When you are seven you think that, when you grow up, the world will be silver and metallic and technologically advanced. There will be spaceships and aliens and robots. But then you realize at sixteen, as you swing back and forth in the park, just like when you were seven, that when you’re twenty-five or thirty, working, married, having kids, the world won’t be that different than it is now.
You’ll still be pushing your child in the plastic swing across the park just like that stranger. The slide will still be painted bright colours, slowly rusting in the rain. The breeze will still blow the mist off the splash park onto your back. You’ll still have to pump your own swing, and run over to the big red button to turn the water back on when it turns off.
They’ll be no hover chairs, or robots, or mechanics you always imagined there’d be. Parks will still be filled with colours and trees and cries of happy children. There will still be adults reading books, and college students studying in the shade of a huge maple. That tree will still be there when you’re twenty-five.
Then you realize that it’s warmer now than when you were seven. You remember how warm the winter was, and how much more it rains. You remember the tornado that touched down the other day just cities away from you. You would have been deathly afraid if you had known when you were seven. Maybe the world is changing.
You still swing back and forth, just thinking. You see someone you’re age walking on the sidewalk texting in their phone. They smile at something someone probably said without using proper grammar, or even proper words. You would have thought it was silly when you were seven. Mind you probably hadn’t even seen a cell phone before. Society is changing.
And you’re afraid. You don’t like change. You don’t like things you don’t understand and can’t control. You don’t want to face a changing world, changing faster than you can blink. You start realizing you’re alone.
Now you start to wonder why you’re here in the park by yourself. It’s the first Friday of summer, and you’re sixteen. Why aren’t you hanging out with friends? You chose to come to the park. Just to swing and think. There’s not much else to do at the park now. When you were seven, you were taken to the park. You would climb and swing and jump and yell and scream, and hours later, when you’re parents wanted you to leave, you were still full of energy. Now you wonder if your legs will be strong enough to make the walk back home. You’re out of practice on the swings.
The world doesn’t change the way you thought it would when you were seven. It may look different or feel different, but it’s still the same. Just like you. You have changed. And you will change by the time you become twenty-five. But you’re still the same as when you were seven. Forever seven.
June 30, 2009
June 23, 2009
Halifax Explosion in 5 Seconds
Ok... technically 32... but who cares... below is a really cheesy animation I made of the Halifax Explosion cuz I can, and I thought I'd share.
Enjoy guys!!!
Enjoy guys!!!
June 10, 2009
Why Must I Be Ruled Over By Incompetent Fools?
I frequently find myself questioning the teaching population lately, even with my parents being part of this population. Yes, there may be thousands of rules against them punishing students now-a-days, but that still shouldn't fog their judgement. They can still punish students in a sense.
Being part of the more "nerdly" clique of sorts, I have a pretty good rep with teachers, as do my friends. There are the perks; teachers never asking you if you've done your homework (just assuming you've done it), doing special tasks in class, getting special exceptions and extentions on projects... the list conintues. Yet, despite the people they learned to trust, the "nerdly" types, screaming in their faces, they still can't see the discrimination we recieve nearly daily within the classroom. And sometimes it's even the teacher doing the discriminating.
Just to show you just how much this bothers me (and us) I'll give you today's example.
Welcome to our civics class. As most of our classes are, there's two sides. The preppy kids, the kids who goof off and get away with it, and the suck-ups (wanna-bes) [here out known collectively as the "preps"] vs. the Nerds and those who are wise enough to side with us. And let me tell you, the people who side with us get some of those perks too! :)
Now, you might say, that's kind of discriminatory of you to label them all like that, but now, I don't have a choice. That's what they call themselves, we call ourselves Nerds, and that's the way it's always been. It's the only way I can indentify them to you.
Anyways, we're doing an "diplomat" activity to renforce our knowledge of International Governing, and, as usual, the class divides itself as the Nerds and the preps. Also as usual, the everyone cheats, only this time, to the point where us Nerds had no choice but to cheat too. After the activity had ended and we were discussing which what was "fair" and should be "counted", we had agreed with one side of the preps who had had an issue with the other side. I thought just for a brief second that people might actually not dis us in the end like they had during the activity.
