So it's our first official day of vacation. We're packed, we're gone, we're at my grandparents' house to leave the dog here and then we're off to Salt Spring Island.
And I choose this particular moment to start feeling worried.
Worried why? Oh, because next year is grade 12 and I'm going to have a job (well, assuming I find one, which shouldn't be hard) and I want to go to Internationals so I'm going to have to study a lot, and I want to get some scholarships to make university easier to pay for, and I have my piano exam in January...and school on top of all this. And whenever this happens I start feeling really nervous about the future in general and that leads to being distracted, and I'm also leaving for Quebec in about two and a half weeks, and I'm not sure how to feel about that. It goes on.
This won't be long because I should be sleeping. But is this normal? To feel like saying to life, "Okay, one thing at a time, please!"? And could everyone please give me a communal smack for thinking about this stuff when I'm on vacation and I should be relaxing?
Driving through the mountains tomorrow. I shall make a dent in those fifty pages I'm supposed to be writing is what I shall do, and I shall lose myself and be Raignheidra Terhin instead of me, and worry about things like malevolent mages and assassinations and staying alive instead of life and school. And it shall be fun.
Bed in a minute. As of now I am in a mood for music lyrics. Snippets to follow:
I wish I could fly, I know I can save us somehow.
You thought you were safe and sound but you need a hero now.
You gotta believe even with broken wings,
I've come to your rescue and you can't rescue me.
Summer's the season
but you're cold and freezing,
if there's a reason it's a lie.
When did I lose you,
I need you to pull through,
the weight of the world never felt so alive. - The Rescue, American Hi-Fi (anyone wanna take a stab at the romantic pairing of which this reminds me?)
I’m letting go of the life I planned for me
And my dreams
Losing control of my destiny
Feels like I’m falling
and that’s what it’s like to believe
So I’m letting go - I'm Letting Go, Francesca Battistelli. This is how I need to be thinking right now.
And lastly, I'm sorry but this was playing all week and I can't get it out of my head...
This is real, this is me
I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, now
Gonna let the light, shine on me
Now I've found, who I am
There's no way to hold it in
No more hiding who I want to be
This is me - This Is Me, Camp Rock. Pathetic, I know. At least it's not Hannah Montana.
Okay. Good night.
"Auuugh this guy SUCKS! I want to KILL him!"
^You need the videogame context.
18 July 2008
11 July 2008
Camps for Champs
That's what I was doing all week. I think this was the sixteenth summer in a row that our church has run Camps for Champs. They're sports day camps for kids in the community, and for the last couple of years they've been run by a Camp Director (which is a summer job, generally for a college student or graduate) a couple of adult coaches, and whatever crazy youth happen to be up for helping out.
So I was a crazy youth. And the week was definitely crazy. I think the utter craziness of it can be summed up by saying that the camp, which was soccer this week, was 3/4 boys and 1/4 girls. The noise was amazing. It's truly astounding how much noise a group of 35 kids can make when they're not even trying.
My last five days looked like this:
8:05 am - Leave the house. This was because Grace had to be somewhere at 8:15 and though Ben and I didn't need to be at the church until 8:45, there was no point in driving Grace and driving back. Anyway, this was my first experience with having to consistently be up early and out of the house and organized with a lunch and etc. I don't think I'd like to do that for school all year. Thursday morning I woke up AT 8:15 to find that I needed to be in the car in fifteen minutes, in which time I needed to get dressed and pack a lunch and collect whatever paraphernalia I needed for camp. Not fun.
8:45 am - Meet with Hayley (the director) and pray with the other coaches/helpers before starting camp. Usually by this time a couple campers had already arrived.
