perhaps its just because it was the worst way anyones ever wronged me, but im still angry about it, and about the stupidity of people after the fact. i dont think i really miss any individual person of it all, i miss having a clique or whatever but not those people. god not those people. i can definitely do better... and i think i should strive for precisely that.

...

well that was shorter than i thought. still royally pissed though.

in any case

depression is a shitty disorder to have.

i was with a friend awhile ago, giving her a back massage. suddenly i realized how... old she looked. i think shes around the same age as me. it hadnt really hit me how time has gone by really. it seems unfair really, until very recently i was still learning 90% of the time. now im doing at least 50% of the time. im 21. that doesnt seem right somehow. probably a quarter of my lifetime, maybe less if some things catch up with me, and i feel old, i must look old (people in Ghana guessed i was 40 or so), im told i think like im old, which might be a good thing... what exactly does that mean? what does any of it mean? its strange to look at someone and realize theyre old, and yet theyre the same age as you. time goes by, faster and faster. and people dont forgive in all that, which is sad. and some of them are shallow enough to hurt others and get on as though nothing happened. and some find happiness, or something after a sort. and some die, far too young. and some go on to absurd things. they change things. i used to think i knew which i wanted to be, but now i dont know anymore. and thats kind of scary. seeing the kind of poverty in Africa makes you rethink what youre doing, in every action.

people in Africa, even people who farm on land every day and have some kind of output and maybe even own a motorcycle, theyre poorer than the people you meet on the street with their hands out. people in Africa dont have options, or opportunities, or choices the same way the guy on the street does. they cant get government assistance to go to school. they cant take out loans in many cases because they have no credit record. theyre stuck growing food and then eating it and hoping generally the same happens next year and that their house doesnt fall apart.

theres something seriously wrong with that.

but then again, theres something seriously wrong with a culture that feels the need to spray water all over the ground for no other reason than to grow a kind of plant that doesnt serve any purpose, and then spend more resources making sure that plant is kept at a short height so it doesnt offend neighbours. or one that finds it reasonable that some people should live in homes about 800 times bigger than the living spaces of some other individuals.

the worlds old, and its fucked up.

i most definitely recognize this place, and have no desire to be here whatsoever.

"with one simple pill we cured unhappiness

and art."

There's shadows here
on the inside of your eye
your mind, even
but what are they?
we build the world on shadows
on well crafted lies about the things we cant see directly
so what should it matter that there's shadows here?

it matters
i don't want shadows
i want light.

sometimes it isn't art that you're looking for.

"my father says racist shit all the time

he hates these ones and those ones and

he takes care of me and my mother"

50% disgruntled and spiteful, wondering when people are gonna stop with the bs
50% pumped, because in 9 days im going to be somewhere completely different, getting stung by scorpions, and working with people that i know dont have any bs and are a bajillion times more mature than the folk on the peripheries that are bothering me here, and i wish i could surround myself with them because theyre awesome and wonderful and beautiful creatures.

its bothersome. i have a bunch of school work to do, and a bunch of EWB work to do. i want to do the EWB work, and i dont want to do the school work. i know i should be doing the school work first. therefore i wind up doing nothing, because these feelings even out to a net sum of "fuck off and do nothing"

im going to montreal after my last exam. literally, right after. like, im going to put my pencil down, walk to the parking lot, and then drive to montreal. my friend Alisha might come with, which would make me super happy. Im hoping to meet up with my friend Charlotte one last time before I leave, hopefully to see her again in 3 and a half months in Tamile. another awesome, wonderful and beautiful creature. some people think saying they wish the entire world were like someone would be boring, but i suspect if everyone were charlotte the world would be a better place.

ive acquired a laptop, not quite the laptop i want (it is missing crazy red decals on the top) but a very nice machine none the less. theres something sexy about a plain sleek black top. I have a gel art decal that goes on top anyways. my brother installed pretty much the most insane sound editing software in the world on there, i think its called Reason? it has like 2 dozen different systems in it: synth, drum machine, keyboard, plus a bunch of editing stuff, filters etc. i can make some techno in my spare time in Ghana, basically.

also, after visiting... 7 stores? ive found a hat that almost kinda more or less fits my ginormous head. its about as close as im gonna get i guess. if i had gone to hawaii with my mom last year id probably have been able to find a nice hat there. granted i wouldnt have known id needed it, but still. if youre wondering why i didnt go, it was because it was during the radiohead concert in montreal, and i decided radiohead was more important. my brother thought i was crazy, my sister understood completely.

"Judge if you want.
We are all going to die.
I intend to deserve it."

I'm leaving for four months, to a place I've never been to, for a lifestyle I've never experienced, in less than 20 days.

Oh my.

I know of some folk who've been to Africa, but I doubt that part of their objective whilst there was to become as much like the people they were there to aid. It's going to be an odd feeling. My basic goal at that level is to become Warwick if Warwick were born in Ghana. What is that Warwick like?

