Saturday afternoon hockey

About a week and a half ago, Pizza Pizza's Twitter had a random draw for Marlies tickets; your ticket in was to tell them your favourite Marlies player.

thanks_fratsboi.jpeg

I always enter these Twitter contests without expecting to win, so you don't understand how excited I was when I got the tweet the next day that I had won!

*heart eyes emoji*

The tickets were originally for a Wednesday morning game, but because I wasn't able to attend (because work) and the Pizza Pizza people were nice enough, I got tickets to yesterday's game against the Hamilton Bulldogs instead. And wow, were the seats nice. We were one row behind the penalty box, and got to see the game officials and the announcer do their stuff, in addition to getting to see all the visitors to the penalty box.

I still don't know what that weird computer thing is though.

Opening face-off!

Nice try, Shea, nice try...

O captain, my captain!

I liked this line... even though they did nothing.

Too bad it's blurry, but it's still my favourite photo - Frattin reacts to his failed breakaway.

They had a lead...

The only downside about the seats were that it was hell to take pictures. Or maybe it's because I still suck at photography; but... the glass...

Don't mind the warpedness.

Even though the boys lost, it was still a really fun, frustrating, and exciting game to watch. Also, it was the very last regular season game between the Marlies and the Bulldogs since the Bulldogs organization will be moving to St. John's. So in sixty or so years, I could be like "You know, I was at the very last Marlies/Bulldogs game, and there was never a rivalry like that since...".

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Water water water...

LOO LOO LOO!

So the cat has been slipping out of the bag, but I'm officially letting it out of the bag today, since I have the official letter right here on my desk and I finally know that the email I got was not a hoax and I have not been punked: I got into Waterloo Optometry!

Fifteen-minute bedroom mini-victory dance party playlist:

One in a Million - Down With Webster

Shut Up and Dance - Walk the Moon

Girl Almighty - One Direction

Sugar - Maroon 5

Miracle Mile - Down With Webster

It's real, right?! *pinches self* Ah! okay, it is!

TBH, I was expecting a bigger package... where are all the guides and books?

Okay, okay, now let's talk about it briefly: WHY WATERLOO?

• As previously discussed, it is the best option for me financially. As someone in a deep pit of student debt already, and someone whose parents have three other young'uns to support, I needed to choose a school that would fit me best, financially. Basically, I'm broke and needed to pick the cheapest option.
• The trade-off? I'll be living in a relatively dull place - specifically, in comparison to Boston and Chicago. Not that this will be quite a change for me; I'm pretty used to living in the 'burbs (even London wasn't that busy of a city) so I probably won't even notice that there is no night life or special attractions around. 
• Buuuuuuut, there is a Chatime in Waterloo! Which is a plus and a minus because I can feed my bubble tea cravings very well now, but my wallet will not appreciate it.
• And I'll be close to home... which is also a plus and a minus because the cost of transportation won't be too bad, but I won't get to experience truly being on my own. Then again, I could always just block my mom's phone number...
• All in all, my friend put it best, and I paraphrase here: I'm getting the same degree as I would at NECO or ICO but at a lower cost. This isn't to say that I won't be in debt after graduation - oh, I will be - but my pit won't grow too much deeper.

Above everything though - wow. I can't believe I did it. I got in. Wow. Wowie zowie. I just... can't.... wow.

#5M4U: FOMO

Prelude: Ingrid Nilsen is my idol! I've been subscribed to her channel since almost the beginning, and though I don't watch all of her videos (because not all of them are relevant to my life), I still admire how down-to-earth, positive, innovative, and strong she is.

So, she's recently started a series on her second channel called 5 Minutes For Us, or #5MFU. For each video, a topic is chosen for her viewers/followers to discuss and she ties it all together in a little vlog with her own take on the topic.

This is a bit of a spontaneous idea, but since this blog lacks material, I thought I would join the conversation with a little bloggity-blog for each topic (maybe not every topic, since this post is on the topic she chose a couple of weeks month ago). I'm going with my own little hashtag #5M4U because I thought it was a bit cuter.

FOMO: Fear of Missing Out

There is so much in the world to experience; so many milestones to achieve; so many personal goals to fulfill; so many people to meet; so many chances to take... there are just so many things that we see happening in everyone and anyone else's lives that sometimes - well, if you ever experience FOMO - you just can't help but feel terrible about your life.

I wanted to start my own #5M4U with this topic because it is a prominent thing in my life... because I'm a huge sufferer of FOMO. The first, clearest FOMO moment of mine - and it's super embarrassing, I'm squirming as I type - was back in grade 9, when my parents didn't let me go to the school dance for grade 9 students. I cried and cried. I felt like Cinderella when her evil stepmother told her she couldn't go to the Prince's ball and I hated my parents for not letting me go out to experience the fun that (I thought) every one of my classmates was having. What makes it an embarrassing memory is that the next day back at school, I found out that none of my friends went anyway, and those who did thought it was lame, and I had to play it cool and be like "Yeah, I totally didn't want to go anyway."

