Post-traumatic stress disorder: A syndrome often seen after a stressful event. Symptoms include flashbacks, insomnia, and suicidal tendencies.

Readers, an apology.

I implore your forgiveness for my fortnight-long absense. I assure you, my reasons are valid: I was required to write a fifteen page paper for my Newfoundland religious studies class. Being absolutely incapable of any multi-tiered thought whatsoever, I wrote it about the psychology of religious conversion. Judging by the look of bemused horror on my prof's face during my summary presentation, I am positive he hated it.

This is not my main concern.

You see, in writing this paper, not only did I lose several nights worth of quality sleep and any semblance of a will to live, but I also experienced the soul-shattering defeat that can only be experienced while truly, honestly trying to succeed, only to be backhanded across the face by the street-hardened pimp of spectacular failure.

My story is as follows:

The paper was due next Tuesday. This was not a crippling issue, as it was the previous Sunday, a week and two days before the Tuesday in question. Having just been barraged with a gamut of papers, midterm exams, and grabby, unwashed biology lab instructors, it would have been positively foolhardy for me to even consider trying to write this paper, let alone actually doing it. I didn't even have a topic, nor could I think of anything that would possibly appeal to me: The course is on pre-19th century religion in Newfoundland, and I'm really not a fan of that era. People were cruel and unhygeinic in the 16 and 1700's. For me, nothing in history is even worth discussing before 1813. So, on that Sunday, I selected some topic completely at random and emailed it to my prof, making sure to accompany it with a syrupy paragraph about why this topic was so special to me. 'He's pretty good with emails,' I think to myself. 'He'll be back to me before the night is out.'

Five days pass.

'Sorry it took so long to reply,' came the message on Good Friday. 'Your topic is not really appropriate, but because you have so little time left to collect new sources, do it anyway.'

This would be fantastic advice for someone stupid enough to actually start researching a paper before the topic had been approved. However, knowing full well the topic I chose was complete garbage, I didn't bother to start researching it until he emailed me back. Seeing he decided to drop off the face of the planet for the better part of a week, it was less academic ambivalence on my part and more gross negligence on his. Also, it is Good fucking Friday. The library is closed. The day after tomorrow is Easter fucking Sunday. The library is closed. And tomorrow is Easter fucking Saturday, and...well, the library is open, but it is my goddamn day off. I more or less communicated this to him in the next email.

'Well,' he eventually replied, 'think of something.'


* * *

In light of these events --totally beyond my control, may I add-- I saw no reason to waste a good Saturday night worrying about it when I could go to my boyfriend's house and have a pre-marital sleepover.

'So I really don't know what to do for a topic,' I said to Boyfriend as we entered his living room via the kitchen. 'I don't even know where to begin to come up with a topic.' These words were spoken as I absently glanced toward the other side of the room.

There sat Boyfriend's Father, perched on the sofa, reading a book entitled simply, "Methodism in Bonavista."

You cannot make this shit up.

* * *

'So, Dr.______, I've finally got a topic: the beginnings of Methodism in Newfoundland. Got any sources?'

'Sure, check out my former student's master thesis on the subject.'

Length of master thesis in question: 324 pages.

'So, Dr. ______, what's your policy on paper extensions?"

* * *

On the Tuesday the essays were due, Dr. _______ addressed the class. "I know the papers were supposed to be due today, but some people," he glanced ruefully in my general direction, "were unable to complete them on time. So you have until next Tuesday. They are to be handed in when you do your summary presentation."

Fuck. I'd forgotten about that.

It should be noted that I am an appaulingly bad public speaker. I'm not a particularly shy person, at least not in large groups. I've acted since elementary school with a reasonable degree of ease and comfort. Yet, for some reason, whenever I approach a podium to speak on an actual academic topic, my hands tremble, I start dry-heaving, and I talk faster than a used-car salesman on methamphetamine. Not only did I have to sift through 350 pages of information to flesh out a fifteen page paper, I now had the burden of knowing that I would soon have to try to make it sound like a legitimate academic endeavourin front of a moderately sized group of people.

The week went by. I'd narrowed my topic down to the psychology of the Methodist conversions (shit is always easier when you can reference your old textbooks). I'd managed to have the body of the paper written by Sunday, two days before the new due date. Only the in-text referencing and bibliography remained. It was now 2 o'clock in the morning, and I was about 45 minutes of sleep deprivation away from auditory hallucinations and hysterical blindness. I emailed my project to myself to finish it at school the next day.

This, in retrospect, without undue exaggeration, was the worst thing I have ever done in my entire life. Let me explain.

The library at my university during the last week of classes is like Mecca during the month of Ramadan. There are roughly 86 million people vying for 120 computers, and are not above shooting or stabbing you to gain access to one. I got to the library a little before 9 AM on Monday and, by some act of divine intervention, got the last available workstation. I brought up my essay, started leafing through my notes to provide proper citation and, where that failed, improper citation that looked convincingly legitimate. Two and a half hours later, my paper was complete. I could have wept. Swelling with pride, I saved my draft and logged off the computer so some other poor bastard could suffer the fruits of their term-long procrastination. I went to wait for my printed copy to come out at the assigned printer. When I got there, a woman was standing there with a little pad of post-its.

'If your student ID is not on this list,' she gestured to the first page of the sticky notes, 'we've cancelled your print job. You'll have to send it again.'

Hmm, I thought. Certainly illogical and arbitrary, and it was wholly irresponsible to cancel our print jobs without asking when the library currently has the population density of Malta, but who am I to judge? I'll just print it again.

After murdering seven people and crippling another eleven, I was able to log on to another computer. I tried to open my file.

It wasn't there.

It wasn't fucking there.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fucking FUCK. I went and found the lady with the Post-its, and communicated the sentiments contained in the previous sentence, only with less fucks. She couldn't pawn me off on the tech support guy fast enough. After some dicking around he concluded that I clicked 'open' and not 'save' when I edited my file, and doing so results in saving to your temporary internet files, which we all know disappear into existential nothingness as soon as we log off our computer, which I'm pretty sure violates the first law of Conservation of Mass or something, but what do I know?

I'm just about to have a seizure.