I was wrong. When our turn came up to voice an issue, and we voiced the same issue as half the prep group had, and suddenly, it was fine to break that rule. We had lost it by that point. We all had our hands up to speak. But the teacher completely ignored us and devoted her attention to the other side who spoke out of turn, taking in all their sides and only giving one of us the chance to speak in defense. We lost all of the things our team had "counted". Why? Because the teacher decided to side with the backstabbing group.
And if that's not enough evidence to prove they were discriminating against us, from there on out every issue had to do with one of OUR broken rules, even though the other teams had broken exactly the same rules. They had no reason to pick on us besides the fact that we were, well frankly, Nerds. That was it.
And the teacher REFUSED to enforce a rule against them when I pointed out that one of their claims went against the ORIGINAL laid out rules. Yet she was so keen to enforce rules against us. When we stopped raising our hands and just spoke out, she glared at us and all but told us to shut up. Being the goody twoshoes that we are, we just dropped it. But not without burning rage inside.
This is just one of the things that happens nearly everyday. And it doesn't make sense to me.
Here you have a group of born leaders, people who catch on quick and are more than willing to help their peers. Yet, almost everyday, we're brought down by incompetent fools. Not because they out wit us, in fact it's quite the opposite, but because they out number us. For our own safety, we can only reach our full potential through written assignments. And even then sometimes we aren't rewarded for what we deserve.
It also shocks me how teachers get confused at how much poorer we do academically at group work when we don't work together. We can't trust our peers.
It's a cold world for us. We are shown very little mercy from the people we care about feeling accepted from. And though we may one day get our justice during post-secondary education, we make no promises we won't come back to haunt them when we become their bosses.
That was a sad ending. Epic fail. :P
Being part of the more "nerdly" clique of sorts, I have a pretty good rep with teachers, as do my friends. There are the perks; teachers never asking you if you've done your homework (just assuming you've done it), doing special tasks in class, getting special exceptions and extentions on projects... the list conintues. Yet, despite the people they learned to trust, the "nerdly" types, screaming in their faces, they still can't see the discrimination we recieve nearly daily within the classroom. And sometimes it's even the teacher doing the discriminating.
Just to show you just how much this bothers me (and us) I'll give you today's example.
Welcome to our civics class. As most of our classes are, there's two sides. The preppy kids, the kids who goof off and get away with it, and the suck-ups (wanna-bes) [here out known collectively as the "preps"] vs. the Nerds and those who are wise enough to side with us. And let me tell you, the people who side with us get some of those perks too! :)
Now, you might say, that's kind of discriminatory of you to label them all like that, but now, I don't have a choice. That's what they call themselves, we call ourselves Nerds, and that's the way it's always been. It's the only way I can indentify them to you.
Anyways, we're doing an "diplomat" activity to renforce our knowledge of International Governing, and, as usual, the class divides itself as the Nerds and the preps. Also as usual, the everyone cheats, only this time, to the point where us Nerds had no choice but to cheat too. After the activity had ended and we were discussing which what was "fair" and should be "counted", we had agreed with one side of the preps who had had an issue with the other side. I thought just for a brief second that people might actually not dis us in the end like they had during the activity.
I was wrong. When our turn came up to voice an issue, and we voiced the same issue as half the prep group had, and suddenly, it was fine to break that rule. We had lost it by that point. We all had our hands up to speak. But the teacher completely ignored us and devoted her attention to the other side who spoke out of turn, taking in all their sides and only giving one of us the chance to speak in defense. We lost all of the things our team had "counted". Why? Because the teacher decided to side with the backstabbing group.
And if that's not enough evidence to prove they were discriminating against us, from there on out every issue had to do with one of OUR broken rules, even though the other teams had broken exactly the same rules. They had no reason to pick on us besides the fact that we were, well frankly, Nerds. That was it.
