is this life?

August 18, 2009

Grind, Baby, Grind!

grind, baby, grind.

Last night there was a party. I don't remember much about it. All I remember is that there were a lot of things flowing, least of which was alcohol. Grossed out yet? It gets worse. Or better. Depending on which way you like to play.

shame.

Alright, well maybe we'll not even go there. But maybe I can still pump my point across to you without being exceptionally distasteful. (Maybe I can't!) Today's problem (most days have problems) lies in the matter of fact that people are shameless. I am a person. Therefore I am shameless. The difference being that I realize this, and I know where to draw the line so as to not become shameful.

Check that. I am ashamed about many things, but most of these dastardly deeds are things that likely do more harm to myself than any other person. And really, in the whole scheme of things, I like to tell myself that I am really not that bad of a person - most of the time. It's true that I have some bad ideas involving you & me, but more likely than not, my conservative/restrained upbringing will shine through and I will behave.

but something that feels this damn' good couldn't be all that bad... could it?

Sex is all around us. There's just no escaping it. After all, each of our god's want us all to pro-create so that we can perpetuate these civilizations that are filled with soo much happiness and peace. So even despite Chinese population control ideas, philosophies on freedom an individual rights, and problems associated with a population explosion, sex still dominates.

But the way it's done kinda disgusts me. If you've ever picked up a copy of Vue Weekly of SEE magazine and peaked at any of the articles/ads in the last few pages, you shouldn't be shocked to be reading about some freaky new problem/product/service that a person is buying, selling, or trying to heal. But besides the obvious things like media-produced sex in music, television, or the internet, one of the most unsettling things to ever see is a friend or acquaintance getting it on to any various degree: A. in person, B. in their facebook pictures, C. when they are already in a relationship, and D. with a little sister. People are FREAKY! (Thank God!/Get A Room!) I hardly even know how to react to some of the stuff I seen/have done myself over the years. All I know is that it can be some of the most incredibly good or bad times a person will have on their time on earth, depending on each situation. And you freaks out there (I may or may not include myself in this group), please, please, just do what you can to stay away from people in relationships, and your buddy's little sister. Especially if you do not have the self-control to keep your sexy ways off of facebook. ESPECIALLY if your freaky ways out-do the less freaky ways of most other people.

alcohol.

$5.75 a bottle? You must be kidding me. But with the promise of forty ounces to freedom, sometimes it just must be worth the price, eh? Next thing you know it, you are watching your friend from school or work grinding down on some random guy on the dance floor with techno beats blaring in the background. You feel sorry for her boyfriend/fiance or whatever, who's working out of town, but you also feel kinda like you should be the one that this girl should be "dancing" with - but only if you were a little more wasted... The saddest part of this is that you are in fact much to sober to forget about her and everything you are seeing and just go home to sleep to forget about it, but just a little too drunk to start crying over the whole unfortunate situation. The remedy? Have one more drink and take the next girl home.

Alcohol serves as an ultimate tool for any public situation: it's an excuse for an easy hook-up, a defense for acting like a total ass, a reason to be belligerent and piss on cars in parking lots (I guess this falls under "total ass"). It allows you to get away with being a total pervert or a total slut. And in the end, we have a real mess. We have 2 drunken slobs mildly attracted to eachother, fucking. I want to buy her a glass of merlot or shiraz sooo bad right now!

jelousy.

More likely than not, this blog would not even had been published if I had a few more pictures of an incredibly beautiful girl like my ex with her tongue pressed up against my neck, circling the internet. But at the same time, that stuff really isn't all that appropriate for anyone now is it? I mean, amateur porn has to start somewhere after all, right? And that stuff can spiral out of control like nobody's business. So out of this bitter jelousy, I support the idea of keeping it in the bedroom (or behind closed doors, at least!) Cameras are everywhere nowadays anyways, and as a result, "sex" has become mainstream, sort of like tattoos - everyone has one, and everyone likes to show it off! So really - when I do find that 1 person who is 'in' to videography, that tape shall forever remain in a safety deposit box. Unless the price is right.

money.

Money buys sex. This is the most horrible side of things. The 2008 Liam Neeson movie, "Taken" shows the darkest side of this. It goes a little beyond buying her that glass of wine. It shows how the most rich & powerful people in the world can exploit young women. It is really a sickening reality. And whenever you hear about good times in Thailand, for example, you think "whuh-ohh, red-flag"!
CBC aired this report last weekend. It is somewhat disturbing but nothing I haven't already heard of. http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/2009/08/081609_8.html

in conclusion.

