Peru Logs - Day 1

It’s midnight the night before I leave and not a single piece of clothing has found its way into my suitcase. Apparently it’s true that the habits you develop at school translate into your real life. Shoot. But hey, if I can pull an all-night writing a paper, surely I can pull one off packing.

I said a tearful goodbye to my father who was kind enough to drive me to the airport early in the morning, and then walked through the customs gate to the chiming bells of Freedom and Independence. As much as I am a sociable person, the feeling that I get when I am completely alone and in control of my every action is euphoric for me. Yes I live on my own normally, but there’s a freedom that comes with being surrounded by total strangers. I can carry my bags as goofily as I want (aka, big backpack in back, small backpack in front), I can butcher my Spanish and tell myself that I am fluent, and I can eat whatever the heck I want when I want. I can also make a fool of myself and no one would ever know (lucky for you, I also take detailed journal notes).

Got to Texas and went up to the airhostess. Checked in with my ticket. She asks for my emergency contact: “Bev. B-E-EV. Bev.” She looks at me uncomfortably. She says something with a comically thick Texan accent. I giggle. She asks why I’m giggling. I look at her uncomfortably. She processes the ticket and tells me to have a nice flight. As I walk away I say, “You too!” Karma’s a jerk.

After checking in I was told that I needed to get to another section of the airport. The information guy told me that I should take the shuttle. I laughed at the overweight Americans who need to take a shuttle and carried on my merry way down the hallway. The hallway that never ended. The hallway that took me over an HOUR to walk, luggage and all. The hallway that taught me that thinking that you’re better than other people leaves you completely exhausted and feeling like a total idiot. Life lesson there.

The never-ending hallway

I got to customs and had totally forgotten that I had just filled up my brand new filtered water bottle. Not wanting to part with it, I explained my situation to the nice customs man. “Well,” he shrugged, “looks like you’re going to have to chug it.” Terrified of being accused as a terrorist, I shrugged, open my gullet, and proceeded to chug my two-liter water bottle in front of the entire on-looking crowd. I got about halfway through before the officer informed me through muffled laughter that he had been joking and I could just pour it out on the street twenty feet away. Customs officers are jerks.

I found my seat on the plane and was finally able to relax. I could not stop smiling as the boy three seats back from me proceeded to yell, “We’re FLYYYYYINGGGG!!!” for the first ten minutes of the flight. I wanted to be annoyed with him, but I must admit that my heart was saying the same thing, and I was glad that he was voicing it. Being able to fly is just one of those things that I really hope to never take for granted.

On the plane from San Salvador to Peru the airhostesses spoke only Spanish. For my first meal in Spanish I proudly ordered chicken and Sprite. I got pasta and Ginger Ale. Not exactly a promising start. The guy beside me informed me all about the benefits of horticulture (specifically weed) and actually spent over an hour going over the biological and chemical efforts that go into making the perfect kind of weed. I will never know as much about weed as I did during that flight. On this flight I also learnt that the seats in front of the emergency exit legally cannot recline. And that when the person in front of those seats reclines their seat, trying to watch an in-flight movie is like watching a movie at the Imax. My neck hurt just from trying to see everything that was going on in my four by three-inch screen.

To my joyous relief I arrived in Lima at 2am, bags and all, and looked for the man who I’d arranged to bring me to my hostel. I saw a sign that says, “Maicol Willems”. Considering our only interactions had been by email—where I had typed my name out—I’m reaaally not sure how he managed to screw up Michael but get Willems. But hey, pronouncing Ma-e-cole in my head made me laugh (and became my nickname later on in the trip). I bartered with him before getting in (successful tourist!) and even managed to keep my bags with me, as the tour book had instructed me to never put my bags in the trunk (double success!). I was feeling very proud of myself and my safe taxiing techniques until we got halfway to the hostel and flashing lights turned on behind us. Nothing like getting pulled over by the police after being in a country for less than 20 minutes. I’m not really sure what was said but the driver didn’t look particularly happy afterward and I didn’t want to ask in my terribly broken Spanish. How I imagined the conversation going:

Michael: Sir, is everything ok?

Taxi Man: Long and impassioned response in Spanish that either explains he’s an ex-convict, that he now has to pay $4000 to the Peruvian government, or that the Police Officer was simply just a friend of his.

Michael: …Si.

So I stayed quiet. He was listening to a Christian sermon though, so I asked him if he was a Christian and he said yes. This brought me great comfort at the time (though I did find out afterwards that 90% of Peruvians consider themselves Catholic sooo it wasn’t exactly what you would consider a ‘chance encounter’).

I finally got to my hostel and a cute old Peruvian lady came up to me and welcomed me, then informed me that there was “un poco problemo”: the elevator was broken. “Oh, no problemo!” I youthfully retort. (Sidenote: actually saying no problemo in its proper context is super weird after saying it ironically your entire life.) You can probably see where this is going as, over thirty flights of stairs later with all of my luggage, there was definitely un poco problemo. BUT I made it, gasping and panting, to my little one-bed room that had an amazing view overlooking all of Lima.

I gratefully took the key from my new Peruvian friend and dumped my bags. To the bathroom to freshen up! A sign informs me that the door doesn’t close properly. To the sink to quench my thirst! A sign reminds me that the water is not sanitary in Peru and should never be consumed. To the toilet! A sign informs me that in Peru, toilet paper is never flushed, but placed in the garbage can beside the toilet.

Ah yes. So this is traveling. So this is love. Let the adventures begin.

The view

Holy Crap Guys I'm In My Senior Year of University That's Super Weird

I'm back!

It's been far too long but this hiatus was definitely necessary. For the first time in my university career I actually care about my classes, being in Ed and all, so the amount of effort that I have to put into them has increased exponentially. School's actually really hard when you actually do all the assignments/readings. Who knew?

My Peru journals are slowly coming along; I wanted to make sure that I had more than one finished before I started posting them. But we're not quite there yet. First, random stories of my life:

·      "No, it appears that 'Deeper in You' is not in yet, but we have two copies of 'Pleasures of the Night', five copies of 'Lustfully Ever After', and three copies of 'Hot in Handcuffs'." How I manage to keep a straight face during these conversations is far beyond me. My job is entertaining. (And yes, those are all legitimate titles.)

·      My mother is notoriously bad at segues. I always laugh at how she tries so hard to connect things that really have nothing in common. Today, I was talking with a friend and we had been joking around for a while. He was shocked that I was in Education because he’d never heard me talk about it. I replied, “Well, cat’s out of the bag! Surprise!” He laughed and then replied very sombrely, “Speaking of coming out of the bag, my cousin came out as gay today.” Apparently my mother’s not the only one who sucks at segues.

