Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

My philosophy prof said something today that made me think, but also made me want to burst out laughing. Fortunately, I managed to control myself but he was talking about moral philosophy. And he brought in the classic example that if there are 2 train tracks, and there is 1 person strapped to one of them and 5 people strapped to the other, and there's a train speeding towards this junction you have control over a switch that determines which track it follows, all things being equal, most people would consider it morally better to for you to set the switch so that it kills 1 person instead of 5. So assuming you knew nothing about any of the people strapped to the track, and you only had time to flip a switch, all things being equal, most people would choose to direct the train towards the 1 person and it would be accepted, by most people, to be the lesser of 2 evils.

And then he said, but at the same time, if you're a surgeon and you have 5 people dying from say blood loss, heart failure, 2 kidney failures and a liver failure, most people would consider it wrong for you to go on the street, find any random person, kidnap him, strap him down, extract his blood, and carve out his organs in order to save 5 lives, even though on a life-to-life basis, it's the same thing as the train example.

I almost burst out laughing, even though I thought it was an interesting example.

Christ, I have never had so much bad news hit me in so quickly in such a short time span.

Why would my sociology prof assign a critical article review as an essay, provide a list of questions we have to answer in our review, and then define the essay length? Honestly, it's annoying enough when profs specify essay lengths for open ended essays. But to give us a list of questions and then specify an essay length? What on earth for? Shouldn't it just be a matter of me answering all 10 questions thoroughly?

I am starting to make good progress on my informal writing piece. And I think I realized why. The structure of the entire thing goes: Prologue, Story, Epilogue. I tackled the prologue and the epilogue first and while they're very short sections, they are also sections that stand on their own so they need a beginning, middle, and end. And that... is hard. It's not like the middle section where I don't have to worry about how to begin each entry and how to conclude it... each entry just ties into the one before it and into the one after it. They don't need to be amazing pieces unto themselves; they just need to contribute to the overall amazingness of the entire work. And that, I find, is far easier and far less taxing on my mental faculties than writing the prologue and the epilogue. In fact, not only did I write the prologue and epilogue first, I also wrote the first and last entry of the middle section first too. Those are also harder sections... the first entry being difficult because I need to jump start the entire thing without being to take anything from what comes before it (because nothing comes before it except the prologue... which I wrote in a way where it's supposed to be read as if it was written AFTER the middle section... which I think is how prologues are actually supposed to be written), and the final entry being difficult because I need to bring the entire work to a successful conclusion (particularly interesting since I haven't even written the stuff about which I'm concluding) again without leaving anything to be desired because nothing comes after it (except for the epilogue... which I wrote in such a way where it's supposed to be read as if it were written at some later undefined date... which I think is how epilogues are actually supposed to be written).

But now that I've got that done, the middle section is actually coming along quite smoothly. This might also partly have to do with the fact that I'm under less pressure to make everything perfect since nobody cares about the middle stuff anyway.

Oh man, I LOVE talking to other people about their problems. That sounds morbid but it really does give me a great sense of purpose. It's the reason why I'm up at this ungodly hour but also the reason why I'm about to go to bed feeling very good about myself. I was actually on a pretty good roll with regards to my informal writing piece before this all started. But! First things first! Friends come first. Always, friends come first, even at the possible expense of literary brilliancy.

April and May have always been by far, the most fascinating months of the year, in my humble opinion. Now, I don't necessarily assert that they are the best months of the year (Christmas makes December a pretty damn good month and of course, October is not to be neglected with its Thanksgivings and slew of birthdays), merely that for almost as long as I can remember, they have always been... volatile I guess could be the word. I've always felt that they were months were anything could happen; months where you took chances and gave chances; months in which you were most inclined to, in the immortal words of Elisha Cuthbert, "go with it". And I think, growing up, there has always been good reason for this.

