Week 12: Just the Beginning

Here I am, in the second-to-last week of classes of my first year of university. In about 24 days, I will be done exams and packing up to go home. It's been a crazy few months, and I'm so glad I've documented so much of it on this blog.  But this past weekend, one thing in particular came to an end - if you can call it that.

My quidditch team went to our final tournament of the season on Saturday, and the only way I can describe that day is surreal. Having put in a ton of training over the last month, we obviously wanted to do well, but I don't think we really expected to do this well. We won our first three games, some more easily than others, but what really stood out was how cohesive we have become as a team.

In September, a lot of us met for the very first time, and we have been gaining players all year, right up until two weeks before the tournament. But regardless of how long we've been playing, something has knit us together, and created this crazy bond. Of course our skills have improved too, and that was a huge part of our success. But without the determination and drive that comes from loving your team and loving the sport, the drills and workouts would not have gotten us this far.

Quidditch was my first team sport, and I now can honestly say that playing as a team is completely different from playing as yourself. Being on a team means that you put the whole ahead of your individual part. You do your best, but not for you - you do it for everyone. Every once in a while you feel as though you are letting them down, but more often you are building them up, making some small contribution to something so much bigger. And it works both ways - they build you up too.

In the finals on Saturday, although we played our very hardest, and we played together, it just wasn't enough. But I have never seen a team in better spirits after a loss. I think we all realized that we had finally hit our stride that day, and the disappointment was overshadowed by an excitement for what is to come. We will all be back next year, even more determined, and there is so much more for us to do.

So although a lot is ending soon, and I am going to miss some things about first year, this end in particular is more of a beginning.

Goodnight, bloglings

Week 11: Of Productivity and Procrastination

As I write this, the clock is ticking perilously close to midnight, and Tuesday, taking me past my personal deadline of Monday - to get my Sunday blog post up.

Anyone who has a tumblr and 24/7 access to WiFi knows the dangers of procrastination, and how time just seems to slip away when you are avoiding some unpleasant task.  The past few months this has become an even bigger problem for me, although I'm not totally sure why.

I can blame it on the weather, my course-load, my anxiety about grades, or simply that the novelty of university is wearing off, but lately I have found it pretty much impossible to start any project or task (including posts on this blog) before the last possible second. The frustrating bit is that somehow, I almost always manage to get the thing done in time. I'm not sure if I have some strange sixth sense that knows just how long something will take to complete, or if I just sacrifice quality in order to get it done before the deadline.

Either way, despite the fact that I haven't missed the deadline on anything major, I'm starting to get frustrated with myself. The cycle of un-productiveness followed by a brief flash of very high stress is not something I can sustain for very long, and it's getting close to the end of an entire school year of this crap.

I'm sure I'll never be completely cured of this, but recently (as in, like, today) I've been getting better. And although it's a total cliché, getting things done and being productive really does feel better than endlessly scrolling down your dashboard. It's a feeling akin to the endorphins you get after a really good run (Or so I assume. I'm not really the running-not-to-catch-a-bus kind of person).

So I know this post was late, unpolished, and not really about anything in particular, but I just wanted to share with you that I felt pretty productive tonight (yes, despite the fact that my Sunday post won't be up til Tuesday) and it made me happy.

That's all.

Goodnight, bloglings

Week 10: International Women's Day...and stuff

So March 8th, as I'm sure you know if you spend any time on the internet, was International Women's Day, a day designed to celebrate the "economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future". ( www.internationalwomensday.com ). I frequently hear people say that days like this are pointless, or have no real impact, because whatever messages were put across are quickly forgotten the very next day. While I can understand this viewpoint, I'd have to disagree. Because for every, say, 100 people who brush off the issue of women's rights, or never give it any thought after the day is over, there might be one person who catches on. Who starts to ask questions about the way they see women, who even tries to educate themselves about the gender inequality that still plagues our society.  And although from an economic standpoint, one in a hundred is not a great return on investment, I still think days like this have merit.

That being said, March 8th did bring to light a lot of disappointing realities about the way people still see women and women's rights. While I could probably write about this subject until my fingers cramp up and my laptop overheats and dies, I think I'll just focus on one point today.

Being a girl, with a lot of friends (facebook and otherwise) who are also girls, I get to hear a wide range of viewpoints on everything to do with girls, women and our place in society.  What really bothers me is the internalized misogyny I see every single day in girls my age, and even younger. From complaints like "ugh, feminists are SO annoying" to more subtle things like the "act like a lady, think like a man" mantra I see all over facebook - and don't even get me started on slut-shaming. The hardest part of seeing girls I know think this way is feeling like there is no way to change everyone's thinking. I'm getting better at calling this stuff out when people say or post it, but most of the time it ends with the subject being changed for something less "touchy", or me being accused of not being able to take a joke.