Another major issue is my actual placement. The placement lists my location as blank. This is somewhat disconcerting. I take it to mean I will be traveling. From what I gather my objective whilst over there is to teach people how to teach, and to some extent influence what they teach. So I'm going to be taught how to teach people how to teach. My gray matter rebels against that kind of sentance structure, but its what's going down. It's surprising what skill sets related to this someone from our society already possesses though. I've a feeling the training will be more about realizing things we already know. Simple things like the distinctions between learning styles (auditory, visual, etc.). I'm tempted to save some PDF's on learning style studies to my laptop as a resource, it might come in handy. I'm also considering putting together my conception of how a learning plan designed to attune people to how other people function in a learning environment, while simultaneously attempting to alter that learning environment to bridge the gap between gender inequalities, socio-economic inequalities, etc. So much to think about! But it will be worth the effort to do. Maybe I'll use my CUSERT shifts for this purpose.

What else is new...
EWB exec retreat was pretty awesome. Anything where you go from intense and in-depth discussions about social deconstruction to playing ridiculous games until 4 in the morning is awesome, really. It plays to my two main interests and I love it. I get to be intellectually articulate and a little kid at the same time.

miss my cats =\

"i said a hundred times
i would give my soul
to have you back

but i didn't sign nothing"

its late, I have quite a bit to do tomorrow. I'll have to skip class, probably.

There's 2 incredibly cute girls in my life right now. I'm torn between em. I guess you could say 3, but I doubt much could come of 3, so we'll keep it at 2.

And I'm leaving for 4 months so theres not much point really. Not until I get back anyways.

I shaved my head down, mostly for the trip, but i did it tonight specifically because I have to pretend to be a soldier for a bit tomorrow. soldiers dont get afros. i considered shaving my beard, since soldiers dont get facial hair either, unless theyre a sergeant, in which case theyre allowed a bushy mustache, but the thought only crossed my mind for a moment.

oi, really wish my sleeping patterns were normal.

30 minutes left to my second CUSERT shift this weekend. thats 24 hours of work. only had 1 call so far, wasnt so much interesting as baffling.

i have so much homework to do its retarded. its at the point where im dissuaded from beginning work just because i know i could go on for the whole day and not finish

so instead im going to procrastinate by updating on recent events

A) the engineers without borders national conference
2 or 3 nights in a row, i spent 3 hours playing african drums with 5-6 other people in a drum circle in one of the conference rooms, with about 50 other people dancing around us. at one point someone handed me a beer, so i started playing with 1 hand (did not change, slow down, or screw up the beat), and chugged the whole thing. it was an incredibly surreal experience, as was most of the rest of the conference. i was getting 3 hours of sleep a night and waking up wide-eyed in anticipation of what i would be learning next. some interesting things happened at said conference. for one, our CEOs burned our mission statement in front of all of us, because it didnt reflect the organization anymore. apparently rumours spread that im really cool too, which while nice, i cant really speak to, but i counseled people to take it with a grain of salt.

B) i visited montreal... 2-3 times? mainly to see my friend Charlotte, who is the most amazing person in the world. also to bring my friend Ana to see a "friend" of hers she met at conference. it was during that car ride i met her friend Simona, who is interested in making a band, so i may have a band again soon. mightve found us a drummer too. my plan is to teach Raie guitar, and then have Simona's BF on guitar as well, and find a bassist, and then be awesome.

C) getting ready to hit up Africa is getting stressful, mainly because the travel physician i went to see is a nubbins. he was supposed to call me with my blood type, but forgot, so i have to go in with another appointment to get it (i was supposed to have it march 1st), he also accidentally wrote Metacyclene on my prescription, which is not an anti-malarial drug, instead of the doxycyclene i asked for. the pharmicist caught that one, so thankfully i dont have 6 months worth of not-useful shit. they were supposed to call when they got that sorted out as well but havent yet, so i have to go hassle them too. kind of the more important set of pills im getting here. on the flip-side im wtfpwning the cultural prep i think. ill post my travel blog here in a bit so folk can follow my various adventures. apparently onea the last JFs carleton sent out only sent one message back, namely "i think i can feel my bones," so im hoping to do a bit better than making everyone think ive starved to death

it kind of odd... to go to Ghana i am buying a laptop, and will be getting a cell phone when i get there... ive never had portable technology on me before in my entire life, with the exception of my wrist watch i think. its so strange feeling. im going to have fun being completely clueless how these things work in a country you wouldnt expect people to need these things.

