Strangers on buses

I ride the bus almost every day. In my city, students of the university pay a little extra with their tuition fees and can ride the bus as much as they want during their sessions. On the one hand, it's pretty nice since during the winter months I'm not drenching myself in slush riding to classes. It's a welcome excuse to be a little lazy and get driven around. The one thing that I always feel awkward about on buses is the other people. Bus politics work like this: we clamber on one by one, struggle for a seat that doesn't require us to sit directly next to a stranger, and then stare off into space until our destination is imminent. The most actual contact that we have is when the bus veers wildly and we accidentally bump into each other, forcing mumbled apologies and studied regret. That we live within little bubbles of comfort is not exactly news. Everyone has their own distances that they are comfortable dealing with people, and buses squeeze those bubbles unpleasantly.

Maybe my problem is that I hate these bubbles. I love to connect with people. A connection doesn't take time or effort, no matter what people say. You just need to get into the world around you. I try to talk to someone I don't know every day. Sometimes it turns out badly and I'm forced to swallow my pride and look for a graceful exit. However, every now and again I have one of those five minute experiences that has been engraved in the smiling scar tissue of my mind.

I was on a bus with a friend of mine and we were discussing how people quote things without really knowing the context of the original comment. The example I brought up was the famous "God is dead" by Nietzsche. I reasoned that without knowing the context of that quote, it was just another declarative statement. After I say this, the guy who was sitting in front of me turns around and says, "Maybe, but here's something to think about. Nowadays atheism is pretty common. You say you don't believe in God and people shrug. If you said that thirty years ago, there would have been a stronger reaction, but still it was just that you didn't believe in the concept of God. But if we go back far enough, we'd find that people didn't believe in God as a simple concept. God was a thing, a entity, something that the large majority thought acted directly in their lives. God was living because people believed that he was alive. Slowly, however, God became a figure in the bible. God became a part of a story. God went from an entity to a thing. People no longer believed in God's vitality and so God died."

I mulled that over for a few seconds and as the guy got up to leave I asked, "So is that what Nietzsche meant with his statement?"

The guy smiled back at me and replied, "I don't know. I never read the original quote in context. But it's interesting to think about isn't it? You have a good day now." And he got off at his stop.

Maybe I had been talking loudly on the bus, (a sin I believe that I have gotten over) but that guy chose to add something to our conversation and his comments have stuck in my head for over eight years. Because he decided to step into my bubble and talk to a stranger, I'm telling a story about him today. Maybe that's why I like to talk to complete strangers today. 

On Christmas and writing my website

On Christmas

I went Christmas shopping last night. That was an experience. I haven't done that in ages, and man it feels so hypocritical. I don't like it when people buy me stuff. It's awesome when my friends drop by or call me up to do stuff. I even enjoy it when a friend treats me to a burger on the rare occasion. But when it comes to possessions, if I want it, I'll buy it. I wouldn't want any of my friends wandering around a shopping center like some sort of adventure explorer, vainly searching for that one reasonably priced object that I might actually like. Perhaps that's why I'm not a terribly big fan of doing the shopping myself.

And who are you supposed to get gifts for? Everyone? That's a lot of money and time that I don't have. Nobody? Tempting . . . . but I'm trying to adapt to social conventions. I already spit on too many of them. Some people? Who do I pick? Is this like being picked for a sports team in elementary school? I always got picked last. I guess that means no presents for me. No random object gifts to fill the overflowing corners of my apartment. I win?

Of course, if you have already gotten me a present, I'm very grateful. As long as it's cool. And lasers are always cool. Hint. Hint.

Seriously, though. Next year, I'm going for the simple solution: bread or dinner, you choose. Choose bread and I'll make you a Christmas loaf. It's a variation of the Christmas bread that my grandmother made, and its damn tasty. If you don't want the bread, you're invited to dinner. Everyone makes the dinner and a good time is had by all. That's what Christmas will be next year, bread or dinner.

On website writing

For those of you who are considering making your own website, learn from my mistakes. If you don't know how already, don't just jump into it. Use one of the millions of services to make your website for you. Find that friend who can do the work and butter them up. Import some monkey servants and get them to learn this crap. It's a lot of work and Murphy's law kicks into overdrive.

