Heads Up and a Weigh-in

by Camille Posted on February 3, 2011

Saturday Steals will commence tomorrow p.m.

Also, I’m taking a poll. I know not very many of you participate in Saturday Steals, which fact I have long since made peace with and continued on the SS tradition because of the few stalwarts (all of whom I love dearly)…but how many of you, by a raise of hands, appreciate the feature, even if you don’t participate in it? Would you be sad if I did away with it? Or would you shout for joy and faint from relief? It really doesn’t matter to me—I won’t get my feelings hurt if you say to give it the axe.

The reason I ask is not to fish for compliments—it’s just that the Linky List guy is gonna start charging for his previously-free service, and I need to decide 1) if it’s worth it to pay for Linky Lists, and 2) if it’s not worth it, then whether I should even keep going at all, and 3) if I should keep going, but not pay for it, I need to come up with a solution.

None of these are your problems, however; all I need from you is to know whether or not you like the feature and/or would be sad to see it end.

You can even answer anonymously if you’re worried your two cents will hurt my feelings and I’ll hold them against you (which they wouldn’t and I won’t but I can see why you would think otherwise).

This is your captain speaking.

Roger: over and out.

Posted in blogger finger, quickies, Saturday Steals, thisandthat | 12 Comments

I’m Awkwarder than You

by Camille Posted on February 2, 2011

I have been having the most awkward conversations lately. It seems like every conversation I have taken part in over this past week has been extremely awkward. Like, bordering painful.

This morning, for example, I was walking through the hall of the English department on campus and I noticed that the professor who left the message about my small fortune’s door was open and he was sitting there at his desk, so I just popped my head in and said this:

Hi, Dr. So-and-so. I just wanted to thank you for your nice message you left the other day.

He looked at me blankly, so I figured he must’ve forgotten me from the class I took with him a couple of semesters ago.

I’m Camille, I said. I won third prize in the writing contest?

Oh, yes, he said, well you’re welcome.

And then he just kept looking at me and I sort of panicked. I didn’t know what else to say besides thank you, and I had already said that, but I had his attention so it would be weird just to end it there. I stammered around for a few more excruciating moments, mumbling something about how his message had made my day, said thanks again, etc., and then just sort of shrank out of bounds from his door frame.

It was just bad in an all-around way.

And but see the reason I know it’s me with the problem instead of Everyone Else is that I am the person all of my conversation partners have in common—I am the one being awkward, the lowest common denominator. I don’t see them going around talking awkwardly to each other. Everybody else is totally normal and cool. I am the weird one.

I don’t know what my problem is.

Yes I do: I’m socially backward, a little bit.

I get too used to communicating virtually, too used to hitting the delete button when my thoughts don’t come out right, and I forget that things just don’t work that way in real life. I’m all the time starting sentences and then stopping them mid-speech, correcting my words, qualifying my sentiments. I can see people’s eyes glaze over after a few minutes of talking to me.

I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to talk to me, either.

I think what I need is some kind of intensive month-long program where electronic devices of any type are strictly prohibited, where I spend hours every day re-learning the fine art of when, where, and exactly how to drop appropriate jokes, and graceful ways to end a conversation without making excuses like, “Well, it’s been nice talking to you but now I have to go soak my cankles, it’s really quite urgent,” or just hovering around awkwardly waiting for the other person to go away.

I need social rehab.

Posted in awesome., oh brother what next, woe is me | 6 Comments

Hear ye.

by Camille Posted on January 31, 2011

From now until my hairy little legs land in Paris, I am swearing off chocolate.

The purpose of this is twofold:

1) So I can look less fat in my Paris pictures than I would look if I continued on this destructive path I’m on, eating chocolate for the next five months, and

2) So that when my hairy little legs do land in Paris they can be in perfect condition to race around the city as fast as they can carry me on my quest to consume the best chocolate my (few) francs can buy, and enjoy it like I have never enjoyed chocolate before, nor will again until the next time I find myself in Europe.

(Just kidding I know France goes by the Euro system now.)

I guess by that rationalisation I should also swear off bread, pastry, marshmallows, cream/créme, cheese, pretty much any dairy of any sort, smoked salmon, wine, and frozen pizza. (I consumed many a French frozen pizza in my time as a Belgian nanny and I promise they taste better than American/Canadian.)

I would complain about it but there would be no point, since I am one hundred percent aware that my sacrifice will absolutely not be in vain.

Posted in awesome., Travel | 4 Comments

We’ll Always Have Paris et al.

by Camille Posted on January 31, 2011

As many of you know, I have recently come into a small fortune.

As such, I expect you’re wanting to know what I plan on doing with my newfound wealth.

I mean, it just doesn’t seem right, somehow, to spend it all on DDP or armpit wax. I need to spend my $250 on something that means something.

