Christina Perri - Arms (Official Lyric Video)

When Rebecca Comes to Town

Highlights:

1. Mexican food


2. Piano Bar


3. Ft. Langley


4. Sushi


5. Tea at Traceycakes


6. White Rock



Not pictures: Indian buffet and the many coffees and teas we had.

Gracious: it seems our entire trip (or at least, any memorable moments) were circa food, drink and post food-drink revelries.

Before and After

Before:


After five hours of cleaning: (including all drawers, shelves, closet, and some packing, sorting and dumping)

Lunch

Goat feta and aguacate salad with parmesan and garlic salmon, cafe con leche made with Costa Rican 1984 coffee, and Blackadder

14/25

I really have got to catch up with Scott. He's only got 6 or 7 left!

The idea of the book club was that each of the five members put in 5 books they would like to read. Then, we all read all 25. In reading other people's wish list, we are exposed to a variety of genres and types that we would not normally have read.

So far, my choices have not proved popular. However, the most hated book so far seems to be Catch 22 :) At least my poor choices have been easy to read.


Matt's Five:

✓ (1) Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
✓ (2) To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
(3) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
(4) The Godfather - Mario Puzo
✓ (5) Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak

Mike's Five:
✓ (1) Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
✓ (2) Enders Game - Orson Scott Card
(3) The Call of Cthulhu - H.P. Lovecraft
(4) A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
(5) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick

Erica's five:
✓ (1) East of Eden (by John Steinbeck)
✓ (2) The Andromeda Strain (by Michael Crichton)
✓ (3) Peter Pan (by J.M. Barrie--should be around 48 pages)
(4) Midnights Children (by Salman Rushdie)
✓ (5) The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (by Douglas Adams)

Yolanda's five:
✓ (1) Day after Night - Anita Diamant
✓ (2) The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
(3) The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
(4) The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy
(5) The Hundred-Foot Journey - Richard Morais

Scott's five:
✓ (1) Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
✓ (2) The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
✓ (3) Contact - Carl Sagan
(4) The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
(5) Watchers - Dean Koontz

First pics with my cute new purple camera.
My new morning ritual: Northwest Breakfast tea (found in Pike's Place Market in Seattle), breakfast quesadilla and I Love Lucy.

Of Muses, Freud, and Other Pretentious Topics

Inspiration is a funny thing.

Inspiration has traditionally been attributed to the spiritual or supernatural realm.
- The ancient Greeks believed that Inspiration came from the muses and the gods, Apollo and Dionysus.
- Ancient Norse also believe that inspiration came from the gods.
- In ancient Hebrew poetics, inspiration is a also divine matter.
- Romantic Poets attributed inspiration to “divine or mystical winds”.
- Marxist theory sees inspiration as an “expression of friction between economic base and economic superstructural positions”
- Freud attributed it to the inner psyche; Jung to racial memory
- Modern psychology relegates it as an entirely internal process.
- In Christianity, inspiration is a gift of the Holy Spirit.


Regardless of your beliefs, it is clear that source of inspiration remains a rather intangible concept. While most definitions of inspiration allude to an artistic expression, I think we can be inspired beyond that. Or perhaps, anything that leads to deed or word is an artistic expression.

In England, Erica and I encountered an amusing form of “artistic expression”. On the beach of a lovely Cornish town, also home to an art school, three students were, well, doing something. One was curled up in a child’s pose, I forget what the second was doing but the third was rolling around (fully clothed) in the sand, twisting his body this way and that. It looked a bit like horizontal dancing.

I’m not sure where his inspiration came from but I highly doubt it was from a very spiritual source: unless is was the Muse of Comedy because it certainly kept us in giggles the rest of the day. (Equally plausible could be that the source was the Muse of Tragedy.


When I think of inspiration, I think of that feeling of being alive and being thrilled to be alive. Of feeling connected to the world and wanting to show a reciprocal connection. Obviously we all have different ways of expressing inspiration but I think we also garner inspiration from different sources depending on our personality.

