Putting Away My Summer Clothes

So cold!

Welcome back to The Transatlantic Support Group! We took the summer off to chill out and not feel the pressure to blog weekly for a bit, but as the cold weather rolls in so do we. Blogging is really an indoorsy activity, so it only make sense.

We started this blog around this time last year because there's just something about fall that makes 20-somethings a bit sad. Maybe we miss the back-to-school feeling. As students we got so used to major changes happening this time of year. New classes, new people, that we're let down when autumn is just a colder, sadder version of summer.

But let's not start out a new TASG season all depressed - let's reminisce. Let's talk about our summers.

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION

by The Canuck

• I went to England in May

• I got into a relationship that was long-distance for most of the summer. Scary, but good. I am officially an insane version of myself!

• Had a lot of cold pints on patios with amazing people.

• I listened to new music from bands I love and bands I've just discovered.

• I saw a few movies: Bridesmaids, Bad Teacher and Harry Potter (3D!)

• I saw the musical adaptation of Billy Elliot with my mom and two of my aunts.

• I ran my first 5k race and ran my second 5k charity fun run.

• I met up with old friends from years ago.

• I visited my university for the first time since graduating in 2007.

• I went to the driving range.

• I threw a goodbye party for a friend who left for college.

• I took plenty of naps.

• I learned to enjoy mornings and wake up earlier.

• I nearly gave up coffee, but still have the occasional cup at work, but only in the morning.

I'm sure I did more than that, but that's just a quick re-cap. It wasn't the best summer ever, but certainly not the worst.

Hope you all had amazing summers - or at least not the worst.

Tom - Mr. Wednesday, I can't wait to here from you love! (I'm dating a fellow Brit, so I'm allowed to talk like that now, right?)

We're On a Break!

Summer = Summer dresses

We're not dead...we're just lazy busy. Collectively we have decided not to kill this blog, but to take a bit of a summer vacation from the weekly posting. This blog will remain semi-active (hopefully) through the summer months, just not regularly. We can just post here when it seems appropriate - stuff that just doesn't fit on our main blogs. In the fall, hopefully, we can get back into it and we'll do the Monday, Wednesday, Friday thing again.

Stuff that's been on my mind lately...

Hmm...everyone on my Facebook from high school seems to be getting married, engaged or having babies. It's terrifying. My sort of ex's brother just married a girl who was once a very good friend of mine this past weekend. Her and I don't talk anymore. I'm not sad about the "sort of" ex, he was an asshole, but I do feel that this marriage has sealed the deal that my high school life is over. I have very few friends left from high school. That said, those who've stuck around have been the best people I've even known!

I saw the movie Bridesmaids recently and it really made me think about the collection of friends you have. Friends from childhood, friends from high school, friends from university/college, friends from work, family friends. I know we already tackled the subject of friendship, but as I get older the topic becomes more relevant. Who will stick by you till the end? Who will know you best as you are today? Do people stay the same or change? A bit of both I think.

I am pretty happy with my life right now though...even if I'm still not gainfully employed. I'm feeling better about life and loved ones. If I had to fill a wedding party today (don't worry, this is totally hypothetical) I don't think I'd have a problem.

Anyways, hopefully you'll hear from Lauren and Tom sometime this summer!

Cheers,

The Canuck!

We're playing catch up

Please forgive us - we're gonna let this week be a catch up week for Tom and Lauren! Have no fear, this blog isn't going anywhere - we just might have to make some changes for a little while on how we post and run things.

Cheers,

Allison

We Don't Know How It's Ending

There are a few things I should point out before I jump into discussing The End Of The World As We Know It:

1) This post is late. Very late. *bows head in shame*

2) This is post number 100. Long live The TASG! *raises superhero ring to the heavens*

Now that those things are out of the way, I will continue with the regularly scheduled programming (which is not true - Allison is supposed to post at this point but Tom and I operate in our own personal time zones, so you're stuck with me...but I digress).

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat fascinated by the whole concept of the world ending. I have countless songs devoted to the topic. I even co-wrote a post-apocalyptic rock opera in college (it was synced with footage from "Night Of The Living Dead" and everything). I'm a sucker for any of that end-of-the-world zombie apocalypse crap and I even have several ideas of how I will fight for my own survival in an apocalyptic situation. So when everyone went crazy with the rapture hype, I couldn't help but use it as an excuse to think too much about the end times. And naturally, when the rapture scare was all said and done, I found myself in that strange state of existentialism that sometimes engulfs my brain when I think too much.

I didn't think the world was actually going to go all Biblical on May 21st. I paid attention in Sunday school growing up and I knew that Jesus probably wasn't going to tell anyone he was coming back - he was just going to show up. But the whole thing got my mind rolling. What if the world did suddenly come to an end? What the universe suddenly expanded to the point of breaking apart and everything ceased to exist? What if the sun exploded or the Mayans came back from the dead? What then? All we have accomplished on earth will become completely irrelevant and we will inevitably become extinct.