Yesterday was a pretty prime example. I had to restart the project for the third time which was exactly as motivating as it sounds. It's a short sprint forward and a rapid bungee ride back. The only thing that can be done is to pick yourself up and ask what you have learned from this experience. So far, I've learned that anyone involved in writing computer code and script must be AWESOME at "Where's Waldo". Seriously, you have to go through this stuff with a fine tooth comb. After a couple of hours of staring at lines of HTML, they start melting together in a manner that Dali would envy.

Hopefully, I'll have this thing completed by this evening. Otherwise I'm reverting to my more primal instincts and setting fire to something.

Writing a website

What started as a simple school project has become an all-consuming problem. The original assignment was to make a website. The teacher assumed that we would use something like Dreamweaver or Frontpage to do the bulk of the work. That would be the easy way. That would be the way of the rational person. That would not be my way.

So I've started learning how HTML, and CSS, and Javascript work. These are the scripting languages that make webpages so shiny today. I remember back in the days of yore when webpages were basically just a bunch of text and links that were jumbled together. None of this fancy-pantsy graphics stuff. It was brute information and long loading times. Now it's all about design, layout, menu tabs, pretty pictures, and advertisements that you can't shut up.

Such is the price of progress I suppose.

Learning this stuff is a pain. I content myself with the hope that I'm learning something that I'll be able to apply in the future. The internet is not going away, so the more comfortable I become with the parts of it, the better. It is, however, a headache and far less tempting that going out and playing in the snow.

Right, back to work.
Progress will be posted when it is achieved!

A new start!

I greatly enjoy writing. As long as I can remember, I've enjoyed telling stories and am blessed with an imagination that is much more colourful than the world around me. I've always had a desire to put my ideas down on paper and to develop them more fully. Unfortunately, my desire to write has always been two steps behind my ability to procrastinate and be utterly unproductive. Generally, my university papers are written in a flurry of last minute activity that starts 11 o'clock in the evening before my paper is due and ends five minutes after I need to hand in my work. I know this is not the recommended way of completing a university paper (though it seems to be the most popular way), and I've tried to change my ways but with little success as of yet. I've examined the problem a number of times and have concluded that one needs three things to write.

1)Time to write.

2)An clear idea of what you are going to write about.

3)A lack of distractions that would prevent productivity.

In general, I have no shortage of the first thing and I generally fake the second. The problem tends to be the third criteria, as have the attention span of a gnat on a sugar rush. I can't count the number of times I've said to myself, “alright, you will work from now until dinner time on such and such a project” and ended up reading page after page of material that has less than no relevance to the work at hand. Personally, I blame the internet. It's such a diverse source of utterly random information! And stupid internet games! To hell with solitaire, people publish all sorts of games for free that keep me amused and productivity free for hours! Unfortunately, I generally need the internet for general research and all the useful bits of the internet are just two clicks away from the utterly useless. I feel like a magpie rooting through a junkyard, there is plenty of usable material but so many shiny objects to peck at!

And here I am, throwing yet another thing out onto the internet and possibly helping other people procrastinate. The circle is complete.

All that rambling to introduce my newest project. I am starting this blog as my writing blog, though it's not actually about writing. It will be a practice space where I can work on developing my writing skills; this will be my studio. I will practice and hopefully master the art of writing in a way that entertains and informs. It's a good excuse to spend a little more time looking at what goes on in the world around me. Which means looking things up on the internet. Well, I suppose I can forward to wasting many a happy moment being sidetracked.

. . .

Sorry about that. I wanted to look up something about penguins.

Anyway, this is going to be my pet writing project. I realize that normally people spend a great deal of time and effort to make sure that only their best work becomes available to the public. In fact, many authors hide behind a pen name when they are writing something that they feel is below their usual standard. Not everything an artist creates successfully fulfils its creators hopes, but this doesn't worry me. I actually feel that I'm writing something quite private since, well, this is just one more blog on the internet. Like Poe's purloined letter, my writing will be hidden in plain sight, and hopefully, those who do read it will be to some extent entertained, informed, and only minimally offended.

