Six Months From Now...

Six months from now, I’ll be doing English papers on Shakespeare, and taking courses in Greek mythology, ethics, logic and religion.

Six months from now, I’ll be supporting myself by working part time.

Six months from now I’ll be learning how to draw better.

Six months from now, I’ll have an active blog, instead of month-long dead spaces.

Six months from now, I’ll be taking care of myself, doing what I love to do: which is writing and learning about the literature that has defined our culture, its beauty and depth.

Six months from now, I’ll be in the same place physically, but older, more mature, more joyous than right now.

In six months, I’ll be happy to make supper regularly with my roommate

In six months, my money (not anybody else’s!) will be budgeted to the dollar.

In six months, I’ll be seeing more plays than I’ve seen in the last three years

Sometime in six months, I’ll be playing video games, socially, healthily, and without guilt.

In six months, I’d have been a leader at camp, and an active part of that community.

In six months, I’ll be a catch.

In six months, I’ll be running 10k without stopping.

In six months, I’ll be closer to God, and to reality.

Six months from now, I’ll be fit, and able to beat my roommate in squash, like I once did.

Sometime in six months, I’ll either know how to blow glass, make glass sculptures, or learn how to work a forge.

In six months, my imagination will be expanded.

In six months I will be able to (and will) handle more responsibility.

Six months from now, my heart will not cry out in pain from hopes and dreams deferred.

Six months from now, I’ll be walking a path that I’ve should have walked three years ago.

Introducing: the Holden

Holden is now hitched. He's a good friend of mine, yesterday he got freaking married to the girl of his dreams, his teenage sweetheart.

We all met at camp, and I had the distinct pleasure of living with him, after living in residence at university. We had a wild time at the basement suite we called Bag End. If I could go back there now, I probably would, the nostalgia is that strong.

Holden is an articulate and thoughtful writer. I've seen him grow and soak up writing like a sponge. He is an artist, and a true writer. I just piddle around on the net sometimes, but Holden will probably go all the way.

His blog is here. Read it

Faux Pho

perhaps the best midnight snack evAR. Fun to say to: fo-fo.

-One package of ramen, including beef stock and seasoning oils
-2 cap fulls of lemon juice
-1 cap full of soy sauce
-chili pepper flakes (3 dashes for me, adjust to personal preference accordingly)
-chili sauce (we're really going for the saté effect here)
-roast beef (I use sliced deli meats)
-veggies you prefer (I used bok choi that was in the fridge)
-hot water

Perfect for starving university students studying way past when they should go to bed. Organic Chem = the Evil. Anyone care for a 2-methyl-1,4-pentadiene? No? Neither do I. Learning me some nomenclature good though...

Look Out! I see a substantive post coming!!

Summer Doldrums

A long while ago, I posted back in June. And now I'm posting in September. Yup. Long time. I'm not entirely sure if I want to make apologies, but maybe an explanation would suffice. I started off my summer with high expectations of writing regularly, but as I've been finding over the last year and a half, my muse has escaped me.

My summer job was overnights at a grouphome for teens in the child welfare system. It was right up my alley in terms of the work I've done there before (as a relief staff), and in general. I have a passion for working with youth, and it's something that hasn't changed since I resolved to be a camp counselor when I was 12.

However, working a overnight job has some attributes worth mentioning: one in particular: It sucks the soul out of you. You want to distract yourself as much as you can to A) stay awake B) do something with the large amount of disposable time you have to yourself. I barely lifted a finger to write during the whole summer. Earlier this year, I got back into World of Warcraft which solved both A and B for me tidily. I brought my laptop to work and WoW'd it up. Playing that game the way I did took a lot of creative energy out of me. Rather, instead of drawing from that pool, it just replaced it.

The summer was just something to get through to get to the here and now. It was a time to pass by, in eager expectation of the fall. I did my recovery work, showed up at the right places and the right times, but my heart was here, waiting for what I am doing now.

There's a cafe on the top floor of the MacEwan Student Centre at the UoC, it's called The Loft. It's packed cheek and jowl with chairs and tables, and correspondingly with students. It has sweet natural lighting. One can people watch. And of course, coffee... my ambrosia. I write this as I listen to Massive Attack on my headphones.

It's my third full year of university, my second year of science. My degree is complicated to explain, but suffice to say, I'm taking biology. Being second year means I face the great beast that is organic chemistry. In the position I am now, in terms of my grades and my goals, this year is my do or die year. I either finish this year with a GPA of 3.5 or greater, or I'm gonna have to do some serious reevaluating. Which means I need to do good on Organic Chem. Which means a A- or better. Which means that I gotta kick everyone else's ass in class and be in the top 5th percentile, because Organic Chem is that stupid Hard.

But I'm loving it. Most of it. I'm actually working on my life. I'm not placeholding, or playing to another person's tune. I'm not letting life pass me by. There's a thing in the pit of my stomach holding me together; a sense of agency.

Geek Meets Running

So, I found myself strangely excited when I walked into the Running Room. I'm a geek, and usually that means that any kind of exercise is usually exclaimed with a certain tone of incredulity and faint contempt. But. I've been trying to get into shape, so for a birthday gift to myself, I bought an iPod nano (black, 8gig). I delighted in the new ability to download podcasts, make my music mobile and so forth. But the main reason is that I stumbled across the Nike Experience website a while ago while at the online Apple store.

Now this is a bit of a shameless plug for both, but I was immediately entranced by the integration of two technologies: music + smart running shoes. I got the Nike + plugin, and suddenly I could track my runs, play muzak and actually train. I mean, the website has a wicked tracking system of how your run went, your pace, time, distance, caloric burn and so forth. On top of that, it has a googlemaps plugin that allows people to post their routes when they run. Wicked.

The goal for me is to get down to a 5min/km pace. I'm at 6'10"/km pace at the moment. That 5min/km is the minimum requirement (12 min to do 2.4km) to get into the reserves. Which means I have some work to do.

But, I started my season with a 6'33" pace. I'm down 20seconds already.

Aight. Later on in the week, when Telus finally decides to upload my pictures from my phone, I'll post pics and the downlow about my trip to Montreal.

laters.

Oh Yeah.

It's my birthday today. I have officially lived 22 years. Go team!