The World Is A Big Place.

It's late, so I'll make this brief.

I was checking out Google Earth looking for Carmen Sandiego. No, really that's exactly what I was doing. I love switching to the satellite imagery mode for Google Earth. I thought I'd check out some of the man made structures that are visible from space such as the Great Wall of China and many of the man made island structures in the United Arab Emirates. As I was sweeping over the green mountains of China, the salty blues of the Persian Gulf, and the tiny specs on the map that make up entire cities with millions of residence.

I found myself getting choked up, and almost went into full blown tears. The world is so large, so incomprehensibly magnificent and yet it remains an insignificant spec in the scheme of the Universe. I could live until the end of time and even then would I not have enough time to see everything that exists. I don't believe in an afterlife, but if I could somehow, someway be assured complete enlightenment and absolute understanding of everything then I would gladly devote myself to such a cause. Alas, I find myself wanting.

If I could even visit a fraction of the places on Earth I want to visit I would consider myself 100% lucky.

Procedural Pensiveness.

Every now and then I am astonished by my family's intelligence capacity.

While sitting around with some family friends we got discussing religion. Now, religion in our household wanders between two camps: grounds for friendly debate and totally ignored. My mother is the only religious one in the family. It could be said that my dad is more spiritual than religious, and the three of us boys don't really give it much thought in their day to day life. By nature I am an argumentative person. This isn't to say I am aggressive, but I do like to have friendly debates about subject because I may just learn something either about myself or others that I didn't know before and that's really exciting.

We discussed (the family friends, my parents and myself) the existence of God and the purpose of religion, primarily the Jehovah's Witnesses my mother entertains. While I won't really get in to what was being said the conversation did yield unexpected fruit. I was in my room watching some silly videos with my older brother Jess when my dad came in and tried to impress upon Jess how he (my dad) felt that he (my brother) would have responded to the entire situation. I had to clarify the statement to my brother as I tend to have a knack for understanding the sometimes archaic way my father speaks. My brother's response is what was really amazing, he said "God exists for me because he exists for other people. I can say I don't believe in wind, but that won't stop it from pushing me over. People believe in something and whether I do or don't doesn't change that belief. The existence of God as those people want to understand it means that I have to believe that they believe in it." That's not entirely verbatim, but it's close.

Jess isn't terribly vocal when it comes to religion or such matters. I think it's understood he falls in the same camp as my younger brother Paul. They just don't really think about religion or let it govern their life and therefore they're agnostic by default. I'm closer to being an atheist then they are, but only because I spend more time vocalizing my opinions. To hear him say what both my dad and I felt was an incredibly understanding sentiment was really reaffirming. If not only because it helped to solidify in my mind where Jess stands on the matter, but because it introduced a new way to think about the subject. Belief of God as prerequisite for believing people. Neat! I think it's important to state that it didn't change the way I think, but it did allow me another insight into how others may think. For someone who's often labeled as being one of the more stubborn members of our family, I think Jess has a certain Zen approach to life. He doesn't argue what can't be argued. It's smart, if somewhat complacent in my opinion.

I don't think it's wrong to follow a safe way of thinking no matter how revolutionary or compassionate it may seem, but for me it doesn't work. If I don't challenge myself and the others around me I feel like an artist with a lump of formless clay. It is by pushing and pulling at the medium that I accomplish form and semblance. I need to illustrate my thoughts in three dimensions in order to get a better hold of them. My brother is apparently capable of looking at the clay and saying, "That could be made into a car, a box, a bowl or an animal" and walking away. I, on the other hand need to separate the claw into four pieces and construct a car, a box, a bowl and a cat in order to prove that the clay can be bent to my will and that I have the skills required to create.

Yup, that's just how life goes here at the French household.

Decadence And Decisions.

I play Dungeons and Dragons. I think I've mentioned this before as I do have a label for it in the blog system.

One of the hardest parts about playing is making it work. It's not like Monopoly or a video game where the rules and goals are laid out in plain sight for you. So much of it is created on the spur of the moment by both the DM (Dungeon Master) and the players that it's never the same from one day to the next. It is a shifting target that when you actually hit a bulls-eye you remember it for years.

