zombies: capitalism without the capital

[REVISED AND REPOSTED HERE]

once upon a time it was suggested to me by one of my favourite professors that i turn my theory of zombies into a thesis, or a book. as it's looking less and less likely that that's going to happen, i've decided to scribble it down here in the hopes that somebody reads it and cares. there is an ulterior motive for the timing of this post.

...

it is well-documented that monsters have traditionally served us as metaphors for societal fears. famous examples are of vampires (sexual repression), frankenstein's monster (science and technology), kaiju, such as godzilla (the dangers of nuclear technology), and that's not even getting started on the ancient monsters (from greek mythology and beowulf, for example, those must be interesting to examine).

one monster, the zombie, has undergone much transformation over the course of the last century. the most radical change was ushered in by george romero in night of the living dead, and occurred significantly at the dawn of the postmodern era. some have claimed that the postmodern zombie represents capitalist consumerism, but i find that a bit of a stretch even though it certainly fits what i would consider to be a potential category of zombieism*. but first, let's try to clarify what postmodernism is.

postmodernism, as i would summarize it, is defined by the awareness of the meta-narrative or ideology as the "operating system" of the individual which forms the basis of the subjective interpretation of reality and directs rationale and logic. postmodernism emerged from the glaring failures of modernism's "isms", the utopian narratives that resulted in such tragic movements as nazism, communism, futurism and the relegation of metered, rhyming poetry to the naughty corner. the wikipedia summary is neat as always:

While encompassing a disparate variety of approaches, postmodernism is typically defined by an attitude of skepticism, irony, or rejection toward the meta-narratives and ideologies of modernism, and often calls into question various assumptions of Enlightenment rationality. Common targets of postmodern critique include universalist notions of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, language, and social progress. Postmodern thinkers frequently call attention to the contingent or socially-conditioned nature of knowledge claims and value systems, situating them as products of particular political, historical, or cultural discourses and hierarchies. Accordingly, postmodern thought is broadly characterized by tendencies to self-referentiality, epistemological and moral relativism, pluralism, subjectivism, and irreverence

my thesis in a single sentence: i have come to believe that zombies represent the newfound fear of dominating ideologies.

1. zombies hunger for brains and infect healthy humans with viral ideas that nobody is safe from.
in their book in praise of doubt, berger and zijderveld explore fundamentalism and conclude that it is a reaction to postmodernism's potential for nihilism and the anxiety caused by an unstable sense of reality. one of the aspects discussed is that once someone has chosen to revert to the comfort and safety of religion, they must avoid all conflicting information and reduce their encounters with non-believers to a minimum in order to maintain their chosen belief. this behaviour is not only evident in religious communities - in particular, fundamentalist communities - but in other ideologies, from atheism and scientism to sexual identity groups to sports fanatics to pretty much anything that can provide a sense of belonging and purpose. our gods and our lifestyle choices and our hobbies are now ways in which we build our identity to the exclusion of almost everything else, and we circulate in our insulated groups while recruiting as many members as we can.

2. they are othered in a terrifying way while remaining so recognizably human that people cannot help but engage with them.
as our differences become more visible in our hyper-individualized western societies, whether in hair and clothing style, body art and modifications, mannerisms, or even social media profile keywords (eg political ideology), we sensationalize and stereotype more and more until the other has become utterly alien and monsterous. we cannot avoid engaging with those others who are close to us, such as our friends and family members, and when those close to us begin to adopt a new ideology they immediately pose a threat to our own existing ideologies.

3. they can only be stopped by attacking the brain.
you cannot win an ideological war with physical attacks, if anything you will only make the enemy more determined. historically, the only two ways to win an ideological war are genocide, an option i hope will remain off the table, and "winning hearts and minds". the latter is far more difficult in today's context, sadly, as it requires intelligent, well-educated warriors and we're living in an age of vast knowledge and very little wisdom.

that, in short and informal, is my theory of zombies.

---* i feel compelled to point out that here (and in most conversations on the topic) the idea of capitalism needs to be separated into two distinct components: capitalism the economic system and capitalism the ideology. the latter is relevant to the topic of zombieism, the former is not. perhaps that's a subject in need of its own post.

timing is everything

i just read an article on the rising trend of quitting, just as gd's at work facing off with her boss because he's not only been treating her unfairly but now he's interfering with her clients and assigning them to other staff. whatever game he's playing, it's costing her psychologically as well as physically, and she's reached the point where not dealing with him is as dangerous as dealing with him. he's a shameless bully, and gd's freaking out because she can't afford to lose her job nor keep a job that's not paying her.

it didn't help that the conversation about working with her friend that was supposed to take place yesterday was postponed until thursday...

meanwhile, i was really nervous when i called up my point of contact yesterday and was hugely relieved to hear that the background check has been cleared and that we should be expecting to get my permit authorized within the next week or two. i've been stressing like crazy for at least a month, and although i've finally reached the limits of my bank account i'm now quite confident that things are going to be alright.

that first salary, though? that's going to be the point at which i resume breathing properly. i'm just one paycheck away from being able to tell gd she can do what she wants. in the meanwhile, i have some playing to do with the technologies i've been studying.

a productive weekend

yesterday:

a visit to godmother for coffee yesterday had mixed moments of pleasant and unpleasant. godmother made me feel incredibly uncomfortable over the fact that i hadn't done the preparation my future boss had asked me to, and it was only later when i went over my posts from the month of june that i felt vindicated. it was an intense month, was june, and the next couple of weeks are already looking considerably more relaxed.

overall, i'm relaxing a little bit about the permit application. it's been about a month, so i should hear back in approximately two weeks or so. there's no reason i shouldn't get my permit, and there's no reason to think my point of contact's been dishonest. that doesn't mean that i'm not suspicious - i'm not unfamiliar with blatant unprofessionalism - but my hands are tied and there's not much point to stressing. now that i've gone over all the material i'm armed and ready to make a friendly call to my future manager and then spend the next couple of weeks playing around with what i've learned and trying to make things as comfortable as i can.

otherwise, it was a pleasant and sunny afternoon on the porch. i got home to hear that gd had spoken to her friend about a job that could really turn things around for her, so that's exciting news, and i spent the remainder of the afternoon and a fair amount of the evening poring over documentation and tutorials for web servers, accelerators and messaging services.

it was late when i finally asked gd what options there were for dinner, and she obliged with one hell of a meal; in retrospect, i can't believe she went as far as she did with it and it came out amazing. we ate half of it while watching the beginning of jack reacher, then we both crashed pretty hard.

today:

i woke up, did a whole lot of dishes and returned to bed. then we got up for coffee and breakfast, i played some tekken (some good, some bad, mostly taunting or screaming at online players who couldn't hear me) before kgb and his fiancée arrived. gd gave him a great haircut while us significant others talked about immigration policies, then the three of us left gd to another haircut and went out for (another) coffee next to the market.

gd joined me on a mission to the park for yoga, and i'm extremely pleased to report that she enjoyed it and it seems to have done her good. the instructor also prefers sundays, so i guess that's a thing now, and we stopped for ice-cream (sorbet for me) on our way home. we were supposed to be joining friends of gd's for a barbeque but she was feeling the yoga, so instead we rested a bit, made a great pseudo-barbeque lunch and finished watching the movie - jack reacher's a lot of fun, and that's all it needed to be.

the days keep flying by - i'm a bit freaked out that it's 10pm already. i'm planning for a peaceful night to prepare for tomorrow. it's looking like it's going to be a big day.

on vulnerability

after my last post i was quite upset, and i was taken right back into the dark space i'd been in the previous night when arguing with gd about rape, consent and gender. i remained upset until i arrived at her place and managed to get my thoughts and feelings across, which was really difficult. i only found the right words to express myself minutes before arriving and talking about one's vulnerabilities and dark places is not easy, it doesn't matter how caring and supportive the person you're talking to is.

the cause for my distress was being told that i don't get to discuss "consent" because i cannot empathize with women who're living in rape culture* as a man in a man's world who hasn't been subjected to sexual abuse. at first i was angry because while i agree that i cannot identify with victims of sexual abuse, that doesn't mean that i cannot empathize with them**. then, while on my way to gd's, it suddenly struck me that i *do* know all about consent and violation first-hand.

i've barely talked about my experiences with the men in suits (and i've hardly started labelling all the polygraph posts) but i'm going to take a moment to share the two most significant parts of the experience.

firstly, i was forced to "consent" to the interrogation and to be subjected to the polygraph examinations. sure, i could have withheld consent, but not consenting was tantamount to declaring myself a criminal and a traitor and the possible consequences included lengthy jail-time and being dishonourably discharged, which would basically have destroyed any possibility of me continuing on my career / life path. in other words, i would have been sacrificing all of my dreams if i hadn't submitted.

secondly, the violation of the interrogation wherein they demanded deeply private and personal details that i didn't want to share followed by being hooked up to a machine to confirm whether i'd been honest and forthcoming is nothing short of mental rape. full penetration, complete helplessness and having to live with the trauma afterwards. it's an experience that, no matter how much sense i manage to make of it, i have no place for in my narrative. this is something that happens to other people, not me.

just talking about it face-to-face yesterday, even with someone i trust so intimately, made my chest constrict until i couldn't breathe.
so here i am, reliving the interminable sequence of dark, ugly moments that i will never be able to forget and cannot satisfactorily fit into language, in an attempt to justify my opinions and understanding of gender inequality and how fucked up our world is.

