A Moment of Stillness

It's 7:44am Christmas Eve morning. Milo is curled beside me on the couch, my legs are tucked under me, my laptop precariously balanced on a pillow on my lap and I'm cupping an Earl Grey. I'm closing my eyes and taking a breath and consciously thinking that this breath is one of many that will follow me after my diagnosis of cancer. The more breaths I take, the more distance I make between myself and that word. The more time is spent without that word looming over me and the more breaths in I take, the further that word drifts from my paradigm. I'm turning my back on cancer and walking away; it's there in the distance, and although it may be staring at me, it can only watch my back get smaller as I walk away and move on. I'm stronger than it. I know that now.

Chemo is over. I did it. I went to Princess Margaret last Wednesday and got my last treatment; 6th out of 6. I rang the bell quite rambunctiously, no one minded. By the time treatment was finished, there weren't many people still in the chemo clinic so it was a nice moment to have with the bell and I took in all the significance I needed to for myself, gave it a few swift jerks, and then walked out the doors with Shawn's arms around me. We didn't quite make it out the doors, but as we held each other in the entryway of the clinic and allowed the emotions to take over for a second, I think we both felt the enormity of the weight of one journey coming to an end. A few more days to go and we'd both be feeling a lot better.

(my moment at PMH with the significant bell)

The days following chemo this time seemed to be a bit more difficult, but I think that's just because I'm really needing it to be over now, so it feels a lot worse. I had been very very tired, and today is the first day that I've felt semi-normal. All weekend it was all I could do to hold my head up, but enough of the bitching; that too has passed now and I'm gearing up for a busy Xmas Eve day. First there's the pile of laundry that hasn't been tended to in I'm not gonna say how long, then I must get some food in the house as I've pretty much ravaged all our stock over the past few days on steroids, I still have gifts to wrap, a shirt to buy to wear on Xmas and I have to get ready for my annual tradition of heading to Laura's parents place with my family for some festive cheer tonight.
Tomorrow, Shawn and I will go to different places for Christmas. I'll wake up and load up the car with all the loot for my family, and Milo and I will head to my parent's place while Shawn will head to his mom's to be with his family. I think next year is when we'll finally have to figure out a better plan for Christmas Day, but for the past few years, this has been easiest and I'm very reluctant to change my traditions; at 30 years old, I'm still a little upset that I don't spend the night at my parent's place on Xmas Eve! But now that we're together, we have to accommodate both families. It's just hard as I've always listened to the stories of friends who have to drive around all day on Christmas to see everyone and make sure all families get equal time. That seems to me the exact opposite of a fun relaxing Xmas day, so Shawn and I just head in different directions. Actually, this probably also has to do with our anniversary (or as we say Anniversmus) being on Boxing day, so we have our own tradition the day after the 25th, which makes spending Xmas apart easier.

