Oh yeah.  You know what’s great about being a sociology major who feels like she no longer has a family (though does have individual associations with people of whom she is biologically related)?  Well, sociological theories are a great source of enlightenment, and almost cheer me up when I am on the verge of being awash with angsty emotions.   For example,  re-framing “family” as merely a social construct makes the realization that I am less a part of what I thought was my family than I ever was, while non-biological people I have never met have replaced me, seem much less painful.  That statement may seem harsh, but I’d rather feel enlightened making sense of changes in family structures than feel bitter about those changes.

Complimenting family as a social construct is the observation of how relationships exist amongst people with independent (as opposed to interdependent) self concepts. At 4:09 am, I am a bit too tired to go into detail, and risk plagiarizing a really great paper, so you can read it here, courtesy of the good old University of British Columbia.

Raymond Carver, an author whose work I am not too fond of, does a nice job at illustrating the emotional strain between wanting to believe that love is real and eternal, while facing the reality of knowing how transactional relationships really are:

“You’ve both been married before, just like us. And you probably loved other people before that too, even. Terri and I have been together five years, been married for four. And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, you might say, is that if something happened to one of us—excuse me for saying this—but if something happened to one of us tomorrow, I think the other one, the other person, would grieve for a while, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, and have someone else soon enough. All this, all of this love, we’re talking about, it would be just a memory.” (Carver, 1981 — “What we talk about when we talk about love”)

The above passage is referring to romantic relationships, but it can be applied to any type of relationship. I love my brothers; I love my mom; I love my late father, but we are not a family anymore.  Once we were a family, but we no longer are (unless you want to get all Slaughterhouse Five on the linearity of our lifetimes).  Yeah, it’s painful to think about sometimes, but at least I have silly abstract theories to comfort myself with, right?

Goodnight. Good morning.

Okay, so I am not a polisci major; nor am I American.

Anyway, I was looking at Google News today, and I noticed this headline:

“She May Be on the Other Team, But She Called All the Plays”. Oh?  I assumed that based on the headline, the article must be about a lesbian or “something” equally tantalizing.  “Gosh!” I thought, “this must be quite some crazy story about a lesbian calling the shots for it to be a top page story on Google News!”  Yeah yeah yeah. Black presidents! Female Secretaries of State! Hell, America is getting pretty hippie-dippie.  What have these lesbians done now? [/sarcasm]

Then I clicked on the article, and to much bemusement, realized that it was about an American politician named Olympia Snowe.  Not really following what goes on in American politics, I had no idea who this woman was.  Oh, indeed, she does have some leverage.

Unfortunately, the article, like many before it, made my brain explode.

And here is where I throw out the misogyny card.  Would the attention, at least displayed by the Washington Post, really be paid in the same manner were this senator a man? Probably not.

“She May Be on the Other Team…” Clever double entendre of a title! Get it? She is a member of the opposition party, but she’s also a chick playing in the man’s game of politics! Read further, and you see her painted as a coy and clever woman, holding out until she can work the men, the “other team”, how she pleases. Look at that woman go! Playing hardball with the big boys!

Well, props to the Washington Post for only making a moderate mention of Ms. Snowe’s attire.

Whenever the semester ends, my body shuts down, and then my brain follows:

The last time I updated this blog was on April 20, 2009 at 12:39 AM.  I wrote my final exam for GEOGS at 6:30PM that day.

When school is finally out, my body finally lets it guard down: it isn’t being forced to stay up way too late, and get too little rest; it isn’t being fed crappy food [as often], because I actaully have time to make proper meals for myself.  It isn’t being stressed out by the awareness of the preceding, unhealthy habits.  It isn’t being stressed out by the pressure of school, and work, and everything else.

For about a week or so, I more or less slept or lazed around at any given chance.  I slept a LOT.  One night I slept for 13 hours in lieu of seeing Mastodon, who I did want to see.

Once my body has caught up on its rest, my brain goes “hey, it is my turn for a rest.”  During the first week or so, my brain was still running crazy.  Any conversation that even remotely related to an area of recent study had to be abandonned, because all I could do was start meddling over theories and ideas in my head.  “Well, this surely isn’t an exciting conversation to have with someone I haven’t socialized with in months, due to me crazy schedule”.   This issue causes for social awkwardness.

Finally, my brain says “okay, see ya in a few weeks for summer school!” Then I go into moderately carefree mode.