---i'm not going to share my opinions right now, that's not what this is about.

* a problematic expression. it's valid, but it's more nuanced and complex than its surface value and causes misunderstandings even before a discussion can be had. if you want to talk about rape culture with anyone, you have to sit down and establish all the terms before you begin. victims, normative men (participants and non-participants), normative women (not including explicit victims), feminists (male and female), and academics all think, speak and understand these things very differently.

**i feel strongly that there's a difference between those two concepts, i might be abusing the language though. if you don't get my meaning, leave a comment and i'll try to explain differently.

i don't even. part iii.

[... continued]

monday continued:

i left gd's when it was time to get ready for the first night of passover. i walked in a semi-daze, completely high (on life, and it's been mostly sustained this whole week) and utterly distracted.

not the best time to receive a series of messages from aaa telling me she didn't *get* it, apparently she changed her mind at the slam and still wants to date. i gently chided her and put her off, hoping she got the message this time...

...

the spring rain would have been more welcome had i not been dressed well. just saying.

---the first night passover dinner was insanely tedious. if it wasn't for the fact that i won't let my family down, it was so bad that even if it wasn't the last time that our hosts will be hosting (for a while at least, they're not going to be here next year), i'd say i'd never go there again. it's not that they're not nice people, and the food was good, but it was like nobody cared enough to participate in the seder AND they went through every single page of the damned haggadah anyway. it's okay if it's one or the other, but both?!

and the company. oh gods, the company. not only did i want to be spending my evening with gd, but i was surrounded by people i have absolutely nothing in common with and who amongst themselves couldn't keep a conversation going for more than a minute unless it was about sports, and that conversation lasted about five minutes and was entirely composed of random facts and completely unfounded speculations being thrown across the table.

damn.

DAMN.

and yang, who i usually can at least have some kind of entertaining interactions with even if they're negatively entertaining, was being even more of a yanghole than usual so i didn't want to talk to him at all.

...

for some reason, in my head i can summarize the experience with "we had to keep our shoes on at the table". the only positive thing about the seder being so bad is that it was the primary cause for certainty that i wasn't simply hallucinating those 24 hours.

---gd was amused that i was considerate enough to carefully floss and brush extra-well before heading over to her place as i'd eaten something for dessert that she's so allergic to that micro-contact would send her into anaphylactic shock. pulse and her had both warned me about this; i had this horrifying vision of having to call 911 in the middle of the night...

i ran into vector as i walked into the metro, and it sounds like he and i are going to be able to get to work on our collaboration in a couple of weeks - so that's cool.

---yesterday:

i came home in that same state as after a long night of hard partying, happy but in an altered state of mind caused by a combination of excess happiness and sleep deprivation.

and i thought that when i got home i'd post, and call people back, and otherwise be productive. boy, was i wrong!
i received a phone call from a recruiter i'd never heard of with a contract that urgently needs to be filled and that, quite frankly, is PRECISELY what i'd consider my ideal re-entry into aerospace! what terrifying serendipity! what freakishly good fortune!

i cited aota and my last commander as references, and was pleasantly surprised to get a phone call from aota a short while later informing me that she'd provided me an AMAZING reference and inviting me over for coffee. what?! how awesome is that?!

...

that was when the universe decided to give me a kick in the backside. literally. i was on my way up the stairs at aota's metro station when my nerve pinched again. sciatica, apparently. it began by bothering me every few steps, and would proceed to get progressively worse as the day worn on...

...

i spent hours at aota's chatting with her and her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend until i realized that i was really hungry and that i needed to get going anyway. i was entering the metro when the morning's recruiter called, hoping to catch me in time for a quick face-to-face introduction, and after i decided not to put myself in a position where i might be late for dinner i realized that i'd dodged a bullet because i wasn't exactly dressed for success. rule: don't meet potential employers or recruiters wearing street clothes.

on the metro: a bag isn't a person, and doesn't require its own seat on a packed train. but the dude didn't need to give up BOTH seats in order to let me have one.


by the time i returned home my lower back was in agony every few steps. so much for grateful positive vibes, huh?

the second night's seder was suuuuuch an improvement! both uncle hate and yang disagreed, but that was purely on grounds of them being assholes. we skipped bits that weren't imperative, everyone was friendly and positive and joined in, and even the elderly italians across from me were very sweet and we had fun chats about the most arbitrary things.

also, it was far quicker than the previous night's. and the food was good.

---by the time the seder was done my sciatica was constant and extremely painful, i was limping and wobbling occasionally, struggling to sit or stand. i called gd when i got home and discovered that she suffers from it too, not only did she have advice for me but she talked me through finding appropriate meds. they helped a little, even if i woke up with cotton wool between my ears...

[continued...]

i don't even. part i.

i'm actually high right now. actually, properly high on life to such a degree that this morning i found myself wondering - on a couple of occasions - if perhaps i'm dying and this last weekend has been a final hallucination in which i imagine what heaven is like.

...

i suddenly recalled the couple of unpleasant things that prove that this all has to be real, and that drew me out from my reality-anxiety reverie in a fit of giggles.

---friday:

firstly, i have to mention an amazing piece of software that's really exciting: it's called firechat, and in a nutshell it allows android / iphone users to create ad-hoc networks when there's no connectivity. the first, most basic use i could think of was to chat with people on the metro; it's an environment with lots of people avoiding all forms of contact, and i think the ability to communicate with people in the same location and situation anonymously could have really interesting potential.

...

i wasn't going to be able to make boxing in the evening, so i went early to work on the bags. i did some good work, but then i became frustrated as my shins got tender and i managed to hurt my ankle (slightly) on a side-kick to the wrong bag (like kicking a wall, that one). at least i finished feeling looser, and while resting on the pull-up bar i realized that after all this time i'm actually able to hold it with my feet flat on the floor - stretch success!

i went to the tattoo parlor opening that pulse had invited me to. it wasn't too difficult to find, i'm not familiar with the area but it was a beautiful evening and on the way the view of the city was stunningly dystopic. i arrived... on time, and pulse was going to be fifteen minutes late. hesitant to enter alone, not knowing anyone and being pretty bad with strangers, i looked in at the window and decided that i was rather under-dressed. this was no regular tattoo parlor! shit, they'd turned the main area into a gallery and the tattoo artist's paintings were on display, there was a table with wine and cocktail-y stuff and my first impression was that it was packed with pretension.

i opened the door and a beautiful woman jumped forward to welcome me, i automatically assumed that i was talking to one of the proprietors and politely introduced myself before attempting to enter the throng. a small room, packed with people, it was a throng. and everyone was standing and talking in such a way that it was practically impossible to squeeze through to see what was further inside, i was even uncomfortable approaching the table with the refreshments.

i sneaked between the lines-of-sight of the snap-happy photographers while i inspected the artwork: the pieces were all fantastic, the artist has a really cool style and some of the work was really gripping. so there was that.

just as i was staring at a particularly intriguing canvas, i felt a tap on my shoulder and whirled around to find pulse standing beside me. what a relief! she introduced me to her friend, and then re-introduced me to gd, the girl who'd greeted me earlier. the curtain was drawn back, the crowd regained a level of reality and we all proceeded to enjoy the evening together.

there was something special about gd and she basically told me what it was* when she eventually caught me alone; she left with us which gave us an opportunity to chat on the way to the metro. it was immediately obvious that we were going to be friends and we swapped details as we agreed to meet up sometime.

* no, not sharing.

i got home to a message from her that ended in a chat in which we discussed the fact that we were both attracted to each other and the fact that aaa and i were a potential thing. she was happy to respect that and still come see me perform on sunday, and everything was cool. very cool. that is to say, our chat excited me in a way that i haven't been excited in a very long time.