First off, the weather is probably the best it's ever going to get. After a long, cold winter, the warmth that settles into April and May always gives us the feeling of immense relief/release. It just feels good to be able to stand outside and take a breath of fresh air without having the snot freeze in your nostrils. And you feel empowered by this; you really do. There's something about being outside in the warmth that makes you feel like it's time to DO something. We always associate being outdoors with doing stuff and indeed, the sight of people throwing baseballs and frisbees out on the quads and fields really gives you the feeling of being in university (for this, I would to thank the countless teen comedies that have perpetuated this stereotype).

But it's not just the weather. Ever since I was 12, April/May has ALWAYS been a time of great happenings. Back in Somerset, April/May was unquestionably the time for the annual play production. One of Mr. Berney's greatest ideas, in my opinion, the play always gave you the sense of being part of something greater. It gave you something to be proud of; something you could look forward to being a part of. Ask anyone who's ever been part of Mr. Berney's plays... you think "spring at Somerset" and you can't help thinking "play production". Particularly, I think back to the opening night of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and I still say, to this day, that that was probably one of the greatest days of my elementary school career.

Then I hit highschool. TCMS. Same deal except we got a double feature. "Spring at TCMS" always meant a double dose of Talent Show/Spirit Week + Prom. Now, I understand that the talent show/spirit week has since then been moved to October and it's no longer spirit week, but spirit day or some ridiculous thing... but we don't speak of those days. I speak of the good old days. Jamming away in the basement on the weekends and staying late on weekdays for rehearsals, the Talent Show for all intents and purposes, replaced The Play from the Somerset days of yore. A chance for us to take the stage and perform to the best of our abilities. Not only that, but Spirit Week always gave us a chance to relax from the daily rigours of uniforms and really loosen up. And in a lot of ways, this bled right into prom... or our school's version of it anyway. Prom was always an interesting time of the year. It was the only time of the year when romance was openly encouraged at our school (it was normally frowned upon... even on Valentine's Day!). And oh man, were those interesting times. Again, a time for taking chances, risking it all, and for some of us, chickening out (and even that taught us something about ourselves).

Baseball season precipitated things too. Baseball is possibly the most social sport out of everything in high school.

And now that I'm in my last year of university, April and May still hold a special place in my heart. Even though we have exams in April, the warmer temperatures and longer days still have the same effect they did when we were in high school except that sometimes, it gets pushed back into March because we're not in school for May. But make no mistake, it still holds that magical quality it held back in the day. Maybe it's the weather but as romantic as I am normally, I feel much more so during those months. It might also have to do with the fact that again, stuff happens during that time. In first year, I remember Jess and I going on adventures; in second year, it was a dual combination of my visiting cousin and the Detroit trip/ensuing debacle; in third year, it was the whole debacle with Katie, letter, inspired blog post and all... on top of the completion of the mixtape that I spend months working on; this year, it will be freaking graduating and hopefully the roadtrip to follow.

April and May... always looking forward to them. Never know what's going to happen but one thing's for sure; they're never boring or predictable.

I just noticed something! In French, we use "monsieur" and "madame" as our Mr. and Mrs. substitutes... or Mister and Mistress I think is the long form. Now, I always just assumed "monsieur" and "madame" were whole words unto themselves but I just noticed that when addressing multiple people, the address changes to "messieurs" and "mesdames," which of course, makes perfect sense to me now that I've noticed. With "mon" and "ma" being the masculine and feminine versions of "my," naturally they would both switch to the pluralized "mes" upon the presence of numbers. So I can only thus conclude that really, when we say "monsieur et madame so and so," what we're actually saying is "My sir and my lady so and so," which again, would further make perfect sense. I wonder if our English version of Mister and Mistress have the same kind of breakdown.

Mademoiselle also makes sense. Ma-demoiselle - my damsel, from which we infer that damsels are necessarily unmarried, hence why they are constantly in distress and in need of knights in shining armor and such. Again, the English version, "Miss" seems to be a much more mundane kind of word. Then again, English is also a never-ending process of inbreeding - or bastardization depending on how you look at it.

