My quest for Fame and the disintergration of ethics in Social Media

I wouldn’t usually use the word “Whore’ to describe myself, (let alone anyone else unless I was EXCEPTIONALLY pissed off), but there is no denying that for the last 3 days I am been whoring myself on all forms of social media for one reason only.

*Gasp* I have entered a reality tv show type competition.

AND oh MAN do I want it.

Twitter (which I haven’t ever fully appreciated and use mostly for posting stuff about the volunteer TV interviews I do)

Facebook (which I over-use for sharing photos and funny stuff with friends and family overseas)

and Instagram (which is mainly just pictures of snow, cut off “artsy” pictures of my face and the Canuck boyfriends dogs)

I am HATING myself all over Facebook and twitter because I am being so annoying and inundating friends and family with ME ME ME-ness.

VOTE FOR ME! I tell them, and I start thinking it is totally normal to start harassing people I haven’t spoken to in a year (umm…hi….i know we haven’t spoken in a while… and we probably don’t have anything in common any more… but would you be a dear and click this link and rate me even though this is a thing you don’t even care about….)

I have turned into one of those spamming douches that people right-click, hide, on their news feeds.

What have I become?

The truth of the matter is that I cringe to ask people to do this. Not because I am afraid of failure (oh no, I’ve taken quite a few knock-backs in my life and I am FINALLY FINALLY learning to dust myself off and pick myself back up) but because social media has etiquette, and begging for votes or views goes against that etiquette. I am like the prim old lady of Social Media.

But it’s not just me and my well-to-do online profile. There are many articles and sources to look for the way one minds their online manners, and you better not fuck too hard with them because a rain of hate will fall down on you. Delete, dust hands of person. Perhaps in real life you will begin to think less of them.

There have been people who I have been close to deleting because of their online spamming. And now I have morphed into one of those people!

BUT whats a girl to do?

I have been fighting for my bit of the TV/FILM pie for a while now and the one thing I do know is that you have to be in it to win it. You have to say “Hi, I’m here and I’m keen”.

There is a high likelihood that I will not make it into the top forty of this comepetition (No! What am I saying – positive thinking/vibes/ooooooohhhhhmmmmmmm – (thats me meditating to the spirit world of reality tv competitions)) but the fact that I made a video, put myself out there and went for it…well who knows who will see it and think, “that girl is cool.”

There is a saying I heard here in Canada which I love and I think about it all the time.

the saying goes:

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

So here it is, my first shot at goal for Much Music…. but who knows?!! At least I’m up for the game.

 

 

Reddit and the Internet at large

A lot Most of my knowledge comes from the internet. It’s just a sad fact that we are all going to have to deal with. The days of looking up information in books are coming to an end.

I have  a small amount of sadness in relation to this, but it is small. Things change, technologies advance and the world turns again and again on it’s axis until the day the sun explodes and engulfs us, or we blow ourselves up through modern warfare (details…details).

I’m glad that my silly undergraduate days are behind me. The assignments we were set often required multiple sources from books to include in our citations and in our bibliography. Realistically, most information was nabbed from the internet or from others, or from sheer fear and ideas that came into my brain as the 6pm deadline loomed closer and closer and I had begun the essay at 6am. Often I would run to the library, look through a few books that sounded like they vaguely had something to do with the topic, scribble some idea down somewhere relevant and then hope like hell I wasn’t going to fail the unit.

Oh you didn’t actually think I was going to read that book did you?

Why would I? I have the internet.

I wonder if University essays were better back in the day, or worse. I mean, it’s true, you have to be discerning when it comes to things you read online, but the wealth of information out there is incredible.

Lets pretend for a moment that I use the internet for more than my own vanity (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkdIn, Pintrest, Youtube) and am actually using it as the amazing tool that it is. WOW knowledge.

I do spend a lot of time on a site called Reddit.com which you may have heard of. It is a place where people can gather and contribute interesting things to one another. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend the majority of my time in a part of it called “Funny” which is basically pictures of cats, memes, or gifs of people hurting themselves. But recently I have ventured into other sub-reddits (that is what they are called, accept it and enjoy that feeling of being “in-the-know”).

