Update on the Life of Joel
I'm sorry I haven't posted much lately. I've been honestly overwhelmed by trying to keep up with my two language courses (there is also another two courses, but they aren't a heavy load). I'm taking Italian and I'm also taking Old English (which seems more like Germanic-Latin than it does English, so essentially, it can be quite confusing). It is a good challenge for me cause I've never really felt challenged in high school or college (with the exception of one calculus course), although it isn't a challenge because it is UBC...it is a challenge because I picked two language courses for a semester. It is good preparation for next year when I'll be continuing Italian and then taking on Arabic. Old English is done for me after this semester. It just gets kinda confusing since I'm learning the basic vocabulary and grammar for two languages at once. For example, I had exams one week apart from the two and I was asked on my Italian quiz about the verb "to sing," and I had to think for a minute if it was "galan" (Old English) or "cantare" (Italian) and the only way I was able to figure it out was because of the verb ending of -are to cantare. All Old English verbs end in -an in the infinitive, so I was able to figure it out once I realized it was a lot simpler in the end.
That's one of the crazy things about this year. I had made it to third-year university without ever having to know what a verb, noun, adjective, or much of any other grammatical term. I was curious to see if I could graduate without knowing, but no, since I have to take languages, I couldn't. It isn't like I had never been told what a verb, noun or adjective was. I had been told many, many, many times what they were, I just never cared or bothered to remember, yet I continually pumped out A and A+ papers in college. I also found out that there are tons of people who don't even know what verbs and nouns are, so I wasn't alone. Also, as I take these two language courses, I realize more and more how funny of a language English is. Just the various idioms and how one word in English often means two things, sometimes even three or four different things.
I went to a party-mixer last night (yes, this is a blog of random thoughts since I haven't posted in awhile) at my friend's house. His name is Trent and it was really cool because there was lots of people from Pacific Academy (my high school) that I hadn't even seen since grad. By the way, Trent was from Pacific Academy too, hence how I know him. I have had a chance to reconnect with some at UBC, but I got to talk to some of them in more in depth at the mixer. I must admit, I am somewhat surprised that some people even remembered me. I was once told that I had an "unmemorable face," what that means exactly, I don't know. Perhaps I should've felt totally insulted, but I still haven't figured out what that means. Do I look like everybody else? I don't know. In any event, I couldn't help but wonder what memories people had associated with me since some of the people, I never even spoke to them in high school, yet when I saw them and talked to them, they knew I was Joel. Sometimes I think it would be fascinating to have, for one day, the ability to read people's minds. I don't say that out of any sort of insecurity, rather simply out of curiousity. I've been considering writing a book about it sometime in the future (after my current writing projects of course), though I realize it has been given various treatments or perspectives on it. I think it would be quite interesting to explore that possibility. I digree though, the party was really great. Maybe the reason why people remembered me even though I never spoke to them was for the fact that I got up and spoke in front of assembly once or twice. I never really thought my talk was that memorable other than for the fact that I happened to make people laugh (not at me, but with my jokes apparently...at least I hope so =P). I don't know, it was something I was thinking about.
Politically speaking, I kinda miss not having any political science courses this term or next term. Maybe it is a good break for my mind. Although, maybe it isn't a break. I say that because I feel somewhat that my mind is changing politically, or at least there is great potential that it will change. I'm not changing in the sense of "from right to left" or anything like that. On a side note, I look at the political situation in the States and I just find it's current state depressing. I use to really enjoy reading and observing US politics and use to think it would be really great to have our representation in the same manner, but it has changed a LOT in the last six years. Now, with the current state in the US Politics, I am glad we have the Canadian system because there seems to be a balance to it. Say what you will about the Conservatives, but they are getting things done and the Canadian political process hasn't been reduced to ad hominem attacks. I don't know if that is simply because the Liberals are in the process of finding a new leader and don't have a single voice to represent the party. I hope it doesn't become a political bloodbath when they find a new leader. In conclusion to this thought, I'll leave a cliffhanger by not saying how my political mind might be changing. I might post in the future to resolve this cliffhanger.
