Adventures on the Bus

A few days ago, I was sitting on the the 99 B-Line bus, on my way to a friend's party at UBC. Now before I get into the events that happened on the bus that day, I think that it's necessary to explain my usual bus routine.

I travel to UBC everyday from my Coal Harbour apartment because I go to school there. On weekdays, I take the 44 UBC/Downtown both to and from school. However, the 44 doesn't run on weekends/holidays. If I want to go to UBC on a weekend, I have to take the Canada Line, and then the 99 B-Line. I usually don't go to UBC on the weekends, because it takes me an hour, but I am willing to go on special occasions.

Back to that day. It was my friend's birthday party, and I was on my way. I had packed her present and got on the Canada Line. I got off at Broadway-City Hall Station, so that I could transfer to the 99. Then, I got on the 99. This is where the comedy commenced.

I sat down at the back of the bus. Even though it was extremely crowded, I was fortunate enough to find a seat. I sat down, turned on my iPod, and began pointlessly staring out the window through the bodies of those standing up. I was trying to get in the mood for the party, -since I initially didn't want to go-  so I listened to some of my favourite hipster music. Portugal. The Man, Wolf Gang, Grouplove, Fitz and the Tantrums, Parov Stelar, Lord Huron, Arcade Fire, Devotchka, Neon Indian and Vamipre Weekend (my favourite band) were all on my playlist that day. The different styles all contributed a little extra to my mood, and by the time that my half dead battery became fully dead, I was happy. Sadly, there were around twenty minutes remaining until my stop, and I really felt as if I needed to do something, but there was nothing.

Anyway, I started looking around the bus to see if there was anybody that I could use to laugh at. Yes, I know, it sounds SO evil, but I was bored. As one of my friends once said, "every person has a story, that's seven BILLION stories. Doesn't it interest you to find out what each person's story is?"WOW! My friend is deep. Truthfully, no, I don't care what their story is, because I don't care about them. My friend is obviously better with empathizing; he's much more compassionate. The way I think about peoples' stories is simple. I find the weirdest person, and make-up a story about them. I don't mean I just kind of exaggerate certain things I see. I mean I REALLY exaggerate everything. If I see a scar, I make-up something like: The guy was a circus bear fighter, and he isn't anymore because a half-bear, half-tiger, tried to kill him! OMG!

Back to what I was saying. I saw this one guy sitting across from me. Like me, he was moving his head to the beat, but he was more intense. His whole body was moving along with the music, which I hadn't seen before. As if that wasn't funny enough, he had the funniest face ever! His face just looked stupid. He had one of those annoying little spots of facial hair on his chin. His hair was super short, yet loaded with waxes and gels. He had some ugly "no frame" glasses. He was huge: really tall, and chubby. His head was too small for his body, though. Yes, I know, I'm very superficial. The funniness comes now. As if he himself, and his intense music weren't enough. He took out his phone, and started taking selfies. Firstly, in my opinion, a grown man taking selfies is utterly ridiculous, as you may be aware from my recent post "Selfies". The selfies he was taking were even more hilarious. He started raising one eyebrow, and captioning his pictures.

 If you've ever seen me on the bus with nothing but my iPod, you know that I like to do that thing where you move your head to the beat. However, I don't make myself the center of attention when doing that. I was so very annoyed by the man's motion that I felt like I needed to look away, so I tried, but his obscurity had a certain magnetism about it and my eyes were drawn back to his face. This whole bus ride, I spent in disgust. Disgust which I both could've and couldn't stop. When I got to my friend's party, I gave her her present and everything was marvellous. I ate pounds of delicious food and completely forgot about the weirdo, but every now and then, he pops back into my mind.

The Girl at the Pool - Part 8

The debates were finished, I was happy, and off to the awards ceremony. Hopefully I wouldn't make another scene. My ex-partner was sure that he hadn't made it to Provincials, but I was sure that he had.  20 kids were going to pass. They announced the novices first. Now, it was time for the juniors. The senior results had already been announced and they weren't pretty. This served as no comfort.

"Number 18, from University Hill..." Oh my, I had just barely made it!

"...Emily!" Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! My fantastic partner had moved onto to Provincials! I was so happy!

"Number 15, from Eric Hamber…" Oh my! I knew that my ex-partner was only being hard on himself!  He had made it!

