New In The World Of Literature...

I thought I'd share with all of you that congratulations MUST go out to my family's very own Dr. Smarty-Pants whose first academic book has just been put up for pre-sale!  Only If You Are Really Interested is being published and will be available to the general audience in the spring/summer of this year!!!

We are all soo excited and so proud of your accomplishments and cannot wait to be the proud owners of such  a moment as this! I am quite looking forward to reading said book, which is right up my cultural alley.

I hope you will all join me in congratulating Dr. S-P and his family in this wonderful success! I have posted a link below so you can see the publishers ad page for this wonderful book.

http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-6274-2

Did you know? -  Being published, especially on your own is very important for University Professors? The more they have written and have been published, the more likely they are to get a job because being published means your thoughts/written work are good enough (ie you are good enough) for the world to read! (or for other academics in your field at least).  Most of the literature we read, even main stream fiction stuff, has a Professor, or Doctor of Letters/Philosophy's editorial notes published with it?  You can write a million words but if none of them get published then there is very little hope for you in the future.  Because it means nobody likes what you are studying, thinking and arguing about.. Such is the life of a professor.

Enjoy! Please e-mail me bilichc@hotmail.com OR drop me a comment on here, let me know if you checked out the link, or what you think about books, literature, writing ,reading ,publishing etc..

XOXO
Cris

It's A Snow Day!!!!!!!!!!

The part of Canada that I am currently living in has been ferociously attacked by a raging blizzard of 20-35 centimeters of snow!  It is soo fantastically exciting because the university had common sense to close for the day because no one would be able to make it nor have the will to do so.

I intend on spending the day with my family in my parents house eating, drinking tea, reading Austen's Sense and Sensibility among other novels that I have to catch up on.  And staying in my pajamas all day! My sisters and I quite enjoy lingering about the house on a blistery winters day soaking up the family chaos and surviving the stir-craziness that comes with being locked up in the house an entire day.

What are you doing for the snow day? (those of you who live in the same area of the country as myself or who are in parts of Manitoba dealing with much more snow than we have here) I hope you are enjoying your day resting and lounging about in your fuzzy slippers - I have yet to find mine.

So I decided to brave the storm and go outside in my pj's and boots to get some pictures of the wonderfully white scenery so that my readers far and wide can get a glimpse of what we are seeing from our windows.  I returned inside quite cold and rather covered with snow. 

Anyway here are some pictures of my house in the new blizzard conditions and the aftermath of last night, enjoy and comment and e-mail (bilichc@hotmail.com) please you know I love my fan mail (if I ever get any) :D  Enjoy!

From inside looking out the window to the right

from inside looking out the window with the curtains closed

looking out the window to the left

standing on the front porch looking left

standing on the porch looking forward at the covered lawn (you can't see the rock wall partition under all the snow!)

standing on the sidewalk outside facing the house

standing on the driveway facing the front left window and our trademark snow wave on the roof

standing on the driveway facing the giant mound of snow on the lawn from the shoveling

from the porch again just before going back inside

 I hope these pictures make you happy to be inside warm and snug and not outside facing this insane amount of snow. 

XOXO

C

Respect. Hope. Help. Support. Faith. Words Written in Common Spaces For Everyone.

Something completely everyday turned into something random and yet wonderful.  A plain and normal, ordinary bathroom stall in a woman's washroom on campus has turned into an extraordinary space for women of all university levels, experiences, faiths, cultures, beliefs and identities to come together and anonymously help, confess, heal, ask, answer, advise, teach, support and strengthen each other.  The wall was being used to write on by girls because bathroom graffiti is always en-vogue right? The university kept sending someone in to paint over the beautiful, hopeful and inspirational words.  Then someone got wise and got large white boards screwed onto the walls in both of the end stalls so that they wouldn't have to keep painting the wall over.