I’ve discussed this with a few friends. One gets inspiration from being around people, more specifically from relationships (Ironically, she is not an extrovert). Scott is lucky enough to draw inspiration internally: his thoughts and imagination provide the fuel his inspiration needs (maybe he’ll disagree with this but that’s what it seems like to me). Some people seem to be inspired (or uninspired) by the weather. I think I’ve got enough SAD to understand this.

I think my inspiration is more experiential: I’m inspired by experiences and my surroundings. It sounds shallow and i would much rather find it internally or in relationships. But it’s when I’m experiencing something new that I find myself feeling that “spark” within myself. And new experiences are easy to come by when you are traveling: and in that, I believe, lies the allure of traveling: that feeling of being alive and having a role in this world.

This is why I can fill a whole journal in one trip and then go a year without a single entry.
This is probably also why I feel so flat and boring when I spend a long stretch of time in a suburb. It’s probably not so much the fact that I am in a suburb as the fact that nothing ever changes and opportunities for unique experiences are limited.

So I’m curious: where do YOU think your inspiration comes from?

To Do

There seems to be widespread concern that I will be bored now that I am jobless and fully intend to remain so for at least two months. However, what most people don't realize is that I seem to be incapable of remaining motionless. Not working will merely give me time to do tackle my long to-do list that has been on hold.
Not necessarily in order (and with a few things ommitted for privacy sake: I know no one reads this blog..but still...)

- Catch up to Scott on the book club list (or rather, not be so rebellious and read what I am suppose to read instead of Anne of Windy Poplars for the fourth time!)
- Run. Or rather, attempt to learn how to.
- Eat my words for all the times I mocked runners (I might be safe until I get up early to run...then I will have a banquet of words in front of me)
- Fiddle with actual cooking and baking
- Correction: fiddle with HEALTHY cooking and baking (try to limit the cream cheese)
- Fix car mirror (and figure out what else is wrong with the darn thing)
- Find cool funky 50's bridesmaid dress (black with white piping in case anyone runs across something like it)
- Catch up to my correspondence (a la Edith Wharton)
- Drink loads of tea
- Write lots and lots of lists to keep me feeling motivated (first day out of work, and i already have four written, including this one)
- Apply for JET

Ecclesiastess 3

Proverbs become proverbs because the cliche is so often true (and yes, I realize its a cliche to say that too) You really should be careful what you wish for. Its amazing how often your wishes happen but then it looks different.
Back in the winter, I was craving group time. It felt like I had a bunch of different friends but they were all scattered so I was getting tons of one-on-one time; the kind that generates great discussion etc. But i did crave the fun that you get out of groups..the laughing and games and teasing etc.
Now, its the opposite. There's been tons of amazing group times and I find myself carving discussions that come when you're one-on-one. I feel like i'm not getting to know people beyond who they are in groups.
So if anyone wants to make an appointment to hang out, ive got some free slots this week

Ying Yang

From Will Ferguson's "Why I hate Canadians"

Pierre Berton once defined a Canadian as "someone who knows how to make love in a canoe". But John Robert Colombo was quick to correct him. "A Canadian is s omeone who THINKS he knows how to make love in a canoe".

What defines us:
1. On those Americans. They make me so mad
2. The Queen, rah, rah.
3. French on our Cheerio boxes
4. __________________________
(In reference to Native Canadians).

ballast

"It's only just beginning to occur to me that it's important to have something going on somewhere at work or at home, otherwise you're just clinging on...You need as much ballast as possible to stop you floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film where the money ran out, and there are no sets, or locations, or supporting actors, and it's just one bloke on his own staring into the camera with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, and who'd believe in this character then? i've got to get more stuff, more clutter, more detail in here, because at the moment I'm in danger of falling off the edge".
- Hornby, High Fidelity, 59

I'm trying to remember how I relaxed in the days before I learned to brew a perfect pot of tea.

Oh that's right. I climbed things. Trees and fences and the roofs of three-story buidings and other conventional climbing apparatuses. Although, I must say the roof was the hardest as I am quite sure my parents kept building on to our house for the express purpose of finding ways to block my climbing routes.