My plan is to write daily, in both English and French. I will be putting it through all the steps, planning, revising, etc. Hopefully with practice this will become quality writing. My goal is to write a minimum of 500 words in English and then translate it into French the next day. If I miss a day, I have to do both parts on the next. If everything works out, I'll be writing over 3000 words a week, in my spare time. I understand that this ambitious but I like to set high goals, fail, lower them a touch, succeed and jump right back up crush my original goals. It's a loft ideal, but if I want to become writer, I shall have to write.

Translating all of this into French will be the largest challenge. I've never actually translated into written French and this will hopefully help me improve my French composition skills. In general, it takes me twice as long to compose something in French from scratch, so my hopes are that this will help me speed things up. The advantage in this is that since I'm the original author of the English text, I don't have to worry about not understanding some point of the work to be translated. While the works will remain analogous, I'm hoping that eventually I'll be able to taking more liberties in the French versions. My final goal will be to be able to become as comfortable in written French as I am in spoken French.

I will also be posting my short works of fiction. This is fairly important since this is the form and style that I like best and dream of eventually mastering. As poor Vero can attest, I have many collections of short fiction and love to read them to both study the style and enjoy the work. With time, I hope to be able to put more and more stories out so that they are no longer just cobbled together constructions hiding in the recesses of my laptop's hard-drive. I will take these stories, cut out the bits I don't like, polish the bits that work, and add anything that is missing until they become striking examples of the genre.

What more can be said about this? Nothing! This is only the introduction after all, so there is no point in dragging it out needlessly. Which may or may not be what I have already done.

Onwards!

Late again

It may simply become more efficient for me to write in the morning, but I don't really want to worry about that at the moment.

Yesterday, was kind of typical for me. I started out with the best intentions and then ended up dicking around for entirely too long. Finally, I ended up rushing off to class, arriving with five minutes to spare, and nothing really accomplished. Unless I can get a job playing flash games. Or setting up tower defences. Man, why don't these flash games teach me anything that I can apply?

And so I bitch, and I'm bitching about being lazy.

Public speaking was interesting. We saw the first half of the presentations. I noted alot of stuff, but what struck me the most was a) get some cue cards, b) use powerpoint, c) use humour. It's the last that is probably the most important, since there was just one that really had both humour and content. Christian did an excellent one on laughing, but it's not really something that we need to be convinced to do. So, my topic, we are not nearly as informed as we imagine, which I need to figure out how I can make it engaging, informative, and entertaining.

I talked with my cousin Sam yesterday, it was funny. It felt like I connected more with him in that moment more than, well, a long time. Maybe I've always had difficulty with this sort of thing. Dunno, I guess I'll see when I get to BC.

I'm going to sign off and get on with my day. I'm kind of procrastinating at the moment. Tomorrow I try to make a Vblog!

Missed a wednesday

And so thurday will be a double header.

Not that I did anything particular last night, but I'll get to that.

My psycho-pedagogy course is winding up. I've managed to struggle my way through it without really reading the required material. In all honesty, I'm kind of ashamed of my performance as a student. Ah well, I'm going to have to pay for it now. I'm setting up my final study sessions for the upcoming END OF ALL TIME! Or end of session if you don't feel like being so terribly dramatic. Anyway, psycho-pedagogy. For the final exam, they allow you one page of notes, double sided, written however you want. For the mid-term it was single sided and I filled a double columned page with 6 point text with virtually everything that I could think might possibly show up on the test. And then . . . I barely used it in the test.

This time, I've learned! This time, I'm going to review the material multiple times, to make sure I have a firm understanding of the principles! This time . . . I'm probably going to use a magnifying glass because 4 point text is REALLY hard to read.

Then there was discussions after class, reflections on the upcoming Canadian Prose test, and I helped Janie work on her presentation. I've still got to do mine, though I've had a breakthrough in what I'm going to do. I'm staying with convincing people that they know less than they think they do. The salent point is that people don't use analytical/critical thinking. They just take other people's opinions and adopt them. Natural? Yes, but not particularly advantaging in the long run. This is an example of how as a society we have grown beyond the simple survivalistic life style and need work towards creating ways that a social equilibrium can be reached. 