These white boards have come to promote positivity and feminism in a good way,  give advice from woman to woman, pass on encouragement, strength and support to those who have expressed fears and worries, nerves, pains and hurts etc.  It is a completely random but awesome way for those girls who can't talk to anyone to finally have a voice, be heard and hopefully get some help and for those girls who have many inspirational words and much wisdom to pass it down.  Problems get asked and solutions given in return by many different opinions and voices of different cultures, faiths and experiences.  Hurts get shared, common pains that girls face with love and life are expressed and acknowledged, self-esteem issues are discussed and reassurance given both spoke and unspoken. The ability to have your voice heard without prejudice or judgment is probably what gives most of the girls who have written the courage to do so.


I decided that I'd let my readers into this small space of a million words, thoughts, feelings, circumstances etc. So I hope you all enjoy the pictures, I apologize for their quality and clarity, it's hard taking pictures sideways squished in a stall and trying to avoid white glares and hoping they turn out well.


Enjoy!

This is what you see when you open the door to go into the stall

This is a front facing view of most of the white board

this is writing left over from the wall that was not painted before they put the whiteboard onto it. Yay For Mutual Love and Respect!

Powerful Words Indeed! Especially for an audience that always tends to forget to love themselves.

a power eyes with scrambles of words and sentences spouting everything from randomness, hope and support to politics and words of warning for personal health.

Proof that every women feels alone and needs support in the worst case scenario- Proof that help, advice, support and love will always come when needed. This situation of pregnancy facing young single motherhood is a common one for women, put the love, faith and respect for life opinions shown here touched my pro-life heart. Pro-choice opinions were given here as well, but mostly Pro-life women fought back and took over the support system. Follow up in the lower right hand corner as the pregnant 2nd year student says she's keeping the baby and finishing school as far as possible. So Awesome!

More opinions from women commenting on this poor girls situation I.E big scrawly letters saying The Father Is Responsible isn't He? Make Him Involved!- bad or good, at least someone is listening and ready to help out right? it can't all be bad out there. Hope. Inspiriation. Support. A Better World Indeed.

The best thing on the whole board!!! Someone wrote up a positivity Alphabet from A-L, other people filled it in with messages of hope and inspirational words of love, peace, strength etc.  I filled in letters D, M & P!!

Someone else finished the alphabet from M-Z and more people filled in.  So Wonderful Go Sisterhood! Go Woman power!!

Another view from the door...

Writing on the back wall above the toilet.  The first thing you see, read clearly and acknowledge when you walk in.  I guarantee it's left so many women with happiness in their hearts and smiles on their faces after being in there.

I hope you comment on this post.. It's really important to me - when I use this washroom and frequent this stall, as I often do for it is in a common student area of the university, the little feminist in my head always runs around flailing her arms in joy and shouting happiness to the highest heights for woman power, peace, love, support, friendship, sisterhood and the common good of womankind!


XOXO
C

Winter Time On Campus

If you don't know already I am obsessed with taking pictures of nature i.e flowers, water, the sky at all times of day or night, trees, landscapes..anything and everything that is beautiful and magnificent or small and commonly known that exists within nature on this awesome blue and green sphere!

Walking around on campus since we've gotten lots of snow has been just wonderful!The university's grounds are beautiful any and every time of the year, in spring and autumn when the flowers are blooming, the magnolias and roses make you happy and feel at peace to watch them as you walk by, the green of the trees, the jaw dropping beauty of the large 100 year old willow trees... Doesn't it just make you want to sing?

Anyway, I was going to class in a building surrounded by a lot of grassy areas and trees with pathways cut through-out for students to walk on which lead to the different buildings and I just love the way campus looks covered in snow!  Everything is so white, and the areas between the paths are practically untouched so it seems like you're walking on paved bridges over magnanimous gleaming, shining brilliant icy lakes.  It steals my breath away.  The trees are lined and trimmed in frostiness, and students run about laughing while hurling snow balls at one another merrily.

