In the interest of conserving space and letting this page download at least somewhere in the vicinity of fast, I've included lots of cute little thumbnails to go along with my story as I tell it. If you want to get a better look at any of them, just click on it and you'll get a bigger one... Hope you enjoy this silly story that is my life...

Update, July 28, 2000: Part II of my silly story.

From a very early age, I was a curious girl, always getting myself into trouble and making a mess along the way. I can't count the number of times that my parents have told me the story of when my brother and I decided, in the middle of summer, that we wanted to have a snow storm. So, instead of being good little kids and either waiting for winter to come, or playing with flour and sugar, my brother and I decided that playing with blueberries would be a good substitute. Into the fridge we went, grabbed a huge bowl of newly picked blueberries and carted them off to the bedroom... We threw the berries up in the air, and smushed them into the ground over and over again. When we ran out of blueberries, we ran to our closets and dressers and played snowstorm with all of our clothes. And you know what this showed us? Nothing! But it sure showed my parents how awful blueberry stains can be!

It was also at this tender young age that I began to discover those things in my life that would be constants, such as my love-hate relationship with the fashion industry. While not concerned with the latest fashions showing in Paris or Milan, I had made up my mind that if I didn't like it, I wasn't going to wear it!

This particular picture was taken just after washing the car with my father, when he doused me with the hose, yet again! You would think I would have learned after 3 million times, but oh no! To this day, I still hold a faint phobia of washing a car with a man... Somehow, I always end up with either soapy water and sponges thrown at me, or with a hose pointed directly at me.

Luckily, I had a partner in crime to help me through these years. Born just 13 months after me, my little baby brother Tim helped me cause trouble in return for my teaching him the ways of life. I'd learned rather quickly how to climb out of my own crib, so I endeavoured to teach him how to do the same. When he finally got it, though, he fell and banged his head... Oops!

Despite this treacherous treatment, I just adored my little brother, even though he's a big lunk now. We were a great team, helping each other out when the going got tough and rough, or when one of us just weren't tall enough to step on the lever and drink from a fountain at the same time.

When we were young, and to this date, our family moved around a lot, so we had to be good friends and rely on each other each time. It was a very reassuring thought to know that I always had my best buddy wherever I was... until we both went off to university, of course.

While I was still on the young side, I discovered performing. In the 3rd grade, I joined the Sing for Joy Choir in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. A fabulous group of female singers from my age up through high school, it gave me the opportunity to express myself through my voice. I grew and matured in the group quickly, and loved every moment of it. This was to become one of the greatest love affairs of my life...

While music filled my life, I did not surrender those things I cherished while I was younger. The eternal relationship with fashion and appearance remained. However, I was not nearly as defiant of trends as I was years ago. I wanted to start wearing makeup! As you can see (especially well on the larger version of this picture), my first makeup kit was by the folks who brought us Barbie. The blush was all over me, and you can just see the rim of shiny blue eye shadow, which I swore to myself eons ago that I would never wear again.

While I still adored playing with my looks, I'm afraid there were some very dry years soon after my first makeup games.

In the summer of 1984, the Choir was invited to sing at the World's Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana. My mother decided that it would be best for me to have a new hairstyle that would be easy to take care of in the humidity of America's deep south. So off went a great deal of my straight and calm hair, and on went the perm... I still look back on those days and tell my mother I hated that hairdo, and that I shall never really forgive her for it.

In all honesty, although I hated my head looking like a mop-ball of hair, I did continue to get perms for several years. Perhaps part of this dry spell was a loss in my judgment, or maybe the first perm had been so tight that part of my brain leaked out of my skull for a few years. In short, I haven't had one done in several years, nor do I intend to get another for a long long time.

(Mind you, as I'm sitting here writing this, my hair is done neatly up into two cute little pigtails... what's worse? A 4th grader with no sense of style in an ugly hairdo, or a 23-year-old who seems to have plenty of a sense, but still wears her hair silly when she's at home?)

A couple years later, I was introduced to the "big world" when we moved away from Prince Edward Island to a small French community called Rockland, a half hour east of Ottawa. It was in the public school there that more of my true passions in life began to take shape.

While through school we are introduced to many things, some of which click with us, some of which don't, it was in the eighth grade that I truly discovered writing and the theatre experience. Through a short story assignment, I wrote my first fantasy short story, and then my second. For our next creative writing project, I churned out an 11-page story! Several followed it, and it became a real event when the class was asked if they would like to tell their stories, and I got the chance to share my latest chapter in a continuing saga. The last chapter, close to graduation from public school reached 40+ pages!

During these years in Rockland, I had been put into a special enrichment class where I did a great deal of independent learning and taught a few of the regular enrichment classes, as well. One day, in the eighth grade, I was searching for a new project, and my instructor and I came up with a great idea! We would transform this first story of my saga into a play. And so, over the next several months, every member of my graduating class rehearsed, planned, and played out my grand script, until the day we eventually put it on for the school. While I'm sure some of the students watching (and even some participating) didn't completely grasp it all, it meant a lot to me.