Amnesty International Coffeehouse
I organized a ridiculously awesome event.
...
okay so ill expand on that. my team of folk and i got a 4 hour coffeehouse at carleton put together. 1 hour of 2 carleton profs giving a speech on torture and extraordinary rendition and how illegal it is, 2.5 hours of musical/other performances (we nearly got bellydancers!! next time). basically was crazy successful. having 3 tables full of free food mightve helped. delicious free food. im so happy it went well! it raised money for my trip as well as for AI, and i played bongos n stuff, and read a reasonably pieced together introductory piece without fucking it all up.

i also taped my friends laptop shut, and then taped her powercord to it, and then taped a cup to that. it took us like 30 minutes to unwrap it. i was really tired but hyper, and so was she, so we were doing ridiculously random things. it was awesome. at one point i slung her over my shoulder and ran throuh the atrium with her, ignoring all the odd looks


mmmm what else is new...

...

oh, uhm, my other cat passed away =( and we cant find her body, its somewhere in the house we're pretty sure. im pretty effing sad about that, but havent really had time to properly grieve because of all the schoolwork, so its just been stressing me out. bleh.

and probably all sorts of other stuff... i dunno.

okay, i really need to write a closing thing about the whole Grace issue bullshit, because i still occasionally find myself thinking about how angry i am about it.

Grace cheated on me with rob. she can make any bullshit excuses she likes about how it wasnt cheating, but she was clearly expressing and fulfilling interest in him long before she ever broke up with me.
she then cheated on rob with me, and apparently at the very least another dude named al - nearly left rob for him.
rob is a retard. always has been. my discussion with him when grace "made up her mind" just reaffirmed this in a spectacular number of ways. "im too optimistic to believe shes cheating on me" being the best example. basically translates to "im too dumb to consider the possibility." grace must love him.

neither of them are going anywhere in life. theyre both stuck where they are. i am still growing and creating and learning and have a vast amount of potential within me still untapped. what i ever saw in grace i really cant recall anymore. clearly she is nothing i ever wanted. she is unfaithful, childish, manipulative, insincere, and an idiot.

whatever repercussions came out of my actions in it, i know i did the right thing and dont really care. and if people are going to be so ridiculous as to continue befriending her, even though she constantly complained to me about how much she deeply hated every single person in Aylmer, i feel the better for it because i can laugh at every single one of them for being so ignorant and taken in by her bullshit over and over, even though theyve admitted as much that it hurts them.

what REALLY annoys me is she still owes me 200 fucking dollars.

/rant.

lets examine a morally ambiguous situation

you know for a fact that X has, in the past, cut themselves with a razorblade to deal with depression, anxiety, so forth. X lives with their parents. having asked X a few times to go see a professional, to no avail, one would expect you to be concerned about their well being. lets say X isnt really a friend of yours. you just happen to have this information, and have felt the need to ask them to seek help, because you really think they need it.

it occurs to you that X's parents have significant more weight with them than anyone else. they have significantly more leverage in making this person see a doctor than you do.

which moral obligation takes precedent? a moral obligation to their privacy or a moral obligation to what you perceive may be a threat to their mental health, and possibly even their life if it were allowed to continue?

Personally, this is what i believe:
even if X were my best friend in the whole wide world, if i believed for an instant that I could do them some good by telling their parents about this, in the hopes they would eventually receive some help because of it, despite the fact this person would hate me for the rest of my life, i would still do it. no matter what the situation was between us, i would feel the need to do it, as a matter of fact. if absolutely everyone i knew wound up hating me for it, i would still do it. if X's parents completely failed to do anything with that information, i would still probably do it.

my friendships, the "meh" of this individual, nothing, would stop me from doing it. its just the right thing to do, i think. even if X never became totally suicidal, it would still be the right thing to do, because X would clearly be in a mode of instability, ranging from whatever X's normal state was to depression bad enough that X caused themself harm. This is not the normal human condition, and something should absolutely be done in such an instance, and i believe one has a moral obligation to do ones best to improve the human condition at every opportunity.

this is a broader problem with some morals. most moral theories dont really have a way of dealing with moral obligations that come into contest with one another. there is no definitive answer of which is the right thing to do or not - some people will choose A, some people will choose B, some people will find a middle ground between the two. actually, i dont think any moral theory does... the closest one i can think of is Hume, where he basically says people should do whatever they think is right so long as their choice could be universalized - everyone else would choose it in the same situation. this doesnt preclude there being multiple solutions to the same problem, i dont think, so it comes close. but even that is problematic, because then you just have universalized moral decisions in contest with one another instead.

i cant think of any "right" answer to this problem. Instead I can only think of weighing the potential harms of the two choices against one another. if you tell their parents, what good could happen and what bad could happen? well, it could cause X so much anxiety they harm themselves. this is clearly not a desirable result whatsoever. but after the fact, perhaps X's parents will bloody do something about it. X's parents could do nothing, in which case you had no effect. X could be ashamed. X could hate you forever. X could tell everyone you know and then everyone you know could hate you forever. or, X could get help which may, at some point, be the difference between life and death, or the difference between the end or continuation of their relationships, of their life goals, etc. the possibilities range quite widely. One would hope, however, that X's parents would be morally good agents themselves, and recognize the intent and importance of ones decision to tell them, and thus help X. the only way this could really hit the fan is if X somehow convinced their parents that X did not cut themselves, that you are a jerk, and then fall into a depression as well. well, lets qualify this - you being demonized for your actions doesnt matter. we're talking about the good and bad for X, not for you. lets continue. Finally, X's parents may be dumb, and stigmatize X for being suicidal-ish.

so the bad ranges from depression with severe side affects to just feeling incredibly slighted.

