Halloween

Well, it's two days before the day of Haunts, All Hallows Eve, and whatever else it's been called throughout time, known today as Halloween. We haven't carved our pumpkin yet, we don't have any decorations up, I'm not going to the Halloween dance at school tonight, I don't have a costume and for the second year in a row I'm not going trick-or-treating. I'm volunteering at the local nature centure the day of to help with their Halloween program (mostly I help little kids with crafts. I've done it many times before. It's actually kind of fun) and then having a friend over later to watch the Great Pumpkin. Not the all time greatest Halloween, I know. When I was younger, up till a few years ago actually I went out every year. When I was little I'd go trick-or-treating with my mom and the people next door. As I got older I went with friends with no parents and then last year, I quite. Now, I don't go out to movies or parties or dances or anything. It's like the older I get, the more holidays get downgraded for me. But I guess it's part of growing up. Maybe next year I'll find something really fun to do for Halloween. But for this year, it's passing out candy and watching poor Linus spend his 42nd Halloween alone in a pumpkin patch. You've really got to honour his resilience. Happy hauntings!!

Thoughts on the "isms"

Something I often think about is how confusing the human race is. I am reading a book right now, A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson (it's AMAZING!!) and it takes place right before WW2, so the late 1930's. The main caracter is British, but she's working at a school in Austria. The staff and students of this school come from everywhere: England, Germany, Austria, Russia, America, Sweden, Scotland, Czechoslovakia and so many more. They all speak English and German and it really doesn't matter where they come from, because they're all friends. Then, at the beginning of the war the school had to close. The main caracter had a friend in the Austrian village who wrote for the first few years, and then was suddenly called the "enemy" and wasn't allowed to write anymore. But she was just an ordinary girl from a beautiful village, and she was all about peace and love and everything wonderful. It doesn't make any sense. There were caracters who were austrasised or interned because they were Jewish, or because they were German, and so many more reasons. That isn't fair! That's the complicated about war. It's not just this book and this war, it's all of them!! During the revolutionary war in the states, suddenly everyone who stayed loyal to Britain was dubbed the enemy and run out of their homes by their friends and neighbours.

But here's what I want to know. Did they change? If two people were friends before a war, and then a war happened and one of them suddenly decided the other was the "enemy" or whatever and dumps the other one. But did the one who got dumped change in any way? No! They stayed exactly the same, they just happened to be a certain way, and a law or a war suddenly made that bad. Maybe people just go looking for things in each other to hate. Maybe it's in our nature and we can't help it. Only I know it's not. I know that, because I'm not like that. There are some things that we just can't help or change because it's the way we were born. Nobody chooses to be born, or how or where they just are. They don't (WE don't) pick what religion their family practices, or if they are religious at all. We don't pick our skin colour or nationality or language or if we're gay or straight. It's just the way we are and we just have to accept it.

Now me, I'm really lucky, because I was born in Canada in the 90's and raised believing everything I just said. Nobody that I've ever met hasn't wanted to be near me because of what I look like or believe or anything else about me. The past few hundred years have really changed the world. People worked hard so that people of all nationalities, all religions, all skin colours, both genders, gay or otherwise could live together in peace without problems. And still the world isn't perfect! People are still rasict, sexist, homophobic and all the other "isms" that exist. Why? I don't know. But it's stupid. And it all goes both ways. When I read The Secret Life of Bees and To Kill a Mockingbird I learned that in those times, in the southern states, (Alabama and South Carolina) people were excluded and beaten on (physically and emotionally) for having black skin, which I knew, but the racism went both ways and some of the black people were just as hostile toward the white people. I read a story once in Chicken Soup where a boy in the grade 8 class of whoever wrote the story got in a fight with another boy and was suspended and punished for a few weeks and had to miss out on all the special school events. Nobody thought that was fair, because the fight started when the second boy had said something rude and racist against the first one (who was African-American) and the school had a zero tolerance for violence ("missing the irony of the situation" to quote the story) I didn't understand the irony until my mom explained: zero tolerence for violence, but not for racism. And that was in current times.

