Facebook Postings Should be more Regulated!

When you look at your Facebook newsfeed now you see whiny statuses, silly photos of loved ones and thousands of meme photos from the various groups you’ve liked. Or at least that’s what my newsfeed is full of. 

While most of this is entertaining to some degree, after seeing the same meme for what feels like the 100th time of the day, it gets old.

It gets annoying.

It clutters up my newsfeed and I don’t like it.

What Facebook should really be doing instead of revamping the entire website and causing useless random controversy, is something useful like bundling that old hilarious over-used meme into one post and saying all the groups who’ve posted it. Much like what they do with likes of some pictures. 

Not only would this one thing be nice, it would free up the newsfeed to see what we really want to see – All those juicy statuses! Just kidding. Time to get back to Facebook stalking now. Again, just kidding. 

Friendliness = Friends

Since entering college…or maybe even as early as when I got my first job (yay me!) at the beginning of summer, I feel like I’ve been meeting people non-stop!

I had to meet my various new co-workers. I got to meet the customers. The regulars. I’ve gotten to talk to people I actually went to high school with, who I never actually spoke a word to until they walked into the line of my till.

Going into college, I began meeting my instructors, my classmates, my future classmates, and people I may possibly be working with or for in the not-so-distant future.

Now with meeting all of these new people, I think I feel confidently enough to say that I’ve made a few friends at least! (If I hadn’t, that would be sort of sad :(…) Through these new friends, I’ve met their friends, their boyfriends and so on.

Now if you’re still reading, you are probably wondering where this is going. So where is this going? I suppose what I am trying to say is that you want to be open to the opportunity of meeting new people where ever you go.

Some of the customers we get, and even some of my regulars, I would say I have a good friendly relationship (or acquaintanceship should I say?) with them, which I wouldn’t have had otherwise if I hadn’t tried to be a nice friendly person and make conversation.

You’ll also make friends with some of your co-workers! While you may not like everyone (that’s okay!) you probably will be spending a lot of time with your co-workers, and with that you probably should try to get along with them. Who knows, you might become really good friends with some of them! I did. You can always find a way to make friends, no matter the situation you’re in. Now me and her like super tight, and we even have street nicknames for each other (Yes we are THAT cool. No worries, I know y’all are jelling).

I also wouldn’t have gotten to know those people I hadn’t said a thing to in high school had we not asked one another how school was going and etc. While some of these things may just be out of formalities, sometimes okay or even nice or good things can lead from them.

So just be open for opportunity and even on the look-out for it.

For example, while I don’t know many people outside of my program, or even my class, I have made a friend in business! How? We met in the bathroom when I dropped my phone and we both gasped because I didn’t have a case on it (note: I have bought two cheap cases since but I’m not crazy about them so my phone is naked once more).

She started talking to me and we had a good conversation. After that we’ve run into each other a few more times around the campus and even in the bathroom again! Even though we’re not like bff’s, you don’t have to be everyone’s best friend. Just be friendly and pick up friends along your way!

And she is not the only friend I’ve made. I am an avid consumer of food because I human being who rarely brings lunch and so I often end up buying food or snacks and such and often go to the places where you can buy food on campus. Did I lose you? Well if I have, I’m trying to tell you I’ve made friends with the cashiers.

Being a cashier myself, I know how someone with a bad attitude can be a huge pain. Customer service jobs require you to be nice to everyone but when a customer makes it easy for you to give them quality service, well it makes your day easier. So regardless of whatever’s going on I always try to be super nice to cashiers and be kinda chatty and when you buy food as often as I do, you get to be on a first name basis with the employees. Don’t be afraid to talk to them or strike up a conversation! If the store is slow, they won’t mind talking! Cashiering is boring when the store is empty. If it’s busy though, save any heart to heart conversations for another day.

You can also meet friends and network through speakers who talk at seminars. If that’s a thing you do or if you’re like me and it’s one of your classes, go talk to them afterwards. sometimes they might be in a rush but introduce yourself and ask any questions you had! They’ll love knowing that someone was interesting in what they had to say and it’s a great way to get your own name out there.

