Were the World Mine

Goodbye For Now

2011-05-02T23:02:00.000-07:00

My dear readers, classes are over and I am far away already! I am working on a salmon farm on the remote north west coast of Vancouver Island. It's time to try to put aside some money so that my student loans next year at UBC will not be as enormous as they otherwise would be. This summer, other than working, I will be camping on the shore of Cowichan Lake with my cousins, and I'm going to try to get out to Squamish for a music festival (Bass Coast Project).

This last semestre's strike action has left me graduating with a sour taste in my mouth, but looking back over my blog, I am reminded that I did have many good times at VIU, and I should try to focus on these instead. I don't have much else to say to you now that school has ended except thank you for reading my blog over the last year and a half. According to Google analytics, my blog was visited 5007 times, from 66 different countries! That's pretty spectacular, and I think it says something positive about our institution.

I don't have a new blog to direct you to, but I'm sure I'll be starting a new one before to long. Until I am inspired (or paid) to write, so long, and thanks again!

Looking Forward

2011-04-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

How is the post-strike depression treating everyone? I know I'm not the only one suffering from it. One of my classmates recently described it very well. With our short semestres, we are usually forced to build up a lot of momentum and energy to get everything done in the four months given; it's like rolling a boulder up a hill. With the strike-break, we've lost that momentum just before the peak, and now it's like we have to go from 0 to 60. All of that built up energy dissipated. This is basically how I've been feeling.

While working to wrap up my semestre here at VIU, I've also been planning my escape, so to speak. For the last five years I've kept a summer salmon farming job with Marine Harvest up in Quatsino Sound, and it looks like I'll be going back up there again. I actually leave for the farm next Thursday, so I've had to arrange with some professors who had intended to schedule classes on that day. I'm sure I'm not the worst off. There are students who had planned to start picking up shifts, or leave for work much earlier than me.

I'll be working pretty hard this summer, trying to earn as much of my UBC tuition as I can for the fall. My salmon farming job, plus living with my parents, has allowed me to stay off student loans all through my undergrad, but I'm going to have to go into debt when I move to Vancouver. So, I'll be bouncing between the farm, my parents place, and Vancouver all summer, and come August I'll have to find a new place to live. Haha, but i guess I should be focusing on the present. I still need those grades if I ever want to go to grad school.

The Semestre Abridged

2011-04-14T01:07:00.000-07:00

During the strike my school-related anxiety metre reached boiling as the "contingency plans" roll out, and the administration's terrifying scare-tactic emails washed over me. It's only been a couple of days, but I think I've returned to my normal level of disquiet.

Since the strike ended over the weekend I've seen or exchanged emails with all of my profs, and the tendency seems to be toward flexibility, which is extremely helpful. I've gone from four exams to one, and most of my research paper deadlines (I still have four of them plus a poetry portfolio) have been pushed to the end of the month. Professors have been open to negotiating with their classes, adjusting dates to fit our work schedules, and collecting opinions on grade percent distribution.

Things are going well. Still, I hope next year's students don't have to go through the same thing, when the faculty's contract is up next Spring!

P.S. If anyone has been wondering why I so consistently spell the word "semester" incorrectly, it is a style choice. Call it a Canadianism, if you will. It looks better to me when it is congruent with "metre" and "theatre" etc.

Life After Strike

2011-04-11T20:44:00.000-07:00

This has been a very stressful time for me, as I know it has been for a great many others, but many of us can have a great sigh of relief now that the month-long faculty strike is over. I was recently accepted into UBC's 12-month secondary education program, to begin in September, but my acceptance is conditional upon my graduating with my degree from VIU. If it had not been possible to salvage this semester I would have had to stay another full year at VIU to finish, and re-apply to UBC later.

As a student it's very difficult to chose a side when you are put in the middle of a labour dispute. We hear the most from our professors because they have the soapbox. Although the administration got better at communicating with students, their emails began very cryptically, and my professors claimed that the information they were giving us was false or out-dated.

It seems to me impossible for students to get a completely unbiased explanation of what has been going on over the last month, nay, further back a year or more. I'm ready to get back to work, and try to put all of this mess behind me. I hope our professors are ready to do the same.

Picket Line

2011-03-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

Since Google Analytics tells me there has been a spike in traffic on my blog since our faculty went on strike, I am assuming that people want my opinion, but I feel like there's a picket line drawn across my blog in cyberspace. For now, I'll just say good night. I'm on hiatus until the strike is over, and I'll give you a full report at that time.

Surviving

2011-03-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

Hey readers, I'm sorry I've been out of commission for a couple of weeks. Over the reading break I got a nasty flu and spent three days hovering around my bed with a fever. That turned into a chest cold, which I still have, and I've been working on trying to get healthy, but it seems as though this cough is here to stay! It's made it difficult for me to get motivated on my assignments.

I'm at that point in the semestre when I don't have anything immediate due, but I know I have four research papers, and a presentation due in two weeks, and then exams will be following that. It's a big dark cloud of late nights looming on the horizon!

On top of that are the graduation concerns, but I'm trying not to think about them too too much. I've my grad photo appointment this week, and I've got my applications done for my next wave of schooling. I guess I still need to get to the bookstore and order my paraphernalia. I feel like its a big grad class this year. Many of the students I've been with all the way through are graduating at the same time. At least there will be a lot of English students graduating. I think many them are going into Education like I am haha. But that's the joke, isn't it? Like what else are we supposed to do with an English degree?

A couple weeks ago my dad asked me what I would do if I won the lottery or otherwise became independently wealthy (I don't buy lottery tickets). I decided that I would forget about going into Education, and continue straight into an MFA program somewhere. Maybe do a few MFAs haha. I would dedicate my life to writing poetry. That's an artist's dream isn't it?

If you were independently wealthy what would you do? Maybe you have more luxurious dreams that continuing in academics like me.

Really Reading Break?

2011-02-18T13:48:00.000-08:00

Today, after getting started on cleaning my aquarium, I am wondering: for how many students is this really a break? That's what we're calling it, right? "Reading Break"? On the VIU website, under "Important Dates", it's actually called "Study Days". That's what it's mostly going to be for me. As usual for this time of year, I have a pretty decent stack of books I should have read by now (see below). One of my profs was joking about all his students rushing off to the mountain after class to ski, but I doubt many of us really have the time!

Besides reading, I'm probably going to be doing a lot of knitting. My grandmother has been trying to pass on her skills (German style), and I've been working really hard to impress her. She seems to have a lot of faith in me, because she has me starting with a sweater! So this is what I'll be doing between chapters of Historical Fiction, and Literary Criticism, and writing poetry for my poetry workshop class.

If you're doing something besides catching up on readings, and researching your term papers, comment below, and let us know.

Lecture vs. Seminar

2011-02-09T09:55:00.000-08:00

I don't know if it's an official policy, or just a trend in the English department, but many of my professors devote a significant amount of class time to group work, or the seminar-like format. I guess the idea is that students have short attention spans, and cannot sit for a full hour and a half, and listen to a prof lecture (even I have difficulty staying awake now and then). Maybe this works for some students—maybe this covers different learning styles too.