My school is great. Everyone is included, cared about and welcome no matter what. People get in trouble for being rude or smoking or skipping class but skin colour and religion doesn't play into that. There are programs like Gay/Straight alliance and posters everywhere saying "Homophobia free zone" and other inclusive things like that. And still I hear people saying "that's so gay" or other rude things like that. I guess for some people they can't help it, it's what they've grown up with. For others they're trying to be cool. But for me, I'll never do that. It's partly because I was raised knowing everyone is equal, that we're all the same inside and most just want what's best for their families and themselves. But also, I don't say or write things like that because I can flip the situation and I can imagine how much it would hurt and how I would feel if it was me. Think of what the world would be, how fast wars would end, if everybody started believing that. It's so easy! So why isn't it happening?

I've been thinking these things for years, wars and human equality. I want to do something to help change the world, to stop this more then it already is stopped, but I don't know how effective it would be. If people I see in the hallways of my Homophobia free school can still say rude comments like that, how much more can be done? Now that I think about it, nothing. Now they've got the information and it's just up to them to change. Let's hope, for the good of changing the world, they pick it up soon.

Sorting Garbage

It was a beautiful Saturday today. The perfect kind of day to spend outside in the fresh air, which I did. I spent six hours in the parking lot of my school sorting through other people's garbage. Okay, it's really not as bad as it sounds. We have a really great recycling program at R.S.S., technically we are called a "zero waste" school and we don't have any more garbage cans and absolutely everything can be kept out of the land fill. Truth: there are still illegal garbage cans, but there are also recycle stations, probably around 10 or 15 around the school. At each station there's a paper recycling box, a juice box bin, a food waste bin (for all food, paper cups, paper towels and napkins etc.) and the recycling tower. It's one of those plastic rolly things with 5 drawers and you split soft plastic, hard plastic, foil lined plastic, styrofoam and electronics into their own separate drawer and it all goes to special recycling stations and is all kept out of the landfill. Well, once a month (and this actually started before the in-school recycling) we have a mass recycle depot in the parking lot. We sort all of that and way more and bag it and keep it all out of the landfill. When I started working at the depots last year it was totally unorganized and completely chaotic, but it's really changed and now there's a great method. It's actually kind of theraputic (not that I need therapy or anything) to sort through the disgusting garbage and keep it out of the oceans and landfills. I did that for four hours today, then worked for another 2 (a little short of 2 actually) at the bottle drive for band. It's one of many fundraisers we do. Anyway, that equalled almost SIX HOURS spent at school on Saturday. True the school was actually closed, but the point remains the same. I don't mind though. I love school, and mine is so great, I couldn't imagine going anywhere else. Even though I actually went to two other places for nine years before I got here and thought the same thing about both of them. Maybe I just settle well. Anyway, to wrap it up. Saturday: sorted garbage, watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, blogged, now I'm off to... I don't know. I'll think of something.

A Question for the Day...

I have questions. Not normal every day questions ("Where's my favorite pen?" "What's wrong with the sink?" "How do you do this math problem?" etc.) but actual, deep, life questions. Here's today's question: "What is it about people that we need each other so much?" When we feel sad we put a hand on someone's shoulder or hug or just sit in their presence. When we're happy we want to find the people we care about and share our happiness. When bad things happen most people would rather be with people (friends, family, anyone really) then be alone. People are better than no people. Same thing when bad thing happen, we'd rather be with people then alone. It's an interesting point, and I think I understand why it's like that. It's just the way humans were made. We are built to be caring, loving creatures. We can't survive on our own. True, with the right resources and equipment, physically we can live alone all our lives. But emotionally, we need people, we need that warm feeling deep down inside that you get when you know there's someone in the world that cares about you. That is why we need each other so much. For some they don't mind showing love of life and everything around them, for others it's more important to shove personal feelings deep down and try to lose them down there. But you can't deny the fact that we are built this way like it or not. It's one of those things that we just have to come to tearms with and accept, sooner rather than later. "Live to laughingly love life!"

