Wow.... just wow. I'm watching Little Miss Sunshine for the first time ever as a write this and i have to say that the grandfather is hilarious. And i have to say so far i can see why this movie has gotten loads of great reviews, but then again consider the cast, all wonderful actors, would you expect to see them in anything else?
This however in a round-about way brings me to the point that i want to talk about which is names. Consider Steve Carell and Abigail Breslin, what images come to mind when you think of these people? Steve Carell brings to my mind the thoughts of his comedy and the show The Office. Abigail Breslin on the other hand reminds me of a number of different things but mainly of an interview with Ryan Reynolds (who in turn makes me think of Van Wilder and Blade Trinity).
Each of these people has an instant thing that comes to mind when you hear their name. (btw Abigail makes me want to go awwww and give her a giant bear hug.... how is she so cute?). And i don't doubt that there is something that comes instantly to mind when you think of the names of people you know (what comes to mind when you think of mine?[that is what comments are for]).
Think about what the people in your life bring to your mind when you think of their names. Think long and hard about who you want in it and what is going on with them. And then think about what has happened with that person before and if you are focusing too much on the itty bitty problems and not enough on the great giant happy memories. (and now it is so very very sad... poor people...)
Now to continue this story today i took a trip to Costco for the first time ever with a friend of mine and we went shopping. After spending about an hour in the store we left and on the radio there was a song playing live by some band, i think it was called "if". Anywho it was about imagining yourself as a color. This sparked all of this post in reality.
For the drive back to school i was thinking about what type of color i am, and determined that it is really really hard to figure out. For me i see a combination of blue and yellow so that it has a green tinge but i can't get it quite right. It is like no matter how i think about it there is just something missing, something in myself that i can't quite imagine.
Which brings me to my name. My first name is Wesley but i tend to usually go by Wes. Besides the fact that as with most people who can shorten their names i do, there is also the mentality that goes behind it. See, when i was in grade school i always said that i preferred Wes because Wesley just sounded far to formal. I think it still this mentality.
Lately i have been feeling like i am trapped in between childhood and adulthood and though i am maturing (however slowly) i still am in so many ways very innocent and in others so very very grown up... And in this conflict some people feel more comfortable calling me Wesley while others call me Wes. I guess the end point here is that different names for different situations suit well. Don't get too caught up in one image of yourself, because then you wont be ready for the change when it happens.
28.2.10
25.2.10
New Family
Ok, been a few days, haven't posted, haven't written. Defiantly the start of a slippery slope. This blog post owes its existence to the prof who i work for (thank you prof i work for!). See tonight while i was working i had this idea that had to do with me learning to program using MATLAB and a computer which no one in the lab uses.
Anywho this post doesn't have to do with MATLAB or the computer, or even psych really. Rather it has to do with where i ended up when i went to talk to him about this. He was at an event that decides which book the new students of the university read in the fall. There are four books currently competing for the spot and though i am rooting for Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell one of the themes of the other books caught me.
To be perfectly honest i cannot recall what the other book was titled, so i can't give you a link to order it. But i can summarize the plot in a few quick points!
- Selfish woman gets in car crash
- Destroys car that is home to grandmother and kids who are going to another city to get work
- Mother of kids is in hospital dying of cancer
- Father of kids is MIA
- Selfish woman takes in family from car
- Selfish woman becomes unselfish
Quick and dirty summing up, i can't go into more detail because A) i have never read it and B) this is me recalling the summary i heard a few hours ago and things get fuzzy after a few minutes...
Anywho the reason that this book is bringing up the post you are reading is because the book is about a woman who creates a family out of people she meets (which is the reason that they want university students to read it). Me personally, i have never been one to find family such a brilliant reason for staying in touch with people i have less in common with than the chimpanzees who use tools at the zoo, but i am now starting to get a bit of the building a family out of friends.
The number of people who use the terms "love, family, best friend" over and over with regards to everyone they know horrifies me. I have an undying love for language, it is why i write, it is why i talk the amount i do, it is one of the many reason i am going for a degree in philosophy. Seeing words that have these deep meanings tossed around like leaves on an autumn day truly does upset me. They have been tossed around by people i know at university and yet i also know that myself along with several others have truly meant it when they said it.