Steve Carrell did a great job of depicting a man who lived is whole youth without getting any action in The 40 Year Old Virgin. Although this story may be a bit far-fetched, the premise is still very reasonable, as to how a guy could really handle things differently in a sex-crazed world. Both sexes are to blame, even though the CBC report above seems to take a different stance. Both sexes deserve the right to free themselves from this atrocity called life with alcohol, and until we start realizing the value in money & how it might be used to make ourselves feel better by creating a better world, we will continue to buy ourselves a ticket into getting laid - that ultimate ticket to a temporary escape. We will feel the shame, until we get sooo predispositioned that this is in fact normal behaviour. Then negative feedback cycles will then just compound the problem. And this includes our exposure to others "at it", which in effect creates various degrees of jelousy. Tolerance, restraint, shame, and respect are the most important concepts that we need to really appreciate if we want to get away from a sex-crazed world, where even a dance floor can turn into something...wet.

This was chapter 21. Let me go buy you a drink.

August 12, 2009

The Folk Fest Experience

Alright, I am going to do my best to keep this brief. There was one hell of a lot stuff going on leading up to, and right throughout the folk festival weekend. 90% of which was pretty gosh darn' fun. 5% was pretty indescribably brutal, and the final 5% was just sooo amazing that I can't even begin to describe it.

So what the heck made it so fun, you ask?? I'll tell you what made it one of the best festival experiences ever! A girl named Janet. She's actually a friend of mine's little sister. But the time spent with her was truly fantastic. This girl? She has it all: the looks, the brains, a superb taste in music...

Alright Janet, now that I have you and your sister completely freaked out, please know that I am just kidding. Although, it was a lot of fun drinking with you and seeing you again!

IN ALL SERIOUSNESS though, the festival was great, the company was better. I was exposed to a whole new realm of music that I typically had avoided for most of my days, thinking that it was all "old hippie stoner crap". How wrong was I?!?! The diversity and insane talents between all the acts I saw made this one of the best musical experiences ever. And it was all for free.

Yep, free. The volunteering through 4 frigid (10°C) wet night shifts "securing" the area with Lawrence and Lenore from any delinquents that might want to steal stuff from the hill was quite the price to pay to get in to watch the entire festival for free. But only for one night we had to leave watching Boz Skaggs early, since we had to start gearing up with walkie talkies and flashlights and about 3 or 4... or 5 layers of clothing.

The other nights were all pretty great. It all started off pretty huge with Tracy Chapman and Sarah MacLaughlin. Both were amazing.Some of Sarah's songs have significant meaning to me, as I am sure they do to you too (even if it's from watching a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Tracy Chapman has such a powerful sound that you just can't help to stare at the screen with your jaw hanging open, completely impressed.

We motored home with 1 night down, 4 more to go. The Thursday was the night we showed up late and ended up missing Steve Earle and only watching about an hour of Boz Scaggs while sitting on a blanket waaay up on the hill before having to volunteer. But Friday was probably the ultimate complete day, where we did everything from watching Neko Case, the Wailers, and Raul Malo on the mainstage, to watching my first ever Loudon Wainwright III concert on one of the smaller stages, to going out to party with the musicians at their hotel early into the morning!! Neko Case was hilarious on stage. Her music was really soothing. Raul Malo got us all dancing, and the Wailers be Jammin' Mon, on the stage on the hill and back at the hotel.

Saturday morning was good. We got back to the hill in pretty good time, but missed the 1st Loudon Wainwright III session. As a result, we crashed most of the afternoon at one stage and chilled to sessions with the Great Lake Swimmers, Kimmie Rhodes, Lynn Miles, David Francey & Dave Swarbick, Danny Michel (soo good), Jill Barber (a really sweet girl/voice - she introduced herself to me and Janet in a shuttle bus the day before), Fred Eaglesmith (a bit of a douchebag), and the last Loudon set.

Time for beer. I met up with Janet and drank as much as I could as fast as I can, then headed out with Janet and listened to Alex Cuba. He sang a song about Janet's big sister. It was kinda weird! Maybe just because I was sooo loaded. The people in the beer gardens we were drinking with liked to call themselves engineers, even though they weren't. I hate it when people do that. But Alex Cuba was great. I definitely recommend you checking out http://www.alexcuba.com.

