Once a year, my junior high school decided that going through puberty in a giant cinderblock building surrounded by other people who were also going through puberty in a giant cinderblock building was not making…
Posts tagged personal
A Brief Guide to the Worst Flight I’ve Ever Been On
For most of my adult life, I have lived more than a thousand kilometres away from my parents. This means that if I want to spend any quality time with my family, I need to…
I am the Proud Parent of an Emotionally Compromised Chihuahua
From the moment I moved out of my parents’ house for good at the age of 21, I wanted a dog of my own. I had grown up with an assortment of strange and wonderful…
Tales from the Trenches of Tech Support Hell
The summer between my second and third year of university, I worked in the computer department of a big-box office supply store that happened to sell computers. This is a chain named after a tiny…
How I Almost Took a High School Field Trip to the Afterlife: Part Two
When we left off last week, I was standing in a parking lot with a dozen other teens who were exponentially fitter than me, waiting for our teachers to send us racing up a mountainside…
How I Almost Took a High School Field Trip to the Afterlife: Part One
Like many other strapping, red-blooded Canadian youth, I spent my teenage years participating in the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award program. This is an award program dedicated to finding and recognizing outstanding young Canadians, so…
How to Convince New Yorkers That You’re One of Them, and Not Just a Lost Tourist from the Suburbs
The summer before I turned 25, I quit my job, packed my things, and moved from Edmonton, Canada, to New York City, a glittering metropolis I’d never been to, and one where I knew absolutely…
An Introduction to My Family’s Long, Ongoing Failed Experiment With Designer Dogs
When I was eleven years old, my family finally got the one thing that was missing from my Thomas-Kinkade-painting suburban childhood: a purebred Golden Retriever. Depicted here as Air Bud, despite the fact that ours…
A Comprehensive (Though Certainly Not Exhaustive) List of the Terrible Things I’ve Done to my Brothers
I am the oldest of three siblings. After bringing me forth into the world in 1992, my parents failed to realize that they had already reached the Genetic Promised Land by creating the best possible…
How to Cause $3000 in Damages to a Dorm in a Single Night
Buckle up, kids, because we just passed the six-year anniversary of the time I caused more property damage to my university than the cumulative effects of Hurricane Sandy, and I am breaking my silence at…