"…[My ex-partner's partner]" Good job! Even better, now my ex-parnter would definitely be on the list and higher up.

"Number 14, from University Hill…" Okay, as much as I'd like to seem humble, I wasn't. I knew that it was me!

"...Nat Mico!" I freaked out, and danced as if I had been possessed by the devil. Also, I knew that because my ex-partner was better than me, he'd for sure get through to Provincials.

The numbers kept progressing to no avail. My ex-partner had not made it through. I was heavily depressed for the rest of the night.

I arrived home that night, to a congratulations from my father. I logged onto Facebook. My true friend from the start of the this story had posted a congrats to all, and misspelled my name in the process. I commented on her post, explaining how to spell my name. Then my ex-partner chimed in and copy/pasted a comment, in which I had explained how to spell my name to him. Then when my true friend was getting annoyed, my ex-partner posted another comment, only this time in Serbian. In translation, it meant "the language is hard". My true friend was freaking out and telling us "evil little grade 10s" to "get off her post". Anyway, my partner went on to make more Serbian comments, which he would later delete for God knows what reason, and my true friend told us to "stop flirting". Okay, we weren't flirting. Up until a few days ago, I had thought that my partner was asexual - not necessarily a bad thing. Disregarding my anecdotes, let's move on to my next point.

Being the lovely human I am, I got off my true friend's post, and proceeded to create my own. I wrote a brief post on the Debate club's closed group page. In this post, I thanked my partner, congratulated everyone, and all that other crap. However, there was one thing in my post, which I would find out would come back to "bite me on the butt". At the end of the post, I explained that I wouldn't be on Facebook for the rest of the night, for I would be formulating my response to the terrible tournament director of the previous tournament (not Regionals).

Stop - Part 3

Like the weather, this guys "smooth" moves were horrendous.
The boys had asked us about what bus route we were going to take to get home. Kindly, my friend and I explained that we live in Kits and Coal Harbour respectively and that we could thus take the same bus  as we do everyday. Now, knowing that these boys live in Shaughnessy, and that they'd need to take the bus route in the opposite direction, we pretended to be dumb and asked them about their route. They told us that they indeed do live in Shaughnessy, but that they could take any bus route they wanted. I told them that their bus stopped right in front of the school and that they could get on there. However, due to the fact that a sex-deprived lunatic was running around campus, grabbing women's bottoms, the boys decided to walk us to the bus loop.

That was very nice, but I mean really very unnecessary. Actually, it only seemed unnecessary to me. To this boy, walking the love of his life to the bus loop was quite necessary. In fact, despite the almost impossible chance of my friend and I getting sexually assaulted whilst walking to the bus loop, I'd venture to say that he had a feeling of heroism while walking us to the bus loop, as if he had just saved our lives from the maniac on campus. Anyways, instead of making the long walk in the crappy weather, we caught a bus for a few stops to the bus loop. In that time, my old partner was incredibly silent, with his black, puffy hood covering most of his forehead. The other boy however, seized the opportunity to talk to my friend. At least, he tried. My friend wasn't really talking much, and I, being her best friend, felt almost obligated to save her from the clutches of this boy. So, when this boy brought up the topic of modelling, and questioning my friend about her modelling, I jumped in.

Considering the fact that I have a vast knowledge of modelling, (and I say this with no irony. I know that it's become difficult to differentiate my sarcasm from my truths, but actually, I have a small, possibly partially lesbian obsession with models.) I used it to my advantage. I started asking him about the most famous model in his country (native country). He knew her, but not very well; what a shame. I then went on to list -out of route memory- her measurements and a cover shoot which she was in, where she looked particularly beautiful. He was in awe, almost as much as my model friend was. I turned, first to my friend and said "I told you I know a lot about models." Then, I turned to the boy, who I knew had heard this statement, and said: "Seriously, ask me about anyone of the Victoria's Secret Angels, and I'll give you everything from her birthday to her measurements." I think that he responded either with a smirk and the implicit question of: "Isn't that a little lesbian?" or with a cool statement of "Impressive!"Regardless, I didn't care. My knowledge of everything modally had come in handy because by the time I was done raving about Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, Cameron Russell, Emily DiDonato, Laetitia Casta and Bar Rafaeli, our bus had arrived at the bus loop.