Christmas was always my favourite day! It was also the one time of year that I'd say Craig and I were a unified team, no matter what age or phase we were going through. We always stayed in the same room on Xmas Eve, watching the movies that we'd rented for the occasion. My favourite tradition is of course my dad reading us Twas the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve. My Gran gave us a little red book to hang from the tree that had this story, and every year my dad read it to us, even when we were no longer little kids. It was as much for him as us obviously, but I loved it. Before going to bed, my parents would leave our stockings outside the room. When we were very young, we'd fetch them in the morning as soon as our eyes opened and pour over them, but when we were a little older, we'd wait a respectable amount of time after my parents had gone to sleep before going into the hall and bringing them into bed with us and going through all the loot. I love the stocking! It wasn't exactly a stocking for us, it was a 50lb pillowcase filled with really cool stuff. My mum is really good at them and I'm pretty sure she must spend the same amount on our gifts as she does on our stockings as they're always loaded, even though every year she says that she's not doing a big stocking this year. She always does! I'm thinking this must sound as if we were spoiled, which I guess in a way we were, but it was different at Christmas. Craig and I never wanted for anything growing up, truly, but we weren't simply handed everything either. We were taught the value of a dollar and learned how to allocate funds through a weekly allowance. I got a job the second I was legally able to as money wasn't handed to me by my parents, as was the case with a lot of my friends. But at Christmas, this went out the window and it was all about getting spoiled and getting pretty much everything we'd asked for. I remember getting the Nintendo the same Christmas we got the ping pong table about 20 years ago and how that at the time was the best day of my life. I remember getting my dollhouse about 25 years ago and how my dad told me that he and Santa had stayed up all night making it for me, and how special I thought I was that Santa spent the whole night hanging out at my place just to finish my dollhouse (that dollhouse was fantastic, my dad even carpeted it and wallpapered!) I remember the soot boot print that faced toward the chimney that fascinated Craig, even though by then I knew whose boot it was. I remember where I was when I found out Santa wasn't real. My mum and I were in Scarborough Towne Centre, and it was Easter time. We were on the top level looking over at the Easter Bunny display, and I said to my mum, "I don't think the Easter Bunny's real, is he?" My mum admitted that no, he wasn't real, but we had to keep that a secret as other kids still believed in him. I remember then saying, so Santa I guess isn't real either then. And my mum said no, he wasn't either. I was actually shocked by this. I think I was testing the waters on that one as I really still did believe he was real, but finding that out was memorable. I think I felt a little special though too as most kids my age still did believe in him, and my mum had told me the truth, which must've made me feel really grown up. I remember being very young and playing outside of our old house, when Craig started crying and yelling and he ran to me to tell me that a girl from the neighbourhood told him Santa wasn't real and he was stupid if he thought he was. I chased that girl all the way back to her complex. I was protective of the fact that Craig still believed in Santa and I wasn't about to let a little brat ruin my little brothers favourite holiday.
These years, Christmas morning is spent in my parents living room, where my dad will throw on some Christmas music, grab some garbage bags for all the wrapping, we'll sit around and all open our stockings together, I'll laugh and smirk at how Craig still looks like he's sleeping while I'm going a million miles a minute, my mum will make croissants or something like that and make us fancy coffees, and we'll start to unwrap our gifts. I'll be on Milo patrol this year, but he'll be okay as he'll have Clio to harass. Then we'll clean up, sit around for a while and then get ready to host dinner for friends.
That's my Christmas. This year is also about reflecting on what is important, what the New Year will bring, and the excitement of knowing that there is a whole new year waiting to be tackled, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that next year is a fabulous one. As much as everything has happened this past year, I still don't look at it as a bad year. I've learned some extremely important lessons about myself and others, and on how to value what you have instead of constantly wishing for what you don't. Life passes you by as you're wishing for something big, and I'm going to try and put the opposite into practice.

I hope you all have a safe and Merry Christmas with your loved ones and I hope Santa is as good to you as he's always been to me. :D