And this brings me to my second story. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in January (do you remember January? it is getting to be far away...) there was a meeting in my residence, where most of my friends here happen to live. It was a painfully long and boring meeting filled with ideas like do your work ahead of time so that you don't get all stressed and do your readings after classes so you don't have to do them the night before the mid-term.... Anywho in and amongst the rest of the usual stuff that students ignore and mock the entire time (inbetween the yelling and cheering anyways) was the comment that this is the time of year people become close or fall apart.
The second semester was remarked upon as the time when people begin looking for houses, all the exams and assignments people should have been working all year long on become due, and the drinking goes up as more people turn 19. AKA second semester is stress central. And in this time it becomes so easy for people to develop a conflict and not talk it out.
We all are in university here, we are supposed to have left the high school drama behind. I know that it will never fully leave completely but as the guy who spoke for the book outliers said tonight "This is the time when we are becoming who we are for the rest of our lives" do you guys really want to be the type of "family" who doesn't talk things out and lets pride and lack of communication break us all apart? Or are we all going to take some steps and grow up, prevent that divorce and show just how much our friendships mean to all of us.
I don't really want two birthdays and Christmases, do you? Check this out if you need to think some more.
Anywho this post doesn't have to do with MATLAB or the computer, or even psych really. Rather it has to do with where i ended up when i went to talk to him about this. He was at an event that decides which book the new students of the university read in the fall. There are four books currently competing for the spot and though i am rooting for Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell one of the themes of the other books caught me.
To be perfectly honest i cannot recall what the other book was titled, so i can't give you a link to order it. But i can summarize the plot in a few quick points!
- Selfish woman gets in car crash
- Destroys car that is home to grandmother and kids who are going to another city to get work
- Mother of kids is in hospital dying of cancer
- Father of kids is MIA
- Selfish woman takes in family from car
- Selfish woman becomes unselfish
Quick and dirty summing up, i can't go into more detail because A) i have never read it and B) this is me recalling the summary i heard a few hours ago and things get fuzzy after a few minutes...
Anywho the reason that this book is bringing up the post you are reading is because the book is about a woman who creates a family out of people she meets (which is the reason that they want university students to read it). Me personally, i have never been one to find family such a brilliant reason for staying in touch with people i have less in common with than the chimpanzees who use tools at the zoo, but i am now starting to get a bit of the building a family out of friends.
The number of people who use the terms "love, family, best friend" over and over with regards to everyone they know horrifies me. I have an undying love for language, it is why i write, it is why i talk the amount i do, it is one of the many reason i am going for a degree in philosophy. Seeing words that have these deep meanings tossed around like leaves on an autumn day truly does upset me. They have been tossed around by people i know at university and yet i also know that myself along with several others have truly meant it when they said it.
And this brings me to my second story. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in January (do you remember January? it is getting to be far away...) there was a meeting in my residence, where most of my friends here happen to live. It was a painfully long and boring meeting filled with ideas like do your work ahead of time so that you don't get all stressed and do your readings after classes so you don't have to do them the night before the mid-term.... Anywho in and amongst the rest of the usual stuff that students ignore and mock the entire time (inbetween the yelling and cheering anyways) was the comment that this is the time of year people become close or fall apart.
The second semester was remarked upon as the time when people begin looking for houses, all the exams and assignments people should have been working all year long on become due, and the drinking goes up as more people turn 19. AKA second semester is stress central. And in this time it becomes so easy for people to develop a conflict and not talk it out.
We all are in university here, we are supposed to have left the high school drama behind. I know that it will never fully leave completely but as the guy who spoke for the book outliers said tonight "This is the time when we are becoming who we are for the rest of our lives" do you guys really want to be the type of "family" who doesn't talk things out and lets pride and lack of communication break us all apart? Or are we all going to take some steps and grow up, prevent that divorce and show just how much our friendships mean to all of us.
I don't really want two birthdays and Christmases, do you? Check this out if you need to think some more.
12.2.10
Opening
So tonight I sat down and actually watched a lot of the opening of the Olympic Games in Vancouver. It was... Well awesome. That is just about the only way to really put it, keep in mind that this is also the first time I have ever actually sat down and watched anything at all to do with the Olympics.
