On the subject of an Education

Hey so here is one of those random posts i promised to toss out here once every so often. Why am i writing this? Well a blog i follow brought something to my attention which i want to write about. The link to the news article is http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16029/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=pmVmhDzd go check it out for the article that gives the bare bones facts (or at least i thought it did, but i am biased)

The best way to basically sum it up is that this teacher got sick and tired of the way her students behaved and so she wrote rants on her blog online, which she maintained anonymously. Somehow some of her students figured out that she was writing about them and complained to the school (kinda funny considering one of her main problems with them was that they were whiny...)

Anywho, because grade 10-12 students are so fragile and need to be shielded from every single bit of criticism she was suspended from her job without pay and might be fired. She is meanwhile preparing to sue to keep her job because she was exercising her right to free speech (or so her lawyer plans to argue)

Now this becomes an issue for me because i obviously don't really make much of an effort to hide who i am. My profile picture is really me, i like my blog to my twitter which links to my tumblr which links to my facebook. They all are connected, all attempting to promote my viewpoint and more importantly my writing.

That being said my issue with what is occurring to this teacher is that, at least from what i have gathered, she DIDN'T try and get noticed by anyone. She was using blogs for what i still occasionally do, she has been writing an online journal instead of a pen and paper one. Why?

I don't know, and frankly it is none of my business. But for some reason people seem determined to unmask every single anonymous person who writes things online that are controversial. And lets be honest, the best writing is all about controversy.

I know that the blogs Waiter Rant(who apparently is down today meaning i can't link to him), Girl with a one track mind, and Opinionistas were all blogs that i followed, and all wrote about things that might get the fired or shunned. Each and every one of them suffered someone trying to find out who they are (and in at least one case succeeding)

The problem here is that the internet is a place where if you want you are supposed to be able to go out and say whatever you want into it, and if you want you don't need to attach your name. I don't put any names into my posts, be it the name of my school or people i might be happening to write about.

Why? Because they didn't say i could. Why do these kids currently piss me off? Because she didn't list names, she didn't call people out specifically. She just ranted about the way kids act, and all they did was prove her right.

Thanks Roomie

So right now i just need to go ahead and say thank you to one of my roommates. You know who you are, you who lent me the book Eat Pray Love.

I went and saw this movie shortly after it came out with my girlfriend, and it was great, very well done and i highly recommend it. So of course when i saw one of my roomies reading this book i just had to ask her if i could borrow it and read it. So thank you for saying yes.

In case you all forgot i happen to be someone who believe in a lot of Buddhist practices and philosophy. Also, if you have talked to me about Buddhism before you know i do not consider it to be a religion because i don't worship anything in line with it.

Do i believe in the notion that The Buddha attained enlightenment while meditating beneath a tree? Yes. Is that worship? No, that is my form of faith. I believe that a very long time ago a dude sat down and just was with his own mind long enough to realize that all the sacred and wonderful was right there inside of him. I believe he realized that everything that came to exist naturally was equally profane and sacred and that this is all it is, embodying this realization is enlightenment.

That is my faith.

Does it get more complicated, complex and personal? Hells yes. Can i explain it all? Not really, i can try but a lot of it i don't think you can get. Do i think time has anything to do with whether or not you become enlightened? Fuck no.

Enlightenment is not a process that happens faster based on where you are or when you started. I think that if you are going to meditate it is going to become your own practice when you need it to. I think that if you are going to become enlightened it will happen when you are ready. And i think that if you don't keep up that meditation and examining your own mind your enlightenment will go bye bye.

Why am i going on a rant about this right now? Because my roomie lent me that book and i just finished the pray section.

Why else? Because i hadn't been meditating in... well a long ass time. And frankly this book was the kick in said ass i needed.

For me meditating brings a form of awareness and focus. It brings a calm and an energy to me. And it is really freakin easy to not meditate, to let each day slide by without sitting with myself and just letting my mind be.

And so thanks roomie, i owe you one. But that one is not another bottle of Sourpuss.

Lets Play A Sugary Tomato Sauce (Katchup)

Hey there interwebs, how you doin? Good? That's good. More and more people using you every single day? Awesome. And me? Well right now i am doing pretty good. Here comes my new blog post, a coles notes version of my life during my first two months at school:

• Currently dating a wonderfully fantastic girl that i am insanely crazy about

• Figuring out slowly what i want to do with my life and finding out that it doesn't actually matter as long as there is something new for me to do every so often
• My older computer died and i have recently bought a new one that sadly still lacks a name
• Turned 21 and feel as much of a little kid as ever
• Slowly started embracing the notion of minimalism thanks to a blog i started reading here is the link
  
• I have gotten to know my room mates much better than i used to
• One of said roomies started a blog which i think you should all check out and encourage her to write more at http://fooduni.blogspot.com/
• I discovered yet again just how important a prof is to the subject matter they teach thanks to philosophy of art
• I have renewed my love of the two areas of knowledge that will be making up my degrees
• I have become completely and utterly broke meaning a job hunt is fast approaching
  
• Met a bunch of new people as is bound to happen at the start of each school year
• Became even more obsessed with cleaning, though mainly dishes and my room
• Reading a lot, and watching a lot of TV shows as is usual
• Looking for more changes in my life
• Thinking about space clearing in all aspects and wondering where to start

Now it is your turn. If you go to the same school as me it is reading week and you now have some more time than you did before, but even if you don't take a few minutes and run over the big important stuff that happened in the last few months. Look at the good, the bad, and the stuff you want to change. Let go of the fear, the worry, the regret, and the sadness. Let go of the happiness too.

That seems like a silly notion, i know. Think about how much time you hurt yourself with past happiness though, whether it be happiness from a past relationship that is over now or a past mark on an assignment that your current work didn't match.

Let go of the past and make some more room for the future, after all if your in uni like me this year still has 6 months to go! (And if your really like me then this year has 9 more months cause you will also be taking classes during the summer!)