·      My other friend and I have the same type of phone which are notoriously bad for sending half messages and cut up texts. My phone has ripped my texts in half and sent half of mine and half of someone else's. This is all well and good until it starts mixing my texts with people who are speaking in French, or worse, sexting. Some awkward explaining occurred there. Anyway, my friend and I were complaining about how terrible our phones are and I, indulging my poetic self, texted: “Broken people and broken phones saying broken things with broken bones. Even in an age of technological connection, we are victims of autonomous dissection.” The text she received was “Broken people . . . broken bones MESSAGE BROKEN: (autonomous dissection).” I’ve now concluded my phone is sentient and trying to kill me.

So that’s pretty much my life right now. Well really not at all. But anyway, the reason for this post is that I want to show off some more spoken word artists. Shane Koyczan (pronounced Koyzan, not Koyksdsdfsan, as I once thought) is a Canadian spoken word artist who was born in the Yukon but moved to BC. Most of you will probably recognize him since he was the poet laureate who spoke at the Olympics (really big guy with a deep, booming voice). The poem that he did at the Olympics is probably my least favourite of his, but man alive can this guy write. Seriously, his stuff blows me away in ways that nothing ever has before. That’s not even a hyperbole—I have actually sat listening to his clips on youtube for hours with my jaw just on the floor. I won’t amp him up too much, but just know that I am driving five hours out of my city to see him live next month.

Here’s one of my favourite clips by him. Note: It does contain some adult language. Also note: don’t listen to it half-heartedly, that’s just a waste of time. Listen to it intentionally.

How this video only has 15,000 hits is beyond me. I had to listen to it every night for two weeks before I was able to start taking in everything he says.

Spoken Word - Taylor Mali

Ha! Remember that time where I said I was going to be doing a lot more writing? As in my last post? Well it turns out that I need assigned essays to procrastinate from in order to do my own writing. Whenever I'm school I dream of having all the time in the world to sit down and do my own writing, and now that I have that time, I don't do it at all. The brain is a cruel thing, my friends. I just need friends to start assigning me essays so that I can work on other stuff while feeling guilty about not doing the essays. It's a flawless concept, really.

In the meantime, I promised some other spoken words, so I ought to deliver. This one is a classic. It's by Taylor Mali, the guy I mentioned a little while back, and should be listened to by anyone who is interested in teaching, is a teacher, or has been taught. (Hint: that includes everybody.)

One of my favourite Mali lines of all time is:

"When she was in my eyes I fantasized and everything else became a blur.
I wanted to abandon my Bachelors in English for a Masters degree in her."


Classic.

Life List Update

Now that summer classes are officially over, I have a glorious amount of time on my hands. As in, I read 4 books in the last 8 days. On weeks where I don't have any assigned reading I'm like a racehorse bursting out of a starting gate. That is, if the starting gate were a book. And the race was a relaxing evening with a blanket and tea. Then it's a perfect simile. With all this time, I will be writing a bunch more blogs, which is something that I look forward to. The best advice I keep reminding myself is that "A good writer writes. A good writer writes." Simple as that. As I write more for this blog, I also organize it more. I've collected a whole handful more of experiences for my life list--my ever-growing, sentient list. Here they are: (the bolded ones are ones that I've already done--my list serves as a challenge and as a reminder.)

Work on a house with Habitat for Humanity
Learn and perform the Thriller dance
Read everything by Ralph Waldo Emerson (How am I a fourth year university student and never read anything by him before?!?)
Attend a large music festival such as Lollapalooza/Coachella/Sasquatch
Memorize USA state geography
Watch the Cirque de Soliel perform
Go around the world and find my own personal 7 wonders
Meet Sol
Memorize the flag for every country
Start a compost
Go white water rafting
Get a Eurorail pass
Ride in a hot air balloon
Get in a fight (I just finished Fight Club. Sue me.) (Do people still use the term "sue me?" Is that still a thing?)
Catch someone reading a book I wrote
Climb the Grand Canyon
Throw a surprise party for someone
Graffiti something
Start a dance in a public place
Be in a parade
Take in and appreciate a busker
Be a completely different person in a different city
Help someone cross something off their own life list
Be on tv, a magazine, the front page of a newspaper
Kill something and eat it
Make a list of everything I own
Have something/someone named after me
Pay for someone's groceries
Actually make a tangible New Year's resolution and keep it

And two more that are a little more dear to my heart:
1. Give a TED talk. The second this came into my mind my heart started racing. I have spent countless hours being inspired by different TED talks, and it would be a serious achievement if I could every cross this off. Some of the things on my list I take more seriously than others (as in, if I died before memorizing the US state geography I wouldn't need to come back as a ghost to avenge myself). Not to say that if I die before doing a TED talk I would be disappointed, it would just be really really cool, that's all.

2. Perform a spoken word poem in front of a large audience. The reason why this is dear to my heart is because a) it achieves my childhood dream of making poetry cool again and b) I'm crossing it off today! Well sort of. I showed my pastor my video from the last post and he said that he wanted to include it in a Sunday service. A part of me really wanted to do it live, but I'm still really jazzed about getting the to opportunity to show it for all 3 services this Sunday. While I'm not sure whether I can technically cross this one off as I'm not performing it live, it's still right up there. I hope that this is a day that I can look back on as the first of many opportunities like this.

(Fun fact: I didn't realize it at the time, but my last blog post was my 150th post, as well as my 10,000th view. Considering how long I waited to post it, it's cool that it just worked out like that. Coincidences are fun! Also side note, if you have a blog/tumblr/whatever they've come out with now, could you link to my video? I'm still working on getting it out there and the more links there are to it, the higher up it goes on Google search-- this is the one thing that I learnt in Computer Science 1000.)

Day 5 - I Feel the Need to Apologize

So today's an exciting day for me. Instead of talking more about creativity, I want to finally reveal a project I've been working on for a while.

When I did 5 Days for the Homeless, I had planned on getting insane amounts of reading and writing done. Turns out, boxes are not conducive to comfortable reading times, mostly they're for curling up in a ball and attempting to sleep. BUT I did manage to scratch out a page or two of my thoughts. I've had a lot going on over the past couple of months and it was nice to spew out all my ideas in one sitting.

Once I finished 5 Days I immediately went home and turned those pages into some spoken word poetry. I have been really interested in spoken word for a long time now and have only just begun to realize how truly passionate I am about it. I will be posting some of my favourite poets in the future. (Side note: At one point I even became Facebook friends with Taylor Mali--a fairly well-known spoken word poet--but then I realized that he didn't have very many friends, so I just felt kind of creepy and de-friended him. It was awkward.)

