Strangled

Last night as I was asleep in my wonderful, comfy happy place I like to call my bed, a stranger snuck into my room and strangled me. I awoke this morning with his grasp still tight around my poor little neck.

Just kidding!

But I did wake up this morning and feel like a man had strangled me with a huge pair of hands. The aching pain radiated from the front base of my neck up to my chin and around to the back. It was lovely. I stood up to realize that along with being strangled I had also been viciously beaten in my lower back, but the culprit never left a bruise.

I got ready for school like normal, a few winces here and there, and made my way to school. Then it donned on me. I knew exactly why I felt like I had been strangled and beaten, and then even run over by a small bus.

This week, I remembered, I had a falling problem. I honestly don’t know what else to call it. I literally just had two hard falls in the span of four days.

I was at home in Minnedosa on Sunday, about to pack up my things to come back to the city. I began walking down our hardwood stairs, MacBook in hand. The stairs that I have been walking down since I was four suddenly caught me off guard. The bottom of my foot scraped along the edge of the third step from the top and there was absolutely no stopping what happened next. I fell. Down the entire flight of stairs. I landed on my right elbow, so that was about all that hurt at the time. A shriek came from the kitchen.

“The computer’s okay!” I yelled to my shrieking mother. She had actually just been worried about me.

I shook it off. Flash forward through a few days of class, several hours of homework and sleep, and an icy drive to school.

The silver bullet (my 2003 Ford Focus) is parked on Ross Avenue, a block away from school. Pretty pleased with myself that I found parking so quickly, and was going to manage to make it to journalism on time, I put my parking receipt on my dash, put my backpack on my back and slammed to door shut.

I guess that the momentum from my arm slamming the door shut somewhat transferred down to my ill-gripped Ugg boots, because in about one millisecond my foot was slipping off the icy ground and into the air taking the other with it. 

It felt like slow motion as both of my feet came completely out from underneath me and I fell backward. Suspended (or so it felt) in the air I knew exactly what was happening but I could do absolutely nothing to stop it. I landed straight on my back. Luckily I was wearing my backpack to somewhat cushion the immediate pain, and I slowly got up with minimal damage, other than to my ego. Covered in snow I walked to school.

I realized today that if you fall down a flight of stairs and wipe out probably as hard as a human can on an icy road, you will not come out unscathed. So, please please please beware of slippery surfaces of all kinds or a stranger will sneak into your room and strangle you in the middle of the night. 

It’s Me!

My ad instructor says make a presentation about your personal brand. Sure, good enough. I can talk about myself for five minutes. Heck yes I can. My ad instructor says include brand personality, what makes your brand different, your brand values, brand promise, brand image, and brand story. Okay, now I’ve got to get thinking. My ad instructor says, check out Prezi to make your presentation even better.

PREZI! SAY WHAAAA?!

Yeah I had heard of it before, but until last week I had never been challenged to use it. Wow, was that an adventure. My Thursday night consisted solely of learning the ins and outs of this “Powerpoint on steroids”. I am definitely still in the learning stages, and I’m sure will some day look back on this presentation and laugh, but heck, I took a chance and made me a prezi!

So here it is! This is me! My brand!

Anya McNabb- My Brand

Not ready for adulthood

So I am sure that I will get some flack for this one, but I have got to be honest, thinking about what I wish I want to know a week ago, the first thing to pop into my head was something that happened to me last Sunday night. 

There I was, after a long weekend at home, still trying to fit in time with all of my lovely friends. One friend, who had been working all weekend, invited me over to her house for drinks, so I figured why not? I was not going to see her again for ages, and  being the broke student that I am, I decided to forego the trip to the Liquor Mart since I had found a case of my sister’s homemade wine in the basement the day before. Jackpot! 

My sister has been making wine for a little over a year, and before that I was not much of a wine drinker, I will be honest. Maybe a sweet blush, but I would likely never actually spend money on that!

But the first case of wine that she made was something apple-y and delicious so I thought I might be able to get into this whole wine thing. The next was Cheeky Monkey, a fairly standard red. No thanks! The next two (I believe) were God’s gift to people like me. Delicious! The flavour was a raspperry-ish kind, and it was flawless! 

She was super impressed that she made such a delicious wine too, especially whenever I would go over to her house or she would come to mine and I would beg her to share. She loved that. 

Anyway, super amused with myself after I discover all of these bottles if (free) wine, I decide to grab one before I head to my friend’s. The bottles she uses are all old leftover bottles and the ones left were all fairly dark glass. I grabbed one and ran out the door. 

I sat down at my friend’s kitchen table, corkscrew in hand, when BAM! I opened up a bottle of red wine. I mean real, adult red wine. Yuck!

So next time you leave the house with a stolen bottle of wine in hand, be sure that it is the right kind or you will be sorely disappointed as will your poor underdeveloped taste buds. 

Stay gross! 

 

Use your friends

Love your friends, appreciate your friends, and be sure to use your friends.

Using your friends to your own advantage is not a bad thing as long as you do the first two things. Oh, and expect them to recognize that you are using them and they will in turn, use you back while loving and appreciating you.

I wish I would’ve known a week ago that my cousin/friend/twin is a journalist. Oh wait, I did know that. So, I wish I would’ve known to use that!

While I was in university I will shamelessly admit that I had my mom edit probably 95% of my papers (the 5% that she didn’t edit were the ones I scrambled to finish at 1 am the night before). This was a huge help in not only boosting the quality of my paper, but teaching me a lot about writing well.

As I entered CreComm I decided that because the writing for things like journalism and public relations were fairly specific styles that I would be learning in the program, I would set my mom free of her editorial duties.

I got my most recent journalism assignment back, and while my marks had been gradually inclining, I realized they could plummet just as quickly. All of the corrections made a great deal of sense to me, only making me bash my head against one of the fabulous brick walls of the Roblin Centre – oh and obviously take them into consideration for next time.

You have probably connected the dots by now: wanting to improve in journalism + journalist cousin = someone to help you do so outside of class. DUH!

A second pair of eyes on any assignment is not a bad idea, and if those eyes are professional – even better!

Oh, and luckily my cousin Julie loves me right back and was pleased to help me out. Love her! It’s kind of comforting to know that she was in the same position that I was a few years back at Ryerson, and that maybe I could be where she is some day helping out some lowly journalism student.

 

Because we also look alike. Yay! 

Until next time, stay gross bloggers.

Halloween