How to look good, always.

Obviously, I'm not perfect. Let's not get into every reason (we don't have forever, here), we'll just address my physical downfalls.

1. I'm fat. I'm not big boned, I'm not "kinda chubby," I'm fat.
2. I have weird skin: it's oily but flaky and very uneven in skin tone.
3. My hair is blah. It's not straight, it's not curly, it's way too thick for my own good.

Well, those are the cons. There are more, Lord knows there are more, but that's besides the point. Thing is, when I take my time and pay attention to what I'm doing, I can look damn good. Wanna know how? It's not that big of a secret. It boils down to one thing: confidence. Let's address each fault in turn.

1. So what if I'm fat? That DOES NOT mean I can't look sexy. I just need to dress for my body type and not simply choose clothing because it's "my style" or "in fashion at the moment." If that were the case, I'd be wearing leggings as pants (a. they are not pants and b. I sooo don't have the ass doe that). I credit my friend Jody for this next little tidbit: TRY EVERYTHING ON!!! Even if you don't think it'll look good, even (or especially, I should say) if you don't like it on the hanger, even if you normally would never look twice at it. Once you've tried on your items, be critical and don't take it personally if it doesn't look right. That just means you'll spend your money elsewhere. Bring a friend you trust to help you decide if it looks good or not: you might think something suits/doesn't suit you because it's what you always/never wear. Don't let the past dictate your fashion future. Here, I'm not saying you have to abandon your personal style! If you want to be goth/punk/preppy/whorish, go for it, but you still need to dress for your body. If, after trying everything on and not finding anything you like, don't get depressed. You need to search to find something nice. If you still want to spend money, go shoe or purse shopping :).

2. My skin. Ugh. I don't understand why it's so weird! Am I dehydrated? I don't think so, I drink a lot of water. Yet, it's flaky under and between my eyebrows and on my chin. Yet my cheeks, nose and forehead are oily. I've spent $1000+ on creams, lotions, cleansing milks and toners: nothing works. What can I do? Work with my best attributes. Firstly, I try not to use too much concealer and foundation, not because I don't need it but because it tends to emphasize the flaking. I make sure to moisturize well and just put on a touch of pressed powder. Then I decide what feature am I working with to make me pretty. For me, it's usually my eyelashes or my lips (or sometimes both). I've invested in two kinds of mascara, one of everyday use and for "in your face" lashes that I reserve for a night out. And that's it. Sometimes I add eyeliner, usually with my night out mascara. For my lips, I have a wide variety of glosses and lipsticks to fit my mood, style and event I'm attending.

3. My hair. It doesn't curl. It isn't straight. It's super thick. So instead of fighting my hair, I've decided to go with it. I dry it in sections (unless I'm going for a bride of Frankenstein type hairdo). After, I can choose to straighten it or leave it as is, it depends on my time and what I'm doing.

Point of the story: I dress to make ME look awesome, not to find some standard ideal of beauty. And how do I do that? By being confident. Sure, I don't always feel awesome everyday, but on the days I do, I make sure I look it. If you want to look awesome, follow my simple fashion advice. Be confident. The rest will follow.

Need... sleep...

1. Happy St-Patrick's day. I had this beautiful green shirt, but a couple months ago I got an oil stain on it. I gave it to my mom because she said she'd fix it. I asked her about it last weekend: she managed to lose it in her room, which is spotless and not cluttered and I have no idea how that happened.

2. It's 5:21am. I've been up since about 3:15am. And that's just when I decided to check the time! I was up way before that. Let's see, I went to bed at 11pm and I think I must have gotten maybe... 2 hours sleep? Maybe less. Oh boy, will today be ever so much fun (heavy sarcasm). For further reference, I should turn off my laptop at least one hour before bed; not play on my nintendo DS for 20mins in bed and not eat pizza sans lactaid right before going to sleep. And I should just take a freaken sleeping pill. But I took one yesterday, and I don't want to become dependent. The last thing I need is to rely on drugs to sleep. I'm trying to avoid the whole "take a pill once a day for the rest of your life" route.

I thought I'd take this bout of insomnia as a chance to be productive. I went into the living room, got my laptop, brought it back to my room, went back in the living room, got my external hard drive, went back to my room, went back into the living room, got my bottle of water, filled it in the kitchen and then went back to my room again (all under the cover of darkness and trying not to make noise for fear of waking my parents, one who is not feeling well and the other who went to bed well past 1am). Right, so after all that going from my room to the living room and back, I figured I'd work on this ugly LES due tomorrow. For those not in the field of education, an LES is a "Learning and Evaluation Situation." Basically, it's a GIANT lesson where you map out all the steps you need to teach in order for your students to be able to successfully complete a final project. For example, in a math class, the final project is: build a pool. Students will need to know how to how big to dig the hole, how to calculate the cost from the price of materials and labour, how to calculate volume, etc.