Soon after I wrote the poem, my friend Amara told me that she had access to a recording studio at Lethbridge College. Sweet! It turns out that recording yourself speaking for 3 straight hours is an enlightening and unnerving experience. I have spent many hours during the editing of this project debating over whether or not I have a speech impediment. :/

THEN I went home and spent the next week working on a combination of sound editing, accompaniment editing, video recording, splicing, and more editing. I used a very, um, MacGyver-esque tripod (piano stool, bar stool, books, mirror, camera, and lamp)

and then spent a whole lot of time staring at this:

I used many different programs and even spent an entire day attempting to learn the whole of Adobe After Effects in one day, but it turns out it's just a ridiculously complicated program.

Then, fear hit. Confession time: I finished this project in totality back in March--and I was so excited and immediately wanted to put it up--but then I started thinking about how many hits it would get. Then I started thinking about what would happen if people don't like it. Then I started thinking about how it has to be absolutely perfect and I can't release it unless I am 100% satisfied with it. Well, turns out, I need to get over myself.

1. I am not 100% satisfied with it. Am I proud of it? Yes. Will I ever be completely satisfied with it? No. Over the course of working on it I have learnt that perfectionism is just a disguise for fear.

2. It's not about me. It's not about whether my voice sounds funny or the graphics aren't perfect. It's not about whether each rhyme is perfect. There's a lot of truth in this project and I want to share it with people because I wholeheartedly believe in everything that is said. As anyone who works in ministry can tell you, it's not about how many people you reach, it's about making an impact on the ones that you do.

So without further ado, I present: "I Feel the Need to Apologize": (If it's too small you can get a better size with the link below the video.)

I would really love if you could share this video with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever because, like I said, there's a lot of truth in it. Here is the youtube link to just copy and paste: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOUocB4Jvm4.

Inspiring Creativity Part 4/5

Trust your instincts. Don't allow yourself to get discouraged. Whenever you try to do something and do not succeed, you do not fail. You have learned something that does not work. Always ask "What have I learned about what doesn't work?", "Can this explain something that I didn't set out to explain?", and "What have I discovered that I didn't set out to discover?" Whenever someone tells you that they have never made a mistake, you are talking to someone who has never tried anything new.

You do not see things as they are; you see them as you are. Interpret your own experiences. All experiences are neutral. They have no meaning. You give them meaning by the way you choose to interpret them. If you are a priest, you see evidence of God everywhere. If you are an atheist, you see the absence of God everywhere. IBM observed that no one in the world had a personal computer. IBM interpreted this to mean there was no market. College dropouts, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, looked at the same absence of personal computers and saw a massive opportunity. 

Remember that genius is finding a perspective no one else has taken. If you can't find the right perspective, draw a picture of the problem, make a model, or mold a sculpture. Take a walk and look for things that metaphorically represent the problem and force connections between those things and the problem. Ask your friends and strangers how they see the problem. Ask a child. How would a ten year old solve it? Ask a grandparent. Imagine you are the problem. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

When I first read the bit about "metaphorically representing the problem" I laughed, but, I'm not gonna, that technique has come in handy. Maybe it's just an English major thing, but when you try and make connections between problems and tangible objects, you begin to see the different aspects of the issue.

My two forms of inspiration today are photography and, my personal favourite, music. Check it:

It's impossible for a water droplet shot not to look cool, especially when you add funky colours.

As for music, I'm going to go with one of my favourite CD's from 2011, Michael W. Smith's Glory. As a singer, I'm really really not a fan of Michael W. Smith (minus the classic Columbine song that had little Michael in tears. Side note: I meant me. I did always feel a bond with Michael W. Smith considering we both shared similar initials. I thought we were friends growing up). But, as a composer, M Dub is the shiz. I can sing along with every song on Freedom and I'm working my way through Glory. This album is definitely one of my favourites. Check out this song and let your imagination go; if this isn't the musical personification of adventure, I don't know what is.

Inspiring Creativity Part 3/5

There is no one right answer. The only certainty in life is uncertainty. When trying to get ideas, do not censor or evaluate them as they occur. Nothing kills creativity faster than self- censorship of ideas while generating them. Think of all your ideas as possibilities and generate as many as you can before you decide which ones to select. The world is not black or white. It is grey. To keep the creativity flowing, never stop with your first good idea. Always strive to find a better one and continue until you have one that is still better.

This relates back to my first blog on my creativity class: don't shut yourself down. There's a reason why "You are your own worst critic" is a cliche.

Expect the experts to be negative. The more expert and specialized a person becomes, the more their mindset becomes narrowed and the more fixated they become on confirming what they believe to be absolute. Consequently, when confronted with new and different ideas, their focus will be on conformity. Does it conform with what I know is right? If not, experts will spend all their time showing and explaining why it can't be done and why it can't work. They will not look for ways to make it work or get it done because this might demonstrate that what they regarded as absolute is not absolute at all.

This is a good lesson for myself to remember as I head into education, especially in the English department. Whenever you hear complaining about English classes, it is that the teacher is closed off to new ideas that don't line up with their own. I pray that when I become a teacher I will have the discernment to tell which ideas are creative and deserve being pursued (and which ones are completely made-up crap).

The best source for creativity is your own experiences. This last semester was a hard one for me; the fragility of life was extremely prevalent as my family faced disease and death. In the same breath, we also experienced new life with my new (and first!) niece. It is surreal to be so aware of the interconnected circle of life and death. This is a poem that I wrote during that time.

The Chorus

You enter the world with a mouth wide-open

Your immaculate voice joins with ours

Enter in with the choir

Sing loud, O Crier

Sing of the glory and power!

You persist through the struggle of heartache and illness

Your spirit, it yearns to surrender

But you sing all the louder

You snub out its power

And shout of the greatness and splendor!

You followed the call of life ever-after

Darkness has snuffed out your light

But your pain has now lifted

Your countenance shifted

Breathe in the resplendence and might.


PS: I just have to post a pic of my new niece, because I'm just irrationally proud.

Inspiring Creativity Part 2/5

You must go through the motions of being creative. The more times you try to get ideas, the more active your brain becomes and the more creative you become. If you want to become an artist and all you did was paint a picture every day, you will become an artist. You may not become another Vincent Van Gogh, but you will become more of an artist than someone who has never tried.

The greatest lesson that I learnt from my creative writing class is that in order to become a good writer, you must write.

Your brain is not a computer. It thrives on the creative energy of feedback from experiences real or fictional. You can synthesize experience; literally create it in your own imagination. The human brain cannot tell the difference between an "actual" experience and an experience imagined vividly and in detail. This discovery is what enabled Albert Einstein to create his thought experiments with imaginary scenarios that led to his revolutionary ideas about space and time. One day, for example, he imagined falling in love. Then he imagined meeting the woman he fell in love with two weeks after he fell in love. This led to his theory of acausality.

Yesterday I featured an art project and poetry. Today, I have two more forms of creative inspiration: dance and graffiti. One of my favourite dances from SYTYCD, from last season:

And when you're saying graffiti, you're saying Banksy. Because, you just gotta have Banksy. Because Banksy.