Another way of meeting people, though super common, is through friends you already have! It’s fantastic because sometimes you may already have common interests if they’re friends with your friend. In a way it’s like a blind (friendship) date. You may or may not like each other. You may or may not get along. You might hit it off and there might be awkward gaps of no conversation. The beauty of it though is that it’s completely different every time. And every time it’s a success, you now have a slightly larger group of friends to go out with and have fun!

So my point being is just be happy and friendly wherever you go and trails of friends shall follow! Don’t fret if there’s a bad day and you feel awkward and antisocial – I get those days all the time. The thing is to power through those days and treat every day different. Go in with great expectations. If you assume everyone in the room hates you, and don’t try talking to them out of fear that they do, then they simply won’t know you and it’ll be so much harder to find opportunities to be friendly later if there’s a stereotype of you being standoffish or not talkative!

Don’t fear that people won’t like you. Some will, some won’t. It happens. But if you don’t try you might not find the kind of friends who truly matter.

P.S. Below is a link to this hilarious video my best friend showed me. It’s awesome. Sharing videos like this or even doing something crazy like this are also fun ways to make new friends. Enjoy.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Growing up, we make friends, we make enemies and we make awkward acquaintances. Growing up we often don’t realize how important these various relationships are.

Obviously we try to treat others nicely, and hope they treat us like so in return and if not….well, as they say ‘what goes around comes around,’ but as we grow older we start realizing that ‘Hey maybe I should’ve been nicer’ or ‘I should’ve been a better friend’ or just generally ‘I should’ve behaved differently in that situation.’ When we mature and become adults and get jobs we begin to see how these relationships can play a huge role in our lives when it comes to applying for a job or asking for a favour of similar importance. If someone you’ve previously engaged with is involved with that company or organization, well why look at your resume, when they have a first hand reference?

This can be good or bad. They can and should ask that person what their experience was like knowing or working with you. If you didn’t try very hard to get along with them, they have every right to give you a bad review and therefore ruin any chance you had at landing the job.

This could also be a good experience though. If said person is your best friend, they can give you the best reference you would’t ever be able to ask of someone to give for you. Because that person knows you, the employer will take into serious consideration what their current employee says about you since they have first hand experience working with you. Employers of course love this, because they have a credible, reliable source telling them the potential risk they are taking hiring someone will hopefully be one well worth it hiring you because of a good reference. Or not-so-much worth the risk if they give you a bad review.

So remember, next time you plan on making friends, enemies,or acquaintances, they could be influencing your future employer. Do you really want to lose job opportunities over trivial things?

A Bullying Story

With so much access to social media these days it’s hard to keep kids in check. Growing up, at one point in my life, there was someone who did try to bully me…Only I never realized it until recently.

To me she was just a kid who didn’t like me for one reason or another, and was just very intent on trying to get everyone else to exclude me. Luckily for me, I had a good group of friends, and she was the outsider among us.

I never thought about it as bullying until the memory of this person came to me a couple of weeks ago and I remembered her apparent dislike of me or whatever it was, and I started to wonder, why did she not like me?

She was a new student at my small school that year. She was in the grade ahead of me and the year before I had been in a split grade class, so I had made friends with a few of the kids who were now in her class. Her, being a new student and a bit of a tomboy, didn’t fit in, and I remember it took a long time before she actually became friends with anyone in her class. I remember it taking the majority of the year or even a couple years after until she had a solid group of friends.

So before that happened, she was stuck trying to be friends with my group of friends. She wasn’t particularly friendly or out-going either, which made this change of schools thing a lot more difficult for her I think, and she didn’t know how to make friends.

Thinking back I think she was jealous of me. I don’t say this to be full of myself or anything like that but I do think she was jealous that I was clearly good friends with this group of people she wanted to be friends with who she was having a very difficult time making to like her. And here I was already friends with them, being younger, not in their class, or really having any sort of business talking to them, other than from already being friends with them. In elementary school, you forget how divided things are by age sometimes and I guess this is why she felt like I should’ve been the one who didn’t belong instead of her, but I did.

So because of this, she would try to make situations to exclude me, she would try to get rid of me, constantly ask me why I was there, and ask the others why I was around as well. She would ask why I didn’t have friends my own age and to go get my own. Of course I already had friends my own age, but those were my best friends and who I chose to spend my time with.

