Because Eventually I Have To Die, Maybe
Perspective Putting
Have Music, Will Travel
Oct 5th
So I took a break from cleaning, studying, writing and all that good stuff this afternoon and used it to clean up my music collection. Since part of the cleaning process let me properly set up my giantess of a laptop that holds my music collection, I’ve also been able to listen to it for a few solid hours. Between the downloads, moving, deleting, and – sure enough – grooving, I got to thinking about how important music was to my travels this summer. It kept me company during lonely nights in Guelph, drowned out chatting people on the overnight bus to New York, and distracted me on long flights across the continent. My Ipod only holds 2 GB, but it provides me with hours of entertainment on the road and gives me some solace when I’m missing certain people’s company.
Here are my fave songs for certain travel situations!
Needing Sand and Sun: Madera – Hey Ocean!
Packing: In Love With a Bad Idea – Matthew Good
Pre-Flight Jitters: Time Bomb – Beck
First Leg: The Distance – Cake
Roadtrips: Running Down a Dream – Tom Petty
Overnight Travel: Turn Up the Stars – Hey Ocean!
At the Hostel: What I Got – Sublime
No Itinerary: Ruby Soho – Rancid
Traveling Alone: Two Hoboes- DJ Champion
Train Travel: On A Train – Waking Eyes
Lost and Confused: Sing Me Spanish Techno – The New Pornographers
Homesickness: I Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
Destination No Where: To Here Knows When – My Bloody Valentine
The Ride Home: Jimmy – Tool
Back At Home Blues: Everyday is Exactly The Same – Nine Inch Nails
Amtrak Vs. Via Rail
Aug 20th
I’ll give you the winner straight up: Via Rail.
No this is not some bout of patriotism and hatred for the United States. Amtrak just sucks so hard in comparison to Via Rail it kind of hurts. And no it’s not even that they are in direct competition with each other, seeing as how they operate in different countries. I suppose it’s just a matter of knowing what to expect when you use either of this North American rail travel providers especially if you are crossing the border on them.
I was quite excited to travel by train, since it has been dubbed the more humane way to travel. Oh, and it’s not 37,000 feet in the air. On my first experience with VIA Rail, going the 20 minutes between Toronto and Oakville, I was incredibly impressed. Incredibly helpful staff, clean at the station and on board, spacious, and polite customers! I left actually looking forward to the 12 hour haul I would be taking in four days between New York City and Oakville. This longing for rail travel was reinforced by my not-so-pleasant over night drive to New York on Greyhound.
On the Monday we were leaving New York (sad face goes here) we got to Penn Station at around 6:15 to ensure we would be on time for our 7:20 departure on Amtrak. We were told at the counter that they would not know or announce the boarding platform until 10 minutes before boarding. Lies! Lies! Lies! We went straight over to the boarding platform as it was announced and found at least 200 people stretched out in front of us. I wonder how they found out the boarding platform before everyone else? We eventually made it to the train, and found ourselves looking at a full car. We somehow found two seats somewhat near each other, but both had to sit with strangers (I booked my tickets together for what exactly?). I guess we had it better than many of the people crammed into the Amtrak car, as about 25 people didn’t have seats. Oh and the door to the next car wouldn’t open. Awesome. The train left the station, and people began to get a bit frantic thinking they’d have to sit in the aisles, until the rudest, angriest man I have ever encountered in a customer-oriented position came hollering in, yelling to open the door and get out of the car and go into the next one. A few men spoke up that they gladly would if they could seeing as how they’d paid to sit down and had been standing on a rocking train for almost 30 minutes. The angry train employee continued to act like a complete ass, pushing his way to the door where he found that is was indeed stuck because it seemed to be…oh let’s see…locked? Yeah, awesome. People began moving into the next car, and some people began getting up in order to follow their families into the next car, but the rude man made sure to inform them that they WERE NOT TO SWITCH CARS. Yeah, children and parents in separate cars. Awesome deal Amtrak. You kick ass.