Inspiring Creativity Part 1/5

As mentioned in my last post, I am in an Exploring Creativity class that I'm really enjoying. I want to do some consistent posting on creativity, involving excerpts from "Creative Thinkering" by Michael Michalko, as well as some things that get me inspired creatively. From Creative Thinkering:

You are creative. The artist is not a special person, each one of us is a special kind of artist. Every one of us is born a creative, spontaneous thinker. The only difference between people who are creative and people who are not is a simple belief. Creative people believe they are creative. People who believe they are not creative, are not. Once you have a particular identity and set of beliefs about yourself, you become interested in seeking out the skills needed to express your identity and beliefs. This is why people who believe they are creative become creative. The reality is that believing you are not creative excuses you from trying or attempting anything new.

Creative thinking is work. You must have passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of creating new and different ideas. Then you must have patience to persevere against all adversity. All creative geniuses work passionately hard and produce incredible numbers of ideas, most of which are bad. In fact, more bad poems were written by the major poets than by minor poets. Thomas Edison created 3000 different ideas for lighting systems before he evaluated them for practicality and profitability. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart produced more than six hundred pieces of music, including forty-one symphonies and some forty-odd operas and masses, during his short creative life. Rembrandt produced around 650 paintings and 2,000 drawings and Picasso executed more than 20,000 works. Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets. Some were masterpieces, while others were no better than his contemporaries could have written, and some were simply bad.

This hummingbird is made from broken CDs. I go through so many blogs with sweet projects and designs, so many of which are like, man, what a sweet idea! If I put my mind to it, I totally could have pulled that off. I'm not saying I could whip out a sick CD hummingbird, but hey, it'd be worth a try.

Lately I've been reading a lot of poetry (not something I generally do, honest). Most people hate poetry because it's too figurative or pretentious. As an English major I have encountered way too many poems that make no sense and then someone explains it to you and you're like, yeah, that still makes no freakin' sense. BUT every once in a while you run into a poem that you just connect with. Below is one of my personal faves by Rudyard Kipling. (With a name like Rudyard Kipling, you'd better hope he's good.)

If

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

So I'm In This Class Called Exploring Creativity...

So I’m in this class called Exploring Creativity. It’s a drama class, and it’s every bit as wonderfully flaky as it sounds. And I love it.

Within seconds of the prof walking in on the first day, my friend turned to me and whispered, “So… he’s a free spirit.” Classic long, pony-tailed hair, perma-smile hippie. Classic.

So far, it seems like the class is just one big ITC. ITCs are Initiative Task Challenges and I am a huge fan of them (I did my first every mini-lecture on ITCs in my ed class). Basically they are games that emulate real-life scenarios that encourage team building, self-reflection, and are generally just great opportunities to observe and grow, if you’re open to it.

In our first class, we spent the first hour lying on our backs, “taking inventory” of our hearts. Despite the class being at 9am and me normally wanting to be dead to the world at this point, I really enjoyed being able to get focused for the day. I think every morning class needs to have at least a ten minute heart-inventory-time. I would love any teacher who did this; it would be like bringing naptime back from kindergarten. Man, I can’t wait until I’m a teacher.

As the class progressed, we moved from heart inventory to staring into each other’s eyes. We literally had to walk around the room and make eye contact with each other. At first it was just passing glances, and then it got more and more intense as time went on. We had to wander and then, when he said, “Find a partner,” we all had to team up with the person closest to us and assume Tarzan-Jane hand positioning while staring into each other’s eyes for a couple minutes. You can’t break eye contact and you’re not supposed to talk or laugh. It was weirdly intimate. THEN, to make things more intense, we had to answer three questions in our heads.

1.     What is something from your past that you want to let go?

2.     What is something that you know to be true above all else?

3.     What is your greatest secret?

You know, classic first-date material.

This time when we made eye contact we had to try and portray one of our answers to the other person using only our eyes. This all sounds ridiculous, but it was actually a really powerful experience. Some people stared right through my eyes and very intentionally blocked out any form of communication. Some people constantly giggled, an obvious defense mechanism for nerves and fear. One girl almost started crying as we stared, switching back and forth between each eye. It was the strangest feeling in the world to stare into this random girl’s eyes as she teared up and I couldn’t really do anything about it. I wanted to hug every single person that I made contact with. You want to hide from/expose everything/make out with each person, and the conflicting emotions make things really heavy, really fast.

The point was to bond us as classmates so we weren’t just strangers, and I’d say it was pretty darn effective. I genuinely felt close to people that I’d never spoken a word to. Even just walking around and making eye contact at the beginning was incredibly reassuring. I knew we were all doing it because we were being told, yet the affirmation and acceptance made me strangely joyful inside. Acknowledgement of my existence, regardless of how tiny and inconsequential, was massively encouraging. It was like, “Why yes, yes I am here! I did get out of bed today! Thank for noticing!”

Either that, or I’m just really narcissistic.

But then came my favourite part. Mr. Free Spirit got all 40 of us to stand in a circle (side note: after working with kids a lot, watching 40 people make a circle in under 10 minutes still kind of blows my mind). He got two people to stand in the middle of the circle, make eye contact, and try and portray their deepest secret. Our job on the outside was to just observe. It was like people-watching to the extreme, and the psych minor in me was giggly with excitement. Just getting to analyze and observe shamelessly without having to quickly look away when they catch you. Heaven.

Only a couple people got the chance to be in the middle, and, due to my desire to experience everything, of course I volunteered. It was unnerving knowing that 38 other people were taking in every aspect of me: my clothes, my hair, the way I was staring, the way I was walking. The prof got the two of us to walk around in a circle while staring, which was surprisingly difficult. Thankfully he let us pick our question, so I picked “what I know to be true above all else”. It was sweet to be able to just stare at this stranger while trying to let him know that he was created and designed by a God who loves him. I wanted to hug him when it was all over, but we shook hands instead because, you know, that’s what men do. Ha! It’s possible I’m getting waaay to into this class.

The class is ridiculous, but there are already a lot of practical implications that I am taking away from it. A lot of the lessons are about being self-aware, an issue that I am very cognizant of. I generally (and by generally, I mean always) err on the side of being too self-aware, and this is both a blessing and a curse.

Recently, I was really struggling with grieving properly. That sounds weird because you’d think grieving kinda just comes naturally, but it’s easy to get so caught up in your own head. I find that I berate myself for each vulnerable thought—I think about how absurd/melodramatic/unnecessary/insincere each thought is. I struggle with allowing myself to grieve when I know that there are so many other people out there who have so many worse issues than I do. Thankfully, I have a good friend who sent me a text one night that really helped:

“Be self aware. Figure out what it is that your heart is feeling. Literally just sit there and absorb that feeling. Cry. Or laugh or whatever the emotion requires of you. Don’t think about what it looks like or means or whether it is ok. Just soak it in. And when you are ready, let it go.”