R.I.P. Bob

Hey out there loyal readers, hey also to first timers, and of course hey to those who wish i was actually writing this blog on a semi-regular schedule so that they could use it to eat up time better spent doing homework, or reading, or sleeping...

I know, the sheer volume of posts which i have written after a period of about a week pledging that there would be no gap that large again is probably one full third of this blog. Why do i write about that so often? Because i am simply sick of bloggers that i love to read keeping their stories from me. Of course i don't want to do this to anyone who actually enjoys reading this (all two of you, i would say three but i don't count...)

It is interesting to think back on this summer. I forget when but i had a time when i wanted to engage in a "tech detox" by which i mean that i would stop for a period of at least a week, if not longer, using my TV, cell phone, computer, and the internet anywhere. If you wanted to reach me you would have had three options, call my house, stop by, or write me a letter. As you all can guess that never really happened.

What you probably could have figured out is that i did engage in something quite similar relatively recently. See sadly my old computer Bob died after three loyal years of service and a little bit beyond. Yes Bob did go in for service on a semi-regular basis. Yes Bob had so many replacement parts that i could argue Bob would have been the laptop equivalent of a person who has basically all their organs replaced by machines. That's right, i had a computer cyborg.

But yes, during the time Bob passed i was reduced to using either my girlfriend's computer or the computers on campus that were even older than Bob. As well during this time i was too busy to really spend a lot of time watching TV. True, i did play some G O Dubs, and my cell phone was often in use.

But during this time it was interesting to note how i could so easily get along without these pieces of technology. I survived the time without my computer and frequent access to the internet. I didn't die, my social life remained alive, I was not suddenly shunned by everyone everywhere. My suggestion is that you consider doing this, if only for two or three days. Most people check their email more than once or twice a day, some studies suggest that people actually check their email about once an hour! Believe me, unless you are a prof, a psychologist, or someone involved with some kind of armed conflict (be it the police, the military, or a standoff with your little sibling) you really don't need to be checking that often.

I encourage trying to just check your email when you get up in the morning and before you go to bed at night. Give yourself 20 minutes to an hour to do all the stuff online you need to do (and consider what is a need and what is a want, 50 facebook quizzes are NOT something you NEED to do, and none of your friends really care that much that your wedding dress type is simple, especially if you are a guy). Check your emails, respond to people, maybe pound out a blog post, then shut it off and live in the real world.

Believe me, the internet isn't going anywhere, but if we all keep spending so much time on it then neither will we.

Final note, with Bob dead he will soon be sold for parts but i have also gotten a new laptop and it needs a name, suggestions please!

The Future of Here and Now

Hey Blog-o-sphere how goes it? Happy i was gone? Less headaches? More free time? Well relax, i am not promising to come back with the crazy amount of writing i did during the summer, rather i am just writing because i feel like it.

What am i thinking about now? The past... And the future.

How often do those two come up? The past and the future, the two best distractions from the present. The perfect way to avoid living in the moment is to think about these things. But at the same time how do we avoid it? The past is the best way to learn from mistakes, the future requires some planning because it turns into the present.

With this getting lost into the future and the past i tend to lose track of the present in a way... See getting so involved in my present i tend to disregard other events places and people. It isn't intentional, it isn't something i plan, and because i see it coming when people ask to see me i make my every effort to take the time to see them. When events demand that i see someone, talk to them, i will plan it out soon in the future.

I think this is something i have talked about in the past, the notion of selfishness. The way you need to take care of yourself first, within limits. Self care is needed in order to be able to care for others. To quote one of my favorite shows "You try to fix the world but you're the ones that are broken."

To a degree that is what i am doing now. Normally i try to be the person who is always there for their friends and family. I tend to have an impressive amount of patience but for now i am doing things that make me feel good. I am letting myself be a little more selfish with my time and spend it in the places that really make me happy.

Getting Lost Without Moving

So yes, i know, it has been for freakin ever since i bothered to update this thing and post something new. Why? Because...

Yep, that is my reason behind it, just because, because i couldn't find time, because i couldn't be bothered, because i didn't really have anything to write about, because i have had so much to write about that i didn't know which to choose, because all the stuff i wanted to write about was actually too personal to post out for the entire world to read. You pick your favorite and let me know. I'm sticking with because.

But yes, now i am blogging from the library of my university instead of reading The Republic by Plato, which i need to have finished for class NEXT MONDAY! Its an entire book, in and of itself, and frankly i find it harder to read than Shakespeare (i mean come on, that guy is easy to understand). So why am i blogging now?

Because... Yep, that is my reason for why i am back for at blogging. Because...

But yes, what do i want to write about today? I want to write about how important it is to be comfortable with who you are and where you are in your life. Why am i writing about this?

Well because for the last little while i have been racing around so much that i haven't really had time to sit down and meditate or blog or work out or anything. You know, those calming activities that give me time to think so much that my mind calms itself down and feels comfortable with its insanity for a little while.

Instead i find myself falling prey to what i am going to refer to as "Artist's Mind" because i think it comes from a combination of creativity and an over active mind. Basically my mind hopes from thought to thought every so often so what i am thinking about has nothing to do with where i am and what i am doing, instead it is just the things that i haven't taken the time to think about.

It happens to be a very frustrating feeling because there is simply so much that you want to create and so little time. Think about how people got lost in the movie Inception, or how that guy in the Matrix betrayed everybody in order to get back into the fake reality because it was better than the alternative he was offered.

The thing i have found with letting this kind of creative energy build up is that the world i can create inside my head is completely under my control (which really appeals to a control freak like me) and as such i have a tendency to get lost inside it.

To Tea or not To Tea?

Ok kids, news on MWBN is that i have massively failed in getting chapters one to five written by today, as such i am giving myself 4 weeks to write it. Hopefully this will be enough time but i dunno if it shall.

Anywho this means that i need something to write about on here because that is simply depressing.

So, while i started writing this post several days ago i failed to come up with any sort of topic that i wanted to write about, until now. And what is this brilliant idea which has been on simmer for a couple days until several moments ago finally reached a wonderful boil? Tea.

