Beauty is Everything.

Gisele Bundchen was recently ranked as the highest paid model. She earns 25 million per campaign. PER CAMPAIGN! That's ridiculous! Yes, she's gorgeous, and maybe she's really nice and smart, too. But why should she earn that much? I really don't understand how life became this way. How beauty and fashion and popularity is the most important thing. I don't understand why, though. Why?! Why do "average" people have to go through life, struggling, starving, and barely making ends meet when all "beautiful" people have to do is just be? Yes, you can be passionate about modelling. Yes, you can be passionate about acting, or singing, or performing. But we have to draw a line somewhere! It goes the same for sports. Really..WHY are they making so much money? Does it cost that much to make a baseball uniform? I just don't understand. Have I said that enough times?

My rant is useless. And over.

Gisele Bundchen.

I'm bad with titles.

I have wanted to be a rock star for as long as I can remember. I remember locking myself in my room, grabbing my hair brush and belting out songs in my mirror (how cliched). Sometimes I'd dress up and do little dances, other times I'd take my guitar and pretend I actually knew how to play and was singing alongside some cute hippy boy. I'd imagine myself being Karen O, wearing shiny spandex unitards and smudging lipstick across my face, chugging a beer during the guitar solos. I'd have interviews with Nylon magazine and they'd describe me as "shy, but oh-so-lovable" and I'd have little indie girls wishing they were me. I'd never really have any real friends, except for my band mates and eventually we'd grow up and apart and I'd probably end up in some dive serving greasy burgers to greasy men.

I guess it's a good thing I can't sing.

Anyway..
Do you remember Show and Tell? Man, I have seen some really interesting things. In the fourth grade this kid brought in a deer's head (he and his dad were hunters). It was definitely the creepiest item that was ever brought to class. I just remember him poking at its eyeballs and thinking that this really wasn't normal. I could just picture him carrying this black garbage bag down the street, blood dripping out the bottom. I wonder what he is doing now. Hmm. Anyway, so yes, today I was sitting here, remembering my show and tell days and how excited I used to get to share these special items with my friends. And how fun it was to learn about the history of their personal items. I want to put together some sort of Show and Tell night. Maybe at a gallery or something. Anyone could submit a piece and give a little write up about it and then we would all know a little bit of history about our friends, or strangers. I have no idea how to go about setting this up though. It was just a thought.

Now go check out some Mark Ryden.


Mark Ryden (Bunnies and Bees)

Lisa Hannigan.

Lisa Hannigan makes rainy days better. For anyone who hasn't listened to her, go check her out at www.myspace.com/lisahannigan. She's brilliant and simple and she makes me very happy.

I Was Walking With the Ghost.

Friday morning. Going through my same routine. I wish the sun was out. Wait, maybe I don't, because then I would be stuck inside this God forsaken greyish brown building, peering out the window watching everyone enjoy the sun rays. So thank you clouds, you've saved me from partial misery.
Lately I have been daydreaming of living in different cities (I'm not serious about this thought, I just like to imagine my life in different places). If I had to live anywhere in the states I think I would go for Portland, Oregon or Seattle, Washington (but I'd probably end up a bitter, miserable girl seeing as, on average, there are only 58 clear days a year). I definitely realized that I yearn to be a West Coast girl (even though I'm so tragically Prairie). Maybe someday I will have an expensive loft looking out to a body of water and mountains. Oh how I miss you.
I sometimes think I live too much in my own fantasies.
Jarika in New York- with five credit cards, working backstage at fashion shows, spraying cans of hairspray at barely-there models.
Jarika in London- wearing plaid shirts and boyfriend jeans, carrying around a tattered journal and sketching pigeons in the park.
Jarika in Japan- lost in a sea of people speaking with a foreign tongue. Always in a constant daze, never really seen by anyone around me.
Jarika in Winnipeg- just being.
I'm not sure why it is I can't figure out where I want to be, or who it is I want to be. I'm generally pretty content with what's going on around me, but sometimes I actually do get too caught up in my little daydreams and I wonder if there could be more to my life. But then I probably wouldn't be here right now, writing to you. And that would be unfortunate.

The sun is beginning to show itself.

Portland, Oregon.



Seattle, Washington. (Pike's Place Market)

Sleep Don't Weep.

So my roommate (Gill) keeps bugging me to write. Not bugging, motivating. Bugging is negative. I'm trying not to be negative anymore (sometimes I fail, but that's human nature, right?). I actually usually forget that I even have a blog. Blog. Where did that term come from, anyways? I'll probably wikipedia it later. I'm pretty sure Wiki is the best thing that has been created on the interweb (just checked, blog comes from the word weblog so that actually makes a lot of sense).
I don't actually have a specific subject to write about right now. Basically I'm sitting here, bored out of my mind at work, so I figured I should put my brain to good use, rather than just staring at the screen, zoning out into a different a world. A techno-vision world (which really bothers my eyes).
So I have also decided to put my spare time to good use. I am not going to be volunteering with the Spence Neighbourhood Association. I am actually going to meet the Coordinator today, which I must admit, I'm a little nervous about. Specifically, I'll be helping out with the Three Stars and a Wish program, which involves being paired up with a family and the parent shares a story (traditional, familial, or madeup) with their child and me. From there I help the child create a drawing based on the story and then there will be a book launch sometime in July. I find it really important for families to find time to spend with their children, to help find the child's interests and motivate them to pursue their interests. I hope that the child, and their parent(s) take this experience and remember it always. To know that I potentially helped a kid find a way to use their spare time to pursue their interests, rather than get involved in a negative surrounding really makes me feel like I am good for something. Like I'm here for a reason. Not to save children, or anything (I don't think I'm Holden Caulfield), but to just help guide them. Maybe just a little bit.
I sometimes wonder if all the shit my brother went through affected me more than it did him. If it wasn't him who went through all of that, could it have been me? Would I want to help at all?