Sometimes we just have to allow ourselves to feel things, regardless of how ridiculous those feelings may be. If you desire to feel them, then you are being sincere in your emotions. That sounds inspirationally vague, but it is a lesson that I need to learn. I found that this ties directly into being creative. If you shut down every idea as being ridiculous or attempt to see the impracticality of something before even letting the idea expand, then you’re only asking for failure. I’m genuinely looking forward to applying Exploring Creativity into my daily life.

The point of this blog was supposed to just be about how ridiculous this class is, but then it went and got all life application-y. Flip. Well here’s a picture of a couple chicken fans. Enjoy.

Slave Lake Revisited

It's weird to think that a year ago today a fire tore through Slave Lake and destroyed the vast majority of the town. I can't imagine what a year of regrowth this has been for the town and its residents.

One of the town's members, Andrea MacKay, contacted me a while back about using my pictures in a video she was making. She released the video publicly today so I thought I'd show it to you all.

The video won't embed, so click here to check it out!

(I represent at #25, and #56-58 at the end.)

How to Lose 6 Ounces In a Matter of Hours While Eating All the Jello You Want!!

Unpause.

This is how I feel now that I’m back in Lethbridge. At least, this is how I’m trying to feel. Recovering has never been my forte and I don’t know if I will ever come to terms with my mind being ready to do things my body can’t. Thankfully, I have a while (hopefully) before this is a real issue. In the meantime, I just have to get used to being 6 oz lighter. Why?

Well, it all began last Monday when I woke up at 4am with a stupid amount of pain in my stomach. I had been having stomach pains a couple of weeks before, so I figured it was the same thing. I went to the bathtub for solace, because that was what had worked before. Fast-forward three hours and I was still writhing in pain, cursing out every sick person I had ever encountered and swearing off eating any type of food ever again. It wasn’t until 7:30 that I had the guts to text my roommate to drive me to the hospital, which he kindly did immediately. I blame the pain for making me stupid enough to believe that that much pain was just indigestion.

In retrospect, the pain was enough that I don't remember the ride to the hospital. I can say this because upon entering my roommate’s car again a week later I noticed he had a bobblehead Jesus on his dash. When the pain is so distracting you don’t notice a bobblehead Jesus, you know it’s serious. Moving on. 

Thank God I live in Lethbridge because when we got to the hospital there was almost no one in the waiting room—I was in a hospital bed within ten minutes. Of course, just because you’re in a bed doesn’t really mean anything, as the nurses listened to me moan for the next two and half hours. At one point a nurse came in and gave me a Dixie cup full of what tasted like rotten Krispie Kream icing. I am confident that this did not have any medical purpose, she just wanted to gross me out enough to shut me up for a couple minutes. It worked. All I remember from that time was ensuring that my parents knew I was in the hospital (I’ve learnt from past experiences that they don’t like after-the-fact stories) and insisting that I have a chance to vote. The nurses were super considerate and kind enough to call in a special balloter so that I could vote from my hospital bed. I can now tell my children that I performed my civic duty while almost passing out from pain. Huzzah! (Unfortunately, they made me vote in the wrong constituency, which kind of defeated all the research I’d done on my different candidates, but hey, three cheers for democracy.)

Anyway, after a handful of blood tests, x-rays, IVs, urine samples, and ultrasounds (turns out the gel really isn’t as cold as they make it out to be in the movies!), the nurses informed me that it was probably my appendix. They told me a surgeon would be along shortly to inform me whether or not a surgery would be necessary. After another couple of hours a man walked into my curtained-off area. He had a strong limp, was walking with a cane, and looked over 60 at least. Judging by the intense look of pain in his eyes and shaking in his hands, I honestly thought he was just a lost patient. As I was about to ask if I could help him he said, “I’ll cut it out in an hour.  We’ll see you then,” and walked out.

I asked the next nurse who walked in if that was my surgeon. She answered, “Yes” with a smile and informed me that he was a bit quirky. ‘Quirky’ was her word choice. The other nurses opted for ‘old-fashioned’. I’ll let one review online speak for itself:

           

“In addition to having deplorable oral hygiene and smelling like BO, Dr. Hebert has the bedside manner of a prison executioner. Why did he become a doctor when he hates people? Maybe he should retire and give his leg a rest. I don't like seeing my doctor in pain 24/7. I would not let him touch my dog so certainly he was not going to operate on me. There are 4 other surgeons in Lethbridge I was given the option of seeing. If he were the only doctor in town, I would either die or let some **** in the park operate on me. If he is on call, run...fast, because he can't. The worst experience of my life.”

Sooo yeah. A little harsh, but still. Thankfully I didn’t read these reviews until after I was already put under. I woke up to a large pain in my side and a strong morphine trip. I found out that the typical procedure for removing an appendix is placing four holes around the organ and performing a minimally invasive laparoscopy to remove it. Good ol’ Doc H decided to make a 3-inch slice into my stomach. But it’s ok, chicks dig scars. Right?

The next two days were mostly filled with morphine trips and nurse check-ups. The incision was deep—I was able to stick my finger in it up past my first knuckle—and they kept it open for my whole stay at the hospital. I don’t know a lot about medical practice, but I’m pretty sure keeping a massive gap in your stomach open while unsterile nurses poke and prod it is generally considered… unsanitary? Primitive? Uncouth? You pick the adjective. (You can actually see the cut by clicking here. WARNING: I thought I would be sensitive to my queasy readers by posting it as a link, as it is a little gory. Note that a lot of the discolouration is a glue that they put on my stomach... I'm not normally eighteen different shades of yellow.)

But hey, I survived. My friends kept me entertained with texts like:

“Congratulations! Your children will now be part of the process toward the evolution of the appendixless man!” and

“Only you.” and

“Congrats now you have more room for food…that’s how it works, right?” and

“Be surgeried like a champ!”

For the most part the hospital wasn’t that bad, except for the whole not being able to eat solid foods thing. "Here Mr. Willems, would you like some liquid with your liquid while you drink your jello liquid and wash it down with a cool cup of liquid?" Bleh. But the nurses were incredibly kind and I was humbled by their service. Mentally I was all right, it was just the one night that got to me. My cellphone had died so I had no way to contact anyone and I couldn’t move due to, you know, The Chunk missing. They switched me from morphine to T3s and turned off the lights, leaving me in darkness to dwell on the delightful sounds of my fellow roommates’ dripping catheters and death coughs. I thought I was hallucinating when the bed started vibrating, but the nurses informed me that they had a tendency of doing that. So I spent the next 7 hours counting down the minutes till morning with the help of my ticking IV, drooping in and out of a drug trip that resulted in an angsty, paranoid poem scribbled in a colouring book that was reminiscent of my brooding, teenage days. Here’s just a small taste:

I'm entombed in collapsible curtains and faint glowing lights

Warning me that I’ve barely begun the night

I swear death echoes in his phlegm-filled cough

He has to make it through the night for all these guilty thoughts

Raindrops and dripping catheters

His grotesque shadow envelopes hers

Riding the vibrating IV wires on undulating waves

Naked and exposed, I avoid his lifeless gaze

Nothing but chicken broth and mucus on my fingers and teeth

Come on T3s, relieve!

