Monday, November 26, 2007

Chewed-up by Prof.

Today was the big day, big in every way possible (a certain senior-level) course wise.

My group was presenting its research to our prof and ppl from admin.

Big in scope big in nerves big in marks....and big in dashed hopes.

I worked on the ppt presentation for what must be 14 hrs (with a fancy flash intro etc), and thought it was good. But, in my horror our prof opinionated his distaste for us doing a different take on presenting findings.

So check this, instead of putting up a sentence for findings. We took pics and described the findings as supported by the pics and moved on to recommendations.

Now this must of really irked our prof, because after the presentation he got into how we didn't do what was asked, and where is a page for the findings.

Being the calm cool and collected presenters we were, we responded with a"oh I'm sorry I thought we just talked about the findings for the past 15 min" and he was like "umm well list them now" and we were like "ok"..... jeeze .... its like he zoned out and didn't listen to a word we said.

I suppose today was appropriate, because lately this has been happening a lot. People don't actually listen to what you say and then throw in their 2 cents on what they think and how you didn't address ____, meanwhile you having just finished talking about that very same thing.

I think this is a deeper problem in society. People just don't listen, and nitpick at little details as if they were your main point.

Going with the same example, a girl commented (to the whole class and prof) how she didn't agree with us that the whole campus should be paved over (ps..we did our project on pedestrian movement) for pedestrians.

Now here is the biggie, throughout the whole presentation we emphasised how we only focused on the areas where there was a safety hazard and the land degraded to an extent that warranted a sidewalk. We recommended that out of the 100% area of the campus about .1% extra be paved over for pedestrians, to facilitate ease of movement, safety, and prevent erosion of the landscape due to cow paths.

Somehow this girl zoned-out for the whole 20 min and thought she was smarter than the rest of us. But since we addressed her concern with, "we did not recommend that, if you look at the map provided we ask that these specific areas be addressed" she didn't concede. She then went on how we were wrong about a pic, meanwhile what she was talking about was not what we actually said.

In general after a serious lack of sleep, and an even bigger issue with my prof I am ready to go kick some ass.

Its in times like this that I wish I belonged to a boxing gym, where I could go and punch out some of my pent up frustrations.

I do wish all beings peace and compassion and freedom,
but sometimes its hard to appreciate a persons ego when its rubbing you right in the face.

Those are my two cents.

Hey...maybe more ppl should have blogs so they blow off their crazy ideas online, while leaving class presentations for more civilized flame wars.

peace
-Anna (r)

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Style...particular to me!

With the advent of cold nights, and colder mornings I've again begun to layer my way through winter. First you start with undergarments (I like a bra and panties), then move on to a thin tight undershirt, semi-thin fleece sweater, thin summer jacket, and if you so choose to: go the route of pants :)

For style's sake you must top off with a yak Peru hat, old granny gloves, large semi blanket-like scarf, and big boots that Bigfoot could be proud of.

The above is my actual winter wear! Feel free to copy anything you feel would look killer on the fashion runway's of Paris.


peace
-Anna (r)

Friday, November 23, 2007

thoughts on learning to live

Over the past few day's my hopes of spending my life in some way or with someone have been dashed. In a positive manner this time in my life has made me realize a few things about how I need to live my life.


Love: true love is boundless, and without association. When what we think is love hurts us, it is just a shadow of the real experience that awaits when we allow the cloak of our ego to vanish.

I have not yet fully let go of my cloak, and so I continue to suffer. I (as most of us) create images of the people in my life (more specifically love interests) that should be adhered to by those some people, who never manage to achieve my expectations.

I continue to hope for certain forms of affection, while neglecting to remember that life is impermanent and my expectations are only my own, and no one else's to fulfil.

I continue to work on living love and not just experiencing its shadow.


Trust: I only trust in the impermanence of life, and the benefit of knowing oneself.

I tend to suffer when I trust in someones love lasting forever, when I know it is unfair to do so and unrealistic.

I trust in self-realization as the true form of self love, and in turn enlightenment.

---
I write the above, because I've come to realize how easy it is to think that we are succeeding in living the spiritual life we set-out to embody. I say this because I was pretty sure, over the last few months, that I was getting closer to letting go of my ego (on par with my path to enlightenment).

Thankfully I was jolted awake by a deeply significant and potentially painful relationship I've been struggling to comprehend. It's definitely been a blessing to watch myself react to many different scenarios, and in turn internalize the meaning of compassion and love without judgement.

I'm still learning, but I think the path I'm stumbling on is definitely interesting enough to engage in wholly.

peace,
-Anna (r)

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Pictures..

There is a famous saying: a picture equals a thousand words, or something along those lines.

I was hoping to take a few very very important pictures for a group project, so I tried on the weekend but my Canon digi cam didn't want to cooperate. Silly me thought it was just the batteries, so I put it off until today to try with new ones.

Little surprise really when the camera didn't work! So how am I to explain this to my group.... I can't, since I might of said that I'll take care of everything.... NOW I need to buy a new digi cam before 10 am tomorrow!

Moral of the story is: don't tell ppl you did something, in the hopes you will catch-up. Even more so when you think you can get away with it, because a building is a building at any day of the week. Just when you think you got away with it, and will take pic's in the morning... there comes the first blizzard of the year (and now the building is covered in snow) and your shitty lie is up in the sky.