What good could come of it? X could get the help they need, never hurt themselves again, lead an incredibly fruitful, stable, focused and wonderful life, and anything in between there and their usual behaviour.

... so... fuck. You could save a life or you could kill it, apparently. it functionally depends on the "middle" man/woman/whatever, X's parents or guardian. its what they do with the information that really makes the difference. the responsible, moral thing to do, would be to verify that information, and then act on it towards reaching the fulfillment of the best possible good outcome available. if this happens, X now has 1, 2, or more people trying to help them, get them professional assistance, etc. this would, one hopes, buffer against the worst negative outcomes. maybe X will still feel incredibly slighted and upset, but healthy individuals feel that all the time too, so its perfectly fine. its the depression we want to avoid. if X gets the support of their family, of doctors, and of friends, X will gain benefits despite the losses. Thus we have obtained our goal, no matter what consequences it has for you.

what you want, is to eliminate the possible outcome of inaction. inaction, in this case, results in X continuing whatever cycle or state they were in that caused them to harm themselves. self-harm of any kind is a precursor to suicidal tendencies, and reflects depression. recurring self-harm reflects a deep depression of some kind. it doesnt really matter how often this recurrance is - once a day, once a month, every time a particular form of stressor occurs. we want to stop that. even if you telling X's parents initially causes X to harm themselves, is this outweighed by the positives that should, hopefully, come from it?

... i havent got an answer to that. anyone?

i dont really like the idea of "taking one step back to take two forward" in this instance. we want to stop self-harm not cause it. but its kind of out of your control, so should it be a point of concern? if we've settled on the fact that telling X's parents is the right thing to do, can this broader idea be overturned by a specific concern?

rar. maybe details is a dumb thing to focus on. but oh well. i asked =P

anyways, broadly speaking, i think it is the right thing to do - to try and help X as much as possible, no matter the context. even if it hurts you, actually. contentions anyone?

So, I got selected to go to Africa.

...So... a few thousand people die of the plague in Africa every year.

Like... THE plague.

... sigh.

Anyways, regardless, I'm probably going to be having a few "Warwick is going to Africa, probably to die" parties, of course everyone is welcome. ACTUAL plague.

But in all seriousness, I'm incredibly excited and looking forward to it. I just don't know what to do about my beard, to be honest. I figure shaving it on a regular basis is going to be difficult, but NOT shaving it could result in me being mistaken for some African version of the Yeti, which would likely be more unfortunate than having a really scraggly beard. It's not like I have to impress anyone there either way, so it's becoming something of a dilemma. I already know what growing the thing for a month feels like, thanks to that challenge I had with patsy. i.e. fucking unpleasant. 3.5 months seems... like a bad amount of time to go without shaving.

I like how my facial hair is greater concern to me than where I might be living, or that whole plague thing.

Y'know, the black death.

there are 2 late stage symptoms of the plague that I've heard of, neither of which I've been able to verify. One of them sounds kinda cool, whereas the other does not. The cool one is that supposedly your eyes turn black. I imagine that the cause of your eyes turning black is extraordinarily painful, or toxic, or both, but still, having completely black eyeballs would make anyone look intense i think. the not cool symptom is that your intestines kinda... come out... I shant describe that any further. Again, unconfirmed as far as any medical sites can tell me. on the other hand, the symptoms i could confirm are somewhere in between. the most disturbing one being that your throat/neck essentially explodes.

... anyways, enough of that.

There is the very good chance that tomorrow, after my interview, I will be selected to go to Africa for the summer.

I'm aware that given my luck in the last little while, there's a good chance I'm going to contract the plague or malaria, suffer for several months, and then survive the ordeal but only barely. But meh.

Essentially I'd be going to Africa to help a developing country. I'm pretty effing psyched about this. I've always wanted to go to Africa, and I've always wanted to do something like this, so 3 and a half months tooling around, helping people better their lives and community, sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. Except for the plague.