In the current campaign (or over-arching storyline) we're playing in now there's a certain amount of unrest amongst the players and I'll tell you why. First off there's an issue with group synergy. Now when I partake in any kind of social activity I enjoy being in a commanding position. I like to have a direction and I like to drive the action. This doesn't mean that I don't enjoy input from the other players. I can understand it's hard to get a word in with someone like myself, but I am fearful that if I don't chime in with an option or a direction that we won't really do anything. Those kind of awkward moments can kill a session. Silent players are not playing. If I'm the only one really role playing it gets pretty boring pretty fast. Now, the reasons for this can be varied. Sometimes it's because players are tired, or are lacking motivation personally. Additionally they could feel like their character is lacking direction and they don't know what to do with them. These can be two hard barriers to overcome, but I find that at times like this it's best to refer back to what your character's fundamentals are.

My character currently is a large (Goliath) fighter who uses a scourge (cat-o-nine-tail) as a weapon. He's a dervish which is a class specializing in movement and whirling attacks. I've taken ranks in dance and weapon drill so that when there's nothing going on I can just kill time and perform for money. While mechanically this may serve little benefit it helps to add depth to my character. This is what he does in his spare time, and that helps add that extra dimension to him. A character that simply goes from point A to point B without doing anything in the meantime is fairly boring to play with. This is brings me to me second point. D&D is a role playing game, it requires players to play a role, whether that role is mechanical (picking locks, gathering information), physical (heavy damage dealing or tanking) or social (a talkative player who is big on "being" their character). If you're not accomplishing any of these tasks you either need to change your character or evaluate how much you're adding to the D&D group. It may sound bizarre, but D&D does not cater well to the shy. It requires a certain degree of gregariousness in order to make an interesting character.

There's also the DM's responsibility to create interesting scenarios. Now I've been very fortunate in having a DM who is excited and passionate about the game. He's great for presenting us with situations that allow for a lot of freedom. If I had to critique him I'd say that he is perhaps a bit too forgiving of his characters, when it may better suit the role play to really drop the hammer on them. Just a passing observation, one I wouldn't worry too much about really. I know our DM would love to be a player more often, but sadly no one else in the group is as proficient a DM as he, and thus no one would be able to generate as interesting a scenario as he does. I've tried, and I do okay I just don't have staying power when it comes to continuing an entire storyline.

I just hope something gets worked out in some capacity so we can try and hit that moving bulls-eye and have the fun I know we're all capable of having.

P.S. I just rejoined Facebook much to my chagrin, and having to go through all of the old posts, pictures, updates, etc. that pertained to "you know who" was about as much fun as swallowing glass. What a miserable way to end my weekend.

Breathing Room.

Well, I've been fairly remiss on my posting duties, but it's not without good cause. Lately I've been working two jobs and doing college. I was ending my employment at one location and starting up at another. The two week interim proved to be time consuming and exhausting.

On the one hand I do feel pretty good doing that amount of work. I feel like I'm contributing again, whereas for so long I didn't feel like I was. I like to remain fairly busy, as I do get bored. The problem is that when you're doing several things at once they all suffer slightly for it. I've known people who relish the opportunity to work several jobs at once. It's rarely because they have to, but more often because they feel it somehow defines them as a person.

Case in point would be a friend of mine. He likes to work a lot, and is somewhat masochistic in this regard. I actually asked point blank the other day how much he was willing to sacrifice in order to get through law school. His response was he was willing to accept the issues that come with a packed schedule, his career is very important to him.

Watch this:


I don't know about you guys, but it's a bleak world when twenty two year olds are that concerned about their career. I think that's why I like the idea of radio so much. It's not a high paying job, and the hours are trash, but it's doing something that allows you to be who you are without pretense. I would never sacrifice the things important to me for the sake of career. I've attempted that once in an avenue of my life that could hardly be called "career". It's not worth it. I feel like some people have resigned themselves that happiness is unattainable, so they might as well be wealthy. I think that's utterly depressing. Happiness in a Sesame Street kind of way is unrealistic, but I don't think it's too much to ask to be purely content with your situation in life.