So a white lie is still a lie, and mine has blown-up in my face.

Something to take away I suppose, as well as working on my procrastination.

peace
-Anna (r)

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Fox News Suck!

Ok, the title might be a bit of an angry reaction but I think I'm entitled to one.

Flipping through the channels on TV, I stumbled upon my much disliked news network: Fox. I paused because there was a special on Thanksgiving and it's 'myth'. This caught my eye because I've always been interested in how the holiday in the US is represented as innocent and beautiful and a time to share. Meanwhile what was mostly shared by the Europeans with the Native American inhabitants was small-pox and scurvy.

I know that is a much more pragmatic view than most people have, so I always leave room for some positivity. The Native Americans did help Europeans survive the harsh winters by sharing their bounty and teaching hunting techniques. That type of hospitality should be celebrated, but not at the cost of silencing a history of raping and pillaging the Native American civilization.

Anyway, there was a school in the US somewhere that decided to educate their students as to the real circumstances of the give and take of European colonizers and the Native community. Fox of course was all up in arms, because according to them Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate all that was/is good about America.

At some point during the newscast, the anchors tried to illustrate what a weird school this is by pointing out that the school board sponsored a class to go to a "while privilege' conferences in Colorado. The two white guys joked about this real issue in society, and dismissed it as a crazy idea.

That's right, the white anchors on Fox news couldn't wrap their little brains around the fact that our society is still deeply racialized, and indeed there are class lines that infiltrate deep into the American dream. That it is harder for people of colour, and that there have been people deeply wronged by the growth of the American dream.

So in short, to those who celebrate Thanksgiving....go ahead celebrate it, but realize that there must be some type of awareness to the genocide that occurred. Upwards of 30 million Native Americans died due to colonization!

Perhaps what we should give thanks to is that we now have the ability to educate ourselves as to the history of the people that were lost in the silences of history, and the many things each of those peoples gave to our life now.

peace,
-Anna (r).

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

An Ode to my Sister

If you happen to read this,

I love you because you are you,
not because our mom was your incubator.

I love you no matter how many times you tore at my hair when we were kids,
or how often you get pissed at me for bringing the 'real' Anna to the table.

I will miss you, because Canmore is really far from where I'm at.
I will keep you close to my hear, because distance makes little difference to the love that we share.

Keepin' it real for the both of us,
your younger in age, older in wisdom sister :)

Airport Musings

As I drove my sister to the airport, I thought about all the good times we had when little.

Namely the hair pulling, gut kicking, candy stealing love we shared back in those youngin' days. Its hard to believe that we are both in our twenties and share an awesome connection. Harder still when I think that my sister and I are totally different people.

I like to chill, take a back seat and jump from place to place so as to taste the grass on as many lawns as possible. While my sister is slow and steady, with a definite flare for disorganization and leaving things to the last minute. Now granted I do this too, I calculate the pleasure I could get by putting something off and doing fun stuff instead, usually I come-up with an alternative to whatever work I have pencilled in.

My sister though is much worse, and to top it off the little munchkin' (only in size, as I am the younger one) gets pissed off at anyone who tells her this. Imagine trying to take a piece of tuna from a wild cat, that approaches her reaction.

This whole difference got me thinking about family, and much to my surprise I have come to conclude that people love family because they can't change it. It's kind of like pets, we love them because they cant leave. That is sort of the same deal with family, we presume that they wont leave because at some point you mom was their incubator.

call me crazy, but I just might be on to something that has been talked to death about...

peace
Anna (r)

ps. I've been feeding my growing army of wild cats with salmon and chicken (from my mom's work). I will try and see if I can figure out how to fix my digi-cam and get some pics.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Newspaper Clippings

As I was flipping through the newspaper today, perhaps more like flipping through the 1st section. I stumbled on a small blurp regarding whaling.

To be exact, Japan has decided to begin its "research" on humpback whales again, and is sending out "research" vessels, to start collecting (killing) humpbacks. This decision comes after years of a moratorium,set in place when the humpbacks were almost hunted to extinction, about 50 years ago. Now that their numbers have increases a bit, its back to humpback soup.

I've been giving whaling a lot of thought, and the more I think about it the more angry and sad I get at the cruelty associated with this industry.

Years ago as a freshman in high school I decided to stop eating meat and seafood, in protest of the destructive and cruel practices employed by both the meat and seafood industry.

It may soon be that just as the Dodo sang its last song, so too may the humpback whale. I am overcome by sadness at the carelessness humans show when dealing with the natural world.

As a poignant reminder though, sharks are also being hunted to extinction...as is the majority of the ocean life that modern commerce has set a price on.

What a sad world we will have with no sharks, whales, turtles, and many many many many others.

peace be to all beings,
-Anna (r)

Sunday, November 18, 2007

On a Sunday just like this..

Have you ever thought...jeez "what am I doing with this life"?

Today that thought has been circling its way through my brain...enough to start a new beginning: A Blog.

I can't think of any better way (at the moment) to hash-out all my nasty habits, remain semi-cloaked in anonymity, and talk about the stuff that makes my world tap dance.

Stay tuned, and I promise that this blog will be a look into a girl's mind: that resembles a home-made salad with compote, and tasty bits of baked apple pie.

peace and love, and all that stuff...