Yeah....drinking makes blogging seem like a good idea. But i know it's not so thats why i didn't do anything foolish when i got home last night. I wanted to but common (ie not drunk) sense prevailed.
Holidays are chugging along. Completely re-writing my English presentation paper. Gawd i've turned into a pretentious prick. I need to watch out for that i the future.
Morgan and Dave should be home soon then all my visiting will be done i think. sorry if i missed anyone, call me if i did.
trying to find a nice quite 50 foot high bonfire to send new years at. I can't believe Bud's is charging a 30 dollar cover charge. that is ridiculous. Getting very excited for this Marxism course in the up coming semester. Wish i could read/write french but se le vie.
Aboot it...christmas time in the rocky mountains.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Yeah...no
So i'm just not feeling this whole blog thing today. I've been staring at the blank page for almost an hour now. Not straight. I skip back and forth to youtube and wikipedia and what not, but the words just aren't coming.
Maybe it's the pie. Or the weather. Doesn't really matter.
Family time was nice and quite. Still lots of people to visit and see, hopefully get some more academic reading done over the next weeks...we'll see.
BLAHHHH...
Maybe it's the pie. Or the weather. Doesn't really matter.
Family time was nice and quite. Still lots of people to visit and see, hopefully get some more academic reading done over the next weeks...we'll see.
BLAHHHH...
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Blinded by the light
GO THE FUCK HOME YOU AROGANT FORGEIN FUCKS!!
GAAAWD_DAMNIT! We need to set up a road block at the BC/Alberta border and send back all these little trendy rich shit heads who come over here with those fancy white (mildly blueish) head lights. The BC roads act id quite clear. Yellow in the front, Red in the back, Orange up top and on te sides if you have 'em. YELLOW! not his new fangled fucking LCD or LSD or LCA or whatever the hell they are...YELLOW! good old fashioned, big bird, banana, dandilion, YELLOW.
"uh, but i can see like a bunch further with these ones they're like brighter and shit...man."
yes yes they are brighter. and what do you think happens to the cars in the other lane when you put brighter fucking lights in the ront of your car? that's what i thought...now go home you bastards.
GAAAWD_DAMNIT! We need to set up a road block at the BC/Alberta border and send back all these little trendy rich shit heads who come over here with those fancy white (mildly blueish) head lights. The BC roads act id quite clear. Yellow in the front, Red in the back, Orange up top and on te sides if you have 'em. YELLOW! not his new fangled fucking LCD or LSD or LCA or whatever the hell they are...YELLOW! good old fashioned, big bird, banana, dandilion, YELLOW.
"uh, but i can see like a bunch further with these ones they're like brighter and shit...man."
yes yes they are brighter. and what do you think happens to the cars in the other lane when you put brighter fucking lights in the ront of your car? that's what i thought...now go home you bastards.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
'tisthe season
So i've now missed my first day of blogging. Pretty good run, had to come to an end some time. In my defence, i was quite drunk. That's never stopped me before but last night i was too far gone.
That's the weird thing about christmas and visiting all these people, you either go for coffee or you go for beers. I love both things but they aren't exactly healthy. And after 10-12-more cups of beverage i tend to experience two side affects consistently...lack of appetite and an extremely full bladder. Why are these the only socially normal ways to meet up with someone for an hour or two? I have done other things when i meet up with people, Brendon and i tend to go to the gym and lift heavy things when we want to visit. But then again both us usually just want to go lift heavy things anyways so...
What else could people do when they want to phone someone up and visit for an hour or so?
That's the weird thing about christmas and visiting all these people, you either go for coffee or you go for beers. I love both things but they aren't exactly healthy. And after 10-12-more cups of beverage i tend to experience two side affects consistently...lack of appetite and an extremely full bladder. Why are these the only socially normal ways to meet up with someone for an hour or two? I have done other things when i meet up with people, Brendon and i tend to go to the gym and lift heavy things when we want to visit. But then again both us usually just want to go lift heavy things anyways so...
What else could people do when they want to phone someone up and visit for an hour or so?
Monday, December 22, 2008
On second thought
I may have been over whelmed by nostalgia the other day because on sober reflexion what i said about there being people who will succed no matter what doesn't really make sense. I still wish it did, but it doesn't.
If there are people who are predetermined to do good and great things that would mean the same thing is true at the other end of the spectrum. Whats god for the goose is good for the gander. People with greatness means people with destruction in them. (conveniently i watched the dark knight last night, such a good movie)
It is much easier to see how circumstance could push someone to do something bad or even nothing at all. Once i stopped to consider that it became quite apparent that many "great" people were victims of circumstance. Anyone who doubts this can look to the oval office for a few more weeks. That idiot Bush is not destined to hold the most powerful office in the world. There is no inborn greatness in that baboon. And he is only one of many. When i think of the other side of the coin, all the great minds that are reduced to madness it almost breaks my heart.
I suppose this could boil down to the age old nature vs nurture.
It is the nature of my classmates to do great things.
It is the nature of the world to break their spirits.
Or maybe it's all just random.
They were nice thoughts while they lasted.
If there are people who are predetermined to do good and great things that would mean the same thing is true at the other end of the spectrum. Whats god for the goose is good for the gander. People with greatness means people with destruction in them. (conveniently i watched the dark knight last night, such a good movie)
It is much easier to see how circumstance could push someone to do something bad or even nothing at all. Once i stopped to consider that it became quite apparent that many "great" people were victims of circumstance. Anyone who doubts this can look to the oval office for a few more weeks. That idiot Bush is not destined to hold the most powerful office in the world. There is no inborn greatness in that baboon. And he is only one of many. When i think of the other side of the coin, all the great minds that are reduced to madness it almost breaks my heart.
I suppose this could boil down to the age old nature vs nurture.
It is the nature of my classmates to do great things.
It is the nature of the world to break their spirits.
Or maybe it's all just random.
They were nice thoughts while they lasted.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
gohst of christmas past
Well it was a productive first day in town. I saw a lot people who i wanted to. Still a few to go but i'm optomistic after today. My peers never cease to amaze me. There exists in them so much raw energy and potential to do anything they set there minds to. But on the other end of the spectrum there are those who will never leave this town.
It's strange saying that like it's a bad thing. For the most part i don't respect people who stay in there home towns and do the 9-5 thing, house, wife,(husband whatever), kids, retire, die. But on the other hand it is just the right thing for some people to do and i am envious of someone who can have that awareness of there lives that early on and be comfortable with it. There are just so many factors to consider. Sometimes i wish i could be one of those small town lifers, but then i look at some of my classmates and what they're doing, where they're going and i know that i never want to sit back and watch that. I want to be there. I want to do that.
It seems like a life time since graduation. Three years this spring. I can't even imagine what another seven years will do to everyone. 10 years. It's strange that me of all people am looking forward to our reunion. I have so few fond memories of high school. I haven't forgiven anything, quite the opposite, i've stopped pulling punches.But there are still those few blazing stars who make me smile.
I wonder if it is this way in all small towns. A large majority of mostly unambitious automaton workers a handful of half ambitious people and then another of truly driven people. The creators and the innovators. The courageous ones and the ambitious ones. Where do these people come from. These hero's who make the world go round.
My relaxation reading over christmas is Atlas Shrugged, i read Fountainhead earlier this semester ( i think i'm repeating myself but no time to check) and i'm blown away by how applicable her archtype hero is to many other philosophies. Be it Nietzsche or Hobbes or Moore or Keikegaard. This idea of a better person. Hehe...Stephan Colbert's "heros" But the divide that fasinates me is that of people like Rand and Neitzsche where only a few of these people exist and this kind of thinking leads itself to class divisions, tendencies to eugenics, the idea of soverign, etc. And on the other side the more aspirational type of idea. Every one can be a Howrad Roark or a Socrates.
I still have my communist leanings so i like to think it's the later but evidence seems to be mounting that that i where i went wrong in the formation of my foundations. Can you still value all people and strive to go beyond them? Can the (i don't want to pick on anyone in particular so...) joe-redneck-wifebeater-i-gotz-my-truck asshole some how see the light and become this (again for lack of a better word) higher being? Or is it up to those few gems from the graduating clas of '06 that i marvel at everytime i'm home?
It's hard to go back on what you thought you believed, but if i am going to have faith in some of these peopel i need to know that they have what it takes, that maybe they are special. And don't ask me how someone is supposed to know if they are destined for something higher or how you can identify it in someone else. I'm still not sure that it isn't in everyone. But if it is there...there is no question. Thats the one thing that i've really liked about Dagny in Atlas Shrugged so far. That she just knows things, there is no question. She can't explain why she is going to succed but she is.
And that gives me hope. There are those around me who will succed. Don't ask me how i know. Don't ask them if they know. It's not a thought so much as a feeling. But to drop in a cliche music quote..."more then a feeling."
So as i remince about highschool i can't help but be excited for the future. Some people who i have been privaliged enough in my life to know...they're gonna make it.
The kids are all right.
Some of them anyways.
It's strange saying that like it's a bad thing. For the most part i don't respect people who stay in there home towns and do the 9-5 thing, house, wife,(husband whatever), kids, retire, die. But on the other hand it is just the right thing for some people to do and i am envious of someone who can have that awareness of there lives that early on and be comfortable with it. There are just so many factors to consider. Sometimes i wish i could be one of those small town lifers, but then i look at some of my classmates and what they're doing, where they're going and i know that i never want to sit back and watch that. I want to be there. I want to do that.
It seems like a life time since graduation. Three years this spring. I can't even imagine what another seven years will do to everyone. 10 years. It's strange that me of all people am looking forward to our reunion. I have so few fond memories of high school. I haven't forgiven anything, quite the opposite, i've stopped pulling punches.But there are still those few blazing stars who make me smile.