There are fabulous parts on there like the TIL – Today I learned, where users can post interesting things that they learned, usually with links to articles old or new.

or AMA – a section where users can share personal stories and others can AMA – “Ask me Anything”.

Oh did I forget to mention that there is a system of up-voting links people like and there is such a thing as Reddit Karma and Karma Gold which can be won? Oh I did? So I guess it has elements of vanity and competition just like my favourite networking sites.

Shucks. It is the internet after all people! A place where you can be anyone or anything, hidden comfortably behind closed doors and in the comfort of your living room.

If you haven’t been to reddit…Get there. Or get off your ass and go outside. It’s -15 today so I think I’m just going to stay inside and learn if that’s okay with you…

Bullshit Express

I realize that a lot of my blog posts contain wisdom from my Mum. Every time I do it I feel like singing Mama Say’s from Footloose.

I can’t help it. My Mama is a smart lady who pontificates wisdom even from afar. And one thing she has begun to say in recent years, as I have languished and moaned and sighed and swooned about why my career hasn’t taken off RIGHT NOW WHEN I STAMPED MY FOOT AND SHOOK MY FISTS…

 

 

 

Is:

“Fake it til you make it.”

Now, she wasn’t talking in the bedroom, get your minds out of the gutter, she was speaking more I think about life and careers and such. I think. Sometimes her wisdom is loose and malleable to many and all (sometimes contradictory) instances.

But anyway.

Recently I’ve been interning at a place called Rogers TV over here in Toronto. It’s like Foxtel in Australia or Star TV in Hong Kong. They are a cable provider, but they also have their community channels and local programming. As a result of being a big personality, blonde, Australian anomaly (and not half bad at public speaking I suppose) and being around the studio two days a week, I was offered the opportunity to audition for a role as community reporter.

So I went along to the audition, finding it hard to take the whole thing seriously as I was being screened by the Producer and Director of the morning show I intern on and had to fake interview another Producer I was chummy with and pretend we were at an Oktoberfest thing.

The whole thing was a trip into randomness. But it was fun. And they chose me and another girl out of six female audition participants to get our reporter on. So woooh us.

Since then I have probably shot 7 or 8 segments for Daytime Toronto and two Segments for Toronto Speaks. I never know when they are going to air (I honestly think the Producer kind of figures it out last minute) and it is always fun when someone mentions they saw me, or when I go in to work on Daytime and realize they are rolling something I shot.

Keep in mind that I do all of this UNPAID in the hopes that it will lead to that amazing J-bomb of a word…

A Job.

I’m just like the rest of the underpaid (read: Not Paid) over worked, underfed (pahhhhahaha if only) interns out there.

The difference is on occasion I get to hold a Red microphone (which is usually scratched up to shit) and plaster on my biggest ditzy smile and have a cameraperson (usually a big burly dude named Ken who I secretly adore) follow me around to different local community events.

And wow you should see how people react.

Nobody has ever heard of me.

Nobody recognizes me.

Everybody loves me.

It’s amazing what an aura of pretend control, a microphone and a clipboard full of realease forms can do.

Mostly I just pretend that I’ve done this reporting thing a million times. I throw words like “shoot” and “Mike check” around and people are putty in my hands. The first time I ever went on a Rogers shoot (because the way it works over at Rogers TV is they are like: “Oh you’ve never actually interviewed anyone on camera before? That’s okay, go do it right now) Ken asked me if I’d done this sort of thing before, and I snorted and was like DUH. Ken. God. Get with the program. But my hands were shaking like I had had 15 cups of coffee. And I messed up 2 takes. AND it is possibly one of the worst/most awkward interviews you have ever seen in your life.

Fake it til you make it.

But if anyone every asked, I would come straight out and say it. I do this for FREE because it’s great experience and also it’s FUN and also sometimes there are free sandwiches (once. once there were free sandwiches. And it was glorious. And I ate loads. And Ken and I got to take some home.)

