The Joy of Christmas

There was a death yesterday in a Wal-Mart in N.Y. where 2 000 people busted the doors down at opening time, rushed in and trampled a 32 year old seasonal employee. Other employees were trying to help and started to get trampled as well. Even a pregnant women was injured. When the man was dead the shoppers continued to stream through the doors and step over his body. There was also a shooting incident in California in a Toys R' Us store, there were two people arguing about a toy and suddenly shots went off and two people were killed!
My question is what the hell is wrong with people?! It's the season of joy, giving, sharing and family. What the hell is little Johnny going to think if he received the last Elmo Live on the shelves for Christmas, but his Daddy is in prison because he shot two people to get it. Or if little Suzy finds out that her Mommy participated in stomping a man to death to get that special doll that was on sale? I'm pretty sure these kids, and people receiving these gifts would rather not get anything at all, if they knew that it resulted in death.
Disgusting.
What is happening to the North American society? What is wrong? Needless killing over unimportant, mass produced, consumer targeted, meaningless objects. I'm with William Morris on this one, lets go back to the middle ages, take joy in our lives, in our work (minus the peace work for women, and bad working conditions in the guilds) I think what would be best for our society is a complete down fall, back to the land, manual labour, no electricity, with more community and farming, less advertising and technology.

Falling

I feel like this time of the year everything starts to fall apart, I start getting stressed, getting sick, getting behind in all classes, I start to sleep in and I become later and later. The first of the semester seems fine, I'm always early and I get things done on time somehow it slowly starts to disintegrate. How does this happen? When did is start? I never really notice until the pressure is on, the end of the semester is looming and I am running around at the last minute trying to get everything finished, and sometimes projects just slip and don't get finished. It's not just me either, are we expected to do to much, or are a lot of people just plain bad at time management?

A Poem

Here is a poem that I read a few days ago when I stayed home with a cold, shivering in my bed, wrapped in multiple blankets. This poem reminds me of this computer class and computers in general' maybe some of you can relate...


Writer Waiting

Oh this shiny new computer-
There just isn't nothin' cuter.
It knows everything the world ever knew.
And with this great computer
I don't need no writin' tutor,
'Cause there ain't a single thing it can't do.
It can sort and it can spell,
It can punctuate as well.
It can find and file and underline and type.
It can edit and select,
It can copy and correct,
So I'll have a whole book written by tonight
(Just as soon as it can think of what to write).

Silverstein, Shel. Falling Up. 1. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1996.

7:35 Monday Morning

Good morning! I just woke up at 7am, I ate breakfast and now I am trying to gulp down some jasmine/ green tea to prevent my cold from progressing and write a post before class this morning. If memory serves me correctly (which it rarely does) I still had a post to write from last week in order to get caught up. I couldn't finish my homework again for this class because computers hate me in general, I spent hours in the InDesign program on the CD covers and the assignment for this week and it looks like I spent 5 minutes. Argh! So anyway, I need to go get ready so I can catch the bus in order to get to that class in time.

Just a Little Book

I recently read a tiny but good book called The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, by Depak Chopra; this book is about life and how to have a better one, as well as a better outlook on life, getting everything you need, and want. The book is based on the Hindu religion and it ties well into another book which I have read previously called Way of the Peaceful warrior. The Way of the Peaceful Warrior is sort of like the story of a personal spiritual journey of a young man (the author), with a few made up and embellished parts to achieve his points. Wow, I sound like a bible thumper or something. Anyway, uh, the parts in the book: The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, that stood out were the ones about giving and non-judgement which means don't judge anyone by your preconceived notions about dress, colour or whatever your thing is (everyone judges people even if they don't realize it) and every time you meet someone, wheather its the librarian, bus driver, or someone you held the door for give them something ' and the universe will give it back'. And every time you go to someone's home give them something and it doesn't have to be a material thing; a wish, a thanks, or a compliment is fine and it doesn't have to be out load either. The idea that the universe's energy will give back to me might be a bit far fetched but I do believe it effects you psychologically (I've done it and stuck with it for two weeks straight myself). I think that giving anyone you meet a wish makes you think of them positively, no matter who they are and, most people will notice this in your demeanor or body language and act positively back, because really we are all just the same, we are just people. Eventually I stopped because I got caught up in if my wish suits them or if what I wished for them was really they needed or wanted, but I don't think it really matters as long as you make a conscious effort to wish them something and act positively toward them. Another good point is that you might want to wish others something that you would like yourself like less stress for instance. Try a psychological experiment today and try this giving thing, see how much control you really have over your situations and your emotions, see how this effects you and maybe you can write a comment on it.