I wonder if it is this way in all small towns. A large majority of mostly unambitious automaton workers a handful of half ambitious people and then another of truly driven people. The creators and the innovators. The courageous ones and the ambitious ones. Where do these people come from. These hero's who make the world go round.
My relaxation reading over christmas is Atlas Shrugged, i read Fountainhead earlier this semester ( i think i'm repeating myself but no time to check) and i'm blown away by how applicable her archtype hero is to many other philosophies. Be it Nietzsche or Hobbes or Moore or Keikegaard. This idea of a better person. Hehe...Stephan Colbert's "heros" But the divide that fasinates me is that of people like Rand and Neitzsche where only a few of these people exist and this kind of thinking leads itself to class divisions, tendencies to eugenics, the idea of soverign, etc. And on the other side the more aspirational type of idea. Every one can be a Howrad Roark or a Socrates.
I still have my communist leanings so i like to think it's the later but evidence seems to be mounting that that i where i went wrong in the formation of my foundations. Can you still value all people and strive to go beyond them? Can the (i don't want to pick on anyone in particular so...) joe-redneck-wifebeater-i-gotz-my-truck asshole some how see the light and become this (again for lack of a better word) higher being? Or is it up to those few gems from the graduating clas of '06 that i marvel at everytime i'm home?
It's hard to go back on what you thought you believed, but if i am going to have faith in some of these peopel i need to know that they have what it takes, that maybe they are special. And don't ask me how someone is supposed to know if they are destined for something higher or how you can identify it in someone else. I'm still not sure that it isn't in everyone. But if it is there...there is no question. Thats the one thing that i've really liked about Dagny in Atlas Shrugged so far. That she just knows things, there is no question. She can't explain why she is going to succed but she is.
And that gives me hope. There are those around me who will succed. Don't ask me how i know. Don't ask them if they know. It's not a thought so much as a feeling. But to drop in a cliche music quote..."more then a feeling."
So as i remince about highschool i can't help but be excited for the future. Some people who i have been privaliged enough in my life to know...they're gonna make it.
The kids are all right.
Some of them anyways.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Home on the range
First day back, visited family in Exshaw, CAlgary with Zane, fucking tooth getting sorer by the day, mudder say that she can see a molar peaking through so ican look forward to the other side going straigth to hell sometime in the next few weeks. First indications point to a very laid back christmas. Lovin' the ridaline, lots of reading getting done, almost all the presents bought to day, tree hunting tomorrow. It feeels good to be back in the cold cold. It lets you know you're alive. And you can bundle up against a dry -32, in Newfy-land you get the pissy wind and rain and mist. And just the humidity, it's never much below -10 but i'm always colder there then here. But it;s late again so i'm off to bed but i had forgotten that i do have wireless in the house in wilmer so keeping conected to on-line-land will not as difficult as originally thought.
Only three more sleeps 'till festivus.
Only three more sleeps 'till festivus.
Friday, December 19, 2008
That much further west
Finally.
I'm here. Only a few hours late. You would think after 100+ years of history Canada would get used to the snow but no. To be fair it is a little bit of a strange year when the is snow in Las Vegas. So i really can't complain about my minor delays. My thoughts (prayers if i was christian) are with those trying to fly somewhere today. at least i made it alive. No on to the gauntlet of christmas obligations and festive family merriment.
I really shouldn't complain, as families go mine is pretty awesome. We have the occasional odd ball but i love them all dearly and have mostly learned how to deal with them. Okay maybe we have more then a few odd balls...
And for the first time in a long time i'm not going to work over the holidays. It's just not worth the stress and the lost time for a few lousy dollars. It is time for me to kick back for a little while. So day one i'm still in bed, well thats not true, i got up and had a cup of coffee and now i'm BACK in bed. The point is i haven't done this in a while and it is very nice. The plan for today is read, eat, visit, read. Pretty good start to my first ever ttempt at a more traditional "holiday".
I'm really excite to just read. While i was packing i had to lay out all the books i WANTED to bring with me and just say "no you're not going to read all those, choose 2."
okay 3
4
5
...
So i somehow doubt i'll read everything that i brought with me but it'll be fun trying. The big project for the break is Atlas Shrugged. It's much slower so far then The Fountainhead was, and what can you say about a book where 200 pages in the action is just starting to pick up...but i must say Rand has pleasently surprised me. I still think she and her philosophy are bat shit fucking insane but here books and beautiful, powerful, and eloquint. (why does the spell check on blogspot stop working part way down? i know i misspelt eloquint...and probably mispelt) SO yeah, i encourage everyone to read the Fountainhead, not so much Atlas Shrugged but they are quite good books if you seperate the author from the work.
I'm also reading the two books i'm going to base my english coloquim (sp? again) paper on. I'll probably talk more about this later but here's a teaser. There's a slew of books out there right now with the same theme which is captured fairly well by the title of my current endevour, "the dumbest generation" (may have mentioned it before) and it talks about how computers are making us dumb and the crisis that creates for clasic literature. I'm contrasting that with Jon Careys "intellectuls and the masses" which bemoans universal education and thinks that uncultured people should be excluded from literature.
So just the kind of progression over the last century from "common people are reading and dumbing down literature how do we stop them from reading" to "the common people aren't reading literature how do we get them to read"
kind of a funny change.
So i guess that's it for now, christmas is off to a god start hope it stays that way. I'm going to try to get in to see a doctor before i start doomsinging, but the downside to my break might be my wisdom tooth just popped up. I'm not a doctor so i'm not sure that's what it is but intense pain just behind the rear molars...hopefully that disapears soon.
I'm here. Only a few hours late. You would think after 100+ years of history Canada would get used to the snow but no. To be fair it is a little bit of a strange year when the is snow in Las Vegas. So i really can't complain about my minor delays. My thoughts (prayers if i was christian) are with those trying to fly somewhere today. at least i made it alive. No on to the gauntlet of christmas obligations and festive family merriment.
I really shouldn't complain, as families go mine is pretty awesome. We have the occasional odd ball but i love them all dearly and have mostly learned how to deal with them. Okay maybe we have more then a few odd balls...
And for the first time in a long time i'm not going to work over the holidays. It's just not worth the stress and the lost time for a few lousy dollars. It is time for me to kick back for a little while. So day one i'm still in bed, well thats not true, i got up and had a cup of coffee and now i'm BACK in bed. The point is i haven't done this in a while and it is very nice. The plan for today is read, eat, visit, read. Pretty good start to my first ever ttempt at a more traditional "holiday".
I'm really excite to just read. While i was packing i had to lay out all the books i WANTED to bring with me and just say "no you're not going to read all those, choose 2."
okay 3
4
5
...
So i somehow doubt i'll read everything that i brought with me but it'll be fun trying. The big project for the break is Atlas Shrugged. It's much slower so far then The Fountainhead was, and what can you say about a book where 200 pages in the action is just starting to pick up...but i must say Rand has pleasently surprised me. I still think she and her philosophy are bat shit fucking insane but here books and beautiful, powerful, and eloquint. (why does the spell check on blogspot stop working part way down? i know i misspelt eloquint...and probably mispelt) SO yeah, i encourage everyone to read the Fountainhead, not so much Atlas Shrugged but they are quite good books if you seperate the author from the work.
I'm also reading the two books i'm going to base my english coloquim (sp? again) paper on. I'll probably talk more about this later but here's a teaser. There's a slew of books out there right now with the same theme which is captured fairly well by the title of my current endevour, "the dumbest generation" (may have mentioned it before) and it talks about how computers are making us dumb and the crisis that creates for clasic literature. I'm contrasting that with Jon Careys "intellectuls and the masses" which bemoans universal education and thinks that uncultured people should be excluded from literature.
So just the kind of progression over the last century from "common people are reading and dumbing down literature how do we stop them from reading" to "the common people aren't reading literature how do we get them to read"
kind of a funny change.
So i guess that's it for now, christmas is off to a god start hope it stays that way. I'm going to try to get in to see a doctor before i start doomsinging, but the downside to my break might be my wisdom tooth just popped up. I'm not a doctor so i'm not sure that's what it is but intense pain just behind the rear molars...hopefully that disapears soon.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Airport fun
So i'm in the airport waiting for my flight which keeps getting pushed back by 10 minutes, so i didn't want to get my laptop out because Murphy's law as soon as i did i would have to stand up. Case in point my plane is rolling down the landing strip right now.
So i'm only two hours behind schedule. SSSOOOOOO glad o be going home. I'll try to write more when i ge to Exshaw tonight, depends on how late it is.
It was weird packing up to leave last night. I've only bee in the house for two and a bit mounths but it already feels a little bit like home. Probably the closest thing i have right now. Wilmer is sadly starting to fade and residence is just a bad dream. I still miss the scene in Cornerbrook.
Actully it's seems strange even to me so i can only imagine what it sounds like to anyone else but the second closest thing to a home for me right now (in feeling anyways) is Zane's civic 3AM on some unknown back road of the south looking for a place to sleep. Not knowing where we are or where we're going. Maybe thats not a home...but it's where i belong.
Antways, like i said, the plane is here and they're calling my number for pre-boarding so i have to go for now, maybe more from Exshaw tonight, if not....tomorrow.
So i'm only two hours behind schedule. SSSOOOOOO glad o be going home. I'll try to write more when i ge to Exshaw tonight, depends on how late it is.
It was weird packing up to leave last night. I've only bee in the house for two and a bit mounths but it already feels a little bit like home. Probably the closest thing i have right now. Wilmer is sadly starting to fade and residence is just a bad dream. I still miss the scene in Cornerbrook.
Actully it's seems strange even to me so i can only imagine what it sounds like to anyone else but the second closest thing to a home for me right now (in feeling anyways) is Zane's civic 3AM on some unknown back road of the south looking for a place to sleep. Not knowing where we are or where we're going. Maybe thats not a home...but it's where i belong.