9:00 am - Camp for the day officially starts. Mostly we played a game until everyone had arrived, such as the infamous titles The Animal Whacking Game (only without the animals) and I Have Never. That one was fun.
about 9:15 am - We head over to the fields, a five-minute walk, to start soccer for the day. We played in older and younger groups, from about ages 5 to 8, and then ages 9 to 11, and throughout the week we did different drills. Thursday morning we did play a game, coaches on campers, and I discovered that when it comes to sports, I am truly more of a liability than an asset. It's a victory if I kick the ball in the right direction. Oh well.
12:00 pm - Lunch. It was interesting, packing a lunch. Forgive me for ruminating on something you probably all do so much that it's second nature, but I don't actually think I eat like that at home. Little packets and plastic-wrapped sandwiches and stuff.
12:30 - Afternoon activity. That or Kidmo. We'll call it afternoon activity, but they switched back and forth. The first day, this was something I can't even recall, but the second and third days, two groups went swimming and two did a scavenger hunt and some paper mache. The fourth day...I must have left bits of my memory somewhere because I can't remember this either...and the fifth day we played mini olympics. Three-legged race, tug-of-war, water balloon toss, the lot.
2:00 - Kidmo. This was about half an hour of video, in which the campers learned a verse and had some teaching, as well as Quizmo, which was worth points. Points were tallied at the end of the week and the winning team got a prize. Theoretically. Actually I think everyone got the same prize at the end. Anyway, then we did little activity booklets and made WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets.
3:00 - End activity. This was sometimes a game, sometimes something like painting our paper mache, and the last day we made ice cream with ziploc bags and much ice, shaken for a long time. A LONG time.
3:30 - The kids go home and the coaches and helpers collapse and listen to Hayley talk for a minute before she takes pity on us and sends us home too.
So that was a fun week, if a really (REALLY REALLY REALLY) tiring one. Some cute moments include:
[One of the little boys, after the coaches won the soccer game] "Congratulations, you guys won. Good job. Cause it doesn't matter who won as long as we all had fun!" <--The complete sincerity of this one was a bit awwwww.
"How old do you think she is? Take a guess."
"Ummm...going into grade 10?"
[cue indignant noise from me]
"And how old am I?"
"I think you're in your first year of college."
[cue more indignation from Melda, as I don't understand how I look as though I'm just going into high school while Tyler is college-age]
[This was one of the little boys who completely ignored me until...]
"Coach! Coach! I saw you in the swimming pool with a pink swimsuit!" <--Okay, he was about nine, and I think he had a minor crush on me all week.
And next week I head off on vacation. W00t!
Melda
So I was a crazy youth. And the week was definitely crazy. I think the utter craziness of it can be summed up by saying that the camp, which was soccer this week, was 3/4 boys and 1/4 girls. The noise was amazing. It's truly astounding how much noise a group of 35 kids can make when they're not even trying.
My last five days looked like this:
8:05 am - Leave the house. This was because Grace had to be somewhere at 8:15 and though Ben and I didn't need to be at the church until 8:45, there was no point in driving Grace and driving back. Anyway, this was my first experience with having to consistently be up early and out of the house and organized with a lunch and etc. I don't think I'd like to do that for school all year. Thursday morning I woke up AT 8:15 to find that I needed to be in the car in fifteen minutes, in which time I needed to get dressed and pack a lunch and collect whatever paraphernalia I needed for camp. Not fun.
8:45 am - Meet with Hayley (the director) and pray with the other coaches/helpers before starting camp. Usually by this time a couple campers had already arrived.
9:00 am - Camp for the day officially starts. Mostly we played a game until everyone had arrived, such as the infamous titles The Animal Whacking Game (only without the animals) and I Have Never. That one was fun.
about 9:15 am - We head over to the fields, a five-minute walk, to start soccer for the day. We played in older and younger groups, from about ages 5 to 8, and then ages 9 to 11, and throughout the week we did different drills. Thursday morning we did play a game, coaches on campers, and I discovered that when it comes to sports, I am truly more of a liability than an asset. It's a victory if I kick the ball in the right direction. Oh well.
