Moved

check out:
www.patriciajane.com

Canada

Riding the bus into town, I was reading about Marxism, and Marxist Communism as it has been realized, when I looked up and saw our flag flying. For some reason, right then, I got an overwhelming sense of how lucky I am to be Canadian.

Ironically I was on Bay Street, and the flag was flying on a financial building, which actually encapsulates the thought process I had: I am grateful for the amount of freedom this country has given me, even if the more I learn the more I disagree with what keeps the country running.

...freedom doesn't have to mean democracy and captalism as we have them now, and communism doesn't have to mean oppression as it has meant in the past. May those of us who have been blessed to live in countries where we have had the freedom to learn, and to express our ideas, band together and become active forces of change.

Smalltown Ontario

The night before last I came home to Puslinch (yes...I'll admit it, I don't even really live in Guelph or Cambridge, I live in the large undefinable region, with run-away cows, and rural routes instead of street numbers, that is Puslinch)

My parents weren't going to be home, my brother was out late, and it was very cold, so I decided that rather than making up the bed in the guest room that used to be mine, I would crawl into my parents deliciously warm waterbed for the night. My parents' bedroom is the only room on the second floor of our house and it has cieling-to-floor windows facing east out over the lake we live on. I woke up yesterday morning to the sun rising up over the water and pouring into the room. I love Toronto, but it can't compete with something like that.

Yesterday I slipped even further away from urban life, 2 hours north, to a town called Ripley. Ever heard of Ripley? ...that's OK, don't worry about it. You know that expression 'one-stoplight-town' that immediately gives you the visual of this tiny little pocket of civilization that centres on a single intersection? Ripley doesn't even have one stoplight. It's painful really.

It was my grandmother's 80th birthday party, and we'd rented out the Ripley legion to gather all her friends, and all our family to celebrate. All my complaints about smalltowns aside, it was a fabulous night. We must have had nearly every little white haired old lady and man within a 100km radius present at the party, and my grandma was more delighted than I've seen her in a long time.

On the way up to that region of the world, you pass through mennonite country. You see children, in homemade clothing, with black jackets, walking gingerly down the side of major highways, and me, I think: 'I wonder what they think of us speeding by in our gas-guzzling vehicles?' and 'where is it that we really need to get in such a rush?'. 'I wonder if they know all about how our society works, and actively choose not to be in it; or if their church leaders just convince them that living like us is evil, and they know nothing but what they see in our cars speeding by?'...

Anyway, it's about time for me to get back on the bus and head back into the city. Home-sweet-sunriseless home.

p.s. I dreamt about Japan last night. It's getting to be time to go back.
p.p.s. My mom just said "mp3 players are outdated now and I never even figured out what they were". ...cute on so many levels (not least of which is the fact that they aren't out of date...).

Aidin's 2 cents

I feel a need to share that today I was hit with the most spectacular comeback I think I've ever received.

After a series of my usual sarcastic/snide sidebars during a study session Aidin looked up from his computer and said quite thoughtfully:
"How do you pick a swearword for someone like you? ...It's like..."
(And at this point, I am thinking his predicament is that I'm just too sweet a person to really swear at, but he continued:)
"...I mean, I could say 'Fuck off'... but that's just not intense enough."

Really haven't laughed that hard in a while. Thanks sir.

I'm confused...I thought we were going forward...

I stumbled across this blog this morning. First actually, I stumbled across this one, and thought his bit about Swearing like an Englishman was brilliant. So, intrigued, I checked out his profile, finding myself at the aforementioned Kosher Salmon.

This second blog also started out by interesting me. "People like to understand things", he begins, and then proceeds to talk about how we are all so quick to ask what people do, so that we can categorize them in our heads and make it easier for us to understand them. He then moved on into a bit about how, for kids, we even were silly enough to ask "what do you want to be when you grow up?", as if they didn't have better things to think about. All in all I thought it was a relevant train of thought. Why is it that we are so eager to categorize people? Couldn't there be a better way of dealing with those around us?

...but the way the train of thought went. ...I dunno...I was very abrubtly left behind (perhaps on purpose?--my Irish blood wasn't meant to understand?).