Antways, like i said, the plane is here and they're calling my number for pre-boarding so i have to go for now, maybe more from Exshaw tonight, if not....tomorrow.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Exam week p2
It's over...finally. Last exam this morning. In retrospect i realize how intresting it is that i started doing this whole blog thing in the middle of exam week. Very telling about my amazing powers of procrastination and avoidence. I don't know how motivated i will be to write these things now that i'm not avoiding studying things i hate. Also now that i'm out of Kin and doing a bunch of classes that i'm intrested in i won't want o avoid it so much. Throw one more thing on top of all that, i go home for christmas tomorrow. So this machine like pace of a blog a day might be affected.
That all said i think it would be a good time to look back on the last week and decide what i have learned from my first exploration into the digital world.
I have really enjoyed doing this. It helps to keep me in perspective to physically see what i was thinking about a week ago. And also writing out ideas gives a kind of coherence to them. I notice contradictions and lose ends in my thoughts when i try to articulate them in a (somewhat) universal medium like this.
It also helps me to get used to basic language again. For the first year of university there i got very caught up in these new ideas and new words. I realize now that they are pedantic arrogant banter and that (for me) one of the most important projects in the future of philosophy will be bringing it down to earth a little.
Now lets not go to far in this...i still think that it belongs in an ivory tower. Not everyone can do philosophy, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. But on the other hand if we imagine academia to be the CN tower, contemporary philosophy isn't so much IN the tower as...lets say, swinging naked from the antena.
Bring it down that one notch. Put it where the glass floor is so it's around real people. People can see it and be intrested in it. There's no need to plaster it on every sign post, but make it acessable if people know where to look. But yet again i digress...
The point is i have enjoyed this blog writing thing and want to keep going with it. It's nice to just think aloud about what ever pops into my mind. One a day has been fairly easy to maintain, i have many shorter half baked ideas in a day...but this gives me a reason to run with at least one of them. So i'm going to try and keep going at this pace. There will probably be the ocasional slip up over christmas but when i get back to school i'm on this stinking computer several hours everyday anyways so i might as well do something kinda-sorta-psedu-productive.
Another assesment will probably be needed before the summer break but for now i'm fairly happy with how blogging has intergrated itself in to life.
So i guess you'll be hearing from me soon...whoever "you" are.
That all said i think it would be a good time to look back on the last week and decide what i have learned from my first exploration into the digital world.
I have really enjoyed doing this. It helps to keep me in perspective to physically see what i was thinking about a week ago. And also writing out ideas gives a kind of coherence to them. I notice contradictions and lose ends in my thoughts when i try to articulate them in a (somewhat) universal medium like this.
It also helps me to get used to basic language again. For the first year of university there i got very caught up in these new ideas and new words. I realize now that they are pedantic arrogant banter and that (for me) one of the most important projects in the future of philosophy will be bringing it down to earth a little.
Now lets not go to far in this...i still think that it belongs in an ivory tower. Not everyone can do philosophy, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. But on the other hand if we imagine academia to be the CN tower, contemporary philosophy isn't so much IN the tower as...lets say, swinging naked from the antena.
Bring it down that one notch. Put it where the glass floor is so it's around real people. People can see it and be intrested in it. There's no need to plaster it on every sign post, but make it acessable if people know where to look. But yet again i digress...
The point is i have enjoyed this blog writing thing and want to keep going with it. It's nice to just think aloud about what ever pops into my mind. One a day has been fairly easy to maintain, i have many shorter half baked ideas in a day...but this gives me a reason to run with at least one of them. So i'm going to try and keep going at this pace. There will probably be the ocasional slip up over christmas but when i get back to school i'm on this stinking computer several hours everyday anyways so i might as well do something kinda-sorta-psedu-productive.
Another assesment will probably be needed before the summer break but for now i'm fairly happy with how blogging has intergrated itself in to life.
So i guess you'll be hearing from me soon...whoever "you" are.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Exam week p1
Is is possible to develop performance anxiety later in life?
I used to have no problem with pressure. 50% final that i haven't studied for, ppffff, no problem. Judo, public, speaking, music, no matter how bad i was (and i WAS bad) it didn't seem to phase me. But the last three semesters i've been getting worse. The last exam wrote i came out shaking with pains in my chest and so out of breath i couldn't smoke. How bad does you're stress level have to be if you can't even smoke?
What the hell happened?
I suppose as i get further and further in my schooling the exam do mean more and more. Maybe i'm becomeing aware of how much sloth in the past has cost me. But not really. Even if both of these things were true, these small changes wouldn't account for the huge increase in anxiety. Maybe it has to do with my love of Socrates? We all know his famous quote "all i know is that i know nothing." Because i was a cocky little bastard in high school and have become much more humble about my relationship with truth in the last little while. But i would think that mellowing out like that would make me less anxious. So on the one hand i know going in that i don't know everything but i also know that i never will or could know everything. So again that kinda balence wouldn't account for the major spike in stress levels.
That's one of the other strange things, it's not anxiety during the study period, i'm still mostly mellow leading up to the exam, it's just when i sit down that my liver starts trying to body check my brain. So i really don't understand this change in my life but the only option that kinda makes sense is how much more marks are worth as i get closer and closer to applying to grad school.
But his prospect worries me. If i'm going to continue getting more and more stressed as i get further and further in my education i don't know how i'm going to survive a PhD. Seriously, i've gone from flat line calm about exams to hyperventilateing frakshow in three semesters. With 5 semesters left to go. Then two more years of grad school. Then another two years of grad school. At current rates of digression i will be pillzee from the foamy cartoons around the time i get my MA, and my PhD convication will double as a wake.
Maybe that's the trick to getting your doctorate...you just have to survive. I know some pretty stunned profs. Maybe they got there just because they could handle the preassure. It's not so much higher learning as a sadistic gaunlet of agony.Each level more intense and impossible thn the last. CAffine highs and deadline lows, mountains of paper work to stumble across with only a thin blanket of student loans to cover your breaking back. Clashing swords on the perilous tundras of a thesis defences against hoards of souless monsters. But i digress...
I really don't know how an exam could get any worse...maybe it was just a bad term for me.
I used to have no problem with pressure. 50% final that i haven't studied for, ppffff, no problem. Judo, public, speaking, music, no matter how bad i was (and i WAS bad) it didn't seem to phase me. But the last three semesters i've been getting worse. The last exam wrote i came out shaking with pains in my chest and so out of breath i couldn't smoke. How bad does you're stress level have to be if you can't even smoke?
What the hell happened?
I suppose as i get further and further in my schooling the exam do mean more and more. Maybe i'm becomeing aware of how much sloth in the past has cost me. But not really. Even if both of these things were true, these small changes wouldn't account for the huge increase in anxiety. Maybe it has to do with my love of Socrates? We all know his famous quote "all i know is that i know nothing." Because i was a cocky little bastard in high school and have become much more humble about my relationship with truth in the last little while. But i would think that mellowing out like that would make me less anxious. So on the one hand i know going in that i don't know everything but i also know that i never will or could know everything. So again that kinda balence wouldn't account for the major spike in stress levels.
That's one of the other strange things, it's not anxiety during the study period, i'm still mostly mellow leading up to the exam, it's just when i sit down that my liver starts trying to body check my brain. So i really don't understand this change in my life but the only option that kinda makes sense is how much more marks are worth as i get closer and closer to applying to grad school.
But his prospect worries me. If i'm going to continue getting more and more stressed as i get further and further in my education i don't know how i'm going to survive a PhD. Seriously, i've gone from flat line calm about exams to hyperventilateing frakshow in three semesters. With 5 semesters left to go. Then two more years of grad school. Then another two years of grad school. At current rates of digression i will be pillzee from the foamy cartoons around the time i get my MA, and my PhD convication will double as a wake.
Maybe that's the trick to getting your doctorate...you just have to survive. I know some pretty stunned profs. Maybe they got there just because they could handle the preassure. It's not so much higher learning as a sadistic gaunlet of agony.Each level more intense and impossible thn the last. CAffine highs and deadline lows, mountains of paper work to stumble across with only a thin blanket of student loans to cover your breaking back. Clashing swords on the perilous tundras of a thesis defences against hoards of souless monsters. But i digress...
I really don't know how an exam could get any worse...maybe it was just a bad term for me.
Monday, December 15, 2008
The hypocracy continues
Kinda related to what i was talking about yesturday statistics DO have a place and a use. A book that i am seriously reading and thinking about right now is "The Dumbest Generation."
The author explores what exactly my generation is doing with the almost unlimited potential of the digital age, the results are not flattering. My generation has higher education, more money, more time, more access to information but still can't read. You would think as we are being bombarded with information about the third world and no stone of a politicians life is left unturned and billions are spent on "get out and vote" advertising we would drag ourselves away from the TV once a year and mark a ballot...but no, lowest voter turn out of any demographic, leading to almost historic lows in turn out.
So what the hell are we using these computers for? Everyone seems to have them. Hell they have even come to be considered a bare minimum of life. I was blown away when i found this one out...if you apply to host a foreign student in an exchange program there is a check list of requirements. Private bedroom with a door, fair enough. Access to transportation and a phone, makes sense. Proper nutrition and sufficient amounts of food, well duh. Wireless internet in the house, WHAT?!? I can remember a time in my life when the internet was a strange thing that no one really understood and only a few people had access to it. Now it is a bare minimum of life. I can only imagine how bad my parents and grandparents heads are spinning. I'm going to go nuts as an old man.
But i'm getting away from the book, what DO we do with all our computers? Where do we go on the internet? That big mysterious network of tubes. Well 9 out of the top ten visited sites are social networking sites. I suppose there is an up side to this...i love keeping in touch with my friends and family, but 9 of the top 10! That sems a little extreme.
