Moss Agate

Back in the Yukon

2007-06-27T22:58:00.001-07:00

Well, as anyone who reads this blog will know, I'm back in the Yukon looking at rocks once again this summer. It's been going superbly so far, the people are great, the rocks are pretty, the days are nice, the skies are gorgeous and basically all manner of excellence is occurring. But, because of how busy and populous it is at camp I have been a bit remiss in my communications with the outside world... but fear not! A reasonably long, photo-ridden post shall hopefully rectify this situation... for the two or three people who actually read my blog... or fewer because of how infrequently I update... but I digress... On with the stories...

Well, Rene and I traveled up to Whitehorse with Ron on a two day road trip (a very long drive). Quite a few places we stopped had snow and so... of course I couldn't resist starting a snow fight...

Once out at camp the real fun begins... insanity galore!
One of the first tasks entrusted to the army of students was core box moving... we needed to get all of the old core from nucleus down to the area we have started calling the core graveyard.

******

We were also entrusted with staking the sites for drill sites... During this time Rene discovered a new religion...

Fought a holy war (using core box lids)

And gained many followers/worshipers... (They're actually dancing :P)

Patrick... fresh out of UofA, and one of the junior geologists out here tight-rope walks in the evenings... it's enormous fun to watch... most of us have progressed to being able to balance while sitting on it :P

Elise and Kelsey (shown below) built us a nice small bench for outside of our tent.

Not to be outdone Rene decided, at Dave's prompting, that he must build a bigger, better bench... and immediately threw himself with his normal enthusiasm into designing and building bench using firewood... the only power tool used in the making of this bench was a drill... because we ran out of nails. And, despite initial doubts on the part of many people (indeed, Whitney bet Rene $10.00 that the first person to sit on the bench would break it) the bench is solid as a rock... and just as heavy....

The bench making process (with myself, Rene, and Dave)

The bench's final resting place

****

and now... rapid fire photo time:

Silly people pictures:
Rene in office tent

Me in the office tent, covered in soot from the burn (again)

Looking snazzy at the breakfast table:

Rene... chip sampling guru

Creek jumping

The ambulance vehicle... see, dirt on your vehicle can be good for something!

*******

Working (yes, we do that here too :D):
Me scrambling up the steep sides of a trench

Elise and I mapping an outcrop

Army of students mapping the outcrop

Kelsey and Whitney doing the trench mapping dance

Kelsey taking dip and strike measurements

*********

Pretty and random photos:
The valley, in which we live

The mandrake root we found... and that Rene added eyes to:

Our tent

Sparrows

Beams of light

Cabin in the woods

----
and no need to worry we are eating very well (Rene with a fresh baked pie)

Much love to all. Miss you muchly.
Over and out
~Em

Fun with quizzes...

2007-04-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

World's Shortest personality test... couldn't decide between two pictures so here are both of them:

Your Personality Profile

You are dignified, spiritual, and wise.

Always unsatisfied, you constantly try to better yourself.

You are also a seeker of knowledge and often buried in books.

You tend to be philosophical, looking for the big picture in life.

You dream of inner peace for yourself, your friends, and the world.

A good friend, you always give of yourself first.

Your Personality Profile

You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant.

Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle.

You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs.

For you, comfort and calm are very important.

You tend to thrive on your own and shrug off most affection.

You prefer to protect your emotions and stay strong.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Which of the Greek Gods are you?

Morpheus
Take this quiz!

Your element is Fire. Like fire, you have a hot temper and you can be warm and loving as well and angry and wild. It all really comes down to what you are feeling. You have a lot of close friends who you are very protective over, and with your temper probably some enemies too. You are not Miss/Mr Popular in school since you are your own person and don't want to be forced into behaving this or that way. You are the untamed wild horse, the kind that everyone wants to catch. But you don't want to be tied down for the moment and just keep going with your little crushes. Your will is strong and if you set your mind to do something, you will most likely succeed. But beware, your friends may not always accept your mood-swinging behaviour. Even if you don't mean to be mean, they can still feel hurt. You just need to start thinking some things through before you do them, and not always jump in with so much courage. One day you may be hurt because of that, but then again, your element isn't fire if you start to analyse situations before you act. After all, your nature is to shoot first and ask the questions later.
Take this quiz!

2007-04-11T22:01:00.001-07:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

2007-03-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

Some days my brain gets stuck on a loop and all that I do to break out of the loop or distract me from it fail. And then my mood plummets... and I end up sitting here on the computer staring at the screen with tea and Katatonia playing (and being slightly frightened, as I always do in situations like this, that it matches my mood so perfectly).

I really, really, really, really, really, really, need to get out of the city. Having a whole city of people around me right now is making me feel claustrophobic, uncomfortable, and I don't know... I want fresh air... real fresh air not this car exhaust. I want the grey sky to clear up or rain or snow or something and all the gross browns to transmute to colour... or be covered up in snow again...

I want my brain to stop doing loops so that I can stop my mood from spiralling downward due to its own endless swirls and too often travelled paths...

And don't we all want a lot of things we can't have... at least not immediately....

so I'll hope that the perfection of the mood fit to my music will help transmute my mood.... because my brain isn't going to help itself today...

well... okay...

2007-03-03T08:43:00.002-08:00

Well... if I ever decide to seduce someone I'll keep that in mind... I guess

Moronic Safety Nets!

2007-02-21T23:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/58699?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

I think it's a bad sign that for half of that article I couldn't decide whether they were being serious or not!

"But by encouraging your kids to think linearly and literally, and constantly reminding them they can never be anything but human children with no extraordinary characteristics, you can better ensure that they will lead prolonged lives."

And that's not quite how it's usually put, but it's an oft repeated sentiment when it comes to safety and school. Although the surface sentiment is always "your special/unique..." or "you can do anything..." with undertones of "you want to do what? well that won't work" if you come up with an idea outside of what they were expecting. (not true of everyone but of a lot of people)

Kids are supposed to jump up and down, run around and get scrapes and cuts and bruises! In fact those scrapes actually help the growing process!

But more and more its "don't do that you could get hurt" Baah! "could" get over it and move on life happens to everyone!

Baah! What's the point of life if you don't live a little!

Life isn't forever anyways... and quite honestly living longer by not doing things just seems moronic to me. Someone who actually does stuff will, even if they do not live as many years, actually experience a great deal more actual life!

And preventing children from playing games is just ridiculous! Banning tag? because someone could get hurt? What?!? Morons! That's all I have to say... I've played far, far more dangerous games and survived unscathed. Stifling a child's life in order to "protect" them from themselves is stupid, irresponsible... moronic! Yes, let's not let them learn how to function and move because it's all about not ever experiencing pain. Pain isn't always bad... you learn from it... it's part of life... bah!

....and before I go off on a huge long rant (I have strong feelings on this subject) I'll leave off there and actually go to bed like I meant to... and perhaps pick it up again when it isn't almost 1:00am

...also, why isn't my webpage working! and why can't I find any of my directories.... if the university lost my files I shall be quite angry, and sad I just spent a long time revamping them and hadn't backed them up yet because I wasn't quite finished! >:(

Soundtrack for my life

2007-01-13T17:22:00.001-08:00

Stolen from Cass's blog this is an interesting little exercise... and it was shocking how many of the songs actually fit....

because I was bored I added lyrics and if you're interested in hearing any of the songs on the list you can find them all here: http://mmillermadhouse.com/music/

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

Opening Credits:
High Hopes, Nightwish
Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young
In a world of magnets and miracles
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary
The ringing of the division bell had begun
Along the long road and on down to the causeway
Do they still meet there by the cut
There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps
Running before time took our dreams away
Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
To a life consumed by slow decay

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The nights of wonder

Waking Up:
River's Perception/Saffron (from Firefly Soundtrack by Greg Edmonson)
Sort of spacy, chinese instrunmental piece... starts out slowly and calmly and then becomes more intense.

Average Day:
Colleen I saw Him First, Amanda Marshall
Let me tell you about Colleen
My best friend since I was three
She always had a taste for dangerous things
Her scandalous tongue was extreme
I was always the one left holding the bag
Smiling and covering her tracks
Best friends, they always do that

She was the first to smoke a cigarette (she was the first)
She once let me watch her make love (woah woah yeah)
It was the kind of balance made by kings
She took it all, but left me some

I guess I'd always thought she'd have my back
But it didn't work out like that (no, no, no)
The moment I laid eyes on Jack

It was my time it was my space
It was the bright red he brought to my face
Every underdog has their day
Sorry it hurts
But Colleen, I saw him first...

First Day At School:
When Time Stood Still, E.L.O
Far beyond the things you see
Time rolls on eternally
Got a thing about it
Just can't live without it

Sitting there inside your mind
Just waiting for the clock to chime
On a lonely line
Stood a lonely man

No pictures on an empty wall
No body there no one at all
Just echoes in the ivory halls
When time stood still....

First Date:
Twilight, Delerium

Falling In Love:
Prologue, E.L.O.

Secret Love:
Innocent, Delerium
You can't see my eyes
You can't see my eyes
They don't see yours
Hear me when I say
I don't mind at all

It's the rain that I hear coming
Not a stranger or a ghost
It's the quiet of a storm approaching
That I fear the most
It's the pain that I hear coming
The slightest crystal tear, drops to the ground
In silence, when my love is near.
Darling, when did you fall? When was it over?
Darling when? When did you fall? When was it over?

It's marching through my door now
The stony cold of lonesome
A bell tolls for my heart and then my lonesome song begins
It's marching through my door now
The stony cold of lonesome
A bell tolls for my heart and now my lonesome song begins

Fight Song:
Follower, Katatonia
Hurts to see
My incapacity
Shame
Idle mind
No
You have changed me

My mouth is shut
Stupidity has shut my mouth

So when you come
I'm too unprepared to come along
I hold your hand to hard my knuckles turn white
When you clear the streets
And kill the lights...

