Saturday, October 23, 2004
the end of the beginning
Hello all.
This is my second blog of my short internet-accessible life, and the plan is to make this one just a little more universally accessible than the last. This doesn't necessarily mean less ranting, but perhaps this time there'll be a few more updates thrown in with the ranting. Above all, this is an attempt to keep my far-away but hopefully not forever lost friends from Lausanne more informed about what's going on with me.
I may switch from English to very poor and ungrammatical French (which does NOT mean I would like criticism of it!) from time to time. This is not to be pretentious, but simply because I'm hoping that some of my French-speaking friends will be able to read this as well.
For instance: Salut tout le monde. Ceci est mon deuxieme "blog" et le plan est que ce soit un peu plus universellement accessible que le premier....
Oh yeah, the struggle just to put that into words. Thank you Trudeau, but we have a long way to go yet.
Before I begin, a disclaimer. The opinions you read in these pages are mine and mine alone. If you don't agree with my assessment of someone or something, please understand that it is mine and mine alone and the fact that you read it does not give you the right to take issue with it. That said, I'm happy to engage in discussions with people who have been given specific permission to read and comment. But making efforts to defend yourself or others against whatever I print in here is, to be very blunt, a silly waste of time and you shouldn't bother yourself with it. I will not be held accountable for what I write, in the same way that we can't go back and ask Jesus what he really meant about turning water into wine. Try to see this as a cornucopia of interesting, mundane, topical, typical information about my life and the way I see the world. That's why I call it The World According to Nome. It's not a religion, it's not even a philosophy. It's just how I happen to synthesize the air in my lungs.
For your piece of mind, I use pseudonyms.
To begin, a few introductory paragraphs:
I won't begin like David Copperfield..."I was born, I grew up."
I will begin with last year, which changed everything, and changed nothing, in my life. I remember it as a complete orgy of light, sound, smell, touch, freedom. And not freedom of the Freedom Fries variety, but freedom of the kind that only comes from being thousands of miles away, among strangers who soon become your friends, who you learn to love and cry for, who make you feel like your home is bigger than family and country. For the first time I realized both how complicated things could be, and at the same time how simple they really were. I fell in love in Europe, not with a person, but with a series of ideas, and above all with my experiences. I think it was the first time I realized that pain and joy were equally valuable emotions, and I felt them both in such vividness it was almost too much to bear.
To move from generalities, I will tell you, briefly, that I am a 20-year-old girl who grew up with a nice family in a lovely Canadian city by the ocean. I have only very recently come to appreciate what it means to be Canadian, having always thought of this country as being a bit bland compared to the rest of the world. I now realize how very much I take for granted, and I'm trying to work from there.
I'm a university student, almost always unemployed, and almost always okay with it. I am completely in love with books and learning, and I suppose I have always been. Spending my days selling doughnuts or serving ogling restaurant customers is the exact opposite of what I want to do with my life, and yet I'm still not quite sure how one goes about escaping those paths.
I've got a guy who runs around town in shorts and a bandana at 11:00 at night in late October. He's the kind of guy who eats anything and everything, moving or not, in any and all combinations. He does not keep kosher. He's addicted to stunting and danger but not much else as far as I can tell. Not even coffee. He's not afraid of heights or of falling from them but he's convinced that a domesticated house cat is trying to kill him. He offers to put up my posters for me, but says I'm crazy to want them to hang straight on the wall. He doesn't appreciate Tegan and Sara. He spends a lot of time with cute, supposedly fully-grown girls who giggle a lot. He likes gummy bears. And I love him to pieces.
I have a crazy family. My brother lives for his guitar, his bike, his computer, and the words "tight," "chill," "heaty," "gold," "great," "leet," "stfu," and "fyad." Even scarier is that I know the meaning of all of them. My mom writes books and articles for the local newspaper. She strolls into the newsroom at 11:00 am four days a week, takes two hour lunch breaks, leaves before 6:00, and gets 6 weeks paid vacation. She is the master of well-applied rants, along with my father, who takes the title of Grand High Master (there is no sexism involved here). My dad rants about the American elections, the price of gas, the state of health care, the playoffs of baseball, hockey and football, the Olympics, the state of the Middle East, the cost of antique furniture, the stupidity of the halakha [that's Jewish religious law to those of who aren't taking Religious Studies], the high cost of food in Europe, the smallness of Swiss refrigerators, the uselessness of university bureaucrazy (no typos there), Gordon Campbell and all local politicians, our neighbours on the island, our neighbours in the city, and our neighbours to the south. And that's only on Sunday morning after his first perusal of the newspaper.
In case it wasn't obvious, I live at home. I have a massive extended family, full of fun, crazy people, many of whom are much crazier than those in my immediate family, and I love them all regardless.
I listen to a lot of music. Current favourites include the aforementioned Tegan and Sara (who are so great), Led Zeppelin, Jeff Buckley, John Mayer, Nelly Furtado, Sarah McLachlan, Starsailor, Kinnie Starr, Norah Jones, Coldplay, Guns & Roses, The Rolling Stones, The Smashing Pumpkins, The White Stripes, Natalie Imbruglia, Maroon Five, and a lot of other artists I feel I can effectively sing or yell along to. My rules for music are simple: if it moves me, no snobbery is allowed or aloud.
In case it isn't really obvious, I'm an English student: English major, History minor, obsessed with alternative readings of modernist literature and with the ins and outs of Chinese history. I'm trying to learn Chinese, mainly because I find writing the characters soothing. Yes....soothing. Try it sometime.
For all of you who already know me and for whom the above is all like a rerun of a very bad sitcom, some updates:
1) Still hanging with the Boy. Lived with him for a month while housesitting. Loved it, even got him to empty the dishwasher.
2) Attempting to knock myself into something resembling a decent level of fitness. At the gym about 5 times a week. Pain, pain, pain. Some silly ambitions about joining the cheerleading team. Realized I'd be the heaviest girl on the team. Got depressed. Then remembered that I like myself the way I am.
3) Liking how smart and interesting school is, hating the work and resenting it even more now that I know there's a better way.
4) Volunteering for the exchange program at school. Have never felt this gung-ho about any volunteer cause.
5) Am massively depressed about not being in Europe anymore. No matter how good things get here, it feels like a gilded cage. It's like Buddha said, that clever chubby little guy: attachment only creates suffering. That said, bring it on.
6) Am missing everyone from last year, S. from Germany who left for Salamanca way to soon, K. the Irishman who never leaves my thoughts for very long, Hawaii the master of all things chill, Dag who was there through everything, D. from England who taught me so much, S. and C. my lovely German friends who took me skiing and offered such honest friendship. They all made me feel so accepted and so loved. I don't know why I feel so empty now, but there is a sense that I have lost something that will never be returned to me.
7) On a lighter note, making plans for a 21st birthday. Still somewhat sad about P.R.'s absence, and not entirely sure who's going to come to this thing. Hoping for the best, but have images in my mind of last year's glory.
And while there's always more to say, it is definitely time to bid you all goodnight, for I am a tired penguin with a heavy heart and a long day tomorrow.
Love and happy thoughts,
Nome
