Completed!
39, 484 words. That is 14,484 words longer than my thesis should be.
I am sooooo giddy it took sooo long!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
So a clown walks into a bar.
and sits down.
That's not funny.
And yet, it still involves a clown.
So here I find myself blogging for the second day in a row after something of a sabbatical. I am feeling much more upbeat today, maybe its the weather, maybe its because I finally didn't spend my day sick in bed. I still have bronchitis but I am healing.
Other:
So I bought a scarf in South Africa. A pashmina, red,gold and orange which I haven't gone a day without wearing since I returned from South Africa. Today I spontaneously swapped scarves with a friend for a week today. I plan to photo-document the adventures of said scarf and report back to you.
A Rant:
So. I was listening to one of my interviews today, the first one I have made an attempt toward transcribing in a while. I thought it was a relatively straight forward interview without an exceptional amount of sorrow. A good way to ease back into things. Unfortunately it was not quite so straightforward. The respondent, a young woman who is now 19 told me about when war reached her city, Kisangani, in 2000. She was 10. When the Rwandans and Ugandans started fighting in her city they cut off the power and water supply to the entire population. They went for an entire week without bathing or clean drinking water and survived off of the food her mother was able to collect at the beginning of the week. A day into the fighting her neighbour's house was struck by a bomb, killing to people. Their bodies lay exposed in the rubble for days until the stench became unbarable and her family had to seek shelter elsewhere. That, she told me, is when they became "displaced". She also told me about how a number of children in her class died when a bomb was dropped on the school and how she was unable to attend classes for 5 months after the week long conflict.She also explained unwaveringly that the exiting armies lay land mines around the border of her city which killed many children who picked them up, thinking they were toys.
For the first time today, I succumbed to tears today after listening to one of my interviews. We almost all know that such things occur but its hard to imagine until someone sits in front of you and tells you about it or worse yet it happens to you.
My distress has now subsided into ambivalence. How do we, as Canadians, as citizens of a peaceful developed countries, as youth, and most of all as people, how do we continue to allow these tragedies to continue to occur? Is it that we have become cynical and believe that in certain countries, in the heart of darkness, there is no hope? Is it because the media only reports on certain conflicts and when they do its largely inaccurate? Is it because its happening too far away and you don't know what you could do anyway?
No child should ever have to smell the rotting corpses of their neighbour.
The reason that we should care, and perhaps must care is that such events are in no one's interest in the long run. They only serve to divide us further, to breed hatred against the people who stood by and did nothing. Even if you are an ardent capitalist, it removes access to markets, reduces the amount of consumers for your capital. It could just as easily be your town or city which is bombed to pieces or left riddled with bullets. How would you feel if the world looked on and did nothing. Sighed when they heard that more than 5 million people have died after a decade long war.
If we are ever interested in seeing long lasting, sustainable peace in the world we have to start acting. We have to abandon the us versus them mentality that sees people living these realities as others, glad we're not them. We have to start looking out for one another. Its not that hard. Get informed. Write a letter. Stop supporting companies which contribute to arms proliferation or the continuation of war. Better yet, demand that our governments also stop. Donate to a charity that is doing something if you must. Spread the word.
I have a friend with whom I debate such matters. Recently we were talking about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He insisted that there were more civilian casualties caused by insurgents and the Taliban than by coalition forces. When he forwarded me a report showing this and asserting that the insurgents and Taliban were intentionally targeting civilians while those who died as a result of coalition activities were unfortunate but unavoidable collateral damage, I asked him whether he really thought it mattered to the family and friends of the people who died whether they were killed intentionally by militants or accidentally by soldiers. It doesn't. Loved ones are still lost. Bodies still rot in the streets.
Stop war.
That's not funny.
And yet, it still involves a clown.
So here I find myself blogging for the second day in a row after something of a sabbatical. I am feeling much more upbeat today, maybe its the weather, maybe its because I finally didn't spend my day sick in bed. I still have bronchitis but I am healing.
Other:
So I bought a scarf in South Africa. A pashmina, red,gold and orange which I haven't gone a day without wearing since I returned from South Africa. Today I spontaneously swapped scarves with a friend for a week today. I plan to photo-document the adventures of said scarf and report back to you.