It's pretty simple for subjects in the faculty of science (at least I think so, since there are so many more clear steps in any given project). I'm teaching ESL, so it's like I have to build all these hypothetical lesson plans assuming either my students will be incredibly dumb or the school will have the most incredible funding. My group and I chose to go with the latter. Our LES is completely unrealistic and we will never be able to use it in public schools in Quebec, but whatever, it's easier this way. In our hypothetical high school, not only will students be already fluent in English (which is SO not the case, even for advanced high school students, who I taught in September during my field experience) but the school will also have a state of the art computer room that is accessible whenever we need it. It will also have at least 15 camcorders to lend out (oh man, I wish this place was real).

It's not that I think what i'm learning in school is useless (although I kinda do), it's that I find we are given all these hypothetical situations and we have to know the perfect answer... but the perfect (in class) answer is hardly ever the one used in real life due to practicality or initial reactions or mostly the unpredictability of everything. When you learn to be an accountant, for example, you have your formulas to complete your calculations. Your number never bully each other, never join gangs at the age of 10, you never catch your number smoking pot on school grounds, you never get sexually harassed by them... You just deal with your numbers and your dumb clients.

Give me a teaching situation and I will give you the best possible solution. I know all the right things to say and the right ways to act. Do you think that makes me feel ready for real life? Hells no. And that terrifies me.

Well, let me at least pretend to be productive this morning...

What movie defined your childhood?

I was born in 1986 (yes, I'm young, deal with it). A lot of my favourite movies were either made wayy before I was born like: Mary Poppins (1964) Blues Brothers (1980), Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) or films that I've embraced as a teen/adult: Fight Club (1999) Moulin Rouge (2001) The Hangover (2009). In terms of my favourite kids films, let's see, there's The Little Mermaid (1989) which I was completely obsessed with for about 3 years. There's also Aladdin (1992), which I adored, but always suspected it wasn't really for kids. What other kids movies were there? Well, a lot.

Disney seemed to have been coming out with a movie per year back in the 90s. There was The Lion King (1994), the live action 101 Dalmatians (1996), Hercules (1997)... all meh... Except one. Now, I didn't realize it at the time, but it truly was groundbreaking. It was a new way of sharing a story that had never been bseen before and is now being taken for granted. A story that involved love, yes, but not romantic. A love between a boy and his toys and the loyalty that those toys show the young boy. Have you guessed what film I'm talking about? One more hint? Okay: it came out in 1995.

That's right! It's Toy Story! Starring Tim Allen and Tom Hanks, this movie was revolutionary. According to the IMDB trivia page for the film, Toy Story was the first fully computer-generated full length film. Now a days, with Planet 51, Shrek, Finding Nemo and about 70 million other computer animated films, we tend to forget about CGI's humble beginnings: the first Toy Story was truly cutting-edge.

The reason I think I love this film so much is because I always thought my toys came to life when I wasn't looking. I would always rush into my room to try to "surprise" them and catch them in the act (of being alive). Of course, I never did catch them. I did, however, imagine that they were in a slightly different position than when I left them. I'm so glad I didn't know anyone like Sid, the creepy/punk toy torturer and main antagonist of the film. I wouldn't have had the heart to keep someone like that as a friend. Such horrible things, that made-up kid did to toys!

All this to say that I am super freaken excited for the new installment in the Toy Story series: Toy Story 3 coming out June 18, 2010. When I saw the full length preview (not just the teaser) before Alice in Wonderland earlier this month, I got chills. I got so excited, I almost cried! The new sequel deals with Andy growing up and his mother donating all his toys to a day care (I think). It seems that life in their new home is not a pleasant as the older toys have lead them to believe. Then, they realize that Andy misses them and decide to find their way back to him. Sounds lame? NOT AT ALL!

Really, I'm so so SO psyched!

(Embedding has been disabled on the trailer... so CLICK HERE to watch it)

And remember, you've got a friend in me.

Cleaning my room, step one.

