading anything good?
Have you been writing anything good?
Have you been living anything good?

<3
Gabi

p.s. You should totally drop me a line on tumblr and/or your favourite social network (friendster, of course). I like you all, and feel like I lost this community thing when we stopped blogging. My tumblr url is the same as this one (but with tumblr in the place where blogspot is.)

The doldrums.

A girl sits in front of an aged computer. Her eyes have an expressionless look -- the one usually reserved for video manuals about half-assed power tools and for math class.

"You know what," she says to herself, "I'm going to write a blog post."

And then she doesn't really bother doing much because who is she kidding she isn't a writer. So she picks up the guitar instead (she isn't really a guitarist either) and forsakes her blog for the time being.

. . . I'm finding myself uninterested in writing at the moment. Words don't seem to force their way out of my fingertips so often. My fingertips are pretty preoccupied with fretboards and calculations. It kind of makes me sad.

I lost my favourite notebook filled with ideas and questions and some songs I was working on which I don't think I'll be able to reproduce.

I'm hoping for my inner writer to start talking again. In the meantime I've been pounding words out now and again. We'll see what happens I suppose.

I'm switching to a lower dose of ADHD meds. I think I am happy about this.

I think that's all I have to say for now.

<3 Gabi

P.S. If any Bostonians read my blog, my heart and thoughts are with you.

You can't have a deadline without the dead. (I'm sorry that I'm not funny)

       I thought that illicit wine would make me feel more badass, as well as more classy, than it did. I suppose that the classiness is rather diminished by the fact that it's in a glass which has nothing resembling a stem, and also that it's mixed with orange juice. The badassery is diminished by the fact that I'm drinking it home alone, and also that it's mixed with orange juice. Still, I sipped it as I watched a foreign film. I was wearing mismatched fuzzy socks and a warm sweater. It was kind of nice, even if I was putting off a billion things and it would really come around to smack me. I wonder if that's the kind of stuff I'll miss when I'm out of the house.



I want to start writing poetry again. I showed up at a writing group at the library one day and all of these super-talented teenagers were reading their poetry for critique. It made me remember how awesome words are at stuff. I'll try to write more. Maybe post stuff.

Here's a picture. I'm in a window tubey thing in a subway station in Toronto. I like exploring the city a lot. 

I just realized that I'm writing at the level of a third grader right now. That means that I should go.

Now I'm about to have one of the busiest weeks of my life. I will explain it during the week or immediately after the week is over, but I have work to do.

<3 Gabi

February makes me shiver.

Even in a city of 2.5 million, there's a feeling of togetherness when snow blankets the streets at an exciting rate.

We have almost 30cm now. 

Some not-particularly-good pictures (it was cold out):

<3 

Gabi

P.S. I have 3 blog posts as drafts right now and will eventually finish one. Eventually. 

I read this year.

Rereads are italicized.
Favourites are green.
Books I enjoyed very much but have not quite made the favourite list are blue.
Books I disliked are red, not that I have a problem with the colour red or anything. It's a pretty decent colour.
Everything else is black.
Non-fiction is starred.

