Although the music is quite pop-ish and the musical performance that I saw from years ago was a little disappointing, I just remembered what I like most about Wicked. Other than the magic-oriented setting, I love the lyrics and agree with the life philosophies it presents. Hopefully this makes it clear why Dancing through Life and For Good are my favourite songs:
From Dancing through Life:
Life is fraughtless
When you're thoughtless
Those who don't try
Never look foolish
Woes are fleeting
Blows are glancing
When you're dancing through life
Nothing matters
But knowing nothing matters
From For Good:
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good
It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Wicked (Harrow version)
I'll give you fair warning that this is a ranty, angry post--then again most of my blog is filled with the like, so you should be used to it by now.
Why AM I filled with such hate for people? Easy, we deserve it. We're flawed, terrible, self-preserving beings who try to make ourselves out to be more. If you've ever worked a personal customer-oriented job, I'll bet you already know exactly what I'm talking about. Pretty much any economic, social, (anything)-al/ic problem can be traced back to the fault of human nature. Thank God for...well, God. Anyways, I'm already going off on a tangent when I really wanted to write about this wicked WITCH at work. She's yet another reason for me not to believe in our kind...
One of my superiors on my entomology team misread a prescribed autoclave setting in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius, and the lady who manages the autoclaves came into our lab this morning and asked her why she was resetting the temperatures IN AN UNNECESSARILY DEMEANING WAY. My superior wanted to double-check that she had made a mistake, and thanked the lady for letting her know of the mistake. The other lady further went on to mock her even though she already admitted tot he mistake, "This temperature wouldn't be much higher than body temperature. It won't sterilize anything!" WELL, CONTRARY to your supposed expertise, witch, the indicator tape showed that our media was sterilized just fine.
Later at lunch...
The witch is sitting with her usual table of crones. Usually she isn't the one doing the talking, but today she had a couple HILARIOUS items to bring to the table:
1. She shared the temperature incident with the entire table, ridiculing my superior who was seated only a couple metres away, but luckily her hearing is not that good. I, on the other hand, could hear the whole story loudly and clearly because she wasn't even discreet in her telling of it. She also made it sound like my superior was being cheeky in double-checking her mistake--what a friggen witch!
2. Story #1 didn't seem to be enough. She brought up another incident where my superior (lacking in English-fluency) made a mistake with reading a label when she was asking to borrow something from the witch. Again, she ridiculed her for misunderstanding the label and this time her cronies upped their previous chuckles to full-blown laughter. Seriously, not even the funniest comedy show I've seen could have made me laugh that loud.
Neither story is EVEN THAT FUNNY. These are full-grown "women"/"scientists" who are supposed to be mature and respectful of each other. When someone makes a mistake, it's not necessary or advisable to bring it up to everyone at lunch as if it's casual conversation. That's just downright embarrassing for the person you're mocking and, even more so, yourself.
From this incident, I learned that this witch had an unfortunate childhood or high school experience that made her into the monster she is today. She lacks:
-Social skills (judging by her inability to ever bring up anything else in conversation)
-Self confidence (evident from her need to put others down to feel relatively "better")
-Respect (for herself and others)
When I overheard this conversation, I actually felt outraged, and I almost lost control of myself. I could feel my face heating up, and I was considering walking over to the next table and punching her witchy face in. In fact, I was mad enough to consider hitting her over the head with a chair, or finding her office and putting some dangerous bacteria or chemical on her doorknob. The anticipated consequences of these scenarios did not go over too well in my head, so I ultimately decided against them. All I know is, even if I was crazy enough to go through with any of those suggestions,
No one mourns the wicked, and certainly no one would mourn you, witch.
Why AM I filled with such hate for people? Easy, we deserve it. We're flawed, terrible, self-preserving beings who try to make ourselves out to be more. If you've ever worked a personal customer-oriented job, I'll bet you already know exactly what I'm talking about. Pretty much any economic, social, (anything)-al/ic problem can be traced back to the fault of human nature. Thank God for...well, God. Anyways, I'm already going off on a tangent when I really wanted to write about this wicked WITCH at work. She's yet another reason for me not to believe in our kind...