My throat feels like it's coated with something thick and bitter. I can feel my cheeks simultaneously colouring and palloring. My eyes are stinging. Tech Support Guy is determined to make this situation Not His Fault.

'You should never save things in temporary internet files, you know.'

'It wasn't my intention. I did hit print, after all.'

'Yes, well, we could hardly foresee the circumstances.'

'I know, tell me about it: expecting my document to print after I clicked the little button with the printer on it? Truly I've asked too much of you already.'

'There's no need to use sarcasm.'

'I don't use sarcasm. I embody it.'

'Whatever. Listen, when's it due?'

'Tomorrow.'

'What did you lose? The entire paper?'

'No, the paper itself is saved in my email. I've just lost all the references and bibliography.'

'Well, I'd look at it like this: You still have time to do it again! I mean, you've already put so much time and effort into this. What's another few hours?'

It is about here that I begin to cry hysterically.

Perhaps sensing that his next few choices could likely affect the chances of his name appearing in an article in tomorrow's newspaper which ends with the phrase, 'before turning the gun on herself,' Tech Support Guy launches into action. He immediately finds me a computer in a secluded place, and hovers over me, asking me if I need anything every 7-8 minutes. I suspect I could have made him fellate me if I'd the inclination or genitals. Unfortunately, I have to leave to go have lunch with Jess before I can finish. I should make it clear that the 'unfortunately' refers to my not having finished my re-editing, and not my lunch with Jess. Lunch with Jess was fan-fucking-tastic. Anyway, I emailed my paper to myself, and have Tech Support Guy show me how to properly save it to my account (I click the save icon approximately 65 times for good measure).

Later that night, I go to Boyfriend's to finish off the re-editing and print off the finished product (my printer prints in blue and yellow, if the starts are aligned particularly in my favour). Finally finishing the bibliography for the second time in about 8 hours, I hit print and a piece of me dies forever.

'Please read the message on your screen,' prompts the smug, sing-song and possibly latently homosexual Printer Voice. Yes, Boyfriend has a talking printer. I, too, smell a sitcom. Clicking 'continue' does nothing to rectify the situation and causes the voice to call out again, starting again from the beginning every time I click the button: 'P-P-P-P-Please read the message on your screen." Not a bad hook for a House beat, actually. Anyway, Boyfriend and Boyfriend's Brother examine the printer and it is unanimously concluded that the printer is a piece of fucking garbage and has mysteriously broken between now and the last time it was used, approximately 7 minutes before I came over to use it.

Fuck this noise. It's going to be fucking blue.

For the third time, I send the assignment to myself and go home. At 11:18 PM, nearly FIFTEEN hours after I began its revisions, I am holding a hard-copy in my grief-gnarled hands. The text is cerulean. It is still warm from the printer and already the cover page is stained with ink, dirt, and what I believe to be my own blood. But it is finished, and that is all I care about. I go to bed, a broken woman.

And now that you understand the stress I've been under, I hope you'll forgive me for my AWOLness. Oh, and finals start next week and I've already wasted way too much time doing this post, so there's probably going to be another dry spell. Don't worry though: the longer time intervals between the posts, the better the content. I'll be sure to save up my misfortunes for your amusement.

Leeches.

Self-fulfilling prophecy: When convinced of a specific outcome, a person may unconsciously alter events to ensure this outcome.

Guess what I learned this week?

Not only is it possible for you to be admitted to university while having the IQ of a brick of cream cheese, it is also possible to earn a doctorate in Chinese philosophy while in a similar state.

Meet, if you would be so kind, Dr. Hirohito*:
Professor of Religious Studies.
Expert in Confucianism.
Pompous Idiot.

*Names have been changed to protect the vacuous.

Read on, if you dare.

Dr. Hirohito is my Introduction to Buddhism professor. She is tiny, in her sixties, and composed entirely of barbed wire and dead puppies.

At first I lived in fear of her. She was nasty and abusive to anyone who made the fatal error of coming to class late (myself included), even after saying on the first day of classes that she did not mind. If you whisper, she berates you. If you rustle your paper, you're being insubordinate. As far as she is concerned, we are far too stupid to even be in her presence. She made this evident during the first week of classes:

"You are taught nothing in high school," she haughtily mused one day. "This is not your fault. Your teachers were lazy. They sleep in class, don't think I don't know what goes on in high school. Most of you can't even read." She holds up the magenta textbook for the course, about 150 pages thick. "Why do you think I gave you this little thing? If I gave you a real textbook, it would take you three years to read it!"

The entire class takes a moment to uncomfortably digest this. I take a moment to remember all the incredibly involved teachers I had in high school, and my bookshelf at home crammed with classic novels.

"I teach this class," she continues after a pause, "at a grade 9 level. If I taught this like a university course, you would fail it." I find this statement odd, as this is a second year course: We all had to pass a minimum of 10 university courses to take this class.

"Now," she continues after she's satisfied that she's adequately insulted us, "who can tell me what a closed system is?"

Someone raises their hand and explains: a closed system is a system of beliefs that explains any criticism by using the system. An example would be how Creationists do not believe in the Theory of Evolution. When presented with fossils of extinct animals, they say God put them there to throw scientists off. Fucking Creationists.

Anyway, Dr. Hirohito continues, apparently impressed that one of us had two brain cells to rub together. "Yes, that's right. You can't argue with people who are involved in closed systems because the arguments will always be absorbed by the system. All religions are closed systems..."

Ok, I think, this makes sense.

"... But so is psychology."

What? What?!

"Think about it: You go to your psychiatrist, and tell him you had a dream. He analyzes it and tells you it means something. The next day you go to him, and tell him you never dreamt at all last night. That means something too. Then you go to him and say you had a dream, but you can't remember it. That also means something. So psychology is a closed system." She smiles, obviously very pleased with herself.

...What the fucking fuck?

I'm not even sure where to begin with this. I suppose we can start with the fact that you do not go to psychiatrist to get your dreams interpreted, nor do you go to a psychologist. You go to a psychoanalyst, a tiny branch of pseudopsychology founded by Sigmund Freud that has no empirical value or scientific merit whatsoever and that 99.9% of psychologists wouldn't even wipe their asses with, let alone recognize as a science. In fact, if you were to call a psychologist a psychoanalyst, I'm pretty sure they would rip out your larynx with their teeth and then rape the hole in your throat. I know this because it took everything in my power not to do it.