Yes. I tweet and Instagram and Facebook a lot of shit about the TV thing. I’m trying to build something like an online persona. But I’m open about all of the things above.

So it’s pretty interesting (in the way horrifying things are) to me when people aren’t honest about themselves and the bullshit castle they’ve built. Theres faking it til you make it, and then there is delusion and believing your own bullshit.

We all bullshit, it’s part of life and its DEFINITELY a part of social media.

But it doesn’t have to be a part of the voices in the back of your head. It doesn’t have to nourish you.

Today on the show we had a guest who was SO into her own bullshit, it was hysterical.

I was behind Camera Two today (the easiest Camera, because…well I’m not that great at Camera and it is a live show) and this guest was preparing herself for her segment, lounging around having had her makeup done by the professional make up artist (also a volunteer) and she starts telling a story, to no one in particular but I guess KINDOF the publicist for the company she represents, and kind of to the crew standing around in the calm before the storm (all unpaid and learning just like me, I should add) and she starts name dropping like we give a fuck.

Nope. Sorry. Never heard of this supposedly famous columnist you know over at some online magazine I’ve never heard of.

Ironically she mentioned that her other famous blogger friend who lives in NEW YORK (ooooohhh my god you know someone living in New York?! It’s JUST like Sex and the City!) was blogging about her and her relationship and BASICALLY wrote an open letter to her and it was SCANDALOUS.

Cue dramatic pause.

Cue all of us shrugging like…whaaaaa the crazy guest talking about?

TV will do weird things to people.

This lady was on the show to talk about hand creams. And maybe if I google her, she will turn out to be a big deal.

Buuuuuuuut. I didn’t really care.

I just wanted to check my focus and find out what the chef was cooking to see if we’d get yum free food after the show.

You know.

The important stuff.

 

 

Here it is

It’s Thanksgiving in America this weekend, and while I am not American, nor do I live in America (North of the border YO!) I think it’s an important time of my life to take a deep breath and think about what is important and to say THANKYOU Universe and Science and World for letting me take my little gulps of air and to have blood thrumming all over my body in this thing we called life.

Because someone I know kind of died yesterday.

I didn’t know this person so well, he was a friend of my Mum’s and I met him and did a play with him when I was 14 years old. I knew him as a backdrop to my adolescent self-obssession, and later as an adult, as that guy who always posted a word of the day on Facebook (dang Facebook wall cloggers!)

And though I am saddened for my Mum who is sad, and I quietly mourn the loss of anyone who passes away at a time when they are too young (47), I am not a Sympathy Vampire, intent on packaging this loss to gain attention for myself, or make a statement about how this affects ME ME ME. I just note his death as a time to reflect and to take stock in a busy world.

Thank you…

Sometimes I think I’m not normal. Does everyone spend as many hours in their own head obsessing about things like I do? Do people beat themselves up as much as I do, for the passing of time and the apparent non-achievements they think should have come more easily by now?

Does everyone have this restless demon rolling around inside their ribcage, and a voice in the back of their brain that constantly cries “run away! What’s over there?! Look at all those people doing more fun stuff than you! Flee, jump, swim, out out OUT! What would Tina Fey do??”

Or is it just me?

I think it’s safe to say that most of the time I put on a very confident exterior. I just seem to get on with things. I move countries. No big. I settle in wherever. Whatevs. People have used the word brave to describe me before..

But the ugly truth of the matter is that I am a roiling rack of insecurities, fear and uncertainty. I second guess every single move I make, and it is exhausting. There is no harsher critic than yourself. And I have begun to realize that perhaps that level of  self-criticism is too hard to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Maybe it’s my oldest child syndrome forcing me to be an overachiever, or the small child in me that was bullied badly in those early years who made a vow one evening in the bathtub (I’ll show you, I’ll show all of you! I’ll get so famous and then I’ll pretend I forgot your name!), but enough is never enough. Up until this point I have never been working hard “enough” I have never made “enough” money, it’s never quiet as bright and sparkly “enough” I’m not thin “enough”.