Yep, i am about to write out a blog post about tea. Why? Well lately i have been feeling continually fried and creatively drained. Why is this? Well at first i blamed it on a lack of time living and more of a time observing but it wasn't until two of my roommates moved in that i realized i also had stopped drinking as much tea as i used to.

This honestly makes me think about a conversation i had with a good friend a long time ago. I had just got interested in Buddhism and the notion of enlightenment. Frankly it seemed like such a cool idea that i announced to the world that enlightenment would be my quest. I would seek it out and distance myself from material possessions and caring of such physical things. Needless to say that failed (though for the most part my clothes remained unchanged except for the free stuff i was given, to those who like the changes now occurring in my wardrobe a thank you is owed to the new girlfriend).

Anywho off the random tangent and back onto the notion about this lovely liquid which is prepared with boiling water. What did my friend respond with? Some wise crack about the possibility of ME being enlightened? Something in support? No. He asked if i would be drinking a lot of tea.

It took till now for me to realize how good an idea that would have been back then. Tea... well let me quote a book by Rob Thurman here... oh fuck i can't, that book is still out on loan, person who has my copy of Nightlife can you please look up the quote Cal says about Niko and tea after he is hypnotized? If you could past it into the comments it would be greatly appreciated.

Anywho tea is a wonderful way to get some caffeine (but not too much!), a few anti-oxidants, and some great flavor. Plus in the case of green tea it slightly raises your body temp which burns some extra calories. If you do some research into types of tea you can in general find something which gives you something missing from your diet and skip out on all the juices instead.

Basically my tip to you is take some time, go to a tea store and smell them all. Maybe not all of them, but if you have a flavor like say lemon that you like you can go and smell the lemon ones. Pick a couple, buy them, and spend some time trying them. Some you will love, some not so much. But in doing so you will bring a little change into your life, and face it, we could all use a little.

A Look at a Dream

Hey kids, how goes it all out there? I am going to write about a movie that for the love of god i hope you all have watched already. If you haven't go see it, NOW! The movie i am talking about is Inception, just in case you hadn't guessed.

Now if you happen to be one of the six people in this country who hasn't seen Inception yet then stop reading right now and go see it. By doing this you make life easier on me and harder on yourself.

Yes you will, why? Cause this movie is gonna fuck with your head. Why? I honestly have no clue, did it fuck with mine the first and only time i saw it? No. I found the movie uncomplicated and kinda simple. I know. Inception. Uncomplicated. WTF right?

It was the first movie i have seen in a long time where i called damn near everything. To be fair that's because normally i expect these movies to be a little more complicated than they actually are so Inception being predicted by me just means that it is more complex than the average movie.

Now why do i think Inception fucks with people's heads more than the average movie? Mainly because of the subject matter. See like the awesome movies of the past it deals with what is real and what is fiction? It begs the question that started oh so long ago with one of my least favorite philosophers Descartes which is how do we know it all isn't a dream?

When it comes down to it there have been many movies that express this idea, one of the first ones i heard of was The Matrix. Another one would be the lesser known but equally awesome movie Waking Life. A truly great example that in a way quite nicely paralleled Inception would be The Nines which stars Ryan Reynolds.

What makes Inception such a great example of this type of movie is that while the overall plot of the movie is great there is no giant jumps in the plot that completely shake things up. Instead each step is logically spelled out while the movie follows the same sort of settings as Jason Bourne movies or the number of different movies which have followed in its "globe trotting, exploding action fest" of different locations.

Inception takes this way of jumping from location to location and gives it a somewhat quasi logic to why it goes from place to place, and presents reasons for why things happen the way they do. At the same time Inception offers complete and total control of an area (the dream) where whatever idea you want to implement is possible. It also opens up the notion of becoming addicted to it (note the people who couldn't dream anymore). Now there are probably more things that it links into, common themes that most people can relate to which is why the movie draws people in so well. The final one of these that comes to my mind is the cliche of the distant father figure and the hope to be reunited.

As well look into where the entire fracking movie takes place. In a dream. Dreams continue to be one of the many mysteries which modern psychology cannot explain in a reasonable enough fashion and so it is like sailing into the Bermuda triangle or traveling to another planet. Anything becomes possible there.

Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing against the rules with using a number of different tools to manipulate the way that people act and think. There is nothing wrong with a movie manipulating your emotions. That's what they are there to do. But at the same time when you sit down and think about Inception, maybe read a little basic psych, you should be able to see most if not all of the twists and turns coming.

Back Yet Again

Hey y'all, long time to blog eh? The last one was published on the 7th of August and here i am starting the next one on the 21st, time flies eh?

But how to get back on the proverbial blogging horse... Well how about i talk about the time i took off from writing in every way shape and form and see where that takes me? Yes you whiners, another post about writing, deal with it!

See i was writing quite a large amount, well a large amount to go from zero to whatever it was. Because of this i was feel a bit of burn out and needed a break. I tried to force myself to keep writing but it wouldn't work and then i had a guest for a week and i didn't have time to write anything so instead i was a person who was living there life.

I get the feeling that most people wont understand what i mean by that so let me explain. I have a friend who is also a writer and a Christan told me an idea she had, an image of me she saw in a dream. What she saw was me suffering intensely from a form of writer's block because i had placed myself in the moment, i had lived my life to experience each moment rather than for God and because of this i didn't have enough of myself inside myself to keep writing.

Was this why i couldn't write for a while? Why i need a break of several weeks where i quit blogging and quit writing in my journal?

No, rather i quit doing these things because i hadn't experienced enough life, i had lacked things which stirred my passions and made me feel the urge to write things down. The notion that in order to write people need to shut themselves away, that they need to control their passions and focus themselves.

It reminds me of a book about authors that i read recently which talked about one writer who started drinking because he thought that writers drank to aid the creative process. The creator of the book said instead writers drink to deal with the loneliness of their work.

That i think was the problem, i was focusing too much on the work and the process and not enough on the life that creates the passion for the work. That's what i needed and that is why i didn't write anything for a while.