Nowadays I still have moments when I'm sitting in bed late at night scrolling through my Instagram or Facebook feed, or when I'm talking to my friends, family or coworkers and they're telling me about what they or their friend's brother's cousin's uncle's friend did and I begin to think to myself, "Man, my life is reeeeeeally, almost painfully lame."

And the subsequent thought is almost always "This is all my parents' fault!!!" And I'm not going to go too much into detail, but it is. Don't tell me otherwise. It is. Most of it, anyways.

But the rest of it is all on me and I know it. I tend to hermit myself and skip out on opportunities when they arise. I shy away from what I want to do because of bullshit reasons that I come up with for myself. In short, I'm lazy and too passive and there are a bunch of things I could not be missing out on if I just went for what I wanted or took what I wanted.

There's a line from a book that I read that I have started trying to live by: I grieve nothing, I take everything. It kinda sounds sinister (especially if you knew which character said it), but for me, it means not regretting or dwelling on anything and instead just taking whatever comes your way and running with it. In relation to FOMO, it means not feeling bad about myself for missing out or potentially missing out on something, and just going out there and taking the opportunities that I get to create my own experiences.

So that was my spiel about FOMO. I'll do this again when there's a topic I can relate to. Join in the conversation on Twitter, or Ingrid's Youtube or Facebook pages with the hashtag #5MFU!

(P.S. if you're a fan of romantic, dystopian, action-packed, young-adult, fantasy/sci-fi fiction, go read the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi so I have someone to cry about it with).

Making decisions

Each person probably has their own set of criteria in mind when selecting the school they want to go to. For me, in no particular order, I consider:

1. The campus atmosphere and infrastructure - when I set foot on UWO's campus for the first time, it felt right. The campus wasn't too huge. The buildings weren't uncomfortably old. I was able to see myself living in one of the residences (to be specific, Perth Hall, which was luckily the residence I ended up getting sorted to!).
2. The location - i.e. the city the school is in and how far away from home it is. I picked UWO mainly because it was two and a half hours away from home - the farthest my mom would let me go on my leash; but I also considered that London was a pretty nice and lively city compared to, oh, I don't know, Waterloo?
3. The cost... which I selfishly did not consider all too much when picking UWO and my parents were nice enough to let me be a bit selfish.
4. The school colours Whether there'll be people I know there - I mean, this ended up not mattering by the end of second year; but by picking UWO, I got to ditch a whole bunch of people I never wanted to see again, all while knowing I would still have a few friendly faces nearby. Plus, it made it easy to find a roommate!

This time around though... it's not so easy. I mean, logically, it is. But I think I'm letting my emotions and heart get too much say in all this.

But here's where I stand:

1. Maybe not NECO? I submitted my deposit to NECO last week, so $1000 of my tuition has been paid for if I end up going there... because, you know, it is a tad bit expensive to go to school in the states, let alone Boston. I know, I know, if you've talked to me before you're probably all like "But you saaaaaaaiiiiiid you wanted to go to Boston!" And I know I did - because I wanted to experience actually living on my own (without my parents too close by) and being in a city that I love. But after talking with two friends, I got really scared of how much debt I'd be in, all for an education that I could receive at a much less expensive cost. 
2. Yoohoo, Waterloo? While my heart is set on Boston, my brain says I should just go to Waterloo. Sure, it's Wateverloo and I won't get to truly experience being far, far, far away from my parents' jurisdiction, and I could potentially run into people I don't really want to see, but it would definitely be a lot less expensive, with not having to convert to the American dollar and not having to travel by plane (or by car... really far). Also, with Waterloo being so selective of their students, I feel like it may be a better school (by a bit). However, I haven't heard back from Waterloo yet, which is a bummer. It says on their website that all decision letters will be mailed out by the last week of March. I don't know if this means that they've been mailing out letters since we did our interviews and that we'll all have heard something by the end of March; or if they'll send them all out during that last week.
3. Blackhawks > Bruins. In the considerably probable case that I don't get accepted to Waterloo (they're only taking 90 out of the 150 applicants!), ICO will most likely be my back-up school, before NECO. Thanks to the elaboration and persuasion by one of the friends mentioned in the first paragraph, I've decided to consider ICO. For starters, it will be a little less expensive than NECO - tuition is slightly less expensive (only by $4000, but still), cost of living will be less, etc. And secondly, it looks like a nicer school based on what I've seen in the information booklets they've sent me. And to be honest, ICO was ranked higher than NECO in my mental list initially (mostly because they sent me an info booklet quite early but also because I would rather go see the Blackhawks than the Bruins). The ranking flipped because NECO got back to me first and really sucked me in when I was there for my interview. Anyway, I've booked an interview for the end of March, which is not the best time to interview, seeing as seats are probably almost all filled up, but I feel like I have a pretty good shot. And hey, if Waterloo responds by then, then it'll just be a trip to Chicago for me!

If you read all this, major props. If you didn't, keep scrolling down, the next paragraph is for you.

tl;dr picking schools is hard, but I bought a cool t-shirt today so whatever decision I end up making won't matter because I now own a pretty cool t-shirt.

Keep it real, folks.