Breaking Up:
Why am I Still Here, King Muskafa (could there have been a more perfect song for this one?)
I could have worn my sort pants today
I could have worn my crazy hat
I could have took a walk outside, i could have seen a good friend of mine, I could have stayed up real late
I could have done anything
and you wouldn't even care
so I wonder why I'm still here.

I could have worn my hair really, really long
I could have put my brother's clothes on,
I could have been unhappy, I could have been in despair, I could have been on my death bed
I could have been anything
and you wouldn't even care
So I wonder why I'm still here....

Life:
Julie don't live here, E.L.O.
I wander through a town
A town I new so well but it seems so strange
The wind blows cold
I remember when I thought your street was paved with gold
I walked along the street
A street I walked along many times before
The things have changed
Everything I knew was gone or rearranged

Chorus: julie dont live here anymore
She moved away many years before
How can it be, this I cant believe
Julie dont live here anymore

I walked up to your door
Last night I saw your face in the window
But it was different now
The lonely light where we used to be quite gone

I though about your smile
Your laughing eyes and the things you said to me
I felt so sorry for you
For all the nights we spent hanging around with nothing else to do.....

Mental Breakdown:
The Black Gate is Closed, Lord of the Rings Soundtrack (very fitting)

Learning a Lesson:
July, Katatonia
You come clean
Waves collide now
Defenseless numb arms
And no voice of reason

So how come you invited me too
You knew I wanted you
You glide above
So this night belongs to you
I know this isn't through
Are you dead to love

I see the bright lights
It's the month of July
It's violent here
Why have you left me
If only you could stay
And keep me in
It's violent here
Why did you run from me

Heat
Night devour me
Repeat
Repetition....

Deep Thoughts:
Temptation, Delerium

Driving:
L'amour de moi, Medieval Baebes
L'amour de moi, s'y est enclose
Dedans un jolie jardinet
Ou croit la rose et le muguet
Y aussi fait la passerose

Ce jardinet est bel et plaisant
Il est garni de toutes fleurs
On y prend son ébettement
Autant la nuit comme le jour

Helas il n'est si douce chose
Que de ce doux rossignolet
Qui chante au soir et au matinet
Quand il est las il se repose

Ce jardinet est bel et plaisant
Il est garni de toutes fleurs
On y prend son ébettement
Autant la nuit comme le jour

Flashback:
Rememberance, Delerium (wow, fits well)

Party Song:
Laude Novella, Medieval Baebes (yes I have tame parties :P)
Laude novella sia cantata
A l'alto donna encoronata

Fresca vergene doncella
Priomo fior, rosa novella
Tutto'l mondo a te s'apella
Nella bonor fosti nata

Laude novella sia cantata
A l'alto donna encoronata

Tu se' verga, tu se'fiore
Tu se' luna de splendore
Volunta avemo e core
De venir a te, ornata

Laude novella sia cantata
A l'alto donna encoronata

Tu se' rosa, tu se' gillio
Tu portasti el dolce fillio
Però, donna, si m'enpillio
De laudar te, honorata

Happy Dance:
Daylight, Delerium
if you can believe you're turning all the world that broke your mind
then i can do something for you even though you're lost in time

you won't have to be my heaven. i won't have to be your friend
daylight, daylight comes every time it's calling
daylight, daylight it goes away again now

don't let go don't let go of your heart
don't let go don't let go of your heart...

Regreting:
The Difference, Matchbox Twenty
Slow dancing on the boulevard
In the quiet moments while the citys still dark
Sleepwalking through the summer rain and the tired spaces
You could hear her name when she was warm and tender
And you held her arms around you
There was nothing but her love and affection
She was crazy for you
Now she's part of something that you lost

And for all you know
This could be
The difference between what you need
And what you wanna be
Yeah, what you wanna be....

Long Night Alone:
Stargazers, Nightwish
A grand oasis in the vastness of gloom
Child of dew-spangled cobweb Mother to the moon
Constellations beholders of the 3rd vagrant
Theater for the play of life

Tragedienne of heavens
Watching the eyes of the night
Sailing the virgin oceans
A planetride for the Mother and Child

Floating upon the quiet hydrogen lakes
In this ambrosial merry-go-round they will gaze
Ephemereal life touched by a billion-year show
Separating the poet from the woe...

Getting back together:
Silence, Delerium
Give me release
Witness me
I am outside
Give me peace
Heaven holds a sense of wonder
And I wanted to believe that I'd get caught up when the rage in me subsides
Passion choke the flower
Until she cries no more
Possessing all the beauty
Hungry still for more
Heaven holds a sense of wonder....

Wedding:
Feelin' the Same Way, Norah Jones
The sun just slipped its note below my door
And I can't hide beneath my sheets
I've read the words before so now I know
time has come again for me

And I'm feelin' the same way all over again
Feelin' the same way all over again
Singin' the same lines all over again
No matter how much I pretend

Another day that I can't find my head
My feet don't look like they're my own
I'll try and find the floor below to stand
I hope I reach it once again

And I'm feelin' the same way all over again
Feelin' the same way all over again
Singin' the same lines all over again
No matter how much I pretend

Birth of Child:
Hold on Tight, E.L.O.
Hold on tight to your dream
Hold on tight to your dream
When you see your ship go sailing
When you feel your heart is breaking
Hold tight to your dream.

Its a long time to be gone
Time just rolls on and on
When you need a shoulder to cry on
When you get so sick of trying
Just hold tight to your dream

When you get so down that you cant get up
And you want so much but youre all out of luck
When youre so downhearted and misunderstood
Just over and over and over you could....

Final Battle:
The Uruk Hai, Lord of the Rings Soundtrack

Death Scene:
Gollum's Song
Where once was light
Now darkness falls
Where once was love
Love is no more
Don't say goodbye
Don't say I didn't try

These tears we cry
Are falling rain
For all the lies you told us
The hurt, the blame!
And we will weep to be so alone
We are lost
We can never go home

So in the end
I'll be what I will be
No loyal friend
Was ever there for me...

End Credits:
Here Comes the Rain Again, Eurythmics
Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion
I want to walk in the open wind
I want to talk like lovers do
I want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining with you.....

Randomized Anger Seeking a Target

2006-11-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

okay... my brain is officially fried as are all of my internal circuits and my emotional dampers. I really don't know why but for that past few months my anger has been simmering a lot closer to the surface than it normally is and as a result I'm never really sure when it's justified and when it's simply randomized anger trying to find a convenient target.

I almost blew up on Brad today and looking back at it I'm still not sure whether he really was being an asshole or whether it's just because of my crappy mood.

My language today was smptomatic of the whole issue as well... I really can't ever recall swearing at people, events, things, circumstances, etc. so vehmently and prolifically, ever! It normally takes quite a bit to get me to swear but today it just seemed to be pouring from my mouth.

As much as it saddens me to say it I was very grateful that Stephanie didn't stay for the igneous lab today... because if she had I know I probably would have had the anger reach a new level... and the sad thing is... it probably wouldn't have been for any good reason except for my own bitterness and annoyance at her built up over the summer. I don't normally have a problem with anger (showing it perhaps) but I don't usually feel guilty about it... well not guilty, really, just really extremely uncomfortable and critical of it... I mean, if I'm angry and it has a reason I'm fine with it... my problem lately is that I'm never sure whether there really is any justification for the anger or if it's just, as I said earlier, randomized rage seeking a target.

Bloody hell!

And of course this internal, bloody, conflict just leaves me feeling emotionally drained which makes it even harder for me to judge my emotions and even less adept in social situations where I'm never quite sure what emotion I'm projecting to my company (lately I've just been going for tired) or even how I'm actually feeling which certainly makes even thinking about talking about it a moot point... if I can't even figure out how I feel about it myself how am I supposed to explain it to someone else?

I hate anger... it's the main emotion I have incredible difficulty with... I never know how to show it, how to deal with it. It certainly never helped me in bully situations, why? Because my reaction to my inability/unwillingness to lash out in anger is frustration and intense frustration with me leads to tears... which I think, is why I've been so damn, fucking (excuse my language) close to tears all fucking month even when I feel happy.

It certainly doesn't get better in situations like this morning when Brad started shouting at me that I was stupid because the geophysics question I was having problems with was easy and to shut up and listen when I tried to explain why his "simple" method didn't work for the information given!

So what did I do... I bit my tongue, closed down my emotion transmission, allowed the observer partition of my personality to hold sway and gave him my super calm, neutral warning voice as I told him to stop yelling, that I wasn't stupid, that I had originally considered that method... started to try it and then discarded it because I realised why it wouldn't work....

Now, I realise that in this situation a certain amount of anger was acceptable... but the tidal wave of rage I felt was, I think, slightly dissproportionate to the actual events (and you have to remember that my version of events is slightly coloured by the still latent anger, though it was somewhat assuaged when he tried to solve the "simple" problem that "anyone with a brain cell should easily be able to solve" and failed... though he, of course, being Brad didn't admit that, just said that he was lazy and didn't feel like doing it any more...yeesh).

The problem comes in the uncertainty.

bloody hell... I like to be completely sure of my motivations for things... and when I can't figure them out it frustrates me to no end... especially in the case of anger... because I have issues dealing with anger directed at me, I absolutely loathe it... I tend to be sensitive to other people's emotions (in that they tend to have a huge effect on how I feel moment to moment... although overall my emotions tend to hold sway)... this also makes conflict even harde for me becuase it simply makes me feel like I'm fighting myself and my mood quickly spirals ever downward...

okay... enough bloody ranting and dumping for me because it doesn't seem to be helping right now...

Over and out

~Em

2006-11-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

thought this was vaguely amusing:

Emily --

[adjective]:

Benevolent to a fault

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Emily's synonym --

crazy (... as in maniacal!)

'What is your synonym?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Back From the Yukon and Still Rocking

2006-09-04T13:33:00.000-07:00

There's Gold in them there hills!
I'm back from a glorious summer in the Yukon! Hoorah for geology!