Wonder Water

There is nothing more precious, beautiful, enchanting and wonderful on the face of this earth than water. It is everywhere, it is everything. We drink it, breath it, bath in it, wash with it, play in it. It falls as rain, fills in waterfalls, oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, freezes into ice, condenses into steam. We absolutely need water, and there is no way around it. Our bodies are made up of mostly water and it is one of the three things that every living creature cannot live without. But, as much as it is a necessity it is also completely fascinating. There is nothing more soothing than watching rugged ocean waves crash across an open beach, pulling the rocks back in it's wake with a beautiful rolling sound. I have seen these rugged waves on beaches, on the Queen Charlotte Islands, and in Cape Breton, as well as Botanical Beach a few hours from where I live. In these places I was staring straight into open ocean, open Pacific, with nothing between me and Japan, and open Atlantic with nothing between me and France. It's an incredible thing, to see, just this wild, crashing, powerful water. It's just water, it runs through your fingers, it gets everything wet, it creates mud where we don't want it, and it's absolutely powerful. I have also seen Niagara Falls, the world's 50th largest waterfall (from the Canadian side which everyone knows is the better of the two) and the enormity of what comes crashing down there every minute, not to mention who's gone over the falls and lived through it is truly something to marvel at. Many people in the world don't share our novelty of instant water from several places around the house. Some have to walk a long way to get to a pump or a well and often times it is dirty or infected and makes them sick. We are so fortunate here to have this instant, clean, wonder water at the turn of a tap. Water: clear, beautiful, delicious, wonderful. Waste it not.

Happy Monday!!!

I called this "Happy Monday" but it really didn't start out that way. I've learned over the past few years that being late first period on Monday morning is really not a good way to start a week. I had to play soccer (something I hate) in gym class and I didn't have my extra shoes, so mine got drenched out there!! I killed a frog after lunch in sewing (not a real one! I'm not an amphibeon murderer!!) I'm sewing a little frog, one that you fill with rice, and I was instructed that I had to sew very slowly and carefully and if my stitches weren't straight it would end up as a roadkill frog. I honestly tried, but even at the slowest speed the machine seemed to be going too fast, and I was constantly going over the lines, and my stitches were all coming out choppy and uneven, going zig-zaggy where it should have been straight and pointy where it should have been round and it was just awful!!! I killed it! I picked out my sewing and I'll try again tomorrow. The teacher wasn't kidding about it being a long, hard process!!!

More bad news later didn't do much to make my day happier. But over the past year I've come to understand that sometimes in life, bad things happen, things you didn't expect. These things are hard, often unfair and they can hurt. But they do happen and the thing to do is to feel sad and sorry for a little bit, but eventually to accept that it happened, and you just have to move on with your life. We just have to say to ourselves "Okay this happened, and it sucked. What am I going to do about it? How am I going to react? What is the best thing to do right now?" Once we can ask ourselves that, and deal in a calm manner, we can handle anything. Take for example, the boat in the above picture. It is the bow of an ancient ship that was sunk on a beach on the Queen Charlotte Islands a few hundred years ago. That was unfair, a lot of people died, and it was hard. But it happened a lot, and people kept sailing and with time they improved safety measures until they got to what we have at present time. And that's what we have to do in life. Just keep moving, and things will generally look up when the sun comes out and it stops raining.

Time

Time is a fascinating thing. It is untamable, unstoppable and always, very much so in existence. We have tried over the centuries to control and understand it, and we have achieved it, to a certain extent. We have split what we call a year into twelve months, and those months have been split into weeks, which have been split into days. Each day in turn, is split into 24 hours, each hour split into 60 minutes and each minute is 60 seconds. We say it is morning when the sun is up, but our clocks say that it is morning around five or six am, regardless or whether or not the sun is out yet. We cannot stop time, we cannot reverse it. No matter how often we want to or try to (not necesarily in real life. Sci-fi, for example) we can't.

People grow. We are born and we die, and we live in between. We make mistakes, we say and do things we regret and we can never get them back again. Once it's out there it's out there for good because we can't go back and undo it. We can't stop time. We are incapable of freezing hours, days, years when we think we need a little extra time before moving on with our lives. Like it or not, it always keeps moving. Morning will always come, things we dread about for ages come, we get through them and we move on. As much as we can't move time backwards, we can't move it forward either. We can't go forward and see where we will end up. For the most part I think that's good. We as humans shouldn't have the power to see into our futurs. We can make our plans, but things beyond our control will always happen. I think it makes us better creatures over all to deal with these things as they come, not to predict them, not to prepare for them, just to on the spot deal with them.

Time as we've set it out, will always move forward at the same speed it always has. Yet, as we get older and busier time can seem to move slower or faster. Often times it's faster. You wake up one morning and realize a whole year's practically passed without you hardly noticing. A lot happens in a year. A lot changes. And it's meant to. Because time is healing. We think thing through we over come our roadblocks and we move along. It's the way it should be. It is the way the world was created to be.

Resiliant leaves

No matter what the season, I always have to marvel at the resiliance of tree leaves. They are, after all one of the symb0ls of the season. They bud in the spring, these tiny, new, green, tender frawns that over the course of the season grow into their own unique shapes. Oak, cedar, maple, birch, they're all different, they're all unique and they're all special.