There's that word again. Happiness. Is it too much to ask for eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, free from the demons that plague us? Is it too unrealistic to be content with the person you're with, even if that person is just you? There will be days where the sucking vacuum of despair can force us to our knees, but it feels so unnatural to be so unhappy. I want for all of you, all of my readers to start feeling happier. Live a little more carefree, smile at simpler things. I tell myself jokes in my head just so I can chuckle. The other day I walked out into the living room and kissed my dad on the top of his head. I didn't have a reason, I didn't need one. I don't know if pay it forward works, but it requires so little energy to try it, you might as well!

I guess this post got a little G-rated towards the end there, but not even me in all my cerebralisms can stay moody indefinitely.

Captain's Log.

In writing class today we had to write a short piece about a chunk of wood our teacher brought in. While that sounds rather bland, it's actually an interesting exercise. The piece of wood is from BC, near Shuswap Lake where my teacher lived for a short while. Not unlike a still life piece in art where you are asked to draw a banana in whatever way you see fit, the exercise is about looking through and beyond the subject.

Here's a sneak peek at what I wrote, and will be submitting next class.

I am small, the prospect of something greater than the “me” of now. Time is not as fleeting as you may think, and I cherish each second as I fall from my home to soil below. As I fall into the loam below I lay in awe of the great distance I have already travelled. When the first rain yields the earth beneath me, I settle in and rest for the journey I must make upward once again.

My thirst is quenched by Margaret and my hunger satiated by soil of Shuswap. The sun squeezes through the limbs of my forefathers and races to warm the land below. Slowly, so slowly I split the confines of my earthen blanket and am greeted by the stunning silence of a land unhindered by industry. The wind tugs at me, threatening to tear me from the ground and toss me into the lake. With filamentous roots I hold on for dear life, life which is as important to me as it is to the birds that cry overhead.

The air is cool, sharp and it stings my soft green sides. I know – yet how I know, I know not – that winter is soon and I will hibernate in the sparse snow that gathers around my family’s feet. As I shut my eyes and conserve my resources I wilt in the face of briefest winter. Long do I sleep, dreaming of times where I will soar with those same crying birds, standing taller and mightier than any before me. As my dream comes to an end I feel the caress of rain against my skin. Waking to the first rain of the season I cannot help but feel energized exhilarated to continue my quest. Spring is long, and harmonious. My family opens their home to the nesting sparrow, and cruel osprey. One day I too will be host to a kingdom of my own fauna.

The dry summer bakes my skin, hardens me, and tempers my body from sapling to tree. In a pubescence that will last for centuries I grow. The loss of my first leaves to the coming fall shames me. I am naked, small, and insignificant. I am heartened though as the once sharp wind falls dull against my firm exterior. I stand in defiance of the winter that looms in the coming months. I do not sleep, instead I press onward, upward. It is this cycle I follow for year after year.

I am godfather to countless squirrels, robins, mice and insects. My first tenant is a tiny chipmunk who has taken refuge in my minimal foliage. Chased up my side by a hungry coyote, he tickles me with his sharp claws. If I had a mouth I would have let out a laugh that would have relieved the woods of the quietude it lingers in so often. Too quickly does the chipmunk move on and for several more months do I remain alone, stoic and steadfast. The first time I feel true sunlight on my fingertips I feel excitement. Standing but a branch shorter than my father I can lookout upon the world. For the briefest of moments I feel immense. My size dwarfs the shrubs and ferns at my feet and not even the trees around me match my goliath quality. It is then I see the lake, the horizon, the clouds, the mountains and suddenly I am small again.

Resigned to my fate I grow outward. Eager to support my height with thicker limbs, stronger roots I build upon myself. Two hundred years. Three hundred years. Six hundred years.

The seasons race by, and as I am greeting the children of birds in my care I am already bidding them farewell. The greying tops of the mountains extend and recede each year. They are ancient friends sharing laughs of millennium past. They too grow, much slower than I. Perhaps one day I will be larger, mightier than they. I have now fathered my own children in the space where my forefathers lived. Their deaths feed my seeds, and for giants that seemed immortal their passing reminds me of my own mortality. I can feel my knees ache and moan.