Ugh, I HATE going to Chinese malls. I might have ranted on this before; I can't remember. If I haven't, here's my rant now. There is one fundamental difference that separates a Chinese mall from an English one - Chinese malls never have enough parking space. At Markville or Scarborough Town Center or wherever, sure, I might have to walk a long way during busy hours or the holiday season, but there will ALWAYS be parking space. Might be far, and it might be painful during -20 degree weather, but at least it's there... the option of parking my car exists.

Not so is it at a Chinese mall. My hypothesis is that since Chinese people are so much more business oriented than their Caucasian counterparts (or perhaps they're more courteous towards their customers... or perhaps it's a cultural thing... whatever), they provide less parking space because they're not deriving profit off parking space land. Cause land costs money. And the less land you use for parking, the more land you have to set up shops that DO generate income. And so the public gets shafted... but that's ok because Chinese people flock to these malls ANYWAY. Apparently, they're ok with just circling around the parking lot (filled to capacity) endlessly until they spot someone who looks like he/she is leaving and they tail this person to the ends of the earth (or in this case, the ends of the parking lot). And then of course, they have to fight off other cars for that one space. They're like seagulls fighting over a piece of bread. Seriously. And I hate being in this kind of ultra-competitive environment where I have to fend off other people just to park my damn car. And I hate the fact that Chinese malls are never built with the parking capacity to support its customers.

And of course, I'm forced to go to these places every so often becaues they're the only places where I can get my racquets restrung... and I've been breaking strings at an accelerated pace this year. Maybe it's time to invest in a stringing machine. At the rate I go through strings, it probably wouldn't be long before I worked off the investment... AND it'd allow me to never set foot in a Chinese mall ever again.

"I think parents will be the worse part of our jobs. Especially the parents who are bound to storm in my class and demand to know why their kid isn't getting a 95% and I'm like..." - Me
"Cause your kid's a dumbass" - Dave
"Yeah" - Me

The good news: I think I've figured out a way to solve my sequential/logistical problem from last Wednesday.

The bad news: reversing the order of those episodes requires me to practically rewrite the second one. Since it is now going to pre-date the first one, I can't refer to material from the first one.

I'm happy that reading week is at my doorstep; even though I've enjoyed myself immensely thus far this year, I could use the break.

Because I like listing things, and because I'm procrastinating on my philosophy paper (due tomorrow), and because I was talking about how awesome Walt Disney World is with Carlie at dinner, I am presenting a list of absolute must-sees if anyone ever journeys down there. They are also ranked by awesomeness. Fantasmic is mind blowing. Number 2 and 3 are both fireworks. I could take a vacation to Walt Disney World, only see these 8 items, and be happy with my trip.

1. Hollywood Studios - FantasMic
2. Magic Kingdom - Wishes: Nighttime Spectacular
3. Epcot Center - IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth
4. Animal Kingdom - Festival of the Lion King
5. Hollywood Studios - Beauty and the Beast, Live on Stage
6. Magic Kingdom - Dream-Along with Mickey
7. Animal Kingdom - Flights of Wonder
8. Animal Kingdom - Finding Nemo, The Musical

It surprises me to realize that despite the unprecedented amount of time I have spent playing badminton ever since I picked up the sport in 2001, I have NEVER seen myself play; either in a video or picture format. I don't know what I look like on court; I don't know what my form looks like; nothing.

Agh! Logistics, logistics, logistics... and chronology. I've got my epilogue and last chapter in the reverse order I want them. But I can't find a way to put them in my preferred order without screwing up the chronology. Put simply,

Entry 1: involves ending off with the assumption of there being a long break to follow

Entry 2: involves beginning after a long break

Seems like it works chronologically right? But entry 1 would be GREAT epilogue material while entry 2 would be GREAT last chapter material.

Why would my own creative endeavors lead me to such a dilemma? WHY?!