While walking today I came up two large round balls of snow.  I was so surprised and then I began to feel filled with joy because I could just imagine the university students who wandered about rolling snow to create these large balls.  Naturally they are on the grass area in front of the Engineering building, where the usual random things occur or can be found such as Frisbee or soccer games, half built cars, men attached to large mechanical and wooden devices, numerous amounts of people all wearing the same color and shouting. tents for outdoor events etc.  Well I suppose no winter could be complete without someone making large balls out of snow.  The first ball is rather large, it would probably take 3 strong guys to lift it, and the second ball is slightly smaller.  It looks like they were attempting a snow man, a large snow man, but couldn't lift the second ball onto the first and didn't bother to make the head..or it got destroyed thus lack of head.

Anyway I thought you'd like to see some pictures of the snow, and trees around campus during this glorious winter season as well as the infamous giant snow balls.

Enjoy!

I will definitely be getting more pictures from the campus grounds as soon as possible and i will post those as well- these ones were taken on my way to class so I apologize for the quality and such.  Please comment or e-mail me what you think - if you send me pics of winter around your area I'll blog about winter wonderlands again sometime soon.

XOXO
Cris

A Horse Is A Horse Of Course Of Course...

Completely random!!

I was downtown waiting for a bus to go to school  a few weeks ago and I saw two police officers (one male, and one female) on the side of the road just near the 1A king bus stop.  They were wearing fluorescent yellow jackets but there was something different, something odd about them.  What was it now??

Oh Yeah!!

They were on Horses! Like seriously sitting atop two very large brown horses! I was so surprised.  I knew about our city getting "mounted" police to patrol the parks and recreational trails and such but in the downtown city core? So Random!

Thought I'd share some pics with you, they're not the greatest because I was standing on the side walk with people around me, bus shelters and vehicles in my way and I was trying to be inconspicuous since I think its illegal to have pics of them- or maybe just illegal to touch the horses...hmm either way I didn't want a ticket for being a horse paparazzi.

Enjoy!

This was taken with me on the side walk some 30 feet away- I know they are far away, my cells phone camera only zooms so far. Many pardons.

this was taken when i was finally on the bus and we drove past them- I was seated on the lower part of the bus by the back door and had to be creepy and zoom in past this girls head to get a good pic

So there you have it folks, the special forces ride again in our town.. it's incredible what the government will spend money on these days.. Just a fun fact- did you know that these police cannot do anything but ride the horse around while on duty? Seriously, they aren't even allow to dismount and get a delinquent or involve themselves in horse to car chase if someone goes through a red light.  All they can do is call for backup.  So really.. it's all for show.  Wonder how much training these police officers had to get to just ride the horse? talk about a useless profession- can't even lasso a bad guy let alone use your gun.  So tragic

XOXO
C

Zero Updated Posts!- This Is What Happens To Your Cyber-Life on School

SO I totally dropped the ball with posting... again.  Can you all forgive me?  It seems like I am always asking to be pardoned but you all understand how life can get in the way of fun right? Are you even there? Are you even listening to me? Hello?

*drops head on desk for 10 minutes of wallowing*

Well you will all be happy to know that this is the first of a series of upcoming wonderful exciting interesting random everyday brand new posts!  Thats Right! from now on I will be keeping up to date with my posts, beginning with this week and moving on past the remnants of January into the early February days and beyond! so much of 2011 has gone by un-posted I can't believe I let it happen again.

*another 10 minutes of sadness, self-loathing and feelings of shame*

I hope all of my faithful readers out there (whoever and how many(few) you are) will keep up with my new upcoming posts and give me any and all feed back - A&F+Professor S-P's i know you'll be there with comments for me!  Don't forget you can e-mail me at bilichc@hotmail.com if you don't feel like dropping a comment on here.

Have a good night all, and remember, keep it random!
XOXO
C

Frost Week! Some Good Ol' Fashioned Fun On Campus!

