How to Make It Feel Like It's Canada Outside When It's Not

For me, winter usually means 6 months of cold and snow and wearing long pants. I am used to white Christmases, toboganning on Christmas break, layering, frozen eyelashes, bundling up, being able to see your breath, and walking through snowdrifts.

Winter in Canada

 

Well. I am currently living in the Philippines (if you didn't know that already go here to get the scoop). It is 30 degrees Celsius pretty much every day, and stinking humid all the time. I've worn jeans once since I got here (and came to the conclusion that that was a mistake), and I almost never wear sweaters or socks.

Yet I've figured out a few ways that I can still have little tastes of Canadian winter, even though I'm in a tropical country. And if you follow the suggestions below, you can experience some Canadian winter too. Just... be prepared to use your imagination. ;)

Winter in the Philippines

 

1. Go running in the 30 degree heat and humidity. Once you've started to sweat a bit, just imagine that you've been tobogganing for a few hours and have worked up a sweat climbing up the toboggan hill so many times, and now you're at the point when your three layers and snowsuit feels kind of stifling. You're just going to have to use your imagination on the frozen nose and fingertips, though.

2. Go inside your apartment. Shut and cover every door and window so you can't see outside. Turn on all the Christmas lights, and crank up the air conditioning (or "aircon" as it's called here). Make some hot chocolate, and then cuddle up with a good book. Try to ignore the fact that you are wearing shorts and a tank top.

3. Stick your head in the freezer. Ignore the smell of frozen meats, and just bask in the numbness in your nose and the frost on your eyelashes.

4. Get some white paper. Cut out some circles from the paper. Then fold the circles in half, and then half again. Cut shapes all the way around the outside. Unfold, and you have snowflakes! It's even more like snow if you count all the tiny little white scraps all over the floor from the shapes you cut out.

5. Get some marshmallows somehow. Stick three together with a toothpick. Decorate with raisins. You made a snowman!

Yeah... not really comparable to a real Canadian winter, but you've just got to make do with what you have I guess. :) What's winter like for you where you are? 

How Books Influenced Me To Do Things In Real Life

Books have influenced my life a lot. The other day when I saw Willow and Twig by Jean Little on a library shelf, I was reminded just how much.

Storytime!

When I was in probably grade four or five, my best friend and I both ended up reading Willow and Twig. We fell in love with the book and the characters. But we especially fell in love with the character of Red Mouse. Red Mouse was an imaginary friend that Willow had in her head and that she would talk to. It was basically a fictional version of her own thoughts.

Well, my friend and I liked this idea so much that we created our own imaginary friends stuck inside our heads. I think hers was a fish, and mine was a mouse named Rascal. I'm pretty sure I "talked" to him even in middle school sometimes.

I also ended up writing a picture book based on the character Red Mouse (one of the only two pieces of fanfiction I've ever written, incidentally - the other one was Bionicles fanfiction, which you can read here).

Then I was reminded of the Babysitters Club Books. My friend and I went crazy over these books. We tried to set up a BSC library, which was just a painted cardboard box that we were going to stuff all of the BSC books that we could get ahold of inside. We also tried to set up our own babysitter's club (unforunately at the conception of this idea, we were too young to babysit).

These things kind of just make me think of how strong of an influence books can have. I think they're a lot more powerful than we sometimes think they are.

What are some ways books have influenced you to do things in real life? Also, if you haven't read Willow and Twig yet, go do that! It is a beautiful book, and just looking at the cover brings back warm memories of reading it.

Love Letter to Books, Writing and Imagination

Yesterday  I started reading a book. Threeish hours later, I finished the book - and it was amazing. It was one of those books that opens you up to the world, gives you a fresh persepective on life and puts into words things that you knew but could never quite describe on your own. 

I felt like dancing around singing "I love books. I LOVE books." And I really do. They are so powerful, both in fiction and non-fiction form.

Anyway, today I was thinking of how much influence books have had on my life, ever since I was really young. Before I went into kindergarten, I knew how to read. I also loved to write and use my imagination. I'm sure a big part of the development of my imagination came from reading books. Yes, my imagination has gone running off on its own sometimes, but sometimes it's helped me.

