repeat

i believe in the sand beneath my toes
the beach gives a feeling
an earthy feeling
i believe in the faith that grows
and the four right chords can make me cry

when i'm with you i feel like i could die
and that would be all right

[third eye blind, semi-charmed life]

a little broken hearted

i keep imagining this time when i'll just pack up and move away. a job offer in a faraway city, surrounded by nothing familiar and nobody i know. to be with him. or an impulse. a romantic idea of fall on the east coast. something i read in a book.

i heard somewhere
"there are no denouements in dreams."

but i don't do lonely well.

oh yeahh

Puppy Chow

3/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup butter
8 cups Crispix cereal
2 cups powdered sugar

Melt the peanut butter, chocolate chips, and butter together. Pour over the cereal in a large kettle or bowl and stir well. Pour the powdered sugar into a large brown paper bag and add the cereal. Fold the bag to seal and shake well to coat evenly.

key themes

i made this list a while ago. middle of august, when the school year felt so far away and i felt unusually optimistic about how things would go. i could mope about all the things that haven't gone my way this month, but there are no excuses for that. i'm 21 now. it's time to get my shit together. so these are meant to be the key themes for 07/08. it's a work in progress, really.

i. eat healthy!
eat breakfast.
pack a lunch.
shop local / organic.
make lots & have leftovers.
make it fun.

ii. save money.
i guess it's not so much saving money as it is to just not spend so much.
i don't expect to come out of the year with a dollar to my name.
$900/month limit, including rent.

iii. kick school butt.
keep the gpa high.
library afternoons.
put the effort in.

iv. make the most of it.
wake up early.
travel the island.
walk everywhere.
surprise people.
surprise myself.
swim in the ocean.

v. love love love :)

summer reading list '07

may

white teeth - zadie smith
the inheritance of loss - kiran desai
kitchen - banana yoshimoto
the memory keeper's daughter - kim edwards
one hundred years of solitude - gabriel garcia marquez
a short history of tractors in ukrainian - marina lewycka
never let me go - kazuo ishiguro
pandemonium: bird flu, mad cow disease, and other biological plagues of the 21st century - andrew nikiforuk
shalimar the clown - salman rushdie

june

the jade peony - wayson choy
mean boy - lynn coady
villa incognito - tom robbins
the god of small things - arundhati roy
fugitive pieces - anne michaels
monkey beach - eden robinson
the wasp factory - iain banks

july

love in the time of cholera - gabriel garcia marquez
their eyes were watching god - zora neale hurston
the facts behind the helsinki roccamatios - yann martel
if on a winter's night a traveler - italo calvino
the unbearable lightness of being - milan kundera
lolita - vladimir nabokov

august

pilgrim at tinker creek - annie dillard
consumption - kevin patterson
eat pray love - elizabeth gilbert
middlesex - jeffrey eugenides
we need to talk about kevin - lionel shriver
the stranger at the palazzo d'oro - paul theroux
a spot of bother - mark haddon

top five.
one hundred years of solitude
a spot of bother
eat pray love
the god of small things
pilgrim at tinker creek

AS IF!

As if I live in a city where a legitimate excuse for being late to work is that you got stuck behind a horse-drawn carriage. Happened today, everyone just nodded. Been there. Nothing you can do about that.

things i'm diggin'

the new bedding. blue and flowers and not quite girly, perfect for tangling up for afternoon naps and wrestling in while we try to get laundry done.

sooke potholes. one of the coolest and most beautiful places i've been to on the island. snakes aside.

my job. say what?! cool people, awesome money, and constant laughter. plus lots of free time for reading and poster making and gossiping.

the new pornographers' new cd. check out "mutiny, i promise you" - classic style, sooo good!

sitting on the balcony with the cat in my lap.

my new haircut. it's exactly the same as my old haircut! for real, charlotte did it up right.

this weather. finally summer has arrived in victoria, and soon i am taking off for a weeklong holiday and i plan to get some serious sun.

waking up early.

chapters.ca. why would anyone ever shop at a bookstore when they can everything so much cheaper online? and free shipping and handling!

mac's. the best coffee ever if you mix it up right. i crave it all day long, even more than tim horton's.

payday. tomorrow!

my new camera. this old school pentax k1000 that is only for experimenting and learning. my first ever ebay win.

exclamation points!!

knowing that in a week pete will be back in town to dig it all with me.

sweat in my

armpits
kneepits
palms
shoes
eyes
hair
bra
ass
elbows


all told, when you have sweat in your kneepits from having your knees bent for more than 30 seconds it is damn hot. and it's after midnight!

hello heatwave, meet me in sherwood park.

oh blog.
how i miss you.

