therapeutic blogging

it's wednesday night (technically thursday morning,) at 1:40AM.

before I went to bed, I felt an urge to write. not necessarily in my blog, but just in general. (when I was in grade 12, I started a novel - I got 200 pages into it before I gave up. I've written my whole life, it's part of how I express myself. deep, no?) I am listening to Pachelbel's "Canon in D Major" at the moment - veryyy... therapeutic.

I feel like my entire life is a countdown lately. when writing my most recent 2000-word english essay, I kept thinking, "x number of days until this is over! can't wait." I've been doing this all semester, and basically my entire university career is just one big countdown. is this normal? should we really be living our lives counting down the days until something better comes along?

I know university is supposed to be stressful, challenging, englightening, and all of those great things. but whatever happened to "carpe diem," in other words, "live every day to its fullest?" I don't consider sitting in lecture for two hours to be "seizing the day." well, unless it's really interesting, which is seldom I'm afraid. I just feel like these days of my life, the ones where I'm living from test to essay to quiz, aren't the best ones of my life. sure, I have phenomeonal parties, great hangouts, and overall good times... but I've not seen my family since January 8th. it's almost been three months, and by the time I get home it will be almost four months. this really does affect my quality of life. (oh - and the next song is by Brahms, it's very uplifting. fyi.)

Toronto itself affects my quality of life. I was a runner in high school, and I could go out anytime and run as I pleased. here, in downtown Toronto, it's traffic, constant pedestrians, the threat of crime, and worse of all, severe air pollution. I heard something not long ago saying "it's better to not run at all than to run and inhale all the toxins found in the air next to a busy street." the idea of crime happening blocks away from me (even if I'm high up in a "secure building") is disheartening, not to mention scary. I have no family in Toronto; albeit I have excellent friends, and I do go to Burlington at least once a semester with ash's family, which is amazing... but it's not my family.

I'm sure I'll drive myself crazy at home this summer in Saint John. I'm sure I'll be thinking, "I can't get around - (that is unless I get my license this summer, WHICH I PLAN TO) - my brothers drive me crazy, so do my parents. the gym is so far away from my house... oh wait, I don't even have a gym in Saint John. the shopping kind of sucks, many of my friends are in ottawa, sackville, etc..."

but you know what? I absolutely cannot wait. I am counting down every single day until my flight leaves Toronto. I don't know what I'm going to do when I graduate. I don't know if I could picture myself living here at all!

maybe I'm just cynical because I'm experiencing Toronto on a student's budget, I live on residence still, and Ryerson is here, but truly, this is not living sometimes. many times I dream of what's to come... and I'm sure it will be miles and miles away from right now. so many better things up ahead. youthful optimism? maybe. self-fulfilling prophecy? definitely.

oh, it's almost 2AM. I'm probably ranting. I've probably lost you by now... so sorry. I actually started this post wanting to tell you about my day. I never do that anymore - it's always rush rush rush and friday five and a few links to YouTube. when I first started blogging - aka, October 5, 2002, it was all about telling people what was going on. and here you go.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007, went like this :

-Woke up at 11, realizing I'd overslept my alarm and was going to miss my 11-1 Existentialism class. ...oops! what a shame.
-Chilled about, did a little workout. arms, abs, you know ... male modeling, it's tough. haha. and then I showered, and dressed... riveting, I know.
-Wednesdays are laundry days, (yes! riveting again, indeed.) however, what is riveting is that I learned how to use a condom to save money! as in, not avoiding making babies, but avoiding losing my loonie. fantastic. my roommate taught me how.
-Speaking of my roommate, Christina, we grabbed some lunch and chilled for a bit. she's done next Friday, so I'm going to try to see her as much as possible. we're both in town for Easter, so we're going to celebrate our own Easter.
-I cashed my latest check from A&F joyfully, though it was raining. I also printed off my papers for tonight's marketing presentation at the library.
-Came back and hung up all my laundry in my room, our damn dryers do nothing here. Got dressed (up) for the presentation, and headed off to practice with my group.
-Did the presentation. We thought it went off quite flawlessly.
-Ditched class with carling, went to dominion. picked up some dinner, and headed to the Ashleys for the latest ANTM. yeah.......... I watch that show. I'm quite addicted. not going to lie.
-Came home, wrote my latest paper, caught up with some friends, wrote back all the people waiting for a response on my Facebook wall...
And here I am.

Thanks for reading this, if you did. That is, if you haven't bashed your brains out of boredom that is.

21 days to go.
Joel