---saturday:

i slept better, but that wasn't difficult to achieve. i read an article on sensory deprivation that sounded suspiciously like using technology to achieve the goals of a yoga exercise pulse had been describing the night before, then went to old montreal to join her for yoga.

if one of the aims of yoga is to relax, then i was halfway there just by walking through old montreal on such an incredible, sunny morning! gods, that area is gorgeous.

the yoga class: pulse had been going about how amazing her instructor is, and while at first i was a little skeptical i really warmed to him over the course of the class. some of the things he says are a bit preachy, but considering some of the conversations i overheard from the other members of the class it was probably quite necessary. speaking of which, the class was completely full and we had to play a form of yoga mat tetris in order to squeeze everyone in...

... the class was awesome, extremely challenging, mentally stimulating and shamefully sweaty for someone using pulse's spare mat (of course i cleaned it afterwards, but still).

pulse and i had a great time visiting atwater market, the highlight being my finding a large tub of marmite. hooray! on the metro, pulse made a comment about using the poetry slam as an opportunity to vet aaa. i thought that was pretty amusing.

after a good lunch, i went to a java u to meet aaa for coffee before going to hear the university of montreal's orchestra. i was trying and failing to speedily learn the slam in the hope that it'd be ready for the following evening. yeah. not so much.

the date: coffee was nice. we travelled to the university, which is pretty impressive, and found our seats. i wasn't sure how i'd feel about a classical performance, but here goes: the first piece was composed by a man in the audience, it was interesting. the second piece appeared to be showcasing a very talented dude with a flute, it was pretty cool. then there was an intermission, and then the main piece.

dimitri chostakovitch, symphony no. 11. ho-ly crap. there were parts of it where i felt like i was in class trying desperately not to fall asleep, and parts filled with heady, powerful stuff. i guess i could say it was equal parts thrilling and somniferous. i couldn't believe how long it was, my mind was reeling trying to fathom how everyone, from the conductor to the guys on the bells, were keeping it together. when i described the experience to my mother i told her that it felt like i was watching the soundtrack to a movie, and felt quite validated (and cultured :P) when she read back a review that basically said the same thing!
the experience was also similar to some of the more advanced psy-trance pieces where the dj brings in recurring themes in different contexts. it was mind-numbing, intoxicating stuff. i was left speechless and a little shocked by the time it was over.

now for the other side of the experience. the entire time, i found myself comparing between how i felt spending time with aaa and how i felt spending time with gd. i'd spent mere minutes talking with gd, and there aaa and i were on our third date with no spark apparent and not even an indication of a desire for physical contact. i felt like a real heel, thinking like this and comparing between the two, and i continually wondered if i was unfairly letting gd influence the way the date was going.

the word for the evening was "dispassionate". i wasn't interested in continuing the date and i gallantly waited with aaa for her metro, during which time a very strong nothing happened. i hopped on my metro thinking that that felt like a "no".

marmite, then bed. i had a big day to prepare for.

[continued...]

april 1st

there's a man outside with a leafblower going up and down the parking lot and making a lot of noise. i watched him for a few moments, fascinated by the fact that there're no leaves to be seen anywhere. he must be doing a particularly good job.

---it's gotta be the yoga, i woke up yesterday feeling indescribably relaxed and comfortable, and "well"... i didn't want to get out of bed at all. i woke up this morning feeling the same. is this a thing? i really want it to be a thing.

i wanted to do something for april fool's, and settled on posting what i thought was ridiculously obvious: i've decided it's time for another tattoo... i'm thinking on my lower back this time. something tribal, maybe? what do you guys think?
some of the responses were in on the joke and hysterically funny, some of them were just as funny but surprised me with their seriousness - it was such fun! i got a few good laughs out of it, which i'd soon discover that i'd really need...

---the h&r "specialist" i had an appointment with is a russian with bad english. for an hour we talked at cross purposes and struggled over all the tax rules and the documentation that i'd brought. half the time she was trying to explain things to me that didn't need explaining, generating immense confusion. the entire process was tedious to say the least, but eventually we got through it.

now, the way people here have been talking about tax returns i understood that it's something that you have to do, but that by and large the tax that's automatically taken out of each salary payment is usually too much and that if one does things correctly one can expect a bit of cash back. the only disappointment i was expecting was to walk away $120 poorer (the 80 that i was quoted for the filing, and another 40 for reprinting the supporting documentation).

i felt like my chair had been pulled out from under me when she explained that i owe the canadian government $1000. i was shocked, i was unhappy, and it took the woman a while to explain this to me (albeit unsatisfactorily) - i even sent messages to aota and newk'd to verify that what she was saying made any sort of sense. before they could respond, though, the woman hit me with a bigger surprise.

i felt like the ground had opened up beneath me when she explained that in addition to owing the canadian government $1000, i owe québéc $2000. i went from shocked to traumatized, and was horrified when both aota and newk'd told me that this kind of thing is normal. then how the hell has nobody even mentioned this before?!?!

why is godmother, who's lived here for thirty years, also surprised?!

this was all bad enough, but to add insult to injury i was then informed that having h&r fill out my forms for me would actually cost $300.
"i'm so sorry," she informed me, "but it's the system, not me."

beneath the distress, anger bubbled. i will not be robbed on top of being robbed. i explained that they'd quoted me at 80, and that i wouldn't be paying more than 80. she seemed genuinely sorry, and i tried to explain that i was grateful for her services but that i would be taking my custom elsewhere. i took all my documentation and i walked. thinking about how very stupid they are for being dishonest... or at least not forthcoming with their quotes... because the poor woman just struggled through an hour of providing me the best service she could and nobody's going to see a cent for it.

*shakes head*

i kept hoping she'd call me back and yell "april fool" into the phone, tell me that it was all a shitty prank and that i should come back to finish filing and receive my return :(

---i sat in the food court forcing myself to eat and breathe and re-evaluate my position. i cooled down a bit when i realized that this puts me into my worst-case scenario of having to find a job within a month and a half before having to leave. not much consolation, but consolation nonetheless. i had a date scheduled for the afternoon and i would've cancelled otherwise. there's no point going on a date in a distressed state.

so i had my first coffee and reworked a bit of my comic script, then hurried home. i had little time between arriving home and leaving for the date, and most of it was consumed with communicating. the most important call was with my mother, who's offered a backup plan that relieves a solid layer of stress.

---the date? i thought it was really nice and that we had a good time. she was more attractive than in her photos, she's fascinating and she speaks in imperfect english with a really cute british accent (she's french but lived in england); when we said goodbye she sent me a massively mixed signal by gripping my arm in a way that could either mean she didn't want to let go OR that she's pitying me because she did. considering the fact that she hasn't responded to a message i sent her last night i'm guessing it's the latter. which is a bummer.

...

when i wanted to pay and leave there was a sudden influx of customers - one of whom shamelessly cut in front of me, which was weird, and even weirder when she apologized after she'd paid. then i was facing the girl behind the counter with a long line behind me, trying to explain in french that i wanted to pay for our coffees and "delay" a bowl of soup. there was nothing complicated about what i was saying, but she couldn't understand me and after trying twice i said it in english.
so then she got loud. "OH. YOU WANT TO PAY? FOR YOUR COFFEE? THANK YOU! AND YOU WANT TO DELAY A SOUP! THANK YOU!" she shared with the entire building.

i was so embarrassed :$

---rush hour on the metro. ugh.

for the first time in ages i went to jiu-jitsu. i really had trouble with last night's exercises and i was feeling a bit stupid. then there was an exercise where i was sure that my partner was doing it wrong. i tried to explain it to him but he showed me why i was confused, so i apologized for wasting his time and gave him some of my "turn" as compensation. then zahabi called us all in to explain that a few of us were off, and in slow-motion showed us precisely what i'd been trying to explain in the first place.

so there was that...

the dude destroyed me during rolling, i just couldn't get my shit together. i cut early to prepare for kickboxing. i was telling the jolly moroccan about my april fool's prank and my yoga instructor asked me what a "tramp stamp" is. when i told her, she was mortified because... she has one.
*facepalm*
between that and the shark thing, i'm going to need to vet everything i say in front of her before i open my mouth :P

the amount of leg kicks we had to absorb last night was ridiculous. i walked out thinking "the beatings continued and morale improved", went home and spent the next hour or so applying ice packs and watching thérèse. it's weird seeing audrey tautou playing not-amélie right after seeing amélie. i barely understood what was going on. i'm going to need to re-watch it until i do.