People don't go in my room. I rarely have friends over to begin with, but when I do we stay in the kitchen or living room or outside (during the summer). The reason for this is that my room is a mess. It's horrible. I have clothes and suitcases and papers and books and jewelery, well, everything on the floor. I've never been good at keeping my room organized. When I was younger, my mother and I would throw everything on the floor and do a HUGE clean-up once a month. As I got older (and had more personal items that I didn't want my mom to find) I told her I'd do it on my own. I failed.

It's been at least 7 years since I rearranged my room into something that I thought was more "grown-up," but all it did was divide my room in two parts: easily accessible and where I dump all my crap. This has resulted in me not cleaning my room properly in at least 5 years. You know dust bunnies? I have dust Godzillas. It's terrifying.

I tried to clean it this summer before taking off for PEI. I managed to put almost everything boxes or giant reusable grocery bags... and then put it on the "dump all my crap" side of the room. I didn't touch my night table or either of my two dressers. In fact, there's one dresser than I haven't used in at least 10 years. it's full, but don't ask me of what, I can't remember.

Today, I made a choice. I started cleaning my night table. I found: info for applying to university (I applied in 2006), medication that expired in 2005, a bracelet I had been looking for since 2007, lip gloss I haven't worn in 3 years and a multitude of empty cream and lotion containers. Why have I been keeping all thing garbage? I filled a HUGE garbage bag with crap from my night table alone! That's not normal!! I can't live like this anymore. The dust can't be healthy and there are books that I know I have and just can't seem to find. I think if I rearrange my room back to how it was (with an open space in the middle instead of having my room divided by my bed) I'll not only be able to keep it more organized but I'll be able to work better (right now, my desk is on the "dump all my crap" half of my room, with books and papers and randomness all over it... and my desk chair is in my closet).

Wish me luck! I'll keep you all posted.

Lactose Free, not soy

Hi, my name is Michèle and I am lactose intolerant. I know, I know, it's the 21st century, how can I be intolerant of anything? I've heard the joke before.

Anyway, fact of the matter is: I have a love/hate relationship with dairy. I love it and it hates me (or my tummy at least). I won't bore/disgust you with with the details of my symptoms... suffice to say I prefer not putting myself in that situation, especially without Lactaid. It's not a cure-all, but it helps quite a bit. I'd rather deal with the "issues" than drink soy milk, though.

Firstly, soy is a PLANT, not something with udders, something that can be milked. So calling it "milk" is false.

Secondly, soy is NOT tasty. People keep telling me it needs getting used to, or it's an acquired taste. Well, milk shouldn't be. I was one of those kids that LOVED getting milk at snack time in elementary school. In high school and CEGEP (until I realized I was lactose intolerant) I would regularly buy milk or chocolate milk in the cafeteria, not because I needed to but because I wanted to. I never understood people who told me they hated milk and pitied those with lactose intolerance or an allergy to it. Now, here I am, unable to enjoy my favourite food group without popping pills first.

Have you ever noticed how many food items (on menus, let's say) contain dairy? I recently went to Montana's and was astounded by the number of entrees that relied heavily on cheese, cream or some other form of dairy. I'm lucky, I can eat most hard cheeses with my pills, but forget about creamy cheese or cream. It bothers me that my only alternative in mainstream restaurants is to have a vegetarian entree (or simply choose to not have one, which is probably best choice). And forget about a dessert and coffee.

Coffee. I love coffee, it has become a necessity in my life: not yet an addiction, but I do believe I'm on my way. The thing is, I'm okay with that. I'd be even more okay with that, if I could get lactose free milk more regularly. As it stands, I only know a handful of places that will offer lactose free over soy. None of these are Tim Horton's, Dunkin Donuts, or any such coffee place. I don't think they even offer soy milk there, but I'm not sure as I never asked.

I feel I have a better chance at places like Starbucks or Second Cup, although it's hit and miss there too. My pet peeve, though, is that when I ask about lactose free milk, I don't want to hear about soy milk. Had I wanted to know about soy milk, I would have asked about it. So far, in the downtown area, I only know of two places that will give me lactose free milk: the Starbucks in Chapters on St-Catherine (corner Stanley) and the Second Cup on McGill College (near Sherbrooke). There are at least 6 other Starbucks' and 4 other Second Cups on St-Catherine between Aylmer and Wood. There are most likely more, but I haven't frequented all of them.

There are other places in the city that do serve lactose free milk: Starbucks in the Chapters in the West Island (on St-John's) and the Second Cup in Fairview mall (also in the West Island). If anyone knows of any others, I'd love to know.