At this point, we all got off. My friend and I pointed the two boys to their bus, which was about to leave, and occupied our stop in the line for the Downtown bus. They obediently headed off to their bus, which was surprising, as I had thought that they would actually request to head all the way home with us. They didn't make up some lame excuse about "taking precautionary measures against all those rapists out there"and thus needing to take us to the front doors of our buildings. They just walked away.

When their bus drove away, my friend and I commenced gossiping about the boy. We talked about how creepy he was, how desperate he must be etc.. Neither of us liked the fact that he had talked about another boy behind his back. There was obviously a feud going on between the boy that was hitting on my friend and the boy he was gossiping about, because the boy had painted the other in such a bad light. Why? Well probably because they were both after the same girl at their school. Anyways, all the criticism directed towards the other boy was totally unwarranted, as that boy is great. He is quite hilarious and despite the fact that he too hits on 27397549 girls at a time, he is still fun. See, both of these boys had hit on me at one point, one at a debate tournament and the other at a debate practice, and I can now say that the boy who had his arm around me at the awards ceremony of a debate tournament is much funnier and chill, in a weird, poser-ish way.

Anyways, I disclosed to my friend that I thought that the guy was hitting on her throughout the whole day, and that tomorrow she'd see him in front of her building with flowers. She laughed and said that she noticed, but that she thought that he was hitting on me at first.
"Yeah, you're right. But then you walked into the room and lit it up, he fell for you and now you will be carrying his babies. That's why he put so much emphasis on telling you that he is partly of your ethnic background. That way, your babies won't be halfies, they'll be almost fully your background." I poetically described with an immense amount of voice fluctuation for dramatic effect.
My friend had a sort of shocked face, but she was laughing so hard that her face just looked deformed, it was pretty funny.

When the bus started moving, we kept talking about him, and listing observations. Actually, it was mostly me making fun of him and making my friend laugh. I really like making her laugh, her facial expressions are so mutated that it makes me laugh. Also, considering that my sense of humour is demented, not many people can understand it, and think that I mean certain things with malice, whereas my friend, well, she really gets it. So we basically spent that whole bus ride in mutual laughter, her at my jokes and me at her face. I walked her home and then sat myself on the next bus, but not before I told her to give me a call if a creepy figure appears in her garden's bushes. (I said this as a joke, the guy is not crazy enough to stalk her, okay? He's a regular teenage boy, like all of them, he wants to sleep with girls, particularly hot ones, and I need to make fun of him because he hit on my best friend and she didn't like him. As well as because I just need to make fun of people.)

It seemed like that would be the end of that. I had protected my best friend from the creepy dude who wanted to date her purely for sexual reasons, and for his ego. He wanted to date her for the ability to tell his friends that he is dating a model, and that was pathetic, but normal. Regardless, I thought that that was the end of this issue and that in a few days, we'd forget that this ever even happened. Sadly, this boy did not let us forget it, neither did my old partner, and what happened in the days following the encounter was truly -for lack of a better word- hilarious. 

Inspiration

Quite a while ago, a friend of mine from swimming asked me about something he had heard about me. Apparently, word had gotten out that I was big on writing, particularly essays. Since the statement was totally true, I assured him. He then proceeded to say the typical "Oh, so can you write my essay?" I responded as I usually do - no. Oh well, another lazy child's dream crushed. 

This boy however, was different. Instead of just giving up on his hopes, he asked me more about my writing. I told him about my blog and about what I spend my free time doing. I suppose he thought it was cute, because he asked me to write an essay for him and post it on my blog. He didn't need to submit this essay, he just simply wanted to read it. I felt really happy. I was elated that someone actually cared, that someone actually wanted to read something I wrote.

I asked him what I should write the essay about. "What inspires you to write" he replied. 

As per my usual fashion, I forgot all about this essay, until he brought it up again. A week or so later, this boy asked me if I was done the essay. I told him that I had forgot and that I was suffering from writer's block. He was understanding, but he kept bringing it up until I finally started writing. He cared about this essay so much that he wouldn't let me forget it.  

