Jumping through hoops to prove my worth to the worthless

It's been quite awhile since I've written a blog entry, but I totally have a reason, I swear!  Today was my last day of classes for this term, which naturally means I've spent the past two days frantically pulling together a term paper for my English class.  While you sit there shaking your head, tsk-tsk-ing (totally a word; I'm going to use it in my next term paper) at me for putting it off until the last minute, again, I have a reason.  The world was busy pulling an elaborate April Fools Day joke on me: all of a sudden the calendar said it was April, but I knew that couldn't be true because then I'd only have 4 days to do my paper, and I totally have tons of time to do it..... Oh..... Fuck.

I wish it was only 2:15 when I got to bed.

Anyway, I got it done (only had to stay up until 4:15), and I'm officially done my schoolwork for the term.  Sure, there are exams over the next couple weeks, but those are far less stressful than having a deadline rapidly bear down on you.  I really need to refocus on writing on here frequently, so that's how I'm going to spend a large chunk of my break.  You know, once I've actually gotten some sleep.  I've been dragging myself into DAVIDsTEA to get "something really caffeinated please" over the past couple days.  This paper's deadline marks roughly the 1 year anniversary of when I stopped drinking coffee; all my caffeine comes from the copious amounts of tea I drink now.

This is my way of life now.

Outside of watching the Canucks games, I haven't done anything objectively or subjectively fun in the past several days because of schoolwork, so now that I'm free I'm going to treat myself.  A coworker of mine performs slam poetry, so I'm going to go see a slam event tonight (Alberto, if I fall asleep while you're performing, it's because of the lack of sleep last night, not because you suck.  Unless of course you do in fact put me to sleep, in which case I claim no responsibility.).  And then on Saturday my friends are going to be performing at the Pit in UBC.  If you're reading this, you should come; it's free!  Of course, at least 95% of the people reading this will already be going anyway, so it's not as if I really needed to say that...  But Blogger informs me that I have readership in Russia and Germany, so I will direct this to them:

Come see Man Chat! on Saturday.  The concert is free, so it'll be quite affordable for you to travel here, stay for Easter if you'd like; I'll have an egg hunt with you.

Man Chat! just released a single and are going to be releasing an EP in the summer.  Yes, I'm shamelessly plugging them, but when you've known 80% of the band since you were 5 (the fifth guy isn't so bad either), then they get shamelessly plugged.  It helps when the music is actually good.  This entry's title is taken from a lyric from the single, but depending on your level of cynicism toward writing papers for post-secondary, it's oddly fitting for an end of term post too...

That's all for now.

More shameless plugs!

School Skills 101: The Study Sheet

Hey, you there.  Are you currently going to school (not like literally travelling there, but you know, enrolled)?  I bet you get pretty stressed out during exam time, am I right?  Well this is your lucky day, because I'm pretty much a knowledge guru.

A guru is one who has great wisdom in a certain field and helps impart it to others.  Also, this is a shitty movie.  Boom!  Two facts for the price of one.  You've been guru'd!

Depending on your instructor and what course you're studying for, you may be allowed to bring a cheat sheet with you to your exam.  You may be tempted to do what the rest of your classmates do, and fill a sheet of paper with reference dates, equations, and topic ideas with writing so small that a snail would need a magnifying glass to decipher, but I implore you, do not do this.  Everyone is doing this, likely with almost identical information; if you want to rise above your classmates, you'll need to have something different.  Lucky for you, I've been guruing my ass off to prepare for you, the perfect study cheat sheet.  You're welcome in advance.

Guru Tip #1:  Know Your Topic

For those of you who are writing an answer-based exam (multiple choice, short answer, that sort of thing), I'm going to let you in on the most sure-fire way to prepare a study sheet:  Get the answer key.

Seriously, nothing can go wrong with this.  It's foolproof.

You may think this is cheating, and from a strictly technical standpoint, it kinda is, but it's all in the approach.  Don't just up and ask your teacher for an answer key, you need to be subtler.  If you keep it on the down-low, it's all good.