Well technically it isn't the first time, I mean back in grade school when the men's hockey team and women's hockey team won the gold on the same year for the first time in a while we all sat in the gym and watched. But that doesn't count. That was to get out of class.
I think I also need to explain my view of sports because it is kinda confusing, even to me. Seen I have an incredibly overly competitive nature, while I am terrible at sports so I tend to not really play or play only for fun, which I somehow manage to do (who knows? *shrug*). However I find watching sports so incredibly dull that I don't ever really sit down and watch.
I can enjoy playing any single sport out there but I tend to be really ridiculously competitive with all of them. As such I don't tend to play them and I don't tend to watch them. Add into this that I am a person who has never been much of a team player and you see that I am more along the lines of someone who wants to gets to do things all by them self.
As such there really isn't much value to me personally in things like the Olympics; rather I tend to find my joys in things like reading and writing or my terrible painting and drawing. I like my arts over sports and tend to favour them. As I said in a conversation tonight about the Olympic funding "personally I say take away the funding and give it to the schools instead." I am far more in favour of individual improvement over teamwork.
But watching the opening of the Olympics I saw the kind of joy and pride that can be taken in working something so wonderful together. I think when it comes to methods of encouraging international change they could become one of the best tools out there.
I probably should wait till tomorrow at least to finish this but I feel like doing it now. I think that the slam poet at the end of the opening ceremonies was the most inspiring part to me personally. And yet it was so sad because listening to him I couldn't help but think about how my opinion about Canadians over the last couple years had changed from one similar to his to one seeing Canadians to the idea of the international US citizen.
So I think that perhaps over the next year we should see if we can become just a little closer to being like the people he described in his poetry.
Well technically it isn't the first time, I mean back in grade school when the men's hockey team and women's hockey team won the gold on the same year for the first time in a while we all sat in the gym and watched. But that doesn't count. That was to get out of class.
I think I also need to explain my view of sports because it is kinda confusing, even to me. Seen I have an incredibly overly competitive nature, while I am terrible at sports so I tend to not really play or play only for fun, which I somehow manage to do (who knows? *shrug*). However I find watching sports so incredibly dull that I don't ever really sit down and watch.
I can enjoy playing any single sport out there but I tend to be really ridiculously competitive with all of them. As such I don't tend to play them and I don't tend to watch them. Add into this that I am a person who has never been much of a team player and you see that I am more along the lines of someone who wants to gets to do things all by them self.
As such there really isn't much value to me personally in things like the Olympics; rather I tend to find my joys in things like reading and writing or my terrible painting and drawing. I like my arts over sports and tend to favour them. As I said in a conversation tonight about the Olympic funding "personally I say take away the funding and give it to the schools instead." I am far more in favour of individual improvement over teamwork.
But watching the opening of the Olympics I saw the kind of joy and pride that can be taken in working something so wonderful together. I think when it comes to methods of encouraging international change they could become one of the best tools out there.
I probably should wait till tomorrow at least to finish this but I feel like doing it now. I think that the slam poet at the end of the opening ceremonies was the most inspiring part to me personally. And yet it was so sad because listening to him I couldn't help but think about how my opinion about Canadians over the last couple years had changed from one similar to his to one seeing Canadians to the idea of the international US citizen.
So I think that perhaps over the next year we should see if we can become just a little closer to being like the people he described in his poetry.
Blogging about Writing
So it is time for another post, and i am just about as shocked as you that i am writing before 3 am. But we all know miraculous things happen so lets just embrace it and move on.
What i want to write about today is an idea that is bouncing around my head and i haven't fully mashed it out so lucky you, you get to be the anvil, i will be the hammer, and the idea is the piece of metal between the two of us. Shockingly complete idea.
First i need to ask if you have ever watched the show Californication then you know of the character Hank Moody. He is a once brilliant writer turned washed up author who sleeps with anything female, stereotypically sexy, and with a pulse. His spiral of pain centers around the woman who got away and the fact that he has sex unknowingly with the 16 year old daughter of her fiance.