I thought about it for a long time, actually. I wondered what helps me write all those critiques. One night, in my sleep, it came to me. What inspires me to write all those critiques is everything. Everything around me and how it makes me feel.
I came to this realization a few nights back. Now that school's out for March Break, I have a lot of spare time. Logically, I should be posting tons of posts daily. I'm not though, why? Because I lack inspiration.
Despite my skinny figure, and to many people's surprise, I am not an active person. I hate going outside and must be dragged, even on the nicest of days. Living in Vancouver provides no incentive either. Considering Vancouver weather consists of rain, rain and (you guessed it) more rain, I have even less motivation to exit the premises of my apartment. So when school's out, I don't do anything. I am idle. I sit on my fluffy brown couch, eat the food my mom stocks the refrigerator with, and after all that hard work is finished, I try and think of things to do (which never works out for me) so I end up sleeping, not because I'm tired, but because I'm bored. Basically, I am one big waster of oxygen. Imagine the good use that someone could put that air to! Actually, don't imagine it, just imagine me sleeping.
Occasionally, I try and think of doing something to keep myself awake, either the Insanity Fitness Program, which always ends in miserable failure, or I think to take to my blog. Now, I noticed that this taking to the blog wasn't coming to any fruition. I basically sat at my blog trying to push the useless lump of lard in my skull to write. It didn't want to write, though. The poor thing didn't know what to write about. I didn't know what to write about. Me, the girl whose lump of lard is usually running at a million miles per second with blog ideas, was now fighting to even keep running. I was brain dead.
I felt horrible. Here is this perfect opportunity to write - two weeks without school, without homework and without responsibility - I was missing out on this opportunity, I wasn't seizing the moment. The worst part of it all was not that I wasn't seizing the moment, but rather, that I was unable to seize the moment. I simply couldn't write about anything.
Before I began writing this blog, I thought that the notion of "Writer's Block" was a pathetic excuse for lazy writers. How could one not have inspiration? If your job is writing, then shouldn't you always have ideas running through your mind? How could you lack inspiration in your job? Jobs don't require inspiration, they require motivation, in many cases, motivation via pay check, right? Wrong. I realized that writing did need a muse. I realized that all those writer's, who were going to live in the South of France for six months at a time, were indeed going to break their writer's block, not just for a nice vacation. Salvador Dali, arguably the most creative painter of all time, called Perpignan (a town in Provence) "the centre of the universe" because he drew so much of his inspiration from sitting in the local train station.
Writer's need inspiration. It can come in many different forms of course. For some, sitting idly at home is the perfect inspiration to write a masterpiece, for others, they must go see the world. I've learned that I must travel. Not far, luckily. I've learnt that my morning commute, from downtown to UBC, is more than enough inspiration. The simple lunch break hour at my school, is enough. Some of my best critiques have come from sitting and observing children over break. I know now that to make any sort of writing happen for me, I must observe people. Creepy, eh? Can you picture me, perched on the roof of a tall building, with binoculars, watching you leave for work in the morning? Okay, maybe that went too far.
Honestly, I can't do anything when sitting at home. I can barely bring myself to brush my teeth in the morning, let alone to write a whole blog post. It really sucks for me. ("Hate" is a strong word, and should be used with caution) I hate school, I hate going to school, I hate waking up early for school, I hate waiting for the bus in the rain, I hate waiting for the bus in any weather, I hate seeing the bus driver each morning because he's either too happy or too douchey, I hate opening the door of my school, I hate opening my locker to put my things in, I hate entering my classrooms, I hate having to bring supplies to the classroom, I hate looking at my teachers, I hate listening to my teachers speak, I hate the fact that the teachers think their so smart, I hate calling my teachers Mr./Ms., I hate not being able to sleep in class, I hate having to do tedious tasks of meaningless homework, I hate having to carry a binder and a bag on my back everyday, I hate looking at the children in my school, I hate hearing the sounds of their generally shrill voices, I hate hearing the grade 8s acting out and screaming as if they've just seen Justing Bieber, I hate seeing the grade 8s frail, little, un-pubertized bodies, I hate seeing the grade 9s with their high libidos and daily, different, meaningless girlfriends/boyfriends, I hate the modern architecture of my school, I hate the fact that the children in my school are, for the most part, physically challenged, I hate the fact that so many children in my PE class can't catch a ball, I hate the fact that most of the children in my grade have huge aspirations, I hate that they put so much emphasis on their grades, I hate the fact that the seniors try and organize stupid events to bring out school spirit and I dislike the fact that our school has half lockers, instead of full ones. But I've realized that for the small (and big things)  in my life that I do like, (like, the people whose lockers are within a 5 locker radius of mine, and writing my blog) I have to go to school. If I want to write my blog, I,  unfortunately, have to get out there.
What sucks is that, when I do have inspiration all around me, I have homework (not that I do it, but I have it), when I have free time, I don't have inspiration. Ideally, I would go to school and never have homework.
So, to sum up what inspires me: Everything does, everything that I see, especially people that are different. Those people inspire me, they make me write. I don't need to go to the South of France, or Hawaii, or any number of other exotic places, to be able to write. I just need to step outside onto the very regular, very lame, very rainy doorstep of Vancouver. I need to, not necessarily overcome my hatred of everything school related, just come to terms with it and express it onto my blog. Writer's Block: The Struggle is Real. Writer's block is real, but luckily for me, as long as I don't fall asleep, it can be overcome. 