I do not know how many more seasons I can weather.

As I enter the summer of my 800th season, a fierce wind – that same fierce wind that once threatened to rip me from the ground – now threatens to send me crashing towards it. I am old, ancient, a Methuselean aspect. With a crack of thunderous quality I buckle at the knees. For the briefest of moments as I hurtle towards the earth – that same earth that once cushioned my formative fall – I am caught in the nostalgia of it all.

We fall, we grow, we fall again.

As I lay on my side, wheezing out the last of my breaths I feel myself fragmented into hundreds of shards. For all my might, and all my grandeur I am as fragile as glass.

Perhaps one day I will be welcomed into the home of another, as I was home to life and death of countless others.

One day.

Things That Go Bump In The Night.

My father and I watched the movie "The Relic" tonight. A monster flick we hadn't seen in a number of years and thought would be fun to watch again. The monster genre of movie is really an interesting horror sub-genre in that it plays upon our own (childhood) fears of creatures in the closet and under the bed.

The movies that have been successful in their manifestation of beasties are ones like Alien (and Aliens, which was arguably an action movie, not a horror), Mimic, Cloverfield (which I'll explain further on), The Descent, Pitch Black, The Fly, 28 Days Later and I Am Legend. The reasons these movies work is that they are first and foremost movies about humans and their struggles. They don't fall prey to lame stereotypes and formulae like other horror movies.

Now I mentioned Cloverfield. It's a movie that many people felt was a lame attempt at copying Godzilla or The Host (a Korean monster movie). The hand cam style was difficult to watch (I even got sick in the theatre from motion sickness), and the acting was pedestrian. What it did do well is allow the viewer to feel helpless and uneasy about a creature we weren't really shown until the end of the movie. This is one of the key elements to a good monster flick. With a few exceptions the list I mentioned above features our villains in either partial or flickering light, passing quickly through a frame or any other number of film techniques to limit our seeing the creature. The human brain is vastly more superior at scaring itself than any director could. We get scared at a primal level making it so that the scare is deep in our subconscious and therefore more effective.

Two other movies I feel are worth mentioning while on the topic of Cloverfield are Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity. These three movies belong to something known as Fourth Wall film making. They seek to make the events going on as legitimate as possible, bringing the audience in one step further to the action on screen. For the last two we never actually see the creature at all. Are terror is produced primarily through sound effects, simple lighting tricks and the actors response. In the same way a multitude of people laughing can enhance a joke, so too can the actors palpable fear make the audience more afraid. A movie that attempted, but failed in this style was The Fourth Kind. While the premise was good, it faltered in that it used known actors (Milla Jovovich for one) in their "recreation" of events. We know she's an actor and immediately that fourth wall is raised again and we're very aware we're watching a movie, not a documentary.

One thing I'd recommend you find is a short movie called "Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County". This Fourth Wall piece sparked some controversy when it was aired on TV without any prior warning or caption stating the film's validity. Of course a small panic ensued and message boards were alight with people wanting to know what they hell the just saw. It's one of those pieces that's quiet clearly false, but it has a few elements that are so legitimately unsettling that it works in being a scary movie.

While not a purveyor of horror movies specifically, I'm always appreciative of any piece that can elicit a response from me just long enough to cause me to tense up, or feel my pulse race.

Architect Of My Dreams.

I've commented on my dreams before, but I had a particularly interesting dream this afternoon while napping that I'd like to share with everyone.

It was a windy and cool evening in an unknown city. I was inside a magnificent house the likes of which I'd never seen before. It was a fair sized Victorian house with rich coloured wood floors and banisters. The house itself was actually cylindrical with three quarters of it embedded into the hillside near it. This caused only the front of the house to be visible, as well as the top which was a large exposed glass dome. The glass was green and copper, aged and thick. This glass dome looked down into the attic space which was filled with various devices and knick-knacks that lay stacked on the floor or hung from the ceiling. Inside the house the living room which was in the center actually had a wide window that looked up into the master bedroom. When the lights in the bedroom were off the window just appeared to be a black bar at the top of the room.