One of my superiors on my entomology team misread a prescribed autoclave setting in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius, and the lady who manages the autoclaves came into our lab this morning and asked her why she was resetting the temperatures IN AN UNNECESSARILY DEMEANING WAY. My superior wanted to double-check that she had made a mistake, and thanked the lady for letting her know of the mistake. The other lady further went on to mock her even though she already admitted tot he mistake, "This temperature wouldn't be much higher than body temperature. It won't sterilize anything!" WELL, CONTRARY to your supposed expertise, witch, the indicator tape showed that our media was sterilized just fine.
Later at lunch...
The witch is sitting with her usual table of crones. Usually she isn't the one doing the talking, but today she had a couple HILARIOUS items to bring to the table:
1. She shared the temperature incident with the entire table, ridiculing my superior who was seated only a couple metres away, but luckily her hearing is not that good. I, on the other hand, could hear the whole story loudly and clearly because she wasn't even discreet in her telling of it. She also made it sound like my superior was being cheeky in double-checking her mistake--what a friggen witch!
2. Story #1 didn't seem to be enough. She brought up another incident where my superior (lacking in English-fluency) made a mistake with reading a label when she was asking to borrow something from the witch. Again, she ridiculed her for misunderstanding the label and this time her cronies upped their previous chuckles to full-blown laughter. Seriously, not even the funniest comedy show I've seen could have made me laugh that loud.
Neither story is EVEN THAT FUNNY. These are full-grown "women"/"scientists" who are supposed to be mature and respectful of each other. When someone makes a mistake, it's not necessary or advisable to bring it up to everyone at lunch as if it's casual conversation. That's just downright embarrassing for the person you're mocking and, even more so, yourself.
From this incident, I learned that this witch had an unfortunate childhood or high school experience that made her into the monster she is today. She lacks:
-Social skills (judging by her inability to ever bring up anything else in conversation)
-Self confidence (evident from her need to put others down to feel relatively "better")
-Respect (for herself and others)
When I overheard this conversation, I actually felt outraged, and I almost lost control of myself. I could feel my face heating up, and I was considering walking over to the next table and punching her witchy face in. In fact, I was mad enough to consider hitting her over the head with a chair, or finding her office and putting some dangerous bacteria or chemical on her doorknob. The anticipated consequences of these scenarios did not go over too well in my head, so I ultimately decided against them. All I know is, even if I was crazy enough to go through with any of those suggestions,
No one mourns the wicked, and certainly no one would mourn you, witch.
The Jolly Reaper
Just to restate the obvious, I'm a terrible person, but, in truth, we all are. I have ridiculous, unconventional opinions that most people disagree with or despise. I also don't feel bad enough to hide these thoughts from the public, so don't spazz/preach at me if you're wasting your life reading this and it seriously offends you. It's a friggen blog, not the newspaper. If I wrote whatever was politically correct and common of any rationally published book, what would make it uniquely "Christie"? Nothing. Why would you even be interested in reading a "retelling" of what you already know and believe? You wouldn't.
Like the title in the classic Chicken Soup for the Soul series, here it is, the subject of my post:
DEATH AND DYING
From the movies (and/or wherever else you hear generalizations about the public), I've heard that most people are afraid of dying. Given all the other ridiculous things I'm afraid of, I'm surprisingly not afraid of death. ...And before you give me too much credit, admiration, or disbelief, I'll have to come clean and admit that I AM afraid of pain. I suppose this makes me a gutless coward, oh well. Moral: If I'm in tremendous pain, please pull the plug on me.
I've actually thought quite often about dying--how it happens, what it would be like, how people on earth would react, and if I could still watch over (or haunt!) them from heaven (hopefully). To be honest, it would, ironically, MAKE MY LIFE EASIER. Why, you may ask.
