Today I Turned 27

Presents from the boyfriend

I turned 27 today. 27 is such a weird age. Nobody writes happy songs about it (I looked). It felt a little weird to be nearing 30. A lot of the people I went to school with are now married and have children. Though I one day want those things, I’m not ready for that yet. I feel like there’s so much of life to explore first. It’s just hard to get caught up in societal expectations at times.

But screw that.

I will make 27 special in my own way. I’ll go on new adventures, try new things, make new memories to make this year as special as the last.

Excerpts From My Dream Journal

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I have a dream journal. When I first started it was by my bedside, and I wrote as soon as I woke up. Sometimes this was in the dark, so a lot of it is rather not legible. Now, I tend to write down the dreams that are so bizarre I remember them in vivid detail.

Anyways, the point is I have a journal for my dreams and here are some random excerpts. These are exact transcriptions of what I actually wrote so they are quite random and bizarre:

“Somebody was amused by a long half a chip”

“Dinner/drinks with highschool friends at a place that ran out of chocolate cake. Dan throws up funny and we all laugh. Karen was in dream too.”

“Mac DeMarco was doing my hair with clips. We were in high school. Someone stole my iPhone but left the case all wrinkled. Mom came to pick me up in a round area.”

“Me, Livia, Nash and his friends were going to get yogurt. Decide to check on our hampster who has a giant cage. He escaped and black guy stepped on it because it scared him. I text Livia but they went to yogurt already. Hampster named Hammy. I get mad at Pokemon flyer. Black guy gives me a hug.”

I don’t even know.

Video Round-Up: Fail Nails, A Normal Monday, Wavelength Pre-Party

Another 3 Vlogs up on Youtube. First I tried that dumb nail kit:

Then I had a pretty boring Monday

And lastly I went to the Wavelength pre-party show with Speed Ortiz, HSY and WISH

 

Mondays…

You know those days where a series of unfortunate events happen in movies? Sometimes life is a little like that. It’s not funny when you’re in the experience. In fact I almost want to cry a little when they’re happening but when you look back at the events you can laugh a little.

Last night it actually snowed. The weather people have been warning us of snow storms all winter but have been wrong about it. But this time they were right. Without looking out the window, I unexpectedly walked out into a few snow banks.

Then I waited for my first bus in what felt like -20 temperatures. My toes were already beginning to freeze. When I got to the subway, someone pressed the emergency alarm at two consecutive stops on the same train. It stalled 10-15 minutes each time for emergency personnel to arrive. Then immediately after that all trains on same line I were held for a fire investigation at one station. In Toronto, when one train on the line stops, all of them are screwed. Our system is inefficient that way.

Anyways, after quite some time, I finally made the destination of my last bus, only to find out that we couldn’t leave the station. Cars were stuck trying to go up hills and as a result, so where some buses which led to a big traffic jam.

At that point I just wanted to yell STOP. Which was kind of funny because (after 30 minutes of sitting in freezing cold) eventually took a detour. On the detour I snapped a photo of a van with the word STOP on the windshield.

There’s not actually a point to this story. I did end up making it to work and the rest was normal.

However, I now have a fever. Maybe I’ll wake up fine and tomorrow will be a perfectly regular day. I mean it can’t go worse than today right?

The Red Carpet @ The Juno Nominations

I’ve never applied to go to an award show before but Ride the Tempo was on the red carpet of the Juno Nominations!

The actual announcement of the nominations went by very quickly. There was no way that you could type fast enough on a phone to live tweet everything. Names scrolled past on a screen in an instant. Before I knew it, it was all announced. Luckily, we were handed red pamphlets with all the information

Afterward, we gathered by the red carpet and stood behind the signs of our respective media outlets. It was cool having my own spot and helping out SOCAN at the same time. I learned that connections I made while blogging translated into my job, and I was an excellent wrangler at getting artist interviews and photos.

I’ll be back for the real Juno Awards ceremony in Hamilton in March but for now you can view the portraits I shot during the nominations here.