I had a wonderful time working with a wonderful group of people... there was only really one person there that gave me a hard time and I expected it because I already knew her from school *cough*Stephanie*cough* but I mostly avoided her and her tendancy to try to pick fights and order me around and it was all good. And they've offered me a job again for next summer which would be absolutely awesome and wonderful! (I'm all smiles about this particularly because I doesn't think Steph is going to be rehired and everyone else is so awesome and nice and they know so much and were willing to teach me so much!)

Yes, yes I am a bit hyper at the moment but that's okay.
And here we have Sarah and me: the dreaded axe wielding duo out staking some more claims for Bill.

I'll have more pictures up on my website soon (it needs some attention because I've ignored it for the past few months). I just have to retrieve my second picture CD from Adrienne's house... along with Life of Brian (great movie... go Monty Python)... I am brilliant when it comes to forgetting things.

Anyhow, I had a wonderful time... If I hadn't gotten that across yet. I tramped around in the bush, looked at core, moved lots of core (boxes of rock are, contrary to popular belief, heavy. But I can carry them on my own now too), cut core with the core-saw, helped set up camp, collected many rock samples (some for the company and a few for myself too :D), Mapped out the geology of some of the old trenches, drew maps and cross-sections, chose a few of the drill sites and gave input for some of the others, panned for gold, panned some of the percussion drill sample, and did some more tramping around the bush. So in summary a wonderful summer where I learned a whole wack of a lot while having the time of my life while meeting and working with amazing, wonderful people.

*grins* Definitely the job for me.

Hope to hear from and see all of you soon...

Over and out
Em

2006-06-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd give you a shout... tell you I'm still alive, that sort of thing. Though Bill, our boss, says that he likes to lure bears into camp right before payday to cut down on expenses. We had one bear almost in camp but the dogs we have chased it off.

Our satellite system isn't going to be truly operational for a little while yet... we tried to set it up at camp only to find that we had a mountain in the way... so we have to get a new system. We managed to get it set up at the Gow's (A placer mining family that lives not to far from our camp)... And so I have access while I'm here but sadly not yet at camp.

Things have been pretty crazy busy particularly as the camp is sort of a work in progress... we finally got showers around 4 days ago and a cook at the same time (Before then we were taking turns cooking).

Its beautiful out here and I love the people I'm working with: Ron, Jean, Matthias, Sarah, Joan, Bill, Daniel, Dino (yes, its a perfect geo/paleo name), Joel, Marc. The whole crew is made up of amazing people with so much experience and so many tales to tell.

Jean, one of the coolest women I have ever met, left today... she'll be back sometime in July but she had to go work on another project. She is an incredibly intelligent, easy going, bush savvey, knowledgable... and quite frankly the epitome of everything I would love to be when I get to her age. We shared a room while she was here... I have it to myself right now... but that will change when the next wave of people enter camp... we have another female geologist coming out in about a week and in two weeks the drillers are coming in.

Over and out

Lia

The Future Will Eat Me!

2006-05-31T22:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, having definite "future will eat me" problems. I got an e-mail earlier tonight and I now know when I'm leaving... Sunday! Gaah!

I still haven't managed to get out and get all of the things I need... I have to pack... I have to figure out the last of the arrangements... and I have to leave in 4 days!

It seems that everything is happening too soon and all at once... things are falling down around me and I have to leave it behind... I feel like I need to fix everything before I'm gone for the summer and I don't think I'll have the time, if I could ever have managed it anyway... it's frightening.

I'm ecstatic, I'm looking forward to it... and at the same time I'm frightened out of my mind and a bit ironically already feeling a bit homesick and missing my friends... probably because I'm leaving... and Ari and Aaron are having problems.... And I can't seem to help them... and I don't have time even if I knew what I should do...

And now I can't sleep because I have all of this going through my head over, and over... along with a list of all the things I have to get together, buy, pack, finish, etc. before I leave... and after it all, 4 days! that's all I have! All the time I have to make sure I see my friends at least once more before I go... to pack... to say goodbye to my family... gaah!

I'm excited... and this is what I want to do, I know I'll enjoy it... I want to work in the middle of nowhere... but I don't want to leave things as they are right now. How am I supposed to abandon Ari? Or go when my dad is depressed because of gallery politics?

Why does everything have to happen at once... and why does something so good have to coincide with things that make it so hard.. it's the ultimate joke of the universe I suppose... our concerns mean nothing in the grand scheme of things...

I really don't know how I'm feeling right now...

I did hear from Rachelle, who's up in the Yukon already working for a different company. She's doing really well and says she's having a blast... and I'm sure it will be the same with me... but I'm leaving for three months and too many things at home are unresolved...

Okay, I know I'm sounding like a broken record but that's just how my mind is spinning right now...

I don't know the flight times yet... I'm hoping for evening because that would give me a little more time... not much... but a little...

Oh well... the future's vast and I guess it's going to eat everyone... Here's hoping everything works out. My mom always says that everything happens for a reason... I just hope it's a good one.

Over and out
~Em

Another Year Done

2006-04-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

Well school is finally done for the year. It was fun, and I enjoyed my courses but I was more than ready for it to end. I can thoroughly recommend to everyone to avoid have five labs in one semester particularly if one of them is geological maps and cross sections. And exams topped of the year with a good old dose of massive stress.

I'm pretty sure that if I had, had one more day of exams or with something on it that I had to do I would have gone into a full-blown mental breakdown but I made it through and I will never again have five labs in a semester. It may have been manageable except that the Mapping and Cross Sections labs took me, on average, a solid 12 hours of work to finish, and was due on Friday after a Tuesday lab. Not an easy task when you're at school until five every day. Of course for the final we only had three hours to do the same amount of work... but the consolation is no one else finished either.

In good news I finally got an interview... well, two interviews. One I had yesterday for YGC resources, a British Columbian company looking for gold ($175/day for nine hour days, accomodation, food, living allowance, and they pay travel expenses). I'm probably not going to get it, particularly if there were a couple third year students trying for it because there are only two positions and he had three days of interviews. The other company, however, was one I applied to despite the fact that there was no job posting had only five people apply (from Edmonton anyway) and have three positions. That one is with CanAlaska doing uranium exploration. So that's, exciting and a little bit terrifying at the same time.

But for now all I have to worry about is getting myself packed to leave tomorrow for field school. Two weeks in the mountains looking at rocks. To say I'm excited is a bit of an understatement. I've been looking forward to this trup for the whole year. If I can manage to find my camera before I leave (its disappeared on me) I'll be sure to post a lot of pictures.

Anyhow that's all I have to say.

Over and Out

~Em

2006-01-01T23:16:00.000-08:00

Well, my brain seems to have gone on overdrive once more. I don't know... happy one moment, on the verge of tears the next... and all through it my brain just jumping from one subject to another. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I need school, or something that can occupy my brain other than useless thoughts. As these fluctuations seem to be more common when I've been out of school for a while....

Okay, anyhow, enough randomness I do actually have a topic I would like to write on. It may be a little late, but I didn't feel like writing until now... so meh...

Christmas - an interesting holiday, to be sure. A christian holiday, meant to celebrate the birth of Jesus although December the 25th was not chosen because of being the actually birth date of christ but to take the place of a 'pagan' festival (poilitcs intrudes everywhere :P). Mithras had that day long before Jesus.... but anyhow that's not the point.... the point is what christmas is now... its used as an exuse to eat, to indulge, to give and recieve gifts. We are bombarded with images and messages that tell is that the meaning of christmas is "giving", "family", "love", "harmony"... the list goes on.... but really is it?

Not from how I've seen it.

Some people have it figured out, have actually managed to distance themselves from the hype and insanity that so many people find themselves caught up in unable to extricate themselves from the turbulent flow (okay, maybe a little overstated there) but how many people do you know who burn themselves out over the christmas season. Who get stressed, depressed, etc. because of Christmas.

I've promised myself I will never let myself do that, and my parents have often told me that they don't want me to. That probably the best way to do christmas is to spend just a quiet time, with yourself or with another person or people you care about. No pressure, no mounds of gifts... just something small if you have it that says "hey, I care that you are here", whether its an actual gift, or even just some time spent together, a conversation, a hug. Just something small that will mean more than stuffing a giant sock with knicknacks because it's expected of you.

Honestly, I don't even know that there is anything special about doing this on or near christmas. A random little gift might even mean more. When it surrounds the christmas hype it can get lost in the stigma that gifts "must" be given.

Its hard, expectations are there in a lot of cases, and I'm the last person who will try to tell you that its easy to ignore expectations in favour of sanity.... But honestly with the crazy schedual my family has been following for my whole life and my parents for a few years before I was born, has probably driven home the importance of perhaps removing those expectations. We do the same thing every year it is always a hectic drive here, drive there affair and neither side of the family seems truly happy about it as they always seem to call us at the other side to ask when we are coming, if we're coming yet, etc... even though we've been doing the same thing for years.

And if we told them one year that we just wanted a quiet year at home... well, let's just say that wouldn't go over to well.

I guess, what I'm trying to say, at the risk of sounding like the broken record of christmas naysayers, is that if everyone just learned how to relax, to remove the comercialism, to remove the hype, to not "expect" everything, to... I don't know... grow up perhaps... fewer people would go into depression at this time of year, fewer people would go broke attempting to fulfill an obligation that probably shouldn't exist anyway... less worry, less stress... and, particularly in the winter months when Seasonal Affected Disorder comes into play for a lot of people, this would mean a lot.

So for those of you who manage to have quiet happy christmas' good for you, keep it up, don't let the landslide catch you. And for those of you who want a quiet christmas... work at making it so, don't just complain about commercialism... who cares what other people do, what matters is what you do....

Anyhow... I'm sure that this made no sense whatsoever but I haven't had enough sleep in the last couple weeks for anything my brain thinks of to make all that much sense.