NOT!

cat person

we got a new cat!
well, we sort of got a new cat. he is my cousins cat and we get to keep him for a month. how excited am i? 100%. well, not exactly true. at first i was verrrry excited. then he came and i was 9% excited. he wasn't in a good mood when he got here and it didn't help that jeffrey was all up in his grill every second of the day. they fought and then he would lunge at pete and i, so we were not stoked about it. he also peed inside pete's gym bag. ahaha.
but now he is nice and he let's me pet him and even hold him sometimes. i would tell you his name but i don't know how to spell it. something like shaolin. shaolin soccer, but not. i am very excited about cats and i have lately felt i might be better described as a cat person than a dog person. i'm not not a dog person, but cats are just the best. that's for sure. and that's my news.

just a reminder of who our favorite cat still is and always will be.

the endlessly adorable and photogenic jeffrey.

28 feb 07

aha. i sucked so bad this year.
not worried about it.
still working on that gpa new years resolution.

it's snowing right now and it's the last day of february and i don't really have anything to say about it all. it's been a good month, a tricky complicated month and talking about it like this makes it seems so final and real, like a definite thing that happened and isn't happening anymore. it's just been time. ah, no philosophizing here please.

time for lunch.

<3

it's valentine's day!
it's february!
i am in love.

meal plans

so pretty much the weekend menu plan is completely crumbling.
good reason: rj took us out for dinner! boston pizza gift certificates are the best presents a friend can get, that's for sure.
bad reason: pete is ditching "tomato-topped cod" for free dinner at the church. a certain someone (me) has class that does not provide free dinner opportunities.
good reason: 2 hot valentine's day dates with the apple of my eye.

however, be warned: i plan to keep you well informed of the weekly menu and how it's going.

[thanks to facebook for the following conversation]

taryn's status: taryn is pretty much an old woman.

michelle:
what is this old woman crap?

taryn:
let's not kid ourselves. i am a 40 year old trapped in a 20 year old's body.

taryn:
sometimes even a 60 year old.

michelle:
i dont think a 60 or even 40 year old could shake it like i seen you shake it on friday night in our secret dance studio... nevermind pull off sweet karate kicks in gymnastics... stop living in denial.. your young okay!


man, i still got it.

housewife

yesterday was probably the nicest day so far in 2007. i woke up at 8 with, surprisingly, no hangover. (okay, i should probably be embarrassed about how friday night went down but i actually can't remember most of it.) then we went out for breakfast and i made pete pose for pictures and he complained the whole time and out of like 10 attempts we only got one where we both look almost okay. picture posing is a skill we need to work on.



okay okay! my new plan for the rest of this semester is to make weekly meal schedules and then that way we hopefully won't go out for dinner so much because we'll actually have things planned out. i think it could be very successful. i just decided on this today so this weeks schedule only has like:

sunday: lasagna
ingredients: have everything except garlic bread and tomato sauce.

monday: chicken pasta
ingredients: noodles, diced tomatoes, chicken and ceasar dressing.

and i have to work out the rest but i am pretty excited about it. my mom bought me like a 4-ingredient cookbook and it's probably the love of my life. plus i can eat meat and it makes me wayyy more excited to cook.

i know i know i am kind of like an old mom/housewife but.. okay, there are no buts. it's true. i'm trying to embrace it.


also. new found love for swimming? wtf. seriously, swimming is like the best thing ever.

pick me

in my edci class we had to pose in a way that we thought was representative of ourselves in high school. umm. nosepicking is probably the best thing ever. hi, my name is taryn and i am mature.

five things.

okay.