A Rant:
So. I was listening to one of my interviews today, the first one I have made an attempt toward transcribing in a while. I thought it was a relatively straight forward interview without an exceptional amount of sorrow. A good way to ease back into things. Unfortunately it was not quite so straightforward. The respondent, a young woman who is now 19 told me about when war reached her city, Kisangani, in 2000. She was 10. When the Rwandans and Ugandans started fighting in her city they cut off the power and water supply to the entire population. They went for an entire week without bathing or clean drinking water and survived off of the food her mother was able to collect at the beginning of the week. A day into the fighting her neighbour's house was struck by a bomb, killing to people. Their bodies lay exposed in the rubble for days until the stench became unbarable and her family had to seek shelter elsewhere. That, she told me, is when they became "displaced". She also told me about how a number of children in her class died when a bomb was dropped on the school and how she was unable to attend classes for 5 months after the week long conflict.She also explained unwaveringly that the exiting armies lay land mines around the border of her city which killed many children who picked them up, thinking they were toys.
For the first time today, I succumbed to tears today after listening to one of my interviews. We almost all know that such things occur but its hard to imagine until someone sits in front of you and tells you about it or worse yet it happens to you.
My distress has now subsided into ambivalence. How do we, as Canadians, as citizens of a peaceful developed countries, as youth, and most of all as people, how do we continue to allow these tragedies to continue to occur? Is it that we have become cynical and believe that in certain countries, in the heart of darkness, there is no hope? Is it because the media only reports on certain conflicts and when they do its largely inaccurate? Is it because its happening too far away and you don't know what you could do anyway?
No child should ever have to smell the rotting corpses of their neighbour.
The reason that we should care, and perhaps must care is that such events are in no one's interest in the long run. They only serve to divide us further, to breed hatred against the people who stood by and did nothing. Even if you are an ardent capitalist, it removes access to markets, reduces the amount of consumers for your capital. It could just as easily be your town or city which is bombed to pieces or left riddled with bullets. How would you feel if the world looked on and did nothing. Sighed when they heard that more than 5 million people have died after a decade long war.
If we are ever interested in seeing long lasting, sustainable peace in the world we have to start acting. We have to abandon the us versus them mentality that sees people living these realities as others, glad we're not them. We have to start looking out for one another. Its not that hard. Get informed. Write a letter. Stop supporting companies which contribute to arms proliferation or the continuation of war. Better yet, demand that our governments also stop. Donate to a charity that is doing something if you must. Spread the word.
I have a friend with whom I debate such matters. Recently we were talking about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He insisted that there were more civilian casualties caused by insurgents and the Taliban than by coalition forces. When he forwarded me a report showing this and asserting that the insurgents and Taliban were intentionally targeting civilians while those who died as a result of coalition activities were unfortunate but unavoidable collateral damage, I asked him whether he really thought it mattered to the family and friends of the people who died whether they were killed intentionally by militants or accidentally by soldiers. It doesn't. Loved ones are still lost. Bodies still rot in the streets.
Stop war.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
A Comedy of Errors
For as long as I can remember I have hated making mistakes. The earliest example I can think of this was when I was 8 and was at a Birthday party where I was given pop. Pop was something of a luxury for me and reveled in being able to blow bubbles in it. Unfortunately blowing bubbles in my pop had the foreseeable result of the pop bubbling out of the can and ending up all over my good clothing. I was so upset that I cried for about an hour because I was sure my parents would be disappointed in me. They weren't.
In high school and at the beginning of university I would often hold back from raising my hand to answer questions or if I did raise my hand by the time it was my turn to respond my heart would be raising and my face would be a lovely shade of red as I spat out my response to the question. This fear of making mistakes continues to persist in my life in the strangest of ways. For example I sometimes struggle with speaking french because I am very concerned with making a grammatical error. Francophones for the most part of course don't mind if you make mistakes, they are just glad that someone is trying to speak their languages.
Recently I have been making a ridiculous number of mistakes. It probably started when I returned from South Africa regretting that I had not told a certain individual how I felt about him. I found myself sitting up at night thinking about him and eventually sent him a letter telling him how I felt. This was not a mistake. It didn't change my feelings for the person one bit, but they were out there and known and sharing that load made things just a bit easier.