During the summer they continue to grow, darkening in colour to deep greens, and they toughen up so they are harder to rip and very hard to crumple in your hand. On hot summer afternoons they provide shelter, whether in the back yard, or by a pond or creek or river, and they provide a beautiful, music as the summer wind rustles through them. It is within these dark, leafy canopies that baby birds are born, grow, feed and return to when they have matured enough to take the leap and embark on their first flight.

With the arrival of autumn the leaves begin to lose the strength that has bound them to the tree branches all summer. As they stop the photosynthesis process they stop being green and turn a multitude of bright fall colours; reds, yellows, golds, browns. They give into the prying of nature and go dancing from the tree where they were first created down to the ground, blustering together along sidewalk curbs and covering grass in back yards. All across the world the natural wonder of these fall leaves paints the ground in a thick, warm, protective layer of colour.

Winter is the hard season. The bare, cold trees stretch their empty branches skywards, whipping easily in the bitter winds, dripping water and snow to the ground below, there being, of course, no leaves to stop it. But the old leaves aren't ready to go yet. They stay, many monthes after they've fallen, mashed into the sidewalk curbs, sodden, falling apart, destroyed by rain and wind, by people walking on them, and cars driving over them. But despite all of that, they remain on the earth, staining concrete orange where the rain pulled the colour out of them until spring returns and the new leaves take their place on the trees.

So yes, I see leaves as resilient plant life. But that's what nature does. It creates, and when the time comes, the things it has created end and take on a new form or are replaced by what is next to come. Eggs become baby animals, buds become flowers, sapplings become trees and the leaves fall and return in their own cycle, year after year. Almost as a way of marking seasons in a way humans are not able to do themselves.

The Rainy Season

Fall on the west coast of BC is the beginning of our 'rainy season', a period of time where it rains almost constantly from October to about April when warm spring weather really sets in. True, we do have one of the better Canadian winter climats (we don't, for example, have snow on the ground on Halloween and Mother's Day) but the rain can become really depressing after several months. Waking up at 7:30 in the morning to a still dark sky and a sheet of rain pouring from the sky, which will stay grey through the day until it gets dark at around 4:00 pm. That's not to say it always rains here. We're quite sheltered where we are on Vancouver Island, surrounded by the mountains in Washington and Vancouver and we can actually have some really beautiful weather sometimes. In late September and early October the leaves turn brown and crispy and the first few days when the frost covers the ground is really pretty. It's so cool to look out at the lake out in front of our house and see a sheet of fog hanging over it on cold winter mornings. I don't so much mind the days when it is freezing cold. It's the rain that I really can't stand after too long, and the terrible lack of sunshine. Sometimes in March or April when spring returns it's as if the sun is this forgotten object, lost forever in the oblivion and mysteriously returned. Spring can come quite early here (sometimes there are snowdrops in February!) but it's generally just winter playing with us. This year from January through to May we had a few weeks of warm-ish weather (as warm as you can get for January anyway) and then the cold gross rain returned for a few weeks, then it would be nice and sunny again. It did that for months, as if teasing us before the warm spring weather turned into the gorgeous warm summer (that turned into scorching hot later on) that we just finished enjoying. Really, I have no right to complain about winter weather. We don't have to run jumper cables five blocks from our houses to strat our cars in the morning, and we do get snowdrops in February and crocuses in March and then daffodils and tulips all before the middle of April. And we don't get as much rain as Seattle or Prince Rupert, we get a lot less by a long shot. Everybody can find flaws in the weather where they live. Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too sunny, too dark etc. But the fact is, we have to adapt to the environmental changes that our planet is going through. So what I'm going to try to do this winter, is suffer through the rainy days, and thrive on the odd sunny one. It's a much better way to live don't you think?

Invisible friends

Every kid has imaginary friends, and if they don't they should. I, being an only child, had lots. The first one was intended to replace the dolls I had been dragging around forever. Not replace them exactly, but imaginary friends could go everywhere with me and not take up any space and get themselves dressed in the morning, which I thought would make my parents happy. So, the first 'friend' came along when I was in kindergarten. I was five years old and I named her Y-la. She was a giant (or the same size as I was which really wasn't all that big) letter Y (hense her name) She came everywhere with me for years. She had an adopted sister named Triangle, who was a life sized, orphaned, fuscia coloured triangle. Later, Y-la's parents and brother and sister came into the picture too. The 'Y's' as they came to be known as lived in the blackberry bush across the street from my house.