So that is my message for now, don't think that being creative comes without going and living in the world. Creativity isn't something that comes in an ivory tower surrounded by beauty, rather it is from those moments when the beauty and profanity of the world are side by side and you can see something to truly needed to be written about.

Writing

So i am going to write out this post tonight listening to the Barenaked Ladies on my ipod, if it makes no sense i blame them.

What am i going to rant about tonight? What topic shall i use my self-righteousness on? Well considering my ongoing dream to actually be a writer, i think i will write about what writing means to me. Writing about writing, i know, like masturbating to masturbation but oh well, my blog my rules!

See for me writing is nothing grand or divine, nothing spiritual, nothing special, it is nothing more than the person who wrote it. This of course means that to me writing is nothing but divine, spiritual, and special. Confused? Probably not, more just irritated at me for writing that, well no worries i am too.

Why would i write it then? Because it is true. Writing is in and of itself no more important or special than white paint thrown on a white canvas and called art. Well... ok, maybe it is more. After all, most people write in black ink on white paper. But woot woot, we use one more shade! That doesn't make writing special, and that's why it isn't, just like art for art's sake is utter bull.

But if that art is for your sake, for something inside you that demands to be expressed then it really doesn't matter what anyone other than you thinks of it. That right there is half of the challenge, that art that exists only for its own sake doesn't often go out into the world and seek to be recognized.

I know, that in and of itself makes all of my writing here pointless and worthless. Yes, i send it out into the world, but i also don't censor it, i don't edit again and again. Each of these posts is a free fall writing exercise. I don't plan it, and other than using Firefox's spell-check i don't edit.

To me writing can be one of two things, it can exist to simply be a creation for its own sake, which is what i do in two books i bought at Chapters that i write in, and in them i write my own far more personal thoughts and ideas. The things i write there i let no one else read. That is my art for art's sake.

Sadly that doesn't pay the bills (though neither does this blog), so i write other things in the hopes of one day becoming someone published who can be lucky enough to support themselves and perhaps even a family from simply writing books.

I think writing is something very personal, something which each person decides to do or to not do for their own reasons. I think it is something where no matter how many different people look at it, the only one who can really see all the depths is the original writer. And i think those who actually got enough balls to put something out there can most likely take the criticism we throw at them, but like the quotes say we also need to recognize that their work is worth more than all of the criticism in the world put together.

People and Booze

So i was having a conversation with a girl i have gotten to know quite well recently and she said something, of which now escapes me, but the substance of it has been beating around the inside of my head kinda demanding for me to write it into a blog post, so for those of you who have missed these rants, enjoy!

See what she said was something about knowing people. Or it was about how people have layers. Or it was about how people are always changing. No! It was about how you can never truly know someone.

Don't you dare start protesting what i am saying! You need to let me finish first then you can comment if your little heart so desires.

Anywho now for me to get all into bartender mode (that's right, i have a bartender mode, its where i become all snobby about drinks).

The only thing that really has held my interest consistently other than writing would be the notion of myself as a bartender. Why? I don't know but i know that at least part of it goes to my conservative side (yes i have one of those two) which loves the putting things in order and each piece belonging to a greater whole. It also appeals to my creative side (yes i know you all know i have one of those) in that i get to mix whatever i have at my disposal and create something new and (hopefully) wonderful. A game i like to play with myself is to sit at a bar with a beer or something equally simple and toy around with what i think would mix well with what other things the bartender has at their disposal. Yes, i am a booze nerd.

But back to writing about Bartender Mode! See one thing that bugs me is mixing a drink with the intention of creating a combination similar to something that you want to have, but then calling it by the same name. Like for example, if it is a layered shot and you mix it all together because that is easier, it doesn't get the same name. If you have to mix two things together to get the same flavor fine, but if it is only close to the same flavor and one of 5 different ingredients you have to do that with it doesn't get the same name. See the snob?

Anywho, despite this i am not a snob when it comes to classic drinks like whiskey (also known as whisky, or Scotch depending where it is made) or wine (i like the cheap stuff!). This is a total lack of appreciation to what most... well i want to say connoisseurs or good drinkers or good bartenders tend to enjoy.

Does that mean i am a bad bartender? Fuck no. It means i lack experience and my liver is still in relatively good shape. Am i on my way to getting there? Well i like beer, and before this summer that was a lie.

Anywho when it comes to all those fancy drinks you think about the interplay of flavors and the complexity of it. To me it just burns, but to me beer was just bland before this summer so who knows what is to come?

I know, i know, you all are sitting there going "but what does this have to do with the beginning?"

Simple, just like i didn't like beer because i hadn't drank enough also reflects the way people treat each other. Often we don't have the tolerance for others that we need to, simply because we haven't spent enough time around them. Or by focusing on one type and getting to know its complexities and no others you might miss out on the subtle differences that you only see by comparing.

In movies and TV shows there is often the bottle of some kind of booze which is saved for a special occasion. How often do we treat our friends like that? Cherishing them and sharing them?

Read em Once

Alright here it is, my second post today, all about the books which you love but only ever really read once instead of reading over and over and over until you can recite them word for word.

Something tells me this may be a painful post to write, i dunno why but it is simply a gut feeling so be warned, there may be real emotion in this thing somewhere.

Have you ever heard a song, looked at a painting, seen a movie, or read a book and it changed your life? Have you ever had one of those lovely moments where the entire universe in all its glory is explained to you? Or perhaps you have experienced the smaller version, where something in one of these pieces of art that offers a view of the world resonates within you and you find yourself suddenly understand yourself a little better.

An example of this i can offer is something that comes up often in the series entitled The Dresden Files which is authored by Jim Butcher. It follows a wizard named Harry Dresden (note the name!) as he has adventures in modern day society and, to quote the book, "Does what he can to hold a torch up to the darkness".

