My mother is an amazing person. She’s smart, talented, highly independent, very sociable, driven, hardworking and very funny when she wants to be, among many other things. This coming from her daughter is saying a lot, because c’mon—I have to deal with her when she’s worked three night shifts in a row and literally hasn’t slept since. If anyone has seen the good, bad and the sheer awful and can still think know she’s amazing, it’s me. Plus, she’s my mother - Of course she’s going to be amazing. People can’t live within the same house as me and not be transformed by my sheer awesomeness!

She’s all that and more, so naturally it totally baffles me (or used to, anyway) how she can be so smart and yet say the stupidest things ever—at the same time. I say ‘used to’ because I now firmly believe that her moments of stupidity are a direct result of me, as a fetus, snacking on her then-brilliant brain.

Taken from a radio interview with Dr. Louann Brizendine, author of national bestseller “The Female Brain“… and I quote:

Q: Now, I saw you quoted in the New York Times, speaking of pregnancy, that the female brain shrinks about eight percent during pregnancy? And doesn’t return back to its normal size until about six months after delivery?

A: Yes, Debbie, that’s a surprising study that uh has found eight percent shrinkage, even after you account for any increased water weight. And scientists don’t know really why that happens, except that the female brain is doing all kinds of rewiring during that period, to get the mom ready to do maternal behavior. And also remember, the fetus is more like a parasite, and [that] it gets fed whatever it wants, and lots and lots of lipids and special fats exist inside the brain cells, and some scientists speculate that the fetus is sort of snacking on the mother’s brain.

I know that when my mother reads this, she is going to be happy. Because it’s all my fault. She will find some way to translate that into “everything that goes wrong with me is ALL. HER. FAULT!” I think her brain will erroneously translate that quote because as a fetus, I probably ate the part of her brain labeled “REASONABLE THINKING” and in turn, all the excess oxygen started flowing to the part of her brain labeled “DENIAL - IT’S STILL JUST A RIVER IN EGYPT NO MATTER YOU SAY”. I know, I’m a genius. They should make me the brain doctor.

But back to my mother. I have one “outrightly stupid things my mother says because I ate her brain cells as a baby” moment to share, and even though it’s more attributed to a lack of sleep on her part rather than a strange appetite I had as a fetus, I will still share it. It took place yesterday afternoon while my brother and I were discussing (read: betting) who we thought would die in the last Harry Potter book…

I will mention one spoiler in the following conversation below, so if you don’t want to find out anything about the latest Harry Potter book I suggest you lock yourself in a dark cave off the coast of god-knows-where and subject yourself to several years of dedicated reading (the time it takes the average person to get through 759 pages of Harry Potter) before you submerge yourself in a world where you can’t watch TV, surf the internet, read the newspaper or talk to your dog without hearing about Harry Potter.

Denzil: I can’t believe Harry doesn’t die. I WANTED HARRY TO DIE, DAMMIT.
Me: How do you know Harry doesn’t die?
Denzil: I scanned through the ending. It said something about “Harry’s children”.
Me: … Harry’s CHILDREN?!
Mom: … Harry gives birth?!

I’m sorry mom. I guess I ate the part of your brain labeled “FACT OR FICTION?” too.

Release Date: July 11, 2007
Staring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
Rating:

Being a Harry Potter fan who was previously displeased with the last four movies, I approached this one with trepidation. Could it get worse? Did I want to spend $10.50 CAD to find out just how much worse it could get?

Admittedly, I was secretly hoping this movie would be as awful as Pirates 3 so I could later write a scathing review on it. (Bitching is in!) However, what I saw in the movie somewhat pleasantly surprised me.

Let it be known before I begin that I do not remember a terrible lot about the fifth book. I hated that she (”she” being J.K. Rowling) killed off my favorite character in the series, something which automatically labeled the fifth book my least favorite. After finishing it I left it alone and never really picked it up again… This was a first for the Harry Potter series—up until then I’d read and re-read every book at least three to ten times in anticipation for the next.

