As a person that’s officially inked, I experienced a whole new negative feeling ever since.

The feeling of sadness (a bit of embarrassment) when someone laughs at your tattoo.

Prior to being inked, I’ve never laughed at someone’s tattoo, unless they’re extremely stupid (we’re talking “tattoo fails”) because I’ve always figured that their tattoo means something to them. Weather it’s a quote or even the overrated dragon designs. If I saw a HP tattoo, I’d be amazed! I love HP (and would consider a HP tattoo as my third). Harry Potter may be a series to some people, but to me, it taught me valuable lessons about life.

Because, after all, if someone is getting something permanent on their skin, who am I to laugh without knowing the reason behind it?

Before my tattoo session, a classmate (whom I dislike a bit), asked me what I was going to get as a tattoo. I told him, “Be at peace, not in pieces.”

And he had the nerves to laugh and say, “Okay, now say that with a straight face”.

Another time, I had my school director asking to see my tattoo and then laughed at it.

More recently, a good friend made jokes from my tattoo and my future tattoo too.

It got me embarrassed for a while until I thought, screw them. This tattoo means something to me. This quote means a whole lot to me.

I swear, I could punch these two jerks right in the face for laughing at it. It’s a simple quote that means a whole ton to me. But, because it means nothing to them, they laugh at it – right in my face.

Society will always judge and laugh, regardless. But, in all honest, if you don’t know the story behind my quote, you’ll looking like an idiot. Or, if you’re going to laugh at my quote – laugh behind my back (like a little pu$$y).

 I’m still going with my second design:

I still wish I can punch these people in the face.
Actually, one of them is planning to get a tattoo – I should be a bitch and laugh at his.

Take a lesson; don’t be an ass and laugh at someone’s tattoo without knowing their story behind it.
Take your laughter out on these:

You know what I really hate?

When I’m picking up the morning paper and I flip to the back page of 24hrs or Metro Vancouver to see the wonderful listings of flights on sales. I mean, I don’t have the time to take a vacation but a girl can dream, right?

You know what I’m talking about… that ONE flight that seems like it’s the greatest deal of all time and you’ll be an idiot not to take advantage of it…

I don’t like welcoming the (long) weekend with a rant but since finishing off another class, I’m just so enraged by people that cheat on paper!

I’m a little goody-two-shoes; I’ve never cheated on any of my quizzes and tests (but, I will admit I’ve cheated on projects and assignments but I believe they don’t matter as much as final exams). I remember the first time I got in trouble for cheating back in 4th grade – the guy sitting next to me, Zack* was copying my social studies test… word for word (biggest mistake ever!)! The teacher called us both over the next day and asked why our test papers were exactly the same. I didn’t know what to do but denied that I was copying, and after a 20 minutes interrogation, Zack finally admits to cheating and ended up redoing the test.

I remember in high school, a teacher showed us this short documentary about parents helping their children cheat in university and those students that cheated with the help of their parents are now your lawyers and doctors. How sick is that? Do you want to go to a doctor that couldn’t even pass his exams? I would never want to visit a professional that cheated in their academic career!

I work hard for my grades and if I fail or do poorly, I’d admit that I didn’t study enough. I would never cheat, even if I know I’d fail.

I have classmates that cheats on a daily basis. We have quizzes/short tests and these kids will whip out their cellphones and starts Googling the answers. Easy questions that everyone in the course should be able to answer!

Just a few days ago, a girl and I was absent during a quiz day and my professor was nice enough to allow us to do it in the other room. I was confident because I knew the material well. Another student texted the girl the answer sheet to the quiz (because he’s done it already) and when the other student asked me, “Do you want the answers too? I’ll text it to you.”
“No, I don’t have my phone with me. It’s okay.” I replied.
The student was willing to lend me his phone… at that point, I told him, “No thanks, I’d rather just do the quiz without cheating.”
 The girl looked guilty so she said, “Yeah, same here. I’d rather do it without cheating.”

Let me tell you… one minute into the quiz, she whipped out her phone for the answers. I was mad, frustrated and annoyed with her and the cheaters I gotta deal with. She deliberately stayed behind til I was finished so the professor wouldn’t suspect how a low academic student finished first. In the end, I still got the higher mark.

Every course that I’m with these cheaters, they cheat on daily quizzes, midterms, finals. How stupid is that? If you can’t grasp the concepts being taught for the course, then you deserve to fail and repeat the course. You repeat it until you understand it. Don’t rely on me or other people to cheat off on.

If I had a university, I would automatically suspend/kick the student out of the school, regardless. I have no tolerance for cheaters. I bust my ass off working and studying and these little assholes get a decent passing grade while partying every night.

Would you trust a business manager that cheated his way to his degree? Would you consider hiring an accountant that faked her way through school?

Ugh!

(And yes, I’ve told my campus advisors… they didn’t do anything about the problem.)

You: Hey, (enter your friend’s name), how are you doing? I was wondering if you can do me a favour?
Friend: Yeah, sure, what is it?
You: I was wondering if you can get use your discount on this item for me?

^^ Have you ever had that conversation with a friend? I’m sure you have at one point. But your “friend” happens to be your BEST FRIEND so he/she isn’t too bothered with sharing their employee perks with you.

However, if that “friend” happens to be an acquaintance from high school, you know, the guy that was in the same Bio class asking, that’s a different question.

I use to work for Best Buy and during my years at Best Buy, the amount of people asking me for discount was surprising.

For example, I used to work at Forever 21 and only about 1 or 2 people have asked me. When I got hired at Best Buy, I suddenly became the most popular girl.