Enlist the aid of an accomplice to distract your teacher with a question about the material while you sneak into their office to search for the key.  Feel free to make copies of anything that seems like it has the slightest chance of being pertinent, after all anything written down on paper is meant to be read and shared with the general public.

Alternately, if you are in dire need of an answer key, offer your teacher sexual favours in exchange for the answers.  A good rule of thumb is that the depravity of said actions on a scale from 1-100 should be inversely proportional to your mark in the class.

**If you have succeeded in obtaining an answer key, don't bother reading on, you're set. If you obtained the key without your teacher's knowledge, remember to purposefully answer a few questions incorrectly so as to not draw suspicion.  If sexual favours were needed, proceed to the nearest bar to drink away the memory of what you did, you sick, sick pervert.

Guru Tip #2:  It's not always about information

You'll be tempted to cram in some "useful" factoids like "the length of a right triangle's hypotenuse is equal to the root of the sum of it's legs' squares" or a quick overview of which homophone you're essay needs (see what I did their?) or basic facts like "Teddy Roosevelt was a badass", but don't waste your valuable space.  Actually, keep the Roosevelt one in there, even though it's not something you might be prone to forget because, seriously, it's not even debatable how much ass that man kicked.

The Dream Team

Take it from your guru, positive reinforcement is the way to go.  Use the space that those boring facts would have occupied to give your confidence a boost mid-exam.  That way, when you draw a blank on "Who was in charge of Operation Cobra, a significant American victory for the Allies, during WWII?" you can turn to your cheat sheet to find several helpful sentences, including, but not limited to:

• You can do this.
• You're awesome.
• Think hard, you know this one.
• Teddy Roosevelt is watching over you.

With this positive reinforcement in mind, you can now turn back to your exam and confidently write the correct answer: "Theodore Roosevelt, in spirit".

It's a little known fact that "Teddy Roosevelt" is accepted as a correct answer to every exam question.

Guru Tip #3:  Essay Help

Chances are you're not getting through a semester without having to write an essay exam.  If you feel that you aren't a strong writer, these can be pretty intimidating.  If the essay is on a novel, the best way to prepare is to read the book twice, talking it over with a classmate (preferably one who is as smart as, or ideally, smarter than you), perhaps seeking out some discussion questions for practice.  But let's be realistic: you're a college student, you don't have time for all this reading nonsense; your schedule is busy enough with all those frat parties and wacky hijinks.

See how impressed those two girls are?  You don't achieve that through no book-learnin'.

Fear not, guru to the rescue!  Jot the following go-to topics on your cheat sheet, find the quickest way to relate your novel to them, and you're golden.

• The Holocaust
• Famous psychology experiments (Milgram, Asch, Zimbardo are your bread and butter here.)
• *If you live in Vancouver, you can also then relate said psychological studies to the Stanley Cup riot; be topical, and your professors will eat it right up.
• The theme of love
• The Holocaust (seriously, 65% of university novels, and 100% of high school novels can be thematically linked to the Holocaust.  Guru'd!)

You now have all the tips you'll need to craft a masterpiece of a study sheet for your exam.  All you need to do now is to write it out, and you'll be getting an A shortly (and there's only a slim chance you had to trade sex for that A, good job!).


If you're the kind of person who reads an article about making a study guide right through to the end however, you're likely also the kind of person who will procrastinate on actually making one, and wake up 25 minutes before the exam begins in a panic over your procrastination.  As your guru, I had the foresight to deal with this problem.  I've prepared a template study sheet for you, just print it off and head to your test.

You may as well just hand this in as your exam, it'll still get an A.

Reading break is anything but

Happy days are here again!  DAVIDsTEA's location on fourth ave is open again!  Yes, this is actually very exciting news for me, as their tea is my personal indulgence and it was rather difficult to justify going from my house to Oakride mall just for tea.  I'm not saying it was impossible, because I made that trip at least 5 times over the past month, but still, you know, more of a hassle than walking a block.

The 'A' is Oakridge; the green dot is my house and the blue dot is where DAVIDsTEA is...