Anyways I'm only about halfway through the book and still working on a paper outline, so be warned if you see me at any festivus parties my AOG will probably be my own generation.
Man this is just adding to my belief that i was born in the wrong generation. 60's man...thats where i belong.
And a few parting thoughts...have you ever tried to down load a classic movie off somehting like pirate bay? Try it some time, search Citzen Kane, or Network, see if you can find a torrent. Then try some modern piece of trash like kung fu panda. Or better yet some obscure porno flick. Search big-boobs-mcgee in ass-tastic part 107 or something...bet you you'll find it. Intresting contrast. Or compare the availability of comic book PDF's with those of James Joyce. Hell even Joyce is obscure, try some one popular like Shakespear or Nietzsche.
Anyways, i'm not sure how i feel about all this:
Angry, kinda
Depressed, yeah
Suicidal, not so much
Homicidal, hmmm
Stunned, definitly
Frusterated, more then a little
Superiority complex, try not to but...
anyways you get the point.
The author explores what exactly my generation is doing with the almost unlimited potential of the digital age, the results are not flattering. My generation has higher education, more money, more time, more access to information but still can't read. You would think as we are being bombarded with information about the third world and no stone of a politicians life is left unturned and billions are spent on "get out and vote" advertising we would drag ourselves away from the TV once a year and mark a ballot...but no, lowest voter turn out of any demographic, leading to almost historic lows in turn out.
So what the hell are we using these computers for? Everyone seems to have them. Hell they have even come to be considered a bare minimum of life. I was blown away when i found this one out...if you apply to host a foreign student in an exchange program there is a check list of requirements. Private bedroom with a door, fair enough. Access to transportation and a phone, makes sense. Proper nutrition and sufficient amounts of food, well duh. Wireless internet in the house, WHAT?!? I can remember a time in my life when the internet was a strange thing that no one really understood and only a few people had access to it. Now it is a bare minimum of life. I can only imagine how bad my parents and grandparents heads are spinning. I'm going to go nuts as an old man.
But i'm getting away from the book, what DO we do with all our computers? Where do we go on the internet? That big mysterious network of tubes. Well 9 out of the top ten visited sites are social networking sites. I suppose there is an up side to this...i love keeping in touch with my friends and family, but 9 of the top 10! That sems a little extreme.
Anyways I'm only about halfway through the book and still working on a paper outline, so be warned if you see me at any festivus parties my AOG will probably be my own generation.
Man this is just adding to my belief that i was born in the wrong generation. 60's man...thats where i belong.
And a few parting thoughts...have you ever tried to down load a classic movie off somehting like pirate bay? Try it some time, search Citzen Kane, or Network, see if you can find a torrent. Then try some modern piece of trash like kung fu panda. Or better yet some obscure porno flick. Search big-boobs-mcgee in ass-tastic part 107 or something...bet you you'll find it. Intresting contrast. Or compare the availability of comic book PDF's with those of James Joyce. Hell even Joyce is obscure, try some one popular like Shakespear or Nietzsche.
Anyways, i'm not sure how i feel about all this:
Angry, kinda
Depressed, yeah
Suicidal, not so much
Homicidal, hmmm
Stunned, definitly
Frusterated, more then a little
Superiority complex, try not to but...
anyways you get the point.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Funny funny funny...but kinda sad
I was in a used bookstore the other day and stumbled across a very funny book that i couldn't resist. "Born to rebel: birth order, family dynamics, and creative lives." The title gives away almost the entire book. It's a statistical look at which children are more likely to express certain characteristics based on when they were born. For example youngest children are often most radical.
Wait what?
So that means my little brother Dennis is supposed to be more radical then Margery or i? That doesn't make a whole pile of sense, i know he's young and there's room for improvement but so far i think he's the most conservative out of the three children. So we'll wait an see but what about me and Margery...what are we SUPPOSED to be like? Well eldest children are supposed to be the most conservative (rriiight...) and middle children are the least militaristic and/or violent. Hmmm, i'm the middle child and i think i am the only one that has considered a career in the military, participated in violent sports, gotten in a fight, ar supported any kind of paramillitary revolution.
Me thinks the authors conclusions are a little bit weak.
The book goes on and makes more silly claims which i mostly disagree with but those don't realy matter. What i finally got out of the book after thumbing through the meatier parts was that this entire project was based on looking at the data and drawing conclusions from it. This put me in a bit of sticky situation because for the first time i realised that i have switched my posistion on this subject. When it dawned on me that this is what the book was doing (drawing conclusions from data) my knee jerk response was "this is all wrong, they're putting the cart before the horse."...
No they're not, that is the way scientific method is supposed to work, observe and comment. So how did i get to a point in my life where i think that we should make an arguement and THEN back it up with staistics? Am i justified in this new mind set? when did it come about?
I think on of the main reasons for my change of heart is a aquired distrust of numbers. My dad used to say "figures don't lie, but liers do figure." Which i laughed at and used as a grain of salt when listening to politicians. But gradually that saying started applying to a lot more things in life. To work and pop culture and books and hockey and as i became exposed to more and more of these numbers i also started to learn how they worked. Where exactly do you find a statistic on such and such, how did they make such and such a graph. Not to go into the details bu the final word is statistics are a croc of shit.
So i guess the keystone of my objection is treating a pseduscience as a real science. Treating these flimsy decietful numbers as omething reliable sources of information. That's not to say i trust real science but thats a much more involved discusion.
Some people will argue that this comes off a little bit hypocritical because i used to be the stat-king in arguements and still do love to throw a good quote in here and there in my current writings. How come i use something that i have such obvious contempt and disregard for? I think, because they still have a use. I like to think of them as that little paper umbrella on your drink. You can get by with out it, but it maks it that little bit nicer. It completes something thats already there, puts it in perspective.
You can have a good drink without an umbrella, but if you try to put an umbrella in a glass of water and call it a good drink...i will not be impressed with you.
Wait what?
So that means my little brother Dennis is supposed to be more radical then Margery or i? That doesn't make a whole pile of sense, i know he's young and there's room for improvement but so far i think he's the most conservative out of the three children. So we'll wait an see but what about me and Margery...what are we SUPPOSED to be like? Well eldest children are supposed to be the most conservative (rriiight...) and middle children are the least militaristic and/or violent. Hmmm, i'm the middle child and i think i am the only one that has considered a career in the military, participated in violent sports, gotten in a fight, ar supported any kind of paramillitary revolution.
Me thinks the authors conclusions are a little bit weak.
The book goes on and makes more silly claims which i mostly disagree with but those don't realy matter. What i finally got out of the book after thumbing through the meatier parts was that this entire project was based on looking at the data and drawing conclusions from it. This put me in a bit of sticky situation because for the first time i realised that i have switched my posistion on this subject. When it dawned on me that this is what the book was doing (drawing conclusions from data) my knee jerk response was "this is all wrong, they're putting the cart before the horse."...
No they're not, that is the way scientific method is supposed to work, observe and comment. So how did i get to a point in my life where i think that we should make an arguement and THEN back it up with staistics? Am i justified in this new mind set? when did it come about?
I think on of the main reasons for my change of heart is a aquired distrust of numbers. My dad used to say "figures don't lie, but liers do figure." Which i laughed at and used as a grain of salt when listening to politicians. But gradually that saying started applying to a lot more things in life. To work and pop culture and books and hockey and as i became exposed to more and more of these numbers i also started to learn how they worked. Where exactly do you find a statistic on such and such, how did they make such and such a graph. Not to go into the details bu the final word is statistics are a croc of shit.
So i guess the keystone of my objection is treating a pseduscience as a real science. Treating these flimsy decietful numbers as omething reliable sources of information. That's not to say i trust real science but thats a much more involved discusion.
Some people will argue that this comes off a little bit hypocritical because i used to be the stat-king in arguements and still do love to throw a good quote in here and there in my current writings. How come i use something that i have such obvious contempt and disregard for? I think, because they still have a use. I like to think of them as that little paper umbrella on your drink. You can get by with out it, but it maks it that little bit nicer. It completes something thats already there, puts it in perspective.
You can have a good drink without an umbrella, but if you try to put an umbrella in a glass of water and call it a good drink...i will not be impressed with you.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
the three 'S's of my saturday
Socrates, Sisyphus, and Serendipity.
So a couple of weeks ago i was working an a Plato paper, and when examine very specific quotes i like to look at two of three different translations because even the best translators can make mistakes and i want to stay as close to the ideas as i can. When i did this for one of my quotes from the symposium (i guess tat could have been a forth 'S'...)i discovered that there was a drastic difference between the texts. I checked a couple of other sources and found even more variations on the quote. Frustrated i gathered up i think 5 or so variations of the quote, as well as the original greek and brought it to my professor. He translated the original for me and showed me how four of the five weren't really all that different and that for the purpose of my paper i should just stick with the course text book. The fifth translation he said was terrible and he didn't understand how the translator got it and suggested i forgot i ever read that particular version.
Later i was talking to some people about this problem i had been working through and one of my professors suggested i look in the new collection which had recently been printed. I did some research on this new collection and heard nothing but good things about it. It was completely new translations, included some of the lesser know texts, vigorous peer review, a lot of people in the business of knowing called it the best translation available. Unfortunately i was almost done my paper and there was no way to get my hands on a copy fast enough, but i was intrigued and wanted to check it out anyways, so i went to the library, someone had it out, so i recalled it.
Yesterday, the person who had it finally brought it back and i got a chance to satisfy my curiosity as to what the quote i had been working with said in this edition. Would you believe that what i found was the fifth terrible translation that i had been told to forgot? But the rest of the collection is quite good. I've been thumbing through it all weekend re-reading some of my favorite passages and discovering some new ones. Before i go on to one of the new passages i found two more things on this translation. Yes it is the one i asked for for christmas (nudge nudge wink wink) and a really neat thing that it does is in MOST area's of dubious translation it will footnote some alternatives and why they use the one thay do. Not many other editiosn have this kind of openess to their own failability.