A few months ago I was going through some old school stuff and found a bunch of random notebooks from grade 6. Grade 6 was the year where at first I had no friends, and then slowly I became best friends with this one girl, and then others. Anyway, this one girl and I spent our lunch hours... playing pretend. We made up an entire kingdom, and we were the Princesses Emerald and Topaz, based off our birthstones. We had an entire world, I tell you. The notebooks I found had notes outlining this world.

Another game of pretend that we played was during the winter. Snowplows would come during the winter and clear off the snow from the school grounds, and then huge piles of snow would be piled up on the school field. My friend and I used the huge piles of snow and made a fort for ourselves.

That was another thing I found in the notebooks. Apparently, some guys were bugging us and destroying our fort or something. In my notebook were nicknames for these guys and plans for "missions" that would thwart their bullying.

Yeah... I was a strange kid.

Anyway, as I was looking over this notebook, it made me wonder. At the time, it was all just fun and that was how I spent my free time at school. I never considered myself a victim of bullying, and I wasn't bothered by it. Yet as I was looking through these notebooks, I thought that maybe that was how I dealt with these bullies, though subconsciously. I made up things, and used my imagination to deal with them. It's a very curious thing, and it kind of makes me want to go back and psychoanalyze my 12-year-old self.

Even after middle school, my imagination and my writing and reading helped me. In grade 10, I wrote a lot of poems (well, a lot of poems for me) that helped me express things. And I still haven't stopped using imagination, writing and reading to help me. I am beyond grateful for all of these things.

So, I want to know. How has writing and/or reading and/or your imagination helped you throughout your life??

Oh, and I'm 18 now (as of May 3). That is why my thoughts have all of a sudden turned wistful and philosophical. (Haha). :D Have a great day, everyone!

Living Inside Your Head Sometimes Is Harmful to Your Health

Source

OK, so my imagination already gives me ENOUGH troubles. But somehow it is the root of the cause of another overactiveimaginationitis-related disease. Namely, zoningoutitis. It is also known as "Staring Blankly Into Space" or "Checking Out Of The Normal, Alive World To A More Interesting World Inside The Head". Yeah, there are wikipedia articles on those guys, that's how legitimate they are (ha!).

Anyway, it's not MY fault my brain is so interesting. I mean, the things it thinks up...

For instance, I could be innocently washing off my bike with Automotive Cleaner and then all of a sudden I am launched into a world where I am an automotive cleaner entrepreneur, and my automotive cleaner has the motto/instruction "For Bikes and Stuff". Then, in this world in my brain, someone uses the cleaner for "and Stuff", it ends badly, and suddenly I am being sued and while being interviewed about this tragedy by the press I tell them that I just used that phrase because I thought it was funny and-

So yeah, I COULD be thinking something as crazy as that (heheh) until my brother could hypothetically spray me with the hose.

Or I could be thinking about all my cool blog readers and my cool blog ideas that are currently simmering, and then I wake up to find myself with a teaspoon of baking soda in my fingers and realizing I've forgotten I'm doubling the recipe for banana chocolate chip muffins AGAIN. I mean, hypothetically, this could be one of my zoningoutitis episodes. Hypothetically. Ahem.

So, with no further ado, THINGS TO LOOK FOR WHEN CONSIDERING YOU COULD POSSIBLY HAVE ZONINGOUTITIS. (Oh, and for those of you who have trouble reading smushedtogetherwords, that's zoning-out-itis).

PEOPLE  WAVING A LOT MORE

There is a strange fad sweeping the nation! It's not the weirdness of planking (seriously what the heck is with that?) but an even stranger trend: people are constantly waving their hands in front of your face! This is also usually accompanied by loud, "Hello?? HELLO!?? Um, [Your Name]!?!?!??"

But are you mistaken? Are you sure this isn't just a case of you ZONING OUT, and supposed fad-follower is just trying to get your attention? Examine these situations closely, people!

AN INCREASE IN BAD DRIVING

The number of times lately that you have almost been run over by a car, or a bike, or a bus, or really any moving vehicle, is getting to be too many to count! But, hey, look closer. Was it really the DRIVER of said bike/car/bus/cat? Or maybe you were thinking about how the entire world could be a hologram hiding another planet (kind of like The Matrix) and you stepped of the curb a little too soon.