Then I suppose we could tackle the fact that she is painting real psychology with the same brush as Freudian analyses, which is nothing like real psychology. Real psychologists study perception, memory, and the functioning of the brain. The only sensible way she could have come to this ineffably moronic opinion of psychology is if she was alive while Freud was doing his shit in Austria in the 1930's.

I briefly consider asking her what Vienna was like before the annex, but ultimately decide against it.

"This culture is ridiculous!" she continues. Actually, she probably started talking some time before this, I just couldn't hear with all the blood rushing past my ears. "Western society is heavily psychologized."

Psycholo-what?

"I love going to Taiwan. You know why? Because people all talk about responsibility" She says the last word slowly, as if it was in some alien tongue none of us had ever heard, "It's amazing. If someone does something bad over there, they are held responsible. Over here, it's 'oh, poor me, I was abused as a child, blah blah blah.' That's bull. There is no evidence that people who were abused as children grow up to be abusers themselves."

...Are you fucking serious?

I will grant that not everyone who is abused as a child becomes an abuser themselves, but not everyone who smokes gets cancer, either. I guess we're all good! Break out the DuMauriers!

"No one takes responsibility in this culture. People say the voices in their heads made them do it! Am I the only one who thinks this is equivocal to saying tiny green men from Mars are commanding you to kill?"

All right, so for those of you keeping score, not only do correlations less than +1.0 not exist, neither does schizophrenia. Amazing conclusions about the validity of psychology coming from someone with a doctorate in FUCKING CHINESE PHILOSOPHY.

"People aren't mentally ill or any of this garbage. They are evil. Plain and simple. Evil and nasty. It's just not politically correct to use these words anymore."

Oh yes, that's extremely scientific: People who do bad things are evil. Absolutely nothing caused this. They are just arbitrarily predisposed to do bad things. This is not biologically or psychologically based whatsoever. Yeah, she's totally right. No psychological disorders in Asia at all. Oh yeah, except Koro: the fear that one's penis will retract into the abdomen, causing death, which, I'm sure you'll agree isn't irrational AT ALL.

"In fact, I teach an entire course on psychology and Buddhism, if you want to take a third year course on the subject."

...

There is no God.

* * *


So, at my university, the person with the worst grasp on even the basic concepts of psychology I have ever encountered is teaching a course on it. I hope for the sake of whoever takes that course that they know nothing about psychology beforehand, otherwise they'll fail.

Oh, and I got a 93% on the first midterm. Guess where I lost my marks? The question on Buddhist psychology. Suppose I should have seen that coming.

I guess everyone did exceptionally well on the first midterm and this clashed with her perception of us as quasi-literate intellectual midgets, so on the second midterm she made exactly one half of the test from material from ONE lecture we had during a snowstorm that roughly three people attended. Unfortunately, I was not one of them. We should be getting it back tomorrow. I doubt I passed.

There's a psychological term for what she did, but I'm sure she wouldn't be interested. Clearly she'd just prefer to be labelled evil.

Psychoticism: The inability to empathize with the suffering of others.

On Monday morning, Boyfriend was in a car accident on his way to work. He was t-boned at an intersection and he spun around in the middle of the road. When the car stopped spinning and he got out of his car to help the other person out of theirs.

He stepped out just in time to see the guy flee the scene at about 110 miles an hour.

When I found out, I cried. I continued to cry for two days. He could have been killed, I kept thinking. My baby could have died and I would have never, ever gotten to see him again. Whoever was driving that car caused hundreds of dollars worth of damage to Boyfriend's vehicle, and nearly took away from me the dearest person to me on Earth, and they couldn't be bothered to even stop. For those 48 hours, I was miserable.

Then my thoughts began to shift to vicious, unadulterated scenarios of revenge.

It's only normal. The thoughts I had are, at best, unsuitable for minors and pregnant women, but it got me thinking about the nature of revenge.

When is vengeance appropriate?

How much comeuppance should you dole out?

Is revenge truly a dish best served cold?

To answer these questions, let's look at some famous people who have avenged the wrongs committed against them through the ages.

The Count of Monte Cristo

For anyone who hasn't read the seventeen-pound novel by Frenchman Alexandre Dumas (myself included), I will summarize the plot of the 2002 screen adaptation:

The guy who plays Jesus in the Passion of the Christ stars as nineteenth-century French sailor Edmund Dantes. He is totally framed for treason by Count Mondego. Dante goes to prison and Mondego promptly steals Dante's 'ho and son.

Dante spends an inordinate amount of time in a French prison, where he befriends a priest. The priest teaches him all about history, economics, art, and fencing. The priest informs him he owns a treasure map and together they try and break out. The priest dies, but gives Dante the map. Eventually Dante escapes and finds the treasure. There is a lot of fucking swag there and he beomes the richest man in Europe. He invents a fake title (The Count of Monte Cristo) and moves in next door to Mondego and Mercedes (Dante's former 'ho).

Dante basically mindfucks the shit of Mondego before taking his family from him and eventually stabbing the fuck outof him with his fencing mad skillz.

Comments: Excellent execution. The punishment fits the crime. Of course, after being in a French dungeon for two decades, Dante is batshit crazy, but you don't care because Mondego is an enormous prick.

How It Could Have Been Better: I think more could have been done to cause injury to Mondego's nuts.

Rating: 4.5 out of a possible 5 avenged corpses.

Mohandas K. Gandhi

This famous Indian Pacifist and his countrymen had perpetually been given the shaft by British colonialists. He led a non-violent revolution, knowing the British would beat the living fuck out of all of them. Video footage circulated the world of British soldiers brutalizing Indians who wouldn't even shield themselves in defense. The English were humiliated, and by 1949, India was its own country. You don't fuck with men in loincloths.

Comments: Less an act of revenge than one big mindfuck. Making the British out to be savages while the Indians came off as gentle, unassuming victims is the kind of irony that makes English majors everywhere swoon.

How It Could Have Been Better: Gandhi was surprisingly sparse on crude jokes about Winston Churchill's mother.

Rating: 4/5 avenged corpses.

Inigo Montoya

"My name ees Inigo Montoya. You kill my father. Prepare to die."

