So It Starts. Again.

After my long and involved summer of insanity you would think that I would welcome the start of another semester with open arms.  You would be very mistaken.  

While everyone I've talked with (and unintentionally eavesdropped on) go on and on about how they are so happy to be going back to class and seeing all their friends and opening up brand new books and having their horizons expanded yet another mile in every direction, all I can think about is how much I want to bury my head under a pile of sand and never have to come up again for air.  It's not just the tests or the papers or the having to sit in a classroom with 69 other people for hours listening to a professor talk about how he is the greatest and smartest person I will ever meet.  It's also the fact that I know 49 of the 69 people in that classroom and none of them are really willing to talk to me or sit next to me or acknowledge me at all.  It's the fact that I go weeks without speaking to anyone outside my home despite my best efforts to appear "approachable" (I even started leaving my iPod at home!) and make arrangements with people myself.  

I'd be lying if I i said that loneliness was the only reason why I'm so entirely dreading the next 8 months of my life because the stress of having to have the perfect tests and the stand-out papers every time.   My memory is exceptionally bad when it comes to facts and dates and theories so my tests are never perfect -- I always miss that one crucial point and kick myself as soon as it's over.  My brain is scattered and I can never write in a strait line, so I'm always being docked on my oh-so-awkward sentences (awk, awk, awk).  

These are just excuses.  Maybe I'm just lazy.  

I sometimes look at getting a masters degree at some prestigious school abroad.  The things I would learn would be amazing (I think), and I would probably get some nice fancy job (I would hope).  But when I think of another year (or two) of school I cringe and revert back to wanting to either crawl into a cave and hide in the dark, or burry my head in the sand until this horrible idea blows over like a bad storm.  

I probably should have been an electrician.  

A Scramble for the Puck!

I went and saw my favorite hockey club, the Flames, practice the other day after my little brother's hockey practice was over. The skating was fantastic, the shooting and passing and nifty little tricks were mesmerizing. But the men... hot damn.
I'm not usually the kind of girl who likes to oggle good looking men every time I see one, but standing six feet away from them as they were playing and laughing and moving... wow. I mean, wow.

After the practice was over a crowd of little boys, probably ages 7-12, clustered in the lobby outside the change rooms waiting for their heroes to come out and sign their jerseys or their own hockey sticks. The interesting thing was that behind the huge cluster of short people in red was the cluster of the dads who wanted an autograph too. Of course, behind these full grown boys stood me. Because my brother had to leave for a party right after his practice, I was told to stay behind and get some autographs for him.
I thought this would be easy.
Just a bunch of little kids.
Maybe one of those beautiful men would notice me and...
Anyway!
Let me just say that these little boys knew how to work this system (whatever this system was). The 'cute face' was applied along with the 'stuttering shy kid' bit and more often than not there was the awed silence that came with tilting their necks back so far that their little hats kept falling off. How could I possibly compete with this?? I thought maybe I had a bit of a chance early on because of my uniqueness factor (being the only woman there who wasn't a hockey mom) and that probably would have worked if it wasn't for the obsessed hockey dads who liked to push in front and compete with each other after their weasely little spawn had finished with the poor hockey star and he was trying to escape.

All in all I ended up only getting three signatures for my brother and only one of them was of a player I really admired (the other two are fairly new to the team and the only reason I got them was because I don't think the midgets recognized them). The truly unfortunate part about this wasn't the lack of autographs or marriage proposals, it was that all the other adults there, including the players, thought I was 14 years old. When one hockey mom saw me get pushed back by a throng of crazed little boys and their equally crazed (but way more annoying) dads, she said to me in the kindest voice, "hey sweetie, who are you lookin' for? Awwww well you know, my husband could get in there for you and get a couple nice signatures if you want? It would be OK, I'm sure he would love to!" and so on.
It was then that I decided to leave. Hanging around was pointless when the only thing I was getting was bruised toes and drowning ego.

Have to say though, man they were somethin' else to watch up close!

construction site

There is a man with a jackhammer
who thinks he is making improvements to the base of my skull.
It's hard to convince him
that my head is fragile and I like it just the way it is.

There are two men with shovels
trying to dig their way out through my eyes.
They don't believe me
when I tell them that now I can't even see.

Between my eyes there is just one man
who stands hammering a nail through bone.
Begging never works to get him to stop
he is determined to completely reconstruct my face.

And finally the two men with axes
who deforest the brain matter around my ears.
They don't even hear me when I beg
or notice when I shut out the light.
More determined than all the rest,
they refuse refuse to leave.