Today I'd like to go on record to say that I am sick of seminars. When it's stated from the beginning, as in the Liberal Studies department, that there is going to be a large seminar component, and a lot of planning has gone into it, and students are prepared, that is fine. I'm not complaining about that. But in the English department, when a prof breaks the class into several small groups, and gives them a discussion question, I don't find this useful at all. One reason is that a large number of the students in a group have usually not read the material under discussion (now and then this includes myself), and are not prepared to talk about it; but the main reason is that what I really want to hear is the lecture.

Maybe what I'm saying has gone out of fashion, but I'm paying to hear the prof lecture. I'm here to learn from the prof, not from my fellow students.

Lamp Cosies

2011-02-01T23:39:00.000-08:00

Today I'd like to mention the strange lamppost decorations that I saw on campus today. They are mostly in the area around the Art building, so I am assuming that they are an art project. That would make sense, right? :P I guess I could have asked someone, but I am the laziest investigative reporter ever. I can tell you that this is not the first time I have seen this, so perhaps the class that does this is offered regularly.

My favourite one was the black garbage bag thing, because it looks like the lamppost is bulging unlike most of the others which look like tea coseys. There were several that looked like they were made of knitting, and I wondered if they were knitted by the artists, or if they were made from deconstructed sweaters. If they were knitted for this project, then bravo! I am in the process of learning how to knit from my grandmother, and it is not an easy task. Below are two others I enjoyed particularly. The one on the left looks like alien fruit.

I'd say the semestre is going fairly well for me so far. I may be being lulled into a false sense of complacency though, because out of my three upper-level English classes, I haven't had a single assignment due yet! They are coming up, but so far it has just been readings. Luckily, this has given me time to finish up my applications to the Education programs here at VIU, and at UBC.

I hope the first month went smoothly for everyone :)

Poets on Campus

2011-01-20T16:22:00.000-08:00

One of the things I will miss most about VIU if I transfer next Fall, will be the Poets on Campus events. I attended Sandy Shreve's reading on Monday, and Emily Smythe, a friend of mine—also the work-op for the poetry reading series—made some interesting remarks about the value of the series. She made reference to it as a community, and that is what it is. Everyone who attends, including the guest reader, participates in creating a community that is interested in poetry, and that is really special to me.

The guest poet for Monday's reading was Sandy Shreve, who read a selection of her formal poetry. Among the forms represented in her reading were the triolet, the palindrome, the sonnet, and the pantoum. With Kate Braid, Sandy Shreve co-edited In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry—an anthology we use at VIU in the creative writing department as a text book, so it was rewarding to hear her thoughts on formal verse in person.

We talked about form mostly, and these are some of the points I took away from the discussion:

1) Formal poetry is not dead or dying out. During the discussion that followed her reading, the question came up of the validity of formal poetry in a world where performance poetry is in vogue. In my humble opinion, formal poetry would almost be the best kind of poetry to be adapted for performance. Think about it: conventions such as rhythm, repetition, and rhyme are easy to hear when performed. In fact, that's probably where these conventions came from—an oral tradition.

2) While some formal structures lend themselves better to some topics, they don't have to be restricted in this way. For example: the topic of the sonnet is often love, but it doesn't have to be. Ghazals lend themselves to both religious and romantic themes, but they could be used for anything really.

3) The most important message I got from Sandy Shreve was that there isn't anything that we "should" write about. She stressed this several times. While there do seem to be patterns in what is popular within the establishment of the poetry community, this should not dictate what we write about or how we write. We should write about what we want to write about. We should tell our stories.

As you can see, I was fairly engaged! Haha I would recommend these events for anyone! Even if you are not that into poetry, or if you think that what I just went over was not your style, that's okay. Even if you're just curious, or even if you want to get out more! These events are a lot of fun.

New Year, Last Semestre

2011-01-09T16:46:00.000-08:00

Another year has passed, and I am on to my last semestre. That's right! If all goes well, I'll be grabbing my BA in June. It seems like it's going to be a big class this year, at least in the English department, anyway. And a lot of them are planning to move into the post-Bach of Education. I mean, what else are we going to do? Kidding.

But seriously, that is my plan as well. I don't know if I'm going to do it here, or if I'm going to transfer to UBC or something, but I've been aiming for the Education program since I was in middle school. I want to teach! I want to shape those young minds. Is it naive of me to think I can teach them to actually like literature? When I was in high school it astounded me how few of my classmates enjoyed English class, but then, I was raised in a family that reads for fun. Maybe that's what it comes down to.

One more semestre, eh? I can handle that–as long as it gets a little warmer here. I have to say, I wasn't pleased when I woke up this morning and everything was covered in snow.

TV on TV

2010-12-14T12:01:00.000-08:00

I was thinking today about some changes in technology we've seen in the last few years. How many people still watch TV on TV? That is to say, how many people still sit in front of their television, flipping channels? When I was a teenager, my family had shows we watched together, and we'd bring all our blankets and snacks into the living room at a set time every week.

Now, I download episodes of the series I watch, and watch them whenever I feel like it. I either send them wirelessly to my Xbox so I can watch them on the flat screen, or I watch them straight on my computer. My sister and mom stream them on their computers, and I don't think my dad really watches TV anymore. He's talking about cutting off our television service because none of us use it anymore.

I think it's an interesting change. I guess it's similar to the change in the way I use phones. When I was a teenager, I used to actually talk on the phone! My friends would call, and I'd lie on my bed with the phone pressed against my head—twirling the chord in my fingers! Now people don't even call our house. Everyone in my family has a cell phone, and my sister and I don't even talk on those—we just text. Now my dad is talking about disconnecting our land line!

I guess we're at some kind of technology crossroad.

Holidays

2010-12-08T11:20:00.000-08:00

We’re in for the home stretch now—only a couple weeks of papers and exams left, and then we’re free for the holidays! What kinds of plans do you all have? I for one will probably head back to the salmon farm I work at, and get a shift in before school starts up again in January—pad up my budget for the next term. My family doesn't celebrate Christmas, so I've always been the one to pick up shifts for other people who need time off. There will, of course, be a dinner with my grandparents—we all do have the time off, after all—but it’s not really a Christmas thing. I think everyone will probably bring a casserole.

Whatever your plans are for the holidays, I wish you a good one.

Snow Day

2010-11-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

The snow is here, and classes this afternoon were cancelled. Like a lot of students, I have mixed feelings about school closure. Around this time of year, every minute seems to count as far as studying and paper writing is concerned, so having access to the library is pretty essential. It's also disappointing when you take two buses to get to the university, and they close campus down once you get there. Also, why do they wait until the snow has stopped falling to cancel? I don't know how they determine when to close campus, but from my point of view, it seems rather arbitrary.

On the other hand, snow is fun, and it's a good time to curl up on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate. I don't know why, but since childhood, I've had this snow tradition of eating a bowl of snow with syrup. It's kind of ridiculous, but traditions are important. Every year I would go and get a bowl of snow, and every year my mother would try to dissuade me from eating it with threats of pollution and dirty snow, but I would do it anyway.