The movie, surprisingly, didn’t spark too much righteous indignation on my part. It bothered me that they’d left out important parts of the book. I am a fan of the little detaills—like the DA coins, or “the sneak” part—and personally I feel those details add a small yet important dimension to the movie. Where was the visit to see Neville’s parents? Aurthur Weasley? And Lockhart.. Oh, I would have loved to have seen Lockhart again. He was such an interesting character.

The special effects, like most people have mentioned, were superb. Oddly enough, I found all the visuals for the department of mysteries and the ministry of magic in general to be surprisingly accurate to the visuals I had in mind.

I must say though… What stood out the most in this movie, oddly enough, was Luna Lovegood.

I love the girl they picked for her part. She is either very talented at playing Luna’s part or very much similar to Luna in real life because I thought she did an excellent job in portraying the character. Everything from her long blonde hair and big eyes to her mystifying, almost spooky presence was just perfect.

Overall, I did enjoy it. They could have made the movie a tad longer—some parts did feel rushed—but in the end the length was really quite suitable for a varied audience. Like I said in the beginning—I was pleasantly surprised. The visuals were excellent, the music fit well, the actors fit (for the most part) well with their roles and it made for a pretty nice movie-going experience… But as a word of advice: Don’t go on an opening weekend, because you will find that tickets are sold out hours in advanced and you can barely move in the crowds.

As a parting comment, Is it just my 20/20 vision playing tricks on me, or is Potter’s eyes always BLUE in the movies? Have they forgotten that his eye color is almost always mentioned along with his appearance? (“He had jet black hair, vivid green eyes and a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead…” or “You look just like your father Harry, but you’ve got your mother’s eyes!”) … How bloody hard would it be to wear contacts? This has always irked me. It’s in the little details where the Harry Potter movies seem to fall short.

There is a new kind of discriminating double standard on the scene, and this time it has nothing to do with your age, sex or racial background.

It has always been fairly apparent to me that most people view Christians in a negative light. As most can easily guess, the obvious reasoning behind this is the generally accepted fact that most Christians are going to try to covert, condemn or consult you—you know, the “you’re going to hell!” or “Jesus loves you!” typical stuff. Most people have had an experience like this.

Even if you think you don’t have any negative associations to Christians, consider this: If someone brings up Jesus, or any other subject mentioned in the bible, do you suddenly find yourself even a tad bit uncomfortable? If so - have you stopped to find out why? Chances are you formed these negative associations based on a couple religious walnuts you had the pleasure of running into.

In a world where people talk openly about everything from sex and drugs to that weird fungus growing between their toes, why is it that even the lightest mention of any Christian concept or figure causes the room temperature to plummet and automatically guarantees a “FREAK” stamp across your forehead?

There is really no need to sugarcoat it: Believing in the God of the bible has just never¹ been cool.

But what about this new kind of double standard?

I understand that some Christians have been pushy and downright annoying with their beliefs. What I don’t understand, however, is the growing number of atheists on the scene who are just as pushy and annoying with their beliefs (or lack thereof), claiming to avoid Christians for those very reasons.

Hypocritical much?

For the most part, it’s just very much socially accepted to proclaim just how “atheistic” you are. A Christian doing the very same thing would most likely result a hostile response. Nobody wants to hear about how a praying mother and a supportive church community helped you turn your life around, but everyone loves to read about how stupid Christians are, how flawed their faith and logic is and how much you hate God and can’t understand him.

You know, it’s interesting; quite often the people who claim to be the most “open minded” really end up really being the most “selective minded”. I’ve met just as many (if not more) people who refuse to have anything to do with Christian things because they “can’t stand those judgmental, closed-minded hypocrites” than Christians who refuse to hear about about things contrary to what they believe - like evolutionary theories or pro-choice side of abortion debates, for example.

This just goes to show that you shouldn’t ever generalize people. Consider the following statements: “You’re a Muslim, so you must be violent and possibly connected to a terrorist!” or “You’re a Christian, so you must be trying to convert me!” They may sound like ridiculous claims, but I’d be lying if I told you no one thinks that way. There are people out there—and more than you think—who have very limiting preconceived ideas about world religions and their believers.