Frost Week at the university is kinda of like "frosh week" just a little bit less active..  These eventful weeks are times for students (generally first year students) to get together and get involved in activities that celebrate school starting up (again)- activities include, pep rallies, races and obstacle courses, parades and parties,  snow cone making, pop corn popping, and cotton candy spinning (all handed out to students for free) which is taken care of by the different faculty groups.

These faculty groups also have "reps", who are a number of students who apply and are chosen to represent that faculty.  At the university I attend the humanities reps are called "hummers", the social science reps are called "socs" and so on so forth, with each faculty having its own nickname for its reps and with each group wearing coveralls of different colour's depending on the faculty (the hummers are blue, the socs are orange, sciences are yellow/lab coats, engineers wear bright red, commerce wear green maybe..theres a lot ot keep track of).  Well, each faculty also tends to have some kind of wacky mascot, or there is someone who will dress up as (or be dressed up as) some form of being, object, fantastical thing that represents their faculty.  If you're in engineering, they usually send a couple of guys are with a large dolly-type cart thing that's been decorated and made to look like something interesting with someone on it.  They tend to go around the entire campus, 2 guys pulling this other one guy and yelling out at the top of their lungs representing their faculty.

SO TODAY I happened upon two characters from the faculty of science, who walked into the student displaying insignia of their faculty. One was dressed as some sort of comic book type hero/sidekick, in a black tee-shirt and shorts with a faculty flag hanging off his shoulders and a skin tight mask with slanted eyes.  The science faculties rep symbol is the toxic symbol that you find on chemicals.  This guys counterpart was also in costume, wearing black tights and black gloves with a black skin tight hood thing covering his whole head so you couldn't see his face.  He had on a bright yellow Sciences Faculty sweater (their rep colour) that also had the toxic faculty insignia on the back.  my "hummer" rep friend informed me that this man ( or the outfit anyway) is notoriously known as the Science Ninja.  I was a bit of a creeper, Like the university told me to be.. and I took pictures of him so that you could all see.  I apologize for the quality, he was rather far away and my phone camera's zoom isn't the greatest.  Enjoy!

P.s Here's a sign in my universities student centre which blatantly tells all students to Be A Creep and use social networking to keep in touch with people, see whose graduating and find random people from your classes so you can know what they're doing over the summer... It was put up about two years ago, so way before the general public knew anything about that "social Networking" move that came out but Way to play up to the sick fetishes of those potential and current "creeps" and "creepers" out there among the 230 000+ students and faculty! Now here's a university with a heart that simply cares about helping students develop to their full potential so they can become greater members of society.. Hope you didn't see that movie..  EEP!

So ENJOY the pictures that I took of random things on campus, if I see the science ninja again I'll try to get a better pic and maybe an interview for my blog.. or if I see any other zany characters I will post accordingly!

The large paragraph just talks about the positives of social networking for school, career, personal and business friendships.  So check out what your friends did for Christmas, find someone from your classes and "creep" them over the summer.. Stay in touch with people and maintain semi-personal relationships/business interactions.. Go Be A Creep!

This sign is on the right side of the Be A Creep sign It's the universities way of ensuring it's so called "smart" students understand what social networking forums to use. The circle around it says to go to the student career centre if you need help trying to figure out how to get into social networking- please! that's one thing students DO NOT need help with!

The Science Ninja! Best Thing I Saw ALL Day!!! Sorry He's among other people and I was far away.  Do you like the back of the guy in the gray hoodie's head? That green arm/elbow in the pic belongs to my "hummer" friend and science ninja informant hehe.  The guy to the right of the yellow sweater spandex toting ninja is his sidekick- i'm assuming because he was wearing the sciences insignia flag tied around his shoulder..he's standing sideways and there was a person in the way or else you'd have been able to see his costume too.. Sorry. EnJoY!

Please Comment or E-mail (bilichc@hotmail.com)
XOXO
C