---i was supposed to meet with vfmp this morning but he's been unreachable. instead, i applied for a couple of jobs and wrote this. now i'm going to do some studying.

the laziness continued

oh, wow. it's sunday night. like, the hours have just been whizzing by since friday - i've been really motivated, but only by all the wrong things!

---friday:

i played about an hour of fallout and invested some time in figuring out what the bank advertisement in the metro was trying to say with its image of a child playing on a console and the single word "tripper" scrawled above his head. that was how i found the québécois / french dictionary entry. useful!

i did some reading while running laundry, then suddenly the afternoon was over and i'd just been half-asleep all day. i went out to meet vfmp and his brother and discovered that the snow had turned to rain. i was not impressed. the metro seemed warmer than it's been in a while, so that was uncomfortable too...

---the guys were laughing at me for my attitude towards violence in games. i can't do better than refer you all to penny arcade and tell you to look at their issues with jack thompson. i think this recent post on the subject sums things up nicely.
the discussion was about child-killing. it bothers me that i can play a game that will let me murder people, innocent or not, as long as they're not children. let's assume that we agree that killing people in general is wrong, and that without me going into a lengthy diatribe we also agree that killing in games is okay if it's context-appropriate and the game is suitably rated for mature audiences. in this case, what kind of message is a game that says "go ahead, kill everyone, but pull the trigger on a kid and nothing's gonna happen" sending? considering the fact that that sort of programming is incongruous with any believable reality, any player attempting to kill a child is certainly going to notice... and he's going to pay attention... and he's going to think about it.
it is my view that the only logical conclusion is that if killing adults isn't censored then it must be okay to do so in real life. you're welcome to argue this with me in the comments below, but do us all a favour and think carefully before you start typing. thanks so much.

---vfmp was being weird about dinner and mustwin was cooking; the two of them started fighting and in addition to making me feel awkward for a while it took me right back to my own experiences with problematic flatmates. gods, i'm so, so glad that i'm living alone. seriously. i can't deal with other people's shit.

at least the unpleasantness came to an end, and we all went to randolph pub ludique to celebrate a friend of theirs' birthday over alcohol and boardgames. it would take more than an hour to get a table, so we went looking for somewhere to sit in the meanwhile and we stumbled into manga-thé next door. what an awesome little tea shop! it's an impressive manga library and they have some games too, though you have to order tea if you want to play. oh, no! good tea!
we played forbidden island*, which is a fantastic game that's as simple to get into as it is entertaining to play. it's also relatively cheap, so i'm now trying to decide between the physical game and the ios app. the latter has a lot of advantages...

... i contemplated buying hunter x hunter translated into french; they have the entire collection and the story's complete! but i haven't read the last five or six books, and at $15 a pop i'm thinking that maybe i should just go and sit there, drink tea and read their copy instead.

* now known to our little group as "get the treasure before you drown with honour"

soon after we finished a game (winning!) we were informed that our table was ready. we were all so excited about playing co-op games (because mustwin is vicious about winning and we wanted the birthday boy to not be on the losing side) i'd been talking up arkham horror. it's a great game, but damn that was a bad call :(
it's way too complicated to play without at least one expert, by the time we were kicked out for closing we'd managed a single round and most of the guys were not impressed. we'd had a fun evening overall, but it would've been even better if we'd picked something else. mega fail, all on me.

we all went back to vfmp's place where the brothers put on street fighter vs tetris. i think we were all too tired for that, i got a ride home and practically fell into bed.

---yesterday:

i played feed-catchup in the morning, the results of which are linked at the end of this post. i chased that by playing some ftl: faster than light. i thought i was in control, but i wasn't. in fact, i've been obsessed by this game the entire weekend and i've devoted hours to it. the thing is, it's not about winning, but learning how to win. and once the soundtrack's stuck in my head...

weird french moment: reading a sign that says "désespoir" and thinking that despair being "from hope" makes sense, because you can't despair if you didn't have hope first. i took the metro to bnw's and when i wasn't napping i was thinking of an interesting twist on p2p protocols that i'm going to explore further this week.

bnw and i went over the comics for a while, and her husband suddenly interjected with a bit of pragmatism that had us arguing heatedly for a while. he had some interesting and valid things to say, i think by the end he understood where i'm coming from; i'm not sure how bnw feels but i do know that i'm not willing to hold the project for any one person who can't or won't put in the hours. i'd love for her to be the primary illustrator, but if she's going to work slowly then i'm going to find other people. i need this thing to happen.

we watched the wind journeys, which is a wonderful film! it's slow, but not boring, the music is the central theme and is very strange and interesting in its own right, the cinematography (or photography or whatever) is astounding.
even so, towards the end i was as sleepy as if i'd been in a lecture during the officer's course, massaging my temples until they hurt in a vain effort to keep my eyes open. to make things worse, i was suffering from rls - my feet were in pain and there wasn't a damn thing i could do about it.

the movie ended just before the last metro - i ran all the way (fortunately, that's not far) and hurried down to the platform only to find that i still had five minutes to go. oh, well.

when i got home, i brushed my teeth and went to bed. it was during the former action that i discovered which tooth cracked a couple of weeks ago. it wasn't the one that was hurting, it was the one that was subjected to the root canal treatment. it's broken in an ugly way and i really don't know if i should be doing something about it now or waiting until i have medical insurance again.

---today:

i got up early and played ftl until it was time for my yoga instruction. this morning's snowstorm was crazy and i was kinda sorry i wouldn't be going snowboarding...

the room we worked in last week was occupied but we were allowed in to the hot yoga room - it's obviously a perfect space for yoga, and we were amused when we realized that even with the doors open and the systems off it was still really warm in there. i recorded most of the lesson (my phone ran out of space after fifty minutes) so that i can do some of the exercises at home during the week and it was a really good class - tough, interesting, and i felt sooooo relaxed afterwards that i walked in to the main area of the gym and turned around and walked right back out because i didn't want anything to tense up and ruin the perfect comfort i was experiencing.

i wasn't as giddily euphoric as last time, but i still felt terrific.

after showering and eating lunch i shamefully got sunk into ftl, i'm not kidding when i describe it as addictive and it only gets more so the better you become.

i was on my way out to the supermarket when i realized that i hadn't closed the door properly when i returned home. ugh! everything seems to be in place, but i'm really embarrassed to have done something so... well, i guess that tells you how relaxed i was after yoga :P

i thought i was going to get serious after i got back but the night's been filled with this, online dating and random shit. it's now late, so i'm going to get into bed and start tomorrow on the right foot.

---linkage!

and just like that, an oft-mocked industry of people finds reprieve. through a teenage font-messiah.

well done, universe, well done.

...

rule no. 1: don't be an (_*_).

...

jim breuer on heavy metal for children

...

a friend of mine has written a post titled "inertia" in which he explains that he's finally on the same page as me regarding consumerism and career motivation :)

...

i hope that this crazy shit is what facebook's planning on doing with the rift it just bought

...

oh, man - i thought i was gonna skip to the important bits of maysoon zayid's ted talk, but she caught me in the first few seconds. amazing!

what would jesus do?

it's gonna be weird writing this while i'm feeling so incredibly lonely that i don't actually feeling like sharing with anyone... i'm writing in my journal and exposing it to the world at large. rational behaviour?

---i shaved before i left, which meant a quick shower (i always manage to get little hairs on me, that's one disadvantage of using beard trimmers over blades) during which i wondered about this article on immersion improving cognizance that i read last night: aside from archimedes' discovery, apparently women do their best thinking in the bath. so it kinda makes sense...

it was so cozy on the metro, and i was so relaxed. as if i haven't stopped being relaxed since sunday's yoga lesson, like something really did get aligned properly and an emotional artery unblocked.

it's really cold tonight. absolutely freezing, primarily attributed to a mean wind that's been slapping everyone around since the late afternoon. pulse told me the place was on sherbrooke, google told me rachel. i decided to walk from mont royal station past rachel and on to sherbrooke. first, that's a much longer walk than i'd expected. second, google's definitely wrong. third, i couldn't find it on sherbrooke, either. we were supposed to meet at 8.15pm; i called at 8.20, and then at 8.30 and both times heard it ring until i got through to her answering machine.

how would you feel?
i sent a message with my frozen fingers briefly explaining what i'd been through and ending "... i'm going home. bon appetit!"

i pressed "send" and then realized that that could be construed as majorly passive-aggressive. then i thought about it some more, and figured that it would be appropriate nonetheless. i mean, what the hell? you invite me out to dinner, to a place which apparently isn't so easy to find, without specific directions and without making yourself available?

i feel like i've been made a fool of. whether by pulse or by the universe in general, i don't know. but i'm decidedly upset by this. i feel like shit; for this i skipped boxing? am i the asshole?

i didn't feel like stressing over dinner so i headed to la panthère verte at guy-concordia to sit and somberly eat a falafel. the traditional techina dripping out the bottom of the pita seemed to be mocking me.

i've returned home and i'm feeling sad. i've felt like this before, for sure, but right now i'm feeling it pretty keenly. i have friends and family here but i don't feel like it. i love it here and i've been extremely fortunate and all but i guess tonight's incident has sparked off some latent homesickness, and by home i mean cape town.

