Okay wow. I still can’t believe it.

I was on Facebook yesterday, and since I’m a fan of HuffPost, some of their news clips come into my Facebook feed. Yesterday they posted, “TMZ reports Michael Jackson has died,” or something like that.. I didn’t take it seriously, I actually chuckled. I never really trusted TMZ.

But then I saw that all the news sites were reporting that he had died, but it still didn’t kick in, because I don’t always trust the news. My best friend even called me up to tell me Michael Jackson died and I told her it was probably just rumors.

Evidently, they weren’t. Yesterday we lost the King of Pop.

Michael Jackson has had a tough past couple years, and the media didn’t help. But no one can argue how great he was, and how much of an influence he’s had, on music, and even just the lives of normal people. I remember the first time I learned the Thriller dance, during my dance class when I was really little. I remember trying to learn the moonwalk in sixth grade, failing miserably.

Billie Jean was my favorite song.

I still can’t believe it. I still don’t know what to say.

Am I going list crazy? But hey, I’m like that. Being the dorky person I am I thought I’d make a nice and official reading list. I figure if I type it out it makes it more official, versus scribbling the names of a few books onto a post it and then sticking it onto to the wall next to my desk.

I visited Chapters for some reading material, but I don’t like buying books I haven’t read. Books are too expensive to be a one-time thing, so I then went to the library.

These are the books I plan on reading this summer. But hey, I can be a slow and apathetic reader, so it’s all just a guideline. Who knows if I’ll make the time to read anything other than Time articles.

1. Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
I listened to Anthem through an audiobook on my ipod in January and it totally spiced up my boring bus rides to school. So I’ll give Fountainhead a go, and then maybe Atlas Shrugged after.

2. Slaugherhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A lot of my friends have recommended me Vonnegut, so I picked this up at the library.

3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
I reserved this at the lirbary but it turns out when I went to pick it up I accidentally reserved the Russian version. Oops.

4. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
I’ve wanted to read something by Oscar Wilde since I discovered that the guy has the coolest quotes ever. I have a button/pin/thing on my tote bag with one of his quotes “A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.” And I saw one of his plays. So might as well read one of his books, right?

5. 1984 by George Orwell / Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
I’ve been meaning to read both these books since the 7th grade, when we read Animal Farm. I know they’re two totally different books, but I’ll be content with reading one or the other. Which ever one’s available first at the library.

6. Poems
Just in general. I want to understand poetry better. It’s pretty. And concise, in a not-so-concise way. I like that.

I love how my anecdotes aren’t really plot summaries but plain, simple, dumb reasons for why I want to read something. I might read one of Obama’s books too, if I have time. And I might just cut out 5. because once something’s on your to-do list long enough it sort of loses its importance. But whatever, we’ll see.

Any suggestions/notes/opinions/reviews are appreciated

I’m a dork and I can be lame, but I refuse to let summer pass with no accomplishments and/or funny stories. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I AM DONE EXAMS. And I received my gr 10 piano exam mark, a beautiful 74 and more importantly A PASS.

Anyway, here goes, and I’m just writing in the order that I think of them, so they’re not in order of importance or anything official like that.

1. Learn to solve a Rubiks cube. And discover my inner dorkiness.

2. Take lots of pictures with a digital camera and print them out and put them up (I’ve been so inspired by my black and white film photography class, it was so fun and I love darkrooms …. but digital is so much easier)

3. Watch Snakes on a Plane

4. Volunteer somewhere

5. Make some money doing something cool

6. Go downtown and participate in one of those fun looking festivals

7. Write an editorial for the local newspaper. Or more like, keep writing editorials until one actually gets published and I see my name in the paper

8. Write a letter

9. Learn more piano pieces, especially Chopin’s Nocturne No. 1, of which the first dozen bars is the most beautiful thing ever

10. Do yoga at Lululemon. I really want to see how that works, do they clear the area and set up mats?

11. Break into my new black heels, so that when I actually need to wear them for long hours, it won’t be as painful

12. Learn to play the guitar. Or at least a few songs?

13. Stop eating ice cream and muffins and danishes every fucking day.

14. Make some new friends! <- this is really important, I’ve been really aloof and stuck in a bubble this past year

15. Get to know Toronto <- this is important too, I need to discover more of my own city

16. Don’t eat for 24 hours then go to all you can eat sushi.

I think that’s it for now. That should occupy me for a while. This summer’s going to be great

Even though it feels more like spring, with all the rain rain rain around here, summer break is inevitable. I finish my last exam next Monday, but unlike all my other friends with plans and schedules and dates to remember, I have nothing.

Two months of no plans. Not that I’ve never gone through this before, but I don’t want to spend another summer lazing around doing nothing. I’ll probably spend summer hopping around from organization to organization, trying to complete my required volunteer hours and maybe obtain some so-called “leadership experience” so I won’t have to bullshit my way again through that section on all those forms for various programs I apply for.

What really annoys me is that a good 75% of my friends are spending their time this summer doing “camp” related things. Whether it be camping, or actual camps… That could be working as a counselor, counselor training, whatever the hell “leadership camp” is… What is with the Canadian obsession with camp?

Oh well. I’m going to have fun this summer, maybe a get a job so I can have fun doing things that require money, which is usually easier. And they can spend it cleaning horse sables (I’m not joking, my friend is actually doing that).

I’m going to take lots of pictures.

But before that I must finish my exams. Which involves studying. Which involves looking over Julius Caesar one more time. Which we all know equals pain.

In the small circle of my closest friends, only one has a pool. This is because where most of us live, people do not have space for pools in their backyard, but she lives far away in what Canada Post deems “rural land” so she is not faced with the same limitations as us. Anyway, she holds a series of pool parties every summer, as a small gathering for all of us. Now, she planned this around last month, for THE END OF JUNE. End of school pool party, rather appropriate right?

Well the end of June is here, and it is still cold.

I don’t like this.

Someone once explained to me that global warming in fact makes it colder, or something like that. It doesn’t make much sense to me, or maybe that someone didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. Either way, it’s cold. It’s not winter cold, but where I am, it’s the type of weather where you wear jeans and a tshirt, or shorts and a sweater, but not both. That’s not what I deem pool party weather, where low self-esteem teenagers don their bikini bodies.

Plus it’s raining on this certain date.

WEATHER, WEATHER, WHEREFORE ART THOU NOT SUMMER?