Well, on the project front, I've finished the prologue and have a working version of the first chapter and the epilogue. This might be a sign of me working towards the middle. Is that weird? That's a little weird...

And before anyone comments on how much progress a prologue, epilogue and first chapter is, bear in mind that my work is divided into tiny sections. The grand total of my progress, if expanded to double spaced, 12 pt, Times New Roman font with 1-inch margins on 8 1/2 by 11 sized pages (Christ, I can recite English essay guidelines without even batting an eye) is probably somewhere around the 7 page mark. It's weird but I've somehow managed to equate an almost exact ratio for my page sizes. If you turn your document into landscape, then cut the page into 2 halves, each half being itself a page, then proceed to type on said pages in 10 pt font with 1.5 spacing, each one of those pages is almost exactly equivalent to a full sized page with the English essay parameters I outlined above. Cool huh? But that's how I know I'm at 7 pages

Quality over quantity I guess... but man, and here I am, shooting for the 200 page mark. And that mark is not a goal born from my desire to produce a set quantity of written work. That mark is just there because I never liked reading books that were wafer thin... they feel more like pamphlets and I always liked reading books that had a certain amount of heft when I held them in my hands.

Obvious solution: thicker pages

"My brother always make fun of me for throwing (a yo-yo) how should i get him into throwing?" - forum question
"The obvious answer would be to introduce him to a pretty girl who likes throwing too" - Jon Wong

I know I'm speaking tongue in cheek but that is always the answer to this kind of dilemma. And it's not entirely a question of shallowness or doing something "just because" someone good looking is doing it too (though I guess I can't deny this part entirely). We actually have less of a tendency to separate the "performer" and the "art" than we think, especially if the art IS a kind of performance in itself rather than an end product. I might be wrong about it but I'm inclined to think that if I were to see a pretty girl playing with a yo-yo (because there is a general consensus that you can't make a verb from "yo-yo" without sounding like an idiot since the name "yo-yo" is absurd enough as it is), there wouldn't be a separation of "pretty girl" and "someone playing with a yo-yo" in such a way that I would only be watching this person for the sole purpose of looking at an attractive girl. The fact that she is throwing a yo-yo I think becomes a part of who she is at the moment so most of us wouldn't see a pretty girl "who happens to be throwing a yo-yo"; rather, we would see "a pretty girl throwing a yo-yo" and thus, the act of throwing a yo-yo becomes elevated as part of the whole picture.

As usual, I'm theorizing about something of very little importance that don't feel very strongly about. But it was interesting train of thought while it lasted.

We're reading Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein for American Lit. Basically, it's "poetry" that the author intentionally obscures so that only she can understand it.

That's stupid. We have enough authors who unintentionally sound obscure without any need for authors who are intentionally being confusing. So Gertrude Stein can go fuck herself.

I'm sure my prof will make some argument about why Tender Buttons is worth reading. I'm also pretty sure I won't buy it. This is what years of Canadian history will do to you. Every teacher or professor will say something about proving to us that Canadian history is more interesting than we think... and it never is.

If there is one thing in life I really and truly do get worked up about that doesn't fade in the blink of an eye (cause let's be honest here, I get worked up about everything - so we're looking at degree of permanency), it's competitive sports. Now, it's no secret that I can get extremely competitive about sports because let's be honest, I like winning... at sports. I mean, I like winning in life but that happens with such infrequency that I've learned to temper that desire in order to ensure my continued sanity.

Actually, in a lot of ways, I've learned to temper my desire to win in sports too. It partly has to do with the fact that I actually no longer play competitive sports (and competitive, I mean that in the "compete in competitions" sort of way) and by extension, I no longer play sports where winning is altogether very important. Take my floor volleyball team for example. For those who are unaware of this somewhat funny and bizarre story, the kids on my floor (and my don) joined a recreational volleyball team last semester; "recreational" being the first of a 3-tiered system. There's "rec" volleyball, competitive or "comp" volleyball, and then there's supercompetitive or "supercomp" volleyball. They did alright last semester... I think they made it to the playoffs, but were frustrated by some of the additional, restrictive rules added to the "rec" and "comp" leagues that prevented people from... well... getting too competitive. So in the most brilliant of moves ever (I'm being sarcastic but it really is very charming when I think about it), they decided that for second semester, they would skip the "comp" league and sign themselves up for "supercomp" volleyball.