...

the only positive in all this was the violinist i walked past. there're a lot of homeless about tonight, but this dude was sitting on a corner in the freezing cold playing beautifully, and i tossed him a doubloon for his troubles and was glad to have been there to do so.

---while writing this i was listening to the radio, with a francophone interviewing an anglophone speaking in french with an atrocious accent. gods, i don't ever want to sound like that :S

quick linkage and omgthatwasawful

thanks, vfmp, for putting the idea of watching masters of the universe again into my head. i just spent an eternia in plotholia... i couldn't stop watching out of a sense of morbid fascination.

1987 called to say that hollywood was filled with really, REALLY shitty writers. but look at that cast!

---to make up for that brainlessness, here are forty-five tips for men. most of them are appropriate for women, too. very wise.

---do you think that microwaves are bad news for nutrition? just in case, check out raw vs cooked broccoli and best cooking method. nuked my worries in as long as it takes to cook something decent :)

distractions - part i

i watched the last two episodes of freaks and geeks last night. how does a series go from "harmless fun" through to "insanely brilliant" so quickly?!

and then just end???

i may have narrative closure, but i feel like i need to re-watch the whole thing. i really am sad that it's over.

---friday:

i installed eclipse to play with java - which i haven't touched in a while - and did that for a while. i did some more of the book review, hitting a short story that's absolutely wonderful but suffers such a huge plot issue that i've actually offered him big suggestions; i hope he's not too offended :P

i went shopping, and was pleased to discover that using the points card i've already earned myself a $20 discount. that card *is* worth it.

boxing class was good, i partnered with a guy i know who's really tough and experienced and we worked particularly well together. when it was time to go hard on the punching bags, i was letting it all out and that included my breathing; "totalwaste, shut up!" shouted the coach, "you're not even hitting it that hard!"
that pissed me off, the combination of being told that and the possibility that he might be right. i hope he was wrong :(

impact was a treat, we both consistently scored solid liver shots but were both supportive of each other. and that dude hits hard, that did my confidence some good.

a couple of us talked about work until late, i rushed home for a quick dinner and headed over to vfmp's. on the way i set up two dates, one for sunday and one for tuesday, which was cool. then i got off the bus two stops too early and felt like an idiot. at least the weather was comfortable :P

we watched a decent episode of house of cards and played a great game of carcassonne, but there wasn't much conversation and i got the feeling his heart wasn't into it.

when i got home i felt lazy as usual. i totally spaced out playing another case solved (i really am addicted, its meta-game is really that good), then used book reviewing as an excuse to consume lots of junk food before bed.

i went to bed with a big toe really hurting. the air's been really dry in my apartment the last few days and it's messing with everything; cracked skin's no fun :(

---yesterday:

it was a gorgeous, warm-ish, sunny day!

i enjoyed a slow, late wake up right until i realized that i needed to rush to get to la panthère verte on time :$
bnw and i went over the script, everything looks good and she's ready to rock. awesome!

we sat there long enough for two coffees and lunch, about a third of that time involved the comics and the rest talking about everything. she and her husband are going through a weird phase and i really hope they get their shit all sorted out...

the girl sitting about a metre away from me for most of the afternoon looked so remarkably like pulse that it was uncanny. i caught her eye once and she didn't respond to my smile, so i assumed it wasn't her but i couldn't shake the feeling that it was and that she was pretending not to know me... the only explanation for that being that she thought that bnw and i were on a date. when she went to the washroom for a minute i asked her friend if she's who i thought she was, and her friend gave me another name. it was enough to make my head spin!

i didn't try the maple taffy on our way in to the metro, but i really must. apparently, spring has arrived :P

i was completely bombed on the metro, i was slipping in and out of consciousness until i got home.

---i spoke to my mum, and the more i think about it the less patient i become to hear good news from her post-op. i'm sure she'll be fine, but i think i finally understand what she goes through whenever something happens to me. we're really far away.

---i sent a message to pulse regarding the earlier non-incident, and was surprised to find myself in a long, really positive text conversation. we talked about all sorts of things, to the point where it just seemed right to invite her to the slam tonight. she said she might come, which would make things super dramatic if today's date goes well because if it does i wouldn't not invite her to the slam too! i'm laughing at myself right now, i think this is hysterically stupid of me.

ssso got in touch with me on facebook - it's been more than nine years! how good friendships disappear... it was nice to catch up, though.

i went to watch the jolly moroccan fight last night, and discovered that muay thai fights have been banned or something so these were all defined as amateur exhibitions...

[continued...]

quick linkage

manybooks.net has free ebooks. LOTS of them. in whatever format you desire.

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funny or heart-warming, or both: 30 nice things is worth scrolling through!

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6, 10, 11, 14, 20, 23, 25, 30, 34, 35, 36 are the ones that made me laugh :)

on parole: sound check - part down

i woke up yesterday morning really, really nervous. it didn't help that while attempting to fill out the registration form i realized that i had, a number of weeks ago, downloaded a sample exam that would have helped tremendously in my preparation. feeling stupid, and under a lot of pressure, i hurriedly walked through the materials before leaving for the test. i had just enough time. it was pretty important that i did that, because what followed would have been way worse otherwise!

for the first time i looked properly at the photos i had taken the other day: i looked like shit.

the day was going to be all about panic versus calm in the face of a big life moment. tgtbt made me smile with her enthusiastic support and helpful corrections when we corresponded in french, messages from friends and family were a nice gesture but at the end of the day it would be me alone versus the machine.

listening to my ipod on the metro, i pressed next on a track i wasn't enjoying, then grinned like an idiot when paul van dyke - words came on.

my primary concern on leaving the metro: if i'm so nervous, do i really need caffeine? better safe than sorry, i told myself as i purchased a cup.

phase 1: writing

i found the room i needed to be in without much difficulty, and stood looking at the desks to decide where to sit.
"this is the right place," said one of the women (in french, not one moment of the next four hours would be conducted in english). "find a seat."
i continued looking, so she repeated herself with an unnecessarily condescending tone.
"yes," i stammered, "i understood. i'm trying to decide where to sit."

i hadn't completed the registration form before arriving because i had questions about it that needed answering. when i approached their table after finding my desk i handed them all my documents and began explaining that i had issues that needed resolving. she shoo'ed me away from the table so that she could stand up and inform everyone (with even more condescension in her tone) "it is a GOOD idea for one to complete the registration form BEFORE arriving at the test".

was that really necessary? i bit my tongue and slowly repeated my questions. her answers were flippant and dismissive, so screw her and the horse she rode in on.

the written exam consisted of two parts.

the first, 80+ words continuing an article about a group of neighbours suing some woman for owning a rooster that was waking everyone up each morning. having had my own run-in with this sort of thing, i could draw on my experience, but damn, essay writing is a creative endeavour and tests my ability to make up stories rather than my ability to express myself in french. just saying.

the second part consisted of a phrase extracted from some magazine that i was supposedly writing to to weigh in with my opinion. without context the sentence made so little sense that i sat staring at it for precious minutes before i arrived at something that seemed logical, and proceeded to churn out about half of the 200+ words they wanted from me.

after one hour into three and a half of the total test, i had written 150-200 words of absolute bullshit. i felt like i was failing a blood test.

phase 2: e-tests

reading, listening comprehension and basic exercises (like completing sentences). some sections of the tests were pleasantly surprising. others, mortifying. i don't know what kind of asshole thought up the audio test, but an exam which automatically plays through the entire forty minutes without the ability to pause nor revise an answer is psychologically abusive.
for example, there was a question near the end where i had to say whether the displayed text matched the audio track, and i said "yes". suddenly i realized that i'd misheard "le" as "ce" and made to correct my mistake, but just as i clicked "no" the question flipped and so my answer remained incorrect.

