Little Miss Sunshine

It's been a long day. A really, really long day! I've been awake since 5:30am, and my day has been filled with research lectures, hiking up and down the hill at Wits to retrieve things from my car, bizarre conversations about LSD, an hour or so of swimming lengths in the Wits pool and teaching my first stats tut. And somehow, through all of this, I've had one song stuck in my head the entire day! It was the first song that I heard on the radio today, but I've been contemplating the lyrics all day - they're a little intimate, but I think that they're rather beautiful! I also quite like that the entire song is really just about one moment. Maybe I'm turning into a romantic... As such, here they are, presented - if nothing else - to get them out of my head!

Crack the Shutters - Snow Patrol

You cool your bed-warm hands down on the broken radiator
And when you lay them freezing on me,
I mumble "Can you wake me later?"
But I don't really want you to stop
And you know it, so it doesn't stop you
Run your hands from my neck to my chest

Crack the shutters open wide,
I wanna bathe you in the light of day
And just watch you as the rays tangle up around your face and body
I could sit for hours finding new ways to be awed each minute
'Cause the daylight seems to want you just as much as I want you

It's been minutes, it's been days, it's been all I will remember
Happy lost in your hair and the cold side of the pillow
Your hills and valleys are mapped by my intrepid fingers
And in a naked slumber, I'll dream all this again

Crack the shutters open wide,
I wanna bathe you in the light of day
And just watch you as the rays tangle up around your face and body
I could sit for hours finding new ways to be awed each minute
'Cause the daylight seems to want you just as much as I want you

Crack the shutters open wide,
I wanna bathe you in the light of day
And just watch you as the rays tangle up around your face and body
I could sit for hours finding new ways to be awed each minute
'Cause the daylight seems to want you just as much as I want you

2001: A Space Odessey

With Honours in full swing, I should probably be reading some Freud or doing some stats. Instead, I'm filling in quizzes and playing on Facebook. Oh well. Here's the iPod/Media Player quiz that everyone seems to have suddenly completed on Facebook, and thus I felt it was time to do my own one. It's not great - my Media Player seemed to have enormous affection for James Blunt this morning, despite there being 39 hours' worth of music on my computer, and so it decided to keep cycling to his music. This quiz really seems to bear testament to the fact that the "shuffle" function is not quite as random as I would like to believe.

And if you're wondering about the title of the blog post, read the last song title.

Rules:
1. Put your iTunes/iPod/MP3 on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your next answer.
3. You must write that song name down no matter how outrageous it sounds!
4. Add commentary

IF SOMEONE SAYS, “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
“Imitation of Life” – REM (ooh! This sounds so post-modern and philosophical!)

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
“Turn my head” - Live

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
“Tears and Rain” – James Blunt (That actually sounds about right. Very emo!)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
“American Woman” – Lenny Krawitz (huh? Somehow, I’m thinking stiletto heels are appropriate though!)

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
“Cold” – Matchbox 20

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
“Shiny Happy People” – REM (that’s probably apt – I’m the only person I know who likes that song!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THEM?
“Be Yourself” – Audioslave (he he… Nice!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” – Queen (Awesome! Now the big question is, who is my best friend? ;) )

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“Addictive” – Faithless (that’s probably a little too true!)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Autumn Tactics – Chicane (interesting…)

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
“Bohemian Like You” – The Dandy Warhols (hurray! I always wanted to be a hippie!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“Dead in the Water” – David Gray (that’s a bit depressing.)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
“Middle Man” – Jack Johnson

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Ultra Violet (Light my way) – U2 (that’s actually not bad at all!)

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
“Time in a Bottle” – Jim Croce (yes, even my death would have a motivational slant)

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
“Forgiveness” – Collective Soul (this is clearly my Catholic heritage coming out)

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
“Uncle Johnny” – The Killers

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
“Lemon Tree” – Fool’s Garden (I will clearly die listening to 90’s pop-rock, and “driving too fast, driving too far”)

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
“Same Mistake” – James Blunt (that’s pretty accurate!)

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
“Fortunate Fool” – Jack Johnson

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
“I am the Walrus” – The Beatles (huh?)

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
“No Bravery” – James Blunt (Why is there so much James Blunt on this playlist? Clearly, my Media Player is messed up.)

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
“Land Down Under” – Men at Work (yes, I’m utterly terrified of Australians)

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
“They All Stood Up For Love” – Live (that’s very optimistic)

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
“She Gathers Rain” – Collective Soul ("she doesn't care what the prophets say...")

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
“You and I” – Santana, featuring Chad Kroger (oooh! Scary accuracy once again!)