It's my Christmas Morning - the LAST day of chemo

Okay, no more sleeps; today is the day. It's 8am and I've surprisingly only been up for an hour. I thought for sure this morning would be a 4amer for me. I haven't been sleeping well at all. Shawn and I have been blaming this on our mattress to each other, but I think we've both got a lot on our minds right now. It's a very important day for me today and with my 1:30pm appointment, I'm only able to hope that I can get through it without an emotional breakdown. I figure it's gonna happen today finally. After all, it's bell-ringing day. Don't think I've forgotten about that and my goodness I'm already welling up so a quick change of topics for a few paragraphs is in order. I simply can't allow the dam to break before this afternoon as I don't think I'll be able to build it back up in time to face my day, sorry.
My first stop this morning is going to be to Sick Kid's Hospital to drop off the toys and sewing machines. I'm meeting the donation coordinator today at 11:30am. I know it's probably getting redundant of me to say, but I'm so very proud of everyone around me that has contributed to this drive! Even after the pic I posted showing all the toys, I've collected more and more from people. Some of you reading this blog actually contacted me and I met with you and picked up toys. This whole giving thing is unfortunately a relatively new thing for me, and I really can't get over how gratifying it has been for not only me, but my circle of friends and family. I was having a conversation with my mum over tea at her place last week, and she was telling me about her friends who contributed once they heard about it or read about it and she's showing me the bags and bags of toys she had collected, not to mention the 4 brand new sewing machines piled high in her living room, and I was telling her that I went to Wal Mart and was shopping for my friend Michelle's daughter but couldn't resist picking up more cool stuff for the toy drive. She pointed out to me that I shouldn't be spending so much of my money on toys etc., as don't forget, these kids aren't necessarily disadvantaged; they probably do have families who most likely can afford to make their Christmas extra special with gifts and toys etc., but their families can't do anything about their kids being in the hospital -and neither could I. This really got me thinking. They do have many people and organizations at this time of year donating to them. They even have a Donation Coordinator on staff. I think this is amazing and a very good thing, don't get me wrong, but it really opened my eyes to look around at the big picture. I have a whole room stacked with amazing presents to give to children. I started this out wanting to fill a bag to drop off at Sick Kid's purely to feel good about that, but this has certainly taken on a life of it's own and I now have a chance to help out some kids that aren't going to have any presents that morning. Once I got this thought in my head it was hard to let it go. I realized that I could help out Sick Kid's in a huge way with the 4 sewing machines as well as 4 garbage bags full of toys. But I actually had another 7 bags of toys on top of this! I know that I said this was a toy drive for Sick Kid's, but I decided to help out a local government-assisted youth centre as well. If anyone feels cheated that I said this was a Sick Kids toy drive but am spreading that around now, please see me for a full refund, but of course I know that no one would have any issue with this. I'm simply trying to make a good thing go a bit further, and I've done that and am very proud of myself for doing so.
As I've mentioned time and again, I live and grew up in an area of Scarborough that would be considered "disadvantaged." My family certainly didn't grow up this way, but it is evident in my community; the violence and poverty compounding every year. I started surfing and found exactly what I was looking for, which was a non-profit organization up the street from me that housed a youth centre for kids to go to after school and stay out of trouble and off the streets and they also offered an early child care centre. This isn't the type of place that is going to have access to a lot of donations I assume, and these kids certainly need it. They do! They're not all going to have a mountain of gifts under their trees this year and I guess that most don't have trees to pile gifts under. They have one at the centre to remind them about the holidays. I got to work sorting out all the toys in my 2 spare rooms upstairs, trying to figure out which ones would be better suited to the hospital and which ones would be better suited to individual kids and I bagged them up. Something else happened too. I was talking to Laura as I always run any conscience-related issues by her first before I act on them, and she said no one would mind that I was helping out more than just Sick Kid's with the toy drive; she pointed out that I wasn't expecting to receive what I did and it was a good thing I was doing, certainly not one to stress and second-guess myself over! I was now fully convinced so we started talking about different ideas on where we could help out. She mentioned that her mom had talked about some families at their church that were new to the country and wouldn't be able to afford gifts etc., this year. I asked her to get information on a family that we could help and the ages and sex of the kids. She got back to me quickly with a family that had just moved here from Nigeria and wouldn't be celebrating Christmas due to not having the money to do so. The kids were 8, 5 & 2 with a single mother. We now had our family. I told my mum that she had inspired me to think outside of the box with how I was allocating the generosity and she thought it was wonderful. And my mum being...well... my mum, she needed to know if this family had an oven and kitchen supplies as she wanted to supply them with a dinner and needed to know if turkey or ham would be more suitable. *sigh* I love my mum! So, now, we have Sick Kid's benefiting with what they told me they really needed, which were DVD players and sewing machines (the DVD players are currently being gathered from another friend who is doing a drive through his work for this after we spoke and I told him about the DVD player idea) we have them started with sewing machines, and 4 huge garbage bags stacked with group-oriented activities that can be used by a few or many people in the wards or their rooms (think bowling sets, nerf basketballs/footballs, walkie talkies, mega blocks, lego sets, craft sets, cards, books, crayons, markers, board games, etc.) as well as the individual crafts and toys that will occupy them and pass the time while they are isolated in their rooms. Then we have 5 garbage bags going to the youth centre (think stuffed animals, jewellery sets, barbies, action figurines, books etc.,) Then we have 2 big garbage bags going to this family of 3 kids with toys picked specifically for their age group. I tried to be cognizant of the fact that they are new to the country and may not yet be proficient in English, so I tried to be sure I picked gifts that didn't have crazy instructions or a lot of talking as I want to be sure they have fun with their toys as opposed to being confused by them.
Last night at about 5pm, I spoke with a volunteer at the youth centre and told her I had some stuff to donate. You should have heard her voice! It was like I was telling her she'd won a prize, and that reaction alone was worth it to me. I showed up there about 10 minutes later and brought in two of the bags with me. As I was walking down towards the stairs, I could hear rambunctious teenagers shouting at each other etc., outside the doors I was heading for. I felt a bit intimidated and I hate that I feel that way, but last Christmas Eve, Shawn and I got followed home by thugs when we were out walking Milo and although nothing happened due to I presume a few factors, I've not been able to easily forget that almost encounter and have felt nerves tingle around a group of youth ever since which I never thought would happen to me but has. Anyway, silence ensues as I walk through the group with my big load. I find the office and the volunteer from earlier. All the people in that office turn and openly stare at me. One young girl asks me if those bags are for them and I say they may be, and now I have the attention of everyone in there; first presumably as I'm a youngish white bald chick walking around confused carrying two big garbage bags and then because they now know there are presents in the bags. Denise, the volunteer I was coming to meet, looks at the bags and exclaims that she can't believe I've done this! Is this from a company? No, I tell her, I just have an amazingly generous network surrounding me. Why did I think of this centre? I told her how I grew up in the area and initially set out to do the drive for Sick Kid's but was over-whelmed with how much stuff I had received that I wanted to spread it out a bit more and figured that this centre would certainly benefit from it. Turns out, she also grew up in the area and had the same reasoning behind volunteering, and I think she now runs the youth centre part of the building. Her and I, along with one of the other volunteers went to the same middle-school but they are a few years older, but doesn't that a little bit prove what I was saying about infusing positivity back into your own community? Paying it forward in this sense could be what stops these youth from going down a destructive path; one that around here is more than ready to welcome them if they choose it. I think more options on how to be productive with your time and energy are needed and when they go to that centre one of these days in the future and are given a gift for Xmas, they will have a good memory and a good experience from that. I helped create that and so did a lot of you. It feels really really good, doesn't it? I'm sure a lot of you already know exactly the feelings that I write about here, but they're new to me and have really changed and affected me in a wonderful (and well-overdue!) way.
Denise starts to thank me when I point out that I still have more in the car. "More?" she states, again cementing for me that I'm doing the right thing here. As I'm walking through the group again to get to my car, one of the young guys comes to the door to hold it for me, saying "G'through" with a nod of his head. I say thank you as I pass him and smile to myself at this bold display of manners in front of his peers. I like to see that. Another wonders aloud what I'm doing there, but it wasn't in a rude way at all, more quizzical and possible excitement I'm presuming at the wondering of what's in the garbage bags as I do probably look like a fish out of water here to them. I go and get another 2 bags and one of the boys offers to help me with one, but I tell him thanks, I got it, so he rushes to get the door for me, just as he saw his friend do 2 minutes earlier; already paying it forward. I'm very happy right now. This place is doing a good thing by offering a supervised program for kids to go to with activities to keep them out of trouble. A bored youth can be a destructive one, so if they associate this place with happy thoughts and experiences, then I can only hope and predict that they will contribute back to society in a positive way somehow. I don't care how this sounds, it's a good way to think and will propel me to continue to help out in the future. Next year this will all be thought out much better. I will start my fund-raising efforts and collect toys and store them all throughout the year and maybe do an event at the centre with Santa and elves and food and presents and activities. Why not? It's something to look forward to not only for me, but for the kids there too.

