C'est what?

So after studying languages for some time, I've begun to rethink the English language. I believe that language, from intonation to word choice to history, can tell you a lot about a person or a people. For example, it completely irks my friend when someone says "wiki it" or "google it" which I'm sure almost everyone in my generation would understand. To him, however, it is a sign of our growing (and completely unnatural) over-dependence on technology.

I always thought it was funny how other people expressed themselves in other languages. I was one of those nation/culture-centric people that believed that the way my people did things was the normal way and that everyone else was weird. But now I wonder if it's us that's weird and that everyone else has got it right.

Another example: terms of endearment. Here (North America here) we throw around words like hun, babe, sweetie. Nice casual phrases. Nothing too deep. However in Spanish (sorry I am a little one sided in my languages) it's mi amor, mi vida, mi corazon (my love, my life, my heart) said in the same casual manner. In Arabic it's habibi also meaning my love. I guess I kind of feel like North Americans aren't as passionate about life as other cultures. I mean we live for drama and gossip, but we never let ourselves feel freely. We would never say to our significant other, " My life, can you please pass the salt?" No instead we would refer to him/her as a shortned form of a substance produced by insects, hun.

Anyway... I hope you get what I mean. I don't seem to have the words to explain myself properly. Oh the irony. By the way... Speaking of terms endearment, what does it say about the French who I've heard quite a lot let slip "mon chou" (my cabbage)?

The Big Project

So. I am writing a novel. I guess the first step would be to admit it. Kind of forces me to produce results, eh? I will write about my synopsis later, since I am still working on it. But that is what's what. I'll keep you updated.

More things that amuse me...

In Spanish there is a saying, vale la pena, literally meaning it is worth the pain. I guess you could say the same thing in English, but normally we say it's worth IT. That ambiguous IT. I've always wondered why the Spanish felt the need be morbid and tack on "la pena" (the pain). But now I wonder why the English have been so ambiguous as to use "IT".

What does "it was worth it" mean? We usually use the phrase after some amazing experience that began with some form of struggle. Thus we can conclude "it" refers to the struggle. It sounds nicer. We forget about the pain it took to get to that amazing spot. It's all in the results, the outcome. But in doing so, are we not trivializing all it took to get there?

Yes. There was pain. Lots of pain. But the pain was worth it. I like the fact that the Spanish acknowledge the struggle. That it (whatever it might be) wasn't all peachy. But it was so amazing that you are willing to trade off some pain for it. And to be quite honest, when looking at it in that sense, not much vale la pena. For what would you suffer again and again and again because what you received was worth the pain?

Those scarce few things are the important things in life. Valió la pena, ahuvi.

From Here to Timbuktu

So I am always conscientiously trying to live in the moment. Or live for the moment. Be here. Today. Now. Or whatever. And it's hard to do in a society that believes in results, outcomes, projected goals, tomorrow. Always tomorrow.

I've always been a firm believer that as long as you do your absolute best today, tomorrow will work itself out. But... How do dreams fit into this equation? When do I stop reaching for the stars and accept what I have here, in front of my face?

In a more concrete way, but still hypothetical... Today I will teach a woman in a rural area of a third world country how to read. I cannot save the world today, but today I can teach someone how to read. And tomorrow she will teach her children to read. And the day after that they will go to school and eventually study at a good university, or read their own rights and eventually stand up to their oppressors. And in that way, by doing what I can today, I have set the precedent for "saving the world" tomorrow. In that way, I will never stop working for a better tomorrow.

But... Let's say you have dreams of living far far away one day. Timbuktu perhaps. And let's say that Timbuktu is promoting this great opportunity for people to come live there. No red tape. No expensive visas.  Just easy immigration. One day very soon the deal is going to end. You don't know when that date is, only that it is very soon and that once it ends the doors of immigration will be closed tighter than they were before. The problem is you are still waiting on some unfinished business here and you don't know when you will be able to tie up the loose ends. You don't foresee this happening any time soon. Do you wait, and keep on waiting, until the day those doors close? Or do you bet in favour of the odds, stop waiting, and truly start living your life here? 