The next family was the Mice. They were, if you can believe it, real mice (but invisible ones of course!) The main one was called Dot, and she had like twenty siblings and the whole family lived in our wood pile. For that reason my mom was somewhat relieved they weren't real. They had a little car that they drove everywhere we went. They had to go like four times faster than we did so they could keep up because they were so tiny.

I also had invisible friends who were people. There was Sally and Sasparilla and a couple of boys, but I can't remember their names. I remember there was also Uncle Platypus and Grandma Platypus (I have no idea where the platypus part came from) and Zuki the cat who had been found in a zucini patch. I put an imaginary door in the wall of the hallway right beside the bathroom door and up that door was a staircase and going up were about five doors on either side of the stairs which were rooms (kitchen, TV room, bedrooms, bathroom etc.) which is where my invisible family lived. I used to pretend that the water from their bathtub ran down invisible pipes to our bathtub and there were little plugs I had to open to let the imaginary water go down the drain.

Otter was around for a long time too. She and her sister Little Otter were, big surprise, otters. I can't remember where I got the idea for them, but I did a lot with them. When we had fish and chips I 'd have the chips and they'd eat the fish. I don't know why my mom went along with that, but she did.

I had invisible friends for probably six years before I outgrew them for good. I had a really good imagination and had a lot of fun with my "friends." It's cute now to look at little kids who make up these elaborately detailed worlds that surround them and their invisible friends, but really it's an essential part of childhood. That total immersion in make believe fun is a healthy part in becoming a good person. And it also makes cute memories that parents like to bring up at embarrasing moments when you get older ;)

Music: The Universal Language

I don't know how many times and in how many different ways I have heard this, but music is the world's universal language. Every culture in the world has music in some form or another; from classical to religious, sombre to celebratory, music is everywhere. It has helped keep people going when it seems as though all hope is lost. People sing or play music at weddings, births, funerals, during wartime. Whether it be happy or sad, bring smiles or tears it makes us strong and builds a bond that goes beyond language, to a deeper place of togetherness. We may not be able to understand the words of songs, but the notes of the music are unmistakable. The soaring flutes, deep, strong brass, the filling of the reed instruments, and the drums, keeping beat for everyone. Music is everywhere, in all of us. It is the one gift that we can all share, and treasure.

Dreams

I had the strangest dream last night. I can hardly even explain it, it just didn't make any sense at all. That happens to me a lot. Every time (which isn't very often let me tell you) that I can actually remember my dreams they are always the same: Weird, unexplainable and unrealistic. Sometimes I wake up and it takes a second for my brain to register that it wasn't real, it was only a dream. They aren't nightmares, they're just unreal. But when I really think about it there is always some sort of link between the dreams and real life. Like, if I'm really thinking about something, or if I'm nervous or anticipating something I'm more likely to remember my dreams, and whatever's on my mind gets tied into the dream. It's almost as if my unconscious mind is trying to sort out what my conscious mind can't. It's an interesting concept when you think about it. It's as if there's a hidden message all wrapped up inside letting you know something about yourself, whether it's to slow down and think things through, or to do a job you've been putting off or just to enjoy life as it happens and not worry too far into the future. We should all be grateful for that reason that we have dreams. They're more important than we think.

Life

Life is a very complicated thing. We all have our thoughts, and opinions. We all feel things, sometimes the same way about different things, sometimes differently about the same thing. Some of us are able to share our emotions freely and openly, others not so much. I dream more than I live and that will become problematic later on, I'm sure. When I feel something, it shows all over me and the whole world can tell. When something bad happens I almost can't process it as real. It's like there's a part of my brain that can't realistically process serious issues. I've recently discovered laughter is my stress response, followed closely by panic. Fortunately I've rarely had to experience anything really bad, but that's just the thing. We can never tell what life is going to throw at us and when and how. It's as though we've always got to be prepared for something, just in case. Now me, I'm young, still in high school. I've got a long life ahead of me, and I've got big plans with what to do with it. This year has been a real growth year for me, and I've learned to look at the world as glass-half-full instead of half-empty. It's much more relaxing not to be constantly worrying. It's such a simple concept, relax and smell the roses, and it seems to be one of the hardest ones for people to really grasp. Either way, here's today's philosophy: Live today, Worry tomorrow.