Okay, awesome, that story just killed 2 hours for me and now I've only got a few hours left before I'm on the road heading to the last chemo-and the bell. Don't worry, I'm bringin' my camera and I'll manage to write about that experience after it's occurred. :)

Oh, and a very Happy Birthday to Michelle J today! Have an amazing and relaxing birthday! *mwah*

Happy Birthday to me!

Saturday was my 30th birthday and I think it may go down as one of the best! My friend Kelly stayed over on the Friday night as her, myself, Shawn and Craig played an aggressive and competitive game of the new e-bank Monopoly (thanks Craig for the early bday gift!) Shawn made us individual omelettes in the morning, served with Mimosa's -or Morning Glory's as they're referred to in some parts- (champagne and oj to the other parts). Yum! We went and took Milo to a friends place who also happens to be a dog trainer as she had agreed to take him overnight so we could have a party at our house without worrying about the dog eating all the food off the table and bugging people, etc. The rest of the day was spent shopping for the nights festivities, and then I had to get home to get ready for dinner with Laura and Julie downtown. We went to Canyon Creek on Front St., and then Laura and I were heading to the Leaf game. Okay, our seats were ridiculous! Laura scored amazing seats (4 rows from ice!) We were so close, check it out!

I had Carlton the bear, who is the Leafs mascott, come over to my seat and wish me a Happy Birthday and give me a big hug as well as a gift, which was awesome although really embarassing as everyone was staring, my name was up on the big screen and another friend of mine, Michelle -the one who designed the 'Kelly's Journey' pendants- had one of her friends who works at the Air Canada Centre bring us over a nice beverage, not gonna say what kind ;) as well as ice cream. I felt like a celebrity by the time the game was done. And no, they didn't win; they were beat by Boston 2-1, blech! But whatever, we had such an amazing time!