Germany has redeemed itself with a resounding 4-0 victory over Argentina. If it can only manage to beat Spain, then i shall look forward to a Dutch-German showdown!

this afternoon i have

- chewed on cough drops
- gone to the bakery and farmer's market
- made and eaten a salad
- gone to the pharmacy
- rubbed vix on my chest
- guzzled cough syrup
- drank lemon and honey and chamomile tea
- gotten into cozy pj's
- snuggled into the couch
- missed my mommy

Duchess of Bloomsbury

"The night before I left, two friends gave me a farewell party. I'd spent the day packing to the indignant fury of all my vital organs and I left the party early and was in bed and asleep by midnight. At 3:00 AM, I came staring awake, with my insides slamming around and a voice inside my head demanding:
'What are you doing, going three thousand miles from home by yourself, you're not even HEALTHY!'
I got out of bed, had hysterics, a martini and two cigarettes, got back in bed, and whiled away the rest of the night composing cables saying I wasn't coming"
- The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, 10


Helene Hanff does make it out of bed and on a plane to London the next day. As we all eventually do. I am always excited about going somewhere until, proportionally, close to the actual leaving date. So for instance, if I'm planning to spend the night at a friend's place, I wonder if I shouldn't stay home just as I'm pulling out of the driveway. On a trip to the other side of an ocean, the doubts start setting in a day or two before. I get nervous; not about what I will do when I get there, so much as wondering if I'll ever see anyone I love ever again. When I say goodbye, I make sure to say everything that needs to be said. Essentially, I spend the a couple of days mourning the life I won't have if I die in the next few weeks.

Once I'm in the airport, past security, then I settle back into my usual youngest-child philosophy of not worrying overly much. And, after all, its all worked out so far, right?

... or bust

I totally forgot that now that I'm in a respectable job, I get paid vacation!
Patagonia, Here I Come!!!!!!

of imbecility

Customer #1: “Are we allowed to sit outside?
Answer #1: “Only with a written permission slip. In pink.
Answer #2: “Yes, that’s what the tables are there for “


I can only laugh. Sometimes I don’t know if people are really that asinine or if they are just looking for attention. The customer above was a younger man with a cheeky if slightly confused smile; not the usual demographic for battiness.

However, sometimes I just don’t have enough grace to conclude that they are anything but a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

The other day at Wendel’s bookstore a lady comes in:
Lady: “Do you know anyone with books?”
Me: Stare blankly at all the bookshelves surrounding her.
Lady: “You know, someone that takes books?”
Me: “Um….we take books from publishers?”
Lady: “No, you know, that takes my books?”
Me: No, this isn’t a second hand bookstore. There is one in Langley though” (give her directions)
Lady: “would they buy this book?”
Me: “I’m sorry; we’re not affiliated; I couldn’t say”
Lady: “What are their business hours?”
Me: “I’m sorry; we’re not affiliated; I couldn’t say”
Lady: “Do they take hardcover?”
Me: “I’m sorry; we’re not affiliated; I couldn’t say”
Lady: “What’s the owner’s name?”
Answer #1: “The owner’s name is Charlie Chaplin, they only take books written between 1920 and 1925, and they will only sell books to people with pink or purple hair and they are open between midnight and 4am but you look daft enough to be an excellent customer!
Answer #2: “I’m sorry; we’re not affiliated; I couldn’t say”

Another lady:
Her: “Do you take Amex?”
Me: “No, we take everything but that”
Her: “Then I don’t suppose you take debit?”
Answer #1: Sure I can do that.
Answer #2: Only if you can show me ID proving that you are not a runaway from a mental institution.


At the office, during the peak of the H1N1 panic, I answered a call from an obviously frazzled woman:
Lady: My son has been sick for a month and its just dreadful.
Me: I’m sorry, that must be difficult for you.
Lady: Well yes, and I went to the doctor and he told me that its not the swine flue.
Me: That must be a relief.
Lady: well, I just don’t know. He’s been sick for a month and I just thought maybe you could tell me if he has the swine flue?
Me: I’m sorry, but I’m not a doctor so I really can’t say.
Lady: Well, I was just looking for a second opinion.
Answer #1: I’m sorry, but I’m not a doctor so I really can’t say.
Answer #2: “My opinion, lady, is that if you think that the first person that answer’s the phone at your local mp’s office is qualified to give you a medical opinon contradicting your family doctor, then perhaps what your son is suffering from is simply the culling of a strand of DNA not fit (or deserving enough)to survive in this world. Cut your losses and let your line fade from the gene pool in peace.