Am I being transparent? And still a little ambiguous? I guess I'm just muttering to myself. But really, how do we live in a universe which provides no guidelines?

Top Stories of the Day

So, I was writing some emails about things that I had read in the news lately that made me laugh. In retrospect, the situations are not the most comical... But, sometimes all you have left is laughter. So without further ado, I present to you my amusement of the day:

1) We now have an emergency text message system at school. About a month ago, I received a text message on my cell phone from my university... "DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE. THIS IS A TEST OF THE UW EMERGENCY SYSTEM." I thought, okay. I don't know what sort of emergency would occur that they would need to send a text message to my cell phone...

Flashforward to today. There was an article about U of T adopting a "phone warning system". U of T just came out with this system and required much more media attention to set it up. (Do I have a bit of a Waterloo, new school, less recognition complex? Maybe...) Anyway, the text messages are apparently in case of a campus lockdown. For example. If ever some psycho decided to go around shooting up university kids, we will all be messaged on our cell phones of the situation. Ummm... Thanks? I'm glad we are taking extra precautions for the safety of academia, but I feel a little excessive. We have text message alert systems for psycopaths who who wield guns while there are wars going on in other countries. (Wait, aren't they the same? Okay bad joke...) But... it's good to be Canadian, I guess? I mean, where else would we have the luxury to be so excessive?

2) Again about my lovely university. So Wallstreet has been looking for a scapegoat for America's recession. And they've found him. A graduate of the University of Waterloo who, apparently, supplied Wallstreet with the mathematical formula that ruined them all. Yes. America was singularly felled by a nerdy Waterloo alumnus from Canada. Yes. He was Canadian. 

3) We. And by we I mean Toronto. And by Toronto I mean a little mosque on the prairie! Oh no. That's not it, getting off track. So I will stick with we. WE now offer a "12-step extremist detox program." Yes. I think that says it all. I'm all for rehabilitation and reformation over punishment... But a detox program?! I've heard of alcohol detox. And drug detox. But a religious detoxification?! Oh, I'm sorry. Extremist detoxification. Well, I guess it is a step in the right direction. It promotes Allah's mercy, love, and peace for all. And anything that spreads love is good in my books :)

Things we should all keep in mind...

Sometimes you just gotta take a step back, away from it all. And move forward in a different direction.

Eternal Return of the Traveller's Conversation

Oh god... It's spreading... Not only is there a backpackers' conversation, but there is now a... people-left-at-home conversation. I swear, out of my slightly-large-but-still-under-20-people-family I answered the same three or four questions at least five times each. I thought I left that all behind me when I got on the plane back to Canada.

Same repetitive questions to deal with on homeland:

1. Oh! Where did you go again?

2. When did you come back?

3. So, where's the next destination?

4. When are you leaving?

Eternal return. Maybe Kundera was wrong. I mean yes, the French Revolution occuring over and over and over is something to be terrified about. But to have the same mundane conversation over and over and over and over again is... Well, something to be terrified about. Moral of the story? I don't know. Repetition is terrifying?

P.S. I think I will explain further about eternal return and my all time favourite subject and book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I have intrigued myself. 

Dreaming Out Loud

Hmm... I have no clue what I was writing about yesterday. So here's another attempt at dialogue. The typical overabused backpackers' converstation.

Foreign backpacker: So, where are you from?

Foreign backpacker 2: (Insert country name here.) What about you?

FB: Really? I've heard it's a beautiful country. 

FB2: Yeah. It's great. You should visit.

FB: Yeah. I really want to.

FB2: So where are you from?

FB: (Insert country name here.) I love it, but it's too (Insert adjective pertaining to weather here. e.g. cold, hot, rainy, dry, humid...)

FB2: Cool. So how long have you been travelling?

FB: (Insert time frame here.) You?

FB2: (Insert time frame.) Where have you been already.