With her always doing these small things to bother me or exclude me, I naturally had my own ways of getting to her. I called her by a nickname she did not like, and was not particularly nice since she wasn’t to me. Even though I wasn’t nice to her though, I wouldn’t say that I bullied her like she had tried to bully me, because it was my way of standing up for myself because I was typically a pretty shy, quiet, weird little child. Whatever I did was a result of how she treated me, and I never did anything drastic or mean in that sense either. I think, in lieu of revenge, I just did my best to be an annoyance to her because I didn’t have it in me to be mean enough to do anything more and secretly I was trying to make her my friend too.

The fact that she didn’t like be made me want to change that. I would’ve tried to be her friend anyway, but she just seemed to want me gone. Or so I would think but then every once in a while, we would have a nice conversation or something like that. I never understood why we couldn’t be friends. I couldn’t understand why she was against me. But I suppose now it was because she couldn’t figure out how to make friends, and I couldn’t understand her need for me to be gone.

I think to an extent, we’re all guilty of something some form of bullying to point because we have all been in a situation of sorts at some time or another. While it may not be malicious, or intended, it is what it is. I’m only just surprised how long it’s taken me to realize what my own situation was in elementary school. It wasn’t the only one, but it was one of the only ones that directly involved me that was a continual thing.

I consider myself very lucky now that even back then, my friends really were my friends and weren’t easily influenced by this new student. Growing up can be very hard without having to deal with bullies. With is even worse. I’m lucky that it wasn’t a worse situation or something that I took to heart. I might’ve been a different person and I don’t know if I would’ve been able to go through severe bullying at a young age like that, which is what some young people do go through. Every day. I’m very thankful that I got off easy in comparison.

Juggling Isn’t Just For Clowns

As a CreCommer, you would know that we have speakers at seminars every week. Every week it seems like there are a few reoccurring themes. One is being able to juggle. Being able to juggle a schedule, people, along with all other aspects of your life – it really is a talent of its own.

Not everyone knows how to juggle or manage their time, and it’s obvious when it comes to working with other people, handing projects in or even for meeting a friend somewhere to hang out. If you don’t have this skill, you’ll not only suffer in school, but in work as well. It’ll also effect your reliability, and how others perceive you, and perhaps even your credibility.

This is something that is so important to learn how to do, yet we’re never directly taught it, or made aware of it. You may learn you need to do your homework now so you won’t hand things in late or have mountains of catching up to do in your school work but we aren’t being told this is time management when we chose or chose not to do our homework and go to our friend’s house instead.

You could also even go as far to say that anything we do in a day we’re learning or unlearning how to discipline ourselves and use time management and the art of learning to juggle different things going on in our busy and very chaotic lives.

It’s something that I don’t think has enough emphasis because once we do get out into the real world, we won’t just be busy anymore – we’ll become full-time jugglers, much like the speakers we see every week. Are we prepared for this? Maybe, some of may be already, and some might be by the time we finish CreComm. Maybe we won’t want to be when we realize that we’ll continue being this busy or even busier when the time comes. Going into this, we somewhat expected it. To what extent, I don’t know. My point being though that whether we have the skill now or not doesn’t matter because if we don’t, soon or later we will need it, and desperately. It’s vital.

Cyclists Versus Drivers

Living in Manitoba, one is especially privy to hearing the numerous arguments that drivers make about cyclists and pedestrians, as well as the ones cyclists make about drivers, and witnessing it all as one drives or cycles down the streets of Winnipeg. Why is that?

It’s an ongoing cycle. Drivers just want to get to where they’re going, and get there fast. They don’t want to drive behind slow cyclists or having to move halfway into another lane to avoid hitting one, just so they can pass them. They also hate treating cyclists like a vehicle when they’re cyclists. Drivers resent cyclists being allowed on the road because they have to be tolerant of them – as we all know you can’t just pretend that a cyclist isn’t there and run them over.