I’ve come to realize that people don’t often talk about painful things, or things they think will put them in a lesser light. The population is afraid to look weak, or maybe we’re all just Keeping up with the Kardashians. And as a result, everybody secretly thinks they’re sucking way worse than everybody else.

That they aren’t “Good Enough.”

And that’s how I feel sometimes.

Like when my visa was screwed up, I felt like I hadn’t been prepared, and when I couldn’t get it fixed and felt like a goldfish lost in the ocean, I felt like I was failing at life. As the dollars in my bank account dwindled, and my stress levels rose, I wondered how all the other 24-year-old wannabe’s out there were doing it.

Because no one ever said to me “You know what Paris, this week I feel like I’m really fucked and sucking at all this reality.” And so I thought, “oh, it’s just me that sucks then.”

The truth is, I’m less financially secure than I have ever been in my life. I’m finally getting some TV experience and I love it, but after applying for hundreds of jobs, there is still nothing paying coming my way. I have two degree’s behind me, and I’m starting to think I should have taken four years of work experience over the higher-learning. I wonder all the time about whether I should pack in this North American adventure and head for the hills (aka either of my parents houses). I’m trying to decide if I’m making any progress, or if I’m a seagull trapped behind a glass door, continuously bashing its head against a barrier it can’t see and the thing it craves.

I’m thankful for:
My Family, who are far away, but who I love and who I miss. The older I get, the more clearly their cracks and lumps and bumps become apparent to me, but the same goes for me, and they seem to still like me anyway.

My boyfriend and my friends-wherever they may be in the world.

My ability to read and write, two of my greatest loves in this world.

Being healthy. That’s a big one, one that I know you are supposed to be thankful for, but which I never truly appreciate.

The safety I enjoy by being an Australian Citizen, for the ability to live in countries of my choice, and live in peace.

It’s not a long list, and it’s not detailed. But for richer or poorer, those are the things that matter to me. I could specify, and I have private lists that go on and on. But those are the main things, and even when I am staring down the barrel of a potentially stressful few months, or stuck inside my own head over analysing the little things and driving myself crazy, I remember (somewhere in the recesses of that other part of me that is actually pretty practical and on top of things) that I will be okay. And that my life is a tiny blip compared to the age of the earth and the stars.

End Rant.

Things I know nothing about: Weddings

So it turns out that I’m old enough to know people who are my age that are getting married.

I feel like I’m not alone in this. You’re just a twenty something minding your own business and then BAM on Facebook a girl you went to high school with but don’t really know got engaged. Then there are the wedding pics 6-12 months later. Weird. But okay it’s on the periphery so I can deal…HOLY SHIT ANOTHER ONE!

You’re huddled under the covers rocking yourself to sleep thinking, “Okay but I never really knew her that well…” and then BAM, someone you do know well gets engaged.

Why are these people doing grown-up things when I can’t even use that blender I bought (It’s 10 speed okay…it’s really tricky).

Well. Ever since moving to Toronto I’ve met quite a few married people and they are quite normal and functioning. Granted that most of them are about 4-5 years older than me, (war wounds of dating a guy in that age bracket with lots of friends) but I’ve never really thought about it because they are already married and it kind of just seems like they’re a couple, but one of them has a big hard rock…and one of them has a pretty ring on her left hand. Did you see what I did there? That’s what we call “innuendo” or “an attempt at a dirty joke.” (WELL IF SOMEONE JUST HURRIED UP AND HIRED ME I WOULDN’T BE HOME ALONE WITH THE HEDGEHOG THINKING UP THESE TERRIBLE PUNS!)

I digress.

When I first started living in Toronto and started dating lovely Canadian boyfriend, he introduced me to many of his friends. One couple in particular I hit it off with, simply because they may be a crazier couple than Canuckboyf and I. It was love at first opening line when the female half of the couple sat down next to me at an event (at which I knew NO ONE and had literally been dating Canuckboyf for a month) and basically told me how she just wanted to get drunk and that we should go find the booze.

So we did. And may I say, the evening got less intimidating from there.