Winter came in a real big hurry last night. I had some yard work to do still =\ guess that isn't happening. I'm sure all my stuff will be around come spring. I'm kind of curious why there's pool hozes and things laying around out there though.

i hate when i say something, which is meant to be funny and silly, and then someone says something in reply to it which is serious, and i have to re-clarify what i really meant, and it just sounds like im trying to appease them. eg. i recently told someone about a couple apartments my friends are in, and how nice they were. neither place is particularly large, but they are spacious considering the number of people living in each, and their layout. person in particular replied that they preferred smaller spaces.

i love small, cozy spaces. i love my room for exactly this reason. everything tucks into it neatly, with barely any room to spare, and for some reason that makes it more home-like. i also appreciate having a large space too, and i love that for a different reason, which is why my computer is up in the attic, which is pointlessly large. if i had to choose, i would choose functionally small over pointlessly large. im envious of a friend of mine who is a trucker, because he has his tiny little cabin and thats his home. that, and it can go anywhere. if i could, i would own a giant solarpowered truck, like a big dumptruck turned into a home, and drive around in that. a tiny fortress on wheels. between the homes i want, i would be happy with a small apartment, and my dream house is essentially a castle, but a modest one. i drew it once, and honestly, it wouldnt be all that big once you get down to the actual footprint itd make on the ground, nor in total square foot space. i imagined it more like a block of european style apartments mottled together with a courtyard in the middle. and even then, im such an open-door kind of person, id probably build parts of it specifically to be used by people other than myself and my family. theres no reason your home shouldnt contribute to your community, imho.

anyways, i digress. so i was forced to clarify - i love small apartments, i want one too. by "she has a huge bedroom" i did not literally mean it was huge, i meant it was spacious, there is a difference. my teams office is a good example. its tiny as fuck, but its spacious (especially now that those god forbidden cupboards are out of there). i generally meant that i wanted a NICE place, instead of a place like where my sister used to live, where im pretty sure someone decided to litter the floor with roadkill before carpeting it, because theres no other way i can explain the bumps in the hallway of her apartment building.

another thing that my friend has inspired me to do - use only recycled furniture. almost everything in her home is from a dumpster, and its an amazingly beautiful apartment. im super jealous.

anyways...

i went to the womens residence today. they have a rooftop garden too! this works out lovely. the problem being its in the building where they house the majority of the women with mental disorders, so im not so sure id be able to build any project out of it other than growing food for people. le sad =\ oh well

For a variety of reasons

A) the election. wow. honestly, Harper should've been a joke, instead he was the best candidate the conservatives have fielded in recent memory. He's also probably put us in a minority government situation for a very long time. baaaahhhhhh

B) a fairly large number of people in aylmer currently, mainly the people who apparently decided im not worth their time. their loss. but im still right pissed

C) people who believe in something but dont do anything for it


in other news, i got absolutely 0 hours of sleep last night. i went to a screening of a very interesting film, called the rabbit-proof fence, instead of going straight home after class. after said screening, i ran into my friend jess, who was on the phone with my other friend dharshi (brown version of beamish, but cooler). Jess gave me the phone to convince dharshi of whatever. apparently she was sitting in her basement eating desserts. I told her thats what girls did when the world had fallen apart and their pet monkey had died, so clearly she should either come to carleton or us come to her. so we went to her, since she liked that idea, and had tea, and watched dead like me. all around good fun. i went home at 1:30 or so. I had to be up at 6 to make it in for my CUSERT shift and class. i was so tired i didnt go to any classes today tho, just slept in the CUSERT office, a sleep which was sporadically interrupted by discussions or calls to help people. I contemplated going to class after my shift/nap, but i felt sufficiently shitty that i opted to go home instead.

on a brighter side of things, someone in the administration at carleton finally got back to me about my garden things. his response was to refer me on to someone else. but in any case, its progress. i also managed to generate some moderate interest in the group, looks like we'll be having an actual meeting now. yay!

my calendar for this month is absurdly full. I have 2 papers to write, that i can remember of in any case, 3 more CUSERT shifts minimum, yoga lessons, interviews, parties, meetings, trainings, a quiz, probably 2. bleh. thisll be difficult to navigate. atleast the essays are easy and fun, respectively. getting all my shit together is getting difficult.

I'm volunteering at a women's shelter in ottawa. and I'm applying for even more volunteer positions at carleton. I think I'll try applying for an internship as well. I want to edit my resume though. It's 4 pages long, which to my understanding is either twice or four times as long as it ought to be. I don't suppose someone could take a look at it and tell me what I've done wrong? It might be that I have 11 things listed under volunteer experience... many with multiple listed positions. hum.

reason 1:

so you know that whole, whats it called... economic collapse? down in the states? do you remember what Bush was doing to the economy before that happened? tax cuts to the middle and working class, while letting off on regulations for corporations. Harper is essentially promising the same thing to Canadians. tax cuts while giving grants to corporations. supposedly theres some regulation thats gonna go on, but lets be realistic, hes a conservative and believes in the laissez-faire economy. or laissez-fuck, as i think it should be called from now on.

heres the thing about economists, they preach John Smiths famous phrase, "the invisible hand of the market," and say this means we should let the market do whatever it wants. except they forget that in the SAME PARAGRAPH, Smith warns against corporate interests that, unchecked, plot against the layman. i think people nowadays see the invisible hand of the market when it is really the cloaked dagger of corporate greed. not in all cases of course, and not to the extremity which that phrase might suggest, but it is most certainly there.