Saturday night kicked my ass. Patti Griffin, Iron & Wine, and Rodney Crowell were all so unique in their own ways. By the end of Rodney Crowell, the dust bowl we were in was starting to get pretty ridiculous. So for a change of pace, we went for a walk. A long walk. An amazing walk. Allll through the river valley. We wound our way up & down hills, through trees and bushes and stumps and eventually found our way back out to civilization. It was really a great time. And we still had 1 day left.

Sunday was an interesting day. I spent most of it alone. In that respect, it was lousy since we were doing pretty good together for the 1st 4 days or whatever. I guess she decided I could figure out this "folk" music by myself by Day 5. And I did. I found my way to some really amazing concerts and sessions. The Chinese throat singers "Hanggai" was unforgettable, especially when fused with "Cherryholmes". I caught some more Jill Barber, a thorough GLS concert, Hot Tuna banjo music, Chumbawamba, Slaid Cleaves (yodelling), Souljah Fyah, and Chloe Albert. Her set was dreamy. Or else, I was just so tired that I found myself drifting in & out of sleep, soaking up sunshine and sweet music. The other musical highlight of Sunday was watching the CKUA (94.9fm) stage, where I saw Danny Michel, Bela Fleck, and Alex Cuba get interviewed and play their songs. Into the evening, the dust was getting into my nose and it was getting hard to breathe. I could have really used another one of those forest walks, actually, but I suffered through. The main stage acts on Sunday were Steven Page, Bela Fleck, and Toumani Diabate. The other nights were definitely better though.

The People.

Linda Duncan was there at least one night. As was Dr. Craik, and a whole crapload of the old EPCOR crew. I also saw a bunch of "enlightened engineers" - those kids with liberal tendencies, I guess, and were involved with Engineers Without Borders at some point or another. Steve, Jess, Andy, Maggie, Andrea, Mark, are only a few of the people that come to me at the top of my head. Allan, from my 1st "engineering job" was there, and he used to call me a "dumb young punk that should go to folk fest" instead of those other kind of shows. As I mentioned, it was fun hanging out with Janet again, although I am pretty certain she owes me a beer or 2 or equivalent... But ultimately, I am so grateful for us to volunteer those 4 cold nights together and hang out Wednesday through Saturday. It was one hell of an extended weekend. And for the first time ever, I didn't even miss warped tour in calgary one bit. Maybe this means I'm growing up?!

Back to real life.

August 1, 2009

I Won't See You Again Tonight, Pt. 7?

Hide. You know you will. Behind those big dark sunglasses you will remain. Nothing, nobody penetrating inward. But the power in those beautiful eyes to conquer and destroy, build and bless --- if they ever come off.

You are up to your neck in everything that makes you so appealing. so sexy. No room for anything else. Saturated and spent. Exhausted yet exhilarated! Living a life that is much to be desired. And shared only with the people in your life that you know that you will always be able to count on. And me? Barely breathing. But still alive! You induce vitality. That is probably why I like being around you so much. You make me feel alive. Who even needs breathing when you feel this alive?!?!

And you will be successful. You will be amazing. Even more than you are now. And you will leave the rest of us all feeling really, really, stupid. But proud to have known you. I feel stupid already. Mostly for feeling like this way about you. Why do any of us do this to ourselves? I suppose it has something to do with you just being so unbelievably breath-taking. Maybe I should really try and remember to breathe...

So consider this. There will come a day when it will be the last day we ever see each other again.

And you will become more perfect as I watch from a little ways back, as those big black sunglasses get dropped - but only for a minute and only from such a distance that that one special person will be able to have those beautiful blue eyes pierce his with full focus.

Or else you will be in my arms and we will be old. Where you dropped those sunglasses years ago and it was only you and me in this world. My eyes forever locked in yours and yours in mine. Those eyes that destroyed me and built me up making me stronger, strongest. Eternal strength.

I only hope that if you ever do look my way into the shadows, in hopes of getting some shade from your sun-filled path, I just don't blink.

So maybe I won't see you tonight. Not in the way I want to see you. Not from the other side of those blinders you sport so fashionably. And maybe you won't see me. But I will be here, waiting. On the bench on the hill, when the sun goes down, when the shades really should be coming off after all...