It reopened the weekend that my reading break ended, and while I was there getting tea and saying hello to several familiar faces, I realized just how antisocial I had been over my reading break.  The first couple days went exactly as planned: do my readings for linguistics, write blog posts, pamper self with extra sleep.  Then all of a sudden I realized that excluding when I had to be at work, during the nine days I had off (both weekends included) there were 4 days where the only time I left the house was to go to the gym.

Somewhere during that week, my mindset went full-hermit mode.  I pretty much stopped doing whatever other homework I had planned on doing, stopped socializing, stopped, well, pretty much everything.  I was so anti-social that I couldn't even sit down and write a blog post, and that's not even something that's technically social.

Not only that, but the week off has thrown my whole schedule out of whack.  My sleeping pattern's off, and my motivation to do my homework right when I get back from school needs to be built back up.  Ugh...

Anyhow, this isn't really a proper blog entry, it's more of me acknowledging my hermit-ness in writing so that I can motivate myself to return to my pre-reading week self.  I'm sure that going to school with a nice hot cup of Nepal Black Tea tomorrow will only help.  Also, tomorrow I will post an entry that, ecluded  couple photos, has been finished for nearly a week.  See, I was so unmotivated that I couldn't even hit the 'Publish' button all week...  I will leave you with a photo of Cee Lo Green and his cat:

If you read all the way through this rambling, you deserve to see this picture.

Journal Entry #3

Last week's journal entry went a bit off topic from the class discussions, but really, I don't want to write about Milgram's experiment for the dozenth time.  The article we read tangentially mentioned Adolf Eichmann, and, you know what, if you bother reading the journal, it explains it:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                I found it difficult to get excited about writing on Milgram or Zimbardo; the topics aren’t exactly new to me.  That’s not to say that I don’t think they’re important to talk about, I just couldn’t muster the ability to write on these from an angle that was new to me.

                Reading through Milgram’s article though, one line jumped out at me: “You can call yourself Eichmann”.  What a terrible thing for a spouse to say to his or her partner; it sounds like an outright condemnation.  Not only that, but I can’t imagine that anyone would be remotely pleased about this comparison.  What I mean by this is that for every person to commit terrible dictatorial acts (Hitler, Bin Laden, George W. Bush etc.), there is a fringe minority that secretly (or in some cases, publicly) wishes to draw comparisons between themselves and their perverse deity.  But I can’t fathom that any Anti-Semites would want to embody Eichmann.  He was too bureaucratic in his evil; hiding behind the “I was only following orders” bullshit that allows ‘The Banality of Evil’ – as writer Hannah Arendt describes it – to exist.  When I think about Eichmann, the only question I can ask is “Why?”  Following orders is an insufficient response, and it leaves me wondering “why?”  This is the most intriguing, important, and ultimately frustrating question in tragic situations.

                I’m no expert on Eichmann, and I won’t pretend to be for the purpose of this paper.  Rather, I’m going to examine another incident that leaves me asking “Why?” on a daily basis.

                I enjoy watching professional wrestling.  I don’t tell many people this; not because I find it something to be ashamed of, but because the moment one is told this, one invariably passes some sort of judgement.  As I said, I don’t feel the need to defend this pleasure; certainly no more so than someone who watches Survivor needs to defend that.  I mention that I enjoy watching pro wrestling only because it explains why I was watching it on June 25^th, 2007, and why I was impacted by the news I learned that day.

                When I turned the TV on to watch wrestling on June 25^th, the arena was empty and the owner of the company was in the middle of the ring.  This was striking for several reasons which I won’t outline here, but it broke established storyline.  What was announced next genuinely tore my heart apart: “Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their son Daniel have been found dead in their home.  It appears that they were murdered last night.”

                My horror fueled interest as I sought out all the details.  A few days later, it was determined that Chris had murdered his wife and son, before killing himself.  Yes, Benoit, a man whom I admired for his wrestling abilities and for whom I had cried tears of grief just days before, had smothered his 7 year old son; had literally felt his son’s life leave his body, leaving me asking only “Why?”