I'm not sure what it was like in Nanaimo this weekend, because I spent it in Ladysmith at my grandparents' place, but I imagine it was much the same. My grandparents were expecting a chair to be delivered to their house, but the delivery people called and said they couldn't get their truck up the hill to the house! It was fun being snowed in a little this weekend. My cousin and her husband came over and we watched old movies, and did some crafting. My grandmother tried to teach me how to knit again, but I don't know if it'll stick. She also made her famous plum pirogies, and I ate too many, and fell asleep on the living room floor. A perfect weekend to be sure!

The Finish Line

2010-11-09T22:14:00.000-08:00

As the weather turns for the worse, the mornings approaching zero degrees, and the afternoons blustery, I can almost see it: the finish line. I feel like my life has been a race these last few weeks. My vision has tunneled, and I've had little time to think of much else besides the play. Nanaimo has embraced The Rocky Horror Show with open arms! As it stands there are four shows left and only tickets left for one of them. For all but one show, we've sold out before the doors opened! Everywhere I go I am begin stopped by people who've seen the show. It brings me joy when people tell me how much fun they had dancing and dressing up for it. Oh, and by the way, we're having a cast party at Level 2 on Thursday, and everyone is welcome to join us. It should be a lot of fun. Come see how much crazier we get when the make-up comes off ;)

I love the energy of being on stage, and it's hard not to love the attention you get for it, but I think it has a negative affect as well. I don't think it's natural for us, as beings who are supposed to be trying to approach a state of humility or selflessness in this life. It's hard to explain but I had a dream recently that approaches it. I dreamt that I was a God (I'm also taking Mythology class, so I'm not that surprised). I had traveled to a new land to find followers or something, but there was one man who would not accept that I was a God. He was aggressive and tried constantly to undermine my position. I began to fly around him through the air, and he proceeded to try to knock me out of the sky. Eventually he succeeded and I came tumbling to the ground. My sister interpreted this to signify the effect the play is having on me. The status as a God represents the effect the play is having on my ego, and the man on the ground represents some part of my subconscious that knows it's unhealthy to think to highly of myself.

Anyway, the play is why I haven't been blogging as regularly, and I apologize. Everything's taken the back seat lately, including my assignments. Am I the only one whose mid-terms were exceptionally late this year? I've got my last one tomorrow! Term paper deadlines are just around the corner, and once Rocky is closed this weekend, I'll finally have time to get moving on them.

I'm having trouble adjusting to the weather change, as usual. It's not just a matter of getting my sweaters out of storage and putting away my shorts; I actually sleep pretty poorly during seasonal transitions. I don't know why that is. I can't hear the rain from my bedroom, so it's not the noise. Maybe it's barometric pressure? Do any of my readers share this problem?

Playing Dress-up?

2010-10-29T16:32:00.000-07:00

Faun Costume 2009

Halloween is definitely my favourite holiday. I love making costumes for myself, but I don't think I'm really going to be able to celebrate it this year. If you read my blog last week, you'll remember that I'm performing in The Rocky Horror Show, and we open tonight. Since we prolly won't get finished the midnight show until 2ish, AM, it wouldn't make sense for me to try to party after that, unless it was with the cast. What is everyone else doing this year? I was invited to a couple of different parties on Saturday night, and I know Level 2 is having their costume party on Sunday with a prize for best costume. I may go to that if I'm not too tired.

I wonder if people more often make their own costumes, or buy them? I prefer to make them, but I know a lot of people don't have time, and end up grabbing something last minute from Value Village. I was at Patty's Party Palace the other day, and it was so busy, they had a security guard on duty!

I made my costume last year, and I'll probably end up wearing it again if I get a chance, because I don't really have time to do anything else. I wanted to be a faun, so I made a pair of pants out of brown Fun Fur, a pair of hooves out of plaster, and I bought a pair of horns (hmm all pairs). It looks pretty good, and I've been working to update it since then. The plaster hooves didn't last a night of dancing in Vancouver at the Dollhouse, but I've since had a seamstress friend of mine help me redesign them out of vinyl, so they will be much more durable. I've also bought a pair of long, pointed, latex ears, and some new horns, but here's a photo from last year.

I know it's on a weekend, this year, but I don't understand why we don't get an extra day off for Halloween. I've spoken to several students this week who told me that they didn't plan on going to their morning classes on Monday, and with midterms just finished or finishing up, now would be a perfect time for a little break.

I hope you all have a great weekend. Good luck with your costumes, and if you haven't found something to do yet, think about going to Rocky Horror. It's a party you won't soon forget!

Rocky Horror Show

2010-10-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

I've been debating whether or not to put this on my blog, but I've just decided to go for it; not because I couldn't think of anything better to write, but because I think everyone should know that it's happening. Schmooze Productions is putting on Richard O'Brian's Rocky Horror Show in Nanaimo, and we open in less than two weeks! We? That's right, I will be returning to the stage; this time as The Horror, Rocky (yes, I will be dying my hair).

Rehearsals have been running smoothly, and it's going to be a riot. Some of you may have seen this photo in the paper a few weeks ago. It's from a rehearsal, and it shows myself and Xander, the actor playing Frank'N'Furter, with one of the Phantoms, played by Lorna, in the background.

It's been a while now since I was on stage. The last show I did was Urinetown: the Musical, with Schmooze Productions, and Bard to Broadway, in 2006; before that I hadn't done a stage show since high school. At Ballenas Secondary I did 14 shows in those 4 years, but I've been avoiding theatre lately because it's so hard to balance reherasals with university. We've been rehearsing the Rocky Horror Show three nights a week, and that's a lot for a fourth-year student to commit to, but I know I would have regretted it if I had passed on the opportunity to be in this show. While the film is still shown in theatres all over North America, the live production is not done very often. I also missed the theatre community. They're a crazy and loving bunch, and it brings me great joy to be around them.

One final note: tickets are on sale on Schmooze Productions' website, and if you want them, you'd better hurry because we're already %50 sold out. We've had a very positive reaction from Nanaimo for this show. It's a very interactive, so you can dress up, bring your props, and really immerse yourself in the experience! We open on the 29th of this month, and there will be 8:00 and midnight shows for three weekends. Hope to see some of you there!

Digital Footprint

2010-10-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

I had a very difficult time finding something to write about last week, and thus I wrote nothing. For that I am sorry, but part of the reason is that my semestre has settled into a pattern, and there's not much happening that's new and interesting for me on a day-to-day basis.

The other reason is my digital footprint. This is something that I often struggle with, and in this era of **internets, and Facebook, and that creepy new app for the iPhone that tells everyone where you are at any given moment, everyone should be thinking a little bit about their public image. It's easy to forget about the things people say in their comments on your photos, or what you were doing in said photos, but what happens when a potential employer decides to 'creep' your page? The other thing we should try to remember is that what happens on the internet stays on the internet...maybe forever?

A couple of nights ago I saw the film Social Network. It was kind of entertaining, and a little thought provoking. I think it helped crystallized a lot of the thoughts I was having about my digital footprint.

I am a poet, and a blogger, and in a few years I will be teaching high school, which is a profession in which I'll have to keep an eye on my public image. I'm also part of a religious community, the local theatre community, a fixture in Nanaimo's club scene, and potentially a member of the Canadian writing community. While it's easy to keep all of these things separate in the real world, it is basically impossible to keep these things separate on the internet.