Anywho, away from the great show (seriously, watch a few episodes, his daughter will make you cry!) and back to my main point. There is an episode in which he talks to a creative writing class where he concludes his speech with "so at the end of the day if you can do anything else, telemarketing, pharmaceutical sales, ditch digging, or major league umpire do that because being a writer blows, seriously it is like having homework every day for the rest of your life." I have started to come to the same conclusion recently.
It is kind of a sad realization for me because i love writing things so much, like writing this gives me this inner moment of contentment and stillness that i don't often know in other places. And yet i also see that writing is often pointless and without joy unless it is this kind of mindless out-pouring of thought. It becomes a sort of mental masturbation, it is easy to see why Freud called all art misplaced sexual drives.
But then i can't help but be reminded of another quote (isn't this how i work? quote this, quote that). It is that "The truth critics must face is the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."-Ego.
I can't help but feel the truth in this too. Each word written has the potential to inspire someone in some other way. It goes that this can link to the piece of writing i hate most of all, the Twilight series. Like it or not there is some value in them. I may not see it, it may not be there to me but that doesn't mean i get to say there is no meaning in it for anyone (however much i dislike its crappy crappy crappy writing, that's right, three crappys!).
I guess that in the end all i have really to say is that writing is wonderful and joyful but can also be painful and dull. And in the end if you really love it you will stay through all the flaws and hard times and reach those wondrous moments where you write something so wondrous it makes it all worthwhile.
What i want to write about today is an idea that is bouncing around my head and i haven't fully mashed it out so lucky you, you get to be the anvil, i will be the hammer, and the idea is the piece of metal between the two of us. Shockingly complete idea.
First i need to ask if you have ever watched the show Californication then you know of the character Hank Moody. He is a once brilliant writer turned washed up author who sleeps with anything female, stereotypically sexy, and with a pulse. His spiral of pain centers around the woman who got away and the fact that he has sex unknowingly with the 16 year old daughter of her fiance.
Anywho, away from the great show (seriously, watch a few episodes, his daughter will make you cry!) and back to my main point. There is an episode in which he talks to a creative writing class where he concludes his speech with "so at the end of the day if you can do anything else, telemarketing, pharmaceutical sales, ditch digging, or major league umpire do that because being a writer blows, seriously it is like having homework every day for the rest of your life." I have started to come to the same conclusion recently.
It is kind of a sad realization for me because i love writing things so much, like writing this gives me this inner moment of contentment and stillness that i don't often know in other places. And yet i also see that writing is often pointless and without joy unless it is this kind of mindless out-pouring of thought. It becomes a sort of mental masturbation, it is easy to see why Freud called all art misplaced sexual drives.
But then i can't help but be reminded of another quote (isn't this how i work? quote this, quote that). It is that "The truth critics must face is the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."-Ego.
I can't help but feel the truth in this too. Each word written has the potential to inspire someone in some other way. It goes that this can link to the piece of writing i hate most of all, the Twilight series. Like it or not there is some value in them. I may not see it, it may not be there to me but that doesn't mean i get to say there is no meaning in it for anyone (however much i dislike its crappy crappy crappy writing, that's right, three crappys!).
I guess that in the end all i have really to say is that writing is wonderful and joyful but can also be painful and dull. And in the end if you really love it you will stay through all the flaws and hard times and reach those wondrous moments where you write something so wondrous it makes it all worthwhile.
7.2.10
My Uni
So i am back at university after a short trip home and the feeling of releif when i walked through my res room door was amazing. I felt so much more at home, it calmed me down and just felt so much better. As i threw my stuff onto my bed i couldn't help but feel like i was back where i belonged.
Even though i was only gone for a night and it wasn't really even a full day it just feels so much better being here. But back to what i really want to write about, trip home.
See, i went home because i am now picking up 5 hours every two weeks from my old job so that i can afford to do all the wonderful things that we like to do here at uni, like say eat out and enjoy real food. So i went back to my shitey old job at the grocery store and worked away five hours (and by worked i mean thought up the most useful ways to waste time).
While i was there i couldn't help but think about what exactly it is that frustrates me about working there so much. I mean if i actually was to get a job at a bar like i so want would it really be all that different or would i be just going through more of the same?