I'm tired of hearing about George W. Bush in class. I really am. He has his failings and at the beginning of his presidency he didn't seem to be able to speak clearly or correctly (although it is interesting to note if you watch his debates and speeches when he was running for Texas governor, or once he was governor, he didn't have trouble speaking or appearing intelligent. I have no idea what happened when he went onto run for the US Presidency. Check out his debates, it'll be very weird to see, I promise). In any event, even if his position on going to war against Iraq is "idiotic" or is some evidence of "luancy," I'm tired of hearing about how he is a moron, idiot, blabber-mouth, monkey, Satan, Hitler, a dictator, a tyrant, etc. I was never a fan of Paul Martin as PM of Canada, I disagreed with his policy and such, but never did I imagine him to be an idiot or lacking in the head-department. Paul Martin's political beliefs are his and even if I completely disagreed with him, it does not suggest any "idiotic nature" about him. Perhaps people think since someone else's political views are irrational to them that it justifies the accusation of the person holding the opposite view politically as being an "idiot." The bottomline is this: people seem to think and feel that if they can have something to say about Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and co. that it somehow makes them sound smart politically and up to the times politically. The truth of the matter is, they aren't. Many, not all, are simply parroting what their best friend said or stated, perhaps in the form of a joke, or perheps even in a serious moment. If you hate Bush's policies then tackle them and argue them. If you don't think it will do anything then you are the death of democracy. Not the person you disagree with, you. If you can't care enough to be politically involved to make the change that you want to see, you are far too apathetic about it. I was thinking about it today and really, apathy is the death of democracy. I only found out later that Robert M. Hutchins said something similar to that, except he said it perhaps a little more interesting: "The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment." Calling Bush or any of his other cronies idiots (or any other ad hominem, or personal attack) amounts to nothing more than political masturbation. Why? Because nothing is really accomplished by it, it just makes the person saying them feel good. I never learned anything from someone who told me "Bush is an idiot," the only people who ever challenged my beliefs are the ones who gave me reasons and an argument as to why they think he is wrong. People think my generation is more politically active than other past generations during the "young adult stage" when I think that is just wrong. My generation has simply been unified by a hatred for Bush and Co. but few really know why they hate him, rather they just know that they hate him and they hate the Iraq war. I don't write this in hopes of people changing their political views, I just wish people were smarter politically if they were going to open their mouth and pretend to talk politics. I know many people, even some of my friends, think that they have the right to speak out politically even if they don't vote or don't do anything about what they see that is wrong. Sure, you have the right to do so, but it doesn't make your voice or opinion relevent simply because you have a right to say it. Don't masterbate politically. Just don't. Don't waste my time or your time. Back yourself and do something about that which you want to see changed. I know there is a great cliche sentence from someone with the last name Gandhi, but I shall refer from using it in attempts to not be entirely cliche.
Okay, wow. I really need to go study my Italian. Got a test on Wednesday! wOOt! =P
PS. I've been considering committing to write at least one blog post a day. What about? I don't know, whatever comes to mind. I have been slow about posting and I feel like my writing and my mind is getting a little weaker as a result of it. *le sigh*. Mostly I was inspired by Doug Ten Napel posting every day even though he is WAY busier than I am (heck, he has three kids and a fourth one coming!!)