they subtract points for incorrect answers.

phase 3: oral exam

returning to the dentist who fucked up my teeth would have been more pleasant. of course, the woman before me being fluent did wonders for my confidence...

the oral examination consists of two parts, five minutes formal and ten minutes informal. the formal part saw me being interviewed telephonically for a job. again, that felt like it was testing my ability to interview rather than my linguistic savvy. having said that, the first part seemed to go better than the second. in the second i had to talk to an examiner as if we were good friends and convince her to apply for a reality show. she may have made it relatively easy, but in my opinion it was more along the lines of a debating exam than a language one. shit, i couldn't think of anything to say to this stranger in english, forget translating! she did give me an opportunity for entirely unwarranted flattery, though, which i hope helped rather than hindered.

i'm fairly certain that they'd had enough of me before my time was up. i walked out thinking "that was never ten minutes just there!" in michael palin's voice. i don't think that's a good sign at all.

i was on my way out of the entrance to the building when a cute girl who'd also taken the exam approached me to clarify something she'd misunderstood from the instructions: were we to stay until 6.30, or could we leave once we were done? dumbfounded, now *i* wasn't sure, so i followed her around for a bit until we were fairly certain that we were just wasting our time.

i entered the eaton centre food court in search of pre-boxing dinner, and found myself at subway. for the first time ever since i arrived here, the girl behind the counter spoke to me in french and i responded in french, celebrating the exam being over by ordering everything without reverting to english once.

i was bummed on the metro, though. have i burned out? if so, is this from yesterday's stress or from before... like before i quit? is my brain not functioning properly? did i miss a nervous breakdown? i can't imagine that i did, but i definitely haven't been on top of my game in a long time...

... and yet, life's not bad. i guess it's all about perspectives and emotions, and post-exam mine were pretty bleak. i'll find out in two weeks if i really crashed and burned, or if i somehow pulled through. all i can do is keep calm and carry on.

the big company pulse's friend referred my resume to? i received an email on friday evening saying that they'd like to proceed with interviewing me. superb! now i just need to get comfortable coding again, the last test was painful :(

it was a great fight night! the matches were mostly exciting, the few that weren't were over quickly. one of the best fights came right after the worst, in which a snotty young kid destroyed his opponent while an enthusiastic troll - his father, i presume - shouted grossly inappropriate things like "fuck him up!" and "break his face!". he made everyone so awkward that we all stopped applauding to stare angrily, and it was only after the following fight that the tension dissipated and everyone chilled out again.

it only ever takes one asshole...

afterwards, while waiting with the group from class to go out and celebrate one of ours winning his fight, i chatted with pbb (potential boxing boss) and learned something very interesting indeed! apparently, the permit process should be way shorter for me than before because i already have my caq. it's transferable? i'm gonna check that out tomorrow!

i didn't feel too cold outside until we were almost at the bar, but then suddenly we were all freezing. i don't have a clue where we went, but it was a decent place with a dj playing a surprisingly solid mix of pop, 90's and classics. we all pitched in for a couple of bottles of vodka and mixers, the vibe was excellent and we were all having a fun time.

until i wasn't. fortunately, that was only at the end of the night just before the bar closed. apparently, two solid rums, a beer and i-couldn't-even-keep-track of the quantity of vodka i consumed don't work well on an empty stomache. the last time i've been in such a bad state was in 2008, when i got stuck in a fainting loop. i was constantly on the verge of fainting last night, and staying conscious was extremely demanding. i'm incredibly proud of myself that i managed to confine my throwing up to the toilets - no thanks to the fight organizer (gently) punching me in the belly as i hurried down there the first time - and i was constantly thinking of the "rock bottom" meme and being grateful for not having reached it. one of the girls gave me a ride home, and she's obviously super experienced with drunk people because she was extremely patient and considerate.

i still shouldn't have let her know about my dancing history (which we discussed before i was properly wasted, so i don't have an excuse). i hope that doesn't get back to our coach...

---saturday:

it must have been about 4am. i managed to get up the stairs and into the bathroom, got what i hoped was everything out and then tried to get some water down before crashing on the couch, far too drunk to get myself into a shower and certainly not prepared to drag my dirty carcass into bed. even drinking water made me nauseous.

not a good sign.

so without any hydration, i passed out. i woke up several hours later still feeling terribly drunk and incapable of doing anything about it. i suffered hours of anguish and keeping things like water down still wasn't working. it was only about 1pm when i finally could start treating myself. everything would continue to be hazy and the most basic things difficult until around 5pm. all i could handle until then was brainlessly watching a whole lot of freaks and geeks. it's a great series for that.

i stayed away from coffee the whole time because i was really worried that i'd developed an ulcer. fortunately, i think my concerns were for naught.

[continued...]

attempting to clear up misunderstandings

i woke up stuck on pulse getting me all wrong. i put together an explanation, not to a potential partner but to a fellow human being, and here's most of it because it's a fairly good summary.

first and foremost, i think human beings are amazing and wonderful, mostly individually but with the potential for unimaginable greatness on a large scale. i don't think we'll ever be perfectly peaceful and loving, but there will always be enough peaceful and loving people to keep the angry ones in check. our current age of extreme individualism is a perfect example of how much kindness and care exists even in a society that's wired for self-absorption and consumerist greed. that doesn't mean that i don't believe it's possible for us to achieve perfect peace and harmony, and i certainly believe that we should strive for it!
i may at present only be an armchair activist (i'm not proud of that, but i'm not too clued in on what's going on here and i'm quite frankly concerned about jeopardizing my ability to stay in canada by being vocal against authorities here so i limit my endeavours to increasing awareness and debating with people), but i have been protesting-active in israel regarding human rights (like freedom of speech, including for groups whose actual speech i don't appreciate) and social justice and no matter how disappointing the results may have been i'd never stop fighting for what i believe..

...

when i used the word "conflict" i used it in an academic sense, what i meant is that we're wired to make things narratively interesting. if you're complacent, you wouldn't get anything done, and a prime example of that is actively trying to right wrongs. we could never be truly happy without overcoming difficulties and adversity; that doesn't mean that we wouldn't be able to get everyone playing the same game by harnessing and redirecting our narrative energies for good. equality and environmentalism is a good place to start, but perhaps ultimately we'd take our narrative needs into a virtual plane, or direct them in artistic endeavours. but that's just, like, my opinion :P

exploring space is something that i feel is a critical part of our evolution. when we talked about it it was in a rather specific context; in a short-term view, it's important for us to maintain a pocket / pockets of humanity living off planet, even in orbit, just in case. not because i don't have hope that we're going to sort all our shit out down here, but because we don't have any guarantees that we'll sort it all out. and the potential for species-wide destruction doesn't only come from humans, we have environmental risks (such as global warning, or asteroids hitting the planet) and even if they're relatively small (no need to panic just yet) i strongly believe that humankind, with all of its incredible discoveries and rich history, including all of our little lives and the things we do that we believe give us meaning, is 100% deserving of surviving whatever the universe can think to throw at us.

and all that is just the short-term view. in the long term view i think it's our destiny to explore and create and populate the universe. my comment about sending off ideologically different groups in different ships was cynical and snarky, i suspect it might happen to a degree but that's not how i envision us evolving! what i see is the different groups, however they're formed, developing in different directions as they travel through time and space, and in my opinion that's a beautiful thing!

there's a reason i self-identify as a hippie, even though i'm philosophically in a very meta space. as i told you when we discussed paranormal things: i don't have answers to everything, not even how i personally feel about everything, but i want to understand everything because i'm philosophically and psychologically curious.
i don't judge others' realities unless i consider them harmful (ask me why i get upset if someone uses "the secret" to explain that a girl who was raped is to blame because of her negative thoughts). and i love being exposed to ideas i don't necessarily agree with because if there's one thing that will get us all on the same team, it's cognitive contamination :)

full moon valentine

friday:

finding electric universe on grooveshark had me bouncing around my living room while doing french lessons, which must have been a treat for any neighbour who happened to look in the direction of my apartment. i did the valentine's day shopping i had to, picking up a single red rose as well and hoping that it wouldn't be damaged by the cold that was really hurting my fingers.

boxing:

one of the girls who'd told me i need to bring chocolate was ecstatic that i had, the other didn't show up. i almost gave her bar to another one, but then that girl turned out to be entirely undeserving. i was upset by the whole incident for quite a while after class :(

as for the class itself, my arms were still strained from the night before and the guy i was partnered with made me work really, really hard. i wasn't ungrateful, mind, but it was really tough! i'm rather pleased with my slipping, though.