2005-09-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Heya all... Well, as some of you may have noticed, my presence here has been virtually non-existant... why? Because school has taken over my life... with 4 labs this semester and 5 next semester I'm on campus from basically 8:00-5:00 or sometimes later... and when I'm not I'm doing homework, writing up labs, or studying for one of my classes.... Workload aside, however, I love my courses! I'm actually learning geology now in all its glory... I have mineralogy, Sedimentolgy, invertebrate paleontology... all of them are lots of fun although they take up a lot of time...

so it's unlikely that I'll be seen often here... though rest assured, I am not dead (despite appearances) and having lots of fun buried under my school books, notes, and mineral samples...

Its great! The labs are hands on... in fact for sedimentology we actually go down to the river valley to map out the area... of course this is also a great deal of work as by November 19 we have to have a 20 page report done on the area we are mapping dealing with what we see there and what it tells us about the history of the area.... But its so fun! Hard, but fun...

Anyhow, that's everything... I'll try to pop in every now and again but I likely won't be posting very much.... anyhow speaking of labs I'm in the middle of my computational techniques in Earth and Atmospheric Science lab so I should send my assignment in seeing as I have five minutes left before the lab is over...

Over and out

~Lia

Kitten pictures

2005-09-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

Well here are the promised photographs:

A geology student through and through I added things in for scale. Here we have the kitty with a standard unsharpened HB pencil:

And here he is with a standard playing card:

Now that you know the relative size of the basket it can be used for scale:

Hehe.... he's a cutie

The kittie fell asleep on Hannah's lap and Farley moved in on his opportunity to get close without the cat hissing at him:

And he has a new name: Mowatt. Yes Farley and Mowatt... you would think that would have occured to us earlier...

Over and Out
~Em

From Kittens to Spammers

2005-08-30T17:50:00.000-07:00

Well... it's been a while since my last post but our house has once again been invaded. This time by a tiny little grey and white Maine Coon kitten. So far Farley loves him... but he just hisses and gets defensive when Farley gets close... could be something to do with Farley been five times his size and a big galloot to boot. He's sitting, curled up on my lap as I type this. He has really big feet because he has six toes on each foot and really long whiskers. We are not entirely sure what his name is going to be. We've been tossing names around all day: Hose (with the accent that makes it prounounced like Hosay... but I don't know how to write that character), Darwin, Charlie... the list goes on.

At the moment we're calling him Boo and it seems to suit him... so it might stick.... Now let's just hope he can get used to Farley and figure out that although Farley is big he's not dangerous.

Hehe... he's so tiny!

I'll post up some pictures as soon as I can get up to do so... but right now mister grey and white is sleeping on my lap... and I don't want to disturb him.

On another note, I just changed the settings on my comment thingy... I came back to find that stupid people had decided to spam my comments with advertisements... so now commenting requires the word verification thingy... because I rather dislike advertisements and such... stupid spammers...

Over and out

~Em

2005-05-31T16:10:00.000-07:00

Well, we got our puppy... and here he is. His name is Farley and he is a big bundle of energy. It was very difficult to get pitcures of him because you'd click and he'd already be gone from the shot.

But he is very cute and he loves people... and other dogs... and eating dandilions... and attacking leaves... and sitting on shoes... and pulling at shoelaces... and...

On the up side

2005-05-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

We're getting a puppy... The rest of the family went out to look at puppies while I was at work and fell in love with a little black and white spaniel puppy... So we're getting him... we think we're going to name him Farley so far...

And that also means we will (probably *crosses her fingers*) be getting a kitty soon as well...

This is a good thing... I need something fuzzy to cuddle...

Growling is Rampant

2005-05-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

My day can be summed up by one word: Argh!

In other words, not fun... the reason, also one word, work.

Work was fine for the first bit...I mean we had the usual "Gah! who opened two bags of Sumatra!" and "growl why can't people look at the dates on the syrups and use the ones expiring first" but that's just every day stuff...

However things went to hell two hours before the shift is over...when the new girl we had working with us went home... when we realised that she hadn't done anything she was supposed to do on brews... in fact we realised she hadn't thought she was on brews....

So we have no rows, and no grinds... not good... and of course it is at this point, after a mildly slow day, that things start to get hectic (ie. line ups to the door that won't go away and drinks piled up on the barrista machine so there isn't any more room). So, as we desperately attempt to help customers and get rows made and grinds done not to mention keeping enough coffee made so that we don't run out, time goes by and our two hours of time quickly becomes half-an-hour.

And of course to make things worse I'm HCIC... meaning that I still have to do cash out... I've done cash out a grand total of two times before so I'm none to quick in the first place...

...But if things seemed like they had gone wrong before let me tell you... they hadn't... The first till I, stupidly, changed to clerk 3 before doing voids and printing the x-report... meaning I had to go back enter things into the till under clerk three to cancel out my voids then redo the voids under clerk 2 then reprint both the clerk 2 and clerk three reports to make sure they were both fixed. Then change the till back to clerk 3...

Luckily that till didn't take me long to actually cash out and was almost spot on (Couple cents over)...

Unfortunately the second till was a living nightmare... I counted it a total of four times... it was under by $100! Not good! So I counted the safe... twice! It was, unfortunately, on. So by this time I'm strained, stressed and unsure what I'm supposed to do... luckily both Cass and Bree were there both of whom are experienced and know what they're doing(though Bree had been on shift with me so she was also a wee bit strained).

We thought perhaps someone had done something wrong on the closing shift so that I had the total for two days on my x-report... unfortunatly the debit and visa totals added up properly making that option very unlikely...

So the only thing we can think of is... either someone deposited $100 too much in the morning, or Kate took too much when she came in to take the extra weekend money out...

and so by the time I was out of there it was half-an-hour after my shift ended...

Anyhow I left multitudes of notes for people explaining the stupidity and stumbled home... and now I'm tired, emotionally, physically, etc...

So that is why growling is rampant

Obligations and Possession (Subject pilfered from the journal of Arianthrax)

2005-05-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

As an offshoot from Ari's train of thought on the subject of possession (I started musing on it in her comments then decided I shouldn't fill up her space with my meandering drivel). Do we possess people? Can we? Should we? Why do we attempt to do so.

Now there are several different interpretations of the possession of others and all of them are valid topics for thought and in a way they are all related. There is, perhaps the strongest of them, slavery. Outlawed in Canada but still rampant in much of the world. I certainly won't defend it or its practitioners. But even in slavery does anyone truly possess a person... they may treat them as property but does that make them property?

Do I have an answer for that? No, I don't. I don't have an answer just my ponderings.

And my ponderings lead me to think that in the deepest sense of the word (perhaps more acurately the concept) the only one who can completely and totally posses you is you, yourself.

The only one who can create/keep/break the network of obligations and relationships that we carry with us, is ourselves. We reach out to other people, yes, we sometimes feel we have to do things for other people, or even that others should do things for us... and that's OK in my opinion... but these feelings of having obligations are created in our own minds...

Anyhow, I have to leave this train of thought as muzzy and confused as it is, because I'm babysitting and Jacob just woke up. I'll check back later.

~Em

Unitarian Jihad

2005-05-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

Egad! Two posts in one day! What is dear Em coming to? But I read this and it must be shared

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States. We are Unitarian Jihad. There is only God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favor of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary.

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States! Too long has your attention been waylaid by the bright baubles of extremist thought. Too long have fundamentalist yahoos of all religions (except Buddhism -- 14-5 vote, no abstentions, fundamentalism subcommittee) made your head hurt. Too long have you been buffeted by angry people who think that God talks to them. You have a right to your moderation! You have the power to be calm! We will use the IED of truth to explode the SUV of dogmatic expression!

People of the United States, why is everyone yelling at you??? Whatever happened to ... you know, everything? Why is the news dominated by nutballs saying that the Ten Commandments have to be tattooed inside the eyelids of every American, or that Allah has told them to kill Americans in order to rid the world of Satan, or that Yahweh has instructed them to go live wherever they feel like, or that Shiva thinks bombing mosques is a great idea? Sister Immaculate Dagger of Peace notes for the record that we mean no disrespect to Jews, Muslims, Christians or Hindus. Referred back to the committee of the whole for further discussion.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere. We have not been born again, nor have we sworn a blood oath. We do not think that God cares what we read, what we eat or whom we sleep with. Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity notes for the record that he does not have a moral code but is nevertheless a good person, and Unexalted Leader Garrote of Forgiveness stipulates that Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity is a good person, and this is to be reflected in the minutes.

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs as Xerox repair specialists. Demagogues of all stripes will be required to read Proust out loud in prisons.

We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.

Brother Gatling Gun of Patience notes that he's pretty sure the world is out to get him because everyone laughs when he says he is a Unitarian. There were murmurs of assent around the room, and someone suggested that we buy some Congress members and really stick it to the Baptists. But this was deemed against Revolutionary Principles, and Brother Gatling Gun of Patience was remanded to the Sunday Flowers and Banners committee.

People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution. Startling new underground group spreads lack of panic! Citizens declare themselves "relatively unafraid" of threats of undeclared rationality. People can still go to France, terrorist leader says.

Michael row the boat ashore, and then get some of the local kids to pull the boat onto the dock, and come visit with jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.

Relayed to you by Sister Machine Gun of Patience (no relation to the band)

http://homepage.mac.com/whump/ujname.html

My Unitarian Jihad name is The Sabre of Sweet Reason

Over and Out

~Em

Disjointed Randomness

2005-05-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I promised Ari that I would update my blog and I'm certainly not going to go back on that promise. Besides I'm in the sort of melancholy mood that facilitates such ponderings as I usually pen at hours far and late in the night... though its actually just the afternoon here...

I don't have anything in particular on my mind at the moment, just the urge to write which will probably result in this entry being more disjointed and difficult to follow than most of my others. Ye gods is that even possible! I find myself vaguely horrified at the thought... Ok now I'm simply being silly.

I hate being stuck in the city again. For one glorious week I was free out in the open not caged by bloody walls, fences, streets and sidewalks all damn day. This is one reason geology appeals to me... give me a job where for the duration of field season you sleep in a canvas tent and spend your whole day outside whatever the bloody weather... Yay waterproof notebooks!