Well, knowing my lack of direction in life and lack of passionate interest in anything, what IS there to live for? Pretty much the only thing I am truly interested in experiencing is true love and raising children. I don't even mean necessarily settling down and living the quiet home life. As long as I achieve those two things, I would be content to move from place to place, travel the world, or, in the most extreme case, live off the streets. All that other stuff seems unimportant in the complex recipe for "Christie's Happiness". However, since achieving those two things (without finding a job and societal niche that I would enjoy) seems pretty unrealistic, I wouldn't mind dying at all. My buddy, the reaper, would, in fact, be doing me a huge favour.
On another note, I've been asked a couple times recently (in some form or another), "What is your preferred method of dying?" To that, I always answer, "Easy. Death by salt." I truly believe I am a sincere food lover (and not one of those loserish teenagers posting on their fb profile interests: EATING AND SLEEPING, but that's a post for another day), and one of my favourite flavourings is salt. It's pretty much the magic ingredient for making food taste good. When I inquired about how to make fried rice, someone answered that all you need is salt. Of course, that may be a more extreme, unrealistic example, but I felt it was symbolic of salt's magical properties. In fact, salt has broken the alluring spell of candy/sugars on my tastebuds. When given an option between chips and candy, salt wins me over to the former almost immediately. Apparently you can die from consuming about 1kg of it. When the time comes, I will find a way to make this possible--and enjoy every last grain. :)
Like the title in the classic Chicken Soup for the Soul series, here it is, the subject of my post:
DEATH AND DYING
From the movies (and/or wherever else you hear generalizations about the public), I've heard that most people are afraid of dying. Given all the other ridiculous things I'm afraid of, I'm surprisingly not afraid of death. ...And before you give me too much credit, admiration, or disbelief, I'll have to come clean and admit that I AM afraid of pain. I suppose this makes me a gutless coward, oh well. Moral: If I'm in tremendous pain, please pull the plug on me.
I've actually thought quite often about dying--how it happens, what it would be like, how people on earth would react, and if I could still watch over (or haunt!) them from heaven (hopefully). To be honest, it would, ironically, MAKE MY LIFE EASIER. Why, you may ask.
Well, knowing my lack of direction in life and lack of passionate interest in anything, what IS there to live for? Pretty much the only thing I am truly interested in experiencing is true love and raising children. I don't even mean necessarily settling down and living the quiet home life. As long as I achieve those two things, I would be content to move from place to place, travel the world, or, in the most extreme case, live off the streets. All that other stuff seems unimportant in the complex recipe for "Christie's Happiness". However, since achieving those two things (without finding a job and societal niche that I would enjoy) seems pretty unrealistic, I wouldn't mind dying at all. My buddy, the reaper, would, in fact, be doing me a huge favour.
On another note, I've been asked a couple times recently (in some form or another), "What is your preferred method of dying?" To that, I always answer, "Easy. Death by salt." I truly believe I am a sincere food lover (and not one of those loserish teenagers posting on their fb profile interests: EATING AND SLEEPING, but that's a post for another day), and one of my favourite flavourings is salt. It's pretty much the magic ingredient for making food taste good. When I inquired about how to make fried rice, someone answered that all you need is salt. Of course, that may be a more extreme, unrealistic example, but I felt it was symbolic of salt's magical properties. In fact, salt has broken the alluring spell of candy/sugars on my tastebuds. When given an option between chips and candy, salt wins me over to the former almost immediately. Apparently you can die from consuming about 1kg of it. When the time comes, I will find a way to make this possible--and enjoy every last grain. :)
Thursday, November 11, 2010
This Little Piggy Works in Harrow
As you may know, I am currently in Harrow on a co-op work term doing agricultural research. So far, my job has been pretty fun and full of new experiences--both enjoyable and/or otherwise.