Don’t be mistaken; I’m not hating on non-believers. I respect people regardless of their beliefs, as long as they have reasonable logic to back them up. It just saddens me to see a society where people can’t (or feel they can’t) express ideas, beliefs and concepts freely because of political correctness and/or social outcasting caused by the rest of the world’s less intelligent population.

¹ - [Christianity has never been cool] within modern times. As Jack kindly pointed out, there was a time in history where being anything but Christian was grounds for burning.

As some of you know, I have been utterly overspread lately. Not that i’m complaining, but the last couple days have been non-stop 9 to 12 hours of my required active presence: Weddings, wedding parties, lunch invitations, family get-togethers, work meetings, order entries to be processed, a huge CMS transfer for our website (not this one) that is still in dire need of tweaking, emails to send out, calls to return, people wanting information, teachers needing to hear from me—all in all, just too much to do.

So when my father told me the family was going out to the lake with the boat for a couple days, I immediately said no. In fact, I believe my exact sleep-induced words were, “I have work to do”. But as the morning progressed and sleep departed me, I soon realized how much I needed a little getaway and at what perfect timing it did come.

Our first stop was Cultus Lake. This lake is located about 30-ish minutes off the Hwy 1, officially located in city of Chilliwack, British Columbia. For those of you who have no idea where Chilliwack is or what it is like, allow me to enlighten you: it smells like cows and looks like the country. Not exactly my kind of city.

Don’t get me wrong though—Cultus Lake is a cute place. There are ice cream shacks all over the place and people wander around in their swimsuits. It has a very relaxing atmosphere (I mean, where are they going to go anyway?) and since I have been told that the nature of a vacation is to relax, this was definitely the place for me to be.

So shortly upon arrival, we got in line (yes, in line—Have I mentioned how popular Cultus Lake is?) to launch our boat. Things are going great, lovely, peachy, and most importantly: normal. We launch. Things don’t go exactly according to plan at first (translation: the motor dies in the middle of the lake—there was a loose cord we later found) but everything is going well. We speed along the waters. Great. And then…

Dad kills the engine (on purpose this time) and walks to the back of the boat. He throws over the waketube we brought with us. He says we should try it out. The country air must have gotten to my head and dazed my perception of danger, death and being eaten by giant lakefish because I agree excitedly. Oh, Chanel.

I tried WAKETUBING. (Click for picture)

Need I say more? Those who know me should know how this is so uncharacteristically like me. Getting on a boat that doesn’t hold 500+ people and 300 cars was a step for me. Getting on a floation device that holds ONE, being pulled at high speeds and risking the change of flipping over and plunging to my sad, sad, death was a HUGE step for me.

[Just in case you’re wondering, I did survive waketubing. Somehow the device managed to stay right-side-up the entire time and I did not join my worse nightmares (also known as “big, ugly fish”) fifty million feet below.]

The rest of the trip was less ground breaking. My cell phone died somewhere between Harrison and Hope, and having no internet access besides brief five minutes in the hotel lobby to transfer money between accounts (something i’d forgotten to do before I had left), I was pretty much left without any way to contact the life i’d left behind in Vancouver. And you know what? It was fabulous. No calls. No texts. No emails. No things to do. No people needing things done, or needing to talk to me. No work. No school. No nothing, just me, my family, my dog, our boat, great food and lots of lakes.

Towards the closing of our trip we stopped to eat at chinese restaurant in Hope, B.C. The food was great, but the reason I even mention it is because of the fortune cookie I got after my meal. The cookie actually had two fortunes for me, and they said…

“Now is the time to try something new”
(waketubing)

“You deserve to have a good time after a hard day’s work”
(this mini trip)

Granted, I read my fortune after both had come true.. but fulfil my fortune? That I did!

Hi, I'm Chanel, a Vancouver-based entrepreneur, writer, photographer, life-long student, sister, daughter and lover. Welcome to the place where my free time goes to die. Follow me on twitter and tumblr.

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Ate enough cotton candy at the fair to throw up a whole sugar cane. Rode the coaster enough times to make that a reality. Survived both. 21 hrs ago