Three people

Last night I was asked to name three people, living or dead, I'd like to meet and why. A cliche exercise. It's supposed to illustrate something about your personality apparently. Some people are literally unable to come up with anyone. They really struggle with this apparently. I thought for about 4 minutes and here's what I decided:

1) Jane Austen. She's a great writer. Plain and simple. One of my favourites actually. She's written some absolutley fabulous, timeless stories that have been, and will continue to be read and adored by thousands of readers. With English as my background, its no wonder I was required to read many of her novels to complete my degree. Pride and Prejudice will remain among my favourite novels forever. I'd love to talk to her about her influences, her life in the 19th century, and her thoughts on marriage, love and society.

2) Gwen Stefani. What an awesome, powerful female rocker. She's nearly 40 and she looks hotter than I ever will. She has incredible abs - even after having 2 kids - and is happily married to Gavin Rossdale. She's been with the same band since she was a teenager and her music is super cool - punk, ska, reggae-ish. I love it. I'd love to talk to her about her career and hear stories about her band's adventures. I'd also like some fitness tips.

3)Steven Meisel. He's a famous fashion photographer who's shot pretty well every top supermodel in the world. He's most noted for his amazing editorial spreads in Italian Vogue as well as being Madonna's photographer for her book Sex. I love the concepts, the design, the lighting and composition of his pictures. I'd love to sit down with him and get some pointers.

That's all. Analyze me as you see fit. :)

PS - this could change tomorrow.

Relapse

Last night, I bit off both my thumb nails. I don't know why I did it. I knew when I was doing it that I'd regret it. Up until then, I had successfully stopped biting my nails for more than 2 months.

I feel guilty. Like some sort of recovering alcoholic that's just fallen off the wagon again.

Now every time I look at my stubby little thumbs, I feel ashamed. At least it was only two nails. I still have 8 nice ones. And in the meantime, it sure is a lot easier to type on my BlackBerry.

High Rollers

On Monday I met Joshua Jackson as part of an event at work. Based on the terms of his contract and his decent celebrity status, I expected a somewhat pretentious guy surrounded by an entourage of handlers. I pictured him walking in on a red carpet in dark sunglasses with a smirk of arrogance across his face. I pictured fancy clothes, expensive accessories, maybe even a hot girl by his side. I pictured a high strung agent pushing aside throngs of screaming, star-crazed teenage girls.

Instead, I met a nice guy. A normal guy. A guy drinking a medium Tim Horton's coffee as he began his workday. Off-screen, he just seemed like a regular person I could meet anywhere in Toronto. He was wearing a simple sweater with jeans and was funny, friendly and enthusiastic. He signed autographs and happily posed for pictures without making it seem like a huge deal at all. He was modest and unassuming.

It was not what I expected. I feel a little silly for expecting some big show. I think I forget that celebrities really are just people. I wonder if its weird for him. I wonder if he remembers what it was like to not be famous.

Either way, I now have a new appreciation for a celebrity I never really considered before. Hell, I may even try and catch a few episodes of The Fringe.

Ideal Self

Today in my Toastmasters group, we did an interesting little exercise. We were told to write down three things: your favourite animal, your favourite colour and your favourite body of water. Then, we were told to write down 5 or 6 characteristics or things that each item reminded us of.

Apparently the first item - the animal - is a representation of your ideal self.

This is what I wrote:

Cat - cute, sloth-like/lazy, life of leisure, liked by people, vain, demanding and playful.

I'm not sure my ideal self is vain, lazy and demanding! If this is a glimpse into my subconscious, I'm in big trouble.

The second item - your favourite colour - was supposed to be a representation of how you want others to see you. I wrote:

Green - peaceful, cool, calm, summer, tropical.

That works. I'm happy with that. A bit of a contrast from my "ideal self." Seems as if I'm living a bit of a dual-life.

The third thing - the body of water - was supposed to represent how you act intimately. This was a weird one. I wrote:

Lake Huron - beautiful, fun, home, campfires, partying, late nights, drinking, my parents boat.

Uh.... sounds scandolous. I am really not sure how credible and accurate this personality test was!

Spontaneous Dance

I’ve always wanted to get caught up in one of those moments they often have in movies where people just spontaneously break into a dance and people just join in seeming to already know the moves like its common knowledge. A lifelong dream of mine really.

For example, remember the part near the end of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where he co-opts that parade, and out of nowhere, people are doing an elaborate song and dance in the street?

Or, how about the ending of a random episode of The Drew Carey Show where there’s an out-of-nowhere dance battle between The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?

And there’s this one that I stumbled upon last weekend. In that crappy movie 13 Going on 30 (only slightly redeemed due to this 80’s inspired spontaneous dance), Jennifer Garner's character needs to get a dull party going so she asks the DJ to turn on MJ’s Thriller and before you know it, the entire party is doing the Thriller dance...because people just know these things.

Or what about the end of the movie Slumdog Millionaire? That was a good one!

Recently, someone also sent me this one. It’s from Central Station in Antwerp Belgium where more than 200 dancers danced to “Do Re Mi” from The Sound of Music. Man, if I had of been there… I totally would have tried to join in.

One day, I hope to stumble upon a spontaneous dance - one that I can join in because I'll just instincively know the moves… because you know, that’s how these things happen, right? A girl can dream…

Observations

Here are some random things I have learned about my new job this week:

- You are not allowed to view the calendar by double clicking the clock. I didn't realize how often I did this until I got a mean little message that told me I did not have the "rights" to make changes to the date and time. I don't want to make changes! I just want to SEE the calendar!

- No personalization of your computer allowed. I'm a photographer in my spare time and as a result I like to set my desktop photo to some pretty and seasonal picture I took myself. No can do sadly.

- The door. Once you swipe your badge, push IN first, then pull. I looked like a big dummy yanking on the door convinced my security badge didn't work

- Badge access at the main entry: hold, don't swipe your badge over the reader. Otherwise, you will never escape and will inevitably hold up a line of people forming behind you. Zero chance of not standing out as "the new girl" in this situation.

- Coffee in the kitchen. Nope. But you do have three places to buy your own. Looks like it's green tea for me!

- My phone was apparently previously associated with some random test account and as a result, I get about 10 calls a day from someone trying to verify something I don't understand. Hopefully these will stop soon.

Yes, the first week is all about learning - everything form my day to day responsibilities to how to open the door :) So far, so good.

Something new

I'm pretty averse to change. Even if my current situation is bad, I'm likely to hesitate about making a change. Even if I am successful in making the change, I somehow start coming up with a million reasons why the previous situation wasn't that bad. It's truly ridiculous behaviour. Very counter-productive. I think its because I'm a Libra. I'm too easily able to weigh pros and cons of situations which is great for being able to sympathize with people and see things from a variety of perspectives, but its crappy for making decisions.

Anyways, I made a change recently: I'll be starting a new job tomorrow and I'm pretty excited. Although saying goodbye to the old job was actually a lot harder than I anticipated, I'm ready for a new challenge. I'm excited about new coworkers, new work and a new atmosphere.

After returning from a last minute, sun-drenched trip to the sunny south, I'm ready for the change. Tanned, relaxed, de-stressed. The #1 reason I know I've totally relaxed: I stopped biting my nails. I didn't really mean to. It just happened. I have tried countless times in the past to stop. I've been biting my nails for more than two decades and all of sudden, I just stopped. I've always attributed my nail biting to stress so I'm taking this sudden change of behaviour as pure, undeniable evidence that I am de-stressed.

Yup. I'm ready for change. Bring it on.