But one of the new dialogs which was in this edition and non of the others i have read before was one called Sisyphus. Spelt the same as the myth talked about by Camus. That is not to say that they are about the same person or idea. The dialog of Sisyphus discusses what exactly it is to deliberate something. Is it something we know or that we don't know? It's a short and intresting text which i think instantly cracked my top ten list of Platonic Dialogs. Now i've already said and i emphisise that this has nothing to do with Camus or absurdity...but at the same time there is a little bit of me that smiles and likes to think there is.
No legitimate academic would ever try to make the conection, and neither will i, but it is kinda neat. What is deliberating? is it kinda like rolling a rock up a hill just to watch it roll down the other side? Does it seem like a torturous task to some? must we imagine the debators happy? Does it get us no where? do we do it anyways?
It made me smile to compare the two, and there is a little peice of me deep down inside which thinks maybe Socrates/Plato knew what Camus would one day be on about. Just maybe they were talking about absurdity all those years ago. Maybe there is a peice of the puzzle missing, a lost chapter in the Platonic corpus that explores existentialism centuries before Kiekagaard.
But i know these are all just wishfull thinking. The names are a coincidence. Serendipity. At least it made me smile for a few hours.
So a couple of weeks ago i was working an a Plato paper, and when examine very specific quotes i like to look at two of three different translations because even the best translators can make mistakes and i want to stay as close to the ideas as i can. When i did this for one of my quotes from the symposium (i guess tat could have been a forth 'S'...)i discovered that there was a drastic difference between the texts. I checked a couple of other sources and found even more variations on the quote. Frustrated i gathered up i think 5 or so variations of the quote, as well as the original greek and brought it to my professor. He translated the original for me and showed me how four of the five weren't really all that different and that for the purpose of my paper i should just stick with the course text book. The fifth translation he said was terrible and he didn't understand how the translator got it and suggested i forgot i ever read that particular version.
Later i was talking to some people about this problem i had been working through and one of my professors suggested i look in the new collection which had recently been printed. I did some research on this new collection and heard nothing but good things about it. It was completely new translations, included some of the lesser know texts, vigorous peer review, a lot of people in the business of knowing called it the best translation available. Unfortunately i was almost done my paper and there was no way to get my hands on a copy fast enough, but i was intrigued and wanted to check it out anyways, so i went to the library, someone had it out, so i recalled it.
Yesterday, the person who had it finally brought it back and i got a chance to satisfy my curiosity as to what the quote i had been working with said in this edition. Would you believe that what i found was the fifth terrible translation that i had been told to forgot? But the rest of the collection is quite good. I've been thumbing through it all weekend re-reading some of my favorite passages and discovering some new ones. Before i go on to one of the new passages i found two more things on this translation. Yes it is the one i asked for for christmas (nudge nudge wink wink) and a really neat thing that it does is in MOST area's of dubious translation it will footnote some alternatives and why they use the one thay do. Not many other editiosn have this kind of openess to their own failability.
But one of the new dialogs which was in this edition and non of the others i have read before was one called Sisyphus. Spelt the same as the myth talked about by Camus. That is not to say that they are about the same person or idea. The dialog of Sisyphus discusses what exactly it is to deliberate something. Is it something we know or that we don't know? It's a short and intresting text which i think instantly cracked my top ten list of Platonic Dialogs. Now i've already said and i emphisise that this has nothing to do with Camus or absurdity...but at the same time there is a little bit of me that smiles and likes to think there is.
No legitimate academic would ever try to make the conection, and neither will i, but it is kinda neat. What is deliberating? is it kinda like rolling a rock up a hill just to watch it roll down the other side? Does it seem like a torturous task to some? must we imagine the debators happy? Does it get us no where? do we do it anyways?
It made me smile to compare the two, and there is a little peice of me deep down inside which thinks maybe Socrates/Plato knew what Camus would one day be on about. Just maybe they were talking about absurdity all those years ago. Maybe there is a peice of the puzzle missing, a lost chapter in the Platonic corpus that explores existentialism centuries before Kiekagaard.
But i know these are all just wishfull thinking. The names are a coincidence. Serendipity. At least it made me smile for a few hours.
Friday, December 12, 2008
New catch phrase
I remember when i was 10 or 11 i used to go to church a lot. Some of my friends were involved with the chruch in various roles and it really wasn't that bad for us kids. Pretend to sing a song or two and get sent off to the side room to do crafts and play games. It had nothing to do with religon or god or faith, i had never really given those kinds of things any thought. But i remeber one day i got this feeling, most people would probably call it a thought but it was more like a feeling. It happened after we had taken our leave of the adults and the supervisor was trying to tell us some bible story. I can't remember what story it was, but i remember the thought..."that doesn't make any sense." It wasn't a religous thing, it nothing to do with god or faith, i just heard these words and thought...no.
Since then, that same thought has pooped up in my head more time and time again, probably becoming my most frequent thought and the driving force behind my academic career. But i never liked the way that those particular words sounded. that doesn't make any sense. In retrospect with all i know now i can make some guesses as to why i never liked it, it's simplistic, not all that forceful, sounds condescending, but those weren't the reasons that i disliked the sound of it back then, it just didn't sound nice, but it would have to do.
That is until a few years later. I don't know where i first heard this, i'm sure it must have been some movie or TV show but i instantly liked it. Insane. It was a much simpler more powerful word that articulated what i felt more then the words, that doesn't make any sense. So i started using that in place of the full formal sentence. There were still times when calling something or someone insane was inappropriate so i had to revert to the old catch phrase every once and a while, but i really liked m new one.
As i got older and navigated high school, i became exposed to many new exciting and strange things. It quickly became inappropriate to call a friend, history, George Bush and a hockey game the same thing. So being a foul mouthed teenager i added fucking to some instances of insane to make it more powerful. I had now evolved from: "that doesn't make any sense." to "that's insane" to "that's FUCKING insane."
But again as i grow older the new catch phrase starts to lose it's potency. And i'm encountering an increaseingly absurd bread of aponent which ups the antee on my old objects of bewildermen one more time. It's hard to say that an individuals faith and a frivoulous purchase are the same thing as the freakshow history of the church and the existance of a capitalist system at all. You just can't compare Bush and Nixon...who still don't hold a candle to Cesare Borgia and the Medicii's.
So i needed to find a new way to make insanity more intense. Again i don't know where i heard this first but i really like it and i've started to run with it. I hope i don't uncover many more layers of insanity in this world because i don't know what else i could ad on after this. But untill such a time as that is neccisary the new catch phrase is...
BAT SHIT fucking insane.
Since then, that same thought has pooped up in my head more time and time again, probably becoming my most frequent thought and the driving force behind my academic career. But i never liked the way that those particular words sounded. that doesn't make any sense. In retrospect with all i know now i can make some guesses as to why i never liked it, it's simplistic, not all that forceful, sounds condescending, but those weren't the reasons that i disliked the sound of it back then, it just didn't sound nice, but it would have to do.
That is until a few years later. I don't know where i first heard this, i'm sure it must have been some movie or TV show but i instantly liked it. Insane. It was a much simpler more powerful word that articulated what i felt more then the words, that doesn't make any sense. So i started using that in place of the full formal sentence. There were still times when calling something or someone insane was inappropriate so i had to revert to the old catch phrase every once and a while, but i really liked m new one.
As i got older and navigated high school, i became exposed to many new exciting and strange things. It quickly became inappropriate to call a friend, history, George Bush and a hockey game the same thing. So being a foul mouthed teenager i added fucking to some instances of insane to make it more powerful. I had now evolved from: "that doesn't make any sense." to "that's insane" to "that's FUCKING insane."
But again as i grow older the new catch phrase starts to lose it's potency. And i'm encountering an increaseingly absurd bread of aponent which ups the antee on my old objects of bewildermen one more time. It's hard to say that an individuals faith and a frivoulous purchase are the same thing as the freakshow history of the church and the existance of a capitalist system at all. You just can't compare Bush and Nixon...who still don't hold a candle to Cesare Borgia and the Medicii's.
So i needed to find a new way to make insanity more intense. Again i don't know where i heard this first but i really like it and i've started to run with it. I hope i don't uncover many more layers of insanity in this world because i don't know what else i could ad on after this. But untill such a time as that is neccisary the new catch phrase is...
BAT SHIT fucking insane.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Shameless plug for the day
Do you know who Matt Taibbi is? If not you should go find out.
I just realized i painted myself into a corner here, shit! Usually when i do a shameless promotion like that i like to leave it hanging and not say anything more about the person/subject/book/etc and just let a persons natural curiosity drive them to do some exploring. Added bonus of his method is if the person is to lazy to look it/them up, i probably don't want to be talking to that particular individual about that particular subject. Unfortunately that would leave me with no segue into the meat of this blog.
Matt Taibbi is a writer and contributing editor for rolling stone magazine and the author of three books. He is freaking brilliant. I tend to describe him as somewhere between Jon Stewart and Hunter S. He talks scathingly about serious issues, but is still able to laugh at the shear absurdity of the whole thing. This is perfect for me, as i read more and more Hunter S. i do occasionaly feel he needs to lighten up, and same with Jon Stewart, he is so smart and aware (watch his apearance on crossfire) but he so gimiky most of the time. So Taibbi is Amazeing, go buy the book, shameless plug of the day.
The reason i want to talk about journalism, or more particularily Taibbi's brand of journalism (which i feel fairly comfortable calling gonzo) is two fold. First it embodies everything i have learned in my studies and also if i we're to have to do anything else...it would be that. There is a very specific reason i'm NOT doing that, but i'll come to that later. As for gonzo journalism and why it embodies what i believe, i said yesturday that i haven't realy learned anything new, just new ways to say it, here's my proof. Everything i am currently writing and/or researching can be boiled down to these two concepts. Nobody is 100% right and people need to grow a pair of balls.