PSS. One last thing. On my site-meter, I have found out that most of the visitors to my blog have come for one of four reasons: 1) Christina Aguliera since I wrote about her on my blog, so people searching for her finding my post about her; 2) To read my rebuttal/response to Scott Holleran who wrote an unfavourable and, in my opinion, overly poisonous review of Chronicles of Narnia by refering to it as a "Christian tract," since I found out that my rebuttal/response has been listed on Wikipedia. Click on link 2 on the Wikipedia page to see for yourself. I swear I had nothing to do with it, but I was quite flattered to see that there. With that said, it could disappear anyday; 3) Emma Hansen, a model with Liz Bell Modelling Agency who I had mentioned in one of my posts nearly two years ago as a result of a conversation I had with Liz Bell herself; and finally, 4) People searching on Google for a picture of a person wearing an Orange Tie....because I posted a picture of myself wearing an Orange Tie. Weird. I get like 200 hits a week and have over 8,600 now I believe. Maybe I should tap some advertising revenue and support my tuition! =P NO! I don't want to be a sell-out, haha. =P
That's one of the crazy things about this year. I had made it to third-year university without ever having to know what a verb, noun, adjective, or much of any other grammatical term. I was curious to see if I could graduate without knowing, but no, since I have to take languages, I couldn't. It isn't like I had never been told what a verb, noun or adjective was. I had been told many, many, many times what they were, I just never cared or bothered to remember, yet I continually pumped out A and A+ papers in college. I also found out that there are tons of people who don't even know what verbs and nouns are, so I wasn't alone. Also, as I take these two language courses, I realize more and more how funny of a language English is. Just the various idioms and how one word in English often means two things, sometimes even three or four different things.
I went to a party-mixer last night (yes, this is a blog of random thoughts since I haven't posted in awhile) at my friend's house. His name is Trent and it was really cool because there was lots of people from Pacific Academy (my high school) that I hadn't even seen since grad. By the way, Trent was from Pacific Academy too, hence how I know him. I have had a chance to reconnect with some at UBC, but I got to talk to some of them in more in depth at the mixer. I must admit, I am somewhat surprised that some people even remembered me. I was once told that I had an "unmemorable face," what that means exactly, I don't know. Perhaps I should've felt totally insulted, but I still haven't figured out what that means. Do I look like everybody else? I don't know. In any event, I couldn't help but wonder what memories people had associated with me since some of the people, I never even spoke to them in high school, yet when I saw them and talked to them, they knew I was Joel. Sometimes I think it would be fascinating to have, for one day, the ability to read people's minds. I don't say that out of any sort of insecurity, rather simply out of curiousity. I've been considering writing a book about it sometime in the future (after my current writing projects of course), though I realize it has been given various treatments or perspectives on it. I think it would be quite interesting to explore that possibility. I digree though, the party was really great. Maybe the reason why people remembered me even though I never spoke to them was for the fact that I got up and spoke in front of assembly once or twice. I never really thought my talk was that memorable other than for the fact that I happened to make people laugh (not at me, but with my jokes apparently...at least I hope so =P). I don't know, it was something I was thinking about.
Politically speaking, I kinda miss not having any political science courses this term or next term. Maybe it is a good break for my mind. Although, maybe it isn't a break. I say that because I feel somewhat that my mind is changing politically, or at least there is great potential that it will change. I'm not changing in the sense of "from right to left" or anything like that. On a side note, I look at the political situation in the States and I just find it's current state depressing. I use to really enjoy reading and observing US politics and use to think it would be really great to have our representation in the same manner, but it has changed a LOT in the last six years. Now, with the current state in the US Politics, I am glad we have the Canadian system because there seems to be a balance to it. Say what you will about the Conservatives, but they are getting things done and the Canadian political process hasn't been reduced to ad hominem attacks. I don't know if that is simply because the Liberals are in the process of finding a new leader and don't have a single voice to represent the party. I hope it doesn't become a political bloodbath when they find a new leader. In conclusion to this thought, I'll leave a cliffhanger by not saying how my political mind might be changing. I might post in the future to resolve this cliffhanger.
