flip turned upside down

this blog's a story all about how
my job got flip turned upside down
now i'd like to take a minute
just sit right there
i'll tell you all a little story
about the writer katelin dean

in saint john new brunswick
born and raised
in the band class
is where i spent most of my days
playin' hardcore
on the slide trombone
then stoppin' some white balls
in the soccer field

when a few years later
i picked up a pen
jotted a few lines
then i began again
wrote one little poem
and i changed my mind
said i'm going to unbsj
english will be fine

not too long after
i was flipping boards
selling wee deckscrews and power tools
all at the same time
i kept writin' my rhymes
and realized soon
i had to find more time

short months later
i was at nbcc
tryin' my hand at radio and tv
soon found out
the pen still called my name
started at the paper
and things were never the same

now i'm winnin' awards
and gettin' new jobs
with lots mo' cash
and my own four walls
i thought man forget it
go home write for the college

thankful

one. thankful for having so many lovely friends.
two. thankful for my super fulfilling job.
three. thankful for my roommates.
four. thankful for my parents and everything they've given me.
five. thankful for friends who can cook.
six. thankful for RiVA.
seven. thankful for NBCC.
eight. thankful for Theresa Blackburn.
nine. thankful for the column I write, which prevents me from updating this regularly.
ten. thankful for being back on stage.

Ultimately, I'm thankful for my life. I'm thankful for all of the people in it - friend or foe - because without you, I wouldn't be me. happy birthday to me because Your presence is present enough!

hey, you've got to hide your love away

There's really nothing quite like the feeling of having a crush on someone. Your heart skips a beat when you accidentally (or not-so-accidentally) touch or your cheeks flush when he says your name. The excitement of wondering when you'll see him again is reason enough to get through the day.
After this stage, things have the tendency to get complicated.
But the crush, oh the crush is a wonderful thing. So fresh, so new.
Unless it's not new.
What if this crush has caught you completely by surprise?
Say this person, this man, who you once had a crush on is now a great friend (who admittedly you don't spend enough time with. Months pass, and then, on a winter's day you run into him in some lunchtime establishment, and you find yourself giving him a hug. Completely normal, right?
A week later, you spot him online on the internet and feel compelled to say hello to this old friend. The conversation is pleasant and you decide to go see a movie (the sappiest of sappy sad romantic movies that inevitably make you cry). This friend/former crush comforts you, rubs your arm, then all of a sudden you're holding hands. The act in itself is quite innocent, it's what happens inside of you.
All of the heart flutters are back, but it's different this time. You don't have a crush on what you think this person might be, you have a crush on this person you know well.
Spending time is comfortable and somehow newly exciting. And you second-guess your feelings because it would be absolutely crazy to feel this way again. Seriously. Seriously.
It doesn't make any sense...

well blogosphere, in case you didn't figure it out, the you in this scenario is me.

Happy (completely commercial and overrated) Valentine's Day.

same old song

What a week. Truly educational and eye-opening.

New Beginnings and Fresh Starts

I started this blog about a year ago as part of a school assignment. Before then, I thought blogs were the worst thing on the face of the planet. I thought they were self-indulgent (which they are) and I used to think that people who spilled their guts on the internet should invest in a diary. Alas, I'm again wrong. Well, maybe I'm not, but I do it anyway.
In the past year, I made a documentary about myself and how I was bullied in school, I've had a nervous break down, I've gained more friends than I've ever had in my entire life, I've begun working, I've let myself get angry and hurt for stupid reasons, I've fallen in love, I've had my heart broken, I've travelled to Nicaragua, I've helped organize a successful Arts festival in a small town and more.
Also in the past year, what began as a school project (this blog) has been used as a way to communicate deep feelings and as a promotional tool to entice people to go to the previously mentioned Arts Festival. It's truly wonderful that this forum exists.
Today, I changed its layout to reflect me. Blue is my favourite colour. My life isn't blue. Actually, my life is probably more frantic like red or orange. Sometimes I feel blue, but I generally appear pretty sunshiny like yellow. Ultimately, the last year has taught me how to be me. I'm still learning how to do that every day...but it's a comin'.
A former classmate/friend is currently making a documentary about me. In his proposal, he described me as stressful, frantic (or some word like that) and happy-go-lucky. It's a pretty funny and apt description.
Dear Friends (you know who you are), so happy for you. :) And I'm happy for me too. I'm so happy to have so many wonderful people in my life. When I'm feeling blue, it's good to know that I have people to turn to.
For awhile, it seems, I've been "lookin' for love in all the wrong places" and there have been plenty of fine guys with fine faces, but none have faced my way. And that's ok.
To conclude...if your patient enough to continue to check this blog, this is for you...a little diddy I used to listen to on a weekly basis:

Thank you for bein' a friend
Travelled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidante
If you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see
The biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say
Thank you for bein' a friend

woman's worth-Dec. 8's Bugle-Obersver

A woman's worth; Overreaction to tasteless comment
Bugle-Observer
Tue Dec 8 2009
Page: A4
Section: Opinion
Byline: Katelin Dean

"Girls, we need to make more babies or we will never be able to support our future," York MLA Carl Urquhart wrote on his Facebook page the other day much to the chagrin of Liberal MLA Joan MacAlpine-Stiles.