If you knew me in high school and you haven't seen me since then, or if your memory is in slightly better repair then mine and you can remember what i was like back then, you'll know that i've felt these two things in various incantations for a long time. It's not playing devils advocate and anarchy anymore it's deconstruction and parresia. New words same theme.
Anyways i think the best real world examples of these ideals are in people like Matt Taibbi. People like this know that something isn't right, so they go out on a limb and say what needs to be said. (This is one of my more involved ideas, so you'll just have to go with me for now) i think one of the most couragous things you can do in this world, is laugh. There are some terrible and scary realities out there and my hat is off to those people who can stare into the abyss and just laugh. And it is a rare bread within these people who can laugh who can manage not to lose sight of the important issues.
So if journalism is so important to me and i hold it in such high regard why am i digging in for a long hall in the halls of academia? First off i'm not that good of a writer, i don't think i would be all that succesfull in profesional writing. But more so because of an experence i had in high school. In grade 11 all the students had a "go to work with your parents day"...now, both my parents are teachers so there was no way in hell i was going to school on my day off from school. So i called up my uncle Ian who works as a writer and editor at the only local paper.
A lot of things happened that day, it was very enjoyable, very educating, and i am so thankful to this day for it, but it was NOT what i had expected to say the least. Ian spent a very large portion of the day trying to scare me away from the journalism.
The stress and the repitition and the lack of credit and the long hours and the deadlines and the lack of respect and the creative restraints and the drugs and the alchool and the low pay and the people you have to deal with, the things you have to know and not say, the things you have to say but not believe and on and on like this.
I supose that this lecture had the desired affect, i am not currently a journalist, but students are not that much better off.
That was only one of many things i learned that day and the more relevant affect was not that it scared me away from that proffesion but that it deepened my admiration and respect for the people who do do that work. The people who are dragged through the mud and the slime and spit on and picked on and put down and still somehow find the strength of will to keep going. To know what these people go through an a day to day, year to year, basis blows my mind and to think that there are still some of them who can laugh at it all. I think everyone of us need to be a little bit more like them.
So to Ian and Matt and countless unknown others and anybody in other feilds who shares those traits, thank you thank you thank you, i am jealous and respectful and in awe. I might try to make a go of it one day, it is one of the few other things i could ever see myself doing, but until then i will leave it to you guys.
and one last time...thank you.
I just realized i painted myself into a corner here, shit! Usually when i do a shameless promotion like that i like to leave it hanging and not say anything more about the person/subject/book/etc and just let a persons natural curiosity drive them to do some exploring. Added bonus of his method is if the person is to lazy to look it/them up, i probably don't want to be talking to that particular individual about that particular subject. Unfortunately that would leave me with no segue into the meat of this blog.
Matt Taibbi is a writer and contributing editor for rolling stone magazine and the author of three books. He is freaking brilliant. I tend to describe him as somewhere between Jon Stewart and Hunter S. He talks scathingly about serious issues, but is still able to laugh at the shear absurdity of the whole thing. This is perfect for me, as i read more and more Hunter S. i do occasionaly feel he needs to lighten up, and same with Jon Stewart, he is so smart and aware (watch his apearance on crossfire) but he so gimiky most of the time. So Taibbi is Amazeing, go buy the book, shameless plug of the day.
The reason i want to talk about journalism, or more particularily Taibbi's brand of journalism (which i feel fairly comfortable calling gonzo) is two fold. First it embodies everything i have learned in my studies and also if i we're to have to do anything else...it would be that. There is a very specific reason i'm NOT doing that, but i'll come to that later. As for gonzo journalism and why it embodies what i believe, i said yesturday that i haven't realy learned anything new, just new ways to say it, here's my proof. Everything i am currently writing and/or researching can be boiled down to these two concepts. Nobody is 100% right and people need to grow a pair of balls.
If you knew me in high school and you haven't seen me since then, or if your memory is in slightly better repair then mine and you can remember what i was like back then, you'll know that i've felt these two things in various incantations for a long time. It's not playing devils advocate and anarchy anymore it's deconstruction and parresia. New words same theme.
Anyways i think the best real world examples of these ideals are in people like Matt Taibbi. People like this know that something isn't right, so they go out on a limb and say what needs to be said. (This is one of my more involved ideas, so you'll just have to go with me for now) i think one of the most couragous things you can do in this world, is laugh. There are some terrible and scary realities out there and my hat is off to those people who can stare into the abyss and just laugh. And it is a rare bread within these people who can laugh who can manage not to lose sight of the important issues.
So if journalism is so important to me and i hold it in such high regard why am i digging in for a long hall in the halls of academia? First off i'm not that good of a writer, i don't think i would be all that succesfull in profesional writing. But more so because of an experence i had in high school. In grade 11 all the students had a "go to work with your parents day"...now, both my parents are teachers so there was no way in hell i was going to school on my day off from school. So i called up my uncle Ian who works as a writer and editor at the only local paper.
A lot of things happened that day, it was very enjoyable, very educating, and i am so thankful to this day for it, but it was NOT what i had expected to say the least. Ian spent a very large portion of the day trying to scare me away from the journalism.
The stress and the repitition and the lack of credit and the long hours and the deadlines and the lack of respect and the creative restraints and the drugs and the alchool and the low pay and the people you have to deal with, the things you have to know and not say, the things you have to say but not believe and on and on like this.
I supose that this lecture had the desired affect, i am not currently a journalist, but students are not that much better off.
That was only one of many things i learned that day and the more relevant affect was not that it scared me away from that proffesion but that it deepened my admiration and respect for the people who do do that work. The people who are dragged through the mud and the slime and spit on and picked on and put down and still somehow find the strength of will to keep going. To know what these people go through an a day to day, year to year, basis blows my mind and to think that there are still some of them who can laugh at it all. I think everyone of us need to be a little bit more like them.
So to Ian and Matt and countless unknown others and anybody in other feilds who shares those traits, thank you thank you thank you, i am jealous and respectful and in awe. I might try to make a go of it one day, it is one of the few other things i could ever see myself doing, but until then i will leave it to you guys.
and one last time...thank you.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Dream on
So another reason that i wanted to run through my educational history the other day is because i realised recently that it is pretty much the only thing in my life right now. I came to this realization laying in bed the other night waiting to drop off to sleep. I do most of my thinking then/there, so as an insomniac i get a lot of thinking done. Anyways, i was thinking about going home for christmas (very excited about that) and what i'm ging to talk to everyone about. The first couple sentences in a conversation are pretty much always the same. Hi, how are you, nice to see you, what are you doing these days...so i got to thinking what exactly AM i doing these days? Everyone else seems to be so much more productive than i am. So n so is working just bought a truck, so n so just got back from a trip to Europe, so n so is pregnant, etc.
I read a book.
So it was a two part thought project: figure out what the hell i am doing and make it sound interesting/productive. I eventually dropped off to sleep and not surprisingly dreamed about this subject.
The whole dream takes place in DTSS, kinda, a high school that greatly resembles DTSS. In the beginning i'm trapped in one of those little English offices (Mrs Ford/Mrs Little's to be precise) and i couldn't get out. I knew there were other things out there, i had read about them, every once and a while i would see someone new walk by, but i was trapped in the office. Evenually i broke out into the classroom. It was nice in there, i had things to do, i enjoyed it, more space, more people. But eventually the novelty wore off and i realised i was still trapped, this time in the classroom. I could retreat back into my office, but after the luxury and challenges of the classroom i didn't want to go back in there. So i broke out of the classroom and started exploring the halls. This is where the dream gets a little weird and the school stops resembling DTSS exactly, theres all kinds of weird twisting hallways and staircases but still kinda recognizable, anyways everywhere i go there are these neat new things being taught and talked about...but everytime i get to an exit, it's locked. I peak through the window and there is nothing there...an abyss. I'm really truely trapped this time.
"the limits of my language are the limits of my world" (LW)
Sure there is lots to do in the school...but i'm still trapped. I've found the edge of the map and nothing has really changed from when i was trapped in my office. Sure i know some new people, learned some big new words...but thats about it. It all starts to feel really futile, so what if you go back and learn all there is to learn in all those classrooms in between, they still have limits. There will always be things we can not do. So i shuffle back to my office and close the door. I pick up a copy of Brave New World and think about when it gave me hope.
So that was my dream, kinda depressing i know, but that mostly sums up what i feel i'm doing out here. I'm filling in the map, pointing the abyss out to people...not really doing anything. But i don't find that destressing. There is noting else TO DO, and even if there was i don't think i'd want to do it anymore.
Once you realize you're in a cage you want to get out, and if you try hard enough you'll probably succed, but you'll only find yourself in a bigger cage. So you break out of that one and you end up in another cage. But as the cages get bigger and bigger, they also get harder and harder to recognize. And then one day you realize that there is no end to the cages and you have three choices: you can keep trying to get out(and fial), you can give up(suicide or seclusion...i don't recomend either), or you can accept it.
Really at ths point it is quite a big cage with all kinds of intresting things in it. And if there is nothing else out there why not make the best of it?
So i haven't REALLY learned anything new at university or done anything productive. I've moved from the office, to the classroom, to the halls, looked at the abyss, realized nothing has changed. But i wouldn't change it for the world, i like my big fancy new words, and things are so much more interesting now...
I read a book.
So it was a two part thought project: figure out what the hell i am doing and make it sound interesting/productive. I eventually dropped off to sleep and not surprisingly dreamed about this subject.