reason 2:

Harper cut arts funding. some people will probably not care very much about this, but it is actually very important. for one, ive heard rumour that it was cut along political lines, IE. anti-globalisation artists had their funding cut, conservative-friendly artists did not. but other than that, jack layton was very right to say arts and culture are the driving force of the economy. art provokes thought, thought provokes change, change provokes innovation, innovation provokes technology. art is also tightly wound with politics, and Harper can expect a massive backlash from the artist community for this, one which can already be found in facebook groups about how the common canadian does care about arts, or the very well written and deep letter written to mr harper by a director across the street from parliament (posted to my facebook as well). Harper has thrown aside a very important part of our community, and part of what has created a unique identity for Canada, however intangible and difficult to grasp it is even for us.

reason 3:

the environment. to the point that an activist group raised 50,000 dollars in ONE NIGHT to run ads targetting 3 MPs running for re-election, including John Baird, harpers minister of the environment. Harpers government has passed absurd, ineffective legislation targetting climate issues, and scrapped plans the liberals had put in place that were looking fairly promising (or outright renamed them and pretended they were conservative ideas). Baird, at international meetings, has backed the US's position to impede solid targets for reducing GHG emissions and other measures.

oh, and the conservatives didnt even have an environmental plan when they entered office. they didnt think it was a real issue.

reason 4:

crime! Harper wants to "get tough on crime." which is another way of saying hes going to make problems with the existing, broken criminal system worse. prisons and crime policy needs to be majorly overhauled, not extended. prisons as they now stand do not rehabilitate people, they drive them crazy (next time youre bored, lock yourself in an empty room for a day and see how you feel after. maybe try doing it with someone you really dont like to get the full effect). the criminal system also tends to turn minor crimes into life sentences. case in point, in law class in first year we heard a story about this one girl who was arrested for shop lifting. so shes in the station lockup, and this guy keeps telling her hes going to rape her. going to the guard gets you labelled a rat, and you get the shit kicked out of you every day, so her only other options were to A) get raped, or B) show this asshole whose boss. so she waited by the cafeteria with a pan and hit the guy over the head with it. this gets her labeled a dangerous offender by the police, and now shes in jail for assault, with a worse bunch of criminals, who she was to defend herself against in a similar manner. real winning system weve got going. i dont think putting more people in it for longer is going to make things better.

reason 5:

harper wants to militarize the arctic. apparently hes scared the russians are going to come steal our goldz. for one, the shit hes scared is going to get stolen is extremely difficult to access. russia would essentially have to forcefully occupy half of Canada to get to it in any worthwhile amount. i dont think its going to happen. we need a nominal military force up there. hes also telling natives to "use it or lose it" with their land. uhm, jackass, maybe if you just asked these guys to defend it for you, youd kill 2 birds with one stone? no angry human rights groups and a militia that probably really wants to keep their land. basically Harper thinks he should be the one to take it instead of the russians. again, a winning plan, im sure. if he had half a brain he'd listen to what the people up there want - help develop it so Canada has a legitimate claim in the way of businesses rather than bullets.


so, a harper majority, should, be my calculation, get us the following: billions wasted in ineffective or useless criminal and military resources, a weakened economy, a weakened state apparatus, continued pollution problems, and a lot of angry, possibly asthmatic people.

so, been quite some time since an update!

Frosh madness:
basically that whole week was brutal, but fun. monday was the tour and lunch thing at carleton. we basically walked all over campus, in my case a couple of times because i cant plan a tour worth shit, and because theyve apparently decided to turn one of the stairways on campus into a weird escher painting-like thing. basically theres 3 stairways that meet at this odd shaped intersection, and they were quite handy for jumping around to a few parts of campus in a hurry... except now they all abruptly end in midair. anywho... so at the lunch, we were all nearly killed by the bbq. the pipe for the propane tank was leaking, but they didnt know this when they tried to light it, so instead of a nice little propane flame deal going on, they essentially had something that looked more like a poor attempt at a rocket. so there was no hot food, but what was there was very delicious. tuesday was the tour downtown, which was pretty sweet. i learned about a whole bunch of little indie stores n things that i hadnt been aware of before, plus met a bunch of cool ottawa u people. wednesday was my day off from frosh, altho i hear i missed out. there was a sex shop lesson done by Venus Envy, so we had 40 students walking around the unicentre chanting "sex toys".... im sad i wasnt there for that. thursday was first day of classes, and then friday was a bunch of workshops on bike repair, sewing, buncha other stuff, and the karaoke dance party, which was awesome. i wanted to finish it off with everyone singing bohemian rhapsody but we had to leave before =\ i did do wild thing tho, and i also sang a verse of clint eastwood by the gorillaz, which was pretty effing intense to do.