PEOPLE MUMBLE FREQUENTLY

You have to say "What?" after pretty much every other sentence anyone says to you. You think that people really need to stop mumbling and SPEAK UP. But, wait. Are you REALLY paying attention to what people are saying? Or are you thinking of that bike rack you saw in Calgary that was loop-de-loop shaped, and how it would be really cool if you had a unicycle-riding lemur so it could ride the loops on the rack on its unicycle?

YOU END UP IN STRANGE PLACES A LOT MORE

You are suddenly staring at a teaspoon of baking soda that you don't remember filling up. You find yourself at the fridge, ready to pour yourself a nice cold glass of milk and- wait, why are you holding a plate!? Yeah, if you find yourself standing on a sidewalk somewhere, blinking and then going "How in the world did I get here?" then this is probably how it went:

8 AM LOCATION OF YOU: At home.
8:30AM-1:45 PM: LOCATION OF YOU: In your head.
2:00PM: LOCATION OF YOU: WHOA WHERE AM I!?!?

So, if you notice ANY of these things in your life, I am sorry to inform you but...

You are a sufferer of zoningoutitis. It's okay. We're all in this together. If you feel the need, go see your doctor for extra information and support. But I believe that the best thing for you to do is to reach out to the zoningoutitis sufferer community. We are here for you. We are all friends here, and we can help each other get through this. I promise.

*Disclaimer: I AM NOT A DOCTOR IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM. aka I am not qualified to make diagnoses.
---

Note: all  very hypothetical (ahem) imaginings are courtesy of my brain, except for the lemur cyclist one which is courtesy of my brother.

Why Having An Overactive Imagination Is Kind of A Problem

Source

There are things to be said about having an imagination that constantly overuses and outdoes itself. Yeah, sure, there are good things like being able to write amazing crazy stories and think up crazy answers to the questions kids might ask you about life just to spice things up, or you come up with a crazy explanation for the cottony fluff floating from the sky with your brother (it's from trolls that eat snow and spit out fluff after they boil it in a magic pot, or something like that).

But there are also problems with living with an overactive imagination when you want to, you know, LIVE A NORMAL LIFE. Here are some problems I've encountered:

YOU BELIEVE CRAZY STORIES

Like, when your French teacher tells you that there's a subway in the basement of your school, you kind of believe her because you can actually imagine a subway rumbling through the basement of your school. Or you believe things your dad tells you when trying to trick you, and then you are destined to be endlessly made fun of by your brother and dad.

YOU MAKE UP CHARACTERIZATIONS FOR EVERYTHING

Apparently, characterizing everything from individual numbers, to individual letters, to your contact lenses... (WHAT NO I DON'T DO THIS... *ahem*) is not the kind of thing a normal person does. But come on, you can't argue that the number nine is pompous, right?

HYPERVENTILATING WHILE BABYSITTING

I was sitting drinking my orange juice while watching the little one-year-old I was babysitting stab at his oatmeal, and take forever to snag ONE OAT on his spoon and then proceed to suck it off his spoon. (If he kept at it like this, it was going to take forever until his oatmeal was gone). It was all good until he started coughing. *IMAGINATION TAKEOVER*: "OH NO WHAT IF HE STARTS CHOKING AND I CAN'T DO CPR AND I HAVE TO CALL 911 AND THEN HE HAS TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL HIS PARENTS WILL KILL ME AND FIRE ME AND I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO BABYSIT AGAIN *deep breath*... oh. He's laughing. Um. Yeah."

CREEPY STORIES COME ALIVE WHILE HOME ALONE AT NIGHT

House: Creak.
Me: whatwasthat.
House: CREAK!
Me: It's a robber, it MUST be a robber. He's going to come in the house and point a gun at my face, and I will have to lunge for the phone while kicking him in the face no wait I can't do that I've never taken any martial arts he'll probably kill me instead WHY ARE ALL THE LIGHTS OFF!?!? The robber's here and he's cut the power!! AUGH!!
House: MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No, I don't need to see a therapist. Why?

How does your imagination react to things in your life?? Seriously, I can't be the only one who thinks like this.