We appeared to be having a Halloween party at the time, and the house was filled with friends from all over my life. Work, school, social friends all partied together. We were all dressed up, drinking mysterious liquors and dancing to an anonymous musician. Towards the end of the evening the light in the master bedroom was turned on, and while many of the guests had left the few of us that remained on turned our attention towards the wide and narrow window toward the ceiling. In it we saw one of the guests changing into another costume (a French maid costume, but orange and black instead of black and white). I must say I distinctly remember the semi-clad form of the guest changing from one costume to the next. What's really curious is it's someone I know, but harbor no real attraction for.

Anyways, she came downstairs and the party continued for a little while more. When the evening ended and we were all leaving I doubled back and climbed the hill that hid part of the house. Once on top of the hill I was able to walk out onto the glass ceiling that composed the top of the house and opened one of the windows and climbed in. Wanting a private moment with the "exhibitionist" I mentioned earlier, I felt it somehow mysterious and romantic to steal my way into the house, pour some wine and get a roaring fire going in the fireplace while they were in a different room.

At this point I woke up. I never did get to complete the dream, but I was warmed by the image I had created in my dream.

The part that should thoroughly bake your noodle is "who was the girl in the dream?"

Loving Hearts.

I went out tonight for a friend's birthday party. The experience, like so many parties was very pleasant. Oddly enough, though the height of the evening came from a rather unexpected source. A couple I have come to know announced "officially" (as I already knew) that they were having a kid and that they were getting married.

These two are immensely caring and warm people. Though I have known them for such a short time they have opened their home and their hearts to me and made me feel welcome in their life. I can only imagine that their child will be loved with equal vigor, and that they must have a truly wonderful relationship. I am at once filled with pride and joy, as well as a shameful degree of jealousy.

I want nothing but the best for both of them. They are the caliber of person who really deserve it. However, at my own end I feel jealous that so many around me seem to be either in relationships or beginning to settle down. It makes me recognize my own aloneness. I say it's a shameful kind of jealousy because I'm not actively in control of it. It's something I can't help but feel in the darkest recesses of my mind. It's part of the curse of being so in tune with my emotions that I am forced to recognize and feel that ones that really have no business being felt. I write this down not to garner pity for myself or my station, but to express the honest feelings that I feel. I think that one thing so many people deprive themselves of is the feeling of shame. Some people wallow in it, and others refuse to acknowledge it thinking it makes them somehow less quality people. I feel differently. I feel that it's a valid, albeit bitter emotion that needs to be recognized and analyzed. If we can figure out the reasons behind our shame we can learn more about ourselves.

Although a short post, I feel like I've learned something about myself. What was once anger has been replaced with envy. Envy for those in relationships. Perhaps this means I'm ready.

God As Landscape, Man As Traveller.

I was on my way to school this morning, thinking about this and that (as I am often prone to doing) when, for the life of me I know not why I began to think about the Agnostic man.

It occured to me that God (nay, all gods) are not unlike a painting of the oceanside beach. While we can understand the water to be cool, the sands to be hot and the sky and sun to be open and inviting we remain distanced by the canvas. We cannot quench our thirst in the clear blue water, tan our skin underneath the open sky and bury our toes in the white sand. They remain concepts that we can understand fully, but never experience. All men of faith are like men in towers looking at this portrait of the ocean. Men who have known no other world other than their four walls and the landscape in their hands. They are comforted by it, and fill their sighs with "one day"s and "I wish"s. The Agnostic man gets up out of his seat and walks over to a nearby window. From his window he can see the actual beach and ocean. He resolves himself to actually leaving his tower and diving into the water.