Kelly picked us up as she was at Carm's fundraiser (for her climb up Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa with breast cancer survivor's). This is the first year that Carm and I decided to do separate birthday functions in years. The reasoning was that Carm wanted to do a big event for breast cancer as well as to raise funds for the climb she is doing that was inspired by survivors she met. This is now one of her dreams and through this fundraiser, will be a reality in the new year for Carm. I'm really proud of her for wanting to do this climb and I know she'll do it as Carm always does what she sets her mind to if it's in her control and this goal will be no different. Unfortunately, the only day she could get for the venue she wanted fell on my birthday, which is the day after hers. She asked me if this was okay, and at first I said of course it was! I didn't mind that it fell on my bday and I encouraged her to book the venue, which she did. Upon reflection, I realized that I may have a little bit of an issue with it. Not that it would influence anything, but I'll admit that I was kinda a little bit not wanting her birthday event to fall on my birthday. It was something I felt I obviously needed to attend, but now my 30th would be spent at an event for Carm. Would I be inviting my friends to this? As close as Carm and I are, we still have many different circles of friends, so I was starting to stress as I didn't think I'd want to invite my friends to my birthday at Carms function. Not just that, but Carm was having a formal function, so I'd have to wear a dress. Not something I want to do bald and breastless, know what I mean? And I only wear my wig with a hat; how classy would that look? Naturally, I talked to Carm about it and she completely agreed with me and understood entirely. She admitted that she hadn't even expected me to go to it in the first place! First when she said that, I was kind of hurt as of course I'd be at her function, but I understood what she meant, and she thought it would be too much for me and it was my birthday and she didn't want to overshadow it with hers. Besides, her and I did our Vegas trip in the summer and that was really for the two of us to celebrate our 30th year together and that was very memorable for me and I wouldn't have wanted to do that trip with anyone else, so we did already have our time. This event was for her and mine would be for me, so we agreed that this year we'd do our own thing. Anyway, Kelly picked Laura & I up from the game and we headed to my place for the party. I called Shawn and he said there were already a bunch of people at the house and by the time we arrived, the party was in full swing! I had such a good time! Most of my close friends made it and for me, I tend to keep a lot of my circles separate so it was nice to have a lot of my friends in the same room and I really appreciated that most of my friends put in the effort to attend. There ended up being just over 30 people so it was a good sized party for my 30th birthday. I made a rum punch and sipped that most of the night, but I did indulge in a jello shooter as well as a toast with Alize. There was a chocolate fountain with fruit that Kelly brought and she also made the Skor dip at my request. Here's the recipe, grab a pen! The bottom layer is cream cheese mixed with brown sugar, topped with a layer of caramel, topped with a layer of crumbled up skor bar pieces then you use granny smith apples to dip in it. Mmmmm! I made my brie dip, but it never made it out, which worked as Shawn and I enjoyed it the next day. That is really really good too! If you like brie, try this one: a wheel of brie, doesn't matter what size. Get some sundried tomatoes packed in oil, chop them up and put in a bowl and finely chop or mash about 3-5 cloves of garlic, depending on size of wheel and how much garlic you like. I enjoy a lot so that may be too heavy for some. Anyway, you mix tomatoes and garlic in a bowl, then simply scoop on the top of the brie wheel, put in oven for about 10-15 minutes at 300 and you have an amazing appetizer served with fresh bread and/or crisp crackers. Delicious and it looks like it took a long time to prepare when in reality it takes about 4 minutes.

I must also say here how generous my friends were with the Toy Drive! Check out the loot! This is just from mentioning to friends that I'd like to receive toys for kids for my birthday instead of gifts.

This is for the Sick Kid's Toy Drive I'm doing and look at how many kids are going to receive presents just based on my friends generosity! Simply amazing and I'm humbled by the generosity others showed.

Not pictured are the 4 brand new sewing machines my parents bought for Sick Kids. When I asked my contact from the hospital what they really needed, she shared with me a new initiative that I must now share with you. The mothers of the kids at the hospital are always asking and inquiring about ways they can give back to the hospital as these mothers and fathers and families are there hours and days and weeks on end with their children, and needed something to do with their time. So someone came up with the idea to equip every ward with a sewing machine so that the mothers can make personalized pillowcases for all the patients so that these young patients feel at home in their hospital beds and are able to have something personal just for them. How amazingly touching is that? I still can't get that story out without cracking. As soon as I told my mum, she was all over the idea (remember that she was one of the moms with a hospitalized son years ago) and soon informed me that she had picked up 4 sewing machines; 2 from me and 2 from my parents. Now we have 4 new sewing machines for this initiative. The first one will go to the cancer ward, and that's the only request I'm going to make about where the toys, etc., get distributed. Thanks to all of you on behalf of the kids receiving the toys! I even heard others say they were stealing the idea for their own birthdays, which I thought was great and please feel free to steal this idea from me for the charity of your choice too. I had such a great time this weekend and spent it grinning from ear to ear. Thanks to all my friends for making it extra special and especially to Shawn, Carol, Craig and Kelly for all the preparation you put into making my birthday a truly special occasion. Thanks and I love you. To my mum, thanks to you for contributing the sewing machines and Happy Birthday as today I'm writing about my birthday, but it's actually yours! :)