The problem is, I like inspiration or motivation when this happens.  I haven’t updated this, because I haven’t had anything of value to share, I guess.   Rather, I haven’t been stimulating my brain.  I know it’s only been a few weeks, and I’m sure I’ll get back into being my geeky old self; but, lately I haven’t had a whole lot of quasi-intellectual/academic shit percolating in my head and I’m not sure what to make of it.

I’d hate to think that enrollment school is the only thing that allows me to think critical.

I think I’m just taking a breather.

The title of this blog post is the name of a  film that I watched in my Urban Geography course this evening.  As far as I know, I’ve been living under a rock and everyone else has known about this documentary (made in 2004) except for me.  I had always been disenchanted by the Al Gore/Inconvenient Truth/Oil Oil Oil conspiracy stuff that has been going on for the last many years.  It’s not that I am ignorant, or against it — I just haven’t been too interested in getting all militant and obsessed about oil as some people have.  Anyway…

We watched this film in class. I would recommend people view “The Depletion of Oil and the Collapse of the American Dream”, not because I agree or disagree with its content, but because it had some thought provoking qualities.   The most impressive part about the documentary was just how prophetic it was.  Several scientists and academics make some predictions, which at the time seem unbelieveable to a global society so uneducated about what keeps their livelihoods from falling apart; and these predictions, for the most part, occurred — often, impressively, at the dates predicted.

People make predictions all the time.  I think when most predictions turn out to be fact, people are mildly entertained, or just neutral, or unaware.  Other times, obviously, the predictions are incorrect.  What stands out about what these people claimed would happen, is that they were predicting the equivilent of an apocalypse.  The inability to satisfy an overwhelming and exponential “need” for oil, for consumption, for a chaos theory kind of mob-mentality, consuming behaviour, means the death of a life that recent generations [from certain countries] feel entitled to, and inevitably leads to the loss of social cohesion and norms.  Most of the speakers in this film didn’t go so far as to predict a dissolution of any sort of social contract, but they do insinuate it.

So, pretty crazy stuff.

What I did take issue with, is that this film is, as can be expected, one-sided.  Obviously a film that is attempting to plead, intelligently, to the public, and to the slightly-above-layman audience that it needs to collectively WAKE THE FUCK UP and change if you want your children to see tomorrow is not going to present a lot of counter-arguments.  Fair enough.  I think anyone intelligent enough to watch this film (it’s pretty easy to follow, but not for Cletus) with an open mind can understand that it is one sided, and has a clear agenda.

Having said that, I study arts and social sciences.  I consider myself adequately educated in these areas, and can understand concepts.  However, I do not understand much about physical sciences; so, when the scientists in this film say that it takes more energy to create hydrogen power than it does to use it, or that such and such uses up so much oil, or that something is scientifically ineffecient, that isn’t good enough for me.  I would like, at least, a brief background to explain to the uneducated viewer in me: “this is why this is like THIS”.  It is important to recognize your audience, and this film obviously was not made for scientists.  If this film had been made for scientists, I would not have understood half of what was in it (or any of it?)  This film was made for people like me, like the general audience I referred to above, and most of us are not highly educated about these topics.  This film is like “Oil Mear-Mongering 101″, which is why it is so easy to watch.

Bottom few lines: Movie:

-interesting and thought provoking. Check it out!

- freakishly prophetic

- lacked empirical data for the physical scientifically uneducated geek in me.

Good night.

Hello Internets,

In contrast to recent discussions of dystopian cities of Gamblor and my disdainful fascination with the mainstream media’s coverage of various phenomena, I would like to “plug”, if you will, a website/blog/podcast.

Some fine gentlemen in Toronto, Tim (and contributing geek, Brad) have a blog called “Comma Error”.  Tim has done a bunch of reviews of recent video games, and dude knows his video game shit.  Tim and Brad also have started doing a podcast, which is pretty entertaining.  So check it out.

Also, now I shall plug myself, for the millionth time today: plug plug plug. For those who haven’t heard me brag about something that isn’t totally extraordinary:  I was accepted into UBC today and offered the President’s Entrance Scholarship.  It’s nothing too fancy; just based on academic merit, but I am still stoked.  I still have someone else’s money paying for my schooling, as a recognition of my brain power.  Woooooooo.

… HATE.. GERMAN.. PHILOSOPHERS..