I got no bloody sleep last night... that could explain my state of mind.... have I mentioned how much I hate cramps! They make me want to curl up in a little ball around the pain and whimper but that just seems to make it worse. It seems to take hours for any pain killers to kick in when they get really bad too... it makes me wonder if they help at all or if the cramps just ease off on their own... They hit me at work the other day... yay having a store of painkillers in the cupboard there... sadly I used them up... we'll have to get more... In any case I was working with a good team yesterday: Bree, Arden, and Sandra. Great people. Funny people.... I also drank a shitload of tea and two extra large blended Chais.

Wow this blog entry is slightly journallish... what's happening to me... anyhow I'm off now.

Over and out

~Em

Field School (a more light-hearted journal entry)

2005-05-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't have any photos yet (seeing as my friend was the one with the camera and I have to wait until she sends them all to me).... But the trip was awesome... if all school was like that... well lets just say I wouldn't have any trouble getting up at 6:30 in the morning for classes!

Our professors (Creaser and Froese) were completely awesome as were the TAs... not to mention great people to hang around a bar with. The mark was basically based on all the assignments and your field notes you took, the final exam was worth only 30%.

Other than that how cool is it to be hiking through back country looking at rocks, rock formations, outcroppings etc all day and getting credits for it!

Our route was basically Edmonton - Drumheller - Lethbridge - Waterton - Fernie - Radium (hot springs) - Jasper and then back to Edmonton

But we stopped at so many places in between...

At the hot springs, actually, we were looking at all the calcite formations, calcified leaves, bacteria drapes, tree trunks etc... and guess what we found? A calcified sock! It was completely coated in calcite but still recognisable as a sock. That gives an idea about how quickly things can be preserved in areas like that... Creaser took it back to the UofA as an excellent sample, of course.

The only bad thing on the trip was that we had to miss one of our planned stops because our bus broke down and it was dark by the time we reached it... I was very dissapointed that we didn't get to see the Crows Nest Volcanics... which are alkalic volcanic rocks (rich in alkali minerals such as orthoclase feldspar) But that are also the only type of volcanic rocks in which garnet forms (Garnet is normally only found in metamorphic rocks)

We still got to see a sample because there was a boulder of it at the Frank Slide... the stop at which our bus decided to break down... but I would have liked to have seen it on a larger scale... not the least because the garnets apparently just erode right out of the rock being more resistant to weathering than the rest of the minerals in the rocks' makeup.

Not only was the trip cool... the field notebook was awesome... its waterproof! Completely waterproof! it rained a bit one day (and of course that didn't stop us from going out ) and the water just beaded on the page and you could just wipe it right off! But pencils write on it just as if its normal paper!

Anyhow now I just have to wait for the pictures

Over and Out

~Em

Tolerance vs Intolerance (Am I the only one getting annoyed about this?)

2005-01-24T20:19:00.000-08:00

I am becoming more than slightly annoyed with people lately... Society, I think, would be a much more pleasant thing, if people could at least attempt to do a few simple things such as think before being offended or giving offense (we’d hope that this would also prevent both...but you never can tell), or being willing to admit (to themselves and to others) that they could be wrong. But what's mainly bugging me right now is how people seem to make every effort to ignore the possibilty that different beliefs/ ways of life can be right or even simply accepting that they may not be wrong...Not even what would seem to be the more difficult thing to accept - that it is possible that their beliefs may be wrong or perhaps just not right....

I don't think that there is any belief system that is definitively 'right' or 'wrong'. There are things that I don't agree with or that don't agree with my moral code... But just because beliefs are contradictory doesn't mean, to me, that they are mutually exclusive... Belief is much too intangible, much too subjective to be completely wrong or completely right... Yet so many disputes/ wars etc are started because of them... Or perhaps more accurately because people refuse to accept the possibility that the other's beliefs may not be wrong...

The manner in which religion is presented, in my opinion, cuases many of the problems. Many of the religions today (I would hazard to say most of the prevalent organized ones) teach that their ways are THE WAY. Thus implying that other paths are wrong.... Opening the way to bigotry of other beliefs (Not, I will point out, forcing such a thing...simply ofering an easy path.)

Christianity, one of the most dominant catgories of religion in the world, teaches that there is one god... (Now I would be the first to admit that I know very little about each religion specifically so don't get angry if I get little things wrong)... It also teaches (for the most part) that the first step to heaven is believing in that one God.... This first step is not live your life well... Respect others or anything of the such... it is believe in THIS God.... No other...

It teaches that you can be damned simply for not believing in this particular God... Many people see no problem with this... I on the other hand do... (Setting aside whether I believe in THAT God or not because in this discussion my religious beliefs are irrelevant). I do not think that a God should judge a person on something that depends on what religion you are exposed to... That you are taught.... Should a person who has, perhaps, never heard of THIS ONE God be damned just because they have been brought up knowing and believing different things... Even if they live their life well and following their moral code? Damned just because they are classified automatically as 'pagan' or some other all encompassing/ miscellaneous, you don't agree with me groups.

Now accepting that others may not be wrong even if they hold different beliefs is not asking you to say my beliefs are wrong... You can hold your beliefs to be extremely important and still be able to extend this respect to other's beliefs.... Particularly if you recognize that whatever the 'truth' is it has been interrpretted by people, recorded, by people, interpretted again, translated (in most cases), interpretted once more, passed down by people... And in all these multiple changes is subject to human error... And, not least of all, fallacies that sneak in disguised as an easy way to tell the story so that people 'understand'

Take for example the 'apple' that christianity says Adam and Eve ate... The simple story says essentially 'evil snake convinced Eve to eat the apple that God said not to... Eve convinces Adam to also eat it... Adam and Eve were then kicked out of Eden by god'

This simple story cause no end of confusion for me when I wsa younger. Kicked out of paradise because they ate an apple? I love apples... Sure God told them not to... But why weren't they given more than one chance?

The real story, on the other hand, makes more sense... And also, I might add, allows for a great deal more interrpretation... There is no apple... seriously remove that image from your mind... It is actually the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil... (and I think that the 'apple' inventors need a serious lesson in what SYMBOLISM is because I'm sure that the 'apple' misunderstanding causes a lot of confusion for a lot of people)... When Adam and Eve ate of this fruit they gained the knowledge of good and evil and so Eden (paradise) could not exist for them... So they were forced out of Eden (<-- very sketchy I know but oh well.)

Now not only does the real story have value as a metaphor... It is also open to many interpretations... Classic Catholic views, for example, are that the eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil was the 'original sin' and that this sin is carried down upon every one of us today... (Also why women are lower on the heirarchy than men classically in this religion seeing as it says eve was convinced first and then convinced Adam in turn)... Interestingly enough classic belief is that we are each given God's grace and everything we do is predetermined by, essentially, how much Grace God gave us... It is these type of contradictory messages in most religions that makes it so hard for me to understand why people find it so hard to accept that different belief systems don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive.

Another interpretation of this story could be that Eden was a gift from God to Adam and Eve (ie humanity). Because Eden (the world, essentially) contained everything of the world around humanity it also contained both good and evil. Protected from knowledge that some things are bad and some things are good... essentially protected from the need to choose between them... Or the guilt of doing bad... the world was a paradise... because without the knowledge the world contains in it simplicity. When, however, Adam and Eve (humanity) came to find this knowledge, began to see a dichotomy things changed... With the knowledge of good and evil, things became less clear cut... Particularly as Good and Evil are no black and white and are as open to interrpretation as anything else... It introduced uncertainty, fear etc into their lives... And so Eden could no longer be a paradise... If you take the story as a metaphor for the world and humanity's place in it Adam and Eve were not forced out of Eden... It is simply that they were given the ability to see the imperfections in Eden... And so it ceased to be Eden and became simply the Earth

In this interpretation the loss of Eden was not a punishment... There was no real sin committed... and instead it was simply the price of knowledge... The price, you could say, of having a belief system... Because what is that if not a view of good and evil?

Perhaps this story of creation is a caution, or a reminder... That in taking the 'knowledge' (A word that I must wonder hadn't been mistranslated/ interrpreted/ misused) offered by the belief system (essentially the kowledge of good and evil). That you will be sacrificing something else... A caution perhaps of an even broader thing that in the gaining of anything you will also lose something... Then again it might not be... Or it could be that at the same time as being something else.

Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Ogres are like onions. And Stories are like ogres. Stories do not have to mean one thing... in fact I don't think I've read a well-written story that does... I don't think I've read any history that can be taken as having only one meaning either.

And I think that Religion is just another variety of story... Just like green onions are a different variety of onion... (yay mixing metaphors :P)

Now I've been talking mainly about religion... Mainly because its the easiest thing to talk about... But my point extends (or so I hope it does anyway) to all beliefs... Political, moral, economic... Etc...

And in all of them, perhaps even particularly in political, a little more thought, consideration etc would go a long way. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it isn't true... Just because you don't WANT to belive it doesn't mean that someone else isn't justified in doing so. Just because you don't agree with something doesn't mean you should outlaw others from agreeing with it... Or being allowed to allow others to agree with it...

Take Gay marriage for example... It seems to be a major issue... And Ralph Klien certainly doesn't want to let it die because its one of his easy fall backs to cover up the many mistakes he makes. (sorry slipped a bit there in my attempt at a neutral tone... But its true... Whether you like him or not if you look at his patterns of action he almost always follows up a mistake that angers enough people, by bringing up a volatile issue like this to draw attention away from the mistake).... The debate centres around morals... Some people thing its morally wrong... Others don't agree... But it comes down, once again to belief... And it is my opinion that whether you believe that homosexuality is 'right' or 'wrong' there should be the willingness to accept that other people have the right to believe the opposite... The reason I was perfectly happy and perhaps even impressed with the supreme court's ruling was that it did just that... It allowed those who believe that Gay marriage was acceptable to act in that way, it allows those who do not believe in it to decide not to have a part in it... Essentially it says let people take their own moral road... And don't let anyone force them to invalidate that moral code... (At least that's what it says to me)

OK its late... I have to go to sleep and stop this meaningless babble.... Goodnight all.

