Did you Hear?

I'M ENGAGED!!!!!!!

So that's the news of the past two weeks! It took me a little while to get the news out. I was in Toronto, so I couldn't see friends and family right away. We were so busy over the weekend that I just managed to call my immediate family and one quick phone call to Kelite, my best friend and roommate. When I got home, it took me another few days to call grandparents and some other family members, good friends who live away, and then to see close friends who live in my area. By this point, roughly five days after we got engaged, I was able to send out e*mails to friends and then update my Facebook profile. (That is really when you know it is real!)

Since then, I have been doing some blogging, but not in this easy sense of coming to a computer and sitting down and posting. No, I've actually been creating a blog and website for the occasion. It is now my pleasure to introduce everyone to this new website, aptly called www.BestDarnWedding.com. I beg everyone to bear with the slowness of the site getting up to par. This is all very new for me, and so it is still in its developing stages (for example, there is no "Contact Us" page yet, and my blog doesn't link back to the main site). This will all come in time.

I invite everyone to come to the site and join with us in this exciting time. I am so obsessed with wedding blogs, that I kind of hope everyone else will be too!

Asparagales Iridaceae Iris

Last Sunday was a little bit of a downer for me. I was supposed to make it to Sackville, New Brunswick to attend a luncheon that was held for my Aunt Judith. Instead, due to a malfunctioning phone, I was unaware that my ride had arrived and therefore missed this very special occasion. In 0rder to try to offset my lousy mood that obviously followed this tragic event, my wonderful boyfriend suggested that we go enjoy the lovely day at the Public Gardens. To preoccupy me, Dan gave us each a task: Photograph at least one photo to be printed.

Although I still don't have much faith in my photography skills, I chose one picture (please note; this photo looks much better on my computer than it looks on blogger):


I don't claim to be much of a flower connaisseur, but after a few minutes of Google research, I came to the conclusion that this flower is an iris. The word iris comes from the Greek word for rainbow. Iris was the Greek Goddess of the rainbow, a mythical messenger figure. She would slide down the rainbow, the connecting arc between the clouds and the sea; between earth and sky; between the gods and humanity. As the personal messenger of Hera, the goddess of women and marriage, Iris would travel down to earth and transport women to the afterlife.


The three upright petals of the iris, along with the tree drooping sepals represent faith, valor, and wisdom.

Out of the number of photos that I had to chose from, this photo in particular is special because of the symbolism. The faith, valor, and wisdom that is evoked upon looking at this flower are the same evoked thoughts when reflecting upon my Aunt.

The Iris

The gods painted the rainbow
With the petals of the iris
As a bridge to connect
Cloud and Water
Heaven and Earth
God and Men

The colours of the rainbow
The aesthetics of the iris
Is the beauty of the woman
With Faith
With Valor
With Wisdom

G is for Tea Latte

I have half an hour before I have to be at a meeting, and I am sitting
her at the library totally procrastinating. Why? What reason do you
want? I'm thinking I can either blame it on:

• Stressing about the fact that I have managed to lock myself out of two houses all at the same time today
• My sore hip. One should really not carry so many things in a backpack. Does Robax help hips too?
• Being tired. I have had way too much school work to hand in this week.
• The dog ate my homework. Seriously.

So, seeing as I am sitting here in this place of study, just staring up
into the sky (yes, there is a skylight) and pondering about the fact
that my tank top is green, my sweater is green, my earrings and
necklace and that ring on my finger is green.... I thought I'd tell a
little story.



The other night at Starbucks, upon realizing that neither Amanda nor I
had ever ventured to try a Green Tea Latte (sorry, a Tall, Non-fat, No
whip, No phlegm, Stirred not Shaken, Tazo Green Tea Latte), I would try
one. In went the Melon syrup. In went the Matcha. In went the
water. In went the milk. It was an aesthetic masterpiece.

I took a sip. You always remember your first, or so I was told.
Truthfully, it was a thing of magic. I can't really describe what a
Green Tea Latte tastes like, because it doesn't taste like anything
else. Except Chicken. Everything tastes like chicken. In any case, I
liked it.

Amanda had a very different experience though. First, the smell was a little too much for her. She felt that in order to prevent the inevitable up-chuck reaction, she must first plug her nose before diving in. The truth is though, she has a phobia about getting liquid in her nose. She feels the need to protect her nasal passages every time she drinks. Just don't tell anyone. It is a touchy subject for her.