So what is the point of anything if we're all just ultimately going fade away into nothingness???

The day after the rapture was scheduled to happen, a man jumped off a ten-story parking garage and killed himself right outside my neighbor's place of employment. She was late coming home because the whole street was blocked off. I guess the guy was yelling about how he missed the rapture right before he jumped. I guess a lot of people tried to stop him but he was too upset with God and himself to listen to them. He truly believed that Jesus had left him behind and he would have to face the end of the world. It's an incredibly sad story that I wasn't entirely sure how to process. My neighbor mentioned it so casually in conversation ("They had to scrape a guy off of the sidewalk today because he missed The Rapture") and catapulted into a related story about how her coworker spent three hours trapped in a sushi place because of the incident. I was still stuck on the fact that a guy killed himself because of the rapture scare. He was so worried about the world ending that he ended his own world prematurely. If that's not dramatic irony in action, I don't know what is.

I think the only thing we can really know for sure is that we are alive and on this planet right here in this very moment. So we've got to live our lives to the fullest, keep our brains out of that abyss known as existentialism, and make peace with the fact that we don't really know how the world will end.

Anyway, this post has become awkwardly heavy. So I shall leave you with a song:



(Note: This video is very old, but the song is relevant.)

Commercial Free!

I'm late, I'm late for a somewhat important date. I know, I'm never late - but I was giving Lauren a chance to finish her post from last week. That will hopefully still get posted soon as well.

We never confirmed this topic with each other, but I'm just gonna go with it:

IF MY LIFE WERE A TV SHOW

I'd say it would be a dramedy on HBO or Showtime. Episodes would follow the bizarre adventures of my character...let's call her Beth. Beth works at a coffee shop after getting laid off from her desk job at a magazine that eventually goes out of business. So the show would also tackle the subject of the changing economy and media. You'll laugh, you'll cry.

Other characters will include a best friend who lives in another town who you don't meet often, but you read chats and texts from her....let's call her Amber. And several co-workers at the coffee shop who act as a support group.

Other topics that would be touched on would be dysfunctional and long-distance relationships, anxiety issues, family drama, the crazy regulars of the coffee shop, and various other issues that come with the whole Quarter-life Crisis. She might even have a crazy stalker!

She also has a local pub that she meets a group of friends at each week to play trivia. I'd obviously have to work on making it a little more sexy...to fit with the HBO/Showtime style.

So that's my life on TV...tune in next week for another episode of The Transatlantic Support Group!

No Use Permitting Some Prophet of Doom to Wipe All The Smiles Away

Guys, this will be a short post. You see, I quit my job and sold all my belongings to pay for a bill board warning of Armageddon. And now I'm in a bit of a pickle, with barely enough for 5 minutes Internet time.

I jest. And I should not mock those who have sufficient faith to take such drastic steps. I should also stop quoting Cabaret (see post title).

I was only aware of the predicted end of days from about Thursday last week. Perhaps it was bigger news across the pond?

Like Allison, The Road sprang to mind. As if the prospect of armageddon wasn't uncomfortable enough, I was now reminded of Cormac McCarthy's sparing use of grammar (*shudder* Great book, other than that).

Is it weird that at 26 years of age, prophets of doom still have the power to keep me awake? Is it not even more bizarre that I'm not religious and still let predictions based on religious texts scare me?

In my defence, I suppose it's natural to fear the end. That point when all of mankind's history, progress and ambition crashes to a halt. When everything you've worked for or collected suddenly becomes pointless, and all your hopes for the future impossible.

Predictions like this - and I gather the Biblical support for it is thin on the ground - tap into this fear. Was it exploitation? Did he somehow make millions from it? Or was it a genuine mistake by a genuine believer? I don't know. All I know is that I could have done with a bit more sleep on Friday night, I've enough on my plate without worrying about how to survive the end of the world.

Lenny Bruce is Not Afraid!

So on Saturday the world didn't end. That means The TASG lives on!

Yeah, I'm shocked too.

I really didn't think it was going to - I mean, those people have predicted the end of the world numerous times and it's never happened, so I wasn't worried. But it did get me thinking.

What if those crazies were right? I know that if the rapture happened I wouldn't be one of the chosen few, so I'd just be stuck on earth with most of my family and friends....yeah...hell on earth actually sounds pretty sweet, right? Unless it turned out to be like the book The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which would be horrible.

Anyways, I got to thinking about how the end of the world would be a total buzz kill and would ruin my  summer plans. I still have things on my bucket list, and if my bucket is prematurely kicked by some sort of hellfire, that would suck.

As for the end of the world, I think the world is ending. Just like we're all dying. The world as we know it will end someday - the sun will burn out, the ice caps will melt, earthquakes and volcanoes will engulf us all, the ozone will disappear - all that scary stuff environmental groups have warned us about.

So yeah, we made it through another judgement day. Hallelujah!

The sun is still shining!

See ya Wednesday Tom!