Through my years in high school, I could very often be found either huddled over piles of papers and the thick brown folder that held them that was full of long and short stories, poetry, and drawings. If that wasn't where I was, odds were good that I was either off in the drama room or on stage running lines.

It was through the drama department that came some of my fondest memories of my high school years. It my last year, we put on a re-written version of Robin Hood. It was a bit of a feminized version, called Robyn Hoode, instead, with the main character being a woman... Robin became Robyn, Maid Marion became Martin Mann, and the Sheriff had a wife by the name of Catherine of Nottingham, who was far more evil than the Sherrif ever was, and she was Robyn's sister, to boot!

I'm sure playing the grand heroine would have been fun, but to me, she didn't have the fun or excitement of Catherine. And so, the evil sister of Robyn I became. Since you won't be seeing this play any time soon on the big screen (or even on the small stage), I'll tell you a bit about it!

It followed the same general outline as the traditional Robin Hood story did complete with archery, kiddnapping, threats from one side to the other, stealing from the rich, yadda yadda yadda. However, near the end, Robyn slays the evil Sherrif when he comes to the rescue of his kidnapped beloved. And so we come to the last scene, the wedding of Robyn and Martin, a happy ending, as all fairy tales should have. However, this is an adaptation! There will be no fairy tale "happily ever after" in this play!

Out walks Catherine, after getting rid of her inept guards, full of apologies and revelations of goodliness. Begging that Robyn forgive her, she holds wide her arms, asking only that she receive an embrace from her dear sister. Robyn hesitates, but caught up in the bliss of the wedding, the apology, and probably a little bit too much wine, Martin urges her to accept. And so, the heroine walks to her sister, and wraps her arms around her...

In their embrace, Catherine's back turns toward the audience so all can see her concealed dagger!! She breaks away from her sister and whispers that there was something that she'd always told Robyn, but that Robyn had never listened to...

"You're too forgiving!" she hisses as she whips an arm around and plunges the dagger into Robyn's stomach! Of course, then silly Martin comes over and returns the favour to Catherine and then laments Robyn's passing. But, that's not the important part, because I was already dead!

When I moved to Rockland, I was forced to give up singing, as there was no longer anywhere that I could practice. And so, when I entered high school, I was finally able to bring music back into my life... I picked up the trumpet mainly, and I still play for my own personal enjoyment, but I also dabbled in clarinet (which I didn't like), alto sax (which I did), and the french horn (which was frighteningly similar to the trumpet, in the way it's played).

I took to the trumpet very quickly, I think, because I'm loud by nature. Speaking of loud and nature, this picture of me and my trumpet was taken near my grandparents' cottage near Stanley Bridge in Prince Edward Island. I adored playing down there, as the sound would echo for miles and miles down the river, and people would comment on it in my presence, not knowing that I was the one. Luckily for me, they were saying how beautiful and haunting it was, not that it was simply a loud and annoying ruckus!

Speaking of the cottage, I wanted to include a little picture of it, since it's such a beautiful place. Out front, there is two acres of lupins covering the lawn. Even though they are pretty much a weed, their varied and vibrant colours make them a real attraction, drawing busloads of tourists each when they are in full bloom toward the end of June... not to mention several bridal parties, looking to have their pictures taken amidst the sea of colours!

As thought my life had been a quick blur encompassing simply a few pages on some magical electronic box, the time to consider university came near.

At this point, both Tim and I became quite philosophical and introspective, considering the possible avenues that our lives might take. Our thoughts turned to the future, even though he still had another year of high school ahead of him... For years, I had wanted to become a lawyer, but I had no idea which type. As grade 13 was coming to an end, I was forced to finally make a choice, and I went with Environmental Law. And so, to prep for that, I chose to attend the University of Guelph and take their brand-spanking new Bachelor of Science (Environmental) with a major in Environmental Protection.

Sometimes I think I should have stayed in this thoughtful pose a bit longer and realized that this wasn't what I really wanted to do with my life... But, that's what life is for, isn't it? To explore, to learn, and to realize who we are.

Guelph was, however, a fabulous place which I enjoyed immensely. The city is beautiful, the people were great, and the professors were excellent. The most important thing was the friends I made. I lived in residence for 2.5 years and enjoyed almost all of it. There was something quite exciting about always having friends across the hall or next door or down the hall or on another floor...

I spent all of my residence time living on the fourth floor of Addington Hall, 4th Add as we called it. Although year to year many of the faces would change, there was always a few constants. New people came, old people went, but things we did stayed the same... like in this picture, four of us girls went out for our big V-Day (closely related to D-Day, as we would say) dinner, as we did every year. On the way, we ran into one of the guys who lived on our floor who wined us and dined us and bought us all roses to make up for the rest of man-kind!

And now, just a few years later, I'm in Halifax, pictureless. So, since I don't have anything else to show you, I suppose I'll just suggest you come back in a while and see if I've put up anything new!

Update, July 28, 2000: Part II of my silly story.

Last updated: July 28, 2000
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