Unfortunately, Amanda doesn't seem to enjoy the taste of chicken (aka: Green Tea Latte). Seriously, how weird can you get? Once tested and tasted, Amanda followed her drink with a lovely rendition of "Oh My Gosh, It Tastes Like Grass. Seriously, it Tastes Like Grass". No sung would be complete without a dance: a hand-motion dance that is.

So next time you're feeling particularly green (maybe on Saint Patrick's Day perhaps?), head out to your local Starbucks and pick up a Green Tea Latte (it's better than Second Cup's version I've been told). Although it seems somewhat strange and out of the ordinary to drink something with such a hue, I haven't started glowing green yet. Nope, seriously. That's just the green socks.



*** DISCLAIMER *** ABSOLUTELY NO CHICKENS WERE KILLED IN THE MAKING OF THE GREEN TEA LATTE. IN FACT, THE HOT, STEAMED DRINK DOESN'T EVEN TASTE LIKE CHICKEN. YOU SHOULDN'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ.

Get Drunk

As I normally do on weekday mornings while drying off from the shower, getting dressed, blowing my hair, putting on makeup, and packing my bag; I was listening to CBC Radio One this morning. I believe I was listening to the radio show The Current with host Anna Maria Tremonti when I head Charles Baudelaire's poem "Get Drunk" being read.

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters;
that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's
horrible burden on which breaks your shoulders and bows
you down, you must get drunk without cease.

But with what?
With wine, poetry, or virtue
as you choose.
But get drunk.

And if, at some time, on steps of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the bleak solitude of your room
you are waking and the drunkenness has already abated,
ask the wind, the wave, the stars, the clock,
all that which flees,
all that which groans,
all that which rolls
all that which sings,
all that which speaks,
ask them, what time it is;
and the wind, the wave, the stars, the birds, and the clock,
they will all reply:

"It is time to get drunk!

So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
get drunk, get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
With wine, poetry, or virtue,
as you choose!"

And I thought, what a beautiful poem. What a wonderful way to start the day. What an incredible thought; to be drunk with poetry. There is something mystical about the way a poem seeps into your life and changes the way you look at the world; or rather, the way you wish the world to be. Dan told me I was a romantic. 'Tis true, and I wonder if that has helped determine who I will be in life. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

This is an escapist poem, and yet I feel guilty for even saying that. I feel guilty for writing about getting drunk, even if it be off of poetry, even if it be off of virtue, (and even if it be off of wine). I feel guilty for buying into the romantic escapism. Yet, I don't want to be guilty.

This is what I want. I want to be carried away by the wonders of the world. I want to be at the wedding where Jesus turned water into wine. I want to be in The Eagle and Child, drinking beer with the Inklings. I want to be engulfed by a world of virtue and beauty and aesthetics. Why can this not be so?

I always look forward to tomorrow: to the days that will be long and that will allow me to find the time to really submerse myself into these mysteries. But where will this passion take me? Will I instead find myself lost in the continuous, monotonous, ticking, of, time, that, push, us, ever, onward, until, we, go, no, further? No. NoNo. I will resist that. I will fall in love with the world around me. I will drink with those who have drank before. I will not hold back. I will not be a martyr to Time.

Hey, guess what?!

You wouldn't believe it, but I started a vlog - that's right, a place where all the vlogs will be kept.

Check out vlogginglolly.blogspot.com to see how my Spring Break started out!

Coming Up for Air

Hello blogging world. Well it certainly has been a while, has it not? Life works in funny ways, and I can never seem to get it to all line up. Not that my life is a mess, it is just that I can't seem to get it as straight as I would like it to be yet. It is like when you clean your room, you can throw all the mess under your bed, so your life looks straightened up, but you know there is a mess somewhere.Or, you can clean your room and put away all the clean clothes, launder all the dirty clothes, put everything in its proper place and make the bed. Or you can spend the entire day and night sweeping and mopping and windexing and scrubbing so that the room is sparkling. Then you spray a protective coating on everything and you don't touch it again (wouldn't that be nice?). My life, as it pertains to the bedroom metaphor is somewhere around option two. I'm working on organizing and alphabetizing (we all know I'm slightly OCD), I've put away the clean clothes and swept under the bed as much as I could easily reach. The problem is, laundry never stops piling up. And as much as I try to stop it, the corners of the room start filling with dust and my bed gets slept in. The worst part about it is that unlike my bedroom, my life seems to take much longer to get it organized and clean, but much quicker to get in disarray.