To compliment 6 hours or so of procrastination-filled reading, rumination and squawking about how many times “alienation” can be used in one sentence, I treated myself to the equivalent of a glass of wine.  I say “equivalent” because I didn’t actually pour the wine into anything…

If it wasn’t for the fact that I have to be totally fucking sober about 164 hours per week, I would invent the Karl Marx drinking game (if it hasn’t been invented yet): every time you read the word “alienation”, you take a shot; every time you read the word “object/objectify/objectification”, you punch yourself in the head and curse yourself for taking a stupid course.

Knock Knock

Who’s there?

Karl Marx!

Karl Marx who?

The Karl Marx that’s been in your required readings for the billionth bloody course you’ve taking, you douchebag liberal arts student!

That’s my joke! BADOOMCHING.

I was going to write about the commodification of water, and the sociopolitical issues surrounding it, but I’m far too exhausted.  Instead, I have a story to tell about bottled water. HOW EXCITING.

When I was a teenager, what was possibly propaganda, caused me to have an irrational fear of tap water; I thought that if I drank water from the tap I would be at risk of contracting diseases, or experiencing mineral poisoning.  As a result, for the last year or two of my dad’s life, we had a Culligan water cooler in the kitchen.

I would not even boil water to make rice if the water didn’t come from that cooler.  I refused to drink water at restaurants, out of fear that it came from the tap; I avoided eating soup at restaurants; I was as neurotic and obsessed as I am about meat contamination, as a strict vegetarian.

Then my dad died, and nobody was strong enough to carry those huge bottles of water back from the grocery store.  I swallowed my pride and started to drink tap water again — reluctantly, of course.  Then I learned, possibly through other forms of propaganda, that bottled water is just as fucked as tap water:

- While “bottled water” connotes some sort of super-safe, ultra-hygienic,  pathogen-free and all around as good as from the unpolluted creeks of wherever the fuck of the days of yore, many brands of bottled water are merely using tap water.

- The chemicals in the plastic of the bottles may pose a health risk, especially if the water is unused for a long time.

Etc etc, I could go on, but I would just be regurgitating

For further information, I suggest reading both of the above links if you are interested in the production and safety of bottled water (and tap water), as these sources, while non-academic, are reasonably balanced and informative.

Back to what I was talking about, as far as my water consumption…. well, it seems to be a lose-lose situation: I’m consuming poison no matter what, so I might as well do it with a smile on my face…….

Good night.

Sometimes I have the pleasure of being reminded that there are truly dense people in this world.

For the summer semester, I am taking a business administration course.  I am taking this course only because it is the only course which is in my year AND fits my work schedule.  Actually, if I can get off work early on Mondays in July and August, I can take Criminology if the course doesn’t fill up before I get paid on the 15th. SWEET.
I had my first day of Business Management class.  YES.  BUSINESS FUCKING MANAGEMENT. Business Management SOMEHOW is a university course.

I figured it would be an easy 3 degrees, but  it looks like it will be painful.  This is what we did today:

Wrote down our favourite colour, sport, type of music, “type of book” (type of book?!?!? does that mean “hardcover of softcover???”), favourite GADGET, and other stuff.

Afterwards, we were to go around the classroom and introduce ourselves to our classmates.  We would then try to find someone who shared a favourite.  I did this in Grade 4, in Monsieur Hoy’s class.  I helped contribute to his nervous breakdown.

I assumed “favourite kind of book” meant “preferred type of literature”, or something of that nature, so I chose “modern and post-modern fiction”.  One woman wrote down “non-fiction”, and she announced “that’s pretty close!!! We match!!!”  My brain exploded a little bit.

One classmate was too busy trading diamonds online to take part in our group work; she runs a jewelry business in Dubai.

I am not going to entertain myself further by recounting today’s experience, so instead I will leave you with this picture I drew on the whiteboard in class.  We were asked to draw what the “ideal manager” would look like.  I was surprised to see that I was the only person who incorporated a “female” image into their  drawing.

Here is something I would like you all to picture:

Yesterday evening, after work, I met up with Aaron to chat, have a few drinks, and have him witness the forms that I have to send to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.

We ended up going to bloody Malone’s.  At 6 PM, you get seated at a table by a server, unlike when you show up and it’s in “night club” mode.  The music was super loud, so we had to yell across our table.

The bar was full of lots of people drinking, doing shots, and having a splendid, drunkish time.

Well, the two of us are BOTH currently reading books about the brain and sociology.  We were sitting in this dark bar, with our books out, yelling out interesting quotes about brain function, and discussiing them, across the table, over the loud music.