So there’s that. Honestly for being high and half-unconscious, I’m pretty proud of it. Maybe I need to return to my dark, brooding days in order to find true inspiration.

Thankfully, my stay was over the next day and the nurse prepared me to go. She ripped the medical tape off of my stomach and promptly commented that I must be allergic to medical tape due to the splotchy redness that appeared. My response was a polite smile, but in my head I was thinking, I’M NOT ALLERGIC TO TAPE, I’M ALLERGIC TO YOU RIPPING OFF ALL MY STOMACH HAIR!! Funny side story about my stomach hair (yup, I just said that), but after my last surgery, the heart monitors on my chest had done similar damage, leaving my stomach looking like a lawn mowed by a hiccuping rabbit. I had to shave my chest in order to get it back to normal and it was only a couple of weeks ago that it had re-grown to its typical, lustrous length. (I know what you’re picturing here, but I promise you, I have a very normal amount of chest hair. You can stop grimacing.) So thanks to this appendectomy, my chest has returned to its sporadic, interspersed state and I am forced to wear a shirt all summer until I can even things out again. Sigh.

There, now you all know waay too much about my body hair.

After getting released from the hospital, my delightful mother drove me back to Calgary where she took care of me while I sat around doing a whole lot of nothing for a week. Like I said, I’m a fairly sucky recover-er and it was frustrating just sitting around. I sat and watched status after status of people announcing “I’m DONE!”, getting upset that my final exams are still looming over me. Thankfully, my school was really good about getting everything deferred, so I have another couple of weeks before I really have to worry about it. This is both really good, as I am not in the mental state to write an exam, and really bad, as I now have another month to wait for something that I just want to get over with. Oh well. Work has also been very accommodating, which I am super appreciative of. I had almost convinced myself that I was ready to return to it, until I tried going out with friends and found myself sleeping. All day. I fell asleep on my floor four separate times that day. The next day I went to “walk around” the mall for an hour and ended up falling asleep in a chair in Chapters. So, I’m not better yet, but at least I’ve got a keyboard and, thanks to my mom, a month’s supply of tuna casserole. I would give up every futile organ in my body for a month’s supply of tuna casserole.  

This morning my mom dropped me off back in Lethbridge. We hugged goodbye and she said, “Well, it’s been a slice. Hah! Literally.”

Good one, mom.

(A sincere thanks to those who texted me and visited me in the hospital; it meant a lot. And a special thanks to my roommate Kyle who not only drove me to the hospital, but washed my sheets and cleaned my room so that my mom could spend the night there. And thanks to my mom, for being my mom. And God, for letting my appendix burst in Lethbridge, and not in Peru. Though, we’re going to have to have talk about why the heck I have(/had) a useless appendix in the first place, but we’ll work on that.)

Update: Here is a current shot of what it looks like a week after the surgery. This pic is substantially less gross, but I'll still put the gory disclaimer on it.

I just got back from my follow up appointment with my surgeon. After my roommate kindly drove me across town, I waited for a while until the doctor called me in and sat me down.

"You got a fever?"

"Nope."

"Diarrhea?"

"Nope."

"You're good."

And that was it. I asked him if he wanted to see the scar and he obliged for half a second before muttering "fine" and rushing me out the door. You stay classy, Doctor Hebert. Yikes.

Sometimes Just Pressing a Virtual Button Can Get Your Heart Racing

!!!! <-- That is the symbol for what my heart is feeling right now. When "EEEK" and "YUSSS" don't suffice.

I just pressed "Book Now" on the airline website. The tour is planned and the passport renewal application is all filled out. It's official, I'M GOING TO PERU!!!

Why? Because "#59 - Climb the Inca trail," that's why. Machu Picchu, here I come!!!

What Would You Do?

You need to check out this video. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, then just watch the last three minutes (but watch the whole thing anyway, cause it's interesting).

People like this get me pumped.

http://www.wimp.com/awesomeman/

All the Poor and Powerless

My best friend gave me a mix with this song on it and I've really been digging it as of late. Check it out.

Some Good Reminders

Ólafur Arnalds

So I know I said that I would be doing my last post from 5 Days today, BUUUT unfortunately I'm still waiting on the legal rights from Ólafur Arnalds; I'm going to give him one or two more days. Why Ólafur Arnalds you ask? Well, I'm just going to go ahead and leave your curiousity peaked.
In the meantime, I'm going to shamelessly promote Ólafur in the hopes that by some freak chance he sees this and decides to give me the license. That, and he's one of my favourite artists, so I don't even have to lie. I heard that Sigur Ros, Ólafur Arnalds (who is also Icelandic), and Damien Rice all performed in an outdoor festival in Iceland once. It's probably for the best that I only heard about this after the fact because I'm fairly sure my heart would not have been able to handle it. So you should just go ahead and have yourself a listen.

This is the song that I have woken up to every morning for almost a year now:

And this is the song that, if and when I ever choreograph a dance, it will probably be to this:

Also, the guy's only 25, and these songs both came out a few years ago. AND he composed, performed, and produced them. Frick.

Anyway, I'm going to cross my fingers and keep checking my email every couple of hours.

Review of the Hunger Games: Why Bella Sucked and Oompa-loompas Should Be Pitied but Ultimately Defied

(Housekeeping: I've been working on a lot of really exciting projects lately. My final post about 5 Days is coming this Friday, and I've been putting a LOT of effort into it so I'm really excited about it. Some of you may also remember my Canadian Bag Sailing video. I recently edited it and made it a lot shorter. The link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmUhkzqQtgU. I'll post the video on here once it lets me. Now, on to the post.)

The Hunger Games movie has been out long enough now that the diehards have seen it and those who haven’t heard of it probably never will. (Don’t worry though, there aren’t any spoilers in this post). As a book to movie film, I thought it was really well done. There were a couple things that were really junior-highy (mainly Cato), but for the most part I wasn't disappointed.

When I read them—and yes I read them, wait, quick rant:

Yes, I read the Hunger Games. Why do I get mocked for that? I read them for the same reason I read Twilight (and yes, I read Twilight). As someone who intends to be a future English teacher, I think it’s kind of important to know what teens are actually reading. That, and I don’t believe in shutting something down unless I’ve read it myself (a lesson I learned from all those years of 'disagreeing' with Harry Potter). And now that I’ve read Twilight, I can say with credibility that they’re not very well written (shocking I know). But as with Twilight, and Harry Potter, and now Hunger Games, I have to give props to the writers for capitalizing on SOMETHING that worked. It may not be the best literature out there, but it’s getting people to read, so they have my respect.