Christmas of 1997

I've been asked a lot lately what I want for Christmas and every time I'm asked I have no idea what to say because I really don't know what I want for Christmas. It was so much easier when I was little and my family could just get me something simple and easy without having to ask me what I wanted and I would usually love it just because of the surprise factor.
When I was ten my grandpa gave me the book Falling Up by Shel Silverstein and this was probably one of the best gifts I have ever been given. I had every poem in the book read by Boxing day and tried to speak only in rhyme up until New Year's. Now, that book is so well-read that the bindings are held together with string and I still have many of the poems memorized word for word.
I don't know if this gift was perfect because of a lucky guess or because my grandpa just knew what I would like. Either way, it made a certain impression on me that I haven't been able to forget (not that I should!). I've branched out a bit from "God's Wheel" and "Snowball" and "Long-Leg Lou and Short-Leg Sue", but I still always go back to them because it's poems like this that really turned me on to poetry when I was small.
I don't know where I was going with this except to say that I think children now don't experience that, and it's a bit sad.

Chilly!

It's strange how events in my life move to some bizarre juxtaposition at just the right moment. This happens all the time, but today it wasn't even subtle. It was like the world just though to itself, 'meh, I'm tired and lazy' and didn't bother to throw in any zeal or twists in order to make things interesting.

Today I received a letter from my friend who doing a semester in Ecuador. It took this letter exactly two months to reach me from the time she posted it, so when it was finally pushed through my mail slot this afternoon it was freezing cold outside. I know this doesn't sound like much at all, but think about it! Shantel writes me talking about how hot and tropical it is, and I don't get the message until it's so cold that I can't feel my toes when I go outside and my eyeballs freeze in my head. It's cold. I do know that it's not as cold as it could be, but give me some credit here! I mean, it figures that she writes me to tell me about the perfect weather right while I'm skipping my afternoon class because I'm too much of a wuss to brave the cold, go outside and walk the five blocks to the bus stop.
What kind of Canadian am I?
Also, I forget the point of this post...

The Inuit and I

In my first year of university I took an anthropology class. The class was mandatory and probably a good 2/3 of the 450 person class thought the professor was a complete flake, so as a result I couldn't really give you any details about what I 'learned' from that class. Seriously, all I can remember about the native peoples of New Guinea and West Africa was that they tended to be naked in most of the films we watched. However, my memory is oddly vivid and detailed when I think of the time we spent studying the Inuit.

Living in the extreme conditions of the cold white north, the Inuit relied on each other completely and entirely for their own survival. It was (and still is I guess) impossible to survive by your self, and perfect unquestionable cooperation within the tribe was essential. All people in the Inuit tribe had to appear happy, content, or at least placid or else the rest of the tribe would fear that they would loose the flow of their society. So. In order to prevent that from happening, if ever a tribe member was depressed, pissed-off or in any way unhappy, the rest of the tribe would deal with it by simply picking up all their belongings and leaving in the middle of the night without telling the offending malcontent and therefore leaving him to elements to basically die.
I guess this is a pretty extreme circumstance and that minor offenders would just end up being shunned withing the community for the rest of their life or until one day they woke up and saw that they were all alone.

Sometimes I think this lifestyle is brilliant. Non-confrontational solutions to every possible problem that may come up seems absolutely perfect compared to the way I'm used to things. All my life I've been pretty content to just go along with the flow and do what I'm told without any questions and be happy with everything that comes my way. But lately I've been somewhat less than satisfied with the way my life is going... which is to say nowhere.

My parents are at a complete loss as to how to deal with this new me that is unsatisfied, has developed a belated sense of pride and despondence (I know that they don't quite go along together, but... whatever!). I'm not saying that my family has gone and disappeared from my home in the middle of the night leaving me to fend for myself in the cold. But today, for the third time, my mother has asked me to consider going to a doctor and asking about anti-depressants.
So, the Inuit used to (or still do... I don't really remember that part of the lecture) abandon the unhappy individuals of their community to face the elements alone, and my mum tries to get me to take drugs.

I find this a very interesting comparison, because to me, they are both exactly the same.

Time for Breakfast

I woke up really happy this morning. It's kind of strange when that happens I think. Definitely not a bad thing, but just strange that I woke up smiling after so many mornings of just waking up and not wanting to deal with what I know the day will bring and even not wanting to be here anymore.
But today I woke up and thought I might make french toast for everyone and then make myself busy with laundry and then go to the gym. Weird. I haven't felt like this in a while which is why I thought I should write it down! Chronicle it for the ages as a sign. A sign of what, I have no idea... maybe that things are going to get better.
I was promised that they would. Get better I mean.