It amused me.  Also, before the topic turned to our brain books, we were talking about zombies.

So I did something I thought I would never, never, never do.  And then I thought “maybe I will write about it”.  THEN I thought “that is way too ‘Sex and the City’, and I loathe ‘Sex and the City’ even though I have never seen a full episode of said show.”

Next up on the agenda:  Today I met Malcolm Young of AC/DC.  I did not realize that it was him when he initially showed up at my work.  Actually, first he tried to buzz in, but did not actually use the buzzer; he used his cell phone.  I muttered to my co-worker “what kind of person thinks I can buzz them in when they use their cell phone instead of the intercom?” as I walked out of the office to go let in who I assumed to be some hapless person  looking for something they should have gone to Long and McQuade for.

I two persons standing there with a folder piece of paper: “Oh, MapQuest…” I thought.  I explained how the intercom worked and then asked “oh, do you have an appointment?”  We require appointments.  These people did not have an appointment.

Friendly guys. My dad would have enjoyed that story.

That previous sentence makes a good segue to this one: I was inconsiderate towards my mother today.  Again.  I’m a pretty awful person sometimes.  But I’m more than a little hurt, myself.

Murphy’s Law is:

Only not getting asked for cigarettes by bums on the days where you are out of cigarettes

Something else that seemed like “Murphy’s Law”, which now escapes my mind

Thinking that sushi goes great with whiskey because you’ve never tried it

A crappy spots bar in East Toronto

A crappy T-ball team named after the crappy sports bar

A flock of seagulls cawing and flapping their wings violently over the skylights at work

An eponymous inventor

Barfing up a delicious apple, or parts thereof

Setting your house on fire after you decide arson is for dorks

Jumping ship

La dee da dee da.

I got my Geography midterm back today.  I got an A.  I would have gotten an A+, but I only got 1.5 out of 4 marks on the map questions. BRUTAL.  Could you pick out Fort St. John, Campbell River, Nelson, the Kootenay River, Kelowna, the Nass River, Barkerville and Prince Rupert on a blank map of B.C. with about 100 different dots to choose from? If you hail from the Centre of the Universe like I do, probably not.  I came close.  Close isn’t good enough for geography.

Oh.. and on question 24 of the multiple choices, I dyslexically picked the wrong answer, but I did not contest it… really. My saving grace was that I totally owned the two essay questions, which were worth 14 out of a possible 30 points.  I got 13/14 (6.5/7 for each essay….) Ironically, the two topics that I have to write about were the  topics I was least prepared for…

Midterm = 30% of the mark; Research paper (due in 3 weeks… yikes) = 30% of the mark; final exam = 30% of the mark, and participation = 10% of the mark. So I am pretty confident I can maintain an A in this class.
I also got my Creative Writing portfolio back.  I only got a B+ (worth 20% of my mark).  I completely know why I got a B+, which is that my last piece in it was very weak. But I was well aware of that when I handed it in.  My instructor, who had initially been very harsh to me, said he “like [my] work” I had done on a series of pieces, and that he liked what I had to say about drugs, hospitals, rape and… get this… MY MOM. (That’s right mom… there’s one that mentions you..)

That B+ is okay because I got an A on a group project I did about a little magazine (also worth 20% of my mark…); I should be getting an A on my crits (10% of the mark); I have a presentation on Monday, which I am confident I will get an A in (20%)… Aand my final portfolio, worth 30%, I think I can garner an A.  Am I cocky? No. Just focused… and working hard, even if it seems like I’m slacking off.  Remember, I have 1 day of class per week, so I do have a fuckload of free time now that I’m unemployed.

With my 1200$ grant on the way (thank goodness I contacted Financial Aid to make sure they were still sending it to me), I don’t even need to have a part time job right now, so I’ll probably wait until I get back from Florida to get one…unless something cool comes up.

Di I say I was focused? Okay, that’s actually BULLSHIT AT THE MOMENT.   My Ritalin ceased to function a couple of weeks ago, and I had  to get my new, higher-dosage prescription mailed to me from Toronto (controlled substances bullshit.  I’m not explaining…). Finally, two weeks or so later, it has arrived.  I was fine for writing my midterm last week, apparently.