i quickly showered and headed to resonance in the hope of finding a table for two. i arrived before pulse did to find that they had a band playing. there were three wind instruments and they were so bad and so loud it was unbelievable! valentine's dinner torture? i don't think so. i mean, these guys were aggressively bad, intentionally discordant, and they'd only just begun... fortunately i made this discovery in time (and i mean, we're talking seconds here) to get outside and hop on the bus pulse was arriving on. we tried all the indian restaurants near jean talon and parc but they were all closed or closing, and took a chance on p.m..

perfect! we enjoyed a wonderful dinner, it was delicious and i may have overeaten a little. on a different note, we were both quite conscious of the full moon :)

[whiskey sleepover]

---saturday:

i woke up in the morning happily unrested and in a fog of stupid. an hour's nap before going snowboarding didn't really help much, either, but spending the hours on the buses there and back slipping in and out of consciousness made enough of a difference.

the p.m. leftovers sorted me out three times during the day, that was very cool. even cold. i'm so lazy :P

i *just* made the bus to saint sauveur in time, which was intense! skittles made my walk from the village to the mountain that much more pleasurable, the weather wasn't beautiful but it was beautifully comfortable, and i was delighted when i arrived to discover that my choc / rum / coffee blend was perfect :)

i didn't stay on the slopes for very long, only a couple of hours, but the runs i did were so crazy and exhilarating that i felt dangerously high on adrenaline. by "dangerously", i mean that i was certain that i'd do something stupid, so when i saw that the lift clock said 6.05 i made a differently crazy decision to take the 6.40 bus back. i managed to change and pack up very quickly, and made the walk with a few minutes to spare to be entertained by a guy in his forties sitting in his car listening to classic epic house tracks.

my gods - a large proportion of the exceedingly groovy people i went clubbing with when i started out are now approaching or are in their forties... holy crap!

i got home, had a hot bath which i sorely needed and napped for another hour before jump-starting with the remains of my thermos. it had been a crazy weekend, and i was off to complete a hat trick with a psytrance party!


---sunday:

yang was there, aside from a dodgy introduction to someone that made us both sound stupid (instead of just him) - and reminded me very much of his father - we chatted amiably a few times and it was pleasant seeing him. i got about four or five hours of partying in before the cops showed up to shut us down... of those, there was one hour during which i thought that i was finally out of gas for the day because i could barely lift my legs. then the next dj came on and made it clear that it was the music that had been sucking, because we were all re-energized and out of control until the end!

i had so much fun! i so needed that! the only downer of the evening was my own thoughts about pulse, wondering if i was doing the "pushing" in the relationship and if i should back off a bit. i'd like to think that we're above those simple forces, but unfortunately that's not how these things work :(

the night buses to get home were actually quite convenient, though i let myself get distracted by skittles and an odd humming sound that the bus was making that could have been lifted from one of the tracks i'd heard earlier and i missed my stop. fortunately, i registered where i was before i'd gone too far, and i shambled back home against bitterly cold wind to a quick hot shower before falling into bed.

i slept well for about four hours, then it was on / off for a few more. i was finally woken by a women calling to find out if i was going snowboarding today - she called too late to catch the bus herself, and was disappointed that she hadn't known that i was going last week or yesterday. umm... when she hadn't gotten in touch before, and i'd given her my number before the end of last year? anyway, she sounds particularly unintelligent so i very patiently explained her options. maybe she'll join us next time we rent a car, but i don't really want to spend hours alone with her on a bus.

...

i have spent my day posting, doing a couple of french practice sessions, chatting, and eating healthy junk food while listening to music. i've been thinking about having lunch for over an hour now and just realized that i'm leaving for dinner soon, so so much for that idea.
in summary, i think it's safe to sat that this weekend has been totally awesome, and that i have enjoyed my finest valentine's day ever!

life is good ^_^

vegans unite!

on friday night i discovered that one of the girls who trains with me is a vegan. only, she's a "real" vegan, an "angry vegan martyr" vegan. she told me that i'm not the first person to whom she's called "bullshit" when he's called himself a vegan, and that real vegans would never compromise.

she became progressively more agitated, eventually storming out in a rage yelling furiously that i'm personally responsible for non-vegans getting the terminology wrong and that i should be calling myself "strictly vegetarian" instead, whatever that means. i was trying to explain to her that you can't "own" language and that if most of us think that "vegan" is a dietary choice then that's what the word means. she compared my abuse of the word to my calling myself a buddhist when i'm not 100% buddhist or claiming that i have a belt in jiu-jitsu that i don't, both of which are fallacious comparisons. she then attacked me for disrespecting her by continuing to claim to be a vegan.
i'm disrespecting you? by calling myself a vegan? FUCK YOU. and that's my response before pointing out that there was absolutely nothing respectful about her statements from the get-go nor the way in which she threw them at me.

there were two other people in the room with us, and what they bore witness to was a vegan behaving really badly towards - get this - a fellow vegan. we're on the same damned side, asshole. you're not helping your cause by antagonizing people who believe in it, and you're certainly not helping it by putting off people who otherwise have no interest in the discussion.

earlier i watched gary yourofsky actually being civil and collected, and remembered that even though my decision to go vegan was predominantly a health choice (thanks, nutritionfacts.org!) his famous talk (here) was a positive influence. in spite of the bullshit a lot of vegans talk, the basic premise is absolutely correct and we really should be good to animals. but there are ways to achieve this end, and getting people on your side with rational discussion, mindfulness and a little bit of compromise is a lot more effective. yes, it would be amazing if everyone stopped consuming animal products immediately, but it's far more productive and practical to get people thinking about the issues on their own terms and accepting that the change we're asking for is a big one.

---the foundation of the argument was watson's definition of the word "vegan", that she claimed means "refusing the use of any animal products". how very interesting for me to now find the following excerpt from the summary of the vegan society's wiki page:

watson coined the word "vegan" to stand for "non-dairy vegetarians" who also ate no eggs.
[...]
the society now defines veganism as "...a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing and any other purpose."

forced to play

vfmp and i were debating suicide today, i felt i should share my little rant:

let's say that suicidal thoughts aren't healthy. aren't they? while actually committing suicide isn't normal, thinking about it can't possibly be outside of normative behaviour. i can't back that up, but i wouldn't trust any statistics that suggest otherwise either*. as medical notions of healthy, both physiological and psychological, are more concerned with "normal" as opposed to "suffering" when it comes to defining illness, it seems like a bit of a grey area. but of course we can define suicide and suicidal thoughts as unhealthy, especially for the purposes of this argument.

having said that, i believe that every person should have sovereignty over their being. for the same reason that nobody can tell me not to pierce my genitals or tattoo my face, nobody should be able to tell me what i can and cannot ingest nor whether or not i should breathe. see? that breathing thing works both ways.

i personally feel that anybody who attempts suicide is stupid - although to be fair i'm aware that everyone is stupid, including me - but them in particular because if you're already at the point of giving up then you've got nothing to lose! that's a perfect excuse to go on an adventure, say "fuck you" to the world as you know it and start from scratch. it's never too late, in my opinion.

let's say, however, that someone you know wants to off themselves. maybe they don't feel that anybody cares about them, maybe they feel under too much pressure because so many people care about them. once you've intervened, shared your opinions with them and possibly some wonderful advice that you were certain would turn them into you, what rights have you to take matters into your own hands? claiming that they're not of sound mind is ridiculous because there's a good chance that the reason that they're suicidal in the first place is because the unhappy people are the ones of sound mind in a world that has gone mad. which it has.

what intervention options are there available? well, putting someone on suicide watch is tantamount to imprisoning them. an asylum is literally imprisoning them. we're not talking about someone who might unintentionally hurt themselves, which i believe is a valid reason to protect someone. we're talking intention here. imprisonment - removal of a person from society - is a concept that should be reserved for anyone who presents a danger to society. so the person was suffering wanted to stop suffering, so we lock them up and medicate them to a state of complacence or apathy?

rehabilitation means getting them back into playing the game the rest of us have consented to even though it's a criminally crazy one! how hard do we have to work in order to... you know what? i'm just going to refer to a quote that's been doing the rounds lately: "normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."

so the choices become: be institutionalized, work really hard to find some semblance of balance, or struggle outside society. i suppose living in a commune is another option but with the way "civilized" society frowns upon "hippies" i wonder how many of those even exist. and with our pre-information age industrialized "education" system it's only a lucky few that figure out how to earn a living doing what they enjoy.