Something meaningful, I mean.

So I’m going to Paris.

This is not a joke.

I am going to Paris. I will be there during the first and second week in June.

Obviously it will take more than two hundred fifty dollars to get me there, which is where Poor Kyle (a.k.a. Sugar Daddy) comes in.

So here’s the skinny:

Last year around this time, Poor Kyle started truck driving for a living. He was gone a lot. As in, like, he worked 80-90 hours a week. So I didn’t get to see him very often, which meant he felt guilty all the time because I was pretty much bummed about it, and so when I saw an announcement on the University message board about a summer school class in Paris, and brought up said announcement to Poor Kyle during one of our many late-night phone conversations, his aforementioned guilt spurred him into saying, “That’s a great idea, babe! You should go!”

I was shocked. I mean, I knew my husband loved me and supported my dreams, but a trip to Paris would be expensive, and we hadn’t really planned for it.

In the end I decided to forgo the trip, but it has been on my mind ever since.

At the beginning of this school year back in September, I even added it to my list of goals for the year:

And usually when I write down my goals and post them on my bathroom mirror, I see to it that they are accomplished.

So that’s the story of how it came to pass that I am signed up for the Paris summer school class in June.

Now, I have led you all to believe that this current semester will be my last ever, that I will finish classes in April and be done, graduated, the end, hooray.

But I’ve not been completely honest with you. After taking five classes this semester, I will still have one class to take before qualifying for graduation.

Paris will be that class.

Picture this: A summer school class that counts toward any major. It takes thirteen days from start to finish. It requires no research paper, class presentation, or final exam. There are no group projects (gag), there is no homework. No assigned reading. Nothing but going to museums in the morning and having free time every afternoon. In Paris.

Yes, the cost of the class will be equivalent to one entire semester of pre-resident-status classes, i.e. pretty expensive, but!

Even if it wasn’t in Paris, getting an entire three credits done in thirteen days with no final paper to write or exam to take would be worth several extra thousand dollars to me.

The fact that it’s in Paris is just a bit of Nutella™ on the crépe.

But then the plot thickens:

Poor Kyle, supportive as he always usually is, thinks that if I’m going all that way to be in Europe, I should stretch it out a bit. Hang around, get a few more stamps in the good ol’ passport, see what’s up. Since I’ll already be there and all.

Yes, it would be more expensive to do that, but the biggest expense of all is getting across the Atlantic, and that part is covered by the initial fee for the class…so I’m thinking about taking him up on the offer and sticking around.

But so I’m just wondering if any of my European friends would be interested in either a) hosting me for a couple of nights, or b) meeting up somewhere in the general vicinity of the continent. I have several fantastic readers over there who I would love to meet in real life, which I guess could make me kind of weird but hopefully not.

If I don’t have any takers on that idea, I might look into some sort of couch surfing deal or home exchange or maybe just some old fashioned hostels.

I really have no idea where any of this is going to take me.

But I’m going to Europe as a graduation present, and no matter what, I am going to make it awesome.

And you can expect a couple weeks’ worth of really excellent blog posts.

Olé!

p.s. I cannot offer much in the way of financial reimbursements for crashing on the couches of my European friends, but I can promise loads and loads of Canadian chocolate bars which are pretty much world renowned…

Posted in awesome., Travel | 13 Comments

Saturday Steals: Making Up Time

by Camille Posted on January 26, 2011

Hello, and welcome to another rousing round of Saturday Steals, where what you get is what you see and what you see is cheap or free!

To participate, simply:

1) Steal a steal.

2) Write a post about it on your blog, mentioning that you’re participating in Saturday Steals (you can steal the above image if you so desire), and

3) Add the link to said post to the list at the bottom of this post.

****************************

Exactly one year ago I set a goal to enter every writing contest I was eligible for.

I also set a goal to submit my writing to at least ten publications.

I came close, but didn’t quite make it.

Here’s a list of the contests/publications I entered:

Out of all those contests and publications, I didn’t get a single bite. (Well, one contest submission led to an essay being published in a small local magazine back in April, but I never received a copy of said magazine [even after emailing the people repeatedly and being told that they had mailed out TWO sets of copies to me], so I don’t really count that.)

I could have submitted more writing. I could have tried harder, but with school sucking up so much of my mental energy, I felt good about the effort I had made.

It’s just the results I felt crappy about.

Eventually I stopped telling Poor Kyle when I had entered another contest or submitted another work for publication, so I wouldn’t have to go through the discomfort of reporting back in a couple months that my work had not been selected. Which proved to be a good choice because I went on getting rejected.