While we did eventually get a new and much better train attendant, we began finding that every hour or so we were being delayed for rail construction. I should say that Amtrak did call me a few days prior to leaving to tell me that my train would be arriving in Oakville 6 minutes late. I can’t fathom why they bothered calling me over 6 minutes in the first place, especially considering we arrived almost 3 hours late when all was said and done. In all, we spent almost 12 hours on Amtrak, and after about the 3rd hour the washrooms were essentially unusable and beyond anything sanitary (dear men: for the love of lordisa SIT THE FUCK DOWN when peeing on trains. They rock and sway and you do not have skills to compete with the
train and pee in a straight line.) The food selection was alright, but going to the food car meant walking by mostly empty cars where we could not go sit and spread out a little.
At the Canadian border, after quite a bit of waiting for customs to finish whatever it was they were doing (scheduled time for customs = 10 minutes. Actually time: 1 hour and 10 minutes). VIA took over the car at this point, and you could feel the difference. We were allowed to move. The employees were nice and asked how we were, if we needed anything (the last 12 hours of my life back please?). One thing that was absolutely impossible not to notice was that almost all of the VIA Rail car on-board staff are middle aged, attractive gay men who love to help people. All three of my train rides with VIA featured several of these attendants. Even though we were frazzled and at the end of our wits from the long, long ride on Amtrak, you could feel the atmosphere settle when VIA took over.
The next morning I boarded my final train of the trip, en route to Kingston, Ontario. I sat back in the incredibly cushioned VIA Rail chair and allowed the gay-40-something on-board agent ask me at every stop if I needed anything. I looked out at Lake Ontario lapping just feet from the train and enjoyed the silence on the train. I thought of the day prior, packed onto a stuffed, dirty car, with people yelling and angry agents. I wondered how I would ever survive a train in say, India or China. The only knowledge I have of the train service in these countries is Western biased of course, with images of 500 people clinging to the sides of over-packed train cars. I survived Amtrak, but I hated it with every fibre of my being. When the time comes to get onto that train that has a hole through the bottom of the car serving as the toilet, will I be able to board and get to where I need to go?
The Next Big Thing
Aug 4th
Adam and I are in the midst of planning a 10-day or shorter trip for the end of this month. You’d think two young people with 10 days off work and enough cash to get them somewhere decent would have a fairly easy time deciding on a locale, right? Well in our case, not at all.
Being we’re in Calgary our flying options are quite limited, as we have to get ourselves to Toronto and back if we want to go to Europe, which is $800CND or more, almost half of our budget. Canadian destinations are limited as well, since we were just on the west coast back in June and I was just in the major destinations Ontario and Quebec have to offer. Saskatchewan and Manitoba…let’s just not even go there.
We’ve been toying with the idea of a road trip to Las Vegas, which I wouldn’t mind since we’d be able to get to Bad Water in Death Valley and see Old Faithful on the way, both of which are on my list. It just seems like 20 hours of driving on either side for a few nights in Las Vegas. We could fly, but 10 days in Las Vegas would probably kill me, and we wouldn’t have access to a car besides.
Mexico or some Southern destination seemed like a worthy choice, laying on the beach, and taking in all the all-inclusive fun we could handle. The only problem with this is we want to go to Mexico in December when it’s cold and we both have some more time off, and why pay to go to Mexico twice within five months?
We are running short on time to decide. I’m at the point where I just want to say “let’s go to Edmonton!” and admit defeat. Who knew planning a 10 days trip could be this hard. At times like this I truly wished I was living in Europe and there were 10 countries on either side you could easily get to for a short get away. For the time being I’m going to try and not focus on the deadline for decisions wearing closer and closer. I might also suggest throwing Tofino into the mix as an option, though I was just on the West Coast. Sitting on the Pacific beaches and sleeping in cabins doesn’t seem quite so bad when it comes down to it, I think I could handle it.
Why Don’t ‘Come’ and ‘Home’ Rhyme?
Jul 31st
I’ve been holding off from posting for the past little while. The feeling of coming home after a month of hostels, hotels, couches, and luxurious friend’s guest beds has been a rough learning curve. I suppose I sort of crashed mentally of sorts, drained of every mental resource I had being away, but I failed to prepare myself to come home to time sensitive obligations, working, and having to stick to other peoples’ schedules.
After a month away I wanted to come home desperately, I was almost clawing my eyes out on my flight home from Toronto as we sat waiting for 45 minutes to get into the air on the tarmac. I was literally counting the minutes and hours down until I could hug my boyfriend and pet my cat. I honestly thought that after a month I could just fall right back into the groove of my life, especially when I considered how much I missed it. The first few days I was home I felt the beginnings of it, the itching to get back out and live out of my back pack, to bed hop and do what I wanted whenever I felt like it. I missed surprises like French women screaming at cockroaches at 5 in the morning and seeing the most amazing transsexual women on Queen’s street during Pride Week in Toronto.