And the teacher REFUSED to enforce a rule against them when I pointed out that one of their claims went against the ORIGINAL laid out rules. Yet she was so keen to enforce rules against us. When we stopped raising our hands and just spoke out, she glared at us and all but told us to shut up. Being the goody twoshoes that we are, we just dropped it. But not without burning rage inside.
This is just one of the things that happens nearly everyday. And it doesn't make sense to me.
Here you have a group of born leaders, people who catch on quick and are more than willing to help their peers. Yet, almost everyday, we're brought down by incompetent fools. Not because they out wit us, in fact it's quite the opposite, but because they out number us. For our own safety, we can only reach our full potential through written assignments. And even then sometimes we aren't rewarded for what we deserve.
It also shocks me how teachers get confused at how much poorer we do academically at group work when we don't work together. We can't trust our peers.
It's a cold world for us. We are shown very little mercy from the people we care about feeling accepted from. And though we may one day get our justice during post-secondary education, we make no promises we won't come back to haunt them when we become their bosses.
That was a sad ending. Epic fail. :P
June 8, 2009
True Definitions of EPIC FAIL
After picking up the phrase from someone else as all good slang sayings go, I recently discovered that EPIC FAIL is actually a real official dictionary-ized word. I was shocked at first, around my little corner of the world, it's pretty original for my friends and I, but then I found some of the definitions quite amusing. Here is the official definition of EPIC FAIL:
Epic Fail - adj.noun.
1. Something that can be seen as a complete and utter failure.
2. The highest form of fail known to man. Reaching this level of fail means only one thing: You must die, or the world will fail itself due to such extreme level of failage.
3. A mistake of such monumental proportions that it requires its own term in order to sucessfully point out the unfathomable shortcomings of an individual or group.
4. Complete and total failure when success should have been highly easy to attain.
5. When an attemt at creating an entertainment product fails so badly it incites anger and/or unintentional comedy.
6. An attempt to endorse Fanta and homosexuality at the same time on an internet message board that leads to ridicule
7. Similar to fail, but at an even larger, more pitiful scale. Sometimes so pitiful or pathetic, some will either sympathize that person or will not say anything, due to the fail being so large that words cannot describe it.
8. A failure so abysmal it is epic in scale.
9. Failure so big not even light can escape it.
10. George W. Bush's Presidency
11. A term used to describe an unsuccesful attempt at achieving a goal, usually with unintended hilarious results. While a 'fail' can be defined as simple disappointment, an 'epic fail' is of monumental proportions. A term most commonly used by keyboard warriors of the internet age that choose to argue on the website Youtube.com, whose lives could be summed up as an 'epic failure'
12. When someone attempts to be cool or do something for another person's entertainment and truly screws up their task into something that results in anger, uncontrollable laughter, or pity to the other person.
And now for the best examples of Epic Failure.
1. From World of Warcraft
-Guy 1- Dude I'm gonna try and fly all the way to the top of the map and remount before I hit the group, total hxc!
-Guy 2- It's not gonna work...
-Guy who was walking past the road and saw some random person spalt- Epic Fail! ROFL
2. A man who tries to kill him self like this: He points a gun in his head, puts a gallow's rope on his neck and puts poison pill in his mouths and then jumps off the cliff... Then following things happen: He shots a gun but hits the rope, the poison pill fails out of his mouths, he falls into watter and swims to the coast then dies from Hypothermia...
3.:OMG I gotz teh myspaces n mah yootoobs rool n sutf n u sux cuz u has no myscapes!
: Epic fail.
4. Jack: Uh, dude? I may or may not have wrecked 14 ferrari's with my moped after derailing a whole train carrying nothing but kittens and puppies...
Jim: Epic Fail, Man. EPIC Fail.
5. Person 1: Hi, Tech Support? I need help with my computer, it seems to keep rebooting.
Person 2: Ok, before we do anything, have you tried rebooting?