The Toronto Sun Project

I am I guess a bit of a nerd. I've done incredibly nerdy things in my life. Maybe it's not nerdy though; it's gotta be some type of anal-retentive disorder. Like the time in 2004 that I 'worked for' the Toronto Sun. I used to get so incredibly irate about the spelling errors in the Toronto Sun newspaper; it would drive me insane when I found them. I mean, c'mon! This is a published, widely distributed paper! How could they allow sooo many errors to make it to print? How could "We're are going to have a summer shower" actually be one of their headlines??!!! How does one mistake 'growing up in Toronto' for 'grown up in Toronto'? How does an editor allow the first published paper of that year, on the 2nd page to have a heading that spells 'Torontonians' as 'Toronontians'? How does that happen and people still keep their jobs? Is that not a grave disrespect to me as an intelligent reader and a fellow Toronontian? I just didn't get it and no one could answer me! I ended up mentioning this to Andy Donato who is an artist and works for the Sun as a cartoonist (I know Andy and his wife through a members-only golf club that I used to be a Supervisor at and they were members of and they are both very sweet and genuine people who I would occasionally dog-sit for while they went on vacations). I told him one day about this and he told me to do something about it! That was all the motivation I needed. There was no point in doing my usual writing of a strongly-worded letter to the Editor-in-Chief. This was a much bigger issue for me than bad service. I felt it was a disservice to my country; the Sun is a national newspaper so I'm sure that it isn't just the Toronto version that is so lax with copy-reading and editing. I felt that I was not alone in my views on this subject and I knew that my fellow countrymen also must have this disdain for the lack of respect we as readers were being shown! I guarantee that this is a main reason people no longer read the Sun, other than political reasons. I love the Sun but find this point impossible to bypass. I can't love it with the errors, I tried but it was too big a crime for me to simply overlook. I had to show them how bad it truly was if I was going to make any bit of difference as just pointing it out to them I was certain wouldn't work. This must have been done already I reasoned. So what could I do? Well, I could really show them exactly how bad it was, and that's exactly what I did. For one month -December 11, 2003 - January 11, 2004- I read and edited every single word of that paper, front to back excluding advertisements. Just headlines and articles. Everything the paper had sole control over. It took me forever to do this as I of course had a full time job and a brimming social life at this point. But it became a very important part of my day to saunter to the newspaper box at the corner, grab the paper and catalog them by dates, and pore over them with my highlighters and pens. Every time I found an error, I'd circle it, then post it note the page to tag it for later. I did this at night, every lunch hour at work, all the time I could spare went into this. When I have a point to prove, good luck getting my focus redirected. Once I had all the papers stacked up in my room with all the errors tagged in all 30+ papers, I went to work. Like a kidnapper with a ransom note, I sat on the floor of my living room and with my exacto knife I cut out right from the paper the errors, had a notebook to keep track of what date/page/article/writer each error came from, and then filed those little cut outs from the newspaper chronologically. I'd do this while watching Soccer Saturdays with my dad. That way I could bounce my comments off of him and show him all the words that got past the staff. Once this incredibly tedious task was done, I then went about gluing each of those little pieces of paper to its corresponding page that I had drafted on the computer. The page would have the date of the paper, then each error from that paper would be listed by page, then writer, then heading, then how it read in the paper, and then how it SHOULD have read in the paper. And then I glued the actual error right there next to it. That is pretty anal, isn't it? Not only did I do this project in the first place but I wanted there to be absolutely no way to dispute my claims. So this tedious task of cutting out these micro pieces of newspapers and gluing them all so they lined up with the corresponding identification and correction had to be done as it was the only way to show that they didn't need to take my word for it. Here they are right from your paper. How many spelling errors do you think is acceptable? What would you guess?