July 23, 2009

Another Another Significant Coincidence

Another Another Significant Coincidence

I can't help but feel sometimes that I am setting myself up for failure. Total, epic, and complete. Yet at the same time, I don't see how I can process incoming information any different (i.e. with a more open mind) than I am already doing. Time after time, things in my life seem to happen. Strategically random. Seemingly significant. But then maybe to someone else, they wouldn't be symbolic or substantial in any way at all. Tonight it happened again only 3 times. Once while watching TV, the other time: attempting to buy concert tickets for social distortion, and once again when I was roaming churchill square on the search for good eats. In the past week, I've been hit with a pretty decent sized whack of similar weird things that just happen to resonate with me. Am I just being ridiculous? Am I seeing stuff when there is really nothing there to see? Who knows. All I know is that Momentary Relapse by Choke just happened to come on as I start to wrap up this blog. I wonder what tomorrow will bring. I hope there is a difference in believing in fate and having endless (in)significant? coincidences go on throughout my 25 years on this planet. I hope there's not more that I should be doing that could reinforce my fate (there most likely is), rather than just watching my life piss away from not reacting more drastically, significantly to any of these weird little moments that just keep happening to me.

Gears turning inside

Turn over and over

And I ponder for hours

Everything means more these days

Good friends remain

Fuel the will to recover

Tears that slowly dissipate

I'll bear this weight no more

July 16, 2009

Paris, Apparently

Ch. 66

I finished school just a little while back now & thought to myself "what the hell: Since noone's hiring, I might as well just go spend money I don't really have. I thought a quick trip to new york would be fun since I loved it so much last time (yankees, late show, central park, times square, broadway, battery park, etc). But then I was going to have to justify my spending on things which I have already seen and doing things I have already done semi-recently. So I looked @ Europe. London was atrocious. I don't quite understand how the hell it could be soo much more to go to London compared to other parts of Europe. Scotland would've been kinda nice, but as Beavis and Butthead put it when they were making fun of a Proclaimers video: "Scotland - isn't that the place where everything sucks?!, hehe". Spain? Hot. I like heat. Hot, hot heat. But in summer? I dunno...wasn't totally appealing. Eastern Europe? Let's face it - I'm just not that quite adventurous. I am pretty safe and conservative in more ways than I care to admit. Places like Croatia, Turkey, Lebanon, Yugoslavia might be just fine to go check out, but I didn't really even have the time to do any more research. I just had to get away from everything here and I had to do it now.

A deal showed up where 10 nights in Paris was actually going to be about as expensive as spending that much time in New York. I was set. I even convinced myself I still knew some French. This was really very pretty short notice for a consciously cautious & conservative boy like myself. (That must be the Scottish blood in me). But then. Less than a week before my plane was to take flight, mom says to me that she's got holidays & doesn't quite know what to do with them aside from painting the fence. A few grand later, it turns out that I wasn't going to be taking this trip alone after all.

There's nothing wrong with taking trips alone. You can cover a lot of ground and have no other people to account to but yourself. But being the reasonable person that I am, I said to Mom, "sure, pack your bags, let's go!" I am also the kind of person that thinks that some of the "big" stuff a person does in his or her life is certainly more fun when they can do it with someone else. And if I have such an effing hard time trying to convince the significant people in my life coming to Warped Tours or Virgin Festivals in Calgary, for example, I didn't think spending any time trying to convince someone to spend a whack o' cash in Europe was really all that worth it .

So we were off. In 10 days you can see a lot. That's how long I stayed in NYC last time, so I kinda had some idea of the pace I would have to set for myself. I really got to get involved with the french culture. Everything from the skinny smokes and 2' long baguettes to the tiny bathrooms, cheap wine, psychotic traffic, and crowded subway cars. I immersed myself. Mom kept up. I had set a pretty rigorous schedule for the 10 days and there's not much that was left out!

Here are some of the more significant differences in Parisien culture and Edmontonian culture that weren't at all difficult to pick up on:

Everyone's skinny. Super skinny. Every body smokes. Skinny smokes. The kind you roll yourself. But not pot. I didn't see any drug culture at all actually! I guess that's gotta be saved for when I go to Amsterdam with... Marnie? I suppose that all the smoking is likely related to how everyone is so skinny. Not to mention that noone eats beef. How does an Albertan survive?