It's also hard to talk about changing people's thinking without sounding like an 19th-century missionary - going to "bring light" to the savage and uncouth people who don't know any better. Obviously you cannot fault a person for internalizing what society is constantly yelling at them. But it's difficult not to feel sorry for girls who believe that the length of their skirt determines their self-worth. Explaining that the problematic thinking is the fault of society, and not the person themselves, is not as easy as it sounds. We like to think that our thoughts are our own, the product of our opinions and values, and that we couldn't possibly be brainwashed into certain thinking by the rest of the world. When you tell someone that society has made them think a certain way, what they hear is that they are weak-minded or stupid - which shuts down any chance of a productive discussion.

As of now, I don't have any really good solutions to this problem. I like to hope that if girls hear enough times how valuable, strong, smart and important they are, they will finally realize how horribly twisted and manipulative society's standards for women actually are. Although we should be working towards this every single day, I think International Women's Day is another step in the right direction, and I'd like to see it more widely celebrated and talked about in the future.

Til next time, bloglings

Week 9: Fandom, Friends, and Plastic Bags

Back in September, I went to a live show put on by YouTubers Andrew Bravener and Andrew Gunadie (aka Gunnarolla) as part of Toronto's Nuit Blanche. I had watched their channels casually for a little while, and was also a fan of some of the musical guests they had announced for the show. It being the beginning of the semester, so I had no other weekend plans. As someone who grew up several hours away from Toronto, I was excited to use my new-found uni student freedom and visit it myself. I didn't really know anyone else who was attending (at least not IRL) but I figured there would surely be other like-minded nerds.

I had absolutely no idea how much the decision to go to this show (dubbed YTTO for the Twitter-verse) would end up affecting my life in a lot of weird ways.

The show was a selection of videos, exploring the funny, random, and just plain weird side of YouTube, and it went on all night. Yep, twelve hours of lip dubs, mash-ups, kids after dentist, and horrible how-tos, with some great musical performances scattered throughout. Oh, and of course, sing-alongs and impromptu dance parties.

The majority of the audience stayed for an hour or two and then moved on to see the rest of Nuit Blanche - which I'm sure contained some amazing exhibits. But, for reasons that I still don't fully understand, I ended up staying for the entire twelve hours. Joining me in this craziness were a group of girls, many of whom didn't know each other, but who all shared a passion for the same fandoms and online communities.  We very quickly bonded over our shared interests and a certain so-bad-it's-good Katy Perry parody video. At the end of the night  (morning?) we had all become friends, and over the last five months we have stayed in touch and become even closer.

This past weekend, several of that same group (and one new recruit) make the trek to Montreal to see the Andrews put on their show again, this time for nine straight hours. We took cars and planes, ate too much junk food, and got very little sleep. By any sort of logic, we went too far, spent too much money, took too much time off, to go watch a show about YouTube we had already seen - for nine straight hours.

But here are two wonderful things about the fandom/nerdfighter community so many of us on the interwebs are part of: 1) We will do anything to party with our online friends, and 2) we don't give a flying fanged frisbee if the muggles don't understand. Often, we are the people who grew up being different, excluded by our peers for caring too much about a boy with a lighting scar or a certain movie franchise. Eventually, we stumbled upon a corner of the internet where caring too much was OK. And no matter how long we have been here, we all realize how lucky we are to have found this place. We don't take our online friends for granted, because we know what it's like to not have anyone that understands us like they do. And when we get a chance to see them, to dance, sing, be silly and just BE with them, we don't turn it down.

So when people ask me why I drove seven hours to Montreal this weekend to spend nine hours watching YouTube videos, I might not be able to explain it properly, but that's all right. Because I had a great weekend with great people - people who aren't afraid to be silly, crazy, passionate and nerdy. Because I was celebrating a website that has had a huge impact on my life, and supporting creators I admire. And above all, because plastic bag.

Goodnight, bloglings.

PS: If you are interested in reading more about the show and hearing from the Andrews themselves, check out this article on LeakyNews.

PPS: If you somehow missed it, Let's Talk Nerd Culture Magazine published our second issue this past week. I wrote about some of my favourite web series, and if you aren't interested in that, there is also a recipe for apple pie. So really, you can't go wrong.