He went into a bit about love, as the reason we get up in the morning. ...which I had to agree with. Then (here's where it took a turn for the 'padg is lost'), he talked about love meaning preferance. About how love was about choosing something and holding it up above something else.

?...My concept of love is so differant from that. My concept of love is as a force of energy that flows through all of us inspiring us to live. It seems to me that it's only when we haven't learned to let love out in its unbridled form that we find ourselves dividing and handing it out selectively. The most virtuous goal, seems to me, to be that of learning to love every grain of the world, and the people in it, with an equally strong passion.

?...but he said that "those who want everyone to love everyone and everything the same wish nothing more that the removal of all love from this world", and that confused me. I put alot of thought into it, and I still came out pretty sure that I did not wish the removal of all love from this world.

Then he said "if you’re willing to die for Israel as much as you are for Kamchatka, then you’re not willing to die for anything of value, you’re just willing to die", and I thought: 'wait? die for Isreal? Die for a country?....that's love? k...see now I'm really lost'.

...anyway, I guess, at this point, you've either read the Kosher Salmon blog, or put together his point. To summarize, the main idea was that being Jewish means you are part of a religion "equal to or greater than any other", and that that made you special...and that you should celebrate that by being actively Jewish. You should be proud, you should do the whole birthright thing. ...etc. etc.

The levels at which I've been confused at this point are staggering.

First of all, we are definately labelling and categorizing people again (which I thought was what we were trying to get away from). That is definately my smallest complaint, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Secondly, dying for Isreal? Can we talk for a moment about nationalism? Can we talk about the atrociousness of the World Wars?

When I met exchange students from Europe when I was abroad in Japan, we often talked about flags. In Japan, you do not often see flags flying. For those North Americans among us, this was a little surprising, but the Europeans quickly brought us up to speed on the fact that for countries actively involved in WWII flags had become a little bit of a 'taboo'. Nationalism had become a bit of a 'no-no'. ...and rightly so wouldn't you agree? I mean that was allllllot of blood spilt over the concept of being Aryan, or Japanese, as the case may have been. And forgive me if it's politically incorrect of me to say so, but shouldn't Jewish people know this better than anyone else?

Thirdly, love being expressed through death? This is completely foriegn to me. I understand that there are situations in which you must fight for what you believe, and that such fights could lead to your death...but surely that is differant from love? In what circumstance could love and death really be equated? I mean there are those among us who believe that Jesus' death was the ultimate expression of God's love for us....but even in that (very extreme) example, I would have to argue that Jesus' death was much less about love, and much more about a bunch of angry and confused Romans and Jews.

...and actually, now that Jesus is on the table, I'd like to use him for another point. Jesus was Jewish. 2000 years ago, he grew up learning all the things that you learned back in the day in Jewish culture, and he mulled it over and went: "Hey guys! I have a thought. We're all God's children. Let's love everyone as children of God". Two millenia ago it occured to him that maybe it wasn't the greatest idea in the world to be dividing people into sections and labelling them. ....and yet, 2 millenia later what are we doing? Dividing people, and labelling them. Infact he even gets a bunch of labels of his own (I'm sure he'd be realllly impressed by that too).

Guys. It's the year 2005. Globalization is making the world smaller than it has ever been. Whether we like it or not, we (all of us) are going to have to start to learn to work together. The population is still growing dramatically, the environment is suffering from the unreasonable pressure the mal-developed nations puts on it, people are starving and dying. ...we have alot of important things to deal with...and we have to do it together.

The fact of the matter is: the future is scary. And God knows if we're going to get it right (all the puns you can make with that sentance are valid). All that is clear is that there's no where to go but forwards. Now that a place like North America exists, where languages, and cultures blend together, now that you can fly around the world in less than a day...now that it's easier for me to get a hold of family in Ireland, than my brother 45 minutes out of town...we just can't pretend to be segregated into little groups anymore. There is alot to be learned from history, and we certainly shouldn't be turning our backs on our cultures and ignoring them--but we can't go back. It just isn't one of the options on the table.

"Be proud that you’re not the same as everyone else, because if everyone was the same there could be no selection, no love," the guy said to Jews reading his blog. And I'm thinking, 'I'm all for embracing your background, and being aware of your culture...but the time has come to acknowledge what we all have in common...what it is to be human, and to learn to love everyone for that'.