Vespas, motorbikes, mopeds and bicycles dominate the roads as they weave through the rest of the miniature compact cars that are all mildly flawed from sideswipes. They leave less than a half inch when parking these little cars along the streets. I did see one hummer though. Otherwise No Trucks. How nice! They have roundabouts (without any form of lane control) instead of intersections. This cuts down on idling/global warming/accidents/traffic gridlock.You can also jaywalk through traffic pretty reasonably. Cars stop and let hoards of people cross all the time. Even if your a little late making it through before the light changes. Here? You would die. The underground network is incredible. There are almost as many people walking through tunnels between train stops as there are people walking above ground between Brasseries and Boulangeries. The metro has a train that goes bye every 7 minutes. There's clocks on the platforms that regulate this and are never late. The trains are crowded but uber-highspeed and can get from one end of the city to the other in 10 minutes or less.

Oh! There's another thing: NOBODY SPEAKS ENGLISH. Well, I guess not "nobody" but it's not one of those things where you can just expect any given person to speak at least a little bit of English. It really is a common tongue, afterall; and if I was a French Nationalist I would probably not reduce myself to knowing English either! The "rude" attitude attributed to the French is largely due to their unwillingness to cater to anglophones which would require more work from them to understand what the hell we are trying to say.

The French are each given they're daily bread. They eat it like North Americans eat pizza! That means constantly. Anywhere you go, someone will be walking down the street carrying a long skinny baguette. If they aren't getting their bread from a boulangerie, they are in one of the hundreds of specialized market stores for their fruit, cheese, or meat. No Wal-Marts. Or Superstores.The coffee. So different! It requires a blog of its own! The cafe's are everywhere and all of them are chalk full of people eating bread/croissants and drinking coffee. But there were signs throughout the city from Starbuck's thanking the City of Paris for 5 Wonderful Years. The Starbuck's looks the same, but the "regular coffee" is still not what you would get from a North American Starbucks. (Don't do that, anyways). There are no other American restaurant chains aside from McDonald's. There were a few Subways, I saw 1 KFC and 2 Pizza Huts. They also have an IKEA and a Ritchie & Sons Machine Auction House. Wine is cheap in the corner shop, expensive in the wine shops and even more expensive in the restaurants. But it all tastes good. A 25cl (250mL) "pint" of beer can expect to cost you 4.50 euros or 7 bucks! There's also coke. No pepsi. The coke is sold in 2.50 euro 50cl (500mL) bottles or 2 euro cans 33cl (330mL) cans. Note: These are smaller than North America's FAT sizes (355mL cans, 591mL bottles). Since food is soooo expensive in restaurants, every park anywhere will have hundreds of people sitting on their blanket with a basket and a bottle of wine. Note: baskets - not plastic bags. They are somewhat uncommon.

There's no tall buildings and the entire city is pretty flat. Biking made easy. Except for that church on that hill. To see anything historical, you will be walking up a stone spiral staircase with at least 250 steps. And then down again and then most likely over one of 20 or 30 bridges that are all along the (brown) Seine River. They have no ugly concrete infrastructure. Here, everything's concrete everywhere. There is really hardly any road or building construction going on anywhere. Here, it's everywhere. The infrastructure services like power or street lights or stop lights are all very modest and don't stick out like soar thumbs as they do here. The Louvre is huge. It's stupid, really. But I saw some Rembrandt's in there which are actually pretty sweet, and of course the Mona Lisa and Venus of Milo and a couple other "famous" pieces of art. They also have a Picasso and Dali museum. And about a million others. I am a classy world citizen now.

There's no drought. When it rains in France - it pours. This is called "raining robes". I got wet once. But at least it's green everywhere instead of brown.
Police are everywhere. Like New York. Except with roller blades.
Birds are everywhere. Including in restaurants, airports. Stupid pigeons.
Tourists are everywhere. And from everywhere. I think I met 2 Canadian girls the whole time.
Everything is old - ancient.
Musicians play for tips. This includes cello chamber music outside the Louvre, flute playing in front of the church, organ grinders in the markets, accordian music on the subway platforms, saxophone, guitar, and violin playing on the trains.
Graffiti is everywhere. Thank god Stephen Mandel isn't their mayor.
Gas stations are underground.
People are everywhere.
Canadian girls are hotter.
Bikes are everywhere. No one wears helmets though. Including the motorized ones.
The public bathrooms have shared sinks between the sexes. Good times.
Nobody wears ball caps. Anywhere.
Everybody smokes. Everywhere!
I saw a girl down her wine and smoke her ciggy at the exact same time using the same hand.
The touristy/classy subway stations by where the rich roam have a sweet-smelling potpourri injected into the HVAC system while the ones by my hotel reek of stale urine.
They actually have phone booths.
60 year old eastern european ladies beg with paper espresso cups, with their heads bowed low to the ground and their arms reached out for pocket change.
They don't recycle, although there are strategically placed wine bottle collection bins.
The water is soft. People's hair shines.
There's a high population density. And there's people. Everywhere.