Cyclists in turn don’t like when drivers aren’t considerate of them on the road and try running them down. They also don’t like it when drivers ignore their presence and try driving like they aren’t there, as that usually ends up with someone getting hit. Cyclists are, by law, on the streets instead of the sidewalks. They don’t have much of a choice, and I’m sure don’t like feeling in the way on the road. But no one has a choice and so drivers should at least respect that and give them their space when driving so they don’t feel like their life’s endangered when cycling.

What doesn’t help this is when drivers don’t bother to be considerate of cyclists, and don’t move over or almost kill them by ignoring their presence on the street. It’s also unhelpful is when cyclists ignore all laws of the road by driving through red lights, riding the wrong way on a one-way and dodging around slow-moving vehicles, never mind switching back and forth from the streets to the sidewalks believing they have the right of way at all times and thinking drivers will yield for them when breaking all said laws. They won’t if they can avoid it, even if that’s a near life and death situation for said cyclist.

But when neither party seems willing to be considerate of each other is when we face most of these problems that occur every day. Wouldn’t it just be easier if drivers shared the road instead of trying to run cyclists into the ditch and cyclists did their best to keep up with traffic and abide by the laws? I think so. If they both tried, rather than accusing and fighting as to who has the right to drive where, driving and cycling in Winnipeg might actually be nice, as opposed to stressful and aggravating.

As a driver, I can accept that cyclists have a right to be on the road. What makes it hard is when all of this is going on and no one is willing to give in. Unfortunately, the streets will only be better if everyone cooperates, and at least tries to get along. At least until then, we could all try to pretend and you know, not run over any more cyclists. They aren’t exactly made out of metal…

Internet Trolls and Why We Hate Them

I must say, I really hate Internet trolls. Yes, sometimes trolls can be very hilarious, especially when proving some dumb or ignorant commenter very, very wrong, in a genius way. That I can appreciate. What is aggravating though is when trolls go looking for an internet war and just start them for no reason other than pure boredom. It’s gets old fast and is pointless. Boredom aside, it’s overall senseless to do. Why would you want to go around pissing people off and making yourself look bad in the process? I don’t know.

Honestly, trollers are so ridiculous. They wasting their own time and everyone else’s and for what? To get banned from networking sites or have their accounts removed because they’re bothering everyone. Yes, because that’s SO cool. Cyber-bullying is where it’s at these days, where no one can touch you. Not. You think you look awesome for picking on someone just because you can? Or for starting an argument you have no reason to start or get into? You don’t. You feel like saying you hate this singer or that on their fan sites? Don’t. You’re honestly just making an asshole of yourself. I get that we’re all entitled to opinions, and I am so for that, being so opinionated myself, but there’s no need to go around stirring up shit and forcing your opinion on others. Everyone has their own opinions and sometimes you just won’t be able to change someone’s mind about something. It’s okay, because they probably already know of your apparent dislike of Justin Bieber or country music or that last film Johnny Depp starred in. You don’t need to harass people about it, or bother them for liking something you don’t. Looking for a good debate? Yeah, sure I’m all for that, just stop looking for fights and being idiotic on the internet. Please and thank you.

How To Procrastinate Like A Pro

You realize you might be a good procrastinator now, but you could be even better. I, friends, will show you the way.

First off, don’t read the assignment sheet. If anything, take a glance, or quick skim, but don’t absorb any information. That way when you go to write your assignment in the few remaining wee hours of the morning, you’ll feel especially stressed and panicked, and really, it’s the only way you’ll know you’ll get it done.

Secondly only take mental notes, so you can stay extra unprepared. This is good. Then you have an excuse to text all your classmates at terrible times of the night, trying to figure out what is going on. If they didn’t like you before, I’m sure they’ll love you after this!

Third, don’t write any reminders about when the due date is, you don’t want to know, it’ll only ruin your week and all those fun plans you had.

Should you bother getting any work or notes prepared ahead of time like the keener you aren’t? No, this only adds to the stress and fun later when panicked. Also, now you don’t need to worry about losing those notes or making time to make them in the first place. You’re welcome.

Now all you need to do is stay occupied until the night before the assignment is due. This can virtually include anything and everything. Yes, anything. Want to go snowboarding? Do it. Feel like having an eating contest and making yourself sick? You’ve got time! Have you been meaning to getting around to having a t.v. marathon? Now is the PERFECT opportunity for it. Especially the day before the night the assignment is due, so you’ll tired and have to power through the sleep deprivation. This is an excellent reason for you to also take up the habit of drinking coffee. Or Energy drinks. Or coffee flavoured energy drinks. In this step, anything goes. You can do anything, be lazy or have a social life. The skies’ the limit!