Reliving My Teens

O-Town @ Lee's Palace 12/8/2014

In the past few years, we’ve seen an increase of boy-band reunions and the 12-year old inside me was giddy with joy. Most recently, I saw O-Town, what I thought was a 1-2 hit wonder but I knew all their older songs.

As soon as they started, I was lit up with excitement and laughter.

My friends and I belted their encore “All or Nothing” together.

We reacted the same last year when we saw Aaron Carter. Both these concerts are super lame if you view it from an outsider perspective but the fact that we were kids when these artists were famous made it all the more magical.

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This is for you @kawaiiathy

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What is it about our childhood memories that makes reliving them so much more special? I still love the things I loved when I was a child and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

This Year I Want To Blog More

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Actually dressed up for a show #selfie #nye

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Happy New Year!

Every year, I seem to have a new opinion on the whole idea of New Years Resolutions. Last year, my new year resolution was to have none. And it was awesome. I wasn’t disappointed for breaking promises to myself. In fact, I had a pretty great year and finally achieved a few milestones that I’ve been struggling to reach for a few years.

I was finally employed (twice) and for the first time ever, moved out of my parent’s house. I travelled and attended my best friend’s wedding in PEI. I took on more collaborative projects and forced myself to leave the house and make new friends. I was truly really busy for the first time. This led to putting a lot of blog posts on the backburner. I have plenty of content in the queue that is my mind, but I just haven’t put the pen to paper (or I guess the fingers to the keyboard). My excuses were plenty. I’m too tired after work. I don’t have time. I could be watching more movies on Netflix. The problem is they were all stupid excuses. The more I pushed writing, the harder it was to get back into it.

That’s why for 2015. I want to blog more. Blog more here. Blog more on Ride the Tempo. I’ve already pushed myself to start over the holidays. As much as I can, I will blog everyday. Whether it is a photo blog , a drawing, or a piece of longform writing, I will hit the blue publish button and send something into the interwebs. It will encourage me to find time for a bit of time everyday to be creative.  Afterall, to improve at something is to do it every day and here on my personal blog, there are no boundaries.

Hi, people of 2015, you will be seeing much more of me.

Ride the Tempo on CBC Music!

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Today my music blog Ride the Tempo was featured in CBC’s list of “Canadian Music Blogs You Need to be Reading”. Normally I don’t care for lists but CBC was one of the early outlets that got me caring about Canadian music and influenced me to change the blog’s format to focus entirely on it. It was actually a difficult decision to make. Canadian music is not as popular or hit-generating as some of the bigger indie artists out there. Blogs that write about everything get a lot more hits, and return generate more ad-revenue.

I don’t blog because I think I’ll one day get rich off of it. I love exploring the Canadian music landscape. I care about it and will continue to do so.

Reflecting on Freewriting 1000 Words A Day

teddywritingBack in November of 2013, I stumbled on an article on Medium that talked about making a habit of writing 1000 words a day. Around the same time, I also started to freewrite 1000 words a day and did so for the past few months. Most of it was total freewrite, so any words that came to my fingers or the dreams and thoughts that went through my head.

Some became album reviews, blog posts, tweets and Facebook statuses. The majority were rubbish. I started each morning with the exercise, not ceasing until I had indeed reached at least 1000 words. In the end, it became exhausting. I ran out of things to write and it became repetitive. I also often found myself ruminating in negative thoughts over and over. Sometimes it would take up the entire morning and would leave me with little energy to do anything else (though I think that partially has to do with winter SADS). The quality and my enthusiasm for the exercise had plummeted. I didn’t want to write to fill a quota any longer.

That doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing, hell I’m writing this blog post right now. However, like I said in my New Years Resolutions vlog, I don’t want to set strict guidelines for myself that will make me hate things that I normally enjoy. I’ll remain living in the moment and writing the second inspiration hits, like 11pm right now. I’m sure the 1000 word writing challenge can be helpful and useful to some, but it isn’t for me!

My Resolution This Year is to Have None

me
In the past I’ve written so many post about resolutions and things like that but this year I am going to have none. I made the Vlog below to talk about why.