Democracy (Various wonderings and pet peeves)

2004-12-10T23:18:00.000-08:00

Well it's been a while since I've taken some time to write one of these... lately my insomnia has been used to do other things... not necessarily useful things... but other...

I don't know why this popped up into my head but I was thinking about elections and about how people on an individual basis treat democracy. I've noticed that many, many people fault democracy on the assumption that the best person (ie the person they want in.) should win... Or don't vote because they don't think their vote will count.... But really democracy isn't about the individual... it really isn't... its about the group (whether it should be or not). That's just the way it works... whoever the MOST people believe are the best choice is the one who is given the opportunity to prove it... This does not mean that anyone has to be necessarily happy with the outcome... I know that on numerous occasions I have not been necessily happy about the winner....

But when I hear people going on about how the "wrong" people always get in... or some such... it just annoys me.... and its not really the person that annoys me... or the fact that they take that stand, so much as its that this assumption is so prevalent in everyone I talk to.

... But that again brings me to another point.... it is the very reason that democracy is a system focused on the GROUP that the INDIVIDUAL has to participate.... If only half the people vote (a number that has been actually higher than in many elections) and the votes are close, for the simplicity of hte math at 12:00 we'll say half, all that tells us is that one quarter of the people want that person in.... This value is then extrapolated to the rest of the population... And while it is possible that it could reflect the population as a whole it certainly isn't garaunteed...

Democracy... I believe works... whether it is the ultimate system or not is a pointless question... there is no system of democracy that is the democratic pinnacle... Canada's system is VASTLY different then that of the United States... and both of them are immessurably different systesm then... say Sweden.

There are different subcategories of democracy... for heaven's sake: Proportional representation, Parlimentary... etc... And within each of these subcategories are multiple other subcategories that in turn can each be implimented in different ways...

...And it is this myriad of different possiblilities of system and implementation that makes it, shall we say impossible, to implement democracy by imposing a system upon a society... in fact it flies in the face of the principle of democracy - that it will be representative of A GROUP. What works well in one country will not necessarily work in another... the functioning, stable democracies of the world have all settled into their own unique form of democracy over the years each coming up with a system that works for them.... while this system may work just as well in another society this cannot be taken for granted....

In societies where we see rapid, turbulent, imposed etc.... change in the current system of government we'll often see that reflected in the aftermath of said change.... where the society takes years to recover from the change... and often has to settle into something completely different than the structure that first tried to impose itself... Its like, for example the different forms of a compound... under some conditions (ie high pressure and heat) they are very stable... but at others (low pressure and heat) they are unstable and will revert to a more stable form....

I don't know... and I certainly don't know that democracy is the BEST system... I don't think you can really say there is any BEST system in the real world or an ideal one... there are simply models... some of which seem to some to be better than others...

Personally, I like democracy... I think its a system that works (for the most part) but I think that people need to remember that democracy only works so long as they take an active roll... they don't need to necessarily place themselves in the centre of politics... but they need to weigh the candidates... they need to look at the platforms... they have to make sure that they are informed enough about the person and party they are voting for. And then MAKE A DECISION!!!! and then ACT ON THAT DECISION!!!!

Many people take the stance that the most important point to get across is to vote... but I would prefer that another message is sent... the most important thing is that people vote for those they think will represent them the best!

Putting a mark on some piece of paper because you recognize a name is not enough... that will undermine democracy just as surely as NOT voting will...If someone gets elected on the basis of "Ooh...ooh name I recognize!" as opposed to "ooh...ooh! platform I agree with!"... well... I think the problem is clear enough...

I'm not expecting... or even asking people to do in depth research on every candidate... let's face it who has that sort of time... but at least know how the person you are trying to elect stands on the issues...

You can vote by party... you can vote by person... It matters not to me as both are valid options each with their share of pros and cons... (Although people who vote for one party because "I'll never vote [insert party name here]" do annoy me slightly... though at least they have a basis for their decision and are voting I guess... just so long as they keep in mind that parties change over time as different issues become more important)

And my last pet peeve about how some treat elections.... is when people try to turn it into a religous argument... It isn't... its a political one... When we start imposing beliefs held by a certain religion through politics we're undoing arguablly one of the first steps towards democracy and multiculturalism... The beliefs may be wrong... they may be right... They may have no wrong or right... But when politics becomes a religious game... this blurs the edges of both... it removes the separation of church from state... a separation I think is important, particularly as there are so many different religions and religous beliefs out there...

I don't know... what I do know is that there are many people who will disagree with me on this... and they are free to... I am certainly not any sort of authority on this sort of thing... and I am no more qualified than anyone else to decide how things should work... But morality, I think, is something that each person must come to for themselves, whether they follow the guidlines that a religion can offer... whether it is simply accepting guidlines of a society...or...whatever... I don't think that the state should dictate it... fine, yes laws about murder, and the such... but here we have one of those grey areas... the blurring between morality and the government's purpose (ie maintaining order and preventing the fracturing of a society <-- you could of course argue this... but then you could argue anything I've said in this ramble)

I don't know... And that's just the long and short of it... I don't know... and I don't think anyone really does... or can for that matter...

Capturing a person in words (an impossibility?)

2004-08-26T01:30:00.000-07:00

People expect when they see a short biography a snapshot of a person, a condensed version of a whole. And they expect this version to accurately reflect a person, or simply don’t care if it doesn’t. An ‘About the Author” column of less than three hundred words is expected to describe and contain an entire person. But how? How can such a short piece of space a short statement explain a person? There is only one short statement I can think of that truly encapsulates a person: “I am what I am”. The obsession with brevity with easily summed up explanations, the summaries, the Cole’s Notes if you will of a person.

An author’s leaflet, their three hundred words, does not, and indeed cannot, tell you about them. Their writing will undoubtedly tell you more. I cannot describe myself in words numbering onward past three thousand. I have often mused upon this wondering if it is because I honestly do not know how to define myself, or if it is simply impossible to do so in the written, or spoken word. We can capture events, likes and dislikes. We can capture appearances and even make a shallow dive into the waters of our individuality, but language I believe is not encompassing enough, does not have enough flexibility not does it have the scope or range necessary to define a person. If this is so then it explains why we, human beings, so tied to our language written and spoken long to condense ourselves into a short orderly and understandable entity that fits with what we have constructed around ourselves as our definition of the world. It explains our desire to have others condensed into this format as well. For if we are enigmas unto ourselves than what can be said about the others that we wander among every day these people we pass, we speak to, we notice, we do not notice. Are these attempts to condense a person into words, to use language to give humanity a definable structure… are these made in order to give us a sense of security in that it is possible, that we are not to forever remain a mystery to ourselves? Or is it not for a sense of security it gives us but a grasping at an attempt to find that security?

Anyone, however, who has sat down and tried to write a short biography, whether for a teacher of long times past, for some profile, or for any reason can see immediately the problems inherit in these attempts.

What can be said about yourself what can you say in that blank space that allows you only the luxury of so many characters? You can add an amusing anecdote maybe, give an abbreviated version of your life; tell people what you like or if you prefer what you dislike. But what do these tell you about a person? Nothing more than these outer layers. Many people would disagree with me here saying that these make up what you are that they are deeper than the surface layer that most people consider to be looks…. But what are these things if not appearances in another guise?

Yes, one may like The Lord of the Rings, may describe why, speak of their favourite characters and events… but even then they are bounded by language, by the understanding of the person to which they relate this. And knowing all this does it give you any greater insight as to who that person really is…. And I’m not talking about the oft-told stories of old men pretending to be twelve-year-old girls on the Internet but about the core of a person. And should such things be revealed in any case?

I find myself asking many rhetorical questions on this topic but they are questions I have asked myself many times. (As I have said before, I am sure; I sometimes think that the asking of the questions and the thinking on them is more important than the answers).

Can we abbreviate ourselves into these nice, neat packages and expect some resemblance to ourselves, some truth about who we are enter the page.

I was born and have lived in Edmonton my whole life. I have to younger siblings. I play the violin, like to read books, enjoy writing, and have a strange addiction to tea.

What does this tell you about me? Nothing important, and in fact next to nothing. The only access to the person behind the words is in style and tone. The only hint of me is the extended list (more than the natural three), the faulty parallelism (yes sometimes it’s a stylistic device not just a headache inducer), the interesting addition of a seemingly unrelated fact about me and tea. And even these small windows, tell you very little… very, very little…

Do the author’s explanations on the back of their books reveal anything more than this? I don’t believe they do. Oh you can catch a glimpse of a person through the breaks in their words, but no more than a glimpse. In reading this you will see a small portion of my thoughts, one of many strands of thought going on, as I follow what seems to be one strand there are hundreds of other thoughts being followed less actively by my fingers… and these are inaccessible to anyone, sometimes including myself as they move into the subconscious back drawer of my untidy mind. There are a million occurrences small and large, a million thoughts, happenstances, etc that led me to first catch this thought. There are thousands of small reasons that have me sitting at this computer typing this (though the largest one is a large bout and annoying onset of insomnia). There are other things other sensations, other thoughts traversing my mind that have nothing to do with this musing. There is the music that I am listening to and hum along to absentmindedly, there is the warmth of my cat sitting, curled up on my lap. There are so many details that cannot be transmuted into words, so many things that cannot be related from person to person, so many things that we are not even aware of ourselves…

Perhaps it is this vastness of human nature that leads us towards our preference towards the short and simple… the simple vastness that is our own mind, our own body, our own existence frightens us and so we attempt to shrink it down… make it less than it is so that we can pretend to understand it.

Or perhaps it is laziness that drives us to hide behind few words to describe such a concept.

<> Or perhaps it is simply the desire to fill that empty space on a book’s cover and the brevity forced by that concept.