You can probably guess what happened after this. They went to their first game, got annihilated (and I've been told that "annihilation" was not an overstatement) and decided that the league was too hard (come on... that's funny). The problem by this point, of course, was that their team had already been programmed into the season's schedule... so they couldn't withdraw and didn't want to forfeit every game by not showing up... and didn't like getting annihilated (and I continue to use this term because it was given to me). So what's the next best option? Obviously, recruit 2 players on the floor who could play at the supercomp level: one being my humble self and the other being some girl (she calls herself "Maggie") who played at the supercomp level last semester.

This would be a good time to mention that while I used to play varsity volleyball, I have not done so since 2005... and I've not played volleyball since 2007 (when I coached it down in Monticello... which hardly counts as "playing" and certainly doesn't count as playing competitively). So obviously, this was going to take some getting used to. Also, it should be noted that while I agreed to join this team with a tempered desire to win (since I figured it might not happen all the time), my competitive edge has in no way dulled along with my desire to win. So I do get pretty intense during gameplay.

(This story has a point to it by the way)

Up until tonight, we've actually won by default at every game due to the absence of the opposing teams. Tonight was the first time since I joined the team that I got to play in a game that counted towards the standings. Well, there was a very obvious show of rust or at the very least, lack of consistency on my part. And I will admit, I got very upset at myself. That has to do in part with the fact that I'm a perfectionist on my part when it comes to sports - I get upset at myself fairly often. Also, I felt like I was placing an unfair amount of pressure on "Maggie" (who I continue to refer to in quotation marks even though that's her name...) since it almost felt like I was deferring my weight to her. Cause let's be honest here. The frequent mistakes on the part of other team members are to be embraced if not expected. You can't expect a former "rec" team to play at a supercomp level; if they did, it would be unnecessary for them to recruit the two of us. But if I start sucking, then "Maggie" becomes the only person the entire team can count on.

So by the end of the game, I was frustrated; not due to our losing but due to my terribly gameplay. And I have this habit where I get very quiet when this happens because I begin to analyze my deplorable gameplay and find ways to fix it. In a sense, I turn my consciousness inwards. And I have to do this immediately after the game because my mistakes are fresh in my mind.

Well, obviously, this is where my social retardation kicks in (it finds a way to rear its ugly head everywhere). I've always retreated into extreme introversion post-suckage in the past because I was either a. on a competitive team where that kind of behavior is normal, or b. by myself after badminton (which after all is hardly a team sport). But I began to realize, on the walk back to residence, that there was a strong possibility that I was making my floormates feel bad. I mean, I was silent because that's my usual behavior when I suck at sports. But I thought to myself, how are they supposed to know this? All they can see is my extremely competitive nature and the fact that we lost. The obvious connection between the two suggests that I hate losing, we lost partly because they don't play at a supercomp level, and thus, by extension that I was being anti-social because I didn't want to talk to them at the moment. Well... this last statement is true, but it's not because we lost and it's certainly not because of them. But I realized that it was a pretty logical inference to draw.

So I think I should reserve my stewing for a more private time. This might seem obvious to most but come on, this type of stuff requires a great deal of thought for me to be able to parse out on my own. At least I managed to pry myself out of my egocentric universe to realize the effect my silence had on others around me. Probably doesn't change the fact that I've accidentally made my teammates feel bad but oh well, you live and learn right? I hope I'm not a terrible person for not having realized this sooner. Goodness knows how many people I've come off as abrasive to in the past.