This all contributes to the difficulty I find in choosing topics to write about on this blog. I have members of each of these environments reading regularly. Now: I'm not saying that there are things I'm ashamed to write about, or that I am trying to keep things from particular people, but this position does require a dash of integrity, or at least I'm trying to hold myself to a certain level of it.

I guess time will tell. Maybe I'll reveal something disgustingly personal or scandalous, but I probably won't. I'm just here to tell you about the life of a student at VIU. I try to make it interesting, and Google Analytics tells me I'm doing just fine! This is where I shout out to my readers who represent 39 countries, and who have given me over 1100 hits in the last 3 months! Thank you, and thank you!

Before I go, I'm going to share with you what two of my friends said when I asked them if they think about their digital footprint:

Word After the Street

2010-10-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

My dear readers, I hope you aren't getting too stressed out about assignments yet. I feel like I'm barely keeping my head out of the water already, and I can see the swells rolling in!

Last weekend I attended Word on the Street in Vancouver with the El Presidente (his official title) of the Creative Writing Club (VIUCREW), where we, with one other student and a prof, ran the booth for VIU. It was a big success! There was a crowd around us for most of the day. We realized that many people still don't know that our institution has had a name change. They said things like "Oh, I didn't realize that there was another university on Vancouver Island", but when we said we used to be Malaspina UC they, of course, were familiar with it. For reasons like this it's good for us to be represented at Word on the Street. Also, we sold twice as many copies of Portal (our literary journal) this year, than we did last year!

As for the videoblog, which I said I would try to produce regularly, I did get one done today. However, I'm finding that students don't really want to be on my blog. Maybe it's just because Friday is a day off for many students, and they didn't think they'd have to see anyone they knew on campus on a Friday, and didn't make themselves as pretty as they usually do. Haha I don't know.

I decided to ask students the question posed by Rick and Glen in my last video: "What are you doing here?" and this is the response I got from four students who felt comfortable being seen on the internet today.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Seattle with some friends to see MartyParty play at Neumos! Usually I just catch his Vancouver shows, but it's high time I went on a road trip! Have a great weekend everyone, and don't work too hard!

Sick Day

2010-09-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

I had to take a sick day this week! I guess the colds are going around now, and I caught one from a friend. Now: I only have two classes each day, and luckily, on my worst day, one of my profs cancelled his classes for a sick day too, so I only actually missed one. But still, I've been knocked back in my reading quite a bit. I'm tired and it's hard to focus on Middle English poetry right now!

Another down side is that I can't really work out. I've been exercising to the P90X program, because one of my friends had really good results with it, but I simply haven't had the energy lately. Today was the first day I was able to do it.

I apologize to my readers to whom I sort of promised another video this week. Next week I'll back into the swing of things for sure. Make sure you all get lots of sleep and take your vitamins!

This coming Sunday is an event I look forward to every year. It's Word on the Street, the national book and magazine festival. It's in library square downtown in Vancouver, and it's sort of the big event of the Canadian publishing industry. All of the local publishers and writerly organizations have tables, and there are readings and lectures by distinguished authors. There's also an area called Word Under the Street in the basement of the library that features alternative literature and comic books! I've been to it for the last three years, and this year I'm going to be co-running VIU's booth, representing the Creative Writing department and our literary magazine. I know I'll see many of the Creative Writing students there, but the festival is good for readers and writers alike, so you should all come and check it out.

Any Questions?

2010-09-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

Hello readers! I hope you're all settling well into your classes. I've found mine a little fuller this year, especially my one lower-level class. I have to take an earlier bus just so I can get a seat, and not get stuck sitting on a chair in the corner! I hear enrollment has something like doubled since we became a full university, but that's just a rumour.

I'd like to let my readers know about the upcoming Poets On Campus event. It's on Monday at 4 o'clock in the Writing Centre (the room with the best view in town). Poets On Campus is a series of reading events at the university. Distinguished poets are invited to read for students, and usually we get the opportunity to ask them questions, and speak with them in a casual atmosphere. There's also coffee and cookies! I've gone to several myself. Next week's reader is our own Susan Juby. She's a professor in the Creative Writing department, and, I'm told, a very entertaining reader!

On another note, I've decided to add video to my blog. I don't know how consistent I'll be with this, so you'll have to stick around to see. I thought it'd be fun to go out into the quad and poll students about something, but I realized that I didn't know what to ask you! Instead, I asked students what they'd like to ask the rest of the student body. Maybe I'll pick up one of these questions for next week. You'll have to forgive my video skillz (and you may have to turn up the volume to hear the last question)!

VIU: A Monument

2010-09-08T22:01:00.001-07:00

If you've been following me through the summer, I hope you've enjoyed reading about my work and adventures since the spring semestre ended this year, and I hope you've had an engaging summer too! Now we're back to school, and the weather is getting kind of sketchy, so I hope to see lots of students enjoying our beautiful campus!

On returning to school each fall, perhaps many students are dreading the abundance of stairs they will be forced to resume climbing. Have the muscles in your legs gotten lazy? Will students from all the upper departments be seen panting and gasping for air as they hike up to their classes?

When I lived in Japan, I visited a famous shrine in the neighbouring city, Kotohira. This shrine was famous for its abundance of stairs! There were 1368 steps set into the side of a mountain, and pilgrims came from all over Japan to climb them and pray for protection. Above is a picture of me sitting near the bottom (2005).

I was wondering how the university would compare in scale to this monument in a faraway land. Does anyone know how many stairs there are at VIU? Today, I got my friend Desiree to come and count them with me!

I decided that we'd get the longest direct route if we started from the bottom, at The Velvet Underground (our pub), went up in a straight line past the library; finally reaching the front door of building 280 at the top. It turns out that there are only 401 steps, and it only took us about ten minutes at a leisurely pace!

Maybe this will inspire students to look at out own stairs as less of a trial? It's easy to complain about the stairs, but in a far away land such landmark architecture could be considered a monument! I'm not saying we should all meet at the new International Sturgeon Research Centre for prayers, but it's something interesting to think about!

You know, it's hard for me to tell who is reading my blog, because I don't get a lot of comments, and I'm only able to track the traffic, so if you're a reader, and you see me on campus, say hello!

Commercial

2010-08-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

One week to go! I was at the university today, running a few final errands. I had some photocopying to do, and I went down to the Student's Union building, and bought my semestre bus pass. The Student's Union Handbook and Dayplanners aren't in yet, but the lady at the desk assured me that they'd be there next week.

A little while ago, the department that supports my blog (Communications and Public Relations) asked me to be in a short commercial for Vancouver Island University. It was a lot of fun, and I wanted to give my readers the first glimpse. It will be airing on A Channel for a couple of months.

Winding Down

2010-08-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

There are only a couple weeks left before the Fall semestre begin, and I'll have to go back to school! I'm basically thrilled. I'm one of those people who love school. When I'm finished my BA (which should be this year) I'm going to attempt the education program so I can become a teacher. Haha, I'm going to be in school for the rest of my life!