I’ve been back for almost two weeks, and I’m still quite literally living out of my bag. I’ve been spending as much time as possible at my boyfriend’s house, in some futile attempt to recreate the travel experience (though his sheet-less mattress does kind of scream “crappy hostel”). Eventually I’m going to have to come back to real life, especially when school starts.
Other than that I’ve been busy with work and other things like finding a new doctor and planning my next trip, which explains the large gap in posts. At some point I may finish describing my trip to New York (which I fell in love with) and my scary adventures home with Air Canada. Right now I’m basically lethargic and more excited about my potential Las Vegas/Los Angeles road trip than anything else. I’ll have to keep this crashing feeling in mind for the next long haul vacation, I guess.
NYC Update
Jul 14th
I just got back in from New York City and am crashing at my friend’s house in Oakville, Ontario before making my way tomorrow morning to Kingston to stay with my grandparents. I felt I should make a quick post here to break up the continuous scheduled posts I wrote a week or so ago. After a quick shower and some food, I feel a lot better from my 15 hours of travel today.
I absolutely loved New York and have alright mentally ticked it off as somewhere I have to return to. Our hostel was sketchy at best (cockroaches in bathrooms at night with French women screaming – yes), but it did not deter me at all from the city. In fact the cockroach factor ADDED to the experience if anything. It felt so authentically NYC, so real, or something.
I did a lot of tourist stuff, Empire State Building, Guggenheim and the likes, but sitting in Central Park with a cool breeze watching the fire flies glowing under the drooping trees; that was my New York.
5:00 am wake up call tomorrow to catch my via rail to my hometown. There will certainly be a more descriptive post regarding my journey to the U.S. once I get back home and recover from my month away. I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to post while I had computer access.
Off to NYC!
Jul 10th
I’m leaving tonight to head off to New York City on the Greyhound with my friend Irma. We’ll be there for three nights, not including our overnight haul to the city on the bus.
I’ve scheduled up some posts to publish themselves, so there won’t be any lack of reading or pictures from the last few weeks of my traveling while I’m without internet. I won’t have access to a proper computer until July 19th when I land in Calgary once again. After New York I’ll be bound for Kingston, ON to see my grandparents.
In the coming days, there will be some posts about my trip up the CN tower, Niagara Falls, and my short road trip to Lake Huron. Be sure to check my twitter for quick snippets of my time in New York.
There are several things on my list for NYC, so be sure to check it out to see what I’ll be up to whilst in the Big Apple.
For now I’ll leave you with a video of tamarins at the Bio Dome in Montreal
NYC Update
Jul 8th
There are just a few days left until I ventured out into the city that never sleeps. In just over 48 hours I, along with my friend Irma will be boarding an over night Greyhound bus bound for New York City. We arrive Friday morning at 11am. Hostel is booked, Amtrak tickets back to Oakville are booked, and everything is set to go. We plan on being complete and total tourists for our three day stay (okay 68 hours total), what else can you do on your first trip to New York, especially when the stay is so short. We’re going to grab the City Pass, which will provide access to the biggest tourist destinations for a discounted price.
There are quite a few things on my list that revolve around NYC so I will be running around crossing things off. We’re going to be taking in the Statue of Liberty, museums, Empire State Building, eating the local foods (I hear Little Italy has some phenomenal cuisine!) and one last completely amazing thing. Bon Jovi in Central Park! I seriously almost shit a brick wall when I heard that Bon Jovi would be putting on a free concert during my stay. I emailed Irma promptly and ensured she would agree to spending Saturday afternoon grooving to some awesome 80′s tunes, and of course she complied.
As for now I’m just biding my time until I’m on that bus and Big Apple bound. I have a list of things to do prior to leaving on Thursday, especially since I will be without internet access for over a week (I’m going to die). Today I booked up an appointment to give blood upon my return, and there are some other house keeping issues I have to take care of before I escape into what will feel like 1832 and am without internets.
A Little Help From My Friends
May 19th
This is a bit of a wandering-mind piece, considering the pros and cons of people helping you complete items on your life list.