In other news, I was reminded how rich Canada is. I think as Canadians we have a bit of an inferiority complex living next to the Vespugians (United Statesians). I was recently flipping through some world facts (comparing our national produce and whatnot to other countries; sort of a way of checking the national pissing contests) and it became quite evident that Canada is actually doing pretty well for itself. As a friend of mine (Shannon) recently remarked, "Of course we're rich, I'm working on becoming a career counciler. They don't have that in poor countries, people are happy to be able to just get food on the table." In a way, I have grown up surrounded by affluence, but been unaware of it. Huh. 

Did anything else happen worth noting? I'm terribly behind on my speaq quest, but an idea is starting to blossom. I don't want to talk about it now for fear of crushing the poor thing. I'm still addicted to flash games and really need to study this a bit more. I'm still more or less lost in linguistics and so have to read a couple chapters on it per day for the next week. Herm. Alright, let's get rolling.

On this Tuesday

Back in the saddle! I'd like to say that I was bursting at my creative seams and seems and finally caved in and decided to write here once again. In reality, it's part of a larger plan. See, I spent the morning watching Loading Ready Run videos, (specifically phailhaus, Graham is dreamy . . .) and became inspired to create a VBlog. Video Blog. Video Web Log. Right.

So the point of this is that I need to set my ideas down somewhere, and where better than some backwards blog that nobody looks at. Ah, anonymity, you make my life so easy, and quiet. So I shall segue (pronounced seg-way . . . weird) into what happened today.

The short version: wasted morning watching LRR (or invested?), got up and headed off to Canadian Prose, found I was accepted in my new program, found the site writing world, and afterwards linguistics where I dicked around and then told jokes to the teacher after class.

In greater detail:
Canadian Prose was a bout Hope something something by David Richard Adams. Grr, now I have to look that up. "Hope in the Desperate Hour". I'm looking forward to reading it. I know I was supposed to read it before I went to class, but alot of things were supposed to happen that never finally did, like Y2K. So I'll be organized and ontime when society collapses because of some piddly computer error.

The class was pretty much about the book. It's fiction, mostly realist, though I'd be willing to argue that it has post-modern elements . . . but I'm obstreperous. Anyway I shouldn't talk too much about the book since I haven't read it, and I'm due for bed.

During class (when the teacher was telling us something important, like where we can pick up our marked essays) I found out that I have been unconditionally accepted in the English Cultural Studies program. YAY! ME! YAY ME! Who knows where this will take me, but I'm betting I'll enjoy the ride.

Other important notes? Not so much. I discovered a wealth of resources on the writing-world website, so I'll have something to latch onto when I finish my entirely uninspired SPEAQ quest. Sigh, and I was so looking forward to that course. Ah well, I might pass it anyway.

But I should be off to bed. I have much PSP tomorrow morning to contend with.

My study program

I've now started almost all my courses. I say almost for the obvious reason that they haven't all started, but for the less obvious reason that three of my courses have been bumped forward a week, so I'm still waiting to get two of them rolling. So far the courses that have managed to bump their way into first gear have been interesting. I've got a French course that will happily beat my brain into submission with the convoluted rules and exceptions that make up the normal workings of this language. I'm looking forward to it with a sort of masochistic glee, without any real hopes of passing it. I keep telling myself that I like the challenge, and one day I may just start to believe it. I've got English courses as well, which look to be fun, and are the major reason that I and blugeoning myself back into writing. I'm especially looking forwards to the grammar course, where the teacher keeps saying, "Ok, class, remember the first rule . . . Don't Panic." I'll have to ask him if he's read hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. The teacher himself seems to be quite the character, soft voiced, hyperactive, and with a tendancy to wander off in his jokes. In short, my sort of chap.

Of course, I'm still working to take this all in. It's a bit of a shock to think that I will one day hold down a respectable job, that will make respectable money, and (here's the one from bizzaro world) actually be respectable. This is an odd prospect, since I've always sort of gone out of my way to be a twit. I mean, given the choice between popularity and notoriety I will always take the latter. You get to be the central part of such entertaining stories later! Of course, this far from disqualifies me from teaching. In fact if I'm aiming to become an eccentric coot, I'll fit right in working at public schools. I'm shooting for secondary education, with all those tender spirits to crush . . . I mean young minds to shape. We shall see I suppose. 