As soon as he sets foot outside of his tower he is greeted by a lush field with rolling green hills and the sound of cattle at pasture. This is a world not in his painting, and is alien and wonderful to him. He walks through the hills that seem to stretch on forever, and willingly loses himself for years amongst the loam and earth. When much time has passed he remembers why he set out from his tower in the first place and begins his quest anew. He packs up his belongings, gets his barings and heads once more for the ocean. After months of travelling he comes to a vast, endless desert. Resolved to cross the desert and reach his goal he starts the long journey across the desolate landscape. For a few years he subsides on limited water, killing any small creature that crosses his path so that he may eat and see the next day. Often does he long for the green pastures he had left and even his four-walled tower before that. He grows weak, thin and scared as he feels he will never reach the ocean.

Just when he is about to give up he is treated with the faint wiff of salty air. Over the next dune he is rewarded with a glimpse of the ocean. Sure that it isn't a mirage the traveller picks up his pace and dashes towards the water. As he closes in on his life long goal he can't help but feel the sand is somewhat more coarse than he would have assumed. The sun is dry and the sky is filled with the cry of seagulls. As he collapses at the edge of the surf and lies down waiting for the froth to wash over his parch skin he lands on a small seashell which pricks him in the shoulder. When the tide finally reaches him the water is toe-curlingly cold, and the bit that gets in his mouth tastes of salt and sealife. He forces himself to his feet and looks around. The beach, though magnificent pales in comparison to the painting he had held in his hands many seasons ago.

Filled with a mixture of disappointment and relief, our traveller begins to build himself a hut at the side of the surf. For months he feasts on crab and mollusks, distilling the rain into drinkable water and attempting in vain to recreated the conditions of his painting. On one particular day he peers out into the vastness of the ocean and spots a small island, simply a grey blotch raising out of the horizon. "Perhaps the sand their is whiter, the sky bluer and the water fresher!" He lashes together a raft and sets sail immediatly. The traveller is now in the winter of his life, and is far too aged for such a voyage over the rolling waves, but he journeys forth regardless. As day turns to night, then into day and night three more times he feels his age catch up with him. Minutes, metres from the next beach his small raft is caught up by a large wave which tosses his raft against the nearby shore, smashing him and his boat into equal pieces.

As he lays on his back, body bent and broken on the beach of his island he can't help but feel the sand is soft beneath his skin. The tide is warm and sweet and the sky over head could not be bluer.

Whither The Price Of Love?

So here I am, watching "A Knight's Tale" on the History Channel when the scene where William wishes to confess his love to Jocelyn, in which she requests, nay demands that he lose the next tournament to show he loves her above even himself and his own reputation.

Hold the phone! She wants him to besmirch his reputation in her name? I think this lands squarely in the realm of "ridiculous", just south of "selfish" a quarter mile from "impudent". I understand that love requires a certain amount of sacrifice on behalf of each partner in order for the relationship to work. These acts of selflessness should be self-motivated. Having them be demanded of someone makes it less a matter of them being selfless, and more a matter of you being selfish.

Thoroughly perplexed? Wonderful, let's continue.

I've always felt that love should be not unlike a warm blanket. Private, cozy, familiar, unpretentious and undemanding. Once love is built upon a foundation of sand, it cannot hope to weather the storms of conjugality. I don't believe that partners need be entirely undemanding, but the demands one makes of the one they love should be demands they would expect to be asked of them self. I feel that there will always be a more dominant member of a relationship, but it should be expected of them not to abuse their position of power and control. Be it the man or woman, a ship is best steered by a sure hand with a yielding grip. Nothing gets accomplished when people begin to feel bossed around by their significant other.

I felt that segment of the movie was entirely preposterous and kind of makes for a hypothetical back story to "Brokeback Mountain". I could certainly see such obtuseness as grounds for a team swap.

Ch-ch-changes.

Some of the scariest things I have to do in life involve making changes, especially changes that impact other people. I'm fairly comfortable with changes I make for myself, or changes others make on my behalf or that effect me so long as they're not violent or harmful changes.

I think this circles back to my concern that I never really know what's going on in people's heads. Call it a degree of narcissism, call it insecurity, but what I feel is a fear of not knowing what's going on in other people's heads. I'm fairly in tune with my own emotions. I know I have the education and vocabulary necessary to formulate what's going on in my head into words that express this. I'm fairly straight forward with my friends, and like I've said before very few thoughts enter my head that don't exit my mouth. It's my way of remaining transparent so I won't be misunderstood. With other people though it's not so easy. I'm left to decipher words, facial expressions, body language, all in the name of knowing exactly what they're thinking.