Or even still it may just be that we do not wish to step from behind the enigma of our words, to reveal the person beneath them, afraid of the reaction of others should we do so… or simply because we enjoy remaining mysterious like many of the characters we write and read about every day.

Human nature – the eternal enigma – why do we do what we do? Why do we feel as we do? Questions that are simple enough to ask, difficult to answer, and even more difficult to wonder about. Our own minds… is it possible to know them, to understand them? And then if we can unlock the key to ourselves is it possible to even contemplate doing so with another person? Are these words these simple, small biographies a means of access, an attempt at access or simply a device that obscures the whole making it easier for us to believe that we can make sense of ourselves.

Words I do not believe can truly be the window to a person’s self…. Though I often wonder if they cannot help show us the way when used carefully rather than being thrown, tossed back and forth as carelessly as a small child (or myself) blows the seeds of a dandelion over the lawn. It is a conundrum we face in this pursuit for how to describe ourselves.

I have frequently called myself “one big bag of contradictions” and I truly do feel like this often. I laugh and cry at the same time, I feel tired yet wide-awake, I am quiet yet loud. But these are simply surface… I feel quite often at odds with myself unsure of which dichotomy I favour or indeed prefer… it is why writing a simple position paper often proves difficult… not the writing, no that is the easy part… but choosing a position… oh to do such a thing is difficult. I am often called, and call myself indecisive and I am, oh I really and truly am extremely indecisive… but it is not because I am lazy or do not care… no I care very much it is simply my dichotomies fighting again…

And here I see I have drifted out on a tangent, and reading over that last paragraph I see how I got to the topic of this meandering musing, how inadequate those words those phrases are how not true they appear in this black print… I look at it and cannot help thinking that some may think that these words suggest I’m insane… oh I’ve never claimed to be sane… I truly don’t think anyone is completely sane… but I also don’t think I’m insane… as I speak there it looks as though I am speaking of myself as being multiple people…. But the dichotomies are simply part of the whole and without them I would not be me…

How can we describe ourselves shortly and concisely only in one way?

We are who we are. And as a favourite author of mine (of which there are many but in this case it’s Terry Goodkind) has written, “we can be nothing more or less than we are”**

**(Note: It’s very, very early in the morning at a time most would consider late at night… I did not look up the quotation and so it may not be completely accurate but its close enough I think that it does not matter very much)

Introduction (If you're wondering what's going on click here)

2004-08-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

Well I don't know that I need to explain... or whether you want to read an explanation but seeing as that has never stopped me before here I go.

I had a blog a while back and I kept it up infrequently for a while... but due to many circumstances, including not having access to the internet at home, it fell by the wayside. Well my desire to blog has been rekindled also by many circumstances including the fact that I now have internet access in my house, and reading the blogs of many others including Phoenix (who I'd link to but his is passworded), Homie Bear, Life's Anthems, and Between Lightning and Light

The musings I have placed here that are dated before today... were written on the days they display but were snatched from the storage room of my computer's memory... I'm sure if I searched hard enough I could find more... but I don't really know that its necessary.

Now a warning for those who haven't already caught on (ie by reading my first post) I tend to write in this sort of thing late at night when the thoughts swirling aroundin my head do not allow me the simple pleasure of sleep... other people simply call this insomnia (but that's not as fun). The posts will likely vary greatly in content depending on mood, what had happened during the day... etc. And no one... I repeat no one is obliged to finish reading any of my posts... whether you are friend or foe my ramblings often make little sense to some and or resonate with others...

Now that you are warned you are also welcome to post comments to tell me what you think of my thoughts, or to do some random rambling of your own. Drop a gem and get everything off your head... or just say hi.

Oh... and please excuse randomly placed commas, and typos that I am sure are more than rampant throughout these postings... keep in mind most of them are done late at night (or early morning) when I am quite exhausted, I do little or no proofreading, and I'm not doing them to be perfectly gramatically correct I'm writing to just get stuff out of my head.

Enjoy

~Em

Things (pondering on consumerism and environment)

2004-08-13T17:57:00.000-07:00

Well this is a little bit different from my previous musings in one way... It is not written while I am suffering from insomnia... though I'm dead tired so I figure the result should be pretty darn close to the same.

Well the cousins are leaving today after being here for a week and half (for a week of which they were staying at my house) . And I have to say I am actually a bit relieved. Oh, they're wonderful boys for the most part... very nice... but a week is almost too long to have four of them running around your house. Particularly because they are all at ages where patience... or understanding the need for some quiet time... or for realizing that yes, people do sleep past 7:30 and that chasing eachother about the house is not an activity appreciated by others at that time in the morning. *rolls her eyes*

But anyway Matt and Sem's parents should be hear within the next ten minutes... and then I'll get a modicum of peace... and then Sunday or Monday (not sure which at this point) the rest of the family is off on holidays (I stay here because of work). While I would like to go with them it will be nice to have some quiet, peaceful time in the house.

Well I've just looked over what I've written previously and its much to factual and coherent to fit in with my other posts so I think I'll abandon the daily rote of what is happening in my life and go on to more abstract musings....

People seem to be obsessed with things... we don't ask people "to watch our things/stuff", we say "she/he has so much", "Oh wouldn't you love to have that?" and many, many more phrases of the like. I am certainly not innocent of this myself... as I often think about what I would get if I had the money... though it invariably seems to involve computers, books, music (playing or listening), or some sort of equiptment for outdoor activities (bikes, kayaks and the like)...

But it really hit me today as something that was pervading in the air... perhaps its the presence of my aunty Beth and her son who have been here for over a week now. They are nice people and also very wealthy... and obsessed with stuff...

Gareth quite frequently will send me e-mails... or talk to me on the phone about the new such and such he has... his mother is constantly shopping... and it doesn't seem to really make either of them any more happy really.

I, personally am very hard put to understand this... oh, I am certainly not thrifty if I go out wiht my friends I tend to spend money... but usually on food or something to share between us... (or a movie and they are so expensive lately that a movie alone is enough to get rid of the money burning a hole in your pocket)...

But even that I can see in relation to the whole phenomenom of consumerism... in developed countries it seems that that is the driving theme the cogs of the wheel that drive the whole system... the need for more stuff... But its not so much a need as a burning desire... its the demand that keeps the supply coming... or perhaps it is the supply of so much that creates the demand that drives this wheel...

I really don't know and the one who can figure it out definitively will have modern economics pinned down.

It is in our blatant and rampant consumerism that everything seems to run... but it also appears to be giving us a growing sense of momentum as we hurtle down a slope that could eventually lead to our doom.... (my that was a bit fatalistic of me wasn't it?)... But it really is something to think about... the more we take out of the earth the less there is... but not only are we taking resources out of the Earth we are also putting pollutants back in. This spells disaster for many species every day and as we begin to burn holes in the food web the worry is that this will come back and hit us...

As a species we have a mentality not unlike a twenty year old guy (or girl for that matter), we seem to beleive that as a species we are untouchable... immortal and will be here forever. But like the twenty year old if we fall off the cliff the species will go... exitinct. Its happened to many species before and it can happen to us if we aren't careful... and all our concrete and iron buildings, all our designer clothes, our gas-guzzling vehicles aren't going to save us... nope, in fact if we continue the expansion of these and the other industries at the rate they are growing now... they may do the opposite.

"Progress" seems to be the watchword of the day, a country's successfullness is measured in its growth (per capita, per annum) but perhaps a different scale should be used. Scientists have done this experiment many times... students have heard it in science and done questions related to it in math many, many times over.... if there are bacteria/rabbits/[insert rapidly growing population here] doubling every day... or even every year... it doesn't take long for the space to fill, the food to run out... all the incredible little multitude of limiting factors to come into play in their lives and well then good bye population.

Now people may argue all they want that this is in a closed system, but my answer to that is that we are in a closed system. We might be able to send people up in space... but we aren't getting any life sustainging resources up there... the earth is in and of itself a closed system and we are stuck on it.

Now I don't want to sound all doom and gloom... because I'm not. I just think we need to change our attitudes... rather than more, more, more and grow, grow, grow... I think we should concentrate on balance. I truly believe we can live in a certain balance... not that it would be easy and it would take a few generations... but by cutting back on a lot of our production of goods we do not need and that don't even really add that much to our lives, by concentrating on our effect on the environment... on taking as little from the Earth as possible... by slowly changing our lifestyle we can save the Earth for generations to come.

And I think that's something everyone could agree is a worthy cause... I mean like I said at the beginning we are obssessed with stuff... we're greedy little buggers and shouldn't we want to keep the largest 'thing' we have in good condition: the Earth.

Over and out.

Nature of Humanity (essentially the same or different?)

2004-08-01T02:41:00.000-07:00

The world is full of people who, individually, are more variable than the shapes of snowflakes but who seem to become almost identical when placed in a large group. I suppose I’m a bit of a person watcher… it comes from simply sitting and watching/listening rather than talking to people, and its amazing the differences you see when you really look at a person everything from appearance, to mannerisms, to personalities. But if you take a step backwards and look at different groups of people, the larger the groups the fewer differences between them you see. I’m not talking about appearance or clothing but more in terms of behaviour. This makes me wonder whether this indicates that we are essentially all the same at the core or that our sameness is superficial and it is only in the elimination of too many important details, of pulling the microscope back too far. So that the differences are lost.

This in turn makes me wonder whether it really matters, but then again isn’t it the question that we all seem to ask ourselves… what is different about me… or am I the same as those around me? Are we the same as those we dislike or are we different.

Our construction, the biology bit of it in any case, would lead one to suspect that we are all essentially the same. Every living being on this earth is given shape using the same language or code. The same repeating sequences of amino acids, phosphates and sugars. So perhaps on that basis every living being is essentially the same at the core. Then can we justify hate or revulsion of any other living thing… even something so widely loathed as a spider or a cockroach? Or are we simply repulsed by such things as the show us aspects of ourselves we don’t want to see?

On the other hand the variation possible using the genetic code is so vast as to be innumerable… so the potential for difference, the basis upon which we are all built gives immeasurable variety.