1. maybe it's okay that my life is moving at warpspeed. no, not warpspeed. but i am on a mission and i'm not going to stop until i get it done. at least it doesn't look like i while. at this rate i will be teacher when i'm 23. graduated, finished. but then there is more. and maybe it's okay that i get this done, that i have that behind me when i'm ready to explore. these experiences now are important too, so i just need to stop worrying about it so much.

2. i am doing a huge project for my ed class on the perceptions of physical education. maybe i would like to talk to some of you about it. more information will come.

3. i love february. lovelovelove.

4. i think that maybe last year writing everyday was so much easier because it was the olympics and because jenna was visiting and pete was visiting and there was more out of the ordinary going on than there is now. i may have made a bad call on this, but i'm gonna see it through.

5. when i go to kelowna i am going to make my mom take me shopping. my little sister too. and i am going to buy nice clothes. and maybe have a quasi-pseudo style revamp. i watched an episode of made where the coolest girl in the entire world wanted to win her school's idol competition and wow, i was in love with her. i still am. i want to be her best friend and just hang out with her all the time. anyway, she was probably the best dressed person and i want to be just like her.

sheesh

rant.

why do all of my teachers have to schedule their midterms and other projects and assignments all during the same damn week. and why is that every single piece of evaluation has to fall either right in the middle of the semester or right at the end? there are a lot of good weeks in the term. a lot of them. like 13 or something. so why do all the assignments and tests have to be during only 2 or 3 of them? seriously, why? and why do i leave everything until the last minute so i always want to kill myself and i'm always cranky and overtired? and why isn't there a tim horton's closer to where i live?

happilyer

ummm.
hi.

today i had a midterm in biomechanics. biomechanics is my hardest class because it's all about the forces associated with movement and stuff like that. well ... i am an english/phys ed major and physics really isn't my speciality. so i have to work really hard to understand a little concept. that is very frustrating because usually i don't have to work that hard to get my head around things. but last night pete was explaining momentum and negative acceleration to me (acceleration can be positive with a decreasing velocity when velocity is decreasing in a negative direction.. wtf?) and i just about lost it on him because i was so frustrated that i couldn't understand. i think this course will be a serious character builder for me because it will probably be the first time since math in high school that it will actually be hard and not just time consuming. i'm excited, let's not kid ourselves. biomechanics is cool. very cool. and it almost makes me want to switch into kinesiology because i realize that i like the science part of phys ed more than i like the teaching part. interesting.

okay seriously this crisis of "what do i want to do with my life" is supposed to not hit me. not me. i am supposed to be a teacher and that is how it has been since junior high and there was never any doubt. maybe the problem is that the lack of doubt caused me to not explore any other options and subsequently now that this whole science/sporty world has been opened up to me i am seeing all the exciting alternatives. there's nothing wrong with teaching and i could do it happily but maybe i could do something different happilyer? med school, what?

damnit.

oh no

oh crap.
i am already behind.
this may have been a bad call.

oh well.
let's blame it on midterms.
and illness.
okay?

so, let's lay it out.
what is the plan for this february?

1) orienteering!
2) reading break!
3) kelowna!
4) exams / projects!

what are the goals for this february?

1) save money.
2) kick ass on midterms.
3) party hardy.
4) get climbing.

i'm happy that this month showed up with some lovely weather and my period. not being pregnant? best thing ever. as far as this month long blogathon goes, i wanted to up the ante from last year but also give myself an out by not comitting to writing every single day. as you can tell. i'll get more consistent, i think. and i'll get on the picture thing as soon as i'm not bogged down with sickness. the past two days i've trapped myself away with my biomechanics textbook, a box of kleenex, my ipod and my nalgene. the goal is to defeat the cold before it defeats me and then get my gameface back on. i think it's worked pretty well and tomorrow there are some definite plans to leave the house. yes, i am awesome.

fevrier

2006.
28 days.
28 posts.

2007.
28 days.
28 posts.
28 pictures.

want

i don't have anything to say. there was supposed to be orienteering today but it was cancelled so instead we changed my passenger wiper blade and ate big huge pannekoeks for breakfast. now we are hanging out and listening to music and it's cold out but the windows are open. i want to take more pictures, so i will. i also want to do really amazingly well at school, so i will. i also want to go underwear shopping and maybe get a new sweater, but instead i have to buy groceries and cat litter. i am so grown up.

let's give it up for the new year

[ What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before? ]
i actually committed to something.

[ Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? ]
i don’t really remember making any but if i did they were probably like stop drinking pop and things like that, which i definitely didn’t follow through on. the resolutions for this year are vague and broad and leave lots of room for interpretation so i hope i can at least stick to them a little bit. draw more, study harder, get drunk less, stop being such a drama queen, better money management.

[ Did anyone close to you give birth? ]
nope. i think that’s a good thing.

[ Did anyone close to you die? ]
not this year.

[ What countries did you visit? ]
mexico, belize, united states.

[ What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006? ]
a cumulative gpa above 7.

[ What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? ]
let’s say april 20. pete and i hit the one year mark and even though that’s not all that long and even though we weren’t together for it, it feels pretty huge to be with someone for so long and to get through so much and end up where we are now.

[ What was your biggest achievement of the year? ]
the year was more an academic one than anything so all i really have to show for it in the end is being two terms closer to graduating.

[ What was your biggest failure? ]
eating meat again.

[ Did you suffer illness or injury? ]
a cold maybe here and there but nothing lasting or terrible.

[ What was the best thing you bought? ]
i can’t even think of anything that i actually bought. all the stuff we’ve bought around the apartment has been pretty good, the little things that add up and make it feel like our place.

[ Whose behavior merited celebration? ]
pete’s, for sure.

[ Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? ]
mine, mostly.

[ Where did most of your money go? ]
eating out.

[ What did you get really, really, really excited about? ]
september. when pete and i moved in here.

[ What song will always remind you of 2006? ]
pump it by the black eyed peas.

[ Compared to this time last year, are you: ]
[ i. happier or sadder ] happier!
[ ii. thinner or fatter ] mostly the same
[ iii. richer or poorer ] the same, unfortunately

[ What do you wish you'd done more of? ]
dancing.

[ What do you wish you'd done less of? ]
being a psychotic dramatic girlfriend.

[ How will you be spending Christmas? ]
with my family, as always. that’s the only way.

[ Did you fall in love in 2006? ]
in 2005, yes. but it’s a continual process.

[ How many one-night stands? ]
never ever.

[ What was your favorite TV program? ]
csi.

[ Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? ]
no hatred to be found around here, pals.

[ What was the best book you read? ]
on beauty by zadie smith – well that was over the new year so maybe it doesn’t fully count?
cloud atlas by david mitchell

[ What was your greatest musical discovery? ]
it was a rediscovery of third eye blind.

[ What did you want and get? ]
pete back.

[ What was your favorite film of this year? ]
i can’t even think of a single one.

[ What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? ]
i turned 20 and went crazy all around kelowna. it’s actually pretty embarrassing how out of hand i got.

[ What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? ]
if pete and i hadn’t been apart for six months of it.

[ How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006? ]
huh?

[ What kept you sane? ]
school, more or less.

[ Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? ]
john cusack.

[ What political issue stirred you the most? ]
i don’t get stirred anymore. i wish i did, but i don’t.

[ Who did you miss? ]
pete, alie, my family, taryn circa grade 10.

[ Who was the best new person you met? ]
jeffrey (don’t give me any philosophical bullshit, i’m counting my cat as a person) and my summer work gang.

[ Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006 ]
well, learning is different than living, i hope. i learned to relax. to not always take myself so seriously and just relax sometimes. now, to implement this may be a different story.

[ Quote a song lyric that sums up your year ]
And I know why they hatin' on us (why)
Cause our style's so fabulous (what)
I'ma be real on us (c'mon)
Nobody got nuttin' on us (no)

07

new years resolution #4
"stop being such a drama queen"
status: failed

is it really too late for new years resolutions like that or is it just a consistent effort? i think probably the latter because it's pretty lame to just say "oh, i screwed that one up. better luck next year!" and just carry on being an emotional fuckwit in all possible aspects of my life.


christmas was fun but the break was too long (!!!) and i really am happy to be back in victoria. this is more my element, even if i seem to want to be anywhere else but here. i mean, seriously, how could i be unhappy in a city that is home to jr's indian curry house? impossible!