Anyway, we had some crazy fun nights with these two and then earlier this year the male half of this couple had some kind of revelation that he is dating one of the coolest chicks around, and proposed to her.

That’s so exciting!

Oh no wait! WHAT? That is TERRIFYING!

Yes. My reaction is over the top, and maybe you’re starting to think that I’m just a commitment-phobe. Fine. Yes. I have been known to run away from people that love me in the past, but that’s not it. This is more my fear about growing up and having to be a real person, rather than the fear of actually being with someone you love. I love love. I love the hollywood pre-packaged love. I like to look at pretty dresses and cakes and shoes and there were a good many years where one of my favourite parks in Hong Kong was my favourite because you could go on Saturdays and watch all the wedding photo’s taking place. I like wedding things.

But in my head I just finished High School…even though it has actually been six years, and I didn’t know anybody back then that was getting engaged or getting married and in my mind I still don’t. I’m still trying to pretend that I’m a child even though I’ve been allowed to drink and vote for over half a decade. The fact that I do a lot more of the former and very little of the latter just goes to show where my head is at. Maybe my wilful refusal to learn to drive is also a clue.

Regardless, I am turning 24 on Wednesday and that is something I have to face. I also know someone getting married. Fine. Breathe in, Breathe out.

A future picture of me on my wedding day

Yesterday I went to a bridal brunch. And it was really beautiful and lovely. It was the first bridal thing I’ve ever been too, and although internally I was freaking, I attempted to sit at the table like a calm lady, eat items from the delicious buffet and tried to not obviously eye-up the present table. I hoped mine didn’t look wrong. It wasn’t from the registry where I could buy my friend some towels or some bowels (the only available items), but was instead a couple of indulgent treats – the kind of thing I’d like to get.

Shall I rant about Registry’s? No, maybe another time. But seriously. I get the functionality of one. I do. But there is nothing exciting you can say about a steamer or a cake dish covering…whatever. Maybe one day if I get married I’ll be like “THANK GOD for the registry and my friends XYZ who got me this wonderful steamer.” Then I’ll tie on my apron, and clean the house waiting for my hardworking husband to come home so I can fix him a scotch and make him his dinner while telling the children to Shush and do their homemade jigsaw puzzle I created at my craft group.

At the table I was at for the bridal shower, were two girls who had recently-ish gotten married, and another girl who got engaged about a month ago. I felt like I was from another planet (more than usual) when listening to them talk about cake designers and venues. Maybe I would feel less like a fish out of water if I’d been to a wedding before and could make certain nodding motions about things like certain bands and dresses…but as it stands, I haven’t and I am mystified about things like that. The only contribution I could make to the girl discussing all the cakes she tried was…

what was your favourite flavour?!

Because honestly, that’s the only part of the conversation I could understand. CAKES?!!? CAKES HAVE FLAVOURS!!
Quick Paris, get involved! Ask about Flavours!

When she answered that she couldn’t choose, I still internally high-fived myself because hey, I asked a question in the right context and got a response.

Socializing WIN.

Weddings are exciting, and it’s exciting when people get engaged. It kinda feels like high school when we’d all freak out when one of the girls got asked out by one of the boys in Year Five and they were official after recess. Except this time it’s going to be LEGALLY official and somebody somewhere is dropping some serious dollars to make that happen.

Also it hopefully won’t be all over by lunch!

Since my friend-bride got engaged, Canuckboyfs flatmate also got engaged, my friend from Hong Kong who lives here got engaged, and another of the Boyfs close friends from High School got engaged. If they so choose to invite me to their weddings, that is another 3 weddings in the next 12-18 months. I guess it’s something I’m going to have to start getting used too… Anyone for a Cake Platter Cover?

At least nobodies pregnant yet…

Paris

 

 

5 Reasons I am failing at life as an adult, but winning at being 3

 

Sometimes I love living away from home. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my family and I miss them, but they are the kind of people who I can take in small doses too. We have always been a gypsy family that lives spread out, and although we miss each other greatly, we are the type of family respect each others need to travel, quest for adventure. I have friends here who, at almost 30, are still living at home, and good for them if it works, because sometimes I still severely wish I lived at home, in fact, need to live at home.