End rant.

ALSO, I work at Chapters, so when every third transaction is the Hunger Games (almost no exaggeration), I felt inclined to read them. That way, when a parent asks if there’s any gore in them, I can reply with an authoritative, “Yes!” as opposed to an, “I don’t think so…?” (To that parent, I’m really sorry. Thanks for not coming back and yelling at me.)

End rant again.

ALSO, it bugs me when people hate on the Hunger Games because it’s a knockoff of Battle Royale. Yes, it’s an un-original plot. Everything is un-original. There’s no such thing as original art anymore, and that’s ok.

Continuing on.

When I first read Hunger Games I compared it to the Truman Show meets Gladiator meets Survivor meets Twilight. I devoured the series in a week, staying up until 4 in the morning reading Catching Fire because of those darn hooks at the end of every chapter. It requires almost no brainpower to read and has a morbid enough plotline that the whole can’t-look-away technique is in effect; it's captivating.

One thing that Suzanne Collins did right was the protagonist, Katniss. It’s been a long time coming that teen girls have a solid, literary, female protagonist to look up to (in pop culture that is). What I really disliked about the second book of Twilight (yes, I read all four) was how incredibly dependent Bella is on the two guys. She becomes useless when they’re not around and spends almost the entire novel in a state of depression. Yes, Hunger Games still has Katniss torn between two guys, but it’s her strength, not her fragile femininity, that is the attraction. One day it would be sweet to see a teen book that ISN’T about getting the guy/girl (judging by the front covers of every book in the teen section I’m assuming that’s what they’re all about), but for now it’s nice to at least have a character who isn’t head over heels. I actually really like how the whole love triangle thing resolved; it was less cliché than I was expecting.

The thing that unnerved me though (moreso while I was watching the movie than reading the books), was the grotesque irony of it all. It’s a movie about a sick group of people who find entertainment in watching teenagers fight to the death. While I sat there sucking back my overpriced popcorn, thinking about how much I was enjoying the movie, I couldn’t help but reflect on how odd it was that I was finding entertainment in watching teenagers fight to the death. (Games-ception, anyone?). I wish this hadn’t made me feel as guilty as it did.

You could argue that it’s not the same—people aren’t actually dying—but that’s a fairly poor argument. It's about the ideals, not the reality of it.

The strongest argument supporting the movie is in its educational ability. It comes in the form of Katniss’ hairdressers. All of the Oompa-loompa citizens of the Capitol (seriously, I can't be the only one who just saw crowds and crowds of oompa-loompas) are complex; they’re not evil, they’re just unaware. They subscribe to the ideals of the society because it’s what everyone does, simple as that. Katniss slowly begins to realize how completely ignorant they actually are and ultimately pities them. Cinna, played by Lenny Kravitz (side note: when my friend and I were watching the movie she pointed out that all the scenes with Katniss and Cinna seemed oddly sensual. We decided to blame this entirely on the fact that it was Lenny Kravitz. Also, Lenny Kravitz and Lionel Richie are not the same person, I know that now). Anyway, Cinna is a redemptive character because he does his part to fight back against the ideals, despite being in the thick of the Capitol mentality as a designer for the Games.

Ultimately, the series does promote an attitude that defies the sadistic mentality. Most people who have read the books say that the first one is great and it kind of goes downhill from there. From a literary standpoint, that’s probably true, but the second and third book are necessary for not allowing the series be a total bloodbath. It supports fighting out against the brainwashed majority. Comparisons could be made between this lesson and real life issues such as the Holocaust. Going against the predominant sadistic mindset is what made heroes out of Bonhoeffer or Corrie ten Boom. You could also compare it to the less violent issues of today; the issues of conforming to a capitalist, materialist, consumerist mindset. The movie does a really good job of showing the sharp contrast between the rich and the poor.

As you can tell, I would love to go into a classroom and analyze the crap out of this series, but unfortunately I’m not there yet. What’s more unfortunate are the hordes of teenagers who watch this movie (seriously, since when did teenagers become SO obsessive) and enjoy it for the sake of enjoying it. If I had kids I would not let them watch it without having a talk with them afterwards because it’s too easy to take it in as entertainment and leave it at that. I know that this is a lot of effort over a silly teen movie, but it’s movies like this that will begin to define the minds of kids, who then turn into adults—adults who have mindsets that, unbeknownst to them, are strikingly similar to the Capitol. Instead it can be a really great opportunity to point out issues in class, gender, and group mentality. 

But hey, I’m not a father and I don’t have kids who I can force to sit and talk with. Instead I just write blogs.

5 Days: Day 5 - 'Lesson Learned

Well, 5 Days is complete and I’m back at home now. I’m getting that feeling you get after a massive trip where returning home just doesn’t seem right, yet you naturally fall back into your old routine. I slept in. I had a dance party all morning. I ate old pizza and peanut butter & jam sandwiches for lunch and then forgot to eat supper. I procrastinated doing homework. Everything is back to normal.

And that’s ok. I learnt a lot doing 5Days. I don’t know if anything physical needs to change in my life, but I do hope that some of the perspectives I gained permanently stick. After a wonderfully long shower/cleaning routine on Friday night I sat down and wrote out some of my observations from the week. I’m sure I’ll have more in the weeks to come, but here are 20 so far:

1.     First, I have some people I need to thank specifically: Ashley, Brittney, and Kayla for supplying me daily with food and encouragement; Sarah, Lacey, Sara, and Erin for stopping by and allowing me to have an outlet for all my words; and Mel (I don’t know who you are but your words meant a lot), Aimee, and Kerry for their encouragement online. As I mentioned in my previous blog, words of support literally got me through the day.

2.     I didn’t really miss any of my electronics. After I got home I listened to the entire ‘Sigh No More’ album of Mumford and Sons because I had been deprived (see dance party noted above), but other than that I was fine. Oddly, the only time I missed my cellphone was when I couldn’t use it as a defense mechanism. Whenever conversations got awkward or I had nothing to contribute, I couldn’t whip out my cellphone to fake text people. Sad, but true. Future Michael should note that Cellphoneless Michael still survived said awkward situations.

3.     In fact, not having a cellphone was kind of fun. It was like my friends were on a treasure hunt and I was the treasure (This is a quote from my friend, not me.) It was a legitimately exciting surprise whenever I saw one of my friends because I never saw it coming. That being said, I’m not sure this would be as effective if I wasn’t stuck to a certain location every hour of every day, but hey, it was fun for the time.