If you were born before 1992, I shouldn't have to explain this. If you weren't, you shouldn't be reading this website. I say a lot of swear words.

Comments: YES. FUCKING YES. Revenge at his finest. The beautifully executed swordfight. The witty banter and closing by return. The glaringly obvious stunt doubles. Genius.

How It Could Have Been Better: Let's not mess with perfection.

Rating: 5/5 avenged corpses. Literally.

Montresor

The central character of Edgar Allan Poe's classic short story The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor is one bad mother shut-yo-mouth. After repeatedly being mocked by his alcoholic aquaintance Fortunado, Montresor lures him into the catacombs under Rome with the promise of a bottle of some expensive wine. There, the crazy motherfucker buries Fortunado alive.

Comments: This is excessive. Sure, Fortunado is a snotty little manbitch, but he certainly didn't deserve this. Clearly Montresor is a few lines short of a sonnet.

How It Could Have Been Better: Come on. Couldn't Montresor have just pantsed Fortunado in front of the Duchess of Kent or something and called it even?

Rating: 1/5 avenged corpses.

Misogynistic Muslim Men Who Kill Their Slutty Daughters

Apparently in fundamentalist Muslim circles, it is really "the bee's knees" to brutally murder womenfolk who commit adultery. Or won't wear their hijabs. Or submit to arranged marriage. Or show their ankles. Or have independent thought.

Comments: I think I speak for everyone with a vagina when I say this doesn't jive. Yeah, I get the whole thing where a good Muslim woman is supposed to be submissive blah blah blah, but good Muslim men shouldn't hack people into bits either.

How It Could Have Been Better: I think we should arm the women with machetes and let the problem sort itself out.

Rating: 0/5 avenged corpses. For shame, uberMuslims.

The Writers of the Gospel According to John

Oh man, these guys totally had the last laugh. I mean, sure, their Saviour suffered a brutal death, but they made sure everyone knew those pesky Jews were to blame, setting them up for two millenia of racism, discrimination, and eventually mass genocide at the hands of pseudo-Christians. They even made everyone forget that Jesus himself was Jewish. Note the handsome Caucasian redhead depicted above.

Comments: The writers of John definitely win in terms of scale. However, this is another instance of the punishment not fitting the crime. I mean, couldn't they have just blamed one really good Jew? They'd have killed him to compensate and everything would have been peachy.

How It Could Have Been Better: I would have liked to have seen this executed by blaming a really obscure group of people. They could have had Jesus say something like, "sure, the Jews persecute me, but the REAL problem is those goddamned Jamaican-born Buddhists."

Rating: 1/5 avenged corpses.

My Mother

My father started banging the blonde chick who worked at the cosmetics counter of the department store he managed. Mom and Dad separated and a few months later, his car was 'mysteriously' keyed outside of my grade six graduation.

Comments: Fuck my childhood. Seriously.

How It Could Have Been Better: With my own stillbirth.

Rating: Negative Infinity/5 avenged corpses. Seriously. Fuck my parents.

There you have it. The best and worst of vengeance over the years. Some of it was good, some of it was bad. And some of it, I'm sure, will eventually cost me thousands and thousands of dollars in therapy. Fuck you, mom and dad.

Masochism: a sexual perversion characterized by pleasure in being subjected to pain or humiliation, especially by a love object.

You'd probably never say it from reading my blog, but I have a boyfriend. A good one, actually. We've been together since 2005 and there was no end in sight... Until last night.

Not because we're going to break up, but because I am likely going to kill him with my bare hands. Why? Come with me, and I shall explain in full.

As a seasoned veteran of all things love and lust, I will now go on record saying the following:

Gentleman, there come a few times in every male's life when it is completely acceptable for you to lie as you have never lied before to the one you love. In these situations, no court in the land would convict you, and even God would look at his third Commandment, shrug non-commitally and say, "Whatever. Rules are meant to be broken." These times include, but are certainly not limited to, the following scenarios:

• "Do you think my cousin is pretty?"
• "What do you think of my mother?"
• "Have I gained weight since (insert massively stressful, life-shifting event here)?"
• "Were your old girlfriends better looking than me?"
• "So... you never actually had sex with that sheep, right?"

...Actually, you might want to come clean on that last one. If that's something that would bother her, it's best to call it quits. If not, marry her first, ask questions later.

Anyway, this list is not even close to being exhaustive. Use your gut instincts. I'm certainly not suggesting you have a torrid gay love-affair and cover it up unabashedly. What I'm saying is that if your girlfriend is sporting a muffin-top over her pair of low-rise jeans, you are certainly not the person who should inform her of this, which brings me to my next point:

Ladies, if you don't want to know the answer, in the name of all that is good and holy, DON'T ASK. There is a subtle, albeit significant difference between, "YOU LYING SON OF A BITCH I KNOW YOU'RE SLEEPING WITH THE LANDSCAPER DON'T YOU LIE TO ME OH THINK OF THE CHILDREN WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN," and, "Baby, do you mind that my best friend in the world is a heterosexual male supermodel who's always been physically attracted to me and the bond he and I share completely outshines the romantic connection you and I have?"

Luckily, nature has a solution to this problem. Natural selection (your friend and mine) has ensured through millennia of evolution that men are emotional idiots. Likewise, women have developed into unnecessarily complex machines of psychological neediness. Ignoring the fact that this raises the deep philosophical question of how advanced we really are if nature just reins us back to stupid in the end, what does this mean for us?

Well, it explains why you see gorgeous, hilarious, otherwise intelligent women crying hysterically over their big, loud, stupid, unattractive husband/boyfriend/pimp who treats them like garbage, completely oblivious to the fact that, if this woman wasn't so needy and irrational, the second best thing to her they could obtain would be a ham sandwich.

It makes so much more sense now, doesn't it?

Sometimes, however, nature gives you mutants. Exhibit A: My boyfriend.

Have you ever seen those movies on TV with ancient Arabian princesses who get carried by four men on a day bed all around town and who are worshipped, pampered, and fed grapes by servants?

Those bitches had it rough compared to me.