For one month, a newspaper that boasts a readership of 2.15 MILLION readers a WEEK allowed 217 spelling errors into their paper. 217 spelling errors/major grammar errors were found by me through just one readthrough in only one month of publishing. I'm sure there were more I didn't catch on my skim-through. Is someone not doing their job? Or with that type of viewship, maybe you can afford another helper on the payroll. It's important, isn't it? I mean, they're a newspaper for goodness sakes, surely this will be a big deal?! I had my 'project' bound at Staples and was now ready to send to the paper. I first brought a copy to Andy, who looked at me like I was a little crazy but also caught a glimmer of amusement in his eyes at it. I gave him a copy and also sent a few copies to the Editor-in-Chief. And for me, that was that. I felt a sense of relief that I had at least attempted to do something not only for my fellow readers but also for this paper. They obviously had no idea that they were churning out such a sub-par product, and with a lot of competition for readship, I figured I was helping them out too. I also had wanted to be an editor and I found through doing that project that I did in fact enjoy it. It's not like you can walk on to a decent editing job with no schooling or prior work experience, so this was my way of trying it out and if I wasn't already way past the point of college, I may have considered going to school for it.
The reason I'm writing about this is our friend Tido was over last night and we were talking about it again as he was with me at my apartment years ago when I got the call. We were sitting around listening to hip hop and my phone rang, which I answered without turning down the music. It was the Editor-in-Chief of the Toronto Sun calling. I got Tido to quickly turn down the music and I stood up and started walking around. He informed me that he had just seen my project (by this point a few months had past since I'd sent it to him) and was calling me to inform me that him and his staff were very embarassed by what I had done, and were also very impressed by it. Yes, they did in fact employ full time editors, but these had simply been missed. He also wanted to know what I was hoping to get out of the experience. That took me by surprise as I wasn't prepared at that moment for this conversation, but I said a better quality paper and a full time editing job. He laughed and asked me what school I went to. I told him I wasn't a student. No, this wasn't a school project, this was me just doing this in my spare time. He offered me an internship. They don't offer internships to people who aren't University students majoring in Journalism, but he offered me one right then. I of course couldn't take it; it's full time with little to no pay. I work full time and can't simply give that up to go and work at the Sun without getting paid to, but the point is for me that it was offered. That was the moment my hard work paid off.
Now, the Sun still has a lot of errors, I didn't unfortunately change the paper the way I wanted to, but at least I can be assured that heads were most likely ripped off because a girl in her spare time could do what these people get paid not to do, and that there were some embarassed editing staff walking around that day. Good enough for me.


Now I wrote about that hoping that the backlash is not every single error on here pointed out to me. Please, I know there are spelling mistakes all over this blog; when I catch them I do fix them, but some get by me and I am not super-anal on this site as it's just a casual blog. I am going to be printing out a lot of this to send to my Grandma in Scotland over the next week so she can be apprised of all that is going on too, and I'll edit that with a fine-toothed comb, but I haven't been regiment about this in this forum as I'm not thinking this is being read by 2.15 million people every week like the Toronto Sun. If I was getting paid for it, it'd be a different story, believe me!