With working there for as long as i have i seem to either know where everything is or know how to find everything which is actually quite nice. I mean due to my massive amounts of experience i am now competent at my job. So could it be that there is just no more of a challenge there? It certainly does contribute to it, no matter what day it is i know exactly what will be happening each and every second i spend there.
But there is more to it than that. The work is incredibly mindless which doesn't help. I can work and wonder about life, existence, and the meaning of it all over and over again. That is actually kinda nice, to get time to think things through and work on my thoughts is rather nice. I mean it isn't like i really take a lot of time to do that most days, but after 5 hours of it straight my thoughts become kinda repetitive.
But the issue i couldn't help thinking about and realized that it bugged me the most is the last one i come to. I really don't like uniforms.
Ya, that is my major complaint currently. I don't want to wear the uniform and look exactly like everyone else who works there. That is why i glory in every single change to my look i can make. I roll up my sleeve, wear blue pants instead of black, wear different colored undershirts. All in my effort to be me and not this mindless slave that uniforms make me think of.
And that is why i really want to work for a small business where they don't have uniforms or name-tags or time clocks. Rather i want to be able to work in my clothes, don't get me wrong i would still look nice and be sure to be clean. But i would also get to be me. And isn't that supposed to be who they are hiring anyways, me?
Even though i was only gone for a night and it wasn't really even a full day it just feels so much better being here. But back to what i really want to write about, trip home.
See, i went home because i am now picking up 5 hours every two weeks from my old job so that i can afford to do all the wonderful things that we like to do here at uni, like say eat out and enjoy real food. So i went back to my shitey old job at the grocery store and worked away five hours (and by worked i mean thought up the most useful ways to waste time).
While i was there i couldn't help but think about what exactly it is that frustrates me about working there so much. I mean if i actually was to get a job at a bar like i so want would it really be all that different or would i be just going through more of the same?
With working there for as long as i have i seem to either know where everything is or know how to find everything which is actually quite nice. I mean due to my massive amounts of experience i am now competent at my job. So could it be that there is just no more of a challenge there? It certainly does contribute to it, no matter what day it is i know exactly what will be happening each and every second i spend there.
But there is more to it than that. The work is incredibly mindless which doesn't help. I can work and wonder about life, existence, and the meaning of it all over and over again. That is actually kinda nice, to get time to think things through and work on my thoughts is rather nice. I mean it isn't like i really take a lot of time to do that most days, but after 5 hours of it straight my thoughts become kinda repetitive.
But the issue i couldn't help thinking about and realized that it bugged me the most is the last one i come to. I really don't like uniforms.
Ya, that is my major complaint currently. I don't want to wear the uniform and look exactly like everyone else who works there. That is why i glory in every single change to my look i can make. I roll up my sleeve, wear blue pants instead of black, wear different colored undershirts. All in my effort to be me and not this mindless slave that uniforms make me think of.
And that is why i really want to work for a small business where they don't have uniforms or name-tags or time clocks. Rather i want to be able to work in my clothes, don't get me wrong i would still look nice and be sure to be clean. But i would also get to be me. And isn't that supposed to be who they are hiring anyways, me?
4.2.10
VD...
Valentines Day is almost here and this year it comes with a number of other holidays. As a university student i have already noticed a number of different celebrations popping up in and around the holiday and it makes me happy.
I was someone who spent my time in high school playing the cynic and celebrating Anti- V Day which is really easy to do with website like: http://www.meish.org/vd/ . Personally my favorite is the one that simply states "You'll Do".
But now with all these other events coming up I have had a slight awakening to the idea that maybe we all should get into the original spirit of the season instead of the Hallmark Store.
First of the events i have noticed is "Tell her she's beautiful" which is simply inspiring to tell the women of your life that you think they are beautiful just the way they are. It is a wonderful way to tell the people you care about that you do care and more than about looks as well.
Next is the reverse, no not tell her she's ugly but "Tell him he's handsome", a chance to tell the men in her life that you think they look great no matter how old they have gotten or what life has been putting them through. It simply is a great way to show what people mean to you.
But of course no holiday is complete without some time to yourself. That is why there is also self love week, running from February 9th to the 13th. The perfect reminder in the hustle and bustle
world that sometimes you need to kick back, take hold, and enjoy life.
