The (lack of) Calm before the Epiphany

I sat in The Anthropology of Development today and thought about intelligence. What we were talking about is not relevant except for the fact that it made me think. It wasn’t controlled useful thought, that can be applied to an assignment or multiple choice questions, but the out-of-control “realization is about to strike” type of thought process. I can’t really explain what goes on in my head. It’s as though my brain is separate from my neurological impulses, and I am having spasms of awareness where wisps of ideas are trying to sort themselves out and integrate themselves. I am so powerless over it that the only thing I can do to help my brain out is to feed it more relevant information in the hopes that it was the appropriate information to complete the puzzle. When this kind of thought happens to me it is so different from the times when I force myself to think. In the latter scenario I already have a frame work for the answer, some parameters that I know it will fit. The first thought has no parameters, and when the thought is completed, it is something entirely new (for me if not for the world).

Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? Has anyone figured out how to harness these spastic thoughts to guarantee that they don’t get lost? Thinking this way makes me feel good, especially because this type of brain process is what I want to get out of university. Hopefully it might result in some useful innovation- an answer.

The Roommates

I promised that once I'd arrived in Toronto, that I'd let you know what it was like and what a fabulous time I was having. Well, it's about time that you got introduced to the girls that I inhabit unit F6 with.



From Left to Right: Kate, Saniye, and Mel.

I'd give them each a bio, but then you'd all know their deepest darkest secrets and dirtiest habits. Too much respect. (Although if the secrets were dirrty enough, I'd have to share).

Kate in the City

Today I showed someone around the city. It is mine now, and I'm whooping it up. Though some of you might not approve of my use of "whooping it up", I assure you that was what I was doing. Yesterday the roommate and I went to the free Nickleback concert at Yonge-Dundas, infront of the Eatons Centre, before heading to the harbour front for partying at the Docks. Partying in Toronto, as far as my experience goes, is very strange as I am a definite minorty as a caucasian. If you like hip hop it's pretty good. And if you don't, you just have to pretend that the melodic beat is similar to one you would hear at an island party on good old VI. I had better get used to it if I'm going to be here for the next few years, so I shook my ass with the best of them (Thank you Sean Paul for all the motivation I needed).

This morning I went on the subway to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) to check out the Art Deco exhibit that I'd seen this summer in London. It was just as fabulous as I remembered, and I am lucky enough to live in a city that events like these happen in! On the way back to the subway, we walked through the Annex, which is a trendy cook street village meets fantan alley type of place where I bought an Art Deco poster for my room (like I'd ever pay gift shop price for it!)

These adventures were engineered purposely as part of my plan to aclimatize to my new home. Luckily, things never turn out exactly how you plan them, so I got more out of the weekend than I thought possible.

The List

[please note: this list is not in order of preference or importance]

1) See a meteorite crater
2) See a volcanoe (no. you don't pronounce that vol- canoe.)
3) See Niagra falls
4) Learn Japanese and Spanish, Romanian and Estonian
5) Visit the world's biomes
6) Achieve satisfaction
7) 11 Steden Tocht
8) Write and publish book
9) Be reunited with Grant
10) Die having been useful
11) Get a tattoo (completed)
12) Kiss a dutch dj
13) Kill a kangaroo
14) Never hold a gun
15) Perform a song (completed)
16) Watch Citizen Kane (completed)
17) Create a sustainable global society in every sense of the word
18) Travel to all the continents, all the countries, all the biomes of the world
19) Find life on Mars
20) Visit New York, touring all the places I've read about in books (and seen in Sex and the City)

Factor A

The first blog post from my new home. I thought that the computer lab had a negative affect on my creativity, but as I sit here on my room mate's floor as a result of my too-short network cable, I realise that I'm not any more creative now that I'm in my own home.

This has occured frequently since my arrival in my new home: something is lacking, and so I think all I need is to change factor a, and satisfaction will be achieved. Unfortunantely, so many times, my careful planning, waiting and manipulation of factor a doesn't change the status quo. So, it is in this way that I am learning about life love and new locations.

Tourist

Action Plan: Identification and Implementation

I'm not very good at accepting my inperfections. I know that's such a generic statement, but it stops being so generic when you find that it applies to yourself. For a couple of weeks I've been struggling with being in a new place, new life. I thought that I would arrive here, and it would be similar to stepping off the plane in Europe. You're innundated with things to see and do, and your day is filled with interesting adventures to keep you busy (see Grant's blog for details). I thought that being in a new place doing my own thing would be like that, but for some reason it's not.

