How to Fall in Love with Disney's Sleeping Beauty

Look, ladies and gents, I know finding that special someone can be difficult. Never fear darlings and dear ones! I am here to help. Well, I should say, Mr Walt Disney is here to help. Now you can know EXACTLY what it takes to fall deeply and eternally in love, with the help of Disney Princesses. Take for example Princess Aurora and Prince Philip. Follow their lead and you'll be prancing around on clouds in no time!

1. Sing high enough to frighten dogs within a 5 km radius of your larynx. Your prince will be sure to hear you!
2. Learn to speak to birds and squirrels. Birds and squirrels are professionals at falling in love. That’s why awkwardly talking to children about relationships is known as “taking about the birds and the squirrels”.
3. Carry an owl around in a basket. Owl pheromones are extreme potent
4. If you’re man, wear leggings, a tunic, a cape and a feather cap.
   PLEASE. PLEASE WEAR THIS
5. Gallivant bravely through the woods on your mighty steed! Riding a horse is manly and will woo every girl in sight
6. Back to the ladies; make sure the owl you carry around has a really fantastic set of eyebrows
7. Men: make sure your clothes are all light enough to be stolen by small animals. The only way to find your lady is if you let the animals guide you.
8. Ladies: Ankles on display. Always.
9. Dance with animals in your future husband’s clothing. That way you won’t be embarrassed at the ball at the palace! Practice, practice, practice!
10. Somehow fail to notice when a real, live man replaces the owl you were just dancing with.
11. Allow the Disney chorus to take over as you waltz through the forest, only stopping to gaze out over a cliff where you can see a palace, framed by the setting sun and happy little doves everywhere. Bonus points if there’s little deer running around with garlands.

My cuteness validates your love!

Congratulations, you’re in love!

Important Distinctions

Being a first year university student, I do no profess to know everything about the social games that go on. However, I've been manipulating interacting with teachers/profs/employers long enough to know that if you want to get on someone's good side, ask about their progeny.

People love to talk about their kids. They will tell you that little Susie made a macaroni picture of a elephant and it belongs in the Louvre. They will tell you about the time when Johnny fought a bear and got rabies, and how now he has to live in the attic. Basically, tell anyone that their kids are collectively the greatest thing to burst forth from a vagina and they'll like you.

Many profs do not have children, they have Doctoral Theses.

Do not tell them that their paper is the greatest thing to burst forth from a vagina.

The Ninja of Failure

Those days (you know the ones) in which I am completely incapable of doing anything remotely academic but am obligated to, I generally fall into a morbid depression equalled only by Vincent van Gogh moments before he cut off his own ear. I sit in front of my laptop in a darkened room, hood up, contemplating the vast and insurmountable essay I must write (it's always essays) and considering if I would look good with one ear. Sometimes I even get as far as going to the kitchen for a knife. In these dark hours, my nemeses reveal themselves. Lurking outside my windows, hiding in my closet, living on my roof and falling down my chimney.

The ninjas of failure.

Who are the ninjas of failure? They are the ones who wait, ever so patiently, for the point where I apply for medical school and am rejected.

I know, if that day ever comes, it will be the day I die. I'll open the letter, and before I can even finish reading the first line, they attack. Maybe it will be an arrow to the face, maybe a sword to the gut, but I know that I will lie on the ground, wallowing in a pool of my own blood and tears thinking "if only I had been accepted...I could save myself...". Or maybe one of them will solemnly hand me a sword, and expect me to honour kill myself. I'd probably just cut off my ear and then be killed for my impertinence. There could be no open casket, unless someone buys a fake ear.

In the interest of simplicity, here is a flowchart of how this all happens:

Have trouble with one assignment -> don't do well in class -> all marks inexplicably drop -> apply to med school -> epic rejection -> death

Or possibly

Write essay -> fail -> death

Or

Write essay -> death

Or

Death -> more death -> Cremated because I cut my ear off

This is why I am so afraid of failure. Failure results in death. No exceptions.