FB: (List off names of countries that FB2 has already been to as well.)

FB2: Me too! Where was your favourite place?

FB: (Insert random city.) What about you?

FB2: Oh really? I...

And so forth. And so forth. And so forth. So many people coming and going, you've gotta have some sort of method to meeting fellow backpackers. The conversation is relatively the same no matter who you talk to. The order of the questions rotates sometimes. but only sometimes. And the wording changes a little due to geographical differences relating to English. 

But there you have it. The one and only conversation you will ever have when backpacking. Okay that's not true, but it's definitely the one you will have with almost everyone you meet. So repetitive and mundane... And yet, I miss it.

Celebrity Gossip

So. My friend asked me today... Why are people so interested in celebrities' lives? Or something of the sort, something conotating the negative aspect of following other people's lives. And I ask why not, what's wrong with it? I mean, it's not so great to get so caught up in celebrity life that you forget your own, but everythign in moderation right?

I look at it this way. People fascinate me. I am interested in why people are the way they are, why they do the things they do. That's why I love hearing and learning anything to do with history, anthropology, astrology, psychology, genetics, evolution. People are complex bundles so inctricately woven together, you can never truly know a person. But there are little aspects/traits that jump out at you and you can theorize where they come from.

Oh that mothering is the Cancer in her (Cancer the astrological sign, not cancer the sickness). Or oh, even though he's the youngest in the group he still quietly takes charge while letting the others have their way. I bet he has younger siblings.

Being able to read about celebrities and what stupid things they did today... Well, it's kind of like reading case studies. That are continuously happening. Unlike those case studies from 1974 that you read in your liberal arts text books. They are present day occurances of the human kind that you can ponder and analyze and pick apart. You can apply all the theories you've ever collected to these reccent events. And celebrity gossip are (is?) always the extreme case, perfect for more grandiose theories.

Anyway... At the end of the day it's all for shits and giggles. Watching people who are not myself amuse me. It's like... Watching How It's Made or How It's Done or... I don't recall the name of the show... But for humans. Only they don't tell you how they're made... No clue what I'm talking about anymore.

So in conclusion. It's like I always say. Guns don't kill, people do. Nothing is inherently bad. Life is what you make of it. For some reason that reminds me of The Matrix. Which I have never watched. I feel like I am having trouble staying on topic. Too much coffee maybe. Okay I'm off.

My dreams, never quite as it seems...

Yesterday I had a little bit of a health scare. It turned out to be nothing, but it made me rethink my life, my values, my actions. It made me realize how fragile life is and how in any given moment it can all be taken away from you.

I guess I might as well say it. Yesterday I found a lump. And the first thing I thought was that I don't want deformed, uneven boobs. And I cried for the future loss of my breasts. It was not whether or not I will survive this or if it's serious. I cried for the vanity I didn't even know existed. I am rather proud of my breasts. They could be a little bigger, but they are nicely shaped and plump.

And then I cried for the boyfriend that will never be. I finally found the most wonderful guy, but he just so happens to live half way across the world. It's complicated so we've decided to make it as simple as possible, to just be two people who love each other and nothing more. We'd never be able to survive this. If this was what I thought it was, I'd be tied to Toronto indefinitely. Surgery. Chemo. Doctor's visits. Recuperation time. And he's not in a position to come here anytime soon. His life is there. And I'd be here.

My life would be here. Would I give up my dreams of seeing the world for a stable life here? Could I be happy here? In one split second, my reality did a complete 180. In one split second, my future flashed before my eyes. And for the second time this month, I wondered if I was being naieve to think that I am the exception.

BBC's Top 100

Here's an interesting survey I found on facebook. How literate are we? According to the survey (I can't seem to find any info on the actual bbc website - suspicious?), bbc believes the average person has only read 6 of their top 100 books list. I've decided to test my book-reading against bbc's average man. The list is as follows (I will use little black hearts to mark the ones I've read since I can't figure out how to make check marks):

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen ♥
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien ♥
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte ♥
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling ♥
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee ♥
6 The Bible ♥
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte ♥ 

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell ♥ (A favourite!)