Now, the weekend before it’s due, your classmates are starting to worry! But not you! 😉 You’re calm and under control, you’ve got all weekend and frankly, didn’t remember at all until now. Keep on keeping on.

As the weekend goes on, find other things to do to put your assignment off. Read you library book – It’s due in two weeks! Watch that movie on t.v., you’ve only seen it like 8.79 times but you still don’t know all the lines by heart! Get down to business, common!

It is now Sunday, and you’ve managed to get through the day, slacking off while the stress rises, knots build in your chest and the panic is making it hard for you to focus on anything and is making it harder and harder for you to breathe.  Now you know it’s time to get started. After supper though of course, you can’t work on an empty stomach!

Also, wait until after your favourite Sunday night soap because you still haven’t gotten around to obtaining the privileges of the PVR yet. It could make procrastinating harder if everything is pre-recorded for you to watch later when you actually have nothing going on in your life.

Now you’re ready to write! It’s definitely after 9 pm and your eyes are getting droopy. You’ve already done your typical Facebook and Twitter scans for the evening, but another five or six times couldn’t hurt though right?

While opening your blank Word document, it may occur to you that you don’t know what to write about. It’s time to go back and actually read the assignment. Actually see what your teacher has been talking about for the past 3 weeks. This is when you realize you need more information, and back to Facebook and Twitter you go, messaging everyone, because you don’t know who is still awake at this hour!

Finally some heaven-sent person has responded to you and now you’re back in business, time to start researching. Time to get distracted by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Facebook again, research a little more, go see if anyone is tweeting you, text that ‘special someone’ and check the time.

Oh no! You have to write pages about how thoroughly you know this topic and you know close to nothing and now it is nearly 12 am. It’s time to begin staring at the page, hoping your assignment will write itself. It won’t, but how will you know if you don’t try?

Since you have discovered no matter how hard you try, staring does nothing but dry out your eyes, it’s now time to take a quick 2-hour nap because you are exhausted or get down to business.

Assuming you get down to business, or get to it after napping, now it’s about 2 am at least and it’s time to get writing! You finally have enough motivation to work! You’re welcome, I know. Now you write anywhere from 20 minutes to the next 3 hours and just pump out the gold. After you’ve finished your definite masterpiece, it’s time to print.

Please note this is what your printer lives for. It is THE opportune time to jam, run out of ink, paper or just try to explode. But usually the printer will realize that this is a bad time for printing dramas and therefore will *usually* cooperate.

OH BOY-O! You sir or madame have just printed your assignment! Apart from getting up in the morning and handing it in you are now done. Give yourself a pat on the back, and get some rest while you still can! Be prepared for the long crappy day ahead since the chances of you running late, the dog eating your homework, forgetting your lunch, and falling asleep in class are way likely. As long as you remember to put on clothes, eat and maybe brush your teeth, you still can make it through your day relatively unscathed!

Now that you know how to procrastinate like a pro, put your new-found skills to the test and put off using them!

*please note this can also be a guide for everything you should not do. Especially because it shows in your work, and your teacher probably won’t like it as much if you put legitimate time and effort into the assignment*

My Very Wild Night

As some of you may know, the Crecomm Marker Social recently took place this previous weekend! Unfortunately, I literally only got to spend an entire half hour there. This also happened to be my first night getting drunk, and what the night it was.

It started out fine, I left my house to pick up my two friends, Faye* and Ivory*, who I had invited to come with me to the social, one would be the DD for the night. We probably should have gotten an earlier start, but I left a tad late, and didn’t take into account how long of a drive it was from where we live (a small rural community) to a much farther away district of Winnipeg.

But before we went to the social, we had gone pre-gaming at Martina’s* house. Decked out in our fresh white tee shirts and new Sharpie markers, we joined the small party.