My boyfriend absolutely adores me. I will be the first to admit this. I know you are probably skeptical; everyone is at first. But, after you see he and I together, you will quickly agree that there are Hindu deities that don't receive half the veneration. I have no idea why this is. I don't think I'm so fantastic. He would disagree, and frequently does. He is my biggest fan, my best friend, and--at 20 years old this is ridiculous-- I am convinced he would die for me.

Clearly he is in some way defective.

Exhibit B: Me.

I love my boyfriend. I really do. I would be absolutely devastated if anything ever happened to him. I would probably never get over it. But, if we were to break up tomorrow, I would be fine. Honestly, I have never understood why people get so hysterical after breaking up. Chill out. It's not like anyone is dead. As long as I know he is alive in this world, breathing, and happy, that is all I will ever need. Relationships are cool and all, but I am an individual outside of mine, and am therefore still complete even without it.

I believe Billie said it best when she observed, "Robyn, it's like you're the guy or something."

(I also forget anniversaries, initiate sex, and enjoy the humour of Dave Chappelle. I should probably just grow testicles and get it overwith.)

Anyway, what, you may ask, happens when you pair up a sweet, sensitive man and an unpossessive, psychologically masculine woman?

This:

Robyn: "Baby, if there was one thing about me you could change, what would it be?"
Boyfriend: "Nothing, babe. I love you just the way you are."
Robyn: "Yes, I know you love me, but I'm obviously not a perfect 10 or anything."
Boyfriend: "Well, I'd make you taller. I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings."
Robyn: "Boyfriend, YOU ARE SIX AND A HALF FEET TALL. I'm 5'4 in heels. That goes without saying. Try again."
Boyfriend: "There's really nothing!"
Robyn: "Hips?"
Boyfriend: "No, they're fantastic."
Robyn: "Butt."
Boyfriend: "I love it."
Robyn: "Breasts?"
Boyfriend: "How could you even ask me that? They're perfect!"
Robyn: "Thighs?"
Boyfriend: "Well, yeah, they're pretty big."
Robyn: "What?!"
Boyfriend: "You said to be honest!"
Robyn: "Really?! Of all the things that are wrong with my body you choose my thighs. That was possibly the one body part I had left that I didn't despise."
Boyfriend: "I'm sorry! They're not that bi--"
Robyn: "SHUT UP. Shut. Up."
Boyfriend: "You're mad."
Robyn: "I'm not mad."
Boyfriend: "Then where are you going??"
Robyn: "I have to go sit down before my femurs are ground to dust under the weight of my haunches."

You see? YOU SEE?? There is no normal but the abnormal. You're pretty much screwed no matter how masculine or feminine you are. The only difference is that in a normal couple, the woman would cry for days after this and possibly be unable to wear shorts in public for the rest of her natural life, and the man would somehow try to justify what he said, because as we all know, things with penises never make mistakes. In my relationship, Boyfriend will be the one miserable for a week, and I'm sitting here thinking, "My thighs are only big because I have a round bottom. One cannot exist without the other. If anything, this is his fault for buying me dinner all the time."

Opportunities for driving the guilt home must never be wasted. My plan is to reference this incident at least once every hour until one of us goes insane and butchers the other one with an ice pick. Likely scenarios include:

Boyfriend: Robyn, would you like to go out tonight?"
Robyn: "Can't. The people from Guinness are coming over tonight to take the circumfrence of my left leg. Don't want to jinx it, but we might have hit paydirt!!"

Boyfriend: "Robyn, why are you standing so far away from me?"
Robyn: "I'm sorry, darling. I just don't want to ensnare you in my orbital pull."

Boyfriend: "Robyn, the guilt is too much and, unable to sustain it any longer, I plan to take my own life. Do you have a length of rope I could borrow?"
Robyn: "Of course, I store many objects, great and small, in the disgusting, fatty folds OF MY GROTESQUELY OVERSIZED THIGHS."

You can already see what fun this will be. This, however, considering the planned rate of execution, I will get maximally three hours out of this material. Here's where you guys come in:

Make fun of my thighs. Post it here, laugh over it, bond, and I will happily take these barbs and use them to psychologically torture my boyfriend.

Cheers!

Inferiority Complex: A sense of inadequacy or tendency to self-diminishment, resulting in excessive aggressiveness through overcompensation.

Consider this more of a rant than a blog entry. I'm edgy like that.

In my relatively short time on this planet, I have been subject to the company of some pretty moronic individuals. People who were anti-Semitic, misogynistic, homophobic, and god-knows-what-else have bestowed their stupid, uninformed opinions on me unsolicited, but I have shrugged them off with ease. Why? For the same reasons I just stated: These people, like their opinions, are fucking idiots. It's not their fault. A poor upbringing, bad education, and more than likely a shallow, shallow gene pool have led them to their conclusions, so they know no better. This is not the problem.

No. What is really, truly terrifying are some of the opinions held by people with educations: People I go to university with; individuals who were at the top of their class in high school and are destined to be the architects, engineers, physicians, and politicians of the next generation.

Strangely, there is one gratuitously idiotic idea I keep hearing over and over again. Be warned, I'm about to reproduce it here. Vacate the room of any animals, children and pregnant women. It's about to get stupid all up in here:

"The English language should be standardized."

You read that correctly, I shit you not. There are people in an institution of higher learning that truly believe this. For anyone who needed it, this should be sufficient evidence that it is possible to earn a university degree, all the while being dumb as rocks.

I can say, as someone who never uses hyperbole at all under any circumstances, the following:

This is the stupidest thing anyone has ever said about anything, EVER. (In case you were interested, the number 2 spot goes to whichever member of the Khmer Rouge said, 'Hey, you know what Cambodia absolutely does NOT need? People with educations.')

On the off-chance you really don’t see why this is stupid and/or have recently sustained blunt-force trauma to the head, let me lay it down for you:

1) The English language is not static.

Contrary to the ethnocentric beliefs of most middle-class white people, Early Man did not climb down from the canopy of some pre-historical rain forest, immediately assume an erect posture and then say, “Good evening, fellows. Excellent weather we’re having. Pity about Ugg and the Mastodon. He only dragged his wife by the hair into his cave last week.”

Language took nearly a million years to evolve. And it’s stupid, egocentric and ignorant to believe it has stopped evolving now that we have English. Obviously, Western Civilization is not the apex of evolution. English evolves even with generations. Listen to old news reels from the 1940’s and pay close attention to that funny-sounding, nasal way of speaking the newscasters have. Do you know anyone who speaks like that now? Nope. The language has changed, albeit subtly, in sixty years.