                The common consensus now, years later, is that Benoit had sustained severe brain damage over the course of a career that saw him take regular bumps to the skull.  An analysis of his brain showed levels of dementia congruent with an 80 year old Alzheimer’s victim.  Benoit was 40 years old at the time.  Prior to this explanation, it was believed that he was suffering roid-rage, leading to the tragedy.  For no extended period of time was the notion that Chris was psychotic or intrinsically evil sustained.  Make no mistake, there is no debate as to whether he committed an evil act – he killed his family for Christ’s sake! - , but no one has tried to explain away his actions by labelling him evil.  To hear his peers talk about their memories of Chris, to listen to the way in which they cherish his memory (except the last one) and the difficulty they have comprehending his actions, it becomes clear that the act of labelling someone evil is merely an act of avoidance.  Like Eichmann, like the Abu Grahib situation, like Benoit, tagging a person as evil is just our way of ignoring the most difficult question: Why?

                Even the fact that Chris had severe brain damage doesn’t touch on the Why.  It makes a stab at the question “How could he have justified this?”, but does little to address why.  Seeing as Chris killed himself too before anyone discovered the bodies, the question cannot ever be answered.  What could have compelled a man who so many people loved like a brother, to murder his wife and son?  It’s such a troubling issue because it cannot be known.  There is a perverse, somewhat cynical conclusion as to the question of why, that I think can be applied to situations like Eichmann’s as well:  There is no answer to the question “why?” which means that it isn’t outside the realm of possibility to occur again. 

                June 25^th, 2007 was the day the seeds of cynicism were planted in my head.  But although this anecdote seems bleak, know that those seeds remain just that.  All around us are indications that these instances –Benoit and Eichmann – are the exceptions, not the rule.  Look at the disgust that these acts were met with.  And then, ask of that disgust “Why?”  I think you’ll find an incredibly tangible answer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As always, if you leave feedback, I'll let you pick three topics which I will figure out a way to interconnect into a (hopefully) coherent post.  Enjoy the Superbowl, if that's your thing.  If it isn't enjoy drinking and snacking while pretending to watch football.

Save me from the Writing Center: Journal Project

Well I've been meaning to write an update for the past few days, and it's the damnedest thing, but schoolwork keeps you rather busy.  Who woulda thunk, eh?  Really though, I was writing a journal entry for my English class earlier tonight, lamenting the fact that I would have no time to pay my blog any attention, since I would have to start reading my Canadian Police Work textbook reading right after the journal was complete.

I should explain the journal project.  In my English class (English 2233 at Langara if you're interested), we have a whole bunch of readings to do, which are then discussed in class.  Each week, we are then to write a first draft essay (can be any sort of essay; argumentative, formal, literary etc.) about something that ties in an aspect from that week's readings and/or discussions.  My instructor then wants us to at some point go to the Writing Center to go over the journal entries, make revisions, and at the end of March submit all the entries (drafts along with revised copies).

Here's the thing though: the Writing Center is intimidating.  Don't ask me why I think that, I don't have a good answer.  I mean, the majority of the people who work there are students themselves - I even know several of them, so they're not even strangers - and I do consider myself to be quite capable of doing good writing.  So from a logical standpoint, there's absolutely no reason for me to harbour any aversion to going there, yet I imagine it would be something like this:

That's the entrance to Hell in case that wasn't clear.  The girl is probably a peer tutor who works in the Writing Center.  Now do you see why I don't want to go there?

 Anyways, while writing, I had a flash of brilliance.  Okay, maybe brilliance is a little too strong of a word; genius will suffice (On a side note, does anyone know which of those two words implies more intelligence in this context?  I feel as if there's a terrible irony if I got them mixed up...).  I can put the journal entries up here!  After all, that way I'm updating my blog, and I did say I would put actual writing up here to counteract the hoards of rambling words I pass off as proper blog entries.  And you guys can feel free to give feedback, advice, or words of derision, depending on how good/mediocre/bad each entry is.  Please do so!  Save me from the scary people of the Writing Center!!!

The first journal entry is below.  If you should need, here are links to Genesis I and to the... Hmmm, can't find a link to the Nootka creation myth I reference.  I'll give a quick overview:  Raven eats some berries that give him (her?) diarrhea, and he (she?) effectively creates the Earth with the ensuing.... Use your imagination.