When we arrived, the host, Martina and one other person were there. So we three joined them and talked until the next guests arrived, at which point we went into the house. We started off the night strong, tequila for our first shots, followed by shots of vanilla vodka. I took them pretty well, I would say, but that also might be due to the fact I got a cold that day and couldn’t really smell anything. Guess I’ll find out next time…

Of course once we started taking shots, that’s when the drawing began, and the drunken dancing of course. Every pre-game needs a playlist, and ours happened to be one from Songza, only what can be described as a ’90s pre-gaming rap music. What that is, I can’t say. All I do know is that it was fun.

At one point our party moved back outside, half of us to the back yard, half to the front. My two friends and I moved to the front yard, where Ivory watched as Faye and I attempted to climb a tree. We succeeded. We also succeeded in being very loud, which resulted in several attempts to make us be quiet before finally removing us from the tree.

Once back inside there was more dancing until the taxi cab arrived, at about 10 pm. From there Martina and the others took the cab over to the pub while Isabel* and Coralee* chose to ride with myself, Faye and Ivory.

Being from a rural town, my friends and I don’t know Winnipeg all that well, never mind downtown Winnipeg, which is why we tried to follow the cab.  Sadly though, due to a red light, we were separated and I had to navigate on my iPhone  drunk, for my DD, Ivory. It actually turned out better than what one would have expected. I was doing pretty decently, and we found our way there. What did go wrong was that there was so parking and so we were forced to circle around and  struggle to find our way back and then try to look for parking once more.

Only we didn’t get that far, Coralee, sitting in the middle of the back seat, while we are driving shouts “I gotta puke.” And so, Faye, sitting on Coralee’s left, swings open the door halfway while we are moving so Coralee can lean over and puke outside of the moving vehicle. Naturally this strikes a chord in Faye, and she begins puking as well.

Eventually they close the door and are content to puking just out the window, and onto the side of my car. What joy. Meanwhile during all this commotion, Ivory swings us into a nearby Shopper’s Drugmart parking lot. She was also beginning to feel nausea at this point too, but she was a trooper and kept it down.

When we parked Isabel jumps out and begins to puke her guts out by my tire, and Faye and Coralee continue puking a little more out the door. After everyone is finished puking, both Faye and Coralee want to call their parents and go home, and Isabel wants to go to the pub very badly.

So Ivory, the only sober person, began texting and calling trying to figure out how to get rides for everyone else, since we couldn’t very well drive everyone home. I took on the responsibility of looking after the other drunk people.

Faye and Coralee were easy, they basically passed out in the backseat asleep for the most part, I assumed they exhausted from all the puking.

Isabel on the other hand, wanted very much to run away to the pub. She also needed to pee and was also very very drunk. So I decided we should look in Shopper’s to see if they have a bathroom. Of course they wouldn’t, but one does have to try in situations like these. I stood up as straight and proper as I could, grabbed Isabel by the hand and proceeded to drag her around the entire store while she stumbled along and spat every few feet inside the store. I, trying to look as sober as possible, lectured her to be a lady and stop spitting before we got arrested for public intoxication.

[Side note: While in the store we saw the nice woman who had seen us in the parking lot. She bought us water for those who had been busy puking in the backseat. She was a very lovely woman for helping us]

After Shopper’s Drugmart being a bust on the bathroom front, I dragged Isabel across the parking lot to a conveniently located Starbucks. They did have bathrooms, thank heavens. While Isabel was relieving herself, I realized I need to go as well, but ended up having to hold it, otherwise Isabel would most likely have tried to run off by herself, which while in the middle of the night in Osborne is not a great idea.

Once that ordeal was dealt with, it was pretty much just waiting around until everyone’s rides showed up and more stressful, panicked phone calls. Things weren’t quite that dull though.

While waiting, Faye still felt pretty awful, so she went outside of the car to sit against the driver’s door and get some air. Obviously that’s when the police decide to show up suddenly, passing through the cramped parking lot. They pause and consider stopping, almost pulling into one of the empty spots close to us. They stop and think again, this time actually pulling in and stopping to talk to us.

They were luckily only concerned about Faye sitting outside of the car, on the ground in the parking lot, worrying that someone might pull in and run her over, so since Ivory couldn’t get out of the car since Faye was against the driver’s door, I jumped out of the car to stand next to her for the cops.

