Other people's mail experiments!

I did a quick Google search of "postal experiments" and came up with this hilarious page of a group testing the limits of the US postal system:

http://www.directcreative.com/postal-experiments.html

Now, I don't have quite enough guts to try much of what they did on Canada Post, but perhaps I could try putting the stamp on the other side of an envelope. I don't think it would be a problem as I've managed to mail envelopes without stamps before, plus my tiny envelope had the stamps on the bottom, rather than the top and that went quickly and without even a note.
Letters with incorrect postal codes or none at all have also made it, so I don't think that's really an issue either.
I remember being taught in Girl Guides that you had to veeeery carefully put the person's address in big capital letters in a very particular spot, and that the stamp had to be placed exactly. We spent probably half an hour learning about that, though it would seem that it really doesn't matter.
Something I think would be really cool would be to know a postal worker and hear about the stranger things that people have tried to mail- and how they handled it.
Also, if anyone has any ideas for experiments, or has done any before, I'd love to hear about it!

I think that's all for now.

~Dorothy

Online Course- Practice Class

Earlier this morning I had my first class of the online course I'm taking.
Today was just a practice class to get our microphones working and meet each other, and it went pretty well. My instructor sounds pretty good, and the tech got everything working properly.
The funny thing is that this Friday I'm going to Toronto to visit my sister, so the next class will be from there the day I leave. Hopefully I won't have to sign out early to get to the airport...
I'll also have a 15 minute tutorial with the instructor once a week to go over my work and get feedback.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to getting my assignment next week and will give you an update on it when it happens!

~Dorothy

Mail Experiments: Tiny envelope and coinage

Okay, so for a while now I've had great fun messing with Canada Post, so when I read about someone mailing a letter with coinage instead of stamps I decided to give it a try.


Here it is before it was mailed. I wrote on it "Sorry, didn't have a stamp!" and below "Here's a quarter for your troubles"

I think it was put in the mail either yesterday or the day before, and today we found it in our mailbox, unharmed, with a post mark overtop of the coins:




The "tip" was still there and it seemed that either they didn't notice, or plain didn't care.

I also mailed the tiniest envelope I could find and that made it no problem as well:



Maybe I'll mail another coinage-ladened envelope from Toronto when I go on vacation (this Friday) and see if their post office catches it- or takes the tip.

Thanks for reading!

~Dorothy

My beloved laptop

I was moderately bored, had a camera, and my awesome laptop right near by, so I decided to take a couple photos of it!
This is the device I use most for my new-found hobby of blogging (I've used the family desktop once, too), and I love it very much.
Plus it has a cool skin that my friend Nicole wanted a photo of and I thought you guys might like to see.

(This is it open)


(And closed!)


(And a close up on the skin.)


Okay, well that post sounded better in my head, I hope it wasn't too boring!
Thanks for reading!

~Dorothy

Why I can no longer wear dangly earrings to dance...

Not because they wack me in the face when I jump or spin...Okay, well, they do, but that doesn't really bug me.
To explain, I will start my story from the beginning. Today I wore these earrings to my ballet class:



Cute little hearts just in time for Valentines Day! Plus they look like cinnamon hearts, something I've been eating a ton of lately...But I'll save that ramble for another post.
Anyway, my ballet teacher started told me to relax my shoulders a couple times. This in itself is not an unusual critique for me, I'm rather tense through the upper body, but normally it's something that my Highland or piano teacher would say to me more than he would.
Eventually he says that he was able to tell that my shoulders were up because my earrings gave a measurement from the bottom to my shoulder and he could see if one was higher than the other! *facepalm* That guy notices everything!
So, yes. I can assure you that I will be wearing studs to tomorrow's class. :D

~Dorothy

Highland Dancing Exams

I have my biannual Highland Dance exams coming up this month.
It basically consists of an examiner coming from Scotland, my dance teacher setting up one studio with a table, and then you go in and do dances for her with progressively harder steps as you make your way through the levels.
Sounds okay, right?
That part is.
The part that really drives me nuts is the theory exams.
You have to memorize things from the text book, take first position for instance (same as Ballet):

The heels are together, with the weight equally distributed on both feet, which are turned out to form an angle of 90 degrees (each foot being at an angle of 45 from the line of direction). The dancer may be standing with both feet flat on the ground, or may be poised on the balls of the feet.

I dunno, I don't know anyone who would describe your standard first position that way.
I'm still attempting to get out of this particular exam, but my dance teacher really wants me to do it.

Dreading this exam,
~Dorothy

I'm evil...

I just lost the game!
Muahaha...
If you have no clue what I'm talking about, then go here: http://www.losethegame.com/

~Dorothy