P.S. One other great thing that I read in this book is that you have so much power over your everyday life, and how we all react too much from what we have learned from the past. Sometimes we can't seem to control our emotions or reactions to a situation because a past memory was triggered, or because it's difficult to react any differently to a situation than you have before and it may have served as a good purpose at one time but not now. An example is if someone chooses to insult you, you can either choose to be offended; or you can choose not to be, it's really that simple, although it may not be that easy. But just think about it, many things that we think are out of are own control are not. You also might think that I am preaching, and obviously by reading some of my blogs they are emotionally charged, most of the time I can have an emotion with great intensity and then let it pass like my last two posts, and sometimes I cannot, obviously I am not enlightened. I am also working to be better I challenge you to do the same, in whatever aspect of your life you would like to change. Remember to keep a good analytical cap on, a smile (even if it's not on the outside) and a-good-kick-in-the-pants on hand just in case you need it.

Know Thyself

Know Thyself are the best words I have ever heard, they are form the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and according to Greek tale was written by Pausanias. The first time I heard about these words was when I was in Writing for the Arts in my Foundation year, which Mimi Fautly taught, she explained that it is difficult to write or put out anything without knowing who you are. As I age I feel like I learn more about myself and feel more comfortable with myself, or in my own skin, which I enjoy about aging. I still feel like I don't know myself that well, which is ironic because they really isn't anyone who should know me any better! I have been buying neuroscience, psychology books, and neropsycology books thinking that I want to understand about other people better, the mind and the brain as an organ itself, when really it's all about understanding me. I feel like I know myself pretty well but sometimes I just can't explain why I do certain things, like buying something I always buy, when I really meant to get something else etc, but I am learning about these things through books, which is actually really strange and funny if you think about it. Lately I feel like I am being pulled in some many different directions and I can cover them all fully, and to top that off it seems my body just wants to sleep, all of the time through everything and it's hard to control. How will I really know myself if I can't even control my sleeping patterns, or stop to really analyze what I am creating?

Balance

It is apparent that I am a slacker in this class; last week I didn't make any posts, I am hopeful that I will catch up on my blogs and the rest of the stuff I need to do for computer class, mainly the CD cover. I swear I will never take another Large Scale Ceramics course for only 3 credits again, it demands way too mush time, effort and it capable of ruining your body if your not careful. The Large Scale Ceramic Sculpture class took up a lot of my time last week, especially because I had to take two full days off most things and let my wrists repair.All throughout post secondary education I've been feeling like I can never put my full effort into everything at once, there is no balance just priority, so one class with fall behind more than others, depending on the work load, amount of credits etc, this semester I am taking 12 credits and working, but each class is 3 credits each so I find it difficult to find a balance, this is probably another thing I won't do again. This ceramics class might actually kill me yet we have a show in a week or so (Nov 23rd, in the Loggia space) and I am not finished building my piece, I still need to dry it out bisque it, glaze it and fire it and I don't know which glaze I am doing yet because I didn't do the rest of my glaze tests yet! It is good though because I am learning a lot and discovering that I can do a ton more than I once thought.When will I find balance in my life?

Weather

I wrote this on Tuesday in my scribbler so I would forget here it is:
The weather in Halifax, Nova Scotia the last few days have been interesting, very blustery and rainy. The stormy waters, foggy /gray sky makes the fall colors seem extremely vibrant. The wind blows through my clothes as I walk down the street and continually threatens to throw off my hat. My clothes billow out like the sails on a sailing ship and I start to feel like a hot air balloon, if it wasn't for my non-aerodynamic shape I would have flown away minutes ago. Later on before it got dark the clouds began to separate over the ocean some blue sky shone through and the sun made the clouds blush with a hint of yellow. It looked so strange because at the same time the sky was still expelling misty cold rain over the land, and I walked under the dark heavy clouds. This reminded me of the paintings of early Nova Scotia/ Halifax settlements in the A.G.N.S , so moody, so turbulent and wonderful. Maybe it's just something a Nova Scotianer can enjoy; home.

Apparently

It's apparent that I need to write something in my blog before class tomorrow morning, so here is one entry.