I'm writing this from a floating house, on a salmon farm in Quatsino Sound, but if you've been following my blog through the summer, you've already read about that. This is my last eight-day shift up here! When I get back on Thursday night, all I have left to do before the seventh is enjoy the last days of summer (except for going to campus, and getting my bus passes, and visiting a degree advisor). You'll probably see me celebrating at Level 2 this Saturday night!

I'm going to try to spice my blog up this year with a little video. I'll tell you more about that later, but for now, I'll just say that you may see me from time to time in the quad with a video camera.

Enjoy your last days of relaxation, or work, or prep, or whatever you're doing!
See you soon!

Text Books

2010-08-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

Our text books are in at the book store now. I like to try to get in as early as I can, and beat the line ups. Also, I'm slow reader, so I like to knock a couple novels off before classes start. Does anyone else do that or am I the biggest keener around?

These are the books I've read so far. Well, I'm halfway through one of them. Some early science fiction, some classical Greek, and a historical fiction by Marilyn Bowering (who teaches creative writing at VIU).

I have to admit that I've had the reading list for my scientific romance class for months already, because it's a directed study; otherwise I never would have been able read that many by now. Doing a directed study is a great idea, by the way. If you can find a prof who's interested, you write the syllabus with them, and get full credit for one-on-one work!

Good luck with text books and registration everyone! We've got one month of summer left; let's make the best of it!

Morphing Tradition

2010-07-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was my family's annual camp out. For 16 summers, I have gone camping with my grandparents, parents, sister, uncles and aunts, cousins, and a few family friends. We cook, eat, and sleep together, we play bocce, we lie in the sun, and we play music. We used to change location every few years, roving Vancouver Island for the best site, but we've been in Cowichan Lake for several years now.

For many years we ended the weekend with a talent show. No prizes we awarded or anything, but we'd practice songs or skits all weekend and then arrange our lawn chairs into a scattered audience. Recently, my dad re-discovered an old video of 4 of us cousins as children, performing a dance routine to a Backstreet Boys song! There was another of my oldest cousin playing the flute while three toddlers danced about in tutus! Now, it seems, the cousins would rather tan and swim than plan skits, and since we play music all weekend, there's no good reason for a showcase.

This, however, is apparently the last year we will all be together. Our parents are getting tired of tenting and attendance is diminishing as less cousins are showing up as they move around for school or work. Fair enough! The handful of remaining cousins will continue the tradition with a shorter, "cousin only" camp out, and perhaps welcome our parents during the day! There are three of us at VIU right now, and there may be more in the future, but even though we go to the same university, we don't always see much of each other during the year. The bonds we've developed were generated through camping. Hopefully we'll be able to keep them strong.

Registration

2010-07-17T16:39:00.001-07:00

My registration is almost complete! This is the first year I haven't had to suffer any wait lists, so my schedule is falling into place nicely. The only thing I'm waiting for now is the paper work on a directed study I've applied for.

I'm one of those rare students who is finishing his four-year degree in four years, but it looks like I'm going to have to take five classes each semestre to do so. I can handle them, mostly, but three of them each semestre will have to be upper level English classes. That's a lot of reading! To help myself out, I've begun reading already. The English profs post their reading lists on the department website as they make them, so I'm getting ahead of the game. I realize that's pretty dorky but I have a lot of time to read when I'm away at work.

I realize that I haven't been blogging very consistently through the summer, but that's just because it's hard to think of things to write about when I'm mostly just working. Next weekend I'll be going camping with my extended family at Cowichan Lake; hopefully I'll have something to say about that.

Road Trip

2010-06-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

For Father's Day, my dad and I took a road trip to Calgary for the Rough Riders' pre-season game against the Stampeders. Now: I'm not a huge football fan but I enjoy going to the games now and then, and spending time with my dad. Why do we follow the Saskatchewan Rough Riders, you might ask? I may be an Island boy but my dad is from SASK, so I'm a convert.

We left Vancouver Island on the 8:30 ferry, early Friday morning, and drove all the way to Golden where we stayed our first night. On the way up we stopped at the historic site of the location where the last spike was placed in the railway that joined east and west. I guess they had workers building toward each other from either side, and this is the spot where they met. It seemed to me, a rather strange thing to build a monument to.

On the second day of our trip, on our way to Calgary, we stopped in Lake Louise and made the three-hour hike up to the Lake Agnes Tea House. The view was picturesque, and he glacial waters of the lakes amazed me with their...blue-ness. It's hard to describe. Glacial silt makes water bluer than you'll see in most places. There were also a lot of other tourists at the lake that day, and by their accents, I'd say they were mostly French and German.

We made it to Calgary by evening and the lady at the hotel told us that the place to go for fun in Calgary was 17th Ave. I read on wikipedia that 17th is sometimes called "The Red Mile" because of the Stampeders' fans that flood the streets in their team colours before the game. Dad and I thought we might be inviting conflic if we went in our green, Rough Riders clothes, so we went in street clothes instead, but we were suprised to find that the only people in team colours that night were in a special Rough Rider's bar, decked out fully in green!

Our trip home was more direct than our drive up because we had to gt back for work, but I had a really good time, and the days of driving through the interior of British Columbia and the Rocky Mountains filled me with a sense of wonder and reminded me why I love this beautiful province of ours.

The Grind

2010-06-14T12:03:00.001-07:00

How's summer going for everyone? I guess it's not really summer yet, but it's that time of year here students have months to spare. I have a hard time keeping connected with people over the summer, because my job is camp work and I'm away for eight days at a time. What is it like for you?

On my days off I try to plan lots of fun things to do and make up for what I've missed, but my schedule doesn't always match up with other people's. Last time I got in to see a movie though. The Prince of Persia. It was alright. Very much the same tone as Pirates of the Caribbean: just some fun. There's been a lot of talk regarding the lack of Persian (Iranian) actors in the film, but I have a lot of Persian friends, and I'm told that Persia was originally an Aryan culture, so Jake Gyllenhaal could fit right in with his brown hair and green eyes. The only problem is the English accents; I realize that in the video game it was based on, all the characters had English accents too, but it still seemed wrong. I went with a friend of mine who is Persian, and after the film we were joking around, and she repeated some of Jake's lines in her mother's Persian accent. We then realized that American audiences would probably have thought it too funny.

I'm really hoping the weather will turn up soon, so I can do more out-doorsey things instead of watching movies and playing video games. I'd love to spend a day up at Englishman River Falls, or Rathtrevor Beach in Parksville. We live in one of the most beautiful places on earth (and I've traveled), and it's time to enjoy it!

Keeping the Good Times Rolling

2010-06-01T17:51:00.000-07:00

Last week I met with a couple of my friends to have a bit of a writing workshop. Obviously, it was also a social call, but I think these things are important.

I don't know what it is like in other departments, but for creative writing students, I think it is very valuable to keep meeting over the summer. We develop all of these skills for critiquing each other's writing, and it would be a shame not to keep that workshop environment alive.

What happens after university? Maybe it's important to build these kinds of working relationships with our contemporaries. Look at writers like Tolkien who kept in correspondence with C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden for much of his career. I think visual artists do this too. I wonder if Visual Art students get together in the summer to critique each other's art. What other departments have similar concerns? It can't just be the Arts.