Though it wasn't the most intelligent comment in the world and I agree with some criticism of this statement, I think McAlpine-Stiles blew it out of proportion to steer attention away from her decision to support the premier's plan to sell NB Power.

Of course I think it's wrong to imply that a woman's only role is to pop babies out. I also realize that with baby boomers well on their way to retirement, the province requires tax dollars from a workforce to fill the financial void that will be created. This workforce can be created by increasing the population in the traditional sense - through procreation. Or, the government can work harder on immigration and bring forth population growth that way.

And, as a political figure, Urquhart should have been much more conscientious while posting on his Facebook page.

Though, as someone who uses Facebook and writes a blog, we often post these things without really examining the repercussions. My guess is that Urquhart was looking to the future of the province and realized population needs to grow to maintain the tax dollars that are coming in. When posting on Facebook or a blog or Twitter or some other social networking tool, a quick thought can be expressed and broadcast in a few seconds.

As a female MLA from the opposite party, MacAlpine-Stiles swiftly criticized Urquhart's statement, as she should have.

What I find troubling was the timing.

In the same day, I read the story about her chastising him regarding his insensitive comment and then, further down on the page, read a story about how she has decided to vote with her party regarding the sale of NB Power. She originally told the media she hadn't read the MOU and would vote with her conscious when she decided. It's so convenient she was able to wave a shiny object - a woman's rights issue - to detract from something much more prevalent.

The sale of NB Power is an extremely heated and much-debated issue in the province right now.

While she found what Urquhart said "unspeakably offensive," many in the province would find her decision to vote in favour of the sale of NB Power equally as offensive and there's no doubt in my mind that she'd have some concept of the political gravity of her decision.

While I am well aware of how hard women have worked for equality and to shed the image of being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, I think using a woman's issue to detract from another political decision is offensive to me as an egalitarian.

As appearing in Dec. 1's Bugle-Observer

Since the bugle-observer is offline, i decided to post today's column here.

By Katelin Dean

John Lennon said, "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

In high school I didn't have many friends, though there were phases that were pretty typical of a teenage girl.

One time, I was excited about four girls who let me hang out with them during school and my mom let me invite the four of them over for a sleepover in Grade 9.

We stayed up most of the night talking about boys we had crushes on, putting make up on each other and watching movies.

It, incidentally, was the weekend Tim Hortons' introduced Iced Cappuccinos, and we lived within walking distance to a Tim Hortons.

Picture this: five 14-year-old girls, too much caffeine and talking about what our lives would be like when we were older.

We talked about getting married to the boy of our dreams (or at least who we thought was cute at the time), having kids and having wonderful careers.

I know I had it all planned out.

I was going to marry the French horn player from my high school band. We were going to have a terrific swing band – comprised of the people in our high school band – play our wedding reception and over 200 people would be there to see us celebrate our undying love for one another.

Then, after our honeymoon in Rome, we would come back and I was going to be a civil engineer – just like my dad – and he would be a professor.

I planned for us to have one child when I turned 25. Her name was going to be Abbey Rae – named after my two grandfathers. I wanted to have Abbey at 25, so I would still be fairly young when she went off to university because the French horn player and I would still have a lot of living left to do.

This, of course, was unbeknownst to him. But to me, once I admitted it to these four girls, it was real.

It seems hilarious now, as a 26-year-old single gal

I maintained a fairly close friendship with two of these for ladies for the past 12 years, though it has been sporadic, and they came to visit me this weekend.

Just before going to sleep on Saturday night, we reminisced about the over-caffienated sleepover so many years ago and how our lives are so much different than we had planned.

If you're reading this column, you know that I'm not designing bridges for you to drive on as a civil engineer.

As for the French horn player, he is playing bass in a reasonably popular pop/rock band in Halifax and is in a long-term relationship with a woman he met after university.

And as for me, I am super single with no immediate plans of entering a relationship or having little Abbey Rae.

Until fairly recently, I worried about when I was going to marry and have kids, but now, I'm just living life and having a good time.

Though it's different from the plan I had originally crafted as a young teenager, my life is working out pretty well overall.

John Lennon was right.