Maybe I'll just be accepted, then I don't have to fight any ninjas...

The ninjas of success?

Ps. Yes, I dropped the "In Which...". I can't produce pithy titles like that any more.

The CPBS Survival Guide

I had the unfortunate experience last night of my cat pooping a parasitic flatworm on to my bed while I tried to sleep. I have composed a survival guide so that you are equipped to deal with this situation should it arise.

1. Wake up.

In order to deal with a cat-poop-bed situation (a CPBS for short) you must be fully awake. Non-awakenedness may result in you ignoring the situation or thinking it is a good idea to touch the CPBS. This is undesirable.

2. Do Not Panic

It may seem appropriate to broadcast to your house-mates that a CPBS is in progress in this manner:

"ATTENTION. ATTENTION. A CAT HAS DEFECATED A PARASITIC WORM ON TO MY BED. ATTENTION. ATTENTION."

It may also seem desirable to blast an air horn or leap on to your house-mates. Resist these temptations. A CPBS is best handled alone, and your house-mates will appreciate not being awoken.

3. Do Not Lose Faith

During a CPBS it may seem like the world is crashing down around you. A small, fuzzy mammal has desecrated the holy personal space of your bed, and you may feel like your soul is being sucked into a black hole of misery and loneliness. If there really was a higher power, how could it let a cat do this to you? Wouldn't a higher power have a sense of justice?

Do not lose hope. These things are sent to test us. You will emerge a stronger and better person, if not slightly emotionally scarred. You are now equipped to handled whatever terrible situations you may encounter in life. One day, when you are a hostage at a bank that is being robbed by men with large guns, you will look gravely at the people around you and declare "I once handled a CPBS." They will look at you soberly and know you will take care of this situation. A CPBS is no laughing matter.

4. Remove Offending Mass

I realize that though my CPBS involved a parasitic worm and very little actual feces, CPBS can vary from cat to cat. Whatever offensive product has been deposited on your bed, remove it post-haste.

5. Remove Cat

Remove the cat from your chamber and close the door. Do not readmit the cat. Close the door firmly. Ignore all plaintive meowing. If you do not have a cat-proof door or you are time travelling from the Seventies and have a beaded curtain door, it is in your best interest to have a water bottle with which to spray the cat should it attempt to re-offend.

6. Remove Sheet

Do not sleep on the sheets affected by the CPBS. DO NOT.

7. Midnight Laundry

Midnight laundry may be the only pleasant part of dealing with a CPBS. Haul the affected sheets to the nearest washing machine and go to town with hot water and detergent. At this point, your house-mates may be awoken by the noise of the machine. This is acceptable. Washing needs to occur as soon as possible. Revel in the moonlight as you load the machine. Consider always doing your laundry at midnight.

8. Expect nightmares.

As I tried to sleep after the CPBS, I was haunted by strange nightmares. I dreamt that the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth kept bursting through my door and trying to kill me. The dream may have been representative of the invasion of the personal space of my bed by worms, or it may have been a metaphor for the plight of the proletariat. It's hard to say.

He has Marx written all over him

9. Shower Eternally

Be like Lady Macbeth and scrub that damned spot out until you go nuts. You'll feel dirty forever!

10. Break the News

You will eventually have to tell someone about the CPBS. It is good to reach out after such a traumatic experience. You will also have to discuss treatment for the cat. Good luck.

In Which Dead Bodies Float in Space

I am very attached to the Earth.

I don't really want to leave. I have incredible respect for those brave men and women who forsake our generally comfortable atmosphere to see if they can grow a cactus in zero gravity.

However, CONSIDER THIS:

What if a space mission went TERRIBLY WRONG and some poor astronaut (or cosmonaut) were sent careening into EMPTY SPACE to die in his lonely spacesuit, in his still soiled astrodiaper (cosmodiaper).

As well as there being no one to hear you scream in space, there is nothing to make you decompose. Our poor astronaut (cosmonaut) would float about the vacant ravages of space, becoming a speck of detritus in a vast and lonely universe. That is, until some newly forming asteroid sucks him into it's gravity field and he is BURIED AT THE HEART OF THE ICY SPACE BOULDER.