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
“Sleeping Satellite” – Tasmin Archer

The Sound of Music

Firstly, a belated happy Valentine’s Day to everyone! I hope that it was filled with roses, hearts, chocolate and puppy dogs – unless of course you’re an emo kid, in which case I hope that there were some black roses, broken hearts and some Dashboard Confessional (oddly enough, I’ll take the Dashboard Confessional any day! They’re an awesome band!).

This leads me conveniently to the topic of this post: this truly awesome music video which I found on YouTube. It’s by an Australian group (yes, the Aussies are good at something!) called “The Axis of Awesome”, and it’s called “4 Chords, 36 Songs”, and is based on the premise that all 36 of these popular songs are based on the same 4 chords. The songs range from John Lennon’s “Let it Be” to the Offspring’s “Self-Esteem”. If you think I’m joking, give it a listen! It’s really funny – and pretty amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1fQ1P4Mwlc

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - part 2

I’m finally at home (7 hours earlier than expected), and have some free time, so I think it’s time for the second installment of “The chronicles of the weird things that have been happening to me” (although a shorter, sexier title is definitely needed).

A couple of weeks ago, I was at Wits after a morning of research lectures, and on my way to my car, I ran into my friend Chris, who had about 2 hours to kill until his SRC meeting. Since I hadn’t seen Chris in a month or so, we decided to go for coffee and catch up on each others’ lives. We went to the West Campus “Village” (affectionately known as the Willage), ordered our drinks and sat down to chat. We were there for over an hour and were debating whether we should leave so that Chris would be early for his meeting when a middle-aged Indian gentleman walked over to our table and asked if he could speak to us for a minute. Somewhat surprised, we agreed and prepared to be asked if we would like to join some or other volunteer program or if we had found God/Jesus/Xenu. Unfortunately, this never happened, as he asked instead if we thought that he was entitled to defend himself against his ex-wife’s new husband’s slander. Chris and I were somewhat taken aback, both as to what our responses should be and why we were being asked this question in the first place. The man seemed to have decided that Chris and I were ideally suited to give him advice though, having confirmed that I was studying psychology and that Chris was studying law, despite the fact that we were complete strangers (and somewhat unknowledgeable about divorces and the ensuing legalities of such things). For the next 10 minutes or so, talking at a mile a minute, he asked us our opinions on a number of issues pertaining to his divorce, mostly involving our evaluation of him and his situation. I felt a little overwhelmed at this point, and decided to remain in neutral counseling mode, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with him, just in case he decided to take my somewhat unqualified word as gospel. Then, I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere, and switched to logotherapy mode, hoping to explain that he could only take responsibility for his attitude towards the divorce and his ex-wife, and that what she did was her choice. I didn’t get very far though, as he suddenly asked for my opinion of his psychologist, whose clothing item of choice were mini-skirts and who “deliberately” dressed suggestively when he came for his appointment, taking advantage of his position. I then launched into an explanation of the ethics code for health professionals and suggested that perhaps he should find a new psychologist if he found sessions with his current one uncomfortable and inappropriate. It was at this point that Chris and I chose to leave though, since Chris had his meeting to get to, and wasn’t prepared to leave me alone with our new friend. Having made our exit, Chris and I breathed a sigh of relief as we walked away, hoping we hadn’t done too much damage, and considering whether we should open our own legal and psychological counseling centre! As random as the incident was though, I can’t help feeling a little sad for the guy, since he was so desperate for affirmation and advice that he was prepared to rest his self-esteem on the opinions of 2 strangers.

On to happier things though. My iBurst email address is currently changing, and so I decided that it would be prudent to open a Hotmail account so that I would at least receive any information from Wits. I went with the obvious candice.schneider@hotmail.com, on the basis that all the shorter addresses were already taken. Having signed into Hotmail the next day, I was somewhat surprised to see that I already had an email – odd, considering no one had my new address yet! I opened it and discovered the following message:

“Dear Mark and Candice,
I am unfortunately "attached" to my sofa with my gipsed foot, but I will continue to manage your file from a distance and Dorothée will be more onsite...
Tomorrow she will be at Ste foy at 10 am with the extermination company for the rats. I am concerned about this, especially regarding the madresses. They have been seriously damaged by the rats (dejections) and if it was my home I would burn them up and buy new madresses as rats can cause diseases.
I would like to know what you want to do with the damaged madresses. Should we just have them cleaned as well as possible, or should they be replaced? We can check with the insurer if there is a possibility to be compensated, but this is not sure...
Best regards,
Johanna”


The next day, I got this reply to the previous message (supposedly from “Mark”) :

“New ones except see if you can clean and save the big (mattresses?).How is your foot?”