Person 1: ._.
Conclusion: Person 2 has had an Epic Fail
From THE URBAN DICTIONARY
Epic Fail - adj.noun.
1. Something that can be seen as a complete and utter failure.
2. The highest form of fail known to man. Reaching this level of fail means only one thing: You must die, or the world will fail itself due to such extreme level of failage.
3. A mistake of such monumental proportions that it requires its own term in order to sucessfully point out the unfathomable shortcomings of an individual or group.
4. Complete and total failure when success should have been highly easy to attain.
5. When an attemt at creating an entertainment product fails so badly it incites anger and/or unintentional comedy.
6. An attempt to endorse Fanta and homosexuality at the same time on an internet message board that leads to ridicule
7. Similar to fail, but at an even larger, more pitiful scale. Sometimes so pitiful or pathetic, some will either sympathize that person or will not say anything, due to the fail being so large that words cannot describe it.
8. A failure so abysmal it is epic in scale.
9. Failure so big not even light can escape it.
10. George W. Bush's Presidency
11. A term used to describe an unsuccesful attempt at achieving a goal, usually with unintended hilarious results. While a 'fail' can be defined as simple disappointment, an 'epic fail' is of monumental proportions. A term most commonly used by keyboard warriors of the internet age that choose to argue on the website Youtube.com, whose lives could be summed up as an 'epic failure'
12. When someone attempts to be cool or do something for another person's entertainment and truly screws up their task into something that results in anger, uncontrollable laughter, or pity to the other person.
And now for the best examples of Epic Failure.
1. From World of Warcraft
-Guy 1- Dude I'm gonna try and fly all the way to the top of the map and remount before I hit the group, total hxc!
-Guy 2- It's not gonna work...
-Guy who was walking past the road and saw some random person spalt- Epic Fail! ROFL
2. A man who tries to kill him self like this: He points a gun in his head, puts a gallow's rope on his neck and puts poison pill in his mouths and then jumps off the cliff... Then following things happen: He shots a gun but hits the rope, the poison pill fails out of his mouths, he falls into watter and swims to the coast then dies from Hypothermia...
3.
4. Jack: Uh, dude? I may or may not have wrecked 14 ferrari's with my moped after derailing a whole train carrying nothing but kittens and puppies...
Jim: Epic Fail, Man. EPIC Fail.
5. Person 1: Hi, Tech Support? I need help with my computer, it seems to keep rebooting.
Person 2: Ok, before we do anything, have you tried rebooting?
Person 1: ._.
Conclusion: Person 2 has had an Epic Fail
From THE URBAN DICTIONARY
The Music Of Sutch
It's sad that this very first post should be about a loss. But in a way, I guess it's a happy one. We know you're listening, you always were.
Anyways, after a few people asked me for copies of the poem I read at the memorial, or rather "Celebration of Life", I figured I'd post it here to make life easier. YAY for interent!
The Music Of Sutch
I tell you now,
What I have learned,
That immortality is not locked up,
In iron or gold,
Silver or copper,
Magic or witchcraft.
I tell you now,
How I know.
As I walk, I want to cry.
But I do not.
Something tells me it is not time.
But the Heavens hear my silent plea,
And cry for me.
So the rain falls,
And I look to the skies,
The wind whistles a sad lament,
The trees dance.
Play on, Music Man,
Thinks I,
Play me the music of the earth.
And I remember.
I remember spring days long past,
I remember hearing you play,
Hearing you sing.
I can still hear the old out of tune piano.
The wind still whispers.
With it comes the night,
And cools the thoughts,
To sombre things.
And as I watch those shooting stars,
I think,
Every star must fall,
If it is to rise,
Immortal with the sunrise.
Play, Music Man,
Thinks I,
Play me the Symphony of Sunrise.
I tell you now,
What I know,
That immortality is not locked up,
In fame or fortune,
For that comes only after stars tumble,
And rise with the sun.
I tell you now,
The secret I know,
That immortality is found,
In love and word and action,
For to be immortal,
You must be remembered.