Here are the reasons why I am failing at life as an adult, but winning at being 3 years old.

 

1. Meals

Whenever I have been home for a few days, I get this weird feeling in my stomach. My skin is better, and I sleep really well. And then I realize it is because I am eating 3 meals a day, (I know! THREE WHOLE MEALS!) and they mostly contain food that has been cooked at home and not in an industrial restaurant style kitchen. There are usually these vegetable things involved, and the meals happen at pretty standard times.

What I am trying to tell you is that two days ago I was really hungry after working a promo job, and it was late, and I couldn’t think what I wanted, so I bought half a roast chicken from the Portuguese place on the corner, AND an Ice Cream sandwich (lemon cake flavour) at Bakerbots bakery, and because I was walking, ate the ice cream first and the chicken when I got home. Failing at being an adult, WINNING at fulfilling my childhood fantasy.

 

2. Being outdoors

When I was a child, my parents were always telling me to turn off the TV and get outside because it was a beautiful day. WELL HAHA! Parents, because now I’m 23 and I don’t have a TV but I have my very own laptop where I can spend HOURS watching Cat videos, not leaving my house or Pajama’s until its nearly dark outside! So suckit adulthood!

3. Bedtime

My lights out time age ten and under was 7.30pm, maybe 8 if I had a sports game after school. WELL! My young fantasy’s are now coming true! I stay up waaaay too late just like all the big kids and do important things like check my Facebook wall repeatedly, and stalk people i’ll probably never see again or would recognize if I did. In the meantime, as mentioned before due to irregular sleepy times, my reoccurring face pimples are worse than the height of my adolescence. But I do what I want. So BOOYAH life. Take that high five in the face.

4. Dressing how I want every day with no one to say NUTHIN!

Yeah, I am wearing mismatching socks. What of it? Yeah this shirt has a toothpaste stain! So!? No I don’t think my sparkly blue eye shadow is too much for a daytime pool party. I can do what I want, and its only weeks later when I have come down off the crazy train of whatever-the-hell hormones were kicking around inside my brain that I look back and think, if ONLY my mother had been there to nag me to change. I always look so well dressed and put together when I am home. But nu-uh, I do what I want!

5. Laundry

As a three-year old, I didn’t care so much about laundry, because DUH someone else did it for me! It was like a magic trick, I would get dirty and boom, the clothes would be back by the end of the week, neatly folded and all good. As an adult, it is one of the most tedious things I have to do, and so I go out and buy more and more underwear, so the frequency of laundry is decreased. True story.

 

 

 

 

 

Because I haven’t had a “what the hell am I doing with my life?” moment in a while

Dear Universe,

Hi, how’s it going? Remember when I turned twenty and I decided to throw away my foolish teen angst and exchange it for the melancholy of being a 20 something? I decided to write a list of things I wanted to achieve in the next five years as a way to not die of stress/boredom/whatever fucking hormones they’ve injected into the chickens I eat which now make me grow black hairs in places a fair-haired woman should not and make me a crazy person 9 out of 10 times during the day…

Remember? Remember Universe?!!? We had a deal! I’d put all of my hopes and dreams for the next five years on a piece of paper, and you… you would keep up your end of the bargain and make them all magically happen. Instantly. Just as I planned.

Like:

Win an Academy Award

Publish a book

Learn Another language and live in a country where I can use it

Buy some property

Do something notable that helps others

Well guess what Universe? In 2 months, I’ll be 24 years old.

HOLY COW BATMAN! you say, and I say it too, but you can’t really understand me because I’m curled up into a little ball with a pillow scrunched into my mouth, rocking violently from side to side shaking my head, moaning WHY WHY WHY to the sound of that biological clock ticking and the days of my beauty ebbing away.

So MAYBE (I’ll admit it here) some of these dreams were lofty, and MAYBE (I’ll admit) even though I WAS an extremely well-travelled 20-year-old, I didn’t really know shit about the world, having lived first in an Expat bubble, and then wrapped up in the world of Wesley College where my main concern each week was how many boxes of wine my friends and I could afford if we got Thai food 3 times that week too.