I believe in a really powerful love, through which people's eyes could be opened to understanding one another. I believe that if we work together we could discover that starvation and hunger are unnecessary and that every human being, of every colour, in every culture, and of every religious tradition is equally deserving of a happy and comfortable life, through which they can explore their own potential.

Most importantly I believe that we are all God's children, all "chosen people", all worthy of enlightenment....that every one of us has the unquenchable energy of life and love flowing through our veins, and that no matter how much we choose to divide ourselves, and no matter how many times we die trying to prove otherwise, that that truth will ring clear over and over again.

...if you're with me on any of those points...let's move forward together eh?

More trails and errors of sleeping in the life of podj

Sunday night I was up past 2, and up again before 6 (count: 4 hours). Last night I was up until 1, and in bed until 9 (count: 8 hours). ....that's a cumulative 12 hours over 2 days.

Yesterday evening (day 1), I was not a very nice person (see yesterday's entry for a quick referance). This morning (day 2) I was a certified bitch. I was sitting in class, glowering at the proffessor, icily demanding clarification on concepts from the unfortunates surrounding me...and just generally. ...ya. *chuckles* Fortunately Aidin was sitting beside me and had the goodsense to say condescendingly, "don't be so melodramatic podj", and "you're life's not that.."(he trailed off, but whatever he said was probably valid).

He was right, I was being ridiculous. But really, my head hurt, my joints hurt, I couldn't concentrate...it really felt like the entire world was pressing in on top of me.

I went on to my next class, where I struggled to stay awake during the first hour, before giving up and going home. I slept this afternoon from 2 until 6, and I feel like me again.

...this is really beginning to amaze me.

I believe today is going to be a day for venting...

...about a couple of things that have been bothering me.

1. I'm tired. Really, thoroughly, exhausted. For the better part of a number of years I've been trying to respect the amount of sleep and downtime that my body needs, but over the last month or so I have reverted back to my early highschool 'who-needs-a-break?' attitude, and I think it might kill me. I know, if I wanted to, I could change gears internally, and handle the stress I am under gracefully. What concerns me about this, however, is that I'm beginning to learn (through dabbles in Eastern medicine and through my job) just how detrimental stress is to the body, and so piling ridiculous amounts of things into my schedule, and then internalizing the stress to come out smiling is not what I would rationally consider to be the best plan. That being said, I'm not sure I know how else to take my goals and turn them into a reality for myself. Everything I'm up to seems so crucially intregal to where I want to go...

2. Some people are impossible to work with, and should be banned from all workplaces.
2.5 Punctuality is not really that much to ask
2.75 Nothing is more frustrating than someone who knows nothing about what you need to get done, telling you how and when to do it.

3. Boys suck. Nah...that's not fair. I think my beef is really with the idea of a relationship that is projected on us by society. .....or maybe the lack of one. Between a mom who's on her fourth marraige, a brother who's 3 years younger and already in a relationship more healthy than any I've come close to, an ex-boyfriend who's more present now that I've said we're done, than he's been in years, and my own inability to know what I want...I mean damn... I haven't got a bloody clue what's a good idea these days.
I've been trying to ignore any thoughts about a relationship right now and focus on all the things causing me stress in #1, and yet despite my most earnest efforts I spend a preposterous amount of time rolling the idea of three differant boys around in my head, each of whom would be terrible for me in their own right (*sigh* emotional masochism, how I love you).

4. I hate driving in downtown Toronto.

5. ...Half of me wants to be exactly where I am, doing all the things I'm doing with all the implied commitments that come with it. Half of me wants to run off to some a foriegn country I've never been to and put up a lemonade stand.

mmm...lemonade...

6. Me: "I don't drink"
Other person: "Like, as a rule, ever?... Why?". *looks at me like I'm either really naive, or just plain odd*

Me: "I don't really eat meat"
Other person: "Are you vegetarian?"*cringes/otherwise gets defensive*

...I don't drink because I generally don't want to. I enjoy it alot. The minute I have a sip (of anything) I crave alot of something harder--and that scares me. I like remembering what I've done.

That being said, I do not like feeling restricted (even by my own rules), and every once in a while I'll have a drink. It's not a big deal. Relax. Don't push me.

