I'm trying really hard not to feel like a slacker...

I have a new apartment that I am moving into Oct. 10th.  I quit my job at Fresh to focus more energy on school.  I changed my courses and school plan around a little so that I am actually interested in what I'm reading and writing and talking about.  I made all of these decisions in the last 7 days, which is quite a feat for me.  

I am sad about leaving Fresh, but I am really excited to JUST be in school.  I have only JUST been in school for one school year as long as I can remember, and that was my first year at McGill. In high school I was in school AND working AND dancing 20 hours a week.  In second year at McGill I was working at RVC.  In third and fourth year I was floorfellowing and working and volunteering and yet still probably had the most free time of all of my friends, if you can believe that.  Last year I was in school and TAed, and second semester I worked.  This semester, I will be in school.  That's it.  I'm excited.  I truly am.  

Decisions:

I do not like making them. 

Oh my god, we're back again...

Preface: Why am I so very terrible at writing in this blog?  I think I like the idea of having this thing more than I know what to write about in it.  I still find the whole nature of a blog a tad weird.  I mean, I feel like it takes the form of a diary or journal, and yet where those have been traditionally private, a blog is so very public.  So public!  Not only can my friends read it if they so choose, but so can complete strangers if they somehow find themselves at this site.  How strange is that?  Why do these strangers care about what I have to say?  Why would I want them to have access to my thoughts?  I'm not entirely convinced that having a blog isn't an act of exhibitionism somehow.  Last year I took this class, which I mentioned in my very first post in this blog, called "Writing the Self, Reading the Life".  It was an entire class on biography, autobiography, memoir, etc..  The way we approached the material was from the question of why we, as people, are so obsessed with recording our lives, and even more so why we're so obsessed with consuming the lives of others.  Why do people find "based on a true story" stories more appealing than fiction?  What on earth is wrong with fiction?!  Fiction is awesome!  It's just so interesting.  This is all to say that every time I think to myself that I should write in this blog, and obviously now it has been quite some time since I've done just that, I can't figure out what it is that I would write about.  My own life?  Okay, sure.  But the problem becomes how I want to write about my own life, or the things that are happening in it, or the things that are exciting me, without feeling silly or uncomfortable or self-conscious or some other feeling of plaguing self-doubt about who will read it and what they will subsequently think of my writing, or of me.  And so I don't write.  And I constantly add and remove the link to this blog from my facebook profile.  I don't want people to read it, but I do, because otherwise what is the point of even keeping a blog? 

Chantale is always telling me that I think too much, that I need to just be.  She's totally right, but I can't help overanalyzing everything (gee, can you tell?).  

This is all to say that

Life is pretty good.  I think I am finally actually in love with Toronto.  Actually, I know I am.  I am totally honeymoon staging with Toronto right now, and it is awesome.  Sure, I still love Montreal dearly, but I find that in my head Montreal is infused with all these nostalgic qualities and memories and sometimes I miss it, but then when I actually go back I'm underwhelmed.  I still have a great time when I'm there, and I obviously love seeing my important people who are still there, but moving away was definitely definitely the right thing.  I had a great summer.  I convinced myself over the summer that I wasn't looking forward to going back to school, that I wished I could just be done already, but that is just not true.  I am back in school, and right now (before all the major stresses and anxiety that will come mid-October) I am very happy about it.  This is my last semester of classes, and so far I like them all.  Next semester I will be doing my own research, and while that is kind of daunting I'm also really excited about it.  I know (in very vague terms) what I'm going to write about, and while it's totally still academic, it also is something that feels real and tangible and important for actual people in the real world that is outside of academia.  The best of both worlds!  I am also moving again - my mother tells me I have a sickness.  That may well be true, I certainly have moved more times than anyone really should, but regardless I am very certain that I've made the right decision about this move.  And while I'm quite sad to be leaving my current place and roomates, I am also really excited about a new place, in a new neighbourhood, and all the new wonderful things that will inevitably follow from those changes.  I'm completely happy about the no meat thing, and I'm never even tempted.  Although I often find myself feeling guilty because I struggle a lot with keeping rennet out of my life.  I am not ready or willing to give up cheese, and while I try to buy myself rennet free cheese for home, there is so much cheese out there in the world that isn't rennet-free, or that people don't even know whether it is rennet-free.  There's also the leather thing.  I have all these leather things, belts, shoes, bags, etc., and I really feel like an asshole now using/wearing them.  But for one a lot of that stuff is used stuff from value village, and for another thing I already HAD it before I stopped eating meat.  I'm not going to buy anymore leather, that's for sure, but I still feel like a hypocrite when I don't eat meat and I wear my leather belt.  I do not like feeling like that, and I also do not like giving people ammunition to undermine my decision to not eat meat.  Why do people want to do that?  Why is it that people who themselves eat meat want to look for flaws in MY vegetarianism?  Like I have one leather belt or eat some cheddar that isn't rennet-free and suddenly it doesn't even matter that I don't eat meat?  It would be one thing if these were other people who didn't eat meat or whatever trying to encourage me to be a better vegetarian, but I don't really need to hear it from all those people with their steaks.  But! The point is, I'm trying to do better, but so far so good.  So in general, life is pretty good right now.  I have no real complaints.  Emily told me about how when she was in Europe this past summer she made a "no complaining" rule for herself, and I think I'm going to try and follow that myself right now.  Otherwise I totally find myself complaining like, just to make conversation.  That's just silly.  

So now, instead of not writing in here at all, I've written the longest post ever.  Happy mediums be damned.