normal is scary.

I arrived at the Ottawa Via Rail station at 7 pm tonight and proceeded to talk my dad's ear off for three hours. After three hours of talking about everything that's going on in my life, all the decisions I have to make and all the responsibilities I have, course issues, and problems I'm facing, I came to one conclusion. One scary unexpected solution:

I'm not going to Uganda and probably wont do my 'development project' at all next summer. I realized that I was doign it all for the wrong reasons. I think I knew that when I applied in the beginning, but I never really came to a conclusion on it - or I didn't have the courage to not go ahead with the application. Yes, it is a matter of mustering the courage to decide not to go. Straying from the norm is so weird for me. It's so natural for me to go all over the world doing all these random things, and I think I like that idea of me. I think I like that person more than I really like myself in some ways. But if I were to go, I would go because it's what people expect of me (or what I think they expect of me), I would go because I expect it of me, I would go to impress people. I'm just not ok with those reasons and those as my motives. It just feels wrong, all wrong.

I really believe there's something I need to be here in Canada, namely Kingston for. I don't know what yet, I just know that in the last two hours since I realized that I shouldn't/don't really want to go to Uganda, I've felt so much peace about it. Sure it would be a great experience, but it's an experience I could get later on in life.

It's going to be hard to tell people. Especially the people in my program and everyone else i've been bragging to, because people will think i'm afraid to go - and i am a little - but i'm not bailing because I can't handle it. Challenge is good. I just wish I had more concrete things to tell people, something more than my weird new-age answer 'I just feeeeeel that there's something else out there for me." Sometimes I'm so crazy.

heart of darkness

I just finished reading an article for Advanced Theroies of Development. My exam is on wednesday and I haven't had an exam since last tuesday morning. So i've been relaxing and slowly catching up on my readings for the class. The article I just read was on ecological imperialism and was quite interesting. Actually it was a chapter of a book by John Bellamy Foster entitled The Vulnerable Planet. It was pretty interesting, but more than that it was pretty darn depressing.

By the end of the chapter, my eyes were welling up and I had a disturbed frown on my face. One of the first things that got me was its discussion of the dirty industrialization that was occurring in the Soviet bloc and Asia that led to some pretty serious health problems for the people.

"So much contamination by chemical wastes had been dumped into the drinking water supply that mothers in the Aral region cannot breast-feed their babies without running the risk of poisoning them" (p100, The Vulnerable Planet by JB Foster).

A mother cannot take part in the wonderful bonding experience of breast-feeding, something that is biologically supposed to be there to offer further nourishment and health protection, because of the political situation. Because the government wants to - needs to - try and develop a comparative advantage against the other economies (cause let's be serious, no one else's developed on naturally as a result of market forces). Because of imperialism, because of capitalism, because of colonialism.

The second thing that really hit me was the bold faced admission of the US's goal in Vietnam: to create refugees, which would give the US physical control over the peasantry via "defoliation" (the euphamism for ecological warfare/ecocide). Does anyone else see the systemic racism in this? The absolute hatred of people? Where will the lust for power end?

I seriously want to vomit right now. The greed, people. The dirty, grimy, smelly, scummy greed. The lust for more, the passionate desire making our chests beat faster for money. For power. For validation.

And I can see myself in all of this. I can see my own selfishness. My own lust for validation, for status. I will forget everything and everyone around me to study because I want to be considered smart. I want to be considered important. But I have people around me to remind me that there's more to life than school. That there is eternity to think about.

Where are the people in the lives of all these other powerful men who make these decisions that end the lives of so many. Who's whispering in their ears saying "there's more to life than all of this?"

Because ultimately, they might get what they search for in their lifetime at the expense of everyone else around them. But they will die. Game over. Who's going to tell them that?

on music

Lately I've been listening to a lot of electronic-based music. I've always kind of liked it, ever since Dance Mix '95 pretty much. For awhile, though, I was definitely into more grungy music when that was popular in the late 90s. For the most part it really wasn't until first year when Postal Service's "Give Up" came out. I still love that CD so much. It used to be my most favouritest CD until I found The Stars this summer. I just can't get enough of them!!

Thom Yorke (of Radiohead fame) also came out with a solo CD which I absolutely adore. Very electronic, too, but more melancholy than Postal Service. A couple of weeks ago I made a Thom Yorke based Pandora radio station, and found another band that's soooo good: Junior Boys. Except, I don't even know if you can really call electronic-music-groups "bands". I've always been under the impression that a "band" requires musical instruments. Unless a computer is a musical instrument, in my opinion, they're not really a "band". Apparently, Junior Boys are from Hamilton!

Anyways, so really the point of this is the following: one of my friends really likes MuteMath. He suggested I get my little brother their CD for Christmas. So I found one of their songs to sample it to see if its something I think Nick would like. I realized, it's ODDLY happy and hopeful. Like creepily-happy-and-hopeful. To this I had two reactions: i recoiled in disgust a bit (what can I say, as much as I do have Jesus-based-hope, I'm still pretty cynical) and realized that there must be something different about them. They sounded Christian.

So I looked them up and whatdoyouknow! they are. I finally put two and two together. That's why all this time I've really disliked Christian music. Its so barftastically happy. Switchfoot isn't really like that, which is probably why I like them. They love Jesus and they still know the world isn't bunnies jumping over rainbows smelling of cotton-candy. And then it occurred to me: that's also probably why I've never heard of any Christian "indie" bands. Indie, in my experience, is not so happy.

I guess this all begs the question, why do I dislike happy music. Actually, it's not that I dislike happy music. Frou Frou has some upbeat fun happy music. Like "It's Good To Be In Love". I can't really put my finger on it. It seems though that I've always written off Christian music. I still do. My housemate was SOOOO EXCITED that downhere is going to be in TO for WC. I was like "meh" never heard of them and don't really care basically on the basis that they're Christian. Perhaps its just the mood of exhaustion I'm in due to exams. butttt its been a pattern for most of my life so I kind of doubt that.

any thoughts?

to don or not to don?

So I'm applying to be a residence don for next academic year. Although I'm no longer sure why. It seems that when I make assumptions about my future & it comes time to actually make them happen, I start seriously questioning, "why am I doing this?" I think it's a good thing, in some ways because it prevents me from going into things blindly or habitually.

But in questioning "why am I doing this?" I couldn't find an answer. I don't know if I want to be a don because it means making changes in my life that I'm not sure I want to make. It will require me to be less selfish and frankly, being selfish is comfortable. It means that I have to make decisions right now about how I want to spend my time & maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it'll save me from selling my soul to C4C. For once I've been living in a Christian bubble, and it's comfortable. I'm always the one that's against going to Christian Universities because it's not like the real world, and here I am wanting to stay in the non-real world. I dunno, I just already feel like my life is so busy right now. Adding something else means taking away/neglecting other things.

I guess first years need an example of a person who believes in God & isn't a complete loser. And frosh Christians need a support-base. And I need to learn to be less selfish.... something God has really been hitting home the last couple of days. Just how selfish and proud I am.