Interesting quote isn't it? This is the point where my ego screams that in a way this is what i am trying to do with this blog. Offer up my little nuggets of whatever wisdom i have had the chance to piece together in my relatively short life. It isn't anywhere near the most i could do, but it is what i am prepared to do now as i work towards being a better person.

Anywho away from that tangent. The thing with the Dresden Files is the one thing which gets pounded into the reader over and over is essentially that the choices you make shape the person you are. That is the main idea which spoke to me. So i read those books over and over, i tend to go through at least the first 3 books at some point during a year and remind myself of that.

But there are other books i have read, after all i always need to be reading something or i feel incomplete. I have read books from the library, read books from stores, borrowed books from friends. I have devoured them ever single chance i get. And in doing so i have learned from them.

But something else happens when i read (and i know it happens to at least most if not all of you too but this space is, as i said before, about me!), i get emotionally involved with what happens. I worry about the characters the same way i worry about people in my real life. I care about them the same way i do in real life.

Hell one of the things that bugged me the most about the Harry Potter books was that if Harry had been a real person after the 5th book i wouldn't have talked to him. Not cause of the stupid slander that rained down on his head but rather because of the fact that he was such a prick to the people who actually cared. It was the sudden shift that was the first thing that started fucking with my love of those books.

And yet again i find myself on a tangent! Back to the point dude! To use a better example just this past week i finished reading the book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, and i gotta say it was brilliant. It works to display the way that freedoms can be removed in modern society because of the fear of terrorists, and shows of way to resit. It most importantly though showed that there really was no point in the defenses that were offered, instead there would need to be better thought out plans which were not being adopted.

Yes, i recommend this book to all of you to read, though there are a few people i know that i specifically have told that they should read it because i think it will appeal to them more than most others.

Despite how much i loved this book i will never buy it. Why? Because i buy books i will read again and again. This one i don't know if i will. It was brilliant and moving and appealed to so much of who i am. The problem was it also made me feel a kind of rage throughout most of it. An anger directed towards ignorance.

A different book which i also loved and bought is called Sacrament and was written by Clive Barker. A truly well written book that offers up a notion of a world that we think we understand but then realize all we currently see is the surface. It really was a wonderfully moving book that i own and maintains an important place on my bookshelf but i doubt i will ever read it more than perhaps 3 times in my lifetime.

Why? Simply that it was too moving, and though it taught me about myself it taught lessons that were painful enough i don't really want to relive them. It captured me the first time, i don't know if it could manage it the second time through and i don't want to try. I still recommend it to people but i find that i can't read it myself again.

This brings me to the point of this post. If you have ever talked to me or read anything that i have posted here before you know i hold both Harry Potter and Twilight in disdain because of the quaility of their writing, well this is me saying that i am going to try and maintain the "if you have nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all."

That is correct, i am going to try and stop insulting those books. You all have no idea how painful this will be for me. Still, they have become a source of negativity for me and so it is time to remove them and move on.

Besides, maybe someone else will read them and learn something that otherwise they wouldn't have, and who am i to stop that? I can't even drink in Vegas yet...

What are books that you have read and never will again? What lessons did they teach you?

Product Placement, Calling All Wannabe Authors!

Time for a new blog post, after all it is August, and not only that but i have gone home for a couple days which naturally means that the urge to write is something that is nearly devouring my mind. Well the urge to write and a couple other urges... including the urge to bloody well finish a series of books that i started recently when i was killing time in a Chapters in Toronto.

The series of books is called the Night Angel Trilogy (and unlike the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there are only 3 books). Now i know that sounds like some kind of incredibly cheesy product placement, well that's because it is.

Time for some honesty here without the sarcastic quips. I read quite a lot, but i used to read more. I used to read 2 or 3 books a week, just devour them. The problem being that in reading so many books i developed a taste for them. I decided which ones i would like to read and which i would not. Hardly sounds like a problem, everyone has what they like to read and what they don't, just like they have what they like to eat and they don't.

The problem with gaining such a clear choice on what i liked and what i disliked is that i figured out why i dislike certain things. Due to that dislike i don't read as many books now because i tend to want to savor them and enjoy reading them. I tend to judge other books harsher, and i find less books that i want to read.

This leads to my product placement. Remember how i said i try to savor books? Recently i have been taking weeks to read 300 page books so that i can enjoy every second, and figure out every nuance in the plot. With the Night Angel Trilogy? I am on the third book and it takes me a maximum of three days to finish one of them. Oh, and they are above 700 pages each.

So yes, i am devouring these books at a pace that makes me kind of sad, because they are complex, they are (in my experience so far) unique. And i have never even heard of the author Brent Weeks before. So yes, i am sticking some product placement in here for an author of books that i think are brilliant but i have never heard of before.

And this is my challenge to however many people actually read this blog, tell people you know about books you like, not just the ones like Harry Potter that everyone reads, or War and Peace that scares everyone away and gives you bragging rights. Share the names of authors and books that aren't known that well, and help those writers find their way into the light.

For the comments of this post i would like you all to leaves some names of books that you truly love, books that you can go back and read over and over.

For me those books are:
-The Name of The Wind
-Anything by Mike Gayle
-The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher
-Anything by Rob Thurman
-The Night Angel Trilogy

Give some of them a try. Next Post? Books that you love but only read once.

Happy One Hundred!

Happy One Hundred Everybody!!! Yes, that's right, at long last i have made it to 100 posts and here it is. Wow... Can't believe i made it this far. For those of you who have read this since i started thanks for sticking around. For those of you just starting i hope you find something you like.

To be honest i wasn't really thinking about the fact that i had finally reached this number, i had planned an idea for this post to be about which actually linked to what started me originally writing a blog. See what really started me writing a long time ago was a hunt for quotes... Well that's the best way i can think of to start it.

See what got me writing was the urge to be a writer and write a book. Two blogs i have read have become books as well, and this is what urged me to start my own. But really i can backtrack from that. I was sitting in the library googleing for quotes and i came across some really cool ones that were said by "The Waiter" and i had no clue who this guy was so i googled him.