12:00 pm - Lunch. It was interesting, packing a lunch. Forgive me for ruminating on something you probably all do so much that it's second nature, but I don't actually think I eat like that at home. Little packets and plastic-wrapped sandwiches and stuff.
12:30 - Afternoon activity. That or Kidmo. We'll call it afternoon activity, but they switched back and forth. The first day, this was something I can't even recall, but the second and third days, two groups went swimming and two did a scavenger hunt and some paper mache. The fourth day...I must have left bits of my memory somewhere because I can't remember this either...and the fifth day we played mini olympics. Three-legged race, tug-of-war, water balloon toss, the lot.
2:00 - Kidmo. This was about half an hour of video, in which the campers learned a verse and had some teaching, as well as Quizmo, which was worth points. Points were tallied at the end of the week and the winning team got a prize. Theoretically. Actually I think everyone got the same prize at the end. Anyway, then we did little activity booklets and made WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets.
3:00 - End activity. This was sometimes a game, sometimes something like painting our paper mache, and the last day we made ice cream with ziploc bags and much ice, shaken for a long time. A LONG time.
3:30 - The kids go home and the coaches and helpers collapse and listen to Hayley talk for a minute before she takes pity on us and sends us home too.
So that was a fun week, if a really (REALLY REALLY REALLY) tiring one. Some cute moments include:
[One of the little boys, after the coaches won the soccer game] "Congratulations, you guys won. Good job. Cause it doesn't matter who won as long as we all had fun!" <--The complete sincerity of this one was a bit awwwww.
"How old do you think she is? Take a guess."
"Ummm...going into grade 10?"
[cue indignant noise from me]
"And how old am I?"
"I think you're in your first year of college."
[cue more indignation from Melda, as I don't understand how I look as though I'm just going into high school while Tyler is college-age]
[This was one of the little boys who completely ignored me until...]
"Coach! Coach! I saw you in the swimming pool with a pink swimsuit!" <--Okay, he was about nine, and I think he had a minor crush on me all week.
And next week I head off on vacation. W00t!
Melda
03 July 2008
Tolerance
This has been on my mind a lot lately. Issues like tolerance and freedom of speech. For one, they've been coming up in the paper. An example I read recently is of a comedian who had two lesbians come into his act and start - his words paraphrased - basically making out with each other right there in the audience, and bashing him. So he bashed them right back, which seems a standard thing for comedians to do. I mean, if you let everyone stand up and yell at you, it's not your stage anymore, it's just a bunch of people yelling. I won't go into the language he used, but he told them some pretty rude things, just as they had told him some rude things.
The outcome? They're taking him to court. And he could be ordered not to make lesbian or gay jokes ever again in any comedy he does if they win.
How is this free speech? Pick a friend. Any friend. Then randomly be like "so, do you believe in free speech?" Well, DUH. If anyone knows an individual who honestly does not believe in free speech, I'd be very interested to know. But while yes, this is a right, that we are free to say and think whatever we want and express our opinions about any given person - guys, it's a two-way street. If you believe in free speech, people are also allowed to bash you just however they like, and you need to grin and bear it, not go running to a court because your feelings are hurt or you feel insulted. Guess what: That's part of life. Deal with it.
And this brings me to tolerance. From my dictionary application (I love that thing):
So, sounds good, right? Yeah, let's all love each other and get along and be one big happy family. But the world doesn't work like that. What the tolerance movement seems to be telling us is that we are not allowed freedom of speech. We are not allowed to think thoughts or speak words that have the potential to make someone else feel insulted. We're not allowed to have a moral problem with homosexuality - that's homophobia. We're not allowed to evangelize our religion, because that's 'shoving our beliefs on others'. What tolerance says is that we need to live in a box that people build for us.