2) The English language hasn’t always been English.

Are you ready for this? Are you sure? Are you sitting? Ok, here it goes:

They didn’t always speak English in England.

All right, for those of you whose heads did not implode at this revelation, let’s continue.

In reality, “English,” or the groups of successive dialects that have arbitrarily been marked as “English”, have only existed for about 900 years. Before that, we had Middle English (slight similarities but with very different vowel sounds), before that, Old English (which sounded more like German or Swedish than anything else) and before that, Old Norse, which sounds like something of which you could not possibly conceive. There is no one day when Old English became Middle English or when Middle English became what we speak today, just like there’s no one instant at which humans evolved from monkeys. It’s a constant, gradual process, and standardizing it is akin to sauntering up to the continent of Australia and saying, “Fuck continental drift. You’re staying right here.”

3) If, for some reason, everyone who matters on Earth went retarded at the same time and decided to ‘standardize English,’ they wouldn’t pick your dialect, you pseudo-intellectual prat.

The series of dialects North Americans speak are relatively new ones (with some exceptions—see below), yet when these people talk about standardizing English, their tiny, egocentric brains assume without question that their dialect is the ‘right’ one. Sorry, morons. You’d be relearning your dialect with the rest of us. Most likely, the honour would go to what has long (erroneously) been considered the archetype of proper language: The Queen’s English, an upper-class dialect whose native speakers comprise about 2% of the population of Britain. Hope you bitches like scones.

4) Really? Fucking really?

Look, if you’re going to standardize English, why don’t we just go and standardize religion or race or something? As I recall, some dude a few decades back tried to standardize eye and hair colour. I can’t remember how it all played out, but I’m sure there was no downside. Remember, folks: If someone isn’t exactly like you, they are inferior.



"My, Robyn," you may be saying, "you are awfully passionate about this subject. Why on Earth do you care so much?" There is a very good reason for this, and I shall explain fully in the event that I am really huge in Korea or something and no one understands the cultural implications this has in the part of the world I am from (What? It's not impossible...):

I live in a place called Newfoundland. It's a rocky little island in the North Atlantic and a province of Canada, though when I say 'province,' I really mean, 'source of non-renewable resources for Mainland Canada' (Also part of the problem; I'm getting there.)

The island was discovered by explorer/ Italian bad-ass Giovanni Caboto (Anglophonized: John Cabot) in 1497 and claimed it for England, though Nova Scotians claim he landed there. Don't listen to them. By 1510, Newfoundland had permanent fishing settlements and has been continually inhabited ever since.

The people who came to Newfoundland to fish were people who couldn't own land in Great Britain. People from the South of England and all over Ireland came to settle here, where they were promised land of their own.

What resulted is the wet dream of any student of linguistics.

Because Newfoundland is an island, and was therefore relatively isolated, and experienced very little cultural diversity, the English spoken here has changed very, very little over the last 500 years. Fun fact: Henry VII, the King at the time of Newfoundland's discovery, was Queen Elizabeth I's grandfather, who was BFF with William Shakespeare. Many linguists have noted that the dialect of English spoken here is nearly identical to the English that Shakespeare himself would have used. That is how fucking old this dialect is. Cool, right? Wait for it.

Newfoundland was a Dominian of Great Britain until we confederated with Canada in 1949, but India had to go and steal our goddamn thunder and gain independance the same year, so no one knows, nor do they care. Many Newfoundlanders decided that instead of living the way they and their ancestors had for centuries: no money, little education, back-breaking labour-- they would go to mainland Canada and try to make a better life for their families.

When these men got off the airplane in Toronto, Ontario with an accent that wasn't quite English and wasn't quite Irish and probably little more than a grade 3 education, many mainland Canadians promptly decided that Newfoundlanders were the stupidest people they had ever come across. Ironically, the accent became associated with ignorance, and even today we're the butts of all sorts of jokes and other equally idiotic things.

If you’re still awake, there’s a point to all this: The people who have said to me that English should be standardized are Newfoundlanders. Their grandparents talked like this. Their parents still talk like this. Would you like to know their reasons for hating our native dialect?

They also think the Newfoundland accent sounds unintelligent.

Does anyone else detect the extensively ironic nature of this, or is it just me?

The stereotypes that exist about Newfoundland English are so bad that presently, unless you were born in some obscure little harbour, you are trained to not use your accent as soon as you enter school. For some people, this is impossible and will speak with a Newfoundland accent until the day they die. Others (myself included, I am a little shamed to admit) do not use their accent in formal settings, simply out of habit. This is not to say I do not have an accent. Sociologists have noticed that, when a person who is not speaking in their native tongue or dialect becomes passionate in some way: angry, excited, scared, etc., they will revert back to their native dialect. I do this, as do most people I know.

The people I know who dislike my accent will often stop me in mid-sentence when I am speaking animatedly about something to say, “do you realize you just said [insert local colloquialism/ thickly accented phrase here]????”

NO.

NO I DID NOT.

GO BLOW SOMEONE.

I cannot help it. I shouldn’t have to help it. A far more pertinent question would be, “Why the FUCK do you care??”

Are you so insecure about how you are viewed by close-minded, uncultured, moronic, egocentric pseudo-intellects from mainland Canada and abroad that you would persecute and chastise an ancient dialect native to your home so they’ll pat you on your stupid, ass-kissing heads?

I am an intelligent person. I hope you can tell this by knowing me. If you don’t know me, I hope you can tell this by reading what I write. I hope to make academia my career. For someone to tell me my ideas are not valid because a bunch of snobs arbitrarily decided they do not like the way I sometimes speak is preposterous. But I’m not worried. Intelligent people—truly intelligent people—will evaluate me on what I say, not the way in which I say it.

I may sound like a moron, but that beats the hell out of actually being one.

One final note: I have yet to find a prominent Newfoundland Rhodes scholar who did not speak with a Newfoundland accent. I hope the guys who think Newfoundland English makes you sound stupid let me know when they get their letter from Oxford.

Passive-aggression: Behavior in which feelings of aggression are expressed in passive ways as, for example, by online blog posts.