Though I guess one of the reasons I want to get into teaching is that it seems like it can open so many opportunities to me later in life. I can teach English internationally, and get a chance to see the world and live in it. I can take some extra courses and get a bachelors in English studies, which would allow me to write, and the experience gained with teaching can only give me a plethora of rich anecedotes. Heck, I didn't even phase my teachers, so they much have dealt with people like me before. Either that or they had become so jaded that even my zany antics bounced off their thick teacher carapaces. That's a depressing thought.

Well, here we are up to date with the news on school. I suppose from here on in, I'll focus on writing whatever I think during the day, and so my writing can in some way serve as a journal and possibly be less dull that be rambling on about my school. For the moment though, this is what I've written and I'm sticking to it. I suppose that I have a major advantage when it comes to chosing content with this, since I'm not actually trying to attract readers. As I said to my brother Knoll yesterday, I don't actually expect anyone to schlog through my blog and consequently haven't actually told anyone that it exists. If anyone actually has the bad taste to read this, they has be mercilessly booed and hooted at. You've been warned!

University begins

I've started university. This may seem like a fairly bland statement for the majority of the population, but for me it's big. People who haven't or aren't going to university will probably shrug a little as if to say, good for him. Those who have or are going to university would nod a bit as a manner of saying approximately the same thing. For me though, this is the first step onto a path that will carry me to being what and where I want. For me, this is a frightening prospect. To me, I'm looking into the void of my future. I'm coping by not thinking about it.

Of course, with University comes schoolwork, which is good. I'm the sort of proactive procrastinator who can spend a day just letting my brain percolate. University and its unbending schedules and workloads is a kick in the ass in the right direction. It's getting me back into reading and analyzing what I'm reading. I've once again had to start beating my head against the brick wall of the french language, hoping that the language gives way before my skull. Most importantly though, it brings me back to writing, and hopefully once again wielding the English language like a rapier; fluidly and precisely with jabs towards my opponents squishy bits. 

Which brings us to this blog. No, the point of it isn't to stab people's squishy bits. At least, it's principle point isn't. I'll keep my options open for now. The point is more for me to express myself is a semi-stream of conciousness style on whatever topic I have picked. The end goal of all this is to get back to writing in English. I will be limiting myself so that I don't fall into the same trap of my earlier attempts, which devolved into alot of hot air gargling.

So here we are. About three times a week, I set myself the challenge of writing at least 300 words in the beautiful English language, and at least once a week they have to make some sort of sense. Next entry: My program.

Man

Man, writing on cue is hard.

This is like my fourth attempt at getting some words out, and this time I'm going with it no matter how bad it is. At the beginning I tried writing about the news, then about my day, and finally going all philosophical. "People are animals, and part of nature." But it was crap. I mean, not for lack of analogies. Or whatever. It felt pompous.

But there were some bits I liked. Stuff like:
You ever look at a flock of pigeons? They are following Darwin's commandment. Which can be paraphrased as, "Do what it takes to survive and thrive". Now go by a high school some time. I swear same damn thing. For a bunch of people who want to express their budding individuality, they blend in together pretty good. You've got your crowds of jocks, or nerds, or goths, or emos, or hippies, or whatever flavor of style you run into. They follow the same social rules and the beasts of the jungle. Jocks and lions both travel in prides (the most appropriate use of the word yet). Emos and zebras confuse their predators by blending in visually. From fifty paces I think the only way to tell how many of them there are is by measuring the density of their complaining. Then there's the popular girls who survive by being like sheep. Kinda being fluffy and following the nonexistent leader. Who would have thought that people would copy sheep to get themselves through life. I wanna shave one and knit a sweater. The wool would come prebleached!

Huh

Talk about taking an analogy and running with it. Whatever. People say you shouldn't run with scissors, but I think that was worse.