Finally, after classes were out last semester, almost exactly one year after I set my goal and very little to show for it, I got an incredible email from the professor of my creative writing class. The email read:

Dear Camille,

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading through your portfolio. You have turned the personal legend idea a ‘real boy’ like no other student has before. I think the portfolio is in itself the bare bones of a novel, and you have developed a recognizable voice in all those posts. So the mark is fine, etc, I just wanted to compliment you on the way you made use of the course.

Happy Holidays!
AK

I reread the email at least twenty times. I showed it to Poor Kyle and read it again. I phoned my mom and read it to her a couple of times for good measure. I filed it away into my “Gems” folder, where I put every piece of nice feedback I get. I was floating for weeks.

I still hadn’t won a contest. I still hadn’t been paid to write. I hadn’t been published anywhere noteworthy. But someone with authority told me (at least as I interpreted it) that I had a chance.

I don’t know when an email has affected me so profoundly (which is not to discredit all the lovely emails I’ve gotten from awesome people over my lifetime—nobody get mad I love you all).

And but so I felt rejuvenated, like there was hope, like I could validate my continued efforts.

And then I started back at school for my millionth and final semester, and I’ve been so busy with my five classes and with teaching piano lessons and also with some proofreading/paper marking for professors on the side that I really haven’t had time to do much writing let alone much writing of anything worth submitting anywhere.

And so here I’ve been, in a sort of “head above water” state, not progressing but maintaining which is itself progress in a way, but certainly not getting paid to write anything, but then—THEN—at last—at LONG LAST—I got a phone call.

A PHONE CALL.

(Actually it was just a voicemail, the kind that mysteriously appear without missing any calls from anyone. [Which by the way HOW DO YOU DO THAT? There are so many people I would love to leave messages for without ever having to actually speak with them personally. I have got to learn this amazing skill.])

But anyway the origin-less voicemail said this:

Hi Camille, this is so-and-so from the such-and-such writing contest you entered in December, and I’m just calling to tell you that you’ve been awarded third place.

It went on for a while, but all I heard was third place.

THIRD PLACE!

No, it’s not as good as first place or second, but I placed. I PLACED! This is the same contest I entered exactly one year ago to kick off my super-awesome-year-of-success, which turned out to be more like a year of really painful failures, but now! Finally! After a year!

The short story I submitted was one I wrote in four hours on the morning of the deadline. I wrote it and proofread it once and then printed it and raced off to get it there in time. I was disappointed in myself for leaving it until the last minute, for not making time to give it a better effort. I figured I wouldn’t win; I geared up for Dear Camille I Regret to Inform You; I was sure I was going to feel bad when I didn’t place yet again.

But I knew that the only surefire way not to win was not to enter. And nothing is more depressing to me than watching deadlines roll by without even trying.

So I entered.

On the off chance.

AND I PLACED!

Of course now I’m kicking myself for not trying harder. Maybe I could’ve made it better and placed higher, maybe I could’ve had my sister read it and give me pointers, maybe maybe maybe—

But no. I am forcing myself to be happy that I placed. Even if I am the worst of the best, it’s still nice to be in the general vicinity of successful people.

First prize won $1,500. Second prize won $750. Third prize was $250, which granted is not as much as $750 or the other, but it’s $250 I didn’t have a month ago.

And since I only took four hours to write it, that means I made $62.50 an hour.

Which financial steal comes really close to almost rivaling the emotional one.

p.s. But you’ll have to come back on Monday to see what I’m going to spend the $250 on. And trust me, it’s even more exciting than this news.

*******************

Now it’s your turn! What have you stolen lately?

Add your steal to the link list below. It will be open from now till Sunday at 11:59 p.m.




Posted in awesome., my edjumacation and me, Overall Good Things, Saturday Steals | 10 Comments

What I’m Wearing? Uggs, Mostly. AND NOTHING ELSE.

by Camille Posted on January 26, 2011

This is posted in conjunction with What are You Wearing over at And I’m Feelin’ Good. Stop by over there to see what cute outfits she’s come up with this week!

********************

I used to think Uggs were hideous.

Especially when paired with skinny jeans.

I never realised how useful the combination could be in a snowy place, though. See, when you wear skinny jeans tucked into tall boots, a few things happen:

1. The hems of your jeans stay warm and dry, as opposed to freezing and wet from trudging through giant snow drifts.

2. Okay, so that’s the only really functional use for tucking skinny jeans into Uggs.

But it’s a function that I utilize five days out of seven in this country, so that’s like a 71% functionability rate.

Oh, forget it. I do not need to rationalise the fact that I now own both skinny jeans and Uggs and I wear them together on a regular (as in almost every day) basis.

HOWEVER.

I will say that my particular pair of Uggs are not the normal suede-looking kind that you see all around town all the time.

Mine are leather, rather—the shinier-looking kind (although not patent leather by any stretch…just shinier than suede)—with two buckles on each boot and just loads of character.