The whole dream takes place in DTSS, kinda, a high school that greatly resembles DTSS. In the beginning i'm trapped in one of those little English offices (Mrs Ford/Mrs Little's to be precise) and i couldn't get out. I knew there were other things out there, i had read about them, every once and a while i would see someone new walk by, but i was trapped in the office. Evenually i broke out into the classroom. It was nice in there, i had things to do, i enjoyed it, more space, more people. But eventually the novelty wore off and i realised i was still trapped, this time in the classroom. I could retreat back into my office, but after the luxury and challenges of the classroom i didn't want to go back in there. So i broke out of the classroom and started exploring the halls. This is where the dream gets a little weird and the school stops resembling DTSS exactly, theres all kinds of weird twisting hallways and staircases but still kinda recognizable, anyways everywhere i go there are these neat new things being taught and talked about...but everytime i get to an exit, it's locked. I peak through the window and there is nothing there...an abyss. I'm really truely trapped this time.
"the limits of my language are the limits of my world" (LW)
Sure there is lots to do in the school...but i'm still trapped. I've found the edge of the map and nothing has really changed from when i was trapped in my office. Sure i know some new people, learned some big new words...but thats about it. It all starts to feel really futile, so what if you go back and learn all there is to learn in all those classrooms in between, they still have limits. There will always be things we can not do. So i shuffle back to my office and close the door. I pick up a copy of Brave New World and think about when it gave me hope.
So that was my dream, kinda depressing i know, but that mostly sums up what i feel i'm doing out here. I'm filling in the map, pointing the abyss out to people...not really doing anything. But i don't find that destressing. There is noting else TO DO, and even if there was i don't think i'd want to do it anymore.
Once you realize you're in a cage you want to get out, and if you try hard enough you'll probably succed, but you'll only find yourself in a bigger cage. So you break out of that one and you end up in another cage. But as the cages get bigger and bigger, they also get harder and harder to recognize. And then one day you realize that there is no end to the cages and you have three choices: you can keep trying to get out(and fial), you can give up(suicide or seclusion...i don't recomend either), or you can accept it.
Really at ths point it is quite a big cage with all kinds of intresting things in it. And if there is nothing else out there why not make the best of it?
So i haven't REALLY learned anything new at university or done anything productive. I've moved from the office, to the classroom, to the halls, looked at the abyss, realized nothing has changed. But i wouldn't change it for the world, i like my big fancy new words, and things are so much more interesting now...
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Decent into madness
I have recently jumped ship from my third academic ship and it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to follow exactly what i'm doing with my life. I can only imagine how difficult it is for anyone else. So i thought i'd do a quick run down of my academic history, highlighting how i got to where i am today and where i'm trying (for now) to go.
Legend has it that my education started a few minutes after i was born when my dad told me the secret of life: "buy low, sell high." I find this a little hard to believe and don't actually remember it but it's what i'm told. Most of my memories after that are brief painful ones: falling off the top bunk, trying to pet a strange dog, (barking and biting insued) foreskin cought in zipper, and so on and so forth.
After that i can fast forward to grade two. My teacher was Mr. Mac and i can remember two of his lesons. The first one was a little song that we all had to sing before we were allowed out for recess. It was simply the letters of the word because to a generic rythm. b-e-c-a-u-s-e...i don't know why but it stuck with me and i have never misspelt that word. The other lesson was trying to figure out how to spell the "tion" word ending. He asked how we thought it would be spelt and we through out all kinds of suggestions. "schun" "con" "xum" we never did get it. And when he spelt it out on the board all i remember thinking is "that makes no sense."
Few more years passed and i suppose i must have learned the basics, reading, riting 'n 'rithmatic but nothing realy stands out in memory. So we pass right on up to high school where there are all kinds of fun and exciting things happening to expand and open my mind which i will not go into here now or probably evr in public. But the (near) end result of all this was i discovered a love of argueing. At that point i set my sights on becomeing a lawyer. It seemed like the perfect carrer for me, i enjoyed speaking, winning, searching for that little bit of information that will prove you're right. On top of that i had become very politcaly...i want to say active but aware is probably a better word for it...anyways i was big on the social unjustice band wagon. So i did a bit of research and found the concencus to be the best route to Law school was political science. So that was the first long term plan.
That half fell apart in grade twelve when i got into the whole environmental thing. I decided i wanted to specalize in the area of environmental law and found a very intresting program at Grenfell called environmental sciences. I figured i'd get down in the nitty gritty of this subject for four years minor in polisci and go on to law school. That idea flew right out the window in my first enviro-class when i realized how insane the subject was.
You know that liberal bias that Bush n co talk about seriously and Stephen Colbert mocks relentlessly? It actully exists. I wrote my first paper on the absurdity of global worming, because in the 80's universities were teaching about the global COOLING effect. How can you take something like this seriously. Polisci wasn't all that intrigueing either. So i started looking for a new area of study.
I was fairly physically active at te time and i really enjoyed training, the science behind it helping pther people, the whole nine yards. So i transfered into the Kinesiology program at MUN. Law was still somewhere in the back of my head, but fading fast.
When i got to MUN i still wanted o be one of these "well rounded people" and took two more courses that, i can say with a good amount of convidence, shaped the rest of my educational carrer. History of ideas with Mike O'Brien and Intro to Philosophy with Bernie Wills. I loved both classes. I quickly took to the idea of doing a double major with Kin and one of those two feilds. My second history course was not as intresting and after talking to Proff O'Brien in the smoking pit i realised that we really didn't have a very good department for history of IDEA's...we've got canada, milltary, newfoundland but no ideas. No art either. So the working game plan became double major philosophy and kinesiology.
I got a lot of comments as to what a strange combination that was and the natural opposistion of the two styles of thinking quickly began to emerge. Philosophy taught me to think critically and ask questions...Kin asked me to rejurgitate information. The latter quickly began to grate on my nerves. So after much hesitating i have droped out of Kinesiology and am now strictly a Philosophy major English minor (cause books rock and the english proffs at MUN are rockstars) Philosophy has also been the straw that broke the cammels back for law school...i could never do anything so beuracratic and closed minded now. So pretty munch my plans for the future are masters, PhD, Proff...if i can hack it, if not i'll end up a ridiculously well read and cynical construction worker (probably welding, i've always liked the image of someone bent over a hunk of metal, one hand holding a mask over there face, illuminated by the brilliant jumping sparks...)
So yeah...quit polisci, quit enviro, quit kin, quit law. Fingers crossed for the current plan of attack.
Legend has it that my education started a few minutes after i was born when my dad told me the secret of life: "buy low, sell high." I find this a little hard to believe and don't actually remember it but it's what i'm told. Most of my memories after that are brief painful ones: falling off the top bunk, trying to pet a strange dog, (barking and biting insued) foreskin cought in zipper, and so on and so forth.
After that i can fast forward to grade two. My teacher was Mr. Mac and i can remember two of his lesons. The first one was a little song that we all had to sing before we were allowed out for recess. It was simply the letters of the word because to a generic rythm. b-e-c-a-u-s-e...i don't know why but it stuck with me and i have never misspelt that word. The other lesson was trying to figure out how to spell the "tion" word ending. He asked how we thought it would be spelt and we through out all kinds of suggestions. "schun" "con" "xum" we never did get it. And when he spelt it out on the board all i remember thinking is "that makes no sense."
Few more years passed and i suppose i must have learned the basics, reading, riting 'n 'rithmatic but nothing realy stands out in memory. So we pass right on up to high school where there are all kinds of fun and exciting things happening to expand and open my mind which i will not go into here now or probably evr in public. But the (near) end result of all this was i discovered a love of argueing. At that point i set my sights on becomeing a lawyer. It seemed like the perfect carrer for me, i enjoyed speaking, winning, searching for that little bit of information that will prove you're right. On top of that i had become very politcaly...i want to say active but aware is probably a better word for it...anyways i was big on the social unjustice band wagon. So i did a bit of research and found the concencus to be the best route to Law school was political science. So that was the first long term plan.
That half fell apart in grade twelve when i got into the whole environmental thing. I decided i wanted to specalize in the area of environmental law and found a very intresting program at Grenfell called environmental sciences. I figured i'd get down in the nitty gritty of this subject for four years minor in polisci and go on to law school. That idea flew right out the window in my first enviro-class when i realized how insane the subject was.
You know that liberal bias that Bush n co talk about seriously and Stephen Colbert mocks relentlessly? It actully exists. I wrote my first paper on the absurdity of global worming, because in the 80's universities were teaching about the global COOLING effect. How can you take something like this seriously. Polisci wasn't all that intrigueing either. So i started looking for a new area of study.
I was fairly physically active at te time and i really enjoyed training, the science behind it helping pther people, the whole nine yards. So i transfered into the Kinesiology program at MUN. Law was still somewhere in the back of my head, but fading fast.
When i got to MUN i still wanted o be one of these "well rounded people" and took two more courses that, i can say with a good amount of convidence, shaped the rest of my educational carrer. History of ideas with Mike O'Brien and Intro to Philosophy with Bernie Wills. I loved both classes. I quickly took to the idea of doing a double major with Kin and one of those two feilds. My second history course was not as intresting and after talking to Proff O'Brien in the smoking pit i realised that we really didn't have a very good department for history of IDEA's...we've got canada, milltary, newfoundland but no ideas. No art either. So the working game plan became double major philosophy and kinesiology.
I got a lot of comments as to what a strange combination that was and the natural opposistion of the two styles of thinking quickly began to emerge. Philosophy taught me to think critically and ask questions...Kin asked me to rejurgitate information. The latter quickly began to grate on my nerves. So after much hesitating i have droped out of Kinesiology and am now strictly a Philosophy major English minor (cause books rock and the english proffs at MUN are rockstars) Philosophy has also been the straw that broke the cammels back for law school...i could never do anything so beuracratic and closed minded now. So pretty munch my plans for the future are masters, PhD, Proff...if i can hack it, if not i'll end up a ridiculously well read and cynical construction worker (probably welding, i've always liked the image of someone bent over a hunk of metal, one hand holding a mask over there face, illuminated by the brilliant jumping sparks...)