Tomorrow at work I am going to be giving my notice of resignation to my boss. It's always hard for me to leave a place of work because I fear they will take it personally. It's never a reflection on my peers, but in this case it's a reflection on the needs of a business not coinciding with my own needs. Pier 1 has been a fantastic place to work. I worked their initially out of necessity when I got my first apartment, but I came to love the people I worked with. It was actually something I looked forward to when I went to work. When I left because of my illness it was out of necessity that I resigned. When I called to see if they still had a spot open back in the summer it was once again a matter of necessity that I find employment. Pier 1 was something I knew, and it was something I was comfortable doing after being out of the workforce for nearly two years.

However,

I can't help but feel as though I've been a square peg trying to fit itself into a round hole. I can do Pier 1, I really can. I know how to sell the products and I know how to work with people. The issue is that I don't have the passion for the product itself. There are items and furniture pieces that I like, but it's not like being a BMW enthusiast and selling them for a living. It's much more a matter of basic retail than it is of following a dream. I'm doing what's required to put gas in my car and pay my bills.

With the scheduling conflicts I can foresee on the horizon I felt it prudent to step down now before I get myself in too deep, and too close to Christmas. While it will be stressful for a while at Pier 1 while they arrange the schedule to accommodate my departure, it's nothing that a thousand different businesses haven't done a thousand other times. I think that goes back to the narcissism bit. I feel that without my hand involved in the function of something I was once part of it will fall to ruin. I don't know why I think this way, but it's a deep feeling in my gut that I can't shake.

I think it's time I see my therapist again, before school really takes off in full swing. Clearly there's some anxiety issues creeping up on me.

The Void Engine.

I am posting this from class. Yup, that's right. Sitting in the middle of my writing for radio class during our break. I was struck with a sudden urge to put down what was going on around me into words.

There's a certain hum of white noise that always falls over a crowd of students when the teacher departs from the room. If you sort through the static you can discern conversations and comments that speak truer of people than anything they'd say when being listened to directly. I am immediately aware of a certain degree of, for lack of a better word "immaturity" from some students. Certainly not all of them, and in fact they are the exception, not the rule. I know part of the issue is the age of some of the students. Many of them are fresh out of high school and are devoid of any major developmental stages. It's not their fault, it really isn't, but it does nag at me when I hear their droning about this and that.

The title of this post is really about high school in general. As a machine whose primary goal has become a holding tank for students, the function of high school is woefully lost in the bureaucracy of the system. Yes there will be students who actually learn, grow and emerge from high school as learned individuals who are set for post-secondary, but for every one student like that there is ten or more who aren't ready. I don't blame the teachers, I can't. It's not their fault that the system is failing so many kids. Partly it's the parents for their lack of involvement and partly it's the government for providing and demanding a level of performance that is less about education and more about numbers. Schools look better if they have a high pass rate. Principals (especially business minded principals) are more concerned about getting good ratings than the welfare of the students. Too many are bumped from 48% to 55% all in the name of keeping statistics up. What does this mean in the long run? Underdeveloped and unprepared children are being conditioned and thrust into the post-secondary world without the necessary skills to succeed. This places a huge onus on the professors at college's and universities to take these students and turn them into something. It becomes a self perpetuating engine where schlock is shoveled in, and schlock is shoveled out. These students then produce children who have less expected of them than their parents did, and sequentially we become dumber and lazier as a culture.

Some would argue that our advances in tech and medicine are signs that we're advancing as a society, but so many of those advances are made by the few and not the many. Culture as a whole is growing dumber. Once upon a time classical studies like music and art were part and parcel with etiquette and diction studies in school. Somewhere along the line these were deemed unnecessary for the proper formation of a good student, but when it comes to the work force potential employees score higher on employer checklists if they are eloquent and proper.

It is for these reasons I look forward to one day perhaps having children of my own. You can bet they will be the most prim and proper children in the classroom because they know what wrath will befall them from their father should they step out of line.