...

how is this case any different from a person with a degenerative disease who demands euthanasia? if it's about quality of life, and sovereignty or "freedom" to determine one's own destiny, then i can't see any reason to deny someone who doesn't want to live the right to choose not to.
but it's an indictment of our "civilized society" that so many people suffer from despair and depression.

hate the game, not the player. "before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."

---* i wouldn't trust them because by the very nature of the way that data is accumulated in psychology we're going to get significantly skewed results. you don't get asked if you have suicidal thoughts if you don't come to a psychologist with problems. and it's entirely plausible that you might lie if asked by someone you're not seeing professionally. like me answering the question in a profiling exam for the officer's course, for example. of course i've never had suicidal thoughts :P

what's for me?

i swear if i didn't so totally have my shit together i'd probably be schizophrenic.

---the day began at the gym with vfmp. after much effort he can finally throw a decent hook! it was excitingly satisfying seeing him get it right.
it's the second time i've stood next to francis carmont while he works a punching bag. that is a BIG DUDE.

after putting my back out last night, the morning session did ease it up a bit and by the evening it was fine. hooray!

because all the other Big Dudes took over the mats, vfmp and i called it quits early (and agreed to do jiu-jitsu first next time, boxing we can do anywhere) and after a quick lunch i introduced him to fluxx. after he left i called my bank to opt out of printed bills for my new credit card, and was decidedly bored and a little annoyed by the service representative who talked shit ("i just want you to know that i appreciate your choice very much, it's so much better for the environment") and forced me to listen to a pre-recorded audio version of a consent form that, having already opted out for my previous card, i'd already agreed to :(

---i finally reached the imperfect tense with duolingo today! i can't describe how exhilarating it was to realize that i have most of that shit down. i'm feeling so much more confident that i'll be taking the french exam soon!

i applied for a few more jobs today, then went out to print yesterday's reference letter and work on my comics at starbucks before kickboxing. only i brought the document in the wrong format (damn you, openoffice!) and left my netbook's adapter at home, so i resigned myself to drinking the coffee and taking notes on my phone for next time instead.

---the kickboxing class was decent. i spoke to my boxing instructor afterwards about sparring and he told me that in his opinion i shouldn't be sparring at all. i heard him out and i appreciate his honesty, but afterwards one of the guys told me to ignore him and just start smaller... literally, not bang with the bigger boys who are preparing to fight. and then come back when i'm ready.

challenge accepted.

---i came home to positive and amusing online dating messages (i've been told by one girl that i seem "so over it", but was then told to invite her out already), watched downton abbey (i'm going to be sad when i get to the end of season two) and got sucked into arbitrary links:

classic art animated. wonderful, and wonderfully chilling!

the assistant is a very cute and very short movie.

that's right. i'm posting a link to a cat video. it's called mailman battles cat while attempting to deliver mail.

to the face

"to the face" is the hebrew expression for "crazy" or "hardcore", but it's what i had in my head when i arrived in the gym this morning after a quick walk against the freezing wind and it describes the surprisingly hard punches i received during my time in the ring with army brat. i've been warned not to train myself into facing punches head first, but i really do need to get used to forcing my eyes open. i think this morning was productive.

what i didn't know until we left was that it was her first time in the ring! in spite of herself, she's now finally interested in sparring. very cool :)

...

apparently i'm scary when i practice liver shots to a punching bag. army brat tells me it seems like i have some pent-up aggression that needs an outlet, and i have to admit that giving a punching bag that kind of beating feels really good :P

---after finishing this week's chem 181 lectures, i watched a bit of george carlin - life is worth losing last night, but stopped because some of his political rant was a little too close to home considering my previous post. but i did love his i'm a modern man poem!

and while i'm linking, nystire introduced me to horrorscopes that are so unkind that they break through my skepticism (and part 2) because i, like everyone else, like to believe things that are bad about myself. even if they're not true. at least, i seriously hope they're not :P

and he also introduced me to the okcupid hacking article. if this guy gamed the system and *still* had to go out on 88 dates to find love, i'm not sure that his "hacking" was worth it.

...

i woke up this morning freaking out, furiously trying to figure my way out from behind the bars of my little prison of fears. then i remembered something important: smile. smile, for real, and relax. i have a little time, *someone* will hire me and i will get my french sorted out regardless. where there's a will there's a way. and if there's no way, i'll still be okay. so instead of panicking and trying to plan for possible defeat, i need to keep focused on winning.

let's see how tonight's date goes :)

infinite rest - part ii

[... continued]

---yesterday:

the virtual breakup continued. i went to my brother's place for coffee with him and his elder son - the one i don't like - who in addition to appearing to have matured somewhat (which i would hope for from someone who's just made the dean's list when finishing his law degree) actually apologized for the shit he gave me during my matric year and admitted that i hadn't hurt him*.

* this was important for me. the only time i ever completely lost my rag with him i picked him up by his armpits and held him in the air against the wall until he agreed to leave off. he then convinced his little brother that i'd kicked him, and many years later this had turned into a "real" memory that he recalled when we saw each other.

---my brother took me to nü for breakfast, and later in the day i'd hear that my sister is feeling decidedly betrayed because we're spending time together. i'm conflicted, because on the one hand i know she's right and on the other, well, i don't know. i certainly don't trust my brother and i still think he's an asshole, but i'm also pretty sure that he simply doesn't know any better and i'm trying to figure out if i should be shutting him out, or if there could possibly be something worth rescuing. i really don't know if there's an answer, but he is my brother even if i have mixed feelings about him. the only thing i'm sure of is that i wouldn't invite him to my wedding if i got married, that sort of thing, but i'm not sure how that translates to one-on-one interactions if at all.

my sister's currently trying to get the rest of the family to stop attempting to reconcile them; i do feel that it's my duty to stand up for her regardless of my relationship with my brother, what he did to her and her family is totally unforgivable and the rest of our family needs to know not only that but also that he's still keeping inheritance money from our younger sister who's apparently been clean for a couple of years now and will never be capable of taking care of herself.
apparently he doesn't have a clue where she is or how she's doing, though. does that make it better or worse?

---i underwent an emergency beard trim with clippers, then picked up a bottle of rum and headed out to clifton for volleyball. the weather was strange, cloudy with a bit of sun peeking through, big rolling waves and a slight breeze that couldn't make up its mind as to where it wanted to go. the large group on the beach was comprised of a wide variety of people all connected through the years, who were only too welcoming when i arrived :)

in spite of the rum, which did make things a little more hardcore, i played really well despite not having seen a volleyball since 2008; the main difference from the last time being that here, instead of struggling to teach my team-mates about team-work, i was joining a bunch of people who understand the game and we were all having fun and playing decently.

the only bummer was a bit of knee-on-knee action when one of the sailors and i both went for the ball at the same time...

i went into the atlantic twice, and both times it really wasn't as tough as it's been the past few trips. i was concerned that maybe it was just an age thing, because i still fondly recall swimming out to the boats with hyperviper and staying immersed for ages, and the past few visits i've barely been able to walk three feet in without exiting in pain from the cold!
so that was a relieving experience :)

springer arrived with her family in tow, and even though we couldn't see the sun setting we all stayed way past it sitting in a big circle talking, even the threat of rain couldn't detract from the perfectly pleasant sea air and being surrounded by lights in the darkness.

when it eventually did start raining, we all packed up and hurried up the stairs back to our cars to mission off to dizzy's in camps bay. it wasn't just dark and raining, there were odd swirls of mist floating eerily across the road's surface. it was a surreal drive that i thoroughly enjoyed!

how odd running into my niece's new sister-in-law again! the cheeseless pizza was decent, the company was great and the pool was surprisingly decent. when we arrived the guy who had the table beat our first challenger in a way that made me sure that he was bad or that he was a hustler, and either way i wanted the next shot. i discovered that the latter was the case, i made him sweat visibly and was *so* close to winning... but i screwed up a critical shot near the end and gave the game away :(
the rest of the games were a lot of fun and by the time we left we really didn't care that we'd never had the table to ourselves.

i drove home just fine, but i was halfway back when i realized that not only might i fail a breathalyser test but that i'd left my driver's license at home. whoops! :$

---today:

the virtual breakup is now definitely done. this posting is done. i have found my clif builder bars, which my mother had tidied away - out of sight, out of mind, and now it's clear that i over-bought.

the weather is beautiful and i'm really looking forward to the weekend!