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ♥
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ♥ 

Total: 10

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott ♥ (A favourite!)

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles ♥
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller- 
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - ♥
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks 
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger ♥
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 

Total: 4

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ♥
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald ♥
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams ♥
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ♥
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll ♥
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 

Total: 5

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ♥
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ♥
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis ♥
34 Emma - Jane Austen X ♥
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen ♥ (Favourite Austen novel!)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis ♥
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ♥ 

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ♥
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne ♥

Total: 9

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell 
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown ♥
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ♥
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ♥
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ♥
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ♥
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 

Total: 5

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel 
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen ♥
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon 
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ♥
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon ♥
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ♥

Total: 4

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ♥
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas ♥
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac 
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding ♥
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 

Total: 3

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ♥
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett ♥
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante ♥
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 
80 Possession - AS Byatt ♥

Total: 4

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens ♥
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White ♥
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton 

Total: 2

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery ♥
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare ♥
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl ♥
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ♥

Total: 4

So I've read exactly half of bbc's top 100 list. There are a couple I would have read, but have been refusing to read on account of the people who reccomend the book to me. Snobby? Yeah kind of. But I'll get to them. I've been going through Harold Bloom's western canon (http://home.comcast.net/~dwtaylor1/theocraticcanon.html) but that' will take some time. Happy reading!

Australia

It's always something, isn't it? I don't even know what I'm looking for. But apparently sometimes we have to get lost to find ourselves. Am I ambiguous? My life is shrouded in ambiguitiy. I want to arrive as Ms. J. San Juan, office slave to the corporation, and depart as Jess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQGMuxJ0vCc

A Day in the Life

Friend A: I miss you.

Friend B: I miss you too.

Friend A: I miss you so much.

Friend B: I miss you so much too.

Friend A: So...

Friend B: So...

(pause)

Friend B: I'll talk to you later then?

Friend A: Okay, bye bye!

Friend B: Bye!

The stupidest game of life!

So, directions are: google your name along with "needs" in quotation marks. List the first things that come up.

1. Jessica needs to stop dressing like a slut. Ouch that's a little harsh.

2. Jessica needs coffee. Jessica needs good coffee is more like it.

3. Jessica needs a bigger AI-bra. What is an AI-bra? I do not know.

4. Jessica needs motivation to update her profile.

5. Jessica needs a caring home. Some place warm and sunny please.

6. Jessica needs a nice chianti. I've been thinking about a nice prosecco but chianti works for me.

7. Jessica needs to know she is beautiful. Ummm... Thank you?

8. Jessica needs to put some clothes on. ???

9 Jessica needs to work on her technique. These are getting borderline offensive.

10. Jessica needs your help. To find better things to write about on her blog.

Well then. I think I've sufficiently wasted at least 10 minutes of my life. Oh and last bit of randomness... HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TORONTO!

Midnight Musings

I thought I'd try dialogues, but right now my mind doesn't flow in dialogues. I know it'll come more natural once I actually start writing in dialogue, but right now the dialogue flow is blocked. And I don't feel like exerting effort. I'm feeling very emo. That word kind of bothers me. A word that has slowly slithered its way into the English language. Meloncholic. It's so much more poetic. Anyway... Here's an excert from the big project. I know it needs to be cut down quite a bit, but it's a start, eh?

CHAPTER (Unkown): NUMBERS AND FIGURES

"Did you know only 20% of Americans own a passport? Really. It explains why so many of them are ignorant *****."

I didn't bother to listen to the rest of his tirade. I had heard it before. Somewhere. From someone. But who? As Dror went on about the pitiful Americans, I racked my brains trying to remember where I had had this conversation. And then it hit me. Some other Israeli, one that still made my heart flutter when I thought of him, had told me all this before not so long ago. That 20% of Americans were ignorami. I guess it didn't matter so much anymore. He'd gone back home months ago. 