As always, my posts have two main goals:
1. Share something interesting (often offensive/controversial)--or at least new to you :)
2. Keeping this brief so your youthful mind can be spared for more important tasks
Anyway, if you didn't know already from a chance encounter with me on MSN/facebook/or (God forbid) real life, I work for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). The most important thing you should take from that lovely hyphenated, professionally abbreviated, lengthy title...is that I work for the government.
AND TOMORROW IS REMEMBRANCE DAY!
Well, I guess that would be today now...(I really gotta kick these nocturnal habits). For many of you, I'm sure that wouldn't mean much, but at a government workplace, it means a lovely day off! So to celebrate my day off in the best way that a "farmville" like Harrow should permit, I decided to do something fun by myself, and I really can't think of many things more entertaining and satisfying than eating. :)
To celebrate my mini 24-hour holiday (!), I decided to pull up the local pizzeria's menu, since I noticed they offered free delivery!! YAY!! And they had this special for 24 slices of a 4-topping pizza at the price of about $25. It seemed interesting and the number 24 didn't seem too daunting with only two figures--at least not daunting enough to extinguish my crazy brainstorming. I was actually considering ordering the whole 24 slices and eating pizza to death for a whole day. Finally my actual brain decided to turn on, and I only ended up ordering a medium pizza (12 slices)--still big enough to have a party by myself but not too big that I would have to host a real party to get rid of it.
I decided to get cheese, Italian sausage, green peppers, and mushrooms on my pizza, and it came up to $20. For dinner, I ended up eating a measly 8 slices, complemented by one bag of heavenly, mouthwatering 1% milk. Don't laugh! I swear, about 5 years ago, I so would have owned those 24 slices! Anyway, I've had a great night, eating to my heart's content! I even topped off this delicious dinner with a dessert of a juicy watermelon wedge for which my housemate renounced his eating rights. Currently, my tongue has experienced such a wide variety of flavours and sensations that I'm almost ready to turn in my stomach for the night. Now if only my brain would let those chocolate popsicles in my freezer live another day...
As always, my posts have two main goals:
1. Share something interesting (often offensive/controversial)--or at least new to you :)
2. Keeping this brief so your youthful mind can be spared for more important tasks
Anyway, if you didn't know already from a chance encounter with me on MSN/facebook/or (God forbid) real life, I work for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). The most important thing you should take from that lovely hyphenated, professionally abbreviated, lengthy title...is that I work for the government.
AND TOMORROW IS REMEMBRANCE DAY!
Well, I guess that would be today now...(I really gotta kick these nocturnal habits). For many of you, I'm sure that wouldn't mean much, but at a government workplace, it means a lovely day off! So to celebrate my day off in the best way that a "farmville" like Harrow should permit, I decided to do something fun by myself, and I really can't think of many things more entertaining and satisfying than eating. :)
To celebrate my mini 24-hour holiday (!), I decided to pull up the local pizzeria's menu, since I noticed they offered free delivery!! YAY!! And they had this special for 24 slices of a 4-topping pizza at the price of about $25. It seemed interesting and the number 24 didn't seem too daunting with only two figures--at least not daunting enough to extinguish my crazy brainstorming. I was actually considering ordering the whole 24 slices and eating pizza to death for a whole day. Finally my actual brain decided to turn on, and I only ended up ordering a medium pizza (12 slices)--still big enough to have a party by myself but not too big that I would have to host a real party to get rid of it.
I decided to get cheese, Italian sausage, green peppers, and mushrooms on my pizza, and it came up to $20. For dinner, I ended up eating a measly 8 slices, complemented by one bag of heavenly, mouthwatering 1% milk. Don't laugh! I swear, about 5 years ago, I so would have owned those 24 slices! Anyway, I've had a great night, eating to my heart's content! I even topped off this delicious dinner with a dessert of a juicy watermelon wedge for which my housemate renounced his eating rights. Currently, my tongue has experienced such a wide variety of flavours and sensations that I'm almost ready to turn in my stomach for the night. Now if only my brain would let those chocolate popsicles in my freezer live another day...
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