ah, what else has been happening...

i volunteered for 2 election campaigns (i nearly wrote volunt33red? wtf?), neither of which have asked me to do anything for them so its kind of annoying (green and liberal, fyi). I also volunteered for "carleton serves," where basically a ton of carleton students go out and do community work, as well as for the animation festival next weekend (which happily overlaps the carleton serves thing, so fuck if i know how thats gonna work, oh, and theres 2 charity pub nights that day too?! argh). tonight was the fund raiser for the womens rugby team("rock out with your cock out" was the official party name. one person did so literally, if only for a brief period, and due to someone else... long story.)

started a facebook group for my rooftop garden deal, and applied to be an OPIRG working group, so if approved ill have 100$ funding, which will probably be for advertising. Ive gotta go to housing and make sure theyd actually be okay with there being rooftop garden greenhouses, and then i can get the students on side, and then i can go harass the administration about it. hopefully. it seems a few people have tried to do this in the past and failed. oh well, whats one more?

and.... hum. been meeting some new people which im fairly pleased about. gonna improve on that. theres new cusert members too, so ill have to make a point of getting to know them this year. aaand... im really tired, so i cant remember, but im 90% sure theres something im forgetting... oh well. another time.

thats it for me tonight me thinks!

edit: wait wait, i remembered a couple things
first off, people i wasnt expecting to see attending carleton: alex wolski, frank cross' girlfriend, and frank cross.

secondly, my garden is doing awesome. ill prolly put some pics up on facebook, but it looks very... gardeny. and prime for planting. plantingy? but also...

things ive found in the garden that were kinda weird/cool: a ton of plastic sheeting, a piece of red clay tile, a sparker for a propane torch, a golf ball (wtf?!), some weird rubber plug thing, like 12 ant colonies (and always their nursery, its cool to watch all the ants scrambling to get the eggs out of the nursery, altho i feel bad for fucking up their home. then again theyre angry looking red ants, so i dont feel as bad.)

things ive found in the garden that were really weird/gross: a worm taking a dump, big white larvae that i have to kill because they eat the grass but theyre super fucking gross

things ive found in the garden that fucked me over today: so i found this huge rock digging about a week ago, so i just threw it off to the side and forgot about it. i was mowing today, and i went up beside the garden, and i saw the big rock, so i was absolutely sure to avoid it and stay away from it because i didnt want to hit the big rock.... then i came back about half an hour later because i was done mowing all the other parts of the backyard, and beyond the garden is this little spot that never gets mowed and was super overgrown, and im using the cut grass to improve the soil i dug up (because its basically clay right now, so mixing a bunch of grass in will help turn it into top soil), so im like "yeah! tons of grass for my clay shit!" and throttled up to drive straight into it... guess what i hit on the way there?

the mower on the tractor stopped. then the tractor stalled.

i got it going again, but it was making a lot of very interesting sounds and vibrating a lot, and i couldnt get the mower to run again.... soooo... yeah.... dont hit big fucking rocks with your tractor, is what id say.

frosh has been pretty chill. yesterday was a little disappointing because the bbq for our lunch didnt work (read: nearly exploded). otherwise we gave everyone a nice tour of the carleton campus and sort of oriented them to some issues on campus (ie the absurd salaries the admins get compared to the absurd debt students get handed). today we had a pretty awesome day tho, it was very enjoyable. we bussed down to rideau (giving a little bus tour along the way) and then met up with a group from ottawa u at confederation park. from there we did a kind of scavenger hunt/tour of downtown ottawa, covering elgin, bank, rideau, and the market area. i learned quite a bit myself too actually. one of the ottawa u facils came with my group. she was this really cool girl who was actually born in bosnia but has spent a lot of her life in north america. she knew a lot about the downtown area since shed lived here forever. so i found out about a lot of cool fair trade shops and independently owned businesses in ottawa, which i fully intend to take advantage of now. the herb and spice shop was pretty awesome especially. its basically an organic grocer store on bank street. it smelled pretty sweet just walking in. there were also some other really neat stores pointed out to us. anywho, it was all quite fun. they went off to see a movie after, persepolis, at the bytown, but i was pretty tired and decided to head back home instead.

I love analogies. I make very good ones. I'm like a shark... that analogizes.

Let's say your house is on fire.

What are your courses of option, and what do they say about you as a person?