It's all good though. I'm just like everyone else. I have my moments of brilliance. That . . . wasn't one of them, granted. But the trick to looking smart is by providing contrast. If you look smart all the time, you just kinda fade into a kind of intelligent static. You need to look like a dolt to make your brilliance shine. That's why I act like an idiot. So people around me can more fully appreciate when I'm brilliant. I swear it.

All right, the dead horse of an idea that I'm beating is getting tired so I'll let him have a break for a bit.

Recipe for inspiration

So I was thinking, "I should write something. Get my words out there. Make a difference." I sit back and I ponder. I ruminate. I wait for that flash of inspiration, that epiphany, the bolt from the blue.

Nothing.

So I wait some more.

Still nothing.

Why do my brilliant moments either happen when I'm half asleep or in the bathroom? I think about that idea try to work something clever out of it.
And still.
Nothing.

I pause, for a good longish minute or two. Relax. You can't force this stuff. Think about something else. I mull over the price of tea in china. I meander down memory lane. I become deeply engrossed as to why some of my toenails appear to grow faster than others. My mind is wandering like a pro, just waiting for the right moment to casually glance to the left and find that idea in the rough.

Come on, I know that vein of brilliance is here somewhere.

Moses wandered the desert for forty years, searching. Have I got his patience? The desert of my mind has manna and my thoughts are following my intentions, but they complain about their lot, so my spirit is leaving them to wander. Perhaps when they are pious they shall find their way, and I shall reach the holy land with something clever to say.

Until then though, I guess I'll just have to grind out words and hope to get lucky.

Amazing

So in January, I started a blog. Heavens only knows why, maybe I thought I had something to say.

Like most of my projects, I got distracted and this got thrown to the side. It has been dormant for the last six months, unused and unloved, pining away in the vastness of the internet. Time to break out the violin I guess.

Anyway, like most of my projects I'm putting it back together. Who knows, maybe this time I'll make it work. I just need to put some more time and effort into it. Oh, and I'm probably going to be more vulgar. Do I have any reason to be? Nah, but there's a cathartic release in being horrible.

Which brings us to today.

I'm back and I'm horrible

If you are lucky, you won't read this.

Are there any facts?

I spent a good part of today researching things. In the back of my head I tend to keep a little list of things that people tell me that I want to look up. This can range from who founded the game of hockey, to the seperation of powers between federal and provincial governments.

Ok, so I make a habit of looking stuff up.

It started a long time ago, when I tended to say stuff that I thought was true. I didn't know, but I was pretty sure. Then one day someone challenged me and I ended up looking up whatever I was spouting off about at the time. Turned out I was wrong. Now I look things up to find out if what I'm saying, or what someone else is saying, is opinion or fact. Turns out, there's alot of opinions out there.

Here's an example, shaved legs. I think it's silly that girls shave their legs. I know, I'm the weird one where, but anyway. The point is that I've heard from a number of girls on the topic that after you shave your legs the hair grows back thicker and darker, so once you start you can't stop. When I first heard this, I accepted it without question and began religiously shaving my feet and toes. Don't ask, I wanted hairy feet and toes. To my vast disappointment, NOTHING HAPPENED! The hair just grew back the same each time I stopped shaving it! Apparently hobbit feet are a genetic thing, not something you can cultivate.

The point is, if you look it up, there is no evidence that shaving your legs makes the hair come back thicker. It would be cool if it did, mostly for bald people. (There's a counterintuitive baldness cure, shave your head for a couple months.) But it doesn't. And it won't. No matter how many people tell me that it will.

We are bombarded by facts, opinions, and theories every day. If you accept them without critically looking at them, you are letting someone else think for you. Kind of defeats the purpose of having your own brain, huh?

Yeah, it's Monday

First we developed games to fill our leisure time. Something to pass the time with friends. We were so decadent that we no longer needed to spend all our time scrounging the mud for our sustenance. Then we developed regional teams for sports, so we could pay other people to play our games and be good at them. Saves effort like that, and you don't actually have to be good at anything. Now we have machines that play sports at our controls. Video games. Once again we play the game, but at the convenience of controlling where and when. Of course, now the game is physically simplified into a few button presses and joystick movements. More of a mental than a physical effort.

What's next?