That brought me to a blog that i continue to read this day, that is one of my favorite authors of all time, Steve Dublanica, who writes the blog Waiter Rant. This is one of the few blogs where i have backtracked to the beginning and read it from the first to the last.

And that blog links into what i wanted to write about here, which is all about the people who were giving off the bad vibes when i went to that fancy restaurant recently. See the main thing that really struck me was well, i could see the two women who were there with two men. The view i had of them was i could see the one who spoke loud enough for me to hear and i couldn't believe what i could hear her say.

See let me explain why it is, the restaurant is an expensive place meaning that it isn't really the place anyone who doesn't have money to spare goes to (that's one of the reasons i wont be back). Meanwhile this woman was also wearing nice clothes unlike me (cheap t-shirt and shorts, woot for warm weather). In additon to this she was VERY tanned and had quite a few tatoos that i think have been there for QUITE a while.

Anywho, the what was it that she said was that she was talking about the negativity of people using computers or TVs because of the fact that the screens messed with them meanwhile they were doing yoga to ground themselves.

Now let me explain my problem with this, why this bugged me enough to convince me to never go back to the restaurant there, or at least never in a small group (i wouldn't mind being the group which got overheard).

See i support the notions that yoga and meditation and prayer and all the different ways that people seek their spirituality can help to ground themselves. I get that there are different things that work for different people. Meditation is what works for me, prayer and confession don't really work for me. Yoga gets me in touch with with myself and makes me more aware of my body, of my physical self. It is something that i forget about from time to time so it is nice to have a way to reconnect.

Meanwhile i also use my computer to connect to myself by writing out blog posts like this one, i use it to write things like MWBN and other stories. I am going to use it to write an autobiography for one of my classes. It is just a secondary way for me to connect to myself, a way to connect to my mind similar to yoga or running or swimming or jumping rope connects me to my body.

What bugged me was hearing this woman complain about the way that people use computers, being so one sided on the issue. She was so focused on the negative, so completely on one side that she didn't seem open to the ways that computers can really be a wonderful thing. Meanwhile she is someone who has gone through so many different things that could have affected her negatively, she is so tanned that clearly she isn't quite focused on what is good for her body.

Its that one sidedness that i dislike. Its that closed off to the possible good that can occur. That and the hypercritical personality of the woman. There isn't anything wrong with her choice to tan as much as she wants until cancer grows all over her, but she shouldn't criticize someone else for using a computer and that being a part of their life.

Why I Don't Eat Fancy Food

Hi out there, it seems to be a new day that nothing really is going to get done, so while that is happening i figured i would send out a new blog post for y'all.

So one of the things i decided to do for the course of this summer was to try most, if not all, of the restaurants in the downtown of this city. Why would i want to do something like that? Especially considering that i am a cheap student who works only every couple weekends?

Well because over the last year there were a few recommendations of where to eat and those places were the main areas that we all ate at. And the food was good there, really good. But when you decide to take a break from cafeteria food and actually eat something which wasn't as mass produced... well it is nice to get a change, but a change should really be something new.

And that would be why i decided to try all these different places and different foods. I decided to try and find the places that i like going to, the food i like to eat, the restaurants that are good to just sit and relax in.

And so i have been eating at various new places throughout the town, and i have found that for the most part they are great, that their food is in general well made, and that for the most part the recipes exist for a reason. The last place that i tried was a very fancy restaurant. To be honest i am not used to eating at places like it.

I am used to eating at places which are relatively nice, but not places where the cheapest meal is around 16$. The food was great, it was filling. The enviorment was relaxing and comfortable. But i don't think i will be going back, at least not often.

Why? Well other than the fact that the food was too expensive for my taste was that the fact that the place just carried with it a feeling that i didn't belong. Did i feel uncomfortable there? Not really but yes. I know that doesn't make sense, but to me it does.

Could i sit in such a place, eating such fancy food and sipping water (cause everything else was too expensive) from my crystal glass? Sure i could, and i did. Did i feel uncomfortable sitting in a place where there was a blatant negativity following from the only other occupied table there? Yes, i did.

Now what do i mean by that? Well it goes along with something i read recently in another blog post by someone else. The notion that money makes people unhappy is something that frankly i don't find it too surprising.

The people at the other table there were so very... upsetting, they just complained and complained (and yes i realize that is what i am doing now) and i would rather eat in less fancy places with simpler food and be around groups of people who sit there and tell stories to make each other's experience more comfortable.

That is why i don't fit in when i go to fancy places. Because i don't like what they seem to stand for and support. After all, life is too complicated to eat complicated food.

Hidden Happy Feet Message

So its late, and now i am going to write a blog post. Why? Because i feel like it, and i have an idea to write about. The idea i want to talk about comes from the movie Happy Feet, which i saw for the first time recently (and i recommend it btw, i mean dancing penguins? AWESOME!).

The idea that Happy Feet inspired in me to write about something which i read about back in high school. I cannot for the life of me remember what this book was called, all i know is that while it was written in a very very frighteningly popular style which is so incredibly common with modern thrillers, the plot was so unique that 5 years later it still stands out in my mind. Admittedly if you remind me of the basis of nearly any book i have read i can give you a somewhat accurate synopsis but this one i legitimately remember.

(BTW: it is no longer late, it is in fact several days later, in the next week, and i am going to hopefully finish this post tonight...)

The main point of this book was one of a fault in being someone who believes in something fanatically to the point where they then disregard new information in the face of the past belief. Its something i feel passionately about (in case you didn't get that when i said that i started this post several days ago and didn't toss in the 20 or so minutes to quickly type it out, which is probably how long this will take... but now i am giving it my attention!).

Anywho, being so fixated on past knowledge that you refuse to accept new information. Bad thing, very very bad thing. Is it something i can say that i don't do? Something i manage to avoid each and every single time it comes up? No, i can't say that. I can't say that i don't have beliefs that would defy new discoveries. My belief that love exists? That there are things we can't describe. That the entire universe is not quantifiable. These beliefs are the ones i don't think can be shaken, by anyone.