I am more than happy to help my best friends’ and my family to get a discount from work. But, the longer I worked there, the more frustrated I got with the amount of Facebook messages I’d get from people that never even talked to me in high school.

This is a typical message exchange between a high school classmate and I:

High School classmate: Hey. Can you get me a discount from Best Buy?
Me: Umm, depends. What is it?
HS: An (enter electronic device).

The only reason why I ask which item because I’m curious. Other than that, straight off the bat I wouldn’t get them a discount. They don’t ask how I’m doing, or what’s new. They don’t even say please or thank you!

Why?

Because they’re not my friends. We have no relationship whatsoever so I feel used. Why should I jeopardize my employee perks for some person I went to high school with? I know that it’s good to have a network of people but when it does more harm to me (Best Buy monitors your employee discount purchases) than good, then I refuse to do it. I mean, I don’t ask my acquaintances for their employee discounts – it’s just rude.

It just frustrates me that people can use me like a discount machine! People have the nerves to ask a stranger for a discounted Beats Headphones and then never talk to me again.

I’m not saying that you should befriend someone just for perks but I’m saying, be respectful of people’s discounts. If he/she isn’t your friend and you guys never talked before, don’t ask for something out of the blue. 

If he/she is willing to give you a discount, congrats! That’s great BUT keep in mind that they’ll forever remember you as the person who leeched off them. Or at least, that’s what I think of the people that used me in the past. 

aka you just told me that I look too stupid to read.

Reading has always been a big part of my life. In my elementary years, from grade 1-3, I was always pulled out of class for about 20-30 minutes to read with another teacher. At the time, I didn’t know why I was pulled out of class but I wasn’t embarrassed. I guess my teachers thought I was struggling with reading.

Looking back, I think I need to thank those teachers that helped me out with reading (whether I had a reading problem or not) because without those teachers looking after my best interest, I probably wouldn’t be reading as much as I do now. Reading, for me, is one of my favourite hobbies.

I love reading because it brings me to a whole new place. It educates me and relaxes me. By the end of a really good book, I sometimes feel like I ended an adventure. And let’s not forget the process of reading a book – I get so emotional from a character’s death or even a “wtf” moment. I’m literally in my own world when I read.

Sometimes when I meet new people, and they ask about my hobbies, I’ll list reading as one of them and most of them will nod but you have those few people that say… “Wow, I didn’t think you were the type to read books!”

And in my mind, I’m just like… “What the @#%&@!@$, you #%@%^&^%$#@! Did you just said I look to stupid to read?!”

Because, let’s be real, most people associate reading with nerds/geek. Because I don’t look “nerdy” enough, I don’t look like I read much.

Ugh, news flash, I love to read. I read everything from biographies, to cheesy high school romance books. I love reading about history (seriously, don’t argue with me about World War II, The Holocaust and/or Hitler), cultural studies, biographies, non fictions (especially crimes!), and post-apocalyptic books.

Last year, I took Goodread’s challenge of reading 32 books in a year but I ended up reading 40 instead (click here for list of the 40 books I’ve read). For 2014, I’m trying to finish 50 books for the year!

Don’t judge me when I say I read books. Reading is for everyone and you don’t need to “look” a certain way to be a bookworm. It just pisses me off when people imply that I look too stupid to read.

No, stranger, you look stupid for judging me!

So, guess who finally got to see Carrie today?!

When I heard they were doing a remake of this, I was extremely excited and while I am a bit skeptical how on well remakes live up to the original one, I was right about this movie as soon as I saw the trailer – the remake of Carrie IS AMAZING!

I loved the opening scene, it was extremely intense. It pretty much made my top 5 opening scenes I’ll remember. I felt Julianne Moore and Chloe Grace Mortez portrayed their characters to well, you gave give Carrie and Margaret White a new face (if you’re used to picturing Carrie as portrayed by Sissy Spacek). I also enjoyed the modernization of the entire story… and oh, my goodness, I can’t get over the beautiful colour of Mortez’s hair in this film.

However, a bigger thumbs up is that the plot for this remake follows the novel written by Stephen King! I got super excited when they included Sue’s minor story line, and the ending scene of Carrie’s house AND when Sue testifies about the events months later.

That being said, as I walked out of the theatres, I overheard a group of young high school kids mentioning how they didn’t know that Carrie was based off a book. One of my friends that watched the movie with me also admitted that he didn’t know it was based off a book (and as Ender’s Game is approaching, he didn’t know that movie was based a novel too). 

I instantly thought… how do people NOT know Carrie is based on a book? How this remake has more connections towards the book than the original movie did. I mean… it’s Stephen King! I honestly consider Carrie to be a classic.

As a bookworm, I’ve read this book ages ago and just listening to these kids and my friend makes me realize how pathetic our society is for not reading such great literature. In fact, nobody is reading at all! A lot of people, young and/or old, feel like reading is for “nerds” and it’s “uncool and lame”. I don’t care if you read newspapers, magazines (Time, National Geographic, etc.) or general novels, but just read something! It sickens me how people are so afraid of books. Don’t read romance if it’s not your genre; read sports related novels, or horror novels. Any type of genre.

As society is getting younger, and technology is getting better, I actually fear the later generations would discard books and focus on Facebook. I personally find it extremely unattractive if you claim “I’ve never read a book in my life” or admitting books are lame/etc. If you don’t read, I can’t be friends with you. I don’t care if you read Time Magazine or a book about knitting, as long as you read, I’m content. 

When I grow older and have kids of my own… trust me, I’ll be introducing them to books before technology.