Build machines to play our video games for us, of course! This way we could simulate whole matches and seasons, and keep them on tap for when we have the spare time. Make a separate artificial intelligence for each team. In split seconds the 1's and 0's clash together and it's all set up for your viewing pleasure. Just sit back and enjoy the game, it's all been done for you. Automatic sports! The newest thing in instant gratification!

Ok, you probably chuckled at that idea, but part of you knows that it could happen. Someone could make it and turn a profit. Doesn't it scare you that this joke is plausible?

Go outside and play.

And two weeks later . . .

Ok, so names. I got thinking about names, mostly because of the number of pseudonyms that get created for the Internet. Examples: ddrmaxlegend2006, and loverboifromhell . . . I can't even make a joke here.

Anyway, this got me to thinking about how names are important to an extent. If you say you don't like a name, you can get tonnes of cliched responses, like "What's in a name", or "Does not a rose by any other name smell as sweet?", or something like that. To these people I would respond, "Be honest. If roses were named pukenbile-splattars, how long do you think it would be before someone renamed them?"

Now, lets put this into perspective, my name is Rye. It's not a normal name. I mean, if you get right down to it, it's not a name unless you happen to be a grain or your parents were hippies. At least having hippie parents means that the rest of your family has odd names too. Like a brother named Knoll. Can you imagine what sort of a freak you'd turn out to be if you were named Knoll? Hopefully the kind who can take a joke if ever he reads this . . .

Funny thing is that I've kinda grown into my name. When I was young I got teased about it a lot. Then there were the millions of little rhymes that came along with it. I couldn't stand them, and so I hated my name. Over time though, I started enjoying having the name Rye. It was unique, it stood out, and it was slightly confusing. I get described the exact same way!

Incidentally, in Bulgarian my name means paradise. There's a bit of irony for you.

But really, it's not a name that makes a person. To get back to the roses, the reason I believe we would never leave them named pukenbile-splattar is simply because the essence of the rose defies the name. The personality of the rose demands something simple and elegant, phonetically. It makes it's own name. I like this.

It reminds me that while people may remember my name as an oddity, it is only because I make it so.

On self

Who am I?

Rye

Ingredients:

205 lbs of organic substance including but not limited to: meat, bone, and fluids. May contain traces of peanuts.

1 bucket of personality

2 heaping loads of bad taste

No no no no. I can't be expressed as a recipe. Well, techinically I can be, but the two ingredients come from my parents, and the cooking instructions aren't for children.

Bah, I've never been good at introspection. I try to look at myself objectively and end up giggling when I get to the bellybutton. Though, I don't think this is a bad thing. We take ourselves and our images so seriously. I mean, there's whole librarys of self help books written on learning to accept ourselves for who we are, and I'll never need to waste my money on them. I tend to look at myself and just laugh. Like when you look in a mirror with clown nose on. What am I saying, I have a built in clown nose?

Maybe that's the answer. We need more clown noses. It would make the world a much brighter place.

And here we go . . .

So I've basically be incommunicado for the last . . . dunno, long time. Leave it at that. I've pretty much lost contact with everyone. I've been living in Quebec city for three years now, and it's been quite an experience. Most of the time was spent concentrating on getting myself from one day to the next, without looking around too much. Since arriving here I've learned french, worked in a climbing gym, learned to weld professionally, and been turned into a newt.

(Well, I got better)

This brings me to today. Today I start trying to get back in contact with people. Hence the blog. Here's how it's going to work. For news, I'll be keeping this blog updated with my day to day idiocies. For the rest, there's always MSN, phones, emails, and good old fashion pen and paper letters. For phones and post options you have to send me a current mailing address, and/or phone number. I've decided to spend more time writing actual letters, as they are much more pleasant than emails. Plus when I'm writing a letter, the cat doesn't climb on the pen and scribble all sorts of nonsense.

All nonsense in letters is my own.

So there we are! My new email address will be wry.stevenson@gmail.com and I look forward to getting back in contact! Send me an email if you want to keep in contact. I won't be offended if you don't. One way or another, I'm sure that the sun will rise in the morning, the rain will fall downwards, and life in it's own majestic way will continue to make fools of us all.

Cheers