Crimea and the Referendum

On Sunday, after weeks of growing tension and threats, citizens of the Crimean peninsula voted overwhelmingly in favour of re-joining the Russian Federation. In fact, of the 82% of folks that came out to vote, over 96% wanted to join Russia. After the votes were counted people celebrated in the streets, holding up the Russian flag and chanting in support of Putin and Russia. This sounds like the idealistic beauty of democracy. We gave people what they had wanted for so long, in the fairest way possible, a vote. Somehow however, this democratic action was spat upon by the West and deemed unfair and unconstitutional. Most of the West actually said that they would never recognize the vote. Isn't this very disrespectful both to the Russians and to the Crimeans? It's sending a message of unacceptance and of double standards. 

Before I delve deeper into that subject, let me dispel a few myths which may make this article seem incorrect. 

Firstly, let's talk about why the West is choosing to ignore the results of the vote, considering that the West prides itself on being democratic and just. Well, firstly, the West feels that the vote was influenced by scary presence of Russian troops in Crimea. Secondly, they feel that there were certain technicalities -which were avoided by Russia- in the Ukrainian constitution, which make the vote invalid. Why are both of these reasons absolutely and absurdly and utterly wrong? Because (with regards to the first reason) if the voters truly were scared of the repercussions of voting against annexation due to military presence, would they come out to polling stations with Russian flags and later go out and hold a massive celebration in support of joining Russia? Probably not. It is absurd to think such a thing,  considering that the votes are private and one could easily vote against annexation without it ever being known that they were the ones who cast the ballot. 

If a voter is against Russian annexation and they are bullied into voting against their beliefs by troops, would that same voter enter the city centre carrying a Russian flag celebrating? No, that voter would sadly retreat to their home and weep over their ballot. Finally, if there was to be any intimidation from either side wouldn't it have come from the new self-appointed provisional government? The one who's Prime Minister said that separatists should beware of having "the ground burn beneath their feet"? 

As for the second reason, let's understand it at a deeper level. The Ukrainian constitution basically states  that a referendum cannot be held in only one part of the country. Any referendum held must be held throughout the country, or be approved by the federal government. Firstly, would a self-appointed, pro-West government approve a referendum to be held in only one part of the country like Crimea? No, of course not! A part of the country, which speaks predominantly Russian and has a population make-up which is predominantly ethnic Russian, is most likely going to vote to separate from Ukraine and go to Mother Russia. Secondly, there have been other situations, situations in which the West has supported crossing the constitution of a country to hold a referendum for independence. Kosovo, is one such example. 

Kosovo belonged to Serbia (and still does technically belong to Serbia, as it hasn't really achieved total autonomy). When Kosovo, a region with a ethnic Albanian majority, said that it wanted to break off from Serbia, despite it historically being the origin place of Serbs, the West (namely the US) supported the decision, and immediately accepted Kosovo as independent  Now, let's not forget that Serbia is a place that had a constitution too. They don't just let any province that feels like breaking off, break off. There are certain procedures necessary for a region to officially become autonomous. These procedures however, were completely ignored by the US. Why? Well because it was in the West's interests to have Kosovo separate from Serbia. Oops! Did I just say that?!?! I meant, because there were special reasons for Kosovo, such as the protruding conflict and civil war in the 90s etc.. 