I can assure you that whichever answer i did not give was the one I most wanted to.

zeeba neighbors

Note to disgruntled constituents: If you send mail stating you want to be taken off our mailings list, then PUT YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS ON IT! Contrary to popular belief, the government and its drones aren’t all knowing and psychic!

of ageless themes: Soccer and books

The World Cup is being absolutely ridiculous. I don't like it. England tying with the USA??? Germany losing to SERBIA!!! The status quo is being upset and that simply won't do. If your top teams cannot be depended upon than what can??? Next thing we know, gravity will go!

Despite claims that my WC enthusiasm is simply band-wagon-jumping like the Olympics (which I freely claim was a total case of getting swept up in the enthusiasm) it literally hurts to see my teams doing so badly! And soccer really is the most beautiful sport. Both regarding the moves and the players.

In other news: 84 Charing Cross is brilliant and its companion, Duchess of Bloomsbury Street even more so. No one writes letters and journals like they used to. And while it might be cliche to lament this; lament it I can't help when I read these books. If you havn't read them but you have read the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, think of the former as a more authentic version of the latter (although I make absolutly no complaints about it either)

Catch 22

My friend Erica and I recently discovered a book that really has hit the nail on the north American head. Stuff White People like epitomizes our intense need for individuality. It's a list of all things that white people like; whether for real or because they feel they should like them. (I use the third person but I am in no way excluding myself from this degenerate group).
For instance, #7:

White people love ethnic diversity, but only as it relates to restaurants.

Many white people from cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York will spend hours talking about how great it is that they can get Sushi and Tacos on the same street. But then they send their kids to private school with other rich white kids, and live in neighborhoods like Santa Monica or Pacific Palisades.

But it’s important to note that white people to do not like to be called out on this fact. If you run an ethnic restaurant you can be guaranteed repeat business and huge tips if you act like your white customers are adventurous and cultured for eating food that it isn’t sandwiches or pasta.

I think its a brilliant mockery of ourselves but it's also horribly depressing. It seems like the only way to not be white is to be completely mainstraim and normal: and yet, the mainstream is to try to be unique. But if you're not unique, then you're in a small category in this world that defines its by self-identity.

Even as I write this I am aware that it sounds utterly pretentious and "white" so is the answer total self-oblivion? But that goes against everything our culture says: it is now "I think i am therefore I am" so without forming your "cyber you" you are just not worth knowing.

Well, I give up. its way to tiring trying to be unique. I now resolve to be the most boring unintersting person around...

oooo...maybe that can be "my thing"

Myotonic Goatlets

I've added a new goal to my to-do list:
Have a goat farm.
Don't start picturing bearded grandfathers and alps and goat boys named Peter. I'm thinking more rolling green tropical hills than towering mountains with endless winters.
And instead of headstrong little goats named Little Swan and Little Bear, I'm thinking something more along the lines of these hysterically entertaining, adrenaline-deficient, swooners:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we9_CdNPuJg

I would guess that we all have moments where we look at ourselves as if from a distant end of a telescope. And from a distance, I don't understand my latest move at all. No wonder everyone has been so puzzled. I've got a lot of "Vancouver? Really? But....."s.
I know I need to be here. I just hope that a year from now, I will have figured out why.

In contrast to Prague's rather heavy, important, imposing Gothic cathedrals, monuments, and ancient buildings, Ljubljana seems almost flirtatious. To my surprise, it resembles Venice with its beautiful brides criss crossing the canal. But what I really loved was all the Grecian and Art Nouveau touches: the columns, whimsical paintins, marble fountains and colorful little shops. Not the most interesting and entertaining city perhaps but its non-pretentiousness is charming

Bled is the most divine, enchanting, unbelievable combination of Water, Mountains, Castles, and Churches that creates. I spent the better part of an entire day trying to take in the fact that such beauty was possible! Or, that it was possible for people to exist without having seen this, which one picture, which cannot show the many different views from each new meter around the lake could ever show.