When I arrived back in Halifax I almost immediately started spending time with a new fellow who I had known before but not very well. I discovered that we shared a number of similar interests and dove head first into having the most ridiculous crush on him than perhaps I have ever experienced.
After about a month of this, I felt uncertain as to where I stood with him so I started to try to find ways to tell, asking friends advice, trying to engage in additional physical contact, but I couldn't tell how he felt, although it had become more clear that I was not the only woman after his affections.
With the added bit of stress I decided to step it up a notch and tried to find ways or opportunities to tell him how I felt. Some of these were missed others never materialized. So in a move of exasperation I prepared a straightforward hand written note which I handed to him last Sunday. The following week unfolded for me and involved a theatrical performance which was attended by said person and additional encounters in group settings. I also mistakenly sent a text message to him which was intended for a friend which read "He came to my performance last night and he was beaming at me the entire time. Still no word on the note" It took me 3 hours to realize this text had not gone to the right person and I was totally mortified.
As the week went on my nerves became more frayed and I began to try to push for an answer. Eventually I asked him over facebook whether he had read the note and he said he had and that we'd talk but all subsequent attempts to make plans have failed. (In fairness to him he has been really busy with school work and I may not be being sensitive enough to this).
So obviously I have made a number of errors throughout this saga, ranging from my almost hilarious text message to the more serious mistake of diving into a new crush to try to forget about something across the ocean.
Of course we all make mistakes. To me this feels like a pretty massive one.
This particular string of mistakes seems to point to the sentiment that if you ever expect to find true love, you have to put up with a lot of heart ache along the way.
More importantly it raises the question: how can one learn if they never make mistakes?
In high school and at the beginning of university I would often hold back from raising my hand to answer questions or if I did raise my hand by the time it was my turn to respond my heart would be raising and my face would be a lovely shade of red as I spat out my response to the question. This fear of making mistakes continues to persist in my life in the strangest of ways. For example I sometimes struggle with speaking french because I am very concerned with making a grammatical error. Francophones for the most part of course don't mind if you make mistakes, they are just glad that someone is trying to speak their languages.
Recently I have been making a ridiculous number of mistakes. It probably started when I returned from South Africa regretting that I had not told a certain individual how I felt about him. I found myself sitting up at night thinking about him and eventually sent him a letter telling him how I felt. This was not a mistake. It didn't change my feelings for the person one bit, but they were out there and known and sharing that load made things just a bit easier.
When I arrived back in Halifax I almost immediately started spending time with a new fellow who I had known before but not very well. I discovered that we shared a number of similar interests and dove head first into having the most ridiculous crush on him than perhaps I have ever experienced.
After about a month of this, I felt uncertain as to where I stood with him so I started to try to find ways to tell, asking friends advice, trying to engage in additional physical contact, but I couldn't tell how he felt, although it had become more clear that I was not the only woman after his affections.
With the added bit of stress I decided to step it up a notch and tried to find ways or opportunities to tell him how I felt. Some of these were missed others never materialized. So in a move of exasperation I prepared a straightforward hand written note which I handed to him last Sunday. The following week unfolded for me and involved a theatrical performance which was attended by said person and additional encounters in group settings. I also mistakenly sent a text message to him which was intended for a friend which read "He came to my performance last night and he was beaming at me the entire time. Still no word on the note" It took me 3 hours to realize this text had not gone to the right person and I was totally mortified.
As the week went on my nerves became more frayed and I began to try to push for an answer. Eventually I asked him over facebook whether he had read the note and he said he had and that we'd talk but all subsequent attempts to make plans have failed. (In fairness to him he has been really busy with school work and I may not be being sensitive enough to this).
So obviously I have made a number of errors throughout this saga, ranging from my almost hilarious text message to the more serious mistake of diving into a new crush to try to forget about something across the ocean.
Of course we all make mistakes. To me this feels like a pretty massive one.
This particular string of mistakes seems to point to the sentiment that if you ever expect to find true love, you have to put up with a lot of heart ache along the way.
More importantly it raises the question: how can one learn if they never make mistakes?
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