Dear Bitch at Work I Hate (Henceforth Known As BaWIH),

You and I need to clarify some things. Namely, these are:

1) You are not my boss. You aren't even the full-time employee in my department. You are on exactly equal footing with me. If anything, I am higher on the pecking order than you, as I have seniority in the department, as well as The Mills in general. Yet, you insist on tell me how to do my job. Please go fuck yourself with something rusty.

2) Your IQ is roughly similar to the temperature outside today. It is February, and it is below freezing. This means you would need to gain intelligence just to be brain-dead. I hope this terrifies you at least half as much it frightens me. When I talk to you, I can actually feel my brain cells desperately trying to clamber out my ears in a vain attempt to escape your vacuous stupidity. Your obscene number of offspring will undoubtedly be the undoing of the race as we know it, because if that many children carry your genetic material into the future, I estimate it will only be another 4-5 generations before all human beings once again interact using grunts and blunt-force head trauma. You are the downfall of Darwinian evolution.

3) You seem to be under the impression that, when you badmouth me behind my back, it will not get back to me. This is rather unfortunate for you, as you seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that everyone hates you. When you say things about me, these people tell me. This is attributable to the fact that I have with these individuals a social relationship built on mutual respect and admiration. They are known as 'friends' in sociological circles. I have many. You have none. Bear that in mind the next time you make up rumours.

4) You need to stop complaining about everything. It is annoying, it wastes time, and I generally want to force-feed you the heavy duty stapler when you do it. You always marvel at how I manage to accomplish so much work in so little time. My secret: SHUTTING THE FUCK UP FOR TWENTY GODDAMN SECONDS.

5) There's another setting on your makeup mirror. It's called 'daytime'.

While I would go on, literally, for the next four days rambling about how you are unequivocally perversely stupid, and your constant bitchery has classically conditioned me to want to vomit uncontrollably at the sound of your stupid, stupid voice, I will condense my message as best I can. It is simply this:

Your husband doesn't beat you enough.

BaWIH, I have tried many, many times to find a good quality in you somewhere. I have been able to do this with even the people I do not get along with. These qualities are not always immediately evident, but in the end, I always find them.

I pretty much gave up on you when you said I should leave my boyfriend because he has bad knees.

It is with a heavy heart I concede that it is outside lawfulness to fire someone simply because they are a heartless shell of a human being. However, that doesn't mean I cannot hate you, or laugh at you when you say something painfully moronic. And I will forever content myself with the knowledge that I am only 20 years younger than you, but you look old enough to be my grandmother.

Get stabbed,

Robyn
xoxox

Delusions of grandeur: The erroneous belief that one is greater or more influential than they really are.

Have you ever been at work, minding your own business-- perhaps performing some menial, repetitive task as we partially educated twenty-somethings are often forced to do—when, all of a sudden, your charismatic, strikingly attractive co-worker saunters up to you, flashes you an impossibly white smile, and asks you to accompany him on a romantic candle-lit dinner at a French restaurant?

...What’s it like?

Perhaps not surprisingly, things do not work out this way for me. Ever. To make the above scenario remotely plausible for my life, we would need to replace “charismatic” with “socially inept”, and “strikingly attractive”, with “mildly to moderately mentally retarded”... Oh, and “white smile” with “no teeth”.

Don’t believe me? I present, for your reading pleasure, Exhibit A:

I work in a dead end, menial, minimum wage-paying job at a nepotistic, autocratic, quasi-slavering box store I shall henceforth refer to as The Mines. My job requires light computer work, repetitive tasks, and what I am fairly certain is the constant, methodical extraction of my soul by upper management to be used for what I can only assume are Satanist rituals to appease the restless spirit of Walt Disney.

And it’s a night shift. Seriously, for $8 an hour, the company gets its money’s worth.

The only things I can really say I enjoy about my job are the people I work with. The night crew are great. We have lots of fun at work because the store is closed, and generally speaking, loud conversations about sodomy tend to go over better when there are no customers to hear them.
I should also mention I am the only female on the entire night staff. This would probably perturb most normal women. Luckily, I don’t fit that mould. I find my lack of Y-chromosomes gives me a special place in the hierarchy of the crew: I am exempt from filthy comments the guys usually hurl at each other, and am generally treated with a level of respect virtually unknown to the male portion of the staff.

However, this only applies to the employees who work for The Mines. The company hires out two employees from a cleaning company to mop and wax the floors after the store closes. It should be noted that I use the term “employees” loosely. For their protection, we will call them George and Jeb. If I can describe them adequately, it will certainly be the highlight of my literary career, but I will try.

Okay. Are you familiar with Peking Man? The Neanderthal hominid monkey-creature that was unearthed in Beijing?

George and Jeb may be his primitive ancestors.

They are brothers, and my very limited knowledge of medicine leads me to believe they both suffer from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, autism, brain damage, inbreeding, or any combination thereof. I have known them nearly four years. For the first three and a half, I didn’t know they could speak. When they finally did begin to speak, it became evident that George had a severe lisp and Jeb has an even worse stutter. They are both somewhere in their twenties. Jeb has no teeth. George’s are brown. Neither of them are above 5 feet tall. They stare and leer and seem to have absolutely no inkling that this is socially inappropriate. They frantically hump both inanimate objects and each other.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before one of them fell desperately in love with me.

I realized something was different when I came in for my shift one night, said ‘hello’ to George as I usually did, and he actually responded. Even more astounding, every time he saw me for the rest of the night, he smiled. Sure, his teeth are the colour of feces, but at least it was an effort.
Soon, it was 4 am and time for our break. The other guys on the night crew told me to go sit down in the breakroom, they’d be over in a minute. I took out my snack and very unceremoniously began stuffing my face. My mouth was still blocked when George appeared in the doorway, saying something very incoherent, as per usual.

I nodded and smiled as I usually do when someone with a severe speech impediment speaks to me and I have absolutely no clue what they’re saying. This time, however, George looked a little frustrated at my vacant smile. I asked him to repeat himself, and then took another bite of my bagel.

“Wuhh u wike an flfghgdhhg”

Riiiiiiiiight.

Mouth still full, I raise my eyebrows in such a way as to convey my complete misunderstanding.