And then later that day, the reply:

“Dear Mark,
My foot is not so good, I can't go and will not be able to drive for 1 month or so... I am lucky to work with Dorothée who is a very good assistant and also a great driver!
She will drive to Ste Foy tomorrow and make a clear inventory on what should be replaced in the chateau due to the rats. She will also get an idea of what there is to do for the extermination and how much it will cost.
We will let you know as soon as possible how we manage to get out of this rat file!
All my best, have a good trip home!
Johanna”

It turns out that the email is from Toulouse in France, and that my email address likely belonged to someone else (i.e. another Candice Schneider) before I got it! Either that or I have some mysterious connection to a French chateau (which would actually be really cool, aside from the rats!). Maybe my passoprt will come in useful sooner than I thought...

From Russia With Love

I have good news! I seem to be back to normal, although what qualifies as “normal” is still up for debate! Either that or I’ve accepted the insanity which is my life. Actually, I prefer this explanation more, since I’ve actually been enjoying all the strangeness that has been going on.

One of the strange things that has been happening started a few weeks ago, when I was feeling somewhat depressed and rather pessimistic about life. As such, I decided that I was just going to focus on my academic work this year, and that fun would be optional. I would read Freud on Saturday nights and get 98% for everything and if I didn’t see a single movie or go to any parties, that was just fine! (I think that at this point I should point out that when I decided this, I was having a REALLY bad day. I don’t usually decide to forgo fun with friends because of petty things. I just was feeling very pessimistic). Anyway, no sooner had I decided this, then Duncan sms’ed me to organize going to movies, and so I begrudgingly accepted that life wasn’t really that bad. Things picked up the next week as well though, when I was invited to two 21sts, and ended up going for coffee with a variety of friends. The momentum has continued, and I now have at least one activity/outing/party every weekend for the next month and a half! I’m not complaining though!

One of the 21st’s was on Saturday night. I was invited by Chris, who needed a date/partner/plus-one to his friend, Amy’s party. The theme was “Shipwreck: How did you wash up?”, and as Chris didn’t want to be a pirate (and wanted to wear shoes), he decided that we should go as James Bond and one of the Bond Girls. Our cover story was that James was supposed to assassinate a Russian president (why is it always a Russian president?) on his presidential yacht, but that he had to escape off the yacht – and very nicely took me with him (because he’s such a gentleman and not because of any ulterior motives). I couldn’t complain – I’ve dressed up as a pirate at least twice, and I’d far rather wear a cocktail dress and heels! So, I straightened my hair, put on my little black dress (and added some fake seaweed to my hair and a miniature fake lobster to my dress) and even put on some make-up! And, as part of my “20 Firsts” list, you will be happy to hear that I managed to apply eyeliner, all by myself, for the first time ever! It was actually surprisingly easy, and I’m now in the same league as the emo boys!

Back to the party though! Chris fetched me, in his swanky new car (a Corsa, not an Aston Martin) and we set off to Greenside, navigated by his GPS, Miss Moneypenny (we actually named her last year, way before the party) and wondering whether we would be ridiculously over-dressed by comparison to all the people who would be dressed as pirates! I was suitably impressed with how dapper Chris looked in his James Bond outfit though, and I was feeling rather sexy (I had to – Bond girls don’t feel anything other than sexy all the time). Upon our arrival at the party we were ushered into the marquee that had been set up next to Amy’s lounge, and we were both amazed at the décor – Amy’s dad had covered the floor in building sand, so that it really was like a beach, and the walls were hung with fishing nets and fake fish, as well as fairy lights! There were some pretty impressive costumes too, aside from the usual pirates – Amy herself was wearing a dress which wouldn’t look out of place in Marie Antoinette’s wardrobe, while her boyfriend was dressed as an alien (space-ship wreck) and her older brother was wandering around dressed as SpongeBob!

Chris in James Bond mode
Having found a few other people who Chris knew, we found ourselves a table and proceeded to work our way through the Nik-Naks before the speeches started. Chris and I spent the rest of the evening chatting to the people at our table, pouring sand out of our shoes (not fun in stiletto heels), avoiding the punch (which was a lethal combination of every alcoholic beverage known to man, including peach schnapps) and watching the girls at our table getting progressively more drunk as the evening progressed due to the punch. I too fell victim to this concoction, as Amy decided that since Chris refused to drink because he was driving, I would have to drink Chris’ quota of punch. Luckily, after getting me to drink half a cup of the stuff, she was soon distracted and set off to get a few of her other friends wasted!

Even though I didn’t know anyone else there, the party was a lot of fun – especially with someone as suave as James Bond as my partner! Chris and I were quite amazed that by the time we had eaten dessert and done a fair bit of dancing, it was past 12:30pm – by which time my feet were aching and I had lost my voice. It was at that point that we made our exit – before Amy could ply me with any more punch or before Chris’ mom started to worry.

I’m now seriously considering having a James Bond themed dinner party sometime soon, for no particular reason! But many thanks to Chris for a very enjoyable evening, and for very kindly donating the lobster that he bought me to my kitten, which has spent hours playing with it!


Chris' redecorated tie.