Summer Reading (and Listening)

2010-05-18T13:52:00.001-07:00

English students whine a lot about how they don't have time to read for fun, because their courses have so much required reading. To me, one of the bonuses about my summer job is that I have lots of time to do all the recreational reading I didn't have time to do during school.

Since school ended in April I've almost finished the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris. They're a guilty pleasure and I just finished the eight book last night. It's the series that spawned HBO's True Blood, and it's dark, sexy and fun. In Harris's world, Vampires have "come out of the coffin", so to speak, and are trying to integrate into human society. She mixes romance, fantasy and mystery really well, though it took me a while to get used to the point of view of a ditsy Southern barmaid with telepathy. Harris was clever in creating a telepathic main character, because it is a good device for combining the first-person, and omniscient points of view. The story is told from Sookie's point of view, but because she knows what people are thinking, the reader has access to everyone else's thoughts too.

I'm almost halfway through Leonard Cohen's experimental novel Beautiful Losers which is very dirty and scattered. At the core it's about a love triangle between the main character, his wife, and his best friend. My introduction to Cohen was through his latest book of poetry, The Book of Longing, which was very good but created this image in my head of Leonard Cohen as a dirty old man. Reading Beautiful Losers I've discovered that Cohen was already a dirty old man in the 60s!

I'm also listening to a lot of music right now, and the album I'm currently working hardest on is Owen Pallett's, whom I declare the Queen of Canadian Indie Music (haha). I want to love his latest album Heartland as much as I loved his last two offerings, but I'm having a hard time of it. Maybe I just need to sit down with the lyrics in front of me so I can focus on what he's singing.

The Broken Social Scene's new album, on the other hand, is very accessible. Sometimes I have trouble with them because, although I like lots of their members' work seperat separately, together they tend to sound more like an orchestra than a band. If Owen Pallett is the Queen, then the Broken Social Scene is the whole rest of the court. That said, I'm finding their new album, Forgiveness Rock Record, far easier to get into. Maybe that's because it's more lyrical, and I'm definitely a lyrics guy. My favourite track so far is "All to All", but why isn't Leslie Feist or Emily Haines all over that one? Seriously...

Jaunt to the Mainland

2010-05-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

When you work for eight days in camp and then have six days at home at a time, you want to cram those days with activities to make up for the time you spent away. On my last days home I went on a trip to Vancouver to stay with friends. I have a lot of friends in Vancouver and since I'm only able to visit every couple of months, I try to see as many of them as I can while I'm there.

I left on Saturday night after my grandpa's 80th birthday party in Ladysmith, and stayed all the way until Wednesday afternoon. My friends took me to two raves, one at the W2 Storyeum to see MartyParty perform, and another at the Biltmore to see Mimosa. Both were really great shows. The Storyeum was an interesting venue, once having been an interactive museum with multiple rooms for use, and I think that W2 used it well.

I also got to spend a glorious afternoon at English Bay, sitting in the grass and playing ball in the sun. I was glad to get a taste of the warmer weather; I hope it's a signal that there's more to come! I had a great all-you-can-eat-sushi meal at the Granville St. Shabusen. There Korean BBQ is also excellent and I'd recommend it to anyone who can really gorge themselves on sushi.

I was definitely sad to leave Vancouver and my friends by the end of my stay. I actually hadn't planned to stay so long, but I kept adding extra days onto my visit! I've always sort of thought I'd move to Vancouver when I was finished my education at VIU, but I'm going to be a teacher, and I haven't heard very positive things about the employment opportunities for teachers on the lower mainland. I'm hoping that won't be the case. Maybe all the baby-boomers will be retired by then and the job market will be wide wide open. I don't want Vancouver to always b a city I go to just to visit. Someday I want to make it home...at least for a while.

Summer Job

2010-04-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

Grades are in! How'd everyone do? For myself, I didn't do as well as I had hoped, but I'm still satisfied with my average.

School may be over for the summer but the learning never ends! Now it's all about trying to earn enough money for another year of tuition. I've got a job on a salmon farm for the summer (5th summer in a row) and it usually pays my tuition for the next year. Then I just have to worry about living expenses.

Salmon farming is a pretty cool job. The only job I can think of that would be more "west coast" would be something in the adventure tourism industry. It's a sea farm way up in Quatsino Sound, about an hour by water taxi from Coal Harbour (still on Vancouver Island but very remote). I stay there in the farm house (pictured) for eight days, then I'm home for six. Off and on till school starts again.

I'm mostly just feeding the fish and doing routine farm maintenance stuff—keeping the boats running and the farm tidy. The thing I love most though is the wildlife. There are always eagles flying by and sea otters hanging around. Now and then a pod of orcas or a humpback whale even show up! When it gets warm enough I'll be able to jump in and join them! Not a bad day at work, eh?

What's Next?

2010-04-16T17:51:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to say that my three exams are finished with, all of my assignments are turned in and I am free for the summer! One of my exams, admittedly, gave me quite a lot of grief, but I'm in recovery now!

I plan to continue this blog through the summer, and to try to keep it frequent, though I'm not sure as frequent as before. I intent to have a lot of grand adventures this summer, including music festivals, road trips and camping so I'll tell you all about those when they happen. I'll be working on a salmon farm this summer to pay for next year's tuition, and I'll let you know how that goes too.

What's everyone else doing for the summer? any travel plans? Comment here and tell us what you're up to. Many students are perhaps going home, or travelling to other places, and I'm sure a lot of you are going to be working hard for your tuition or your loans.

I wish you all the best, and good luck with the rest of your exams!

Portal 2010 a complete success!

2010-04-08T07:17:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, the fourth year Publishing class finally launched our baby into the world! Portal 2010 is a literary magazine that showcases the best writing of VIU students (from what is submitted), and this is Portal's 15th year as a class-run literary magazine; one of the only magazines like it in Canada. There are many other university literary magazines, but not many that are published in-class, so this experience is very unique. The class sees the magazine all the way from business plans and acquisitions, to ad sales, layout and the launch party.

This year's launch was an enormous success! As the final featured guest of this year's Poets on Campus series at the university, Kate Braid read from two of her books, A Well-Mannered Storm: the Glenn Gould Poems, and Turning Left to the Ladies, accompanied by cellist Allannah Dow. A favourite moment of their performance was when Dow began to sing lines from Rumi at the end of one of the poems. It was so unexpected that the audience was looking around to see where the enchanting voice was coming from!

Awards and scholarships for the Creative Writing department were given out, and Kevin Roberts was honoured for his many years of teaching at VIU since its conception as a small, community college. Kevin Roberts, who is retiring this year for the second time, was instrumental in the conception of VIU's Creative Writing department, having created many of the second year classes.

The launch part could not have run any more smoothly and I am very proud of the conduct of our class, and the product of all of our hard work. I would like to invite everyone to pick up a copy of Portal 2010. Until Friday we will be selling it in the library, and it will of course be available in the VIU bookstore. You can visit our beautiful new website created by our web designer Liliana Gaeta, where our new cover will be displayed as well as audio recordings of some of the works in the issue.

Thank you to everyone who had a hand in making this experience memorable, and good luck everyone on your exams next week!