A) run away

your house is gonna fuckin burn down, buddy! it won't magically repair itself, there isn't going to be anything to work with years down the line, someone else will have built their own house where your house was if you do that. what your essentially saying is "i dont give 2 shits bout this house," either that or youre a pansy who's afraid of fire. and knowing fires, you would be EXTREMELY lucky if there were anything left at all afterwards. so if someone offers you to rebuild your house from the little bit still standing (usually a humurous little corner including your second floor bathroom, where only the bathtub and showerhead are left), you would be real fucking wise to take it if that house meant anything to you. otherwise, youre either incapable of sentimental thought and therefore an emotionless automaton, or you are disloyal. disloyalty doesn't quite fit into my analogy, but we'll pretend it does. essentially you said "well, this house is toast, time to find a new one"

B) put the fire out, dipshit

usually a simple task, the first being to stop what youre doing, get some water, and put it out. of course fire damage is usually pretty severe even on a small scale. at the least you might have to shop for a new stove. in the most severe case you were dumb and let your house burn down to a single post, but I would rebuild MY house if all i had was a single post. why? because its what I have, its what I want, its mine. Yes, its hard work, but if you arent willing to put hard work into something, you arent going to get anywhere in life. loyalty, tenacity, caring, dedication. mother fuckers.

The U.S. has decided to pursue laser weapons. There's a lot of potential behind laser weapons, like their laser that cut through an inch of steal in a couple seconds. Then theres the drawbacks.

First off, these are lasers the same way any laser is a laser... let me clarify - it's light. This means that if it's a foggy day you can't shoot anyone. It also means that if your enemy owns a roll of shiny tinfoil (or a large mirror) you're fucked.

Second of all, they have yet to miniaturize these things. The smallest laser they've got they *think* they can fit on a big truck, maybe. The only one in operation is on a boeing 747. Supposedly these will be for shooting down ballistic missiles, regular missiles, and shells as small as mortar shells. Considering past attempts by Americans to shoot down missiles, I don't think this shits gonna fly.

What is scary is the railgun.
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/7603-us-navy-test-fires-a-new-electromagnetic-railgun/

That isn't a shell or anything. the fire you see is from its sheer velocity and friction. yes, thats right, its moving so fast its setting the air around it on fire.

I'm going to guess in a few years the U.S. is going to say railguns aren't actually weapons and then launch a few into space (breaking a treaty they signed not to put guns in space. oh wait, they already said they were going to break it), to protect against "rogue nations"

for a variety of reasons, people may want to start saving up for backyard nuclear fallout shelters again.

first of all, CBC had a very interesting documentary on the other night. as it turns out, mr. Putin, who is currenly prime minister of Russia and has installed a puppet in the presidency, thinks it would be very nice if Russia annexed the countries it previously controlled as the soviet union. he is on record as saying this is his goal, by any means necessary. thus the invasion of Georgia takes on a slightly different light.

second of all, Russia has a fairly large chunk of Europe under its thumb. you see, Russia is home to massive oil and gas fields (so much in fact, they can afford to have a giant pit full of fire out in the middle of nowhere and not do anything about it). Russias has dozens, and dozens, and dozens of pipelines leading into Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and apparently South America (?!). Ukraine had an election awhile back, and then the pro-western candidate won, Putin shut down the gas line, plunging the country into darkness. now imagine him doing that to most of Europe. gas isnt Europes only source of energy of course, but its vital. the oil is far more important, obviously. gasoline is 3 times as expensive in europe as here. on this note, "going green" seems much more like a strategic security choice than a moralistic one. Germany is pioneering wind energy, with massive wind farms spread throughout the country. I believe they plan to start shutting down their nuclear powerplants soon and replacing them with wind turbines. by doing so they are making themselves far less depedent on Russian energy.

third of all, theres the little matter of poland

Russia threatened to nuke poland.

see, the US wants to put in a missile defense shield (that probably wont work), to protect against "rogue nations" (nonexistant, or, Russia). Back when the soviets set up their own missile defense shield, the americans said it was actually an offensive move, because someone with an ample defense will be willing to go on the offense. so of course, the US has gotten poland to agree to have a missile defense shield installed on their territory, claiming its purely defensive. so, russia, seeing a threat, is threatening in kind to launch nuclear missiles at Poland.

so, you have an expansionist pseudo-dictator, with leverage over most of Europe, who says he's willing to go nuclear.

basically I think we're looking at the resurgance of cold-war mentality, with the interesting aside that this time there are going to be 3 superpowers. Russia, the US, and China. China has 3 options in this. it can remain neutral, thereby probably making a ton of money. It has 2 more strategic options however. If China sides with Russia, obviously Russia will win this little encounter. this is especially true because for all intensive purposes it seems that the US is an ailing empire. If China sides with the U.S., it will "win" this possible cold war, but I suspect China will use its growing influence and strength to maneuver itself into a position of superiority in the Western bloc, essentially supplanting the US as the dominant world player in turn for saving it. I've no idea how successful it would be in doing the same with Russia. probably not very.

Then theres the EU. I think the EU as a whole is quite capable of taking care of itself, but im not entirely sure how having russia constantly aggressing towards it will play out. right now they cant do anything but bend under the pressure, because they need russias oilfields and gaslines. maybe if they all went the way of Germany theyd manage to free themselves.

anyways, its quite interesting and scary to watch.

my sister is coming to visit =) yay!