Wow, that was a very brief overview that really doesn't paint the Nootka belief system in a very positive light.  For that I apologize to my Nootka readers (Of which I assume I have many).  ANYWAY, getting sidetracked again, here we go:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

          What motivates mankind’s fascination with creation myths?  Is it an innate curiosity within us that compels us to search for an answer to the question “Where do we come from?” just as adopted children are expected to be at least somewhat curious about who their parents are?  So it would seem, as nearly every culture has its own take on the creation of mankind. 

                The most influential creation myth in Western culture is that of the Christian faith, Genesis, in which God creates the Earth and all that is in it.  Man is created “in [God’s] image” with the intention that the Earth is ours to rule.  The Nootka creation myth is much different in its relative simplicity and its lack of apparent hierarchy.  What I mean by this is that Raven populates the Earth entirely by accident, and mankind is simply a by-product of that accident.  This difference highlights a big difference between the two cultures’ mentalities; the Christian faith chooses to believe that man is superior to the other races on Earth, whereas the Nootka tribe is of the belief that we (that is to say, mankind and the other animals of Earth) are all equals, and should treat other animals with greater respect.

                The questions posed at the beginning of this essay were not meant to be rhetorical so as to merely introduce the topic of creation myths; I really am asking.  I’m asking because I don’t find creation myths to have any great importance.  My problem with Genesis is that it’s too perfect; that is to say, deciding that God one day chose to bring us all into existence isn’t really an answer to the questions of where we came from at all.  Rather, it explains it away by simply decreeing that “God saw that it was good”.  Further, it implies that mankind should not be held responsible for any acts of cruelty to other animals, since the Earth is ours to do with as we please.  By this pattern of thought, our disrupting natural habitats so as to landscape them and build over is entirely within our rights. 

                On the other side of this particular discussion, the Nootka myth ties in closer with what I am willing to believe.  Note the presence of the word ‘willing’ there; it will be of importance soon.  The Nootka creation story, to me, illustrates an example of the First Cause Theory (FCT).  To give a brief explanation, FCT surmises that the universe could not have come into existence without the actions – intentional or not – of some being.  In the Nootka case, that being is Raven.  An important aspect of FCT though, is that this being, who we shall refer to henceforth as a god, may not have the ability to have any further impact on the universe.  I will freely admit that my knowledge of the Nootka belief system is limited at best, but to my knowledge, Raven has a resume that encompasses more than “I created the Earth”, which to be fair, is quite outstanding already.  It is here that I and the Nootka people arrive at an impasse. 

                I am absolutely willing to believe that a god created the universe.  I see no reason not to; logic dictates that something must have started the universe in motion and by the same logic, that something could not have previously been a part of the universe, seeing as it did not yet exist.  Therefore we can conclude that something is or was capable of existing outside of our universe.  I dub that something a god.  But here’s the thing: the universe has now been set in motion by a god, and the universe’s rules (physics for example) must be observed.  This means that the god cannot have any subsequent effect on how the universe unfolds.  I am willing to believe that.  But does that belief hold any meaning?  The answer is no.  I have no interest in giving special attention to a god that had only tangential effect on the universe billions of years ago, just as I have no interest in giving special interest to the notion of a God, since His actions would sometimes not agree with the rules of logic that I believe in. 

                I suppose I can see the place of creation myths: they’re stories.  They’re akin to the back stories that some adopted people fabricate about their genetic parents being incredibly wealthy people, hoping that their children find their way back to them (does this really happen, or just on bad television programs?); not necessarily harmful, but also not based in fact.  I on the other hand, choose to fully embrace my adopted family, the human race of the 21^st century, and to be thankful that they’re happy to have me.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Give it a read, leave feedback.  Please.  Save me from the Writing Center and it's scary inhabitants.  Don't make me go see the people I know there; they're scary enough as it is.  If you do, I'll incorporate a picture of your choice (or sentence; your pick) into my next post.  That applies for each journal entry.  There we go, now you have actual reason to give me free editing aid.  Aren't I awesome?  Yes, the answer is yes.