That is it, and nothing more.
Just doing great things,
No matter how simple,
No matter how small,
And touching lives,
By being you.
We will remember,
And make you immortal,
You, Mr. Music Man.
Now stand at the orchestra of the earth,
And play, Music Man,
Play on.
Play us the music of our memories.
So there it is. Hope you enjoyed it. :)
If you do the whole deviantART thing, the title links you to where it is posted.
You can also find it on Mibba and Fictionpress under the username Dreamweaver38.
While on that note, I figured I'd post something I wrote that Monday we found out.
Last year, part way through the second semester, our music teacher left. His reason for leaving was illness, but he'd had MIA bouts like this before, and we all thought he'd be back in September. He wasn't.
Our new music teacher is awesome (we're actually learning something now...), but it still wasn't the same. There was just something about him. He was crazy and eccentric. And in my timid first year of grade nine, he inspired me to take the masks off and be me. Showed me that it actually is possible to be crazy and rational at the same time.
There are hundreds of other memories I have of him, things like the muffin on my b-day, telling the trumpets they sounded like whiney balloons, reading the Revelation of the Bible instead of playing, or playing the piano so crazily we thought he'd break it while belting out a rendition of Great Balls of Fire and us all struggling to keep up.
We all waited patiently this last semester, e-mailing him, asking him to come in for a visit when he had a good day. We never saw him again.We were told on Monday that he had died on the weekend. It came as a huge shock to all of us. To make life even better, we had Jazz Band practice that afternoon. At least we were together. And we still played. We played for him. Maybe the solos I played that day were the best yet.
I dunno why I'm telling you this. It's not like you'd care. But maybe I'm writing it cuz I have no idea what else to do. Maybe I'm trying to show you how he was an inspiration to all of us at my school, or at least my side of it.
I really dunno.
And I don't understand how I'm feeling. I feel like I should be doing something. Something for him. I offered to help with the memorial service for him we're having at the school, but I don't know what I can do. I can't sing anything, what I really want to do is read something I've written.
But I can't find the words. I don't know how to write it. I don't know how to describe who he was to me. We haven't seen him in over a year now. And we never will again. All we have are memories.
And more than any of the other people I've written for, he really deserves to be immortalized in verse.I'm not going to the funeral or anything. 1. I don't have a ride, and 2. I don't think I could. Besides, I'd be my first funeral ever and they make me really edgy to even think about. I'd rather not be with people. I'd rather keep to myself and just remember.
I feel like I want to cry. I need to cry. I haven't yet. Something keeps telling me it's not time yet. I wish I knew when it was time to cry.
I almost did this morning walking to school. It was really windy and the birds weren't singing for once. But the wind made such music and the trees were dancing. And every time I felt a little extra down, the wind would kick up again. I'm probably crazy, and it's probably just the wind. But I couldn't help but thinking, you're free now. The earth is your orchestra. Play for us.
I dunno why. I guess I really dunno anything. More than anything I guess I feel lost. Like I don't understand.
And I'm afraid to share. People think I'm crazy enough as it is. Sorry for ranting to you. I guess I just needed to scream it before I could let it out in formal writing.
If you've actually made it this far, I thank you. Your time was spent learning about a wonderful man that changed the little corner of his world.
One band, ONE SOUND! Play on, Music Man.
Anyways, after a few people asked me for copies of the poem I read at the memorial, or rather "Celebration of Life", I figured I'd post it here to make life easier. YAY for interent!
The Music Of Sutch
I tell you now,
What I have learned,
That immortality is not locked up,
In iron or gold,
Silver or copper,
Magic or witchcraft.
I tell you now,
How I know.
As I walk, I want to cry.
But I do not.
Something tells me it is not time.
But the Heavens hear my silent plea,
And cry for me.
So the rain falls,
And I look to the skies,
The wind whistles a sad lament,
The trees dance.
Play on, Music Man,
Thinks I,
Play me the music of the earth.