Let me take analogy to the literal. Basically I've been swamped. With the beginning of the semester I was determined to de-stress. See, I'm a stress-ball; a knotted, tightly wound, erratic, (albeit cute and colourful) bundle of stress. This has been an identity that has held true from the sleepless worry-filled nights as a child to the current restless nights. Clearly, it isn't as easy to clear up the stress. So here is what I have been doing:

1. No more rushing - As I'm sure my boyfriend will attest to, I get very agitated whenever I am pressed for time. I feel like there are things that need to be done, and if I do not have the time frame to work with, not only do I rush, but in my rushing I get frustrated. As an added bonus, in typical Jones fashion, I am usually late. This rings true for going to and from school. For the past two and a half years, I've been leaving for class at the very last minute, not because I am irresponsible, but because I don't give myself enough time to get myself ready. This issue has become a real problem since moving to Halifax because I have a further distance to walk to school. By the time I normally get to school, I am out of breath and tired and stressed. So, I have started giving myself and planning to leave the house ten minutes earlier than usual. This has allowed me to enjoy my walks to school while avoiding the worry that accompanies lateness.
2. School Work - I have come to realize that once I get behind in school, I can never hope to catch up. I can forget about what I missed and just focus on what is coming up, but I will always be behind. My goal therefore this semester is not to do things as they come, but work preemptively. Last weekend I was a week ahead of myself. Now with a novel and assignments coming up it is not as easy, but I have not missed a reading yet. Instead of sleeping in, going home between and right after classes, I am hanging out in the library as much as possible. With the exception of this blog entry, there are very few distractions and I can easily entice work.
3. Classes - I'm not going to lie, one of the hardest parts of university is ignoring the urge to skip class. It is easy to convince yourself that a coming class isn't going to be overly important and that you won't miss anything that the text doesn't cover. Despite these cunning ideas, every student deep down knows that you have such a greater success rate if you go to class, exams will be easier, and it is less likely that you will fall behind. With the exception of the very first day of classes, I have not missed (or been late) for a class yet. This hasn't been too hard of a transition, last semester I rarely missed a class. The very few I missed were usually because I was writing a paper that seemed so much more important than class. Luckily, my number two change will hopefully solve this issue.

So this is why I have been relatively nonexistent online, not to mention the part time job and the six courses. If this were a perfect world, I would have time to blog and to write personally. I would actually start vlogging again and I would even maybe take some pictures again (Dan has really been pestering me about this, but I don't have as much confidence in my ability as he seems to). As much as school is a big part of my life, so is my artistic side, and I have really neglected that lately. It is crying out for attention, yet I continue to ignore it. Dan put the idea of podcasting into my head, which now seems rather enticing. But the likelihood of this happening is fairly slim.

So, I will pack Mademoiselle Artistique (she prefers if you say that in a French accent) into my trunk and head down to Starbucks to get some more reading done. This novel won't just read itself. If I stay at the library anymore, I fear I might pass out. Really, library is just a fancy name for nap-hall. There was nap-time in preschool and now, it seems necessary once again.

If only cleaning a life could be as quick and fulfilling as cleaning a room. Unfortunately, there seems to be way too much floor underneath the bed, I can't seem to get the broom to reach.

The Dutch are taking over

So, funny story: First of all, to get the connection straight, meet my boyfriend Dan:

And this is his roommate Matty:

For the sake of ridiculous pictures, this is their friend Igor. But Igor isn't a critical link in the chain of my funny story:

Surprisingly to all of us, Matty has got an actual girl to like him, despite his ridiculously hairy chest. Her name is Sarah and she is Fantastic:

Everyone has been really intrigued by her last name, and one Wing Night too many resulted in coming up with a fairly interesting nickname for Fantastic Sarah. When I found out the Dutch heritage of said last name, I made a little giggle to myself, and explained how I had a Dutch friend in high school we used to tease. I almost felt like asking "you wouldn't know Stephanie, would you?" but then I realized how stupid that would sound. Its not like every Dutch person knows every other Dutch person.

Tonight, as Sarah and I were discussing Paul's description of women and marriage in the bible, she said "I should call up Eva. She'd know." The first thing I thought was - Is there an Eva in EVERY Dutch family? Then I realized that none of her siblings were named Eva. "Who's Eva?" I asked. "My cousin". "What's her last name?" I asked?

This girl I've been hanging out with for weeks, this girl who had me over to her house to watch and Grey's Anatomy and CSI, this same girl who cuts open dead people in school is our Stephanie's cousin.

Its a small world.