...

All I can say for sure is that after being there for that long, I really got my head around what I love and hate about both Canada (or North America) and France (or Europe). These industrialized first world nations both have soooo much to offer its people and are yet still the roots of sooo many problems in the world today. Environmental problems and unfair trade are the 2 problems that stick out to me, but I am sure there are hundreds more. This was made especially apparent after the trip when the on-flight movie for the way home was "Earth" which details the many ways our planet's species are succumbing to our negligence and closed-mindedness. What a world we live in!

One last thing. I think it is really interesting in how we find it necessary to share with people our "adventures". Personally, I don't care one way or another whether anyone knows I have been anywhere or has read any of the past thousand or so words. It is really more of a way for me to document my own thoughts and feelings and help to process some of the overload of information of what I brought in over the past 10 days. I will be posting more pictures on facebook, but it's not in order to be "show-y" or anything like that. I am doing it just for the few people out there that might be semi-interested in the goings-on of my life, or that have nothing better to do with their time. So your welcome for that!

so tired. sorry for the chaos, the rambling, and the endless words & phrases, but i am calling this done.

June 22, 2009

My Angel

What can I even say? Besides the fact that I am now absolutely positive that there is only one person on this side of the earth who absolutely melts my heart. My knees shake and my voice trembles whenever I am within six feet of her. It's been this way for as long as I can remember. It's been this way with no other woman that I have been the least bit close to. The air becomes drier than air in the sahara when the sun's at its highest. I feel chills but my temple beads with sweat droplets and I know in the back of my mind that every single one of my flaws has become a million times worse. But I can't even think of wiping the booger that is hanging from the tip of my nose or even trying to suppress the alfalfa-style cowlick at the back of my head, as I am too busy being absolutley mezmerized by her. Luckily, I didn't fall down when tripping over my own shoelaces that don't seem to ever stay done up. Or maybe I did, but I was just in such an oblivious stuporous state, that I didn't even notice. Her smile is so warm and genuine that I can't help to believe that she's actually even enjoying the random retarded nothingness of sentences stringed together that I'm pitching to her. She listens and tries soo incredibly hard to comprehend what I might be trying to say. But her angel eyes look into mine and my heart is in my throat and it's all I can do to not look down at my un-tied shoes. Those penetrating yet soft blue eyes remind me of the southern carribean sea. I don't know if it's because of their endless depth, of their beautiful colour, or the way they sparkle even when the sun's not there. They seem to look deep past mine as if trying to find something deeper and more substantial than my semi-dirty blue jeans and my somewhat wrinkled t-shirt. Her long brown hair dangles modestly in a windless evening but still shines - even when the sun's not there. It smells like something sweeter than roses and fresher than rain. I can smell it from a mile away. But the distance between us usually more like 2 miles - what might as well be 20 thousand.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about her is her spirit. Her soul, passion, and heart. It radiates from her and energizes me. It makes me feel like I can conquer the world and the universe, too. Her drive & focus to become the change we need in this world today inspires me to want to become the man who can stand by her side and change this world together.

So I work at it. Little by little, bit by bit. I talk a lot about priorities and time and what a person should be doing with their life. I try to act on those, with getting as undistracted or disheartened as possible. It's hard though. Knowing that there is truly an angel on earth but being soooo far removed from anything this absolutely perfect is somewhat hard to take. I will not give up though. I will try my damndest to be her lobster. If only I don't get eaten up first.

June 14, 2009

maybe it's all just a lot a bullshit

if you have read any noam chomsky or gwynne dyer maybe you think you are kinda cool.

if you have ever heard stephen lewis or archbishop tutu speak about AIDS in africa you might think (the enlightened privelged elite that you are) "wow, what the hell is going on in the world and why aren't our elected officials doing more to make things better?".

if you even slightly recognize the names thomas homer-dixon, jeffery sachs, naomi klein, henry thoreau, ronald wright, paul polak, john perkins, or even maybe our boy joseph stiglitz, you might be one of those people that even likes the idea of a better world, since this one here, now, is not meeting your standards/expectations. if any of these names stick out to you at all, then at the very least, you might just think: "wow, im pretty up to date with the pop-culture world of non-fiction and the worldly devastating situations" or else: "who cares about stupid reading by stupid know-it-all authors when there's so much work to be done & money to be made & beer to be drunk?" ... hang on, that reminds me, my beer's in the other room...