...I'm not a vegetarian. I've just never really liked meat. The chemicals they feed animals scare me, and I don't want them in my body. Sometimes I will eat organic meat, but I think red meat is hard on the digestive system, and I don't really enjoy it. I will not get in an argument with you about animal rights, because I don't really care. If you want to talk to me about our right to take the lives of other creatures for food, I'll probably point out that considering creatures like sponges, it's pretty damn hard to draw the line between plants and animals anyway, and we bloody well have to eat something. Like anything else I think it's about moderation and respect. I think the amount of grain that goes to feeding cattle for North Americans to get fat on while Africans starve is disgusting...but maybe that's just me.

...all that being said, every once in a while I like blackforest ham and cheese on a sandwhich. If you have a problem with that... ....well, if I'm in a mood like today I would suggest leaving me alone, frankly.

....right, so no yoga this morning...and not enough sleep last night.
memo to me: not yet enlightened. do more yoga.

Fall, and midterms, and music to my ears...

Sooo...on the way to my midterm today I'm listening to some music, quietly to myself through my headphones, and just as I step into the building where I will be writing, a piano kicks in only in my left headphone...totally caught me off guard, and I swung my head to the left to hear where the music was coming from, before realizing that it matched the song I was listening to quite well. ...The two other guys in the foyer looked at me like I was purple. I burst out laughing and proceeded to my exam. Sometimes it's fun to be nuts...

Anyway, list of accomplishments for the day:
One database crisis averted (...and I didn't even kill a coworker)
One Irish predicament solved (...and I'm very proud of my brother)
One midterm completed (...and I'm very...relieved)

As for other news to report: the leaves have started falling...and Toronto is striking me as beautiful all over again (although it always seems that while I'm thinking that I walk by something really smelly). I love the fall. The temperature, the breezes, the leaves and the light rain....so wonderful. If only they didn't mean we were about to get snow dumped on us... hehe..ah well..

Deja vu...again..

I have been having more frequent, and more intense deja vus lately than I can believe. Most of them are just tiny, but they are happening at least once (usually two or three times) a day.

A few have seemed so real, and been so long lasting (nearly a minute in some cases) that I haven't been able to walk away from them pretending to believe time works in the way we like to think.

If you haven't seen What the Bleep Do We Know? check it out for sure. It's very shoddily put together (as a film), but it is a fantastic compelation of leading scientific knowledge that points to our misconceptions about time and space.

...definately an area of thought I've been too busy to digress in too seriously lately...but fascinating, fascinating stuff.

On a related note:

Believe (partial lyrics) - John Butler Trio

There's no need to worry
Run around in your scurry
All you got to do is believe...
In the universe
Cos this man it always works

All you got to do is release...
All your expectations
In any situation
All you got to do is see...
That it's all taking place
In it's own grace
All you got to do is believe...

The evidence seemed to suggest that somewhere, beneath the dishes...there was in fact, a kitchen

....just now the reports are coming in that the kitchen has been unharmed by the onslaught of dishes resulting from podj being left alone at the house. When the first bits of countertop were uncovered, a team of highly skilled archeologists were called in to excavate the site, and seem to have done a remarkable job...

So, it's thanksgiving...I stayed in town to prepare for midterms, while my roommate took advantage of the day off school to go home to visit her family in Arizona. If you knew how many glasses she and I owned, you would be shocked to discover that somehow, over the course of the 3 days she's been away, I managed to dirty every single one of them.

Basically, I think, the verdict is in. I am quite well-established, as a student who lives away from their parents' home...but I am light-years away from being able to live by myself. While I did get a great deal of studying done this weekend (more consecutive hours than I think I have ever accomplished before), I did it at the expense of any culturally acceptable kitchen habits, and broke most of my "I do not eat the following: " rules (with the exception of meat, but that's just because I don't like it anyway).

It's remarkable, because it's not like when Emily is home, she does all the cooking, and cleans up after me all the time. ...just, I guess, that when someone else is around I feel a little more motivated to do what I know I should. ....which could send me into a train of thought about the nature of society as a way of keeping ourselves in balance, and its necessity for our survival...but really I have one more stats chapter to get through, and have to finish a program of the Hanoi tower tonight...so I should just get to that.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!