So yeah...quit polisci, quit enviro, quit kin, quit law. Fingers crossed for the current plan of attack.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Off to a blistering start
This morning was one of those weird mornings when i dragged myself out of bed with more than 4 minutes 'till i had to be out the door. This doesn't happen very often. But it did today.
So there i am, like a fish out of water, staring at myself in the mirror. Rubbing my eyes and assessing the state of my stubble. I came to the conclusion that it was not yet time for my bi-weekly shave. That's right...bi-weekly. I just don't grow facial hair. I tried. At the beginning of this semester, i said i wasn't going to shave until christmas break. Around the end of October when there was still no sign of my patches filling in i gave up and shaved the hideous thing off. It might even be stretching the truth to call it patches of hair. These were patches of patches...i could seriously count all 7 hairs on the left side of my face. There were a few more on the right, but 7 on the left. What is that?
I've always kinda wanted a beard. Even if i didn't like it at least i would have that option open to me. Apparently some men don't reach full maturation 'till there mid-twenties so maybe there is still hope for me, but the number on factor is supposed to be genetics...if that's the case i'm screwed.
On my dads side of the family; he can't grow a beard and he can't remember his father ever having much more then a 5 O'clock shadow. He doesn't remember his brother ever sporting a beard either, but can't be sure if thats by choice or lack of ability. Same thing on my moms side, well obviously she doesn't have a beard, but grandma has a funny and vivid story of my grandpa entering into some kind of comunity beard growing contest fundraiser thingy (gotta love samll town Alberta). At the end of the alloted time some of the other men around town were sporting quite impressive beards while grandma was using a make-up pencil to fill in the last of grandpas mustache.
I guess i'm lucky that i don't have to shave everyday...everyone i've asked said if i could grow a beard i'd grow to hate shaving so i'm better off not having one at all. Maybe there right. I'm not about to start rubbing rogaine on my face. Although i did toy with the idea untill i found out how it was discovered. It originated as a drug to lower blood preasure and for some reason patients started growing hair...so they re-packaged it and started selling it by the millions to ageing baby boomers. This is a scary prospect for me because, believe it or not (i don't) i have very LOW blood preasure. For all the stress and anger and yelling and tiraideing and fuming and lectureing and astonishment and disbelief in my life, you would think i would have high blood preasure. I guess god (or whoever) knew i would be like this and gave me a handicap to start the game off with. Mark my words by the time i'm thirty the ol' BP will be up near critical. But untill then I'm not going to rub something on my face that could potentialy lower my already worrisome blood preasure.
The other intresting tidbit on beard growing i found was that apparetnly caffine stimulate a nice healthy beard...i am completely befuddled by this one. If this is true, with the amount of coffee i drink i should have a ZZ top beard. No fair.
So there i am, like a fish out of water, staring at myself in the mirror. Rubbing my eyes and assessing the state of my stubble. I came to the conclusion that it was not yet time for my bi-weekly shave. That's right...bi-weekly. I just don't grow facial hair. I tried. At the beginning of this semester, i said i wasn't going to shave until christmas break. Around the end of October when there was still no sign of my patches filling in i gave up and shaved the hideous thing off. It might even be stretching the truth to call it patches of hair. These were patches of patches...i could seriously count all 7 hairs on the left side of my face. There were a few more on the right, but 7 on the left. What is that?
I've always kinda wanted a beard. Even if i didn't like it at least i would have that option open to me. Apparently some men don't reach full maturation 'till there mid-twenties so maybe there is still hope for me, but the number on factor is supposed to be genetics...if that's the case i'm screwed.
On my dads side of the family; he can't grow a beard and he can't remember his father ever having much more then a 5 O'clock shadow. He doesn't remember his brother ever sporting a beard either, but can't be sure if thats by choice or lack of ability. Same thing on my moms side, well obviously she doesn't have a beard, but grandma has a funny and vivid story of my grandpa entering into some kind of comunity beard growing contest fundraiser thingy (gotta love samll town Alberta). At the end of the alloted time some of the other men around town were sporting quite impressive beards while grandma was using a make-up pencil to fill in the last of grandpas mustache.
I guess i'm lucky that i don't have to shave everyday...everyone i've asked said if i could grow a beard i'd grow to hate shaving so i'm better off not having one at all. Maybe there right. I'm not about to start rubbing rogaine on my face. Although i did toy with the idea untill i found out how it was discovered. It originated as a drug to lower blood preasure and for some reason patients started growing hair...so they re-packaged it and started selling it by the millions to ageing baby boomers. This is a scary prospect for me because, believe it or not (i don't) i have very LOW blood preasure. For all the stress and anger and yelling and tiraideing and fuming and lectureing and astonishment and disbelief in my life, you would think i would have high blood preasure. I guess god (or whoever) knew i would be like this and gave me a handicap to start the game off with. Mark my words by the time i'm thirty the ol' BP will be up near critical. But untill then I'm not going to rub something on my face that could potentialy lower my already worrisome blood preasure.
The other intresting tidbit on beard growing i found was that apparetnly caffine stimulate a nice healthy beard...i am completely befuddled by this one. If this is true, with the amount of coffee i drink i should have a ZZ top beard. No fair.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Do we really need this shit?
Okay, for the unlikely few of you who don't know me in real life and a refresher for those of you who do, i used to be addicted to politics. We're talking full fledged addiction, and i use that word with full awareness and respect to its power. Harper's first election win ended in a three day wine fueled blackout.
But i kicked my addiction. I was clean for a few years, not head in the sand completely out of it, but not substantially personally emotionally involved.
Recently, however, i read Hunter S Thompson's book, Better then sex: confessions of a political junkie (i highly recommend it) and that coupled with the very intrigueing election to the south has drawn me back into the game. It's has been a fun few weeks but last night i reached a point which reminded me why i got out of this abusive relationship in the first place, but before i go into that...the reason i prefaced this little opinion piece is to assure everyone that i usually do not and will not in the future talk about politics, i hate them.
But last night should peak evryones intrest...following Harper's second (and in my opinion surpriseing) election win, he promptly made an ass of himself and the Liberal/NDP proposed a coalition government to replace him. In response to this Harper asked the governor general to Prorogue parliment, and she complied.
What the fuck is this bullshit? Pardon the language but i think its time we started getting angry about this. I've always felt that the GG was an outdated relic, but i didn't mind her sticking around as a figurehead...as long as that's all she was. This weeks display of power calls into question what exactly the GG's role in Canadian politics is?
Why do we have a representitive of the Queen of England occupying the highest office in Canada? An non-elected office. A theoretically neutral posistion.
I understand the King-Byng precedent about the GG doing as the PM asks, but doesn't it seem a bit strange that she weilds this kind of power over our political proces. She's subsurviant to th PM, but weilds power over all Parliment...doesn't that seem like a contradiction? The ability of a minority leader to artifically keep his braindead cabniet alive through the winter mounths, honestly what is the point? We are not a colony anymore. It boggles the mind, I really don't understand why we put up with these kinds of shinanigans. She was not acting neutrally, she was not acting in the intrest of the canadian people, not even in the intrest of the monarchy. I really think it's time we pulled the plug on the GG's office and started governing ourselves. Well i guess our leadership is coming from Washington more and more these days, but that's a heart attck for another day...maybe.
I'm really trying to quit again.
But i kicked my addiction. I was clean for a few years, not head in the sand completely out of it, but not substantially personally emotionally involved.
Recently, however, i read Hunter S Thompson's book, Better then sex: confessions of a political junkie (i highly recommend it) and that coupled with the very intrigueing election to the south has drawn me back into the game. It's has been a fun few weeks but last night i reached a point which reminded me why i got out of this abusive relationship in the first place, but before i go into that...the reason i prefaced this little opinion piece is to assure everyone that i usually do not and will not in the future talk about politics, i hate them.
But last night should peak evryones intrest...following Harper's second (and in my opinion surpriseing) election win, he promptly made an ass of himself and the Liberal/NDP proposed a coalition government to replace him. In response to this Harper asked the governor general to Prorogue parliment, and she complied.
What the fuck is this bullshit? Pardon the language but i think its time we started getting angry about this. I've always felt that the GG was an outdated relic, but i didn't mind her sticking around as a figurehead...as long as that's all she was. This weeks display of power calls into question what exactly the GG's role in Canadian politics is?
Why do we have a representitive of the Queen of England occupying the highest office in Canada? An non-elected office. A theoretically neutral posistion.
I understand the King-Byng precedent about the GG doing as the PM asks, but doesn't it seem a bit strange that she weilds this kind of power over our political proces. She's subsurviant to th PM, but weilds power over all Parliment...doesn't that seem like a contradiction? The ability of a minority leader to artifically keep his braindead cabniet alive through the winter mounths, honestly what is the point? We are not a colony anymore. It boggles the mind, I really don't understand why we put up with these kinds of shinanigans. She was not acting neutrally, she was not acting in the intrest of the canadian people, not even in the intrest of the monarchy. I really think it's time we pulled the plug on the GG's office and started governing ourselves. Well i guess our leadership is coming from Washington more and more these days, but that's a heart attck for another day...maybe.
I'm really trying to quit again.
You've taken your first step into a larger world
So in an attempt to rid myself of my Luddism i'm trying one of these blog-thing-a-mah-gigs. i really don't know what i'm supposed to write in one of these things so it'll be a bit of an adventure to see what pops out of my mouth...and by mouth i mean fingers. Mostly i'll be using this to just keep a log of my random thoughts and test out what kind of longevity and consistencey i can post with. i wouldn't mind doing a more serious blog later but i need to know that i won't do it for like three weeks then crap out. so here it goes.
"buy the ticket, take the ride."(HST)
"buy the ticket, take the ride."(HST)
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