The Starch Of Being.

When people define admirable qualities in an individual's personality there are certain features that seem generally good. Things like a sense of humour, being compassionate, smart, generous and patient. I've often held myself to these social statues finding it makes me a better person to adhere to them. I have a good sense of humour, often able to offer a quick joke or witty insight into a subject. I have a sort of sixth sense when it comes to dealing with people which gives me a good measure of empathy and sympathy. I'm smart in ways that I think matter in life. I won't be solving any quantum physics equations, but I have a sort of social intelligence. I am a giving person, almost to a fault. It is a matter that often gets me into some degree of trouble at times. And then there's patience.

When I'm at home, I can safely say I have a fair degree of patience. I've had years to hone it dealing with my mother. Tonight was an example where my patience was tested. Over the past year my mother has been steadily gaining weight. It's affected her balance as well as her joints. She is now dealing with knee pain and has trouble standing up, or traversing stairs. I had to help her off the ground where she had slumped to in an effort to get out of a chair. My patience with my friends is almost limitless. It's not tested very often, but when it is I'm able to grin and bear it until the moment passes. On the rare occasion where it does break it's not unlike the bursting of a dam. I don't really have a "mildly angry" stage, I go from calm to furious with no middle step. I don't know if that's entirely healthy or not, but as I breach that wall so infrequently I've found no reason to change.

It's certainly one of the limiting factors in my effort to obtain a significant other. I know I can't tolerate any one person for too long without blowing up in their face, especially someone with whom I would have a closer relationship with. I'm not a violent person, so that's certainly not an issue. I have never struck anyone in my rage, minus the one time I shoved my mother after she made a slip of the tongue and claimed my accident was my fault. I knew she didn't mean it, but you can imagine how that made me feel. I just know that anyone who I end up seeing on a romantic level would have to deal with someone who's had to deal with a lot of frustration in his life. These past two years have taught me a new depth of patience and reserve I never knew I had. When your body is subject to so many sensations at once, as are your emotions you learn how to separate and divide yourself into compartments. It is in some of those compartments where I store my anger, frustration and rage. I have told myself it takes twice as much energy to care half as much. It's why I have down times where I am not very talkative or social. It's sort of like I'm defragmenting my brain so I can sort it out better and more compactly. It's a subconscious process that requires energy from my conscious self.

It's why I'm thankful for one of my medications. It helps to silence the brain and just let things turn into a grey paste that slides down my cerebrum and out into nothingness. I use it at night to get to bed, because without it I don't sleep. I am too busy arranging, worrying, designing, deconstructing, and thinking.

I would hope that those close to me; my friends, family, colleagues and classmates come to understand this facet of me in a quiet and unspoken way. I have a system to my life that works, it gets me from sunrise to sunset in one piece. Whomever I end up with is clearly going to be a very special person.

Critical Error.

I'm not comfortable with making mistakes. That doesn't mean I don't make mistakes, I make plenty. I am human after all. It's the venue in which I make mistakes that causes me discomfort. For example, if I make a mistake at home I know my family well enough to know what to expect in return. If I make a mistake with my friends I know they're not going to give me a hard time about it. When I make a mistake at work, however I'm terrified. It's primarily because of one of my superiors. I don't know how to talk to her, I always feel like I have to impress her, or be flawless. I don't know why this is exactly, but whenever I make some kind of error and I have to answer to her I feel absolutely impotent.

Today at work I made a fairly large mistake. Without going into the details and boring you, I mistakenly gave a customer a $400+ discount on several barstools he purchased. It was really a matter of me acting too fast and not handling the situation well. My concern really lies in the fact that tomorrow at work I have to answer to my superior and I'm already nervous about it.

Now often this ends up being a case where I worry too much and nothing ends up happening as a result. I just don't like being scolded, that's really the issue here. I've stated in previous posts I'm uncomfortable with getting in trouble, and scolding is more or less just a version of that. I don't know why it bothers me so much, but I will lose sleep over it.

I don't have a tonne left to post about tonight, so I'll just let that drift and we'll see how tomorrow goes.