One day, the icy space boulder rumbles into the Earth's gravitational field and starts its mad descent into the deserts of New Mexico (keep in mind that this asteroid is of a modest size) and LANDS, DRAWING SCIENTISTS LIKE MOTHS TO A FLAME.

The scientists begin to chip away at the space rock, hoarding the bits back to their respective laboratories and jealously guarding them. Some poor scientist, chipping away, UNCOVERS THE HELMET OF THE MAN, EYES OPEN AND STARING, FILLED WITH ALL THE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS UNIVERSE BUT TOO DEAD TO REVEAL THE SECRETS HIS MIND CONTAINS.

"Good news, Mrs. Johnson", a NASA man will say, "we found Harry, and you can have an open casket funeral."

DUN DUN DUN.

I only ask for a modest recompense when you use this plot line for your next book/film/graphic novel. You could pay my tuition.

In Which Pre-Med Produces Strange Results

Up until the time the time I actually sat down in my first university class, no one was all that impressed with my aspirations to be a doctor. Even after I proved capable of attending classes without fundamentally disturbing the under-pinnings of the universe, my academic exploits were mostly ignored. When Christmas rolled around and news that the university had not imploded despite my presence (which, by the way has never happened to any building I've been in) spread to the family, things began to change. They realized that trying to get into medical school was not, in fact, like trying to hunt down and kill a bear that poops diamonds armed with only an ashtray and a fetal pig named Marcus. It was actually possible.

This caused a pole shift.

My family went from "be realistic, you probably won't get in" to:

Family: "As a doctor, you should know that the human body has seventeen appendixes that store memories and cotton candy."

Me: "I'm not a doctor, and I don't think that's true."

Family: "You'll learn that, tomorrow, in doctor school. Which you go to. Right now."

Or

Family: "My forehead wrinkles hurt and I have "Single Ladies" caught in my head, what's your diagnosis Doctor Jen?"

Me: "I'm still in first year, I have at least another year before..."

Family: "CLEARLY YOU ARE A FAILURE AT MEDICAL SCIENCE. YOU ARE DISOWNED FOREVER."

Me: "I'm still taking English classes. I'm not even...

Family: "SILENCE, FAILURE."

Or

Family: " Doctor Jen, I was wondering what your thoughts were on NASA's new rocket powered by used Christmas trees that's going to fly to Pluto piloted by a monkey named Fabian."

Me: "I want to be a medical doctor, not an astrophysicist. I have to go to bio now."

Family: "LYING SCUM. YOU WITHHOLD KNOWLEDGE LIKE THE KGB FERRET THAT YOU ARE!"

Or (my favourite)

Family: "When you are a doctor, and you make a trillion dollars in a second, you can send us on fifteen vacations to the moon!"

Me: "Best case scenario, I'll be a doctor in 9 years. At which point I will start paying down a ridiculous amount of student loans. I will be poor forever."

Family: "Fifteen moon vacations!"

In Which She Explains the Nautical Theme

Why, when I live in humble land-locked Saskatchewan, is my blog so terribly nautically themed? Three reasons:
1. The British Royal Navy is a fantastic metaphor for University. You spend a ridiculously long time getting to where you want to be, working hard and facing death at every turn. Upon arrival you sit in port for a few weeks, revel in your success (if you haven't foundered somewhere off the coast of Gibraltar) and then pack up and go somewhere else. All the while exercising your Great Guns.
2. I used to live in Jolly Old E, and that is enough inspiration for any person to write like a Rear Admiral of the Blue.
3. I read Patrick O'Brian. I could explain to you what exactly that means, but it has already been done much better by Miracle Jones of the Fiction Circus
Use caution dears, the Fiction Circus reefs contain language inappropriate for delicate ladies.

I am in pre-med. I have delusions about living in the 19th century and talking shop with Dr. Maturin. I am humorous sometimes, I promise.