Since my last post: Winter, Spring, (Break in Costa Rica) and Summer

it is time for a list again

Things I like about Prague

1. Night trams that run literally all night.
2. The Starbucks has "for here" cups.
3. Fashion. Relaxed, funky, professional but not as OCD as the rest of Europe.
4. The old man who looks like a sailor in a land-locked country. ¨
5. People attempting to dash over tricky cobblestones in tricky heels to catch the tram.
6. Not being a tourist.
7. The high percentage of people reading everywhere.
8. People-watching, so much scope.
9. Watching people people-watching. No shame in staring. After all, what else do you do in trams.
10. Bridges
11. Stunning night walks.
12. Balconies


Things I dont like about Prague
1. Czech pronounciation
2. Dogs
3. Expensive museums
4. Lack of available flats
5. Beaurocracy.
6. No free tap water anywhere. Not even in resturants.

Love, Laugh, Grow

These were the goals I set out for myself for this year in Prague. I have the tendency to forget.
Instead of opening my heart to my surroundings and loving with all my heart, I have the tendency to critisize, using culture shock to excuse my lack of understanding.
Instead of laughing and joyously experiencing the beauties of this place all around me, I look down, focusing on my needs instead of my blessings.
Instead of looking at the difficult facets as a joy and a privilage and an experience which will broaden my horizons, I complain.
But I do not want to lose the chance to be enlightened by things far beyond my control. So instead of judgement, I chose love. Instead of looking down I choose to look up and to laugh. Instead of complaining, I choose to grow.

And, in the words of St. Francis,

Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred let me bring your love.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord
And where there's doubt, true faith in you.

Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness, ever joy.

Make me a channel of your peace
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
In giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we're born to eternal life

What a dehumanizing feeling is lack of sleep. At least for me, without sleep I simply don't have energy for life. My schedule is rather messed up in that I have no evenings, usually getting home between 8 and 10 and getting up at 6 every morning (except Fridays). So for four days, I exist in a strange Zombie-like state where every moment is spent finding energy for the next. I do not want to spend a year like this. I did manage to get rid of one of my children's classes so that means I have a rather large gap on Mondays where I can sneak in a long nap. That is bound to help. Furthermore, lesson planning is becoming less stressful and quicker, so again, time will be saved there.

I want to live fully every moment not just on the weekends! Is that an unreasonable request?

Tram #20

The metro, despite its extreme convenience in strange cities, is, when taken daily, a disgruntling experience. Mornings, especially, are no time to take the tram if one is sleepy of eye. Like drones, the slightly thinner throngs trudge down down down from the darkness of the sky to the belly of the city. Conversation is limited, faces are long, and it is generally a depressing experience, even to a sunny morning riser like myself.
Which is why, after the very forgettable 7:20AM classes are over, I opt to take the tram instead. The #20 is particularly delightful. It winds around dignified residential areas; around national monuments where caretakers plant and nurture beautiful flora, through old, narrow streets filled with quaint and modern alike. It winds around hills already bursting with autumn colors and makes a convenient stop right by the only Starbucks I have yet to find in the city (and which, of course, i only allow myself an occasional moment here and there). But if all this looked weren't here, and 90% of the path looked like Mordor, it would be worthwhile for a 1 minute stretch which makes up for all the misery of the morning. As the train leaves the residential area of Hradchanska, it winds down the mountain and for a brief moment one can view heaven as it hugs the largest castle in Europe on the one side and gives the trammers an amazingly beautiful view of Prague in all its glory: spires, cobbblestones, the predominant green and black colors, and Karlov Most (or Charles Bridge) can all be taken in.
It is this daily minute that reminds me why I am here. In that minute I forget about my cheeky teenagers, my terrifying kids, and my keener adults. In that minute, my sense of adventure comes back and I remind myself that somewhere in that panorama there is a home waiting for me! I am reminded of all the art galleries yet to enjoy, the streets to explore, the coffee shops to discover. No matter what new complications the day throws at me or the odd characters back in my hostel room. With a view like that, I tell myself, I can have no complaints.