...canadian was 8 cans for $13 incl tax & dep. good deal. even if it's just canadian. (which is american).

with this whole recent "green" propaganda you are hearing about in the media, maybe you have heard of george monbiot, maude barlowe, andrew nikiforuk, tony clarke, tim flannery, marq devilliers, eric schlosser...

who cares?

maybe you put your energy into realizing the classics like catcher in the rye or great expectations or wuthering heights or stone angel or pride & prejudice or crime & punishment or gulliver's travels or 1984. those, after all, are the stories that inspire us to use our creative minds. and where would we be without creative minds?

and not to mention:

it takes a lot more investment and dedication to get through a >250p book, in comparison to giggling through an 87 minute will ferrell movie or watching the ever-repetitive evening news.

but this is your life. and your time here is running out minute at a time. i hope you are really having the time of your life. i hope you are getting everything accomplished that you ever dreamed you would, whether that be completing your Adam Sandler DVD collection, watching all of the X-Men movies on their first day in theaters, spending your days "gaming" - whatever that is, golfing - like the rich white men, or any other vice that gives you that feeling of fulfillment.

me? i'm just waiting. biding my time. barely breathing. doing what I can. dreaming of doing more. action without knowledge if futile, but sometimes knowledge can only be gained through action. the books are endless, after all. and aren't all these realms of writers i just mentioned nothing more than capitalists who are getting rich off of our inability to actually close their book, get off our ass and just start DOING SOMETHING?

especially when the weather's this damn' good.

i'm going to the driving range.

and having some more american canadian.

June 11, 2009

i am here

here i am. it's hard to believe. with plans and ideas. ideals and convictions. no, not those kind of convictions. yet, anyways. but this is me. degreed. here. now. forever. and now what? hopes?dreams? always. fingers? ever-crossed. can't begin to count the first stars i've seen any night. but what more can a guy really wish for? a few things. his wildest most out-of-this-galaxy dreams to come true? doubtful. but surely, some dreamers get the chance of living their dreams? i think they do. but here? now? that's where i am. do i have to go somewhere to make them come true? possibly. and what about that time thing. running out? probably. but what if everything that could make the dream come true is right in front of my eyes but i'm just to thick to comprehend? and time? what about time??? some things will come to be, i know. the dates are set and everything. but in the mean time. and in between time! what then? patience. wears thin. is a virtue. but even so, there's so much to live for! so much to stand for!!! even from here. even if everything "good" looks like it's over there. thousands of miles away. how do you know you are compensating for something less than what your wildest most incredible dreams might be if your far-sighted scope let's you miss every happiness that you could ever wish for? here. where i am. where you are.

i will go to the ends of the earth for this happiness i seek. unless it finds me here first.

June 4, 2009

The Re-Inventing of Public Education

Chapter 45. The Re-inventing of Public Education

These blogs are way overdue. I blame my inability to pound out a few hundred words without sitting on the idea for a while of what I want to at least try to say. Not to mention that distractions are endless: hockey playoffs, my library book, facebook, and not necessarily in that order. But sometimes key current events force me into just forcing out the few semi-thought-out ideas I had scattering around in my head. This is what is happening now.

VueWeekly had an interesting article just come out in today's issue by social activist Ricardo Acuna. It clearly indicated acts of fascism and intolerance by the Albertan government, under the guise of ironically wanting to move forward and developing a long-term vision of what education in Alberta should look like in 20 years. This incoincidently happened to be an immediate follow-up to the passing of Bullshit Bill Number 44. I mean, hell! Even the slightest liberal-thinking young person would want to see this Bill fail terribly!! This could be seen with the 4756 members in the facebook group called "Students Against Bill 44" in comparison to the 61 members in the group called "Students For Bill 44". Something's up. HEY! Teacher! Leave Us Kids ALONE!!!

So. Now that we are all updated with the current events, let's go ahead and see what the hell I was thinking about regarding public education when I came up with my 45th topic of something I thought that could be turned into a blog .

#1 - Bill 44 proves we need a change in government.