I'm tired of hearing about George W. Bush in class. I really am. He has his failings and at the beginning of his presidency he didn't seem to be able to speak clearly or correctly (although it is interesting to note if you watch his debates and speeches when he was running for Texas governor, or once he was governor, he didn't have trouble speaking or appearing intelligent. I have no idea what happened when he went onto run for the US Presidency. Check out his debates, it'll be very weird to see, I promise). In any event, even if his position on going to war against Iraq is "idiotic" or is some evidence of "luancy," I'm tired of hearing about how he is a moron, idiot, blabber-mouth, monkey, Satan, Hitler, a dictator, a tyrant, etc. I was never a fan of Paul Martin as PM of Canada, I disagreed with his policy and such, but never did I imagine him to be an idiot or lacking in the head-department. Paul Martin's political beliefs are his and even if I completely disagreed with him, it does not suggest any "idiotic nature" about him. Perhaps people think since someone else's political views are irrational to them that it justifies the accusation of the person holding the opposite view politically as being an "idiot." The bottomline is this: people seem to think and feel that if they can have something to say about Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and co. that it somehow makes them sound smart politically and up to the times politically. The truth of the matter is, they aren't. Many, not all, are simply parroting what their best friend said or stated, perhaps in the form of a joke, or perheps even in a serious moment. If you hate Bush's policies then tackle them and argue them. If you don't think it will do anything then you are the death of democracy. Not the person you disagree with, you. If you can't care enough to be politically involved to make the change that you want to see, you are far too apathetic about it. I was thinking about it today and really, apathy is the death of democracy. I only found out later that Robert M. Hutchins said something similar to that, except he said it perhaps a little more interesting: "The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment." Calling Bush or any of his other cronies idiots (or any other ad hominem, or personal attack) amounts to nothing more than political masturbation. Why? Because nothing is really accomplished by it, it just makes the person saying them feel good. I never learned anything from someone who told me "Bush is an idiot," the only people who ever challenged my beliefs are the ones who gave me reasons and an argument as to why they think he is wrong. People think my generation is more politically active than other past generations during the "young adult stage" when I think that is just wrong. My generation has simply been unified by a hatred for Bush and Co. but few really know why they hate him, rather they just know that they hate him and they hate the Iraq war. I don't write this in hopes of people changing their political views, I just wish people were smarter politically if they were going to open their mouth and pretend to talk politics. I know many people, even some of my friends, think that they have the right to speak out politically even if they don't vote or don't do anything about what they see that is wrong. Sure, you have the right to do so, but it doesn't make your voice or opinion relevent simply because you have a right to say it. Don't masterbate politically. Just don't. Don't waste my time or your time. Back yourself and do something about that which you want to see changed. I know there is a great cliche sentence from someone with the last name Gandhi, but I shall refer from using it in attempts to not be entirely cliche.
Okay, wow. I really need to go study my Italian. Got a test on Wednesday! wOOt! =P
PS. I've been considering committing to write at least one blog post a day. What about? I don't know, whatever comes to mind. I have been slow about posting and I feel like my writing and my mind is getting a little weaker as a result of it. *le sigh*. Mostly I was inspired by Doug Ten Napel posting every day even though he is WAY busier than I am (heck, he has three kids and a fourth one coming!!)
PSS. One last thing. On my site-meter, I have found out that most of the visitors to my blog have come for one of four reasons: 1) Christina Aguliera since I wrote about her on my blog, so people searching for her finding my post about her; 2) To read my rebuttal/response to Scott Holleran who wrote an unfavourable and, in my opinion, overly poisonous review of Chronicles of Narnia by refering to it as a "Christian tract," since I found out that my rebuttal/response has been listed on Wikipedia. Click on link 2 on the Wikipedia page to see for yourself. I swear I had nothing to do with it, but I was quite flattered to see that there. With that said, it could disappear anyday; 3) Emma Hansen, a model with Liz Bell Modelling Agency who I had mentioned in one of my posts nearly two years ago as a result of a conversation I had with Liz Bell herself; and finally, 4) People searching on Google for a picture of a person wearing an Orange Tie....because I posted a picture of myself wearing an Orange Tie. Weird. I get like 200 hits a week and have over 8,600 now I believe. Maybe I should tap some advertising revenue and support my tuition! =P NO! I don't want to be a sell-out, haha. =P
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posted by SillyPickle at 8:22 PM
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