Confessions of a Coffee Fanaddict

Apparently, as of today, 29% of people have given up on their New Year's resolutions. If you are a part of the elite 71% of us who are still holding to their resolutions, my commendations.

I am doing pretty well on the NYR front, if I do say so myself. So far, I'm still on track with all my resolutions. Especially my resolution to update my blog more frequently than once every 2 months. But then again, that hasn't been too hard! Technically, if I only updated every 6 weeks I'd still be on track.

One of my other resolutions was to be more mindful about my fat and sodium intake. I really like fried foods, and I just love salty things. I started to realize that if I want to live to see my 20th birthday though, I should probably find something new to enjoy instead.

I decided to do the proactive thing a little while ago (actually this was before New Year's, I started trying to eat healthier before this new year began). Now, when you think about fat and salt, what's the first thing that comes to mind?
Yup, pretty much. With 32% of my recommended daily fat intake, 28% of my daily recommended sodium intake, and virtually no vitamins, fibre, minerals, or even protein, 2 slices of pig belly is pretty much garbage. "Oh, but I love bacon so much, it's delicious!" I thought to myself. "I can't give it up, but I could try to eat some low-fat, reduced sodium bacon instead..."
So I went to the supermarket and bought some of the better bacon. Okay, fine, I went to the store and bought it because it was on sale - it was more of a coincidence than a resolution...but that's not the point.

The point is, I fried some up for myself, ate one bite, and was horrified. It tasted awful. Without the salt and with half the fat, bacon has the appeal (not to mention taste and texture) of a plate of leather belts.
Which is especially weird considering leather comes from cows, not pigs.
Hmmm....bacon without the salt...

...But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. -(Mt. 5:13)

Yeah, Jesus! Call it like it is! That package of bacon I bought certainly had a Biblically-sanctioned end:

Amen.

In other news, I'm feeling very set about not coming back to Queen's next year. I haven't technically made a final decision yet, but taking a year off seems very likely at this point. Thoughts?

Posted by Rosalind Ambrosine Channelle, III at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments

I certainly don't want to turn into one of those people whose blogs are nothing more than a collection of funny videos....not that there's anything particularly wrong with funny videos, but I for one prefer reading about my friend's live rather than seeing a music video of some obscure artist or a hilarious commercial from the Swedish Broadcasting Company. Maybe it's because I'm a girl and girls tend to be more interested in people's lives. Meh!

Either way, this is one I really like: It kinda reminds me of that OKGO video, in that it's just so silly. Watch this strange video with a bunch of singing puppets:



Sigh...does anyone remember when Zoe, Nate, Shelly and I started dancing to the OKGO video? Man, those were really good times.

Oh gosh, I'd better run away before the Project Withdrawal sets in again!...

Posted by Rosalind Ambrosine Channelle, III at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments

aI promise I won't make a big deal about EVERY comment I get, but right now I'm very pleased! I'd also like to offer a big round of applause to David for also leaving his mark and showing me that there are indeed people who read this!! I think that means my count has increased from 2 readers to 4 - that's a 100% increase since I started updating two weeks ago. That made me want to draw out a couple graphs to demonstrate my blog popularity over the course of the next year.

So this first one shows how trends will continue between now and 14 weeks from now. As you can see, between now and April, there will be 128 people faithfully following my various antics and rabblerousings as I post online.

There will be an exponential increase, and by the time I leave for North Africa, over 100 people will be anxiously awaiting my first words back.

This next one illustrates what'll happen by next Christmas:

As you can see, somewhere between week 49 and week 50, the number of people reading my blog will have increased to an amount larger than the population of Canada (if population growth rate is still 1.003 - Thankyou, Statscan). Isn't that great?!?! I'll be more popular than the Prime Minister!

I am very excited and optimistic about the future popularity of my blog. This year sure promises to be one filled with new friends, lots and lots of comments, and who knows, maybe even an Order Of Canada?...

Posted by Rosalind Ambrosine Channelle, III at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments

I decided to get a counter for my weblog so I could get a better idea of just how many people read this thing. Is it really as high as two? We shall see!

So far I'm at '1', and I'm fairly positive that was me.

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Edit:

I just noticed that I'm getting hits from some crazy person named "Drich"! Haha, just kidding, Daniel. A big round of applause for him, who was good and left comments, and read through my posts (or at least, read through enough so he could make insightful comments)! I expect everyone else to start leaving comments as well.

Posted by Rosalind Ambrosine Channelle, III at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments

You'll all be happy to know that my whole plan to kick the caffeine habit is well under-way. Yesterday, I only drank 4 cups of tea! I went to bed with a throbbing headache, but I think it was worth it if my cerebral arteries eventually learn how to constrict without needing a methylxanthene to do it for them. I'm gonna try a four-cup limit for a few weeks, and then go down to three, then two, then one. I think one cup is a pretty reasonable amount to end up at, because I keep thinking that part of the reason I gave up caffeine for a year and then fell back into it later was because I never allowed myself to drink any, which for a person from the UK and working in a coffee shop, is just a little unreasonable.