Looking at Kosovo's example, we can see that the US had itself created a precedent for regions to break off and become autonomous, without ever having to consult the government to which the region belongs, and without paying any mind to that country's lawful constitution. So then why would Crimea not be able to join Russia and separate from the Ukraine? The circumstances are ravishingly similar to those of Kosovo. Crimea has an ethnic majority of Russians, Crimeans speak Russian and for the most part -judging from the vote- Crimeans support Russia. Why are the Crimeans unable to defy the constitution and wishes of their self-appointed government, to separate from the Ukraine? Beats me, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that this sounds like setting a huge double standard on the part of the US. 

To me, what's really funny is that when the Ukrainian nationalists walk out into the streets protest a democratically elected government and set buildings on fire, all in hopes of ousting a president who really made the right choice with regards to the EU**, they are applauded as expressing their freedom and standing up to corruption. When Yulia Tymoshenko, a woman who stole tons of money from the Ukrainian people, is released from jail, she is hailed as a brave hero. Her corruption and wrong-doings are conveniently forgotten. Could it perhaps be because she is a puppet of the West? When the self appointed new prime minister of Ukraine says that separatist leaders will have "the ground burn under their feet" it is not deemed an act of aggression, an act of intimidation or a suppression of democracy and freedom? Rather it is encouraged as a taking a tough stance for the right thing. Doesn't that statement seem eerily threatening? Doesn't it seem to set a huge double standard? 

When Putin says something even remotely threatening in defence of Russia, he is called an authoritarian and antagonized. When the pro-Russian minority exercises its right to free speech, they are quickly antagonized and silenced, because of any reason that can possibly arise, even if it means disregarding an already created precedent. This doesn't sound very fair to me. 

The funny thing is that these folks in Crimea, of whom 96% voted to join Russia, should have a right to state their wishes, as anyone else. If these anti-Russian, anti-Yanukovich protesters are recognized and applauded, why are these pro-Russian voters spat upon? Why is there right to expression suppressed? Why is their wish for democracy unrealized? This sounds terribly fascist and very wrongly undemocratic. But because the West is the side which is being undemocratic, everyone goes along with it and doesn't give it a second thought. The West is refusing to recognize this democratic referendum because it isn't good for them. They don't want to see Russia grow and increase their power on the world stage. They want Russia to fall off the face of the Earth, or at least for Putin to. Russia is big and scary, not one to back down and worst of all, Russia calls out BS, making the US look plain stupid. Putin is letting the US make statements which are so easily rebutted on his part that the US actually harms itself. (For further evidence of such rebuttals by Putin, please read the following article by RT. It demonstrates a bunch of things that Putin said during his address to the Parliament in response to claims made by the West.)

If I were a political advisor for the US government, I'd tell them to just shut up, because anything they say can and will be used against them in Putin's court. Putin is on the right side of history in this scenario and despite the West's best efforts to propagate Putin as a dictator, they will fail. No amount of sanctions and malicious words can stop Putin. It is quite shameful for the West to be suppressing this freedom of expression in such fashion. 

When Kerry told Putin that if he pulls his troops out of Crimea, Ukraine will change its constitution to protect the rights of ethnic Russian minorities, Putin calmly responded by asking Kerry how he can be so sure of that unless he is the one controlling Ukraine and its constitution, exposing the US and  exposing Ukraine's new unelected government as a puppet of the United States. When the vote in Crimea happened, people marched out into the streets to celebrate joining Russia - they were elated. So obviously they had wanted this for a long time, but had been denied, and are still being denied due to a "technicality in the constitution", or of course because the US is just scared.

Today, a decree was signed by Putin recognizing Crimea as Russia. During his address to parliament, he was greeted by a standing ovation, when he called Crimeans, Russians. The West is losing this battle and needs to back off. They need to stop constantly putting themselves into other folks business. This conflict is between the EU, the Ukraine and Russia, no one else. The EU isn't going to take steps against Russia because they rely on them. If the US allows itself on so many "humanitarian" missions around the world, ones in which the folks being "protected" aren't even mainly American, why then is Russia not allowed to go to a place on a humanitarian mission and protect folks who are mainly Russian? 

Up until it was discovered that the killed protesters in the anti-government protests were killed by Maidan snipers, it was propagated in the West that they had been killed by the Yanukovich regime. A obvious fallacy. How dare the new self-appointed government propagate that Yanukovich should be tried by the ICC! It is their people who are killing and framing others. The utter travesties that are revealed daily in this case, are just that - travesties. It needs to stop. 

Hands off Russia and their business!

**Yanukovich could've have either taken the dumb risk of joining the economically failing EU, an EU which hadn't even yet guaranteed acceptance for Ukraine, rather just made it a possibility. An EU which offered Ukraine 10 times less the money that Russia had. Or Yanukovich could've done as he had, and went with Ukraine's long time ally of Russia, which had offered Ukraine 10 times more money than the EU. 

Selfies

The growing trend of taking pictures of yourself is becoming more and more prominent in our society today. This is a fad, which has not only been adopted by the young generations, but by the older folks, too. People are glued to their mobile devices, as they have been for some time now, however the reasons for this inhibition of society are now more appalling. No longer are regular citizens texting their friends, or posting statuses on Facebook, reading the newspaper, or writing "important emails" - no, now they are drifting towards new media, and photos. Things like Snapchat and Instagram are shifting peoples' attention, particularly teens', from outdated social media to new media.

socialnewsdaily.com

Snapchat and Instagram make it profoundly easy for anyone to take a picture and post it immediately. This easy of use has led to this new obsession, which quite frankly, looks dumb.

As I was on the bus a few nights ago, I saw a man sitting in front of me. He looked very typical, and nothing stood out about him. He was on his phone and had his big, red headphones covering his ears. I didn't pay much mind to him until he started making a face at his phone. Raising one eyebrow, and puckering his lips, this man clicked the camera button on his phone, to produce a shutter sound. He was taking a selfie! A full-grown man taking a selfie - the simple idea sounds utterly ridiculous.

I'd laugh a little to hear that there were men on the Earth who took selfies in the privacy of their own home, but I would think it impossible that a man would take selfies on the public bus.

I've seen teenage girls take seflies on the bus, "snap-chatting" a friend a response, but never have I seen a man respond to a selfie. Until now. Of course, this is not to say that these girls aren't totally ludicrous, it's just to say that these fully grown men are.

Now I understand that I shouldn't be discriminating between men and girls. If I give young, INEXPERIENCED, IMMATURE girls the right to take public selfies, why not FULLY grown men? Well, I think my sentence speaks for itself.

Anyways, the point that I'm trying to get at here is simple. It's gone too far. Selfies are no longer a cute fad that dumb teenage girls do in their endless spare time. Selfies are now a expanding pandemic, one which has reached creepy men in their mid-life crisis. Who knows who selfies will attack next. It is an infection with no cure and it's main symptom is lack of face-to-face interaction in real life, not in photo life. 

Stop - Part 2

Once upon a time, my partner and I had the debate-fanatic idea to come to each other's schools for extra debate practice. So my partner came, but he had brought a friend - this boy. My best friend hadn't stayed at the practice that day, but she was waiting for me downstairs, and was going to come and pick me up at 5. Throughout the whole practice, I felt like the boy was hitting on me. I guess that he's pretty desperate. 

Anyway, my sweet friend arrived, as obedient as ever, at 5 to pick me up. We hugged at the door and I told her that I'd like to introduce her to someone - my debate partner was who I was referring to. She said sure and walked in. All the other members of the debate club had already left and it was just me, the boy, my partner and my best friend. I introduced my friend, and started to make small talk. Somehow, the topic of my best friend being a model came up. All of a sudden, the boy's attention shifted from me to my best friend. Makes sense, right? After all, she is the model.

I excused myself to go and make drinks, or rather, hot-waterize drinks for everyone. (I know where the teacher, who sponsors the club, keeps his stash of drinks, which are made for retarded people and only require adding hot water.) I asked what everyone wanted, a choice of tea, hot chocolate, or milk tea. Two teas, a hot chocolate and milk tea for myself. So I went out the door, and turned on the electric kettle. I still had a clear view of everyone, though - one of the perks of the fully made of glass school I attend. They continued chatting.