If, however, we are essentially different does that not leave us even more isolated from those around us? Does I not make us, as individuals compleyely unable to truly understand one another only able to reach across the great chasm that separates us from everyone else with a tenuous and fragile line of shared situation, language, touch…

Both outlooks seem bleak as I’ve written them here. And perhaps they are. But here I will adopt an existentialist viewpoint: Things are bleak, they always will be so all you can do is keep on going and try lessen the bleakness…

Anyhow back to the question at hand…. Both viewpoints seem so mutually exclusive and yet I find that I believe both… and I don’t mean to say that in such a way that suggests I believe one in some situations and the other in others… I believe them both… simultaneously. I believe both that everyone, every person, every being share the same essential core, not of humanity… but of… life, I suppose. Though that isn’t even quite the right word for it. I believe that because of this core common to all that we are all intrinsically connected… kind of a collective unconscious of all life… But at the same time I believe that we are all isolated from everyone, and everything else by our access to the world. Everything we see, we know, we are told, is filtered through our senses, our experiences. I truly believe that no one can truly understand another person’s feelings or experience even if they have gone through the same… I suppose an easy example would be someone who likes mushrooms as opposed to someone who doesn’t. They both have eaten the same thing… but both have come to completely different conclusions… and perhaps even taste completely different things.

Wll anyway yet another reason why I tend yo consider myself one big bag of contradictions…. Heck just look at the characters that pop into my head… all of them have come from me and really are just different aspects of me. I sometimes feel I have more personalities than someone diagnosed with the disorder… Its just that all mine are blended together in one mix that is then what the world sees…. Or doesn’’t see thather…. There are some personalities that are much stronger than others… at least on the surface. Scathach for example represents a darker more aggressive side of me… but though it seems a strong piece it is really quite buried under the rest of my traits… which is probably one of the reasons I enjoy writing her character so much… it allows me to unbury that side of me and just get some of it out.

Well, anyhow, enough from me… its almost 3:00 and I’ve gotten enough out of my mind that I should be able to sleep now… sometimes I think that writing these Random Musings, as I’ve taken to calling them, is really just a non-magic version of a pensieve (A reference to Harry Potter for those who started giving me weird looks at that moment) they allow me to just lay thoughts that are swirling around my head too quickly to quiet them… and then they lose their urgency and sort of return quietly to the back-shelf until next time… anyway I have to work tomorrow so I tear myself away from these writings with some reluctance. Until next time…

The Future (wonderings about the path of my life)

2004-07-11T02:00:00.000-07:00

I find that my thoughts take me to many different places while I'm lying in bed for hours, looking at the lights that dance behind my eyelids, uncomfortable and overhot or cold by turns as I shift around within the soft sheets that feel like sandpaper...I can't vouch for the coherency of this post...its basically what I often do on paper...but I felt like feeling the keyboard under my fingers...so you get treated to my midnight...well one-o-clock...ramblings. Oh...and in case there was any doubt they started from the first word.

This is what I do when I can't sleep I just follow my thoughts...wherever they take me. And I find its a lot easier to get them out of my head, so I can ignore them and get some sleep, if I write them down. It makes for the need to regularly take a pile of papers out of my room to recycle...when I get around to it...when I decide my room has reached the point of clutter just past messy and into slovenly...whatever that's supposed to mean

well I can see that my meanderings seem to have even less of a point than usual...lucky anyone who's decided to try and read this...its why I called my website Random Musings...seeing as it was created...and developed and added to only during these non-coherent, tired, but completely unable to sleep episodes...Which, by the way, I reformatted and added a guestbook to right before beginning this diatribe...

The world, it seems to me has begun to move in two opposite directions...its really almost a paradox of sorts...it seems to be both shrinking, becoming small. Bridged by technology: planes, telephones, the internet, cars, trains...etc... And yet in other ways it seems to be becoming larger. More expansive...

And I don't know that I like either of them really...but it seems (rather ironically) that it is the expanding that seems to be making me feel more claustrophobic...as the world seems to shrink...it becomes easier (to my mind) to escape from the rut...to go elswhere...meet new people...Though it also makes it seem that there are fewer places to escape to and less chance of getting far...but in a way that's good because it gives you the security of knowing that your lifeline the network of relations, friends etc are still within reach...

But it also seems that it removes a means...a direction of escape...if even for a little while...from the responsibilities, the rigid societal structures that have been built up...that are imposed upon us and ingrained in us throughout our entire lives...Its like that song by Great Big Sea really:
Penelope
Released January 2002
(written by Chris Hynes)
Penelope works in the market
Down in the coconut trees
She’s saving up all her money
To go to America across the sea

She once had an uncle
He lived in Detroit town
They got all his post cards
But his body has never been found

To this day
To this day

She got a job as a domestic
Workin' for the minimum wage
All her friends back home in Jamaica
They say, ‘You really got it made in the shade’

But they don’t see her sweat and grind
And her bended on her knees
She wishes she was back in Jamaica
Beneath the coconut trees

Penelope’s back in the market
She found what it was all about
Oh no, she doesn’t regret it
She’s just glad that she got out

But others aren’t so lucky
They’re there till the day they die
Trapped in steel and concrete
No beach No moon No sky

or a story my mom has called...oh what is it called, working towards what you already have? or something similar...

its just that it seems that the world...my future...is just coming a bit too fast...I mean I know that I'm ahead of a lot of people...in that I know what I want to do...its just that...I don't know that I want to do it yet...if that makes any sense whatsoever

I mean, yes I want to go into geology, I want to learn about it...study it...and eventually take a career in relation to it...its just that there is so much else that I want to do...and I look at my parents...who are great people who also knew what they wanted to do...but because they fell in love, had a family, and have to take care of us are stuck in a sort of half-life in terms of employment...because not too much money can be made as an artist...so they work for the post office...for people they don't like, with horrible management, making enough to have us in the lower-middle income, range so we can live comfortably...eat well, live with more luxuries than a lot of people out there in the world...but they are stuck there...in these jobs they don't like, unable to do a lot of things I know they would like to do...

Not having done a lot of things they wanted to do....

I know my dad wants to paint full time...I mean he'll come home from work and go down to his studio...which he always talks about expanding...maybe taking over the garage for his studio or the like...but with one thing or another it just doesn't happen...not enough time at one point, not enough money at another, or sometimes its just not enough energy....but I mean he'll come home and he'll paint...or sketch or sometimes he'll just sit in the old chair he claimed for his studia and just look at the painting he's working on for an hour...sometimes he'll start working on it after that, other times he'll go upstairs...

anyhow I guess what I'm trying to say...in a roundabout, verbose manner...is that I suppose I'm a little bit frightened of trapping myself without having seen something of the world...without having taken the chances offered to me to expand my knowledge...I don't know that I want to go into University and immediatly streamline my studies to geology...yet I do want to enter it now as well...its just that I want to do other things take other courses as well...I don't want to be trapped to one path...one viewpoint...one disipline....and I want to learn things that don't just satisfy my curiosity, my wants and needs...I want to learn things that will help other people...I want to do things that will make some sort of difference in someone's life...

which I suppose brings me to how the world seems to also be expanding, it seems to be expanding in its problems...the troubles that abound in people's lives, in regions, in nations, everywhere...perhaps its simply me becoming more aware of what's occuring globally or perhaps it what my social teacher referred to as convergence theory...perhaps its simply a bunch of occurances, of forces coalescing like steam building up pressure until it all explodes in a flurry of activity.... But I look at the world today and I wonder what good we really can do...we can help one person...help their brief spark glow more brightly...but that leaves millions of others out there who aren't going to get help...there is only so much that can be achieved...and in some cases I think that the attempts to help end up doing the opposite...but does that make the attempts any less worthy?

I guess I just have to say I just don't know...there are so many things that could be done...but so many of them just aren't possible, or wanted by those that make the decisions...or hold the resources...in the end it ammounts to the same thing I suppose....and there are so many...so many...war, disease, famine, drought, abuse, depression, poverty...not to mention the little everyday problems that surround us...which can cut just as deep, a friend's misfortune, a death, an injury... anything really...heck even the little girl you babysit who trips and scrapes her knee and then cries as you hold her and tells you how she wants her mom, and how she wishes her mom wouldn't leave her even if its just for a night...

And no one can heal all of them...to even begin to make a difference in some you have to pick your battles...but how do you choose them really? Particularly when everywhere you turn it seems there are more and more issues to be faced...more problems cropping up...all of them as unsolvable as the ones before...as unsolvable as the ones that will come after...

Perhaps it get easier to decide...easier to pick the battles as you become more solid as a person...begin to understand yourself more...at least that's what I always tell myself...because I do know that no one can face all of these problems...not even a person who could dedicate their entire life to them could do it...

And I guess that's the crux of the matter...the reason its so difficult for me to accept...its as my friends tell my I am the cynical optimist...my optimistic side tells me constantly that only by making the efforts can a difference be made...and that it is possible to make a difference...while my cynical side watches and quietly draws attention to the expanse of problems out there...and that even in making an effort...my contribution on its own is like attempting to scratch a diamond with a nickle...

But I guess that's why I need my optomistic side...I mean it keeps me going...keeps me busy... gives me the motivation to do what I need to do...but I guess it becomes slightly weaker at 2:00 in the morning...seeing as that seems to be the time when the dark little thoughts start to appear...oh well...

A person who is completely happy...does not exist...a person without a dark side is incomplete just as a person without a light side is incomplete

as I begin to sound like a druid: balance, balance, balance...but I really do believe that a balance is important...in life...in nature...in everything...but I'm more the neutral good type...balance is important...but if you don't strive for what you feel is right...well then what can you really do? Existentialism is only bleak if you look at it from the middle....

and with that bit of cryptic thought (I can tell you that when I read that when I wake up I'm almost garuanteed to go "huh?!?") I think I'll head to bed...because my mind feels suffieciently cleaned out to allow me to shut it down...

~Night