4.     Men suck. When you have literally thousands of people walking by you each day, you begin to spot the ones who are more likely to give you money. Hint: It wasn’t men. I would say that 8/10 people who were complete jerks to me were guys. Perhaps it’s because I’m a guy—I’ll have to consult with the girl beggars to see if they had better luck—but all I know is that by the last day I basically gave up on asking most guys. Guys, let’s remedy this.

5.     All week we had more than enough food. So much so that Woods Homes came by daily to collect it. People love giving things that have a bit more thought put into it. And, as I mentioned before, free food with no chance of repayment is the best tasting food out there. As a team, our communal eating got to the point that we would share half eaten cookies and sandwiches. You eat till you’re full then you give the rest to someone else. That is definitely something I am going to miss. (Kinda makes me want to reconsider Acts 4:32-35.)

6.     Planning 5 Days for the Homeless during Roll Up the Rim is brilliant. It’s easy to give up something that wasn’t yours to begin with. (Insert Biblical lesson here about how all of what we have isn’t ours to begin with.) At the beginning, I said that if I won the car I would donate it to the cause. Everyone looked at me with genuinely shocked expressions. I took it back. I’ll keep the car, cause I do need a car, but I would pawn the 3D TV and give it all to 5Days. Who the heck needs a 3D TV anyway? Spoiler: I didn’t win.

7.     People are antagonistic purely for the sake of being antagonistic. With 5 Days we had our bases covered.

a.     Homeless people are homeless because of drugs and alcohol. It’s for homeless youth, who are more victims than offenders.

b.     How much of the money is actually going to the kids? 100%.

c.      Isn’t this just a short term solution? Woods Homes works with getting the kids jobs, homes, and life skills.

d.     Aren’t you not addressing the problem? Woods Homes also does family counseling programs to attempt to prevent kids from needing their shelter.

I got all of these questions, which is fair, but when people ran out of

legitimate ones, they just started making them up:

e.     Excuse me sir, do you have any change? No, do you?? Umm, yes, but it’s going to the homeless.

f.      Excuse me sir, do you have any change? Did you even donate?? No, I don’t really care about this cause; I’m just living in the box for kicks.

g.     Excuse me ma’am, do you have any change? You’re not suffering enough. The group last year was suffering more so I’m not going to give to you this year.

h.     Excuse me ma’am, do you have any change? No, because I don’t like how you’re trying to shove your right-wing Christian agenda on the kids.

i.       Excuse me sir, do you have any change?  *Throws penny at my head* Get a job!

j.       Excuse me sir, do you have any change? KONY 2012 is a scam. SERIOUSLY?!?

8.     Little children are awesome. The one day having a kid come up and drop a coin in my can pretty much made my entire day. In the same light, it hurt so much when a kid tried to walk up to me and her mother grabbed her away and held her close as she walked away. This happened to me two times in a row and both times the mothers went well out of their way to avoid me and any eye contact. The innocence and curiosity of a child is such a blessing, and rejection stings that much more when someone wants to give, but someone else is holding them back. 

9.     Words and smiles are huge. For a while I changed my sign to, “All I want is a smile and eye contact!” I want to go back and thank every single person that took two seconds to genuinely interact with me. If I see them in the hallways over the next couple of weeks, I will.

 

10. Ostracized bonds are strong. I connected closer with my team in 5 days than I have with most people in months, purely because a) well, let’s be serious, we were in living in a tiny box together but also b) we could relate to each other’s feelings of rejection.

11. One thing that I will definitely miss is the freedom I had to talk to strangers. A couple of times I just stopped to talk to people, without the intention of asking them for money. Not only was being homeless a great conversation starter, but (most) people weren’t weirded out by me approaching them because they knew I was part of a program. I got to enter rooms and buildings that I never would have normally entered—including the elusive Women’s Center, which I have avoided like the plague my whole University career. I was free to wander and nobody asked questions, and I will miss that.

12. The story of the penny from the widow comes to mind. When I asked profs for money, I couldn’t help but feel slightly turned off by their cheesy smiles as they oh-so-generously handed me 50 cents. Then in the same light, I had students come up and hand me $40 and run off before I could even say thanks. That being said, we did have one prof who donated $500 himself, so I certainly can’t lump them all together.

13. I actually got to know the caretakers, janitors, and bus drivers around school because I saw them on a bi-daily basis. I regret not talking to them sooner.

14. My most missed commodity was not my laptop, not my cellphone, not even my shower, but my electric blanket. Even if I end up giving away everything that I own, I will cling to that thing and never let go.

15. People said to be creative with my signs, so I printed off a bunch of memes and taped them together. If you don't know what memes are you can just go ahead and skip all of the following pictures:

16. I lied. I did miss my iPod, purely for the reason of getting songs out of my head. Our dear coordinator Alisha had an affinity for busting out songs like “Get Low” on a bi-hourly basis. It’s really hard to be polite and humble when this song is running through your head.

17. Windburn is a serious thing. Who knew? I used to think that my eyes always hurt because I was looking at a computer screen for too long. Then, when I went without a computer for some time, they still hurt. Turns out, it’s just windburn from living in Lethbridge. I need to invest in some good goggles. (But actually. If you’re a boarder and have old goggles, let me know.)

18. I’m ashamed that it took me until Thursday to pray about reaching our total. I had been willing to commit myself physically, mentally, psychologically, and emotionally to this cause, but I was scared to commit to it spiritually. Thankfully, a friend put this in perspective for me.

19. We have not yet reached our goal. I say ‘yet’ because technically, the site is still open for donations until the end of this week, because there is still a lot of coordinating that needs to be done. Regardless, this has been a hard thing for me to come to terms with. That being said, I cannot forget that what we did raise was incredible. Five people raised over $10,000 in five days, mostly from the pocket change of university students. Some of the other schools doing it had multiple sponsors and campuses with more than double our population, and we raised more than them. People would often say, “I only have pennies” and I’d tell them I wanted their pennies; we averaged $17 in pennies a day. That doesn’t sound like much, but it stands as a testament of how a normal person can lose four pennies without blinking an eye, yet when you add them together it amounts to something awesome. I’m proud of what we accomplished. 

(This would be an opportune time to note that you—or a friend, or a rich uncle, or your business—can still donate at 5days.ca until Friday! We had a couple of businesses tell us they would throw together a ‘casual day’ fund and donate the proceeds to us. I appreciate the creativity and know that every bit helps.)

20. My final point is to come. I did a lot of creative writing while being homeless and *fingers crossed* hopefully I’ll have the final product soon. Keep me accountable on this.

So there’s a quick rundown of what I learnt. Like I said, this list probably won’t be complete for quite some time, but it’s a start. Also, if you’ll notice I have proudly crossed ‘Participate in 5 Days’ off my life list on the side. Ch-check!