“WOULD-YOU-WIKE-TO-GO-OUT-SOMETIME-WOBYN” he nearly shouted, as though I were the stupidest person he’d ever come across.

Fuuuuccccck. My mouth was still full and the guy who had just asked me out is pretty much as gross as you possibly can be while your cells still perform cellular respiration.

I nearly choked on my mouthful of bagel trying to swallow it. It was taking me a long time to answer, and the long silence seemed to suggest to George that I was formulating a long, eloquent, painfully romantic acceptance, and a smug grin was creeping across his face. Finally, I could speak.

“Well, I think I would be in trouble. I have a boyfriend.” I managed. Instantly, his face fell.

“Oh.” He said. He turned on his heel and literally ran out the door.

“Thanks, though!” I called after him.

For the next twenty minutes, I alternated between extreme guilt, and hysterical laughter.

That was three months ago. He hasn’t spoken to me since.

So ladies, if anyone is in the market for a short, anti-social, lisping, creepy, intellectually impaired sexual deviant, you will be pleased to know I have jilted your Prince Charming. Feel free to claim him. I will do my best to repress the angry beast of my jealousy.

Hysteria: A mental disorder characterized by emotional excitability and a physical deficit or condition, without an organic cause.

It began with stew.

I hate stew. Gravy turns my stomach. Carrots? Fuck that. But, last week, I wanted nothing more than to devour roughly 78 gallons of the stuff.

This, in itself, would have been unremarkable had it not been for a few other simultaneous ailments: I was perpetually tired. Funny pains in my stomach and head plagued me for days. I peed, conservatively, every 13 seconds or so. And I spent most of last Wednesday sobbing for reasons I still don't understand.

Then, one evening, I was shot in the face at close range with a moment of bone-chilling realization:

I must be pregnant.

It was the only explaination. I mean, sure, I've never once engaged in unprotected sex in my life, but that's totally immaterial. What matters is that I have a mass of fuzzy, generic symptoms that are much more easily attributable to more likely causes, such as stress or a mild infection!

Of course, I turned to the only place one can turn when they need their half-baked ideas reinforced through questionable sources: Google.

"Pregnancy symptoms" returned approximately 6.02 x 10^23 hits. The first five told me all I needed to know:

• Fatigue. Yes! I'm tired all the time. And there's no good reason. I only take a full courseload at university, volunteer with two different organizations, maintain Dean's List grades and work a weekly night shift.
• Nausea. Well... not exactly. But, now that you mention it, I do feel funny...
• Dizziness and Fainting. Uh, no. But really, this is the Internet. How much faith can I really put into something I see online?
• Thinking You Are Pregnant. Oh my GOD! I totally think this. I LOVE THE INTERNET.
• Headaches or Stomach Cramps, and Frequent Urination. Okay. To be completely fair with myself, I had, and still do have these, and I have no idea why.
• Late or Missed Menstrual Period. Oh yeah, that. Forgot about that.

I thought about the last one, and I honestly wasn't sure. I don't keep track of my cycle, because that's what my best friend, Billie, is for. I wish I were kidding. She's like a Palm Pilot with breasts and 94 pairs of shoes.

After a weekend of letting my thoughts grow steadily more absurd whilst tumbling in my head, I returned to school on Monday. Billie and I had a biology lab and were, as per usual, talking in lieu of actually doing any science. Today, however, this wasn't our fault. We were studying the composition of the amniote egg, and, for reasons I still don't fully comprehend, this required us to boil one in a 750 ml beaker on a hot plate. We sat waiting for the water to come to a boil.

"Billie," I began, "I think I could be pregnant."

"How?"

"Right now, I'm working under the 'microscopic hole in condom' theory."

"You're not pregnant, Robyn," Billie insisted as she pulled a piece of gum from her purse and popped it into her mouth."

"How do you know??"

She looked a little annoyed now. "Because," she retorted, "You just had your period."

"What?"

She looked quizzical. "Yeah, you were due to have it last week."

White lights suddenly filled my periphery. I guess that's what happens when your heart LURCHES INTO YOUR FUCKING THROAT.

"Robyn," Billie said, with a tremulous inflection, "you did have your period last week, right?"

I was unable to reply, leaving ample time for Billie to make the comforting observation:

"I know a guy who was concieved after the sperm got past a condom, spermicide, and birth control pills."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - --

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the Student Center of the University, alternating between fits of blinding terror and selecting baby names. I was surrounded by Billie, other best friend Will, and The Ex, who was observing me with the kind of rueful smugness that can only be felt by someone who feels they've dodged the mother of all bullets. Did I mention I fucking hate The Ex?

"Well," observed Will, "sucks to be you."

Supressing the urge to backhand him, I went back to my quiet trembling.

"Robyn," Billie said, "If you're really bothered by this, you should take a pregnancy test."

I perked up at the idea. Of course! Why hadn't I thought of this before? Off we sped to the nearest drug store.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Few things epitomize class like taking a pregnancy test in a mall bathroom while your best friend wrings her hands nervously outside the stall.

"How are you doing in there?" she asked.

"Fine," I lied. I positioned myself the way the enclosed manual instructed and--

"Fuck!" I cried from inside the stall.

"What??" said Billie, "Are you pre-"

"No, I missed."

"You what?"

"My pee did not make contact with the stupid stick. I missed." It's times like this when you consider how much more adaptive a penis would be in such a situation, and it makes you want to completely dismiss the Theory of Evolution.

"Well," said Billie, "can you... pee again?"

"Nope, I tried."

Defeated, we trudged back to the University.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - -- -- - -- - -

Thirty minutes later, I was struck with urge to pee again. Billie and I bolted to the nearest bathroom and I went in for Attempt #2.

This time, I was successful.

Moments later, I emerged from the bathroom, triumphantly, holding high the negative pregnancy test. Billie beamed, and I breathed for what I'm fairly certain was the first time in four days. However, the contentedness was not to last.

"But, your period is still late!" cried Billie after we'd celebrated ever so briefly, "And you're still peeing all the time."

"Who cares??" I replied, "Whatever's wrong with me, it's a thousand times better than being killed with a shovel by your mother and then buried in your backyard under cover of darkness."

"..."

All right. Maybe I do think too much.