And really? I'd love it if the world was made up of people who could graciously and tactfully express their problems - heck, if we hadn't messed up at the beginning of time, there would BE a perfect world. But there isn't. Use the example of communism. It works on paper. It works very well on paper. It should work in society. Does it? No. It doesn't. If we were all perfect, communism would work flawlessly. It's the same with tolerance - if we were all perfect, it would be fine. But no matter what, there will always be someone who is INtolerant. And that person is going to bash you however they like whenever they like.
Tolerance says you need to sit there and nod calmly and smile.
I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into a specific situation, but many times, primarily on the internet, I have seen people preach about tolerance and sing its praises and how oh-the-world-would-be-a-better-place-if-everyone-were-only-tolerant. These same people are generally preaching about this in a specific context - either berating someone who seems intolerant or wailing about the intolerance of the world in general. Logically, if you were really tolerant, you would tolerate my intolerance, yes?
None of us will. None of us will sit there and smile at someone who is bashing us - and this is why we have freedom of speech. Take your pick. Either everyone can express their opinions and hurt just as many feelings as they please, but have the freedom of expression; or everyone can huddle in a little box society creates for them and squeak every time they come close to being politically incorrect. Personally, I can deal with a few feelings hurt. I take the former.
"I'm on my last page, and my circles have gotten progressively less perfect since the first page."
"Really? Mine have just been consistently mediocre."
The outcome? They're taking him to court. And he could be ordered not to make lesbian or gay jokes ever again in any comedy he does if they win.
How is this free speech? Pick a friend. Any friend. Then randomly be like "so, do you believe in free speech?" Well, DUH. If anyone knows an individual who honestly does not believe in free speech, I'd be very interested to know. But while yes, this is a right, that we are free to say and think whatever we want and express our opinions about any given person - guys, it's a two-way street. If you believe in free speech, people are also allowed to bash you just however they like, and you need to grin and bear it, not go running to a court because your feelings are hurt or you feel insulted. Guess what: That's part of life. Deal with it.
And this brings me to tolerance. From my dictionary application (I love that thing):
tolerance |ˈtäl(ə)rəns|
noun
1 the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with : the tolerance of corruption | an advocate of religious tolerance.
So, sounds good, right? Yeah, let's all love each other and get along and be one big happy family. But the world doesn't work like that. What the tolerance movement seems to be telling us is that we are not allowed freedom of speech. We are not allowed to think thoughts or speak words that have the potential to make someone else feel insulted. We're not allowed to have a moral problem with homosexuality - that's homophobia. We're not allowed to evangelize our religion, because that's 'shoving our beliefs on others'. What tolerance says is that we need to live in a box that people build for us.
And really? I'd love it if the world was made up of people who could graciously and tactfully express their problems - heck, if we hadn't messed up at the beginning of time, there would BE a perfect world. But there isn't. Use the example of communism. It works on paper. It works very well on paper. It should work in society. Does it? No. It doesn't. If we were all perfect, communism would work flawlessly. It's the same with tolerance - if we were all perfect, it would be fine. But no matter what, there will always be someone who is INtolerant. And that person is going to bash you however they like whenever they like.
Tolerance says you need to sit there and nod calmly and smile.
I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into a specific situation, but many times, primarily on the internet, I have seen people preach about tolerance and sing its praises and how oh-the-world-would-be-a-better-place-if-everyone-were-only-tolerant. These same people are generally preaching about this in a specific context - either berating someone who seems intolerant or wailing about the intolerance of the world in general. Logically, if you were really tolerant, you would tolerate my intolerance, yes?
None of us will. None of us will sit there and smile at someone who is bashing us - and this is why we have freedom of speech. Take your pick. Either everyone can express their opinions and hurt just as many feelings as they please, but have the freedom of expression; or everyone can huddle in a little box society creates for them and squeak every time they come close to being politically incorrect. Personally, I can deal with a few feelings hurt. I take the former.
"I'm on my last page, and my circles have gotten progressively less perfect since the first page."
"Really? Mine have just been consistently mediocre."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)