Then there come the beliefs that form up what i guess would be called "my religion", the belief that everything is one, that life has no grand larger meaning, that if there is a "God" it doesn't give a damn if you do or don't have sex. Things like that form up beliefs that i doubt would be changed by anyone saying something to me.

So what was this book about? This book that deals with people not accepting new knowledge? To say i can remember the entire plot in enough detail to explain it would be a lie. But the bare bones? Those i can give you.

The storyline follows a man and a woman (to provide them with romance of course) as they start investigating a... well the terms that come to mind are prophet or cult. This cult surrounded a young woman in Europe during the middle ages. The evidence comes out over and over again that this young woman was born to a virgin, preformed miracles, and there was evidence that she preformed many of the same miracles that Jesus was thought to preform.

Basically what it comes down to is that she was the second coming of God, first as a man in Jesus, then as a woman, showing that they are two parts of the same thing. The symmetry with the author's writing was so cool. But what happened? Due to the time when this woman who was the second coming was alive she was persecuted and killed on a cross.

Because of the actions of the past the church also refused to admit its mistake in the modern times which lead to the conflict in the book. It is the similar idea which i then saw expressed in Happy Feet.

The man character is so different from the past, different from the "religion" of the penguins which is a song. He begins dancing, expressing himself in a new way which is suddenly so unacceptable to the older penguins. In their refusal to accept him, accept the knowledge that he brings they shut themselves off to it and to possible solutions to the problems filling their world.

So i guess that is kinda my problems with big giant organizations, the reason i like to stick with the smaller places. There is the same information, but there you lack the clout to get away with ignoring it. Keep your eyes open, see what is actually there, and go watch Happy Feet.

Rule 4: Talk to Those who Matter About What Matters

So in case you can't tell i am still trying to work through the massive list of ideas that i sent myself, and keep sending myself. I have to admit i love always having an idea to work with but i kinda miss the whole complete free fall blog. But oh well, i guess i will have to find a way to work around that. I mean i don't really want to write about a pre-picked topic but i also kind of really want to.

But anywho, onto today's topic to write about, relationships and "the talk". Why did this occur to me to think about? Could be that i have strong opinions on it? Could it be that a bunch of thoughts were bouncing around in my head about it a while ago and it made me want to write about it?

Well i have to say that while those things seem to be true, the most likely reason that i had the thought to write about relationships and "the talk" is because of the fact that i have been watching the show Scrubs like the crazy addict i am.

Yes, i know, it sometimes makes it seem like a soap opera and sometimes seems like a comedy but for me it reflects a lot more of what life is really like. Well perhaps not life... but it goes along with a lot of my views.

Anywho the main idea here is about relationships. Something i have been thinking about is relationships. I have been a person that people talk to about their relationships for a long time and want to know the dirty little secret i have been taught from all of them? That the more people tend to worry about how their relationships are going to work or not the more that they tend to lie or hide who they are.

See that is a massive problem, i mean if you truly want to be with a person, truly have a lasting relationship with them then you need to be honest with yourself and with them.

The other part i know is going to sound odd for me advocating but oh well, what i am talking about here is selfishness & compromise. Namely you need to be selfish a bit in your relationship, you need to realize the things that you can't change, the things you need, and what it is that is too much for you. You need to decide what it is that you wont give up about yourself for someone else.

The compromise comes in from the same thought process, you need to realize what things are not more important to you than your relationship. These are the parts of yourself that you don't consider more important than getting it to work. Its these things that when it comes down to it you need to be willing to let go rather than continue to fight over.

When it comes down to it, these things are what "the talk" is all about. They are about you talking (shocker, i know) to the other person about what you mean to them, about being honest about what they mean to you, and about your life in general. It pisses me off that there is this whole image of an honest relationship being something so scary.

There is a line in season 4 of Scrubs (yes, i know, you want the connection to Scrubs to be over with already!) in which one of the older characters says to two of the younger characters "Anything in life worth having doesn't come easy, you have to work for it" or something to that affect. The right relationship with the right person, does that sound like something worth having?

And if telling the truth, learning about what really matters, and letting a few fights go is the hardest work you have to do, is it really that bad? Speaking as a writer, and as someone who tries to be honest all the time, let me tell you, lies are more work than the truth.

When I Wont Write MWBN

OK dude, readers, people who surf the interwebs. I am gonna write you another blog post right now. Why? Why am i writing another one today? Why am i not working on MWBN or reading the bible or some other such activity which fills so much of my time?

Well mainly it is actually this kind of exhaustion flowing through me cause i have only eaten really crappy food lately. No, sorry, that's a lie. I have been eating whole wheat bread and cold meats, but i haven't been eating enough fruits or veggies, i have been missing out on eating garlic and ginger, and i stopped consuming tea ever since the stupid heat wave hit.

So as such a lot of the stuff i have been eating which made me feel full of energy and vitality. Instead now i have been falling prey to the westernized diet and it took till today for me to feel the full effects. Basically i need to go shopping for lots of fruits and veggies and try to be an almost vegetarian for a while.

So instead of doing these things which i need to be doing in order simply to reach the end, (and i know, i have been saying it is all about the journey) but if you never reach the end it is just as bad and focusing on reaching the end too soon.

So yes, i write another blog post because it quite simply is easier to do than to try to learn a new skill, to write a truly well written story. That is part of the problem, i don't just want to write out the story, create the path, and then leave it. It has to be the right path, it has to be one in which the full potential of the characters and their story comes out.

Yes, this story is also mine. It is mine in that i am the one who writes it, the one who is there when the first pain, the first joy, the first fall and the first triumph is experienced by each character. But... i guess a part of me feels some kind of relation to Chuck in Supernatural, to the movie Stranger Than Fiction, and to the movie Inkheart.

In each of these works there is an author who writes out a work, for the sake of art, or for the fact that this story comes into their mind, and they feel that they have no choice but to write it down. This is the feeling i have when i think about this story. I know the plot-line, i know what needs to be said. The problem is that it isn't just my story, it is about those who are the characters in it as well.