Regular suede Uggs are a dime a dozen at my University—nearly every girl (and the occasional guy) on campus wears them every day.

Like I said, I can no longer blame them for this. It’s a handy look. But just because I can see the usefulness of Uggs doesn’t mean I think everybody should wear the exact same style, especially not now that Uggs come in all kind of styles.

Which is why I spent a little extra (when you’re spending that much on boots anyway what’s another twenty bones) to be a little more unique. Here they are from some website:

And here they are on my feet in bed, which is just one of the many places I like to wear them because I have to get my money’s worth:

And here they are playing their role in the dreaded two-part combination (with my legs looking ridiculous because I was trying to angle them so as to showcase my boots at their very best angle):

I really truly like these boots a lot. I would say I love them but I don’t love anything that’s not human. But I as close to love them as I can. I slip my feet into them in the morning and the sheepskin lining is immediately warm, almost like there’d been a little boot fairy keeping her feet in my boots for me all night so they are nice and toasty for me when I get up for the day. Aside from the creepiness of that, I mean. (Can you imagine if some lady hung around your house at night trying on your shoes? Gross.)

The only way I could adore them more is if they didn’t make me look like I had cankles.

But really, cankles are a price I am willing to pay for the comfort and warmth of these life-changing boots.

Posted in Canada, fashion people | 6 Comments

On My Honour Roll

by Camille Posted on January 25, 2011

Today I got a letter in my box at the Mayberry Watering Hole.

It was from the University, congratulating me on making the Dean’s Honour List last semester.

************************

I made the honour roll every semester of my life in my primary and secondary education. Both my parents were trained educators who worked really hard at helping me get good grades, so my making the honour roll was not really an expectation; it was a fact. It’s just what I did. (Likewise my sister.)

I wasn’t particularly bookish growing up—not in the annoying Hermione way. I mean, I was annoying in a lot of ways, but I didn’t hang out at the library for fun is what I’m saying. (Not that there’s anything wrong with chillin in the library on the weekends; heck, what I would give now for hours and hours of free time to browse library shelves!) But as a kid, I didn’t really pride myself on my education.

My parents prided themselves on my education.

But mostly I prided myself on being able to eat my own scabs. (Oh how times have changed.)

Every couple of months the new honour roll list would get posted and there would be my name, and there would be my certificate, glossy red embossed letters on white cardstock with a roaring cougar’s head smack dab in the middle, and whoop dee doo, I made the honour roll.

*****************

Because of this type of scholastic behaviour, I went to ASU on scholarship.

For two semesters.

Until I lost my scholarship.

For flunking a computer class.

****************

After taking off a few intermittent semesters to do various things with my life, I started back to school, this time paying for it with my own personal husband’s money.

And suddenly I found myself caring a lot more about my grades than I ever had before, probably having something to do with wanting my own personal husband to be happy with his investment.

I got straight As in nine consecutive classes (three classes per semester, three semesters in a row). But this did not qualify me for the Dean’s Honour List because to qualify for the DHL one must take a minimum of four classes and get higher than a 3.75 GPA in them in any given semester.

So I never made the DHL.

And it sort of bugged me, mostly because this guy named Henry kept getting on the list while I did not.

(Henry is my archenemy. He doesn’t know it. But he is.)

****************

Finally I got my Canadian residency and could afford to take more classes per semester.

Last semester I took four.

I got straight As.

I made it to the DHL.

I got a letter saying so:

The letter reads:

Dear Whoever You Are,

It is my great pleasure to inform you that as a result of your academic performance during the Fall semester of 2010, your name will appear on the DHL.

This is a significant accomplishment which places you among the very best students at the U of L. On behalf of whomever cares about this crap, congratulations etc.

Signed,

The Canadian dean with a Japanese-looking signature.

************

As I read the letter, though, I found myself caring very little. After all those semesters of being mildly annoyed at not making the list, I thought it would’ve meant a little more to me.

But aside from finally showing up Henry, the DHL is nothing more to me than a piece of overpriced letterhead.

No cash prize. No tuition subsidy. No gift certificate for a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza.

Just a piece of letterhead (granted, on top-quality paper, but what the university could save by switching from heavy letterhead to generic one-ply could easily make a nice scholarship fund for the “among the very best students”) signed by a man with an illegible signature.

I have always known I am among the very best students at this University, barring Henry. I need no dean to reassure me of this fact.

And it’s not that I’m so particularly great. It’s just that the pickin’s are pretty dang slim.

Making it on the DHL at this leaves me kind of hollow-feeling, just how I felt for so many childhood summers during which I played little league softball—I was usually one of the more tolerable players, but almost always on a losing team.

Only different, because even softball landed me a sno-cone after games.

*******************

Hey, Dean?

Suck it.

Posted in my edjumacation and me | 8 Comments