But at the same time, if I'm addicted, isn't allowing myself one-a-day just gonna feed into the habit? A bit like my sister who "gave up" cigarettes but decided she could be a social smoker. That lasted like a month and then she realized she was nowhere close to being nicotine-free. Hmmm. I'll figure that out a little later.

So, I was going to follow up on my entry about the DTES. I wasn't just writing because I wanted all two of my readers to think that I'm an angry and upset individual. Nope! I was actually going to talk about my career aspirations...but then the post was getting rather long so I didn't. So now I will. I think, for the sake of length, I'm going to split up this post over a few entries. Tell me what you think, dear readers, all two of you...and YOUR input may help me make a decision and ultimately dictate the course of my life!!!

The skinny: I'm now halfway through third year, knee-deep in a degree I really don't want to do. That's Life Science, a pre-med program offered at my university that I started a few years back thinking that I'd be a doctor. I think I was in the program for about 2 months before starting to think that...uhhh...maybe I don't want to be a doctor after all?!

For some reason it seemed like a great idea to me at the time to continue with this degree, in spite of the fact that it was leading me nowhere. I mean, gimme credit: I've never really seriously considered any other degree options, this is what I always wanted to do! There was a chance I could fall back to it...

Although there are certain things about my program that I do enjoy...mmm, I was going to list some things I like but I can't think of any right now - they're few and far between...either way, sometimes it feels like every morning I wake up and realize I have to go to another microbiology or anatomy or pathophysiology class, I can't help but think about how nice Heaven would be right about now.

My original plan that everyone knows about was to go into ministry after leaving university. If I were to join staff with CCCI, all I'd need would be an undergraduate degree, in virtually any subject, and I'd be set! So my plan was just to finish up my general degree and join staff. Everybody's happy!

And don't get me wrong...staff would be so awesome on so many levels! But since I've been back in Vancouver, I've been reminded of the need that exists here, and I feel like I really should be hanging out with those who keep getting overlooked.

So, if I no longer want to join staff (and I haven't fully written that off yet, it's still a possibility), then I should probably...you know, start working toward a degree in something else. I want to do something that encompasses missionary work, training, healing, counselling...something along those lines. Something like being a social worker for an urban-based Christian organization.

So, the way I see it, I have a few options:

#1. Stick to my original plan and complete my current degree
#2. Forget my degree, and pursue a diploma as a social services worker at a college in Kingston
#3. Like 2, but at a college in Vancouver
#4. Pursue a diploma in Christian counselling at a Bible college
#5. Take a year off, pay down my debt, save up for a future degree/diploma, and decide next year

For the sake of length, I'll start listing the pro's and cons of these 4 options tomorrow.

Posted by Rosalind Ambrosine Channelle, III at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments

...aaaand Happy Birthday to me! Now I have basically all the legal rights of an adult...including the right to drink and purchase cigarettes from the Safeway. I don't think I'll be taking advantage of either of those newfound liberties any time soon, but it's nice to know I have them!

For those of you who follow my blog closely (like, all 1 or 2 of you), you'll see that I've changed my layout. I predicted I would in my first entry, so I thought I really should follow through. I am particularly proud of the fact that I made it myself! I decided to go with a coffee theme, since I've noticed my entries tend to come about after a particularly intense caffeine binge. I think this year I should really work on my whole...drinking waaaaay too much caffeine thing. You know you've got a problem when you drink like 6 cups of tea a day. So I'm going to try to cut my caffeine consumption in half by the end of January, and hopefully by Reading Week, I'll no longer suffer from those awful headaches that I get if I don't consume caffeine once every 3 hours. We'll see.

I've also decided that I like Claire Danes. Remember her on My So-Called Life? She was a gem. I personally would like to see more of Claire Danes, so I'm doing my bit by putting her as the woman in my profile picture.

I recently got some photos from my Aunt's wedding. I'll put a few here for those of you who actually read this. We all look so pretty!

This is a picture of the wedding party on some bridge in the rain. the camerapeople thought it was "artistic". We just thought it ruined our hair.

I particularly like this photo because it looks like something the paparazzi would take. Hmm..."Royal Scandal! Who has Princess Roisin been walking down the aisle with, and why is he so much taller than her?"

Apparently they actually put the shortest woman with the shortest man and so-on, but as it turns out, my Aunt only has short friends and my Uncle only has tall friends. Hmm!

Well, that's all for today...I was going somewhere with my post from yesterday, but I'll continue it when my connexion's a little more reliable.

Posted by Rosalind Ambrosine Channelle, III at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments