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I thought long and hard about all the cool places I’ve been and where I’d most like to go and came to the conclusion that my home is my favourite place because it keeps me safe and it’s where someone can learn the most about me (unless, of course, you break into my doctor’s office and read my file). Inside the brick walls of my house, I am free to be myself without any inhibitions. I can sing as loud as I want, dance as crazily as I want, cry as hard as I want, and stay as quiet as I want. Really, my house has it all: a television for movies and shows, a computer with high-speed internet, my books, food, my family and my pets, my bed, a bathroom with two working showers, a washer and dryer. If money weren’t a concern, I would never have to leave my house and I would be okay with that. There are no strangers or expectations in my house, and there are certainly no diseases or unfamiliar germs. I love my home because it gives me exactly what I need and takes nothing back. If we weren’t safe inside our own houses, where would we be safe?

When the sun is shining, it’s obviously going to be a good day.

Turning on the television to find a new episode of Criminal Minds always puts a smile on my face before completely sucking me in with the intense story line.

Nice smells that make me want to leave my nose there so it’s all I have to smell for the rest of my life.

There’s nothing quite like a hilarious science or math joke.

Honeycrisp apples are the biggest, juiciest, tastiest apples in the world and the only kind I eat.

Sleeping in (only when I can afford to) is a beautiful feeling.

Tuesday movie nights are a tradition because tickets are only five dollars and there’s always a movie I’d like to see.

Getting mail or a message is a simple gesture that proves whoever sent it was thinking about me. Is there a better way to make someone happy? I don’t think there is.

Finding a new band or artist that plays the exact kind of music you were hoping to hear, even if you didn’t know it until you heard it.

When a piercing reaches that point of healing completely and I’m free to play with it whenever I want without it hurting.

I fall in love easily, but never quite fall out of love.

I can easily read an entire book in one sitting without realizing how much time has passed.

I have to wear glasses or else I can hardly see a thing, but my face looks empty without them anyways.

I have suffered from depression and anxiety for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t really know until recently.

I love my pets more than anything else in the world. My two dogs are my best friends and we do everything together.

I get really wide-eyed and nod my head a lot when I’m thinking or talking about something that really interests me.

I’m the second shorted person in my entire family, younger cousins included. The only one shorter is my grandmother.

I love Tim Horton’s and I go there at least once a week, spending a few hours in a booth at a time. My favourite hot drink is a white hot chocolate with a peppermint teabag, it has to be a medium and it has to be double cupped.

I watch Glee every Thursday with one of my best friends. My mom used to watch it with us but she’s a Blaine-hater so we can’t watch it with her since he and Kurt broke up.

One bad teacher can force me to crush my dreams and ruin the whole subject for me.

I love mint flavoured things; there’s never a bad time for mint.

I have a waffle maker and I used to make waffles for my family every Sunday but then I stopped getting up before noon.

My family eats dinner together every night to spend time with each other and talk about our days, even though I don’t eat the same food as them.

I grew up watching and reading Harry Potter and now that it’s over I have a marathon every other month and watch all eight movies back-to-back.

I have way too many celebrity crushes but I still manage to know way too much about every single one of them.

I fully believe that mermaids are real and there is no one that can convince me otherwise.

Looking out into my backyard always brings me joy, as do the things in this list.

This is a carefully thought out list of five things that truly enrage me; truly light a fire in my belly that could cook a Thanksgiving turkey were I ever turned into an oven.

1. Inconsistent story lines. Seriously, just stab me in the eye before I have to read any more.

2. When people exaggerate the feelings they have. Can you at least try to be real with me for one second?

3. When I ask for help and instead of walking me through it, the person just does it for me. I can’t even get into this one, that’s how much it enrages me.

4. Being left out of the loop or not included in something. That’s one of those situations that makes me really feel like it wouldn’t matter if I was there for not.

5. When people make fun of or are mean to my dogs. If you’re going to do that, don’t even bother introducing yourself to me because I will pick my dogs over you any day.

My daily schedule, posted on the fridge to guarantee I check it every morning.

Hidden away in my closet is where you’ll find most of my purchases until I find a place for them.

On schooldays, I wake up with my alarm at 6:30am and then press snooze until 7am (sometimes 7:30am). I slowly pull myself out of bed and get ready for school. I walk ten minutes to Meghan’s house and she drives me and Marissa to school. If I’m lucky, I don’t have to go to my locker and we can go right to class. Writer’s Craft, spare, lunch, Physics, Studies in Literature. Then we walk or drive home, talking animatedly about the day’s events or things we’re looking forward. Once I’m at home, I play with my dogs and tell them about my day, and then the three of us make something to eat and watch television or go on the computer until my parents get home. Then it’s dinner time, then homework time (where I lock myself in my room for four hours, only sometimes doing my homework). I usually read whatever book is on my bed for a few hours, then snuggle down into my comforter and sleep until morning.

On Mondays I go to Tim Horton’s after school with Dana.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have AP calculus lessons with Mrs. Wentland at lunch.

On Wednesdays I have a therapy session with Gillian from 10:30-11:30am.

On Thursdays I have AP English lessons with Mrs. Lawrence after school and then Glee is on at 9pm (which I watch with Dana).

On weekends, I really have no schedule except one that reads:

Sleep, eat, read, surf the web, watch movies, do homework if time.

I narrowed down all the things I buy into ten categories:

Books

Movies or movie tickets

Concert tickets

CDs

Old games

Clothes

Paintings

School supplies

Food for myself or my pets

Train and bus tickets

I have a serious problem with buying new books, movies, etc. without stopping to think about how many untouched ones I still have at home. My mom even put me under a monthly book budget that I usually exceed the first week of each month. Food just calls to me whenever I have money—skittles, popcorn, Subway, Tim Horton’s—I just can’t resist. School supplies are like crack to me, I always need more and better supplies. Don’t even get me started on concerts, I’ve gone to/have tickets to go to four concerts in the last six months. There is no better way to spend your money than having a chance to be in the same room with your favourite people and people that idolize those people just as much as you do.

Most of my friends live inside my computer, or at least our interactions do.

I’ve known my very best friend since we were both two years old and we still talk at least twice a week for hours at a time. We always joke about how our friendship consists of her bullying me until I assimilate, and I suppose it’s true, but neither of us complain about it. She’s very outspoken and artsy, while I’m soft-voiced and more analytical. But we fit together perfectly and used to spend every day together until I moved to Bowmanville, but we’ve kept such close contact that people that don’t even know us that well call us “Bristen” (it’s a combination of our names: Kristen and Bridgette). We mostly interact via text messaging, but we used to be huge on emails, having ten going at once, all talking about different things.

I have a small group of friends at school, most of whom I’ve known since my first year here, and we’ve remained inseparable since. We eat lunch together every single day and hang out at least one weekend a month. All of us watch the same tv shows and movies, so we never run out of things to talk about. The group has grown since high school started, but we’re no less close than we were before.

I have two friends that I went to elementary school with, but we all ended up going to different high schools. I probably see and talk to them the most out of everyone because we have all different stories and people to talk about, and I see one of them specifically at least three times a week (once on Monday, once on Thursday, and usually once on the weekend). In the summer, we all get together at my house and they stay over for weeks at a time, only going home to shower (everyone is only comfortable in their own shower), to get more clothes, and to say hi to their parents.

Lastly, I have online friends. They are sometimes the best friends to have because it’s easier to feel comfortable around someone who you don’t have to see face-to-face all the time (plus you get used to their styles of typing for different emotions and you never get caught in the trap of misinterpreting something they say) and it never feels like they’re judging you. I feel more connected to the world around me because I have friends in Scotland, Saudi Arabia, the States, and Montreal. There are a few that actually live in Toronto, but I’ve never been able to meet them in person thus far. I bonded with the people in the States and Montreal through music and have actually been to see a concert with the girl that lives in Montreal and she is the nicest person I have ever met.

When I look in a mirror, all I see are my physical features.

I’m short, only 4’11”. I’m chubby, but not in a cute way. I have all my limbs intact and have never broken a bone. My hair is dark brown, but only because I dye it every two months. Up until I was fourteen, my hair was bright blond with natural highlights. It used to be curly like my mom’s but I started straightening it too often and now only my bangs curl. My face is round and undefined by anything but the black, thick-rimmed glasses that sit upon my nose. I have my dad’s nose, only smaller, and his lips, only fuller. My eyes are hazel, but sometimes they look almost completely green. The lighting in my room is so bad that my pupils are always blown wide when I look in the mirror to do my hair or makeup. I wish my collarbones were more defined than they are now, but I think that’ll be my true test of when I’ve made it to my goal appearance. For now, I’m okay with them only being defined when I squish my neck down and give myself a hunchback. I have three freckles on my left arm that kind of look like a constellation. My fingers are always scratched up from playing with my dogs and my fingernails are always long because without them I feel handy-capped. I have a permanent callous on my right first and middle fingers from holding a pencil.

Mixed in with these family photos is the story of my first conscious memory.

I’m not even sure if this is a real memory because my parents are convinced it didn’t happen, but I distinctly remember a smaller, chubbier version of myself standing in the driveway throwing out one of my favourite soothers.

As a child I had the beginnings of a hoarding lifestyle, so I refused to get rid of any of my soothers until I was four or five years old. And I had a lot of soothers. My parents eventually made a deal with me, not wanting me to carry these soothers into adulthood, that if I threw out one a week then I would get a special surprise in return.

So I ordered my many soothers from least to most favourite, picking up the ugliest one with my sticky hand and carrying it out to the garbage bins on the driveway to begin the exchange. My parents watched me drop the soother into the bin and once it made contact with the plastic bottom, they pulled out a small bag of those soother shaped candies and handed it to me. Oh yeah, the entire bag, I felt like I had won the lottery!

This continued for weeks, the surprises changing each time, until I only had one soother left. I tried to hide it from my parents because it was my absolute favourite and there was so way I was giving it up, but they were smarter than me. “Doomsday”, as I called it, was fast approaching and I only had a few precious days left to spend with my soother. I’m pretty sure I held a “Celebration of Life” for it; I was the only one not filled with stuffing in attendance.

The all too familiar clunk of soother against plastic sounded and I was now soother-less. My parents brought me into their room and pulled a giant stuffed sheepdog out of their closet. Despite it being “Doomsday”, I was in heaven. My mama sheepdog was finally going to have a little son and she wouldn’t be so lonely anymore, lying on my bed day after day, taking up way too much room. I moved them both to the comfiest corner of my room and there they remained until we moved to the new house five years later.

Inside this cloud are a handful of things I wish I could say were true about me and sometimes I dream about them.

I wish I had decided to go into English before I submitted my university applications because now I’m stuck for another year.

I wish I could drive but it’s way too dangerous and I don’t want that much responsibility. It still sucks having to rely on other people, though.

I wish I could be friends with all my favourite celebrities and fictional characters because I think we would get along really well and help each other out.

I wish I could play piano perfectly without having to practice all the time because, really, who likes practicing? And the next person to tell me ‘practice makes perfect’ is getting a piano key shoved down their throat.

Sometimes I wish I was taller so I could reach the good mugs on the top shelf or get the proper pans for baking, but other times being small and plucky work to my advantage.

I wish I was a morning person because even I get tired of my horrible attitude in the morning and I’m surprised no one’s put a sock in my mouth yet.

I wish I could talk to animals like the Disney Princesses. I used to pretend I could so it’s only fair that I get a real chance sometime in my life.

I wish I was married to Charles Dickens or Victor Hugo because those men were real artists and I would like to know more about them.

I wish I could sing because that’s a talent that gets you noticed. Plus then my family would stop telling me to shut up whenever I started belting out my favourite lyrics.

I think it’d be cool to not have to sleep but still be able to if I wanted to because I’d like to have more time in a day but I also don’t want to lose the wonderful feeling of drifting off to sleep after a long day. (Did I just contradict myself? Probably.)

Posted here are statements about myself that you will probably already know if we’re close enough for me to allow you into my room.

Technology and entertainment began with the radio and now we’re arrived here, with the television.

Technology is a big part of the twenty-first century and it would be foolish not to embrace it. I mean, this project is made with technology, for crying out loud. Although I’m interested in those small colonies that do not use any technology and continue to live solely off the land like our ancestors, I don’t think I would be able to do that for my whole life. Technology has given us faster ways to communicate with our loved ones, easy, one-click ways to look up information, and a chance to improve our medical/scientifical/mathematical discoveries.

The more I write about technology, the more I begin to hate it all over again (we have kind of a love/hate relationship), but I know that there are some things that wouldn’t be possible without it. We can do things that would normally take years in a few short minutes. Technology is incredible, but it has also given us a generation of impatient, lazy humans.

I do take my cellphone with me everywhere, but mostly in case there’s an emergency or so I can talk to my friends that don’t live near me. Cellphones are a great tool to ensure safety and keep in touch with people you probably wouldn’t talk to as much otherwise.

Social media is a sure-fire way to get an idea out there and reach thousands of people quickly. I follow all my favourite celebrities, organizations, etc. on twitter and have access to a lot of information that pertains to me at my fingertips. I wouldn’t know half as much as I do about upcoming concerts, dates, etc. if I didn’t have twitter.

I also love the way artists—writers, painters, graphic designers, singers, dancers—are able to get their work out there and get noticed by so many people because of the internet and because of websites that tailor to people who want to do just that. One of my favourite celebrities created a web show with a group of his actor friends and it has already become a big hit because of all of their twitter followers and their ability to make use of the internet. After about a year, they are now nominated for an award for best web show. (But seriously, his name is Curt Mega and we should watch the web show in class someday because it's a web show about making a web show and how much more writer's craft-y can you get?)

What scares me the most isn’t the group of monsters living under my bed, but something much more real.

Having anxiety as bad as I do, there are a lot of things that scare me—being in public, taking buses, talking to people, raising my hand in class, being alone in the dark at night, you get the idea— but there’s one thing that scares me the most.

My biggest fear is having my family or other loved ones taken away from me and not being able to do anything about it. My family means more to me than anything else in the world, I wouldn’t be today without them and I wouldn’t be able to grow up and become the person I will eventually be without them either. They are my greatest treasure and losing them would be unbearable. I have a huge problem with not being in control, which stems from my mental state, and having to stand there, helplessly, while I lose all my loved ones would be the greatest torture someone could hit me with.

Kept safe in my wooden chest, these are a few of my favourite things.

My favourite possessions are by far all my books. I could never sell any of them and I am fully prepared to have to sacrifice an entire room in my house to fit all of them as an adult. I can’t even pick a favourite book; I love them all for different reasons. But I mostly read Charles Dickens, John Green, F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.K. Rowling, and I have both of Chris Colfer’s books (and audiobooks).

My favourite movies are all the old Disney/Pixar movies (and the new ones), all the old action movies from the eighties (especially Lethal Weapon), superhero movies, Stuck by Lightning, Silver Lining’s Playbook, Moulin Rouge, 10 Things I Hate About You, the Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games, Inception. (Honestly, I’m just relaying every movie I’ve seen more than once and it’s starting to get out of hand.)

My favourite television shows are Glee, Criminal Minds, Catfish, Boy Meets World, New Girl, Big Brother, and I’m constantly watching Stargate with my dad and my sister even though I don’t like it.

My favourite bands (right this very minute, at least, because they change all the time) are Imagine Dragons, Said the Whale, Mariana’s Trench, Down with Webster, The Beatles, The Bare-naked Ladies, and R5 (even though they’re a Disney channel band).

My favourite foods are fruits (literally any fruit), potatoes, popcorn (but mostly Orville Redenbacher’s), vegetable lasagna, spaghetti, waffles, anything pizza related, french fries, and Subway.

My favourite colours are off-white blues and yellows.

My favourite scent is market-fresh apples.

My favourite non-domesticated animals are sloths and penguins (youtube has actually started solely recommending me funny sloth and penguin videos because that’s all I seem to watch nowadays).

This door is the entrance (and exit) to my favourite place.

Writer’s Statement, lying across my desk, surprisingly not unfinished.

My life would be completely different if I hadn’t picked up a pencil as a child and started writing. It is a big part of my life and hopefully will continue to be. I can usually be found typing away at the computer, scribbling something into my journal, or sitting in bed, hunched over a new book. One of my favourite times of the day is when random sentences or phrases that would be perfect for a story idea pop into my head; I never miss an opportunity to write them down somewhere (but I do usually lose whatever it was I wrote them down on). I usually get all my feelings out by writing. I don’t own a diary because I’m awful at being consistent, so I settle for writing stories relating to whatever is happening in my life at that time to get the emotions out. Sometimes I find it weak as a writer to only write about current situations in my life because I hardly have to stretch my imagination, but then I always remember that the key to good writing is to write about what you know. Reading and writing are the bread and butter of a successful life because they give you all the knowledge and understanding about the world and yourself that you could ever need.

I took this course initially because I love letting my creative side out and giving it a chance to bask in the sunlight every once in a while. I’ve grown to really appreciate the exercises in the class and I think I’m starting to find my voice as a writer. Throughout the course, I really want to work on character development and eventually end up with a fully established, written, and edited piece of work that has depth and can resonate with more people than just myself. Not only in this course, but out in the real world after high school, I aspire towards writing either a novel or a collection of inspiring and innovative short stories. I never truly enjoyed short stories until I read a handful of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s and then I fell in love with the structure and impact of a shorter piece of fiction. I hope that my writing will someday do the same thing for a lonely teenager without a clue in the world.

I don’t believe in creativity having a process until after you have gotten every single idea, good or bad, out of your head and onto a piece of paper. Then you can begin sorting and analyzing everything. I probably think this way because I cannot write things in order no matter how hard I try. I usually plan out the ending to any story before tackling the beginning or middle. Then I write the beginning and the end, and then work on the meaty bits in the middle. I always get my ideas from conversations I have with people throughout the day; more specifically, single phrases from conversations that really hit me and stay with me all day, bouncing around in my body, until I have no choice but to write them down and expand.

When it comes to writing, time does not exist for me. Really, I spend twenty-four hours a day focused on writing, because I’m constantly thinking of new ideas or dwelling on old ones until they work. When I do get truly inspired, I stop whatever I’m doing at the time to go and write. I’ve left in the middle of many family dinners to write down some thoughts that came to me while chewing my vegetable patty on a bun. The few times a week I really get to sit down at my computer and write I always start off feeling heavy and unsure of my writing ability, but then I write (sometimes for ten minutes, sometimes for five hours) and I can get up and leave feeling free and much like a literary genius.

Even though it’s mostly silly and fluffy material, I write stories for other people to better my writing techniques. The stories I write generally feature the person who requested it and their favourite celebrity because those are the kind of people that wouldn’t—how do I put this nicely?—wouldn’t know good writing if it bit them in the behind, so I’m able to post things with only a once or twice over and ninety-nine percent of the time I get positive feedback. Writing these stories gives me confidence to keep writing and also allows me to try out different styles, voices, tones, etc. without having to worry about backlash or complete failures. For myself, I write short narratives, pieces about subjects close to my heart, sometimes I dabble in poetry (although I would never share those with anyone). I have a novel idea that’s been occupying a small part of my mind for the better half of five years, but I haven’t done nearly enough research or found a proper voice to actually begin writing this novel. I hope that I can at least get out the first chapter before I die, to leave behind something that’s a big part of my mind and soul.

Ethnographic Self Profile

Home is where

the heart is.

Kristen Mathieson

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