Aside from the street response from the passing of this bill ("Alberta's always been seen as a bit of a redneck province"...), the vocal minorities sometimes do need to be heard. What good is a government that has no intention of letting the local gay & lesbian community have any degree of clout in the place they call home. Sheer intolerance. This is not the way to work towards a world with acceptance and peace. Even outside of this minority community, there was a whole whack of parents who agree that their kids need to be getting the entire curriculum so that they all come out with the information they need to make decisions for themselves. Education is not supposed to be limited.

So, it is important to understand that governments provide us with schools but we get the government we deserve (including strategic voting & apathetic non-voting). But more importantly we must understand that industry controls the government. Economies thrive on industry. And now since the economy is failing, we have the perfect opportunity to go all Obama-style and realize the potential in change! We can actually vote in a government with ideas on fresh technologies and genuine acceptance of all the minority groups that make Alberta interesting! We can realize the devastation of the air, water, people of oilsands production - despite how proportionately small they say it is!

#2 - Curriculum Enhancement: we can get more out of kids than just having them be able to regurgitate biology textbooks, take the derivative implicitly of a multi-variable equation, or memorize dates of wars.

This is actually a part of Engineer's Without Borders' goals once upon a time. We hoped to (and did) get more talk about "development" in the classrooms - something more than Grade 5 Social Studies, Post-War rebuilding policies in high school, or Sociology 269 @ the UofA. But the current curriculum must be re-vamped as we move farther into this 21st Century if we have a hope in hell of leading lives that will benefit all Albertans aka global citizens.

EWB focused primarily on aid dollars, water access, food subsidies, and fair trade. These 4 components have to be embedded into the Alberta curriculum at a very young age, just as RECYCLING was put into the classrooms when I was in grade 2.

So in addition to studying spelling, reading, the government, math, computers, christmas, the food guide, phys ed, sex ed, canadian politics, the holocaust; our curriculum needs to be more precise on taking on topics like:

the environment:
global warming, pollution, recycling, water scarcity

ethics & faith:
abortion, stem cells, evolution, islam, christianity (like, get them to read Life of Pi)

inequality & intolerance:
the apartheid, HIV/AIDS, globalization

I hadn't even touched a non-fiction book until I was well into my post-secondary. Why not get high school kids reading at least 1 fiction and 1 non-fiction book per semester through high school? That doesn't seem too hard.

#3 - Developing temperance of students is a lifelong skill we can work on developing even at school, even when the parents aren't there.

Restraint. Thinking. Patience and understanding that often less is more. Sometimes the easiest solution isn't the best. Sacrifice. I think that these things could be incorporated into day-to-day classroom stuff.

#4 - The teachers must actually want to teach (see my blog called 80 X 40)

So many times, a good government job is all that a person could really hope for in life. We need some way of paying the bills and paying into a pension so that the golden years will be all that we hoped they would be.

But I know of two people from my past. Let's call them Mr. C. and Miss B. Both are relatively new teachers. Miss C. counts her days until holidays and reaps the benefits of everything the teaching profession has to offer, with giving as little back as possible. On the other hand, Mr. C. hopes to be a principal one day, and is constantly putting in extra time with his class in sports-related activities, and also sits on committees that he doesn't get paid for to discuss item #2: Curriculum Enhancement! Kudos, Mr. C! Miss B? Why did you even bother going into teaching? Don't you realize that these kids need to see a passion in their role models - the shaper of their minds? You deserve an F. Your kids deserve better. So please, young people, don't go into teaching unless you are certain that you could convince your class that you are in fact there to create a positive influence in their lives. Maybe it's up to the government we elect, and the parents too, to ensure that we hold our teachers (with these compensating salaries) up to the standards we feel our children are entitled to!

Ricardo Acuna's article:
http://vueweekly.com/article.php?id=12135

Andrew Nikiforuk has a book: "School's Out: The Catastrophe in Public Education" available at the edmonton public library

May 7, 2009

Table of Contents

Below you will find an organized list of everything that I have ever published on blogspot, dating back chronologically nearly 2 years now. The Chapter Number is a reference to the time when I first decided to get some of these things offa my chest via a blog. That is why you still won't find a Chapter 2, 5, 8, 21 etc. They are still in my head and thoughts are still being sorted out. The ones without chapter numbers were just random postings that I used blogspot for, and typically had incorporated slightly less thought into them (well, some of them anyways)!