It didn’t arrive soon enough for me to take it before going to class today, so by the time 5:30 PM rolled around an Geogs  (English is 1:30-5:20had started, I was pretty fidgety.  By 6:30, I couldn’t concentrate on a single thing. I knew if I could stick it out until the coffee break I’d be fine.  Normally that’s at 7:00.  It was at 7:30 today.  I felt like I was going to die.  Ever had an ADD moment that was so… well, ADD, that you were on the verge of having a panic attack from being intensely incapable of concentrating on any one thing for more than like 30 seconds?

As soon as the break came I told the prof I was not well and had to leave… he knows I’m fucked in the head cause of the letter  from the disability department at school.

Now I just need to write some more stupid poems, go to a stupid poetry reading on Thursday, do a stupid presentation about said stupid poetry reading and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah stupid stupid stupid stupid.  I’m smart, eh.

At work I sometimes get bored and read stuff on Craigslist.  I am also going to need to get a new job, as my contract expires in Mid-October; I will only be attending class on Mondays, so will get bored.  I will also need money, as it turns out the government has once again penetrated my sweet ass and told me “you will need to wait a long bloody time before you receive the money you so dearly need.”

 I digress.

I was on Craigslist looking at prospective jobs and saw a posting looking for a blogger.  Now, I would never submit myself to such a “profession”, as I find the idea of being a “professional blogger” tacky.  It also is no way to earn a living, unless you are like Oprah, I guess.

There was an ad which made me chuckle — a lot.  The ad is as follows:

“Looking for a blogging person to write blog posts about birds, birding and backyard birding. Must have some interest in birds and be able to write and talk about it.

Each blog post will be between 200-400 words and talk on birding. Also must have some interest in binoculars as some of the posts will be referencing binoculars.

You will need to write 3-4x’s blog posts per week and upload the information. If you have never uploaded anything don’t worry apply anyway. It is simple and we will show you how.

Each post will be $8 CAD but will have the opportunity to write more and increase the amount of pay as time goes on. Payment will be paid thru PayPal. ”

 I guess when you are very bored at work, this is much funnier than in real life.  I think if you have an interest in writing, this peculiar ad is also quite funny.  I think the use of alliteration in the ad must have been purely accidental, because only a used car salesperson would otherwise use such language.

I was reading an article about French lexicon , and have noticed something interesting: The article has a table with a list of words in English.  The left column contains the Québecois version of the word, while the right column has the Metropolitan French translation.

As I was going down the list, I noticed that for many of the English words, I was familiar with the Québecois translation, but for just as many, I was more familiar with the Metropolitan version.  What I found so interesting about this observation is
that most, if not all of my French teachers and French-speaking classmates typically used the same words as the ones I was most familiar with.  What made my teachers decide collectively that one word, not the other, was the more appropriate word to be used by Ontario students?  What made one word fitting, while the other one sloppy?

It was interesting that there was not a dominance of Metropolitan, despite it being “tradional”, nor was there a dominance of Québecois, despite Ontario being Québec’s neighbor.

Here is a small sample of some of the words that were listed:

“Cranberry” in Metropolitan French is “une canneberge”, in Québec, it is “un atoca”.  I have never see “atoca” on a container of any sort of cranberry-derived product. On the other hand, to refer to a snowbank, I use the Québecois term “banc de neige”. I do not use “une congère”.  To lock and unlock is to verrouille/déverrouille in Metropolitan one.  This is the term I am more familiar with than to barre/débarre.

In  school, we learned that blueberries were called “les blueuts”.  That is how I see them listed in grocery stores as well.  Apparently in Metropolitan, they are known as “des airelles à feuilles étroites”.   I use both “le week-end” and “la fin de semaine”, and do prefer “la fin de semaine”, although it is humourously literal, as with other Québecois terms (like banc de neige)…

Okay.  I have bored you enough.

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

Not a walrus:

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

That is actually a ring-tailed lemur.  Not a walrus.

Zoology 101.

This weekend, I ruled at life in the classic sense.  Now I must deal with the aftermath of a banged up head, a drawing on my leg that says “POO!” (no mom, not a tattoo.. just pen..), someone angry at me for covering their face with birthday cake and blue, shimmery makeup when they were passed out, and the deadline looming ahead of me for my CMNS paper.  It’s due in a week.  I’m almost done school.

Oh! Me and Aaron did this weird game. Well, unintentionally. Try what we did: So we were sitting in the living room.  Pretty quiet. No one else around.  We sat there in complete silence, and the loser is the person who speaks first.  It gets really funny and ridiculous.  It’s also interesting to see how long people go before they feel a need to say something– anything.

Yes we were stoned.

Try it!