And I remember.
I remember spring days long past,
I remember hearing you play,
Hearing you sing.
I can still hear the old out of tune piano.
The wind still whispers.
With it comes the night,
And cools the thoughts,
To sombre things.
And as I watch those shooting stars,
I think,
Every star must fall,
If it is to rise,
Immortal with the sunrise.
Play, Music Man,
Thinks I,
Play me the Symphony of Sunrise.
I tell you now,
What I know,
That immortality is not locked up,
In fame or fortune,
For that comes only after stars tumble,
And rise with the sun.
I tell you now,
The secret I know,
That immortality is found,
In love and word and action,
For to be immortal,
You must be remembered.
That is it, and nothing more.
Just doing great things,
No matter how simple,
No matter how small,
And touching lives,
By being you.
We will remember,
And make you immortal,
You, Mr. Music Man.
Now stand at the orchestra of the earth,
And play, Music Man,
Play on.
Play us the music of our memories.
So there it is. Hope you enjoyed it. :)
If you do the whole deviantART thing, the title links you to where it is posted.
You can also find it on Mibba and Fictionpress under the username Dreamweaver38.
While on that note, I figured I'd post something I wrote that Monday we found out.
Last year, part way through the second semester, our music teacher left. His reason for leaving was illness, but he'd had MIA bouts like this before, and we all thought he'd be back in September. He wasn't.
Our new music teacher is awesome (we're actually learning something now...), but it still wasn't the same. There was just something about him. He was crazy and eccentric. And in my timid first year of grade nine, he inspired me to take the masks off and be me. Showed me that it actually is possible to be crazy and rational at the same time.
There are hundreds of other memories I have of him, things like the muffin on my b-day, telling the trumpets they sounded like whiney balloons, reading the Revelation of the Bible instead of playing, or playing the piano so crazily we thought he'd break it while belting out a rendition of Great Balls of Fire and us all struggling to keep up.
We all waited patiently this last semester, e-mailing him, asking him to come in for a visit when he had a good day. We never saw him again.We were told on Monday that he had died on the weekend. It came as a huge shock to all of us. To make life even better, we had Jazz Band practice that afternoon. At least we were together. And we still played. We played for him. Maybe the solos I played that day were the best yet.
I dunno why I'm telling you this. It's not like you'd care. But maybe I'm writing it cuz I have no idea what else to do. Maybe I'm trying to show you how he was an inspiration to all of us at my school, or at least my side of it.
I really dunno.
And I don't understand how I'm feeling. I feel like I should be doing something. Something for him. I offered to help with the memorial service for him we're having at the school, but I don't know what I can do. I can't sing anything, what I really want to do is read something I've written.
But I can't find the words. I don't know how to write it. I don't know how to describe who he was to me. We haven't seen him in over a year now. And we never will again. All we have are memories.
And more than any of the other people I've written for, he really deserves to be immortalized in verse.I'm not going to the funeral or anything. 1. I don't have a ride, and 2. I don't think I could. Besides, I'd be my first funeral ever and they make me really edgy to even think about. I'd rather not be with people. I'd rather keep to myself and just remember.
I feel like I want to cry. I need to cry. I haven't yet. Something keeps telling me it's not time yet. I wish I knew when it was time to cry.
I almost did this morning walking to school. It was really windy and the birds weren't singing for once. But the wind made such music and the trees were dancing. And every time I felt a little extra down, the wind would kick up again. I'm probably crazy, and it's probably just the wind. But I couldn't help but thinking, you're free now. The earth is your orchestra. Play for us.
I dunno why. I guess I really dunno anything. More than anything I guess I feel lost. Like I don't understand.
And I'm afraid to share. People think I'm crazy enough as it is. Sorry for ranting to you. I guess I just needed to scream it before I could let it out in formal writing.
If you've actually made it this far, I thank you. Your time was spent learning about a wonderful man that changed the little corner of his world.
One band, ONE SOUND! Play on, Music Man.
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