And so, as a result, I have to recognize that my pride and stubbornness aren't serving me quite right, and life isn't quite perfect at this moment. Life has been so perfect for so long lately...even the bad parts are part of the good parts. Here the bad parts are actually bad parts. I'll even admit I might have made a mistake or two during the past two weeks.

Now the only thing I'm concerned with is dealing with those imperfections and mistakes, and trying to make life the way I want it (rather than expecting just to show up and have it be that way). Wish me luck!

Urban Personals

Lost: Love
Found: Desire, on a telephone pole in the Tdot.

Can you love me?

Sniffle

It started with a restless night: the heat of Toronto is barable during the day, but catches up to you when the sun goes down. You twist and turn, trying to escape the sweat that is creeping from your lower back to behind your knees and the nape of your neck. Soon it starts feeling like the heat is coming out from your core, rather than from the warmth captured by the walls of your second floor dorm during the day.

A couple of nights ago, the symptoms of oppressive weather evolved into something that really did come from within. The sweat on my forehead turned into a snotty nose. The moist neck turned into a sore throat. In the heat, the cold was upon me.

AAAAAAhhhhhhhhhh....CHOOOO!

First Week: done

If you had talked to me last week, I would have been 19, a resident of Victoria, a UVic student, not single, living with my parents, the youngest of my friends, etc etc.

I'm still 19, but for the rest everything has changed. Many of the people I have been spending time with have just come out of high school, and since I've been out for two years, have travelled and have completed a whole year!!! of university, i feel like the old one. And living in Scarborough is a change, no parents (though I wouldn't call res "independent living), and UTSC.

Basically it's as though my life is a legal form, and the questions and topic is the same, but filling in the blanks is so different. Was I looking for a new form all together? Or is it a bad idea to think of it as a form, because that lets me escape the responsibility of designing and choosing the questions?

I crave a question I don't have the answer to. More likely, the question is there, but I haven't discovered it yet, which is the difficult part. When I have a question to answer, I feel like I have a direction. My craving for process and lineality is satisfied. Finding the question is less of an organized process. Is growing up learning how to figure out the question more efficiently?

Someone give me a good question! (a specific one please). I'll let you know if it's a good one, and the answer.

No Kidding

I seem to have aggressively adopted the phrase "no kidding" (notice the appropriate use of quotations!). I use it nearly every third or fourth sentence. Naturally I do use it every time someone says something to me. People keep asking if it's a west coast thing, but I think I just started using it in the past couple of days. I'm just mentioning it so that when reading my blog, if you want to make it more life like, you can insert "no kidding" at various points.

It's about Freaking Time!

Time for an update much?

This has been a week of trying desperatly to get things done, but when one has a mile long to do list, one never feels like one is being successful. Another factor that slows the process is the lack of computer, phone, or geographical knowlege of one's location. Basically I'm fucked. I've still got oodles of things to do, and now school has started and I've got lots more to do, most of it involving looseleaf paper and being in the right place at the right time on the right day. So, tomorrow I'm going to try out for flag football, just to make things easier.

Flag football. So excited. I've decided to fully embrace my froshdom (even though technically I'm in second year), and get massively involved. My roommates are fresh out of high school, and recently retired from student's council, and they're reminding me a bit of the things I used to like to do, like petty volunteering, event coordination, and team sports. So, flag football it is, and then perhaps some students for literacy volunteering after. I don't think I'll go so far as be the "Fir Block Rep" on res council, but you never know.

Thanks for your patience with my lack of patience for computer labs!

Brief notes from Toronto

An unwanted lag between posts has occurred. I've arrived, but don't have a phone, a computer, or internet access. I've just plunked myself down infront of a comp in the lab here after waiting two days to have my account verified to find a full inbox and an inactive blog.

TDot is fab. The people, the city, the things to do. However, I'm in scarborough, at a university of 8,400 people consisting of one building. You need a car to get anywhere but Toronto.

Much as a hate to leave at negative point in my post, I must as my roommates (Kate and Mel, both in the same program as me, both with dutch fathers. All three of us asked to be with people from a different culture and a different program. WHat the fuck?) and I are heading to the city.

I love you all so much, and notice something to tell each of you a hundred times a day.

Count down to Jet Plane

T-Minus 6hours, 14minutes.

See you in the Tdot.