The light on the kettle changed, signifying that the water was boiled. I poured the water into the two styrofoam cups, each with a teabag in it. Then, I added 4 spoons of powdered hot chocolate and covered with water and stirred. Lastly, I took the milk tea pouch and emptied it's contents into my cup and covered with water and stirred. I brought in the two teas and handed them over to the two boys. Then I went back and got my drink and my friend's drink. When I came back, we were all together again.

So I was back together with the group. Everyone thanked me for my making of the drinks and restarted their conversation. My debate partner said little, as he usually does when he is meeting someone new. Anyways, lover-boy started to ask about my friend's athletic interests. He found out that she liked running.

"So how much do you usually run?" Questioned lover-boy.
"Umm… Usually 3 kilometres. What about you?" My friend replied in a shy voice, as she tried to continue the conversation, which she shouldn't have.
"Oh you know, usually 10 kilometres. I really like the long distances." He braggingly answered; as if his running of 10km a day was no big deal.

Oh this guy; he was trying so hard that it was funny. Knowing that my friend was basically incapable of telling the guy that she doesn't want to talk to him, I tried to save her. I would interrupt and ask the guy some questions or at least bring him into some other conversation, which I would start with my debate partner. I was waiting for everyone to finish their drinks, so that we could go our separate ways. Quickly enough, the time came and I saw that everyone had finished their drink.

"Uhh guys, I gotta go pick up my little sister at swimming, so I have to leave. My friend and I go home together, so I guess you guys should get packing so that we can lock the door of my teacher's room." I said to the boys, while motioning to friend to come with me and get her jacket.

Everyone obediently got their coats, my partner collected the garbage from our drinks and swept the room a little with a broom from the janitor's cart. After about 5 minutes, we headed down my school's enormous hallway down to my locker. Once there, I got my necessary textbooks, packed my bag and threw on my hood. I had seen the disgusting rain outside and knew that I needed to cover my lovely hair somehow. Eventually, after preparing my soul to go outside for the millionth time this month in the pouring rain, we headed to the door.

The Girl at the Pool - Part 7

The next day was Regionals, it started off bad. I looked at the schedule of debates and it was tough. In fact, I'd have to face my polite partner and his new partner from two nights prior in the third round. Honestly however, I knew that I wouldn't make it to Provincials, and so I was really only coming to have fun. I regret that I ever gave up on winning. Our first match was against the school which had hosted that tournament two days prior. Guess who sat in to watch? Yes, the bitchy tournament director. I almost fainted thinking that she would be my judge, so I came up and I asked.  I was determined to have her transferred to a different room, if she was a judge. She said that she was just a spectator and I was elated. I knew that she had only walked into that debate to throw me off with her presence, but what that lady didn't know was that I feed off hate. I love it, it's motivation for me to do well. Like with all my first debates, I wasn't as good as I could've been, but I was decent. Luckily, the girls we were facing had no idea what they were talking about, so we seemed better than we actually were. My partner from my school was fantastic and gave some of the best debate speeches of her life. AMAZING JOB, EMILY!

At the end of the debate, the judges provided feedback, as they are required to. Then this old, shameless tournament director proceeded to give her own feedback.

"Oh, I didn't know that you were a judge." I stated.

"I'm not, but I have some feedback as well." She replied.

"Well I really don't feel that non-judge feedback is relevant, so I'd prefer that you don't give your feedback to me." I POLITELY declared.

She blushed and went outside to give feedback to her debaters.

My second debate had my heart racing. I was going up against the reigning champions. Oh god. As it appeared, they weren't actually all that good. I think I did really well against them, so I was super happy after that round. Then it was dinner time, and there was some damn good food. Lasagna, salad, pasta salad, coffee, tea, cookies - the works. My dinner happiness was cut short however, by the partner from my old school. According to him, he had failed in his first two rounds. I brushed it off by saying that he's just being hard on himself - as usual.

Next round was awesome! "Ex-debate partners take each other on!" I could see it in lights. Okay, so I was sort of intimidated because he is so good. I screwed that speech up so bad. HORRIBLY! Oh well, I knew that if anything, I had lost to him. He deserved it, he had prepared far more material than my 3 hour research had.

Last round was fine. A couple of good debaters, and luckily for me, a good judge. Who? My ex-partner's dad was judging me. That went down fine.