Just then, a red truck appears and Faye dad is there to pick her up, just in time! Thank goodness. She leaps to her feet suddenly, saying “Thanks so much for your concern but my dad is here now!” and jumps in the truck. The police, satisfied  things are okay, leave. Her dad checks on us to make sure we have everything else handled before they drive Faye home.

Shortly after that, our friend arrives to take Isabel to the pub so we don’t have to worry about losing her or letting her escape. Coralee’s mom then followed to pick her up and take her home. From there Ivory and myself are left in the parking lot unsure what to do and discussing things with her mom on the phone, who is very concerned.

After a conversation of a few more minutes, we finally decide on actually going to the pub. When we finally arrive, there is one parking spot in their lot that we instantly take. By then the time is 12:45 am roughly and we had to wait another 10 or 15 minutes in line to get into the building.

While waiting in line, there are actually quite a few people going in who don’t know what the event is and ask me to explain, which I do quite brazenly, thinking “Why haven’t you heard of this?!” Being semi-drunk (I think I had sobered up a bit dealing with all the mayhem) at that time I didn’t realize they wouldn’t have a clue about the event, never mind what it was for.

I was still slightly intoxicated though, so when I saw a guy in line behind us, I didn’t hesitate on complimenting him on the unicorn drawn on his shirt and start talking to him. Apparently he had pre-pre-gamed. Soon enough we were all let in. I think I was the only one who wasn’t frisked.

Once inside it was probably close to 1 am and I didn’t recognize many faces there, assuming everyone from our section had already come and gone. The few people we did see however were very drunk, and therefore also hilarious. I finally got to use the restroom and then we took some time dancing and I got bought a shot! It was a Burt Reynolds, so the guy drew a mustache on my shirt in honour of that.

Soon after, Ivory and I went home, where I then finally got to see everything people had been writing on my back. There was quite a bit for only pre-gaming and being at the pub for a half hour surprisingly. Now we all have lovely decorated shirts, with varying levels of inappropriateness drawn all over.Pretty sure I’ll keep that shirt forever, cause I find it especially hilarious and it’s a great token of my first night on the town!<3

The only downside to the night was picking up my car the next day. There was more puke that had gotten in than I realized, and I had to clean it… Next time anyone who pukes in my car, you will be cleaning up it if there’s any substantial amounts. You have been warned.

Also very glad I did not puke. I’m happy my night was so exciting, especially since it makes up for having to wait to drink. And that is the story of my very crazy first time getting drunk.

* please note all names used have been changed.

Bronies: They actually exist.

So on my way to the library today, to write a blog post, you know what I saw? I passed another student sitting working on his laptop with a My Little Pony screen saver. I probably paused a moment before moving on and thinking “I just saw a brony.”

For those of you who haven’t heard about bronies, they are adult male fans of the popular children’s show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Basically it’s about ponies who are friends who teach values about friendship. So, as I’m sure you can imagine, I  was very surprised to say the least. Luckily not shocked enough to stop and gape and cause some sort of scene, but still. This has probably been my first known brony encounter, and while I am sure there may be more, it’s always such a surprise when confronted with something that I wouldn’t expect out of anyone I know, or may meet. I thought this was simply outrageous because, like most things you might see on the internet, it’s something that you wouldn’t take seriously. I didn’t expect to ever see one.

I think the phenomenon of bronies are actually pretty interesting, if not a little funny, since one would not normally expect full-grown men to watch a children’s show, nevermind one that is more targeted to a female audience, but nonetheless I think it’s very neat. I like that bronies aren’t afraid to admit it their love for the show, when, let’s face it, when we were all younger, this might have been the kind of thing you might get made fun of for liking. Sad as that is, it is reality, which is why seeing a brony makes me proud of them in a way, for being so honest about what they like or think is cool as an individual and to just be themselves, because I think we genuinely don’t get to see enough of that these days.

We don’t get the treat of seeing real representations of most people because so many people are afraid to stand out in a crowd, and I think people who can successful do that are really great and a good example for anyone to look up to. But even if bronies are becoming a trend, I still think it requires a certain level of confidence, so congrats! Keep on owning it.