*side note: i have submitted this post to another blog to run, cross your fingers for me!*
2.2.10
Sleep
I don't really know what i want to write about tonight. I guess that is something that will fill in as i go, but i am betting it will have something to do with sleep.
The reason for that is, well, i really should be sleeping right now, but for some unknown reason i am not in the slightest tired and as such have no real urge to sleep other than the fact that i should. It really is frustrating, especially when i have to be up at in the science complex for 8:30 in the morning. As i write this, well sit and type this, my clocks are all rolling over to 3 am from 2:59...
God how i wish i was sleeping... Or that tomorrow simply wasn't Tuesday. If it wasn't Tuesday then it wouldn't be my busy day and i could sleep in, or nap, or relax, or something instead of having to run around like a chicken with its head chopped off.
But tomorrow is Tuesday, today really, and it is 3:01 in the morning. So instead i think i will write some more about what is currently escaping me. Sleep, that lovely time between moments of consciousness.
Sleep can be such a wonderful time or something terrifying depending on the events that you have recently gone through. In my favorite book, The Name of The Wind, there is a line about the 4 doors which the mind passes through to deal with pain. They are forgetting, sleep, insanity, and death. I cannot recall which comes first, forgetting or sleep, but they both are very similar that now i wish to write of them both.
In sleep we forget the world around us, we seem to forget the rules of reality favoring a place which holds nothing back, in which there is nothing we cannot do. Sleep is the place where we get to be the authors of our own stories, where literally anything is possible. It is the place of true limitlessness.
And in the same way it is a fiction. Sleep and dreams create nothing more than a false place, a fake home for when someone wakes up it all vanishes. You can hold something in your sleep but it is less substantial than smoke, at least smoke leaves a smell behind.
And yet even though sleep truly offers us nothing real, it is less than a video game or a movie because those can at least be shared experiences, does it not seem to be something more? Something special?
When we lay down to sleep and close our eyes we become defenseless until we wake up again (or depending on the person until 20 minutes after we have woken up...). We sleep next to people we feel truly comfortable with. Sleep comes after a large meal or a truly tiring discussion or work out.
We lay down, wrapped in hopefully warm blankets, close our eyes, and drift away.
The reason for that is, well, i really should be sleeping right now, but for some unknown reason i am not in the slightest tired and as such have no real urge to sleep other than the fact that i should. It really is frustrating, especially when i have to be up at in the science complex for 8:30 in the morning. As i write this, well sit and type this, my clocks are all rolling over to 3 am from 2:59...
God how i wish i was sleeping... Or that tomorrow simply wasn't Tuesday. If it wasn't Tuesday then it wouldn't be my busy day and i could sleep in, or nap, or relax, or something instead of having to run around like a chicken with its head chopped off.
But tomorrow is Tuesday, today really, and it is 3:01 in the morning. So instead i think i will write some more about what is currently escaping me. Sleep, that lovely time between moments of consciousness.
Sleep can be such a wonderful time or something terrifying depending on the events that you have recently gone through. In my favorite book, The Name of The Wind, there is a line about the 4 doors which the mind passes through to deal with pain. They are forgetting, sleep, insanity, and death. I cannot recall which comes first, forgetting or sleep, but they both are very similar that now i wish to write of them both.
In sleep we forget the world around us, we seem to forget the rules of reality favoring a place which holds nothing back, in which there is nothing we cannot do. Sleep is the place where we get to be the authors of our own stories, where literally anything is possible. It is the place of true limitlessness.
And in the same way it is a fiction. Sleep and dreams create nothing more than a false place, a fake home for when someone wakes up it all vanishes. You can hold something in your sleep but it is less substantial than smoke, at least smoke leaves a smell behind.
And yet even though sleep truly offers us nothing real, it is less than a video game or a movie because those can at least be shared experiences, does it not seem to be something more? Something special?
When we lay down to sleep and close our eyes we become defenseless until we wake up again (or depending on the person until 20 minutes after we have woken up...). We sleep next to people we feel truly comfortable with. Sleep comes after a large meal or a truly tiring discussion or work out.
We lay down, wrapped in hopefully warm blankets, close our eyes, and drift away.
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