Perhaps I was a little naive in thinking that somebody would swoop down to my disgusting room and say:

“WOW! YOU! YOU TALENTED STUNNING YOUNG CREATURE! EVEN THOUGH YOU BARELY WRITE AND YOU ARE TOO AFRAID TO LET PEOPLE READ YOUR WORK…YOU GIRL! YOU WHO WANTED TO BE AN ACTOR YOUR ENTIRE LIFE WHO HASN’T PUT ONE LICK OF EFFORT INTO TRYING OUT FOR THINGS OR GOING FOR CASTINGS…YOU ARE MY NEW MUSE. COME TO HOLLYWOOD IMMEDIATELY AND TAKE OVER.”

Because I’m pretty sure that’s how it happened in my head. Hey! I wrote it on the piece of paper. Now I just sit back and watch the money and job offers roll in.

Heh heh heh. *I rub my hands together Mr Burns style – excellent*

Um yeah.

So let’s have a lookieloo where I’m at with the old paper universe wish list.

I haven’t won an academy award, in fact I haven’t written a script in almost 18 months…so. I did win a badge at the Blue Jays game I went to a couple of months ago… and by won, I mean, my friend who works there got them to give me a badge that said “Today is my first Blue Jays Game!” and the date. I wanted to end up in LA or New York…but in fact I am here in Toronto. Like a bird slightly blown off course.

Publish a book…. well i did write two articles for free which went into the Gleaner Newspaper! A small indie newspaper that mainly services the tiny area I live in…And I have this blog. When I finish writing it, the button I have to push says Publish.

Turns out I did move countries, so we can strike this one off the list. AND to a place where I had to learn another language and could use it every day. Canada is that country. I learned to speak Canadian English. I can now put that on my resume. WIN. I now know what a sweater really is, and sketchy. Woohoo. So glad my parents sent me to Private schools.

Buy some property…yeah maybe on the Monopoly board – If i don’t get sent to jail

Do something notable that helps others….

When I was redrafting my Resume a couple of days ago, my Canuck boyfriend, who for the last five months has been working in a position where he has to view hundreds of Resumes, told me I should put some hobbies and interests if I am to be applying to certain positions as it distinguishes you and sets you apart.

Me: Okay…so what hobbies should I put?

CanuckBoyf: I don’t know…whatever you enjoy doing in your spare time.

Me: So… sleeping?

CB: OR, writing your blog, theatre viewing, Theatre acting…

Me: Okay! What about Photography? (Just btw, I have 217 albums on Facebook and, as someone pointed out to me, nearly 5 and a half thousand tagged photos of myself.)

CB: Great, I’ll put attending indie music festivals and historical reading.

Me: um… I don’t think I’ve ever attended an indie music festival…and historical reading… that sounds like you.

CB: you read game of thrones right? That’s historical ish, and you love Of Monsters and Men! They’re indie!

Me: Okay… maybe we should put basketball… I seriously plan to join a team this season…

Sadly our little fudging of my Resume exercise made me realize how lacking in volunteer work my life is. I have always meant to volunteer some of my time to helping others, but the “meant to” does not translate to actually helping somebody. And so with remorse I realize that by 25, I may not have achieved something on my list.

OH HUSH Paris, you say as you read this overly long and gas baggy account of woe is me – there is still time. You have 14 months to get yourself on track. And you are right, by the time I am twenty-five, I very well may have put myself on a path to Oscar glory, or written some chapters of a novel, or seriously started saving for a house, or made a difference to someones life.

I realize that life is a journey, and that probably this freak out is because I am currently seeking the next chapter of my life – deciding it is time to start that elusive beast “A Career”.

Being unemployed SUCKS and its only been a week, but I’ve always been someone who likes to know what’s happening next.

And right now it is all a bit of a mystery, like a jigsaw puzzle with the border all done, but NO fucking clue what the big picture is.

Paris