• *1: The Brain That Changes Itself
• 2: An Abundance of Katherines
• 3: The Fault in Our Stars 
• 4: The Phantom Tollbooth 
• 5: Divergent (It's fun. I need that.)
• 6: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
• 7: Castration Celebration
• 8: The Faceless Fiend
• 9: Stories from the Vinyl Cafe (Awesome Canadian Lit. It started as a radio show.)
• 10: Ender's Game
• 11: Equal Rites
• 12: The Light Fantastic
• 13: First Test
• 14: Neverwhere
• 15: Paper Towns 
• *16: A Place for Owls: True Animal Stories
• 17: Cat's Cradle ("See the cat? See the cradle?")
• 18: Player Piano
• 19: Tuesdays With Morrie
• 20: And Another Thing... (I came in expecting Hitch Hiker's Guide. Did not remotely live up to Hitch Hiker's Guide.)
• 21: Nation
• 22: Dr. Horrible
• 23: Genius Squad (Not as good as previous books in the series)
• 24: The Wee Free Men
• 25: A Planet Called Treason
• 26: Carrie
• 27: Asterix the Gaul  (I grew up on Asterix. Nice to re-read.)
• 28: Asterix in Spain
• 29: The Taming of the Shrew
• 30: A Faraway Island (A distant family member who died brought me this when he visited from Sweden. It's weird to hold something he personally selected just six months ago. Not a comment on the book, just a thought.)
• 31: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (I might have disliked this because school made me analyze it to death.)
• 32: Lord of the Flies
• 33: Catching Fire
• 34: Maus: My Father Bleeds History
• 35: The Fault in Our Stars (The second time that year.)
• *36: Growing Up Jung
• 37: Asterix in Britain
• *38: What the Dog Saw
• 39: So You Want to Be a Wizard
• 40: Insurgent
• *41: Let's Pretend This Never Happened (made me laugh.)
• 42: The Magicians (Beautiful writing. "Literary fantasy" at its best.)
• 43: Furies of Calderon
• 44: The Andromeda Strain (Crichton is perfect for camping trips.)
• 45: The Night Circus
• 46: Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World: A Novel
• *47: Quiet: The Power of Introverts
• 48: Pride and Prejudice
• 49: 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth
• *50: Outliers
• 51: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (If anybody ever gets around to analyzing it, lemme know. I still am unsure of what happened.)
• 52: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (A stolen copy from my middle school's library. I will return it eventually.)
• 53: The Perks of Being a Wallflower (I thought that it was over-hyped.)
• 54: Coraline
• 55: It's Kind of a Funny Story
• *56: The Psychopath Test
• 57: Hush, Hush (Twilight-inspired YA Lit the mother bought me.)
• 58: The Long Earth
• 59: Good Omens (Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Oh my gosh.)
• 60: Mort

<3 Gabi

P.S. Exams are almost over, then I will have time to write stuff and read other people's posts.

This has far too much rambling.

an explanation:

     In my previous post, I left a kind of cliffhanger in the post-script. I feel sort of bad about that because it wasn't meant to be a cliffhanger; I just wanted to tell you guys but didn't want to elaborate on it. (Did I use that semicolon correctly? I hope I used that semicolon correctly.) Anyway, I did touch mouths with a person and I suppose it was pleasant, or at the very least an interesting experience. I feel fewer feelings about it than it seems like I should, which worries me a little bit. Am I emotionally numb or was it just not a big deal to me? I'm really good at repression, so I guess I will see. He's a really nice and really socially awkward guy and we're staying in touch as friends.

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     I know that it's the new year, but in all honesty that doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I have no new year's resolutions to make, because I had a breakdown two weeks ago that necessitated lifestyle change resolutions anyway. The passage of time is always terrifying, so another year gone by is not particularly scary. I did read 60 books this year, which I am rather pleased with.* 

I've made posts with this picture before, but I didn't take photos this trip.

     My family spent the last couple of days of the year up at the cottage, which was beautiful. I can never get over the fact that an entire lake can freeze over. Just a bunch of molecules made up of a bunch of oxygen atoms and twice the number of hydrogens can be so many different things. We decided to make a skating rink this year, and cleared a large patch and started to flood it in thin layers to make it smooth. It felt pleasingly Canadian, and a nice change from my week in the US.

     I went for a drive, my first real lesson. The car slid around in the snow, and I had to keep readjusting my trajectory. I made my way down the road at a leisurely pace, my mother and trusted friend beside me the entire time. It wouldn't be a stretch to make the drive a metaphor for my life right now. I'm still figuring out the best way to make my life a path free of swerves, but in the meantime I can adjust my direction as I go. There's no rush, and I have people to help me every step of the way. As long as I don't run over any little old ladies, it'll all be okay. 

     The customary greeting for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, does not translate to "happy new year." We wish each other shana tovah, to have a "good year." I like this a lot better. If we think too hard about happiness, we begin to lose the happiness which is right under our noses. For me, the best type of satisfaction does not come from searching for satisfaction, it comes from the gratification I get from a job well done, a good deed, or anything I love. Have a good year, everyone. 


<3 
Gabi

*I'll post a list at some point with recommendations in bold. At some point.