And to them i feel a responsibility. Its probably part of my insanity but it has to do with the way i write, with what i demand of myself. And that is why, when i feel tired and my head aches and i can't really focus i blog, but i don't write MWBN, because to write in that state is to fail. To knowingly fail, and that i wont allow.

Going Barefoot From the Neck Down

So what am i going to blog about today? Well there is an idea that occurred to me a few weeks ago. It is something that seems simple on the surface so i don't know how well it will translate into this blog here where i try to burrow in beneath the surface and look at why.

But anywho, this idea occurred to me after playing beach volleyball before my statistics class and then it started to rain. See i got sand stuck all over my feet, and sand in between your feet and your sandals... lets just say it isn't the most pleasant situation. When the rain interrupted the game i went into the library to just sit and read for a while, i figured, ah what the hell, get something useful done.

Then, about ten minutes before my class was about to start i decided to walk over. The downpour of course had stopped, but i noticed the puddles on the ground and decided to wander through them barefoot. Yes, i know, i am an adult, i am in university, i am trying to be a writer. The image of me skipping through puddles doesn't seem to fit with all of that.

Thats the point i am driving at here in this post. What is wrong with skipping around barefoot enjoying the feeling of the warm puddles and the cool pavement? Yes, i have been seen several times by completely random strangers skipping through the city this summer.

What can i say? When something gets me into a good mood i like to express it and share it with those around me.

Now for my second point. Who has seen the movie Fern Gully? Brilliant movie, if you haven't seen it good luck finding it to watch anywhere other than YouTube. I know that i had to search for it for a while before getting a copy on DVD.

Anywho, basic plot of the movie is avatar minus the explosions... oh and it came first. So we have humans destroying an environment except that the fairies, yes the movie is about faeries, don't realize this is what people are doing until quite close to the end. After the main character becomes friends with a human. What does this have to do with me skipping when i am happy and walking barefoot through puddles you may ask?

Well the point is that at a point in the story the human carves a name into a tree, and the fair asks him if he can feel the tree's pain. At this point another main character (who is voiced by Robbin Williams, if my endorsement of this movie wasn't enough for you) says this line "humans can't feel pain, they're numb from the neck down".

That is my point, we live in a society which tends to focus in two ways. That your head, your rational logical mind, is the most important part, except in a couple places, in the bedroom and during some kind of sporting event your body becomes important. Outside of those two areas it doesn't really matter what you feel, it only matters what you think. It doesn't matter how in touch with your body you are.

That is wrong. There is no shade of gray here, not really. That is simply wrong, to ignore a portion of yourself because you are told to. To block out important information because it is convention to do so? Wrong.

Here is my challenge for you over the next week. Walk barefoot a bit, see how things feel beneath your feet. And notice where you would spend all your time if you didn't have shoes and socks (or sandals).

Rule 3: Remeber to Work at Being Friends

Its late at night, so late that it is early. True i have been going to bed around 4 am lately, but 1:41 still counts as so late that it is early right? Ah well, even if it doesn't you can't object till i publish this post, so for now it counts, AHAHAHAHAHA! Ahem, now that the evil laughter is out of the way i can continue with the writing.

So i decided tonight on my drive home (home from where you may ask, though my response will be for the story here it doesn't matter so quit reading the writing inside the brackets and just listen) i decided that there is a post i kinda need to write and, shockingly, post.

See there is this idea that has been kicking around my head for a few months now. Have you ever watched the TV show Supernatural? (i promise there is a point, i am not just trying to get all the fan-girls excited) Well if you have watched it enough to be able to remember the evil creature which eats your soul after mimicking the voice of your loved one who died recently over the phone (yes that all needs to be included together, sorry for the spoiler) then you remember that it talks about how it used to go hungry for so long because it couldn't draw people away from their communities.

Its point was that back in those unenlightened times when people lived in straw huts without central air and bananas flow in, before they got to enjoy Twinkies and Oreos, before ipods and other such things. Back when farming was the norm (yes i enjoy pointing out new things a little too much, but oh well). Way back then, people were closer than we are now. And because of this, because of this sense of community people didn't tend to fall prey to this creature as often as he would have liked.

I know, i know, this doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, i mean is it a cynic like me who blogs on a somewhat out of date computer calling for us all to forsake technology and return to living in the un-air-conditioned huts? Hell to the no!

If i could get air-conditioning for my house right now i would. I love my tech.

Rather, my point comes after spending 8 months living in a one room place in a building with i don't know how many other people. It comes after becoming really close with one group of people, and kinda close with a lot of others (and for some reason my f button isn't working well, so if it is missing from a word, that is why and don't mock me too much).

It comes to me after taking an ASIST course. It comes from being a little obsessed with psych, it comes from being a listening and doing anything in my power to help people out if they ask for it and i can. But honestly, what it comes from most of all (and if you thought of How the Grinch Stole Christmas when you read that line you weren't alone) is moving into my own house before any of the roommates that i want to live with moved in.

See we were a close knit community last year, and this up coming year i dunno if we will be. I don't know how much time i will spend with the people i used to spend damn near every night getting my ass kicked in pool by. I don't know how often we will be able to pull all nighters and watch movies till breakfast opens. (Though personally, i am thinking that this year breakfast should be at Wimpy's)

But what i do know is this, i know over the course of this year, not to mention all the years after it, that i am going to need other people, and like it or not at least some of you are going to need/want me to be around. I know that even if we can't spend every single night together hanging out we can still be there when it counts. And i know that if we really, truly are good friends, then when it comes down too it, we wont let the little things drive us apart forever (though if any of my roomies steal too much of my tea they better be prepared to buy me some new stuff!)

So what i am proposing here is a kind of openness. Its a kind of openess i am planning to mirror in my blog. I am not going to share every little detail with you, you don't need to know the color of my boxers, or what happens on a date. But the choices i make, the places i go, things i think are important about me, those i will share. And if you are a friend of mine i hope you listen and when you need to, i hope you do the same.