Books(in140) & Other Things

Wow, how is it 2010? How am I 25 years old? Where did the time go? Now that it’s resolution time, here is the obligatory “I’m going to blog more” post (that always ends in failure). 2009 was pretty good to me. I started working with Books@Torontoist. I launched a Glee blog. My b5media stuff went well. @booksin140 surpassed 5,000 followers. Life is good.

I left a decent job at University of Toronto Press to pursue a bunch of insane projects. The idea that I’ll fall flat on my face and become completely broke and homeless is never too far from my mind. However, check that second sentence again. I’m 25. When else am I going to do something this brave/crazy/dumb?

I’ll be spending most of my time hanging out over at Bookclub-in-a-Box. We’re getting a physical space where we can host bookclubs, film screenings and more, and we’re expanding our online presence. I’ve been freelancing for this company for nearly three years and the time came to for them to step everything up a notch. So they brought me on board in a semi-full-time capacity (hence, the job leaving). We’re planning a lot of cool adult literary-type programming, so keep your ears to the ground. It should be a good time for all.

I’m hoping to spend some of 2010 focusing on me. Get my diet back on track. Get healthy again. Actually spend time with the guy who shares my bed. 2009 was exhausting and, unfortunately, my body and spirit was left on the back burner as I pursued all these (amazing!) projects. I’m giving veganism another shot. I’m exploring different ways I can get my body back in the kick-ass shape it was in college. I have no plans to run another Beep test, but I want to feel strong again. I haven’t felt strong in a long time.

I want to read more. Being asked to participate in several “Books of the Decade” lists and the Advent Books blog made me realize how unaware of my reading habits I am. I rarely read new releases. I rarely read Canadian releases. Part of this is that my personal tastes don’t necessarily line up with what’s happening with the literary scene right now. But, a larger part of it, is that I’m too lazy to stay on top of this kind of thing. My extreme distaste for hardcovers doesn’t help, but it’s not an excuse. I’m lazy. I need to stop being lazy.

I love new years. New day planners. new calendars. New leaves. This time, a new job. Who knows if I’ll actually update this space? Who knows if Bookclub-in-a-Box will work? Who knows where I’ll be in a year? As long as I breathe, everything will be okay.

It’s an adventure. Get excited. Keep breathing.

I was reading one of my favorite blogs, BookNinja, and discovered that I can become a superhero! Really, I can! See below for proof!

I was torn between the light saber-like whip and the nun chucks. I went with the whip because it matched my outfit better.

Want to be a superhero too? Too freaking bad.

(Or go to this website.)

2009 is the year I turn 25. 2009 is the first year since before university where my life will see some sort of permanence. I’ve never been a resolutions person, but why not give it a go?

Expand my online presence

This includes updating this website regularly, working on Books in 140 (short-term goals: launch website and reach 1,000 followers), create goals for my personal Twitter, blog better at my other blogs, redesign this website, create a better online/social media presence for BIAB and UTP, and actually work on a few other sites I’ve launched but have done nothing with.

Get healthier

At one point in my life, I was a vegetarian and a varsity athlete. While my lifestyle hasn’t become completely sedentary and I’m lucky enough that it hasn’t affect my body too much. However, regular exercise and a great diet have gone by the wayside. I’m going to try to go veggie again (but living with a carnivore will make that interesting at least and difficult at most!) and I’m going to join a gym.

Here’s the weird thing about being a hard-core athlete at one point: while I hate how out-of-shape I am, the lack of goals and necessity that exists to get my ass in the gym really puts a damper on workout regime. I’m active enough that working out for the sake of working out bores me. I used to work out so I could make it through practice/not piss off my coach/kiss ass in the game. I’ve realized I need concrete goals like this. Now I just need to make them.

Work less

Given how many projects I have on the go, this may prove to be impossible. I think “working more effectively” would be more apt. I need time for me and time to breathe. I didn’t have that for most of 2008. I’m hoping the stable routine I achieved before the holidays will continue throughout this year. (The lack of get-an-internship-get-a-job-get-another-job stress might help too!)

Read for fun

I spend a ton of time on the internet working that I forget how to read for fun or even how to surf the internet for fun. I can’t go five minutes without checking my RSS feeds or Twitter, then panicking because I missed the latest Olsen outfit. This ties into my previous goal, working less. It will also help my first goal, seeing as I need to keep reviewing books at such a rapid pace!

Take pictures

I NEVER take pictures. EVER. The reasons behind this are threefold: I’m so not one for nostalgia, I hate crappy technology and I hate photos of myself. This is the year this is going to end. I got a Sony A300K for Christmas and I’m going to USE IT.

There are others: be happier, sleep more, clean more, get promoted (ha!), go to more book events, stop biting my nails, go to the dentist, be a better accountant, convince Mom I deserve Nanny’s old sewing machine, be more social, actually read the bookclub books I’m assigned, but this is enough for now.

Guesstimated time before I break these? One week!

Image by vv. Lisenced via Creative Commons.