I'm not nerdy....I'm...wordy

I'm a week out from my last treatment and I'm almost back to "normal" now. This 2nd cycle has had it's differences from it's predecessor. It takes a few days for the annoying symptoms as opposed to getting over them right away. The day after chemo, which is a Thursday, I've been okay, a little loopy from the meds, but my body feels pretty normal. Then for the Friday, my mood darkens a little, but I'm still able to go for a walk or move around at an acceptable level. Over the weekend is when I find the difficulty. I get so sore from the meds. My body feels bruised and incredibly achy. I can't have people touching me during this time; even a hug hurts. But let me set the record straight on that; it only lasts for a few days, this doesn't mean you can't hug or touch me at all! I go to hug some people and they back away saying I don't want to hurt you! I know that a lot of my friends are reading the blog and taking every single thing I say on here to heart, but if I'm going to hug you, then it's not gonna hurt me, hope that makes sense. As for taking everything I say to heart, please understand that at the time you're reading an entry, I may not be feeling the same way I was when I wrote it. This has made for interesting conversations with people in my circle over the last few months. Some get very angered by something I've written and want to talk about it, but by then I'm over it. An example would be the mountain man at work who commented on my weight. I still get calls from friends about this. I have to laugh about it. I tell my friends that they can't now get angry about it; it happened months ago and they're just now reading it. I joke to them that maybe they should follow my blog a little closer to real time then reading an entry a month later and then wanting to react to it. I am a very emotional person, and I travel the highs and lows of the roller coaster very quickly, but then I'm over it. So if you're reading something I've written before, it means that's how I was feeling right then, not necessarily when we talk. A notable point about me writing about all my friends etc., is that the people that are closest to me (outside of family and some select friends) don't really read this blog. It's more acquaintances or people I don't even know that have given me the most feedback about my writing, isn't that strange? I started this off with the reasoning that the people close to me would get all the dirt through this channel, but that hasn't been the case. After I posted for the first time, one of my friends called me and said "Omigod! Your blog is my new facebook; I've already read it all!" I laughed as I knew there was no way this particular friend had the attention span to have read it all the way through by that point, and I was right. She thought that there were only 4 entries as she thought that every month had one entry. We figured out her mistake one night over wine when another friend and I were talking about something I had said on here, and she had no idea what we were talking about. We were bugging her to just admit she couldn't read, but then figured out she could in fact read, just couldn't figure out her keyboard. (Love you Julie! :D)
I am in no way admonishing my friends for not pouring over this blog. I totally get it. My closest friends already know everything you are now taking the time to learn about me. They don't find the blog that intriguing as it's extremely time-consuming to read I'm sure, but also, they talk to me on a regular and aren't really surprised or shocked by anything they'll find here, or the manner in which I relay the stories. Most also don't want to read the detail about my cancer. It's easy to filter to the certain friends when I speak with them as I know them well too, and know what they'll want to hear and what they won't. On these pages, there are no filters and some don't want to know what's on the next page. I absolutely get and respect that. However, don't make the mistake of telling me you've read all my blog as you should know me well enough to know I'll test you on that without you even knowing I've done so just to prove my point to myself. I get a lot of internal kicks that way. Okay, now I have a forum for this, I have to address that point since I'm on it. Does everyone do that? I have little games I play with myself all the time for no other amusement than an internal chuckle. Everyone does this, right? Like what I just said about testing my friends. Then you lay the trap that they fall in to, unbeknownst to them, and then you chuckle about your own cleverness to yourself? Is it just me? The key to this game I've learned is never to share your findings as then you could be proven wrong, and since it's an internal game, it's better to keep it that way and have yourself win every time. Here's another fun one that I'll share with all of you devoted blog-readers. If you've related at all to my personality, this'll be a fun game for you. Basically, if you think this game is incredibly entertaining and you use it in your life, then chances are you do understand my personality and have laughed at most of the jokes and deadpan humour through reading these entries. If not, then you probably haven't enjoyed reading my words and think I'm angry and aggressive and take most of what I say as literal. That's okay too, but you may not understand how anyone could think this game is fun. So those of you should simply just be cognizant of someone using a word you've just used in a sentence right after you've used it, just to see if you find that happens a lot now that I've pointed it out to you. The rest of you who wanna play, here it is. This was shared with me years ago by an old friend and I have previously been very selective on who I choose to share this with but the people I have shared it with have reported back that it works and they love it! It's called worddrop. Think of a big funny word, use it in a sentence, then wait for the person you've said it to to use it back to you. Sounds stupid, right? It's not. It's amazing how this works and even more amazing that it's pretty much guaranteed once you've fine-tuned your ability to drop big words in a sentence and be sure they know the meaning of the word to be able to use it back to you. It does take practice. You may not drop the word correctly for the other party to pick it up, so try some variations and see what works for you. Start off with a certain simple phrase. Like, how was your workday? Oh, I was just "pluggin' away." It should work that the person you said it to will use it back within a certain amount of time. When you hang up from that conversation, you may hear "Ya, gotta go plug away at the dishes," or something to that effect. I started by sharing this with my brother I think. It worked for him too. I didn't really want to share it with Shawn as I thought I preferred catching him doing it and laughing to myself, but I much more enjoy our current game of trapping friends into it, or what is now more difficult, each other. But when we do catch each other we kill ourselves laughing and it's big points to get one over on the other with this game. We both don't like to be so easily manipulated but it works! With each other though, at this point we've up the stakes. We use words like conducive, copacetic, lackadaisical, etc. The words that don't come up in normal conversation and are more dramatic, yet recognizable when reused. There is no way of saying 'I always say that!' with those types of words, which gives the winner even more bragging rights and has the loser thinking "I'm so sure I just used hyperbole in a sentence!" This must seem so ridiculous to some people, but it is truly a fun conversation starter and you can play this by yourself. No one ever has to know what you're doing unless you share it.
Look, I enjoy my own company, and it's because of things like this that keep me entertained internally. :D