"How many Canadians do you think have passports? Only 20%? Canadians aren't rude like Americans. I met this Canadian guy... Really..." Like all the other Israelis I had met, Dror had the same forward, almost abrasive personality. I got the feeling he wouldn't care if I drifted in my thoughts a little longer.

It was like training all Israelis went through before they travelled. The Ministry of Foreign Information. Only 20% of Americans have passports. Only 20% of Americans have passports. Only 20% of Americans have passports. It wasn't just an approximation. For Israelis, it was a fact. There were other little "facts" most of the Israelis I met would spit out at random intervals. Maybe they were the truth. Maybe it was just Israeli propaganda. Who knew? I didn't have enough information to negate it with.

If I thought about it though, most countries had their little spiels and knowledge of an other people. Just the other day, I had read in an El Salvadorian newspaper: 33.3 million Canadians expected to visit El Salvador this year alone. Now correct me if I'm wrong and I've been maleducated on the topic of my own country, but I was under the assumption Canada's population was approximately 33..... Point 3 million. Apparently the El Salvadorian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expected that each and every Canadian would step foot on El Salvadorian soil in the year 2008. It baffled me.

"Really. Let those Americans do what they want. I don't want them coming to my country anway. It's better for me if they don't get passports. I'm hungry. You want to find some place to go for lunch?"

A shout out to the unknown reader who is not Viv or Sina

It appears more people read my blog than than I assumed. So thank you anonymous readers. Keep spreading the word of terrible writing and self-absorbed musings.

Random Musings

In an attempt to be a more authentic Spanish guitar player, I am growing my thumb nail. However, it appears to have stopped growing. I am also a little apprehensive about growing just one thumb nail. I've always associated one long nail with drug use - cocaine sniffing, weed chopping, and the likes. I can already hear the difference though. I'm still deciding if it sounds better or not. Will update later.

Living in Paradise

Here's some more sample writing from way back that I never decided to publish or broadcast or what not. I miss it... The Galapagos that is...

Living in Paradise

If Eden was paradise lost, then the Galapagos are a little piece of heaven rediscovered here on earth. Islands untouched by humans, where the sea lions are the kings of the beach and the night birds roam the streets after dark like young people stumbling home from the bars. Many a time, I’ve been one of those young stumbling people walking home alongside those night birds.

Despite popular belief, the islands are inhabited. I was one of its inhabitants. And boy, did I take advantage of that. After the awe of landing in the Galapagos Islands subsided, life settled into small town rhythm, pleasant and peaceful, not quite eventful. My day consisted of morning classes at the local private school. I’d take the same path every day, walking down the main road til I reached the end of the line. At noon I’d say goodbye to my students and take the same beaten path home for lunch. Usually, the girls and I arrived home around the same time every day. We’d all walk down to the beach together and bask in the glorious sun until it started to set and dinner time approached. After dinner, we’d meet with the rest of our little island family to drink, dance, and generally be merry. Life was good.

The cruises would come in daily and the tourists would disembark from their grand boat and get shuttled, through an otherwise bus-free town, to the local museum. In some twisted way, I felt the pride of a local – inflated because they were here to see my island, scornful that they’d never get to know its true beauty. Every day they’d come in off of their fancy ship with their tawdry waterproof hats and oversized cameras and awkward runners, gawking at us as we lithely paraded around our island in the most scant of clothing – bikinis, board shorts, skirts, flip flops. The other volunteers came and went as well. They stayed longer than the cruise boats, but they eventually left too. The island was ours.

Of course, nothing lasts forever. Soon enough our little island family started to drop off. One by one, we started our withdrawal from the island. Every week, another going away party at our favourite little dessert place. Finally, it was my turn. By the time I left only two of the nine girls remained. They, along with one of the boys, were the only ones to accompany me to the docks early that morning. It was a bittersweet goodbye and all I could do was watch wistfully as the boat pulled away from my beautiful island. Nunca se olividaré.