It’s 2009. We rang in the new year at a hotel bar in Halifax. Big Fish was playing and they were as delightful as I remember. I last saw them three years ago. I was last in Halifax three years ago. Nothing has changed since then, and yet everything has.

What has not changed: Halifax is still pretty, still vibrant and still very much a student-driven space.

What has changed: Halifax feels small. And I feel old.

Maybe it’s because I spent my formative years here, years I loved but am very much past. Maybe it’s because there are so many students running around, dressed in a style I abandoned when I got a full-time job. Maybe it’s because since moving to Toronto, I’ve held onto this idea that Halifax was perfect and a life there would be equally so and being here for this first time since graduating university showed me that’s really not the case. Halifax is a fantastic city, but as an ambitious twenty-something, living here would mean compromising a lot of professional and personal goals.

Goodbye old friend. I know our paths will cross again. (Retirement, anyone?!)

Image by rwkphotos. Licensed via Creative Commons.

It’s October. How did it get to be October? Where did summer go? And the beginning of fall?

Is this what happens when you grow up and leave school?

And it hurt. But mostly it made me sleepy.

I wish I had a real excuse for why I’ve ignored this blog thing for as long as I have. The excuse is that I have a job now. Since March, I’ve been working as the Sales Assistant at Kate Walker & Company, a sales agency. It’s a bit hard to explain, because we sell books to book stores, not people. And the books aren’t ours. And my personal job is sales-free. It’s been going really well, I’ve learned tons, I like it a lot, but it’s made me sleepy. The change in schedule has nearly killed me these past three months (and it doesn’t help that I’m still blogging near full-time over at my other blogs). But I’m adjusting. I’ve actually started to do things during the week! So this is an exciting development that’s inspired me to actually use this blog again.

I doubt this will last very long. And I’m still not entirely sure what to do with this blog, whether it should be personal, publishing or somewhere in between. But I’ll figure it out.

On a side note, I’m working up the courage to submit a completely unsolicited “why Kate Walker & Company needs a blog” report. We’ll see how that goes.

Descant (one of my favorite literary magazines!) recently wrote a post about cleaning off the bookshelf. Some titles are impossibly hard to part with, no matter how embarrassing. Yes, I’m talking about my entire Baby-Sitters Club series. Others, not so much.

Their suggestions range from the charitable to the communal to the depressing, but they do have a point. You can’t hang onto books forever.

When you’re done with a title, what do you do with it? And what books can’t you part with?

For On the Danforth, the student magazine that we here at the Book and Magazine publishing program at Centennial College produce, Jen and I interviewed Michelle Lane, the founder of the Lane Montessori School for Autism. She was a fabulous and very impressive woman.

Michelle founded the Lane Montessori School for Autism in 2003. She wanted to create a unique program for children with autism and special needs that combined the traditional Applied Learning Behavior Methods with the Montessori teaching methods developed by Maria Montessori in the late 1800s.

LMSA combines traditional Montesori teaching practices with Applied Behavior Analysis practices. The classes are very small–only four students each–and the students receive a lot of one-on-one attention. Lane’s school integrates traditional autism approaches with the Montessori approaches. Lane believes that the blend of these two approaches is best for children with autism.

“Children with autism are largely visual learners,” Lane says. “They learn concrete concepts through hands-on learning, as opposed to abstract concepts. It’s about understanding the world around them.”

Read more »

So Matt started a new blog this week, Y Working. It’s about the generational gap in today’s workplace.

The site’s only been up a few days, but it’s something Matt’s thought a lot about over the past few years and he’s got a lot of interesting things to say.

I’m not just saying that because I date him. Although, it’ll be nice to have someone else listen to him for a change!

For months I’ve been meaning to post some insightful meta-crap about living in Toronto and what it means to be a small-town Nova Scotian living in Toronto. It’s supposed to blacken my soul and harden my heart; a horror I don’t realize it until some family tragedy forces me home and I open my eyes and see that a community of high unemployment, low population and little to do is really the way to the good, the truth and the light.

I always hated Toronto growing up. Hated it for having the things Digby didn’t, hated it for appearing to have economic and political clout, hated it for the fact my parents’ income couldn’t buy them a one bedroom condo downtown there, hated it for being smug and superior, hated it for being smoggy, hated it for being there.

Then I moved here. It wasn’t intentional, it was just the path my life took. It made sense to live here and no sense not to. I still can’t fully embrace living in Toronto (hell, living in Ontario), because somewhere I’m convinced a little part of me will die.

I don’t even like Digby. And I still can’t do it.

However, I’ve realized a few things. Toronto gets the short end of the stick most of the time. I can take the subway regularly (during rush hour!) and not want to kill myself. It’s actually nice to be able to shop at three different Gaps in a single day if I really wanted to. Saying hello to the hooker who works the corner is a nice thing to do. That even though I live in the downtown core–within walking distance of all those icons that make Toronto what it is–it bugs the hell out of me that my walk to school is routed so that I can’t see the CN Tower.

The fucking Soctiabank building is in the way.

So yeah. This wasn’t profound at all. But then, neither is living in Toronto.