There is something to be said about the company of friends, without a doubt. I sincerely hope no one embarks on a nominal life list without the intention of getting a little help and companionship along the way. First and foremost I want to say that it is a good thing to have people involved in your life in any form, bucket lists being no exception. The topic I am concerned with is when this help and companionship goes a little to far. When that well meaning aid in completing yet another item on your life list verges on obsession and overwhelming pressure. Sometimes it might seem, especially with a public list, that your list is no longer your own, but public domain. Should you just run with it and appreciate the help, or take a stance?
I have been so blessed with the unexpected outpouring of desire to help me cross things off my ever growing and expansive list. My mother, partner, and friends are all thrilled with the idea, many starting their own in fact. My mom has been one of the best, so have my friend’s J and Cal in Ontario. Adam has surprised me with things to do on my list, which I appreciate to no extent since Adam is normally not the best when it comes to surprises. I cannot stress enough the appreciation I have for the help and shared amusement at crossing things off of my list. Most of the things on my list are best done with other human beings, particularly ones I enjoy being around. It was not an intention when I conceived the idea of writing a massive list, but I have ended up spending more time with the people I like a lot (I was raised not to love other human beings – thanks mom).
So while I do appreciate this help, I have found that at times it can a bit too much. People make plans around your list or try and steer events towards things on your list. The thing is, when you write these items on your list, no matter how small or big, chances are you have some vision of when and where they might happen, maybe even an inkling of who you would like to take along for the ride. These items on your list have meaning to you in one shape or form, which is probably why they have appeared on your bucket list. Some things are pure novelty, like doing a shot for shot drinking contest, but others probably have a background. Now, on my particular list I have not truly specified many who’s or where’s because I do not want to limit myself nor add too many particulars to my list that I have no control over. There are many, many, many items on my list that I envision doing with my boyfriend. I have not specified this, because realistically speaking in a year’s time our lives could have taken us in separate directions, and any chances I would have at driving on the Autobahn WITH ADAM would be gone. So I will leave it at simply driving on the Autobahn, because I want to do it nonetheless.
These particulars may not always appear on life lists, but with all plans and dreams, they probably have a context and a root. A reason for existing on that particular list. Which brings us back to the idea of help from friends. I cannot decide if refusing this help is in any way rude. Is it inappropriate to turn down the offered help, or pressure in some cases, and explain the context of your goal? The problem with making your life list public is that it does make it somewhat public domain. Friends and family will use it as a guide to plan things, possibly without necessarily asking you prior to making plans. They will suggest things that will seem perfectly reasonable, as they are located smack dab in the middle of your life list, yet you had different plans for that particular item. “Oh, I sort of wanted to do that with my boyfriend…” just seems to rude to me, personally, as true as it may be. Or your entire reasons for doing something may just seem odd to other people. I found myself at a loss the other day when a good friend was suggesting we go let loose at the strippers, which is on my life list. The entire reason I have this on my list is not to let loose at all, but to go see it just for that. I might leave after 5 minutes, to be quite honest, the entire idea of the strippers does not appeal to me in the least, it does quite the opposite. But I found myself hemming and hawing over it, unable to just spit out the real reason of WHY I did not want to go to the strippers. We have conflicting ideas on why to go, so why would I bring someone who is there to ENJOY the strippers with me, when I am going simply to “check out the scene and simply observe the ongoings”. I don’t necessarily think I would enjoy going to the strippers with this particular friend (after much thought concerning our different feelings towards the practice and him having told me he would participate in the coin flicking which sends a shiver down my spine), yet seeing as the fact on my list it says “HEY I WANT TO GO TO THE STRIPPERS” it puts an awkward spin on the entire thing. Is that event in my life now public domain and up for grabs? Should I feel rude and unfriendly telling people that despite the fact no specifics are included in the list I had meant that to happen with someone else or at a different time?
I suppose this is simply a question of North American propriety in the 21st century. My life list will remain online, if not simply for the fact if I wrote it on paper it would get lost within the day. I do hope that my friends and family continue to help me cross things off, as I have enjoyed their support and company during the few I have, especially my mother’s incredible effort to help me finish my Southern Alberta Mini-List a few months back. I do suppose in the end honesty and communication are always the best bet, and I certainly do not want to scare anyone away from helping me with this monster of a life list.