VIU: Zombie Invasion Part III

2010-03-29T22:57:00.000-07:00

We made a break for the library, taking the stairs that pass beside the Visual Arts building so the Zombies, should they aim to follow us, would have to take a longer wheel-chair ramp. As we passed Visual Arts we heard screams from within.

Riley suggested we check inside to see if anyone needed rescue, but as we approached the front doors, the large lower-floor windows came crashing open and three gurgling Zombies burst forth. I hit the closest one in the head with The Rhetorical Tradition, sending it reeling, and Riley low spin-kicked another, knocking it off its mouldering feet. We turned on our heels and fled down the steps and across to the Quad.

From our new vantage point we could see better the destruction laid waste to our beloved campus. Gardens were torn up, bodies lay strewn across picnic tables and benches, and a great commotion from the cafeteria told us that it was no use as a refuge.

Then Desiree cried out. She was pointing up the hill toward the Math/Chemistry building which was barely visible through the trees. There was an army of Zombies descending from the forest! When they reached the stairs, they were held up for a moment, but soon the began throwing themselves upon them, and tumbling down toward us.

"We must get higher," I said, pointing up to the roof of the library, "We should block off the exits as we go."

"I'll go down and block the bookstore entrance," Gareth said. "I'll meet you guys inside," and with that he was off. We marched into the library and blocked off the main doors with tables and chairs from Jumpin' Java.

[for the final chapter of our story visit Kaitlyn's blog.]

[Also, as Portal's Senior Poetry Editor this year, I want to mention that VIU's literary journal, Portal 2010, is being launched on April 6th in the Royal Arbutus Room from 2-5. There will also be snacks... Next week I will be writing on the event.]

The Lower Caf Adventure

2010-03-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

I've been studying at VIU since 2006 – that's four years – and I've never been to the lower cafeteria! Recently, I started asking my classmates about it, but not many of them had been there either. I've heard rumors that their menu is much better than the upper cafeteria, and that it has Chinese food everyday, yet for us upper campus students, it seems just too far to travel between classes. The feeling I've gotten from some of my friends is that the lower caf is probably only patronized by trades and nursing students, so us upper-campus book-gremlins might not feel comfortable there. But university doesn't need a class system! It's time to kick that door down!

On Wednesday I made my first venture down to the lower caf. I took another creative writing student with me for support, but when we got there, we learnt that the place is only open from 11:30 to 1! It was just past 2, so we were out of luck. The gates were shut!

Not to be discouraged, I made my second attempt today. I couldn't find another student to go with me so I went on my own. They don't have a salad bar, but they really do have Chinese food! The place is a lot smaller, but much brighter than the upper cafeteria, and I got there around noon this time, so it was pretty full. Eventually I was able to find a table to myself, and I settled in with my Full House coffee and coconut prawns!

I was definitely the only guy in there who wasn't wearing work boots, but I didn't feel uncomfortable. Don't let all those stairs deter you. Make an adventure out of it. I recommend that all you upper-campus students who've never been down there give it a try!

VIU: Zombie Invasion Part II

2010-03-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

[To see part 1 of this story, visit Kaitlyn's blog]

I was far too early for my Classical Rhetoric class this week, so I took the path through the woods behind the Physics building to enjoy the muffled silence of the trees. As I came to the Tamagawa garden, I heard a scream of intense panic from the English building up ahead.

Somehow I made it up the steps to the front door before I was paralyzed by the sight and smell of the mob of zombies crowding the foyer. They pushed and stepped over each other, trying to get into the student lounge, but I could see that the doors remained intact.

Once I had recovered from the initial shock, I felt a flood of rage that pounded in my ears like the noisy theatre students that share our building in afternoons. “That lounge is for encouraging communication between students!” I hollered.

Mustering up my humble supply of courage and brandishing my heavy Rhetoric textbook, I cut myself a swath through the mob of rotting and festering creatures, bashing them left and right with my weighty tome, smashing sculls and breaking bones.

Finally with all the zombies twitching on the floor around me, I rapped on the door with my blood-drenched textbook and called for the students to lift the barrier so I could lead them to safety. When they finally cleared the door I was greeted by a cadre of creative writing students brandishing found weapons such as baseball bats and tennis rackets. All of the executive members of the creative writing club were there (with the addition of myself) as well as fellow blogger Kaitlyn. She seemed to be the leader of the group so I spoke directly to her.

“We need to get outta here,” I said. “Zombies can’t climb stairs, so it shouldn’t be a problem for us to get away.”

“We should make our way to the least wheel-chair accessible building then,” she said.

“That would be the top floor of the library."

“Then to the library it is."

HMS Pinafore

2010-03-10T23:26:00.000-08:00

Tonight I attended VIU Theatre Department's production of HMS Pinafore, and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself! The production had a few difficulties, but the silliness that I expect from a Gilbert and Sullivan musical was all there.

While the set design was good but not extraordinary, the costumes ordered from Malabar Limited in Toronto were superb. The women's elabourate dresses heightened the play's visual impact with their sheer size, and the way their bustles bounced as the ladies danced added to the hilarity of one scene in particular.

The orchestral accompaniment was good, although the musicians themselves distracted me from the action of the play a couple of times with their giggling. I understand that a couple of the principal actors were recruited from the music department as well. I am not sure which these were, but I could take a guess from the stiff acting of one of the male leads. His tenor was brilliant, but sometimes he looked like he wasn't really comfortable being there.

As far as the vocals went, I was greatly impressed with the cast in general. Those long, rapid lines are difficult, but they were, for the most part, executed with clarity. I must say "for the most part" because Josephine tended to get lost among other voices in ensemble numbers. The girl really should have been miked. She had character and a sweet voice, but whenever she ventured into her upper register, she lost all volume and most enunciation.

All in all the production provided an evening of giddy laughter, and I would recommend it if you can tear yourselves away from your term papers. The show runs till Saturday.

The Cries of March

2010-03-04T00:04:00.000-08:00

It certainly seems like it's getting down to crunch time, doesn't it? March is definitely one of my busiest months! I had made a New Year's resolution for myself not to write term papers all in one weekend like I did last semestre, but I know if I'm not on the right track. I've been trying to get some of the ground work covered, but it seems like I really need the pressure of a last minute all-nighter to get them done!

I've got a paper to write for Classical Rhetoric (ENGL 310), Studies in Elegies (ENGL 318), and a chapter to write for the novel writing class! (CREW 440) In the meantime I guess I'll just do a bunch of things that are totally unrelated!

Here's a review for you: Wolfman. I saw this film with my dad on Tuesday night, even though people have been saying terrible things about it. Before I saw it my thoughts were, "It has Anthony Hopkins and Benicio del Toro! How can it go wrong!?" After seeing it my thoughts are, "What did you expect? It's the Wolfman!" (It's the same as when Phantom of the Opera came out. We all knew the story. Did we expect them to re-invent the wheel?) The acting was good, the atmospheric art direction was great, but it wasn't really anything new.
I'm also reading In the Mountains of Madness, the great American horror classic by H.P. Lovecraft, finally. It took me forever to get around to it, and now I can't put it down! I was reminded about this short novel when I'd read that Guillermo del Toro has expressed interest in adapting it to film.
Next week I plan to attend Malaspina Theatre's production of HMS Pinafore with the English Student's Association. Maybe I'll be inspired to review it in my blog! Does that step on the Navigator's toes? Oh well!

Anyhow, these are three things that I'm into right now instead of term papers. Am I the only one off track? Share your thoughts!

WordStorm

2010-02-25T23:50:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I attended WordStorm for the first time in two years. For anyone who may not be aware, WordStorm is held once a month at Centre Stage in Nanaimo. I'd tell you what time but I think they're changing it again. WordStorm begins with an open mic for poets which is judged by selected members of the audience (last time I went I won second place!) and continues with a series of featured readers.

This month, my aunt Leanne Boschman was one of the featured poets, so I was going mostly to support her. My aunt read a selection from her new book, Precipitous Signs: A Rain Journal, published locally by Leaf Press. I have the book at home and was pleased to hear her read a favourite of mine, "Night Rain", which I heard her read previously at Word on the Street, a few years ago. Her reading tonight was a great success!

Although I enjoyed myself, and enjoyed meeting some of the other poets in the audience, Centre Stage was freezing, and I was nearly shivering in my premature Spring jacket. I was a little relieved to get back into my car at the end of the night.

When I arrived at home I had just missed Joannie Rochette's long form performance (some of my family was in tears), and I waited around to watch her take the podium! A glorious moment indeed.

The Olympics

2010-02-19T10:42:00.000-08:00

The Olympics has been a highly contested issue lately. Everything from advertising to the cost, from the infrastructure to the opening ceremony screw-ups has been on the tip of everybody's tongue. Until the Olympics began, it seemed like nobody had a positive thought for them, and I've heard that people aren't too impressed with us over seas either.

But now that the Olympics have begun, people's outlooks have changed a little. Now all I hear are the scores. I thought that might happen. We hum and haw, but once things get going, it's hard not to get carried away with the games. Honestly, there isn't one sport that interests me at any other time of the year – it's just not my thing – but even I get a little bit excited.

I think my favourite is figure skating, but I don't know if I really agree that it's a sport. What if they tried to make ballet an Olympic sport? It's the same idea. But I have fond memories watching the skaters in 2006 when I was in Japan. The family I was staying with was excited about the strong women on their team, and we sat up after dinner to watch the women's singles. I can still remember Shizuka Arakawa's performance clearly as if I'd just seen it. She was so tall,

and carried herself like a queen. We were breathless when she did her signature layback—it was one of those moments when time stands still. She was transcendental. Nothing mattered except her winning gold. And then she did.

I haven't been able to follow the Olympics much this year, because I have classes and work, but I get updates from everyone I see. I'm glad that the tension over the Olympics has abated a little. I get more joy from watching people get carried away with the spirit of the games, than with the criticism.

The Winter of My Discontent

2010-02-10T23:09:00.000-08:00

This has been an odd season – I resist calling it winter. I think we may have had a couple days of winter in there somewhere, but it looks like we're going to move from autumn straight into spring. The leaves haven't started to grow yet, but there are snowdrops blossoming in front of my parents' doorstep, and a pair have ducks have moved into our pond!

I can't believe we're halfway through the semestre already! That's right, we are! It always sneaks up on me when I don't have midterms, but I've been able to count the weeks this year by massage therapy appointments...

Don't worry readers, I'm alright, but over the winter break I hit some black ice while driving up the North Island Highway, and I drove my dad's Cherokee off a cliff. The vehicle didn't roll, but I fell about one hundred feet into a ravine! I was lucky to have my iPod with me to use as a flashlight (ha ha), because I had to climb back up the cliff in darkness to hitch a ride to the hospital.

What do students do for winter break? I was on my way up island to work on a salmon farm. The magical combo of living with my parents and doing labour on my time off is the only way I can stay off student loans! I may take an actual break for the reading break though. What will you be doing?

Looking for a little grace...

2010-02-02T23:06:00.000-08:00

"Were the world mine" is a fantastic phrase that comes out of Helena's mouth in A Midsummer Night's Dream, by Shakespeare. Helena wishes she could learn the traits of Hermia that Demetrius is attracted to. If the world were her's, Demetrius would love her and not Hermia.

For me it's about open-mindedness. On Wednesday last week a friend of mine convinced me to go to the Queens with her for another friend's birthday. It was lady's night, she said. When we were getting ready she decided to wear her gold, lamé dress and asked if I would wear my silver lamé jacket so we could match. Since my scene is more the Level 2 Dance + Lounge, I guess I'm used to a more open group of people, because showing up at the Queens on a Wednesday night in silver probably wasn't a good idea. I don't think I've ever gotten so many dirty looks. I felt like every guy there wanted to kick my ass. I wasn't really worried, but I wasn't exactly made to feel comfortable.

And it's not like I'm an incredibly marginalized person or anything. I'm a white, middle-class guy from the Island – I just have an odd sense of style. If I were a noticeably different colour or ethnicity, I imagine I would have been made to feel this way more than once in my life. I know this is a pretty trivial event, and I'm not really any worse for wear for it, but still it got me thinking.

What I'm trying to say is: were the world mine, I'd be expecting a little more grace from people. How are we supposed to find truth if our prejudices are dividing us?

I'd like to finish with a quote from Abdu'l-Bahá who says better than I can that

"Man must cut himself free from all prejudice and from the result of his own imagination, so that he may be able to search for truth unhindered. Truth is one in all religions, and by means of it the unity of the world can be realized.

All the peoples have a fundamental belief in common. Being one, truth cannot be divided, and the differences that appear to exist among the nations only result from their attachment to prejudice. If only men would search out truth, they would find themselves united."

(Abdu'l-Bahá, Paris Talks, p. 129)

Hindsight

2010-01-28T23:42:00.000-08:00

I'm halfway through my third year here at VIU and today I got to thinking a little about the beginning. I took a year off between high school and university and traveled to Japan, where I taught moral education classes for children. Whatever I learnt in Japan about myself or about the world, the most important thing I gained was distance from high school. I don't mean that high school was so traumatic. University and high school are just such different experiences, and I think that if I had gone straight through, I would have approached them in similar ways. Obviously students who move straight through survive, but I think it must be a little easier if you bring some worldly experience with you.

A colleague of mine mentioned in her blog that she thought it might be valuable to start university "directionless", but I cannot agree. This is, no doubt, the reason so many of my fellow students are in their fifth or sixth years of four-year programs. When I started school, I wanted to do a major in English, and I knew I wanted to be a high school teacher. I'm going to complete my degree in the recommended four years because I had that goal from the start.

Man, this year has been an active one for me! In my first year, I lived in Qualicum Beach with my parents and took the intercity bus to then-Malaspina everyday. I had no time for extra-curriculars because I was always on the bus! Now that I live in Nanaimo I'm an executive member of both the English and the Creative Writing clubs and seem to have time to hit a couple of guest lecturers or poetry readings from time to time! I feel more part of the community than before.

That's what university is for me: community. Sure, I'm learning how to write in my genre and hopefully I'll be able to get a teaching gig when I'm through, but it's the networks I'm developing with other writers of my generation, my contemporaries, that I think will prove most valuable.