Reflection Friday – la radio
Jan 18th
So, as promised, I am starting up my weekly features. This is the first in an on going weekly “segment” about cool or interesting things I have done in the past. Yes, to inflate my ego more or less, but also to remind me my life hasn’t been the dreary mess I sometimes make it out to be.
This week I am going to talk about being on the radio. No, not just once, but having something of my own show.
For almost a year, I shared a program on cjsw 90.9 which is the University of Calgary’s community radio station. I know
community radio comes with that stigma of being poorly run drivel that goes off the air a lot and features endless amounts of whiney emo music (like 10 Second Epic maybe?), but CJSW is a finely run machine that pulls in incredibly high numbers. There’s quite a big cult following for them in Calgary and they get listeners all over the world via their feed over the internet. And there’s absolutely no down time, they go 24/7 and then some!
So, in the spring of 2006, I got an email via the feminist club on campus saying CJSW was looking for some new recruits to run their women’s show “Yeah What She Said”. Now, the thought of being on the radio scared the living bejesus (yes, I do claim that Jesus lives in me) out of me (well, did, he’s gone now, obviously). I had made this silly little pact to myself to do things that scared me, though, so I had to do it, I had no choice. So I sent an email and heard back from them promptly that I was to go to regular CJSW volunteer training. It was on the day after my 20th birthday, so I dragged my hungover putt in for the 9am training. Brutal, to say the least. It was fun and interesting.
Next came the first meeting of the ladies who wanted to be involved. I met Jennie, Rachel, Nico, and Myriam. We discussed show ideas and got excited.
We met again soon afterwards to record our first show. Not only was it the taping of my first radio show, it was the first time I had Vietnamese food. Our first show was just us chatting about who we were and why we were going to be taking over Yeah What She Said.
Soon Myriam left so she could persue her Ph.D, but we had another member of the old team join us, Jeanne (pronouned Jennie?). Then sometime in there Rachel dropped out of the picture. But for the next several months, with all the trauma and headache you can imagine being involved on a radio show with a bunch of women, we produced, edited and aired awesome shows. My favourite were always the live shows with other women, especially Nico and Jennie who I got to know really well, but a lot of our content in the beginning was pre-recorded. Problems ensued from day one with those stupid CDs and minidiscs not playing, so of course almost all of the shows until I left were live.
I did shows about marriage (polyamory, lesbian marriage, and common law marriage), interviewed authors, interviewed a woman about her home birth experience…oh it was wonderful!
But all good things must come to an end. As I now live in Lethbridge, I can no longer be involved with the show. Not too soon after I did my last show, I got some terrible news that Nico had unexpectedly passed away. Nico was this amazing soul who inspired me, and not a lot of people do that. I went back to do one more show with Jennie to honour Nico’s memory and contribution to the show and our lives.
Jennie was left almost on her own as Jeanne took a hiatus from the show. Let me tell you, it is hard to produce a 30 minute segment each week. It doesn’t sound like much, but on your own, it can be hours sitting in the production booth, hours trying to get an interview. She now has the help of a new recruit Brigette though, and they are putting on awesome shows together once again. I highly suggest you listen to them! Mondays at 8:30 on CJSW 90.9 FM of tune in via their website feed.
So there’s the story of how I was on the radio. Certainly not on some big fancy schmancy corporate owned radio station, but on the radio nonetheless. I think it’s pretty swell and definitely something I can count on to prove my life wasn’t always boring (except sitting in the production booth for hours on Saturday mornings. That was both boring and lame).
Recurring Features
Jan 12th
So a few posts back I mentioned I was interested in creating a few recurring features for the blog, and this post is introducing two of them!
The first will be part of my 2008 Resolutions. Number 4 is to read three books a month, outside of school-related books, for a total of 36 books at the very minimum. At the end of every month or beginning, I will write reviews for the books I am reading. On January 31st or February 1st, I will review this months books which I categorize under “Books I Could Watch”. They are:
- I am America (And So Can You!)by Stephen Colbert
- V for Vendetta Graphic Novel
- Don’t Eat this Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America by Morgan Spurlock
The other feature will be about reflecting on my past and trying to remember some of the cool things I have done. I’ll do this every week or every other week and it will be called “Reflection Friday”. I’m just so cool to have come up with a name like that, I know.
Also, everyone should check out Adam’s WordPress powered site at www.adamp.ca.