The main problem is as follows: time is finite. Seems like a pretty silly thing to start going on about, but it's really the crux of the issue. Time, moving only in one direction, unstoppable and unavoidable. Time, also, in the more local sense as something that one "has" in limited quantities, forcing decisions and revealing priorities, whether clear or indistinct. Finally, time as the medium toward which conflicting attitudes are not only possible, but frequent. As a for-instance: the best guess for the new arrival is December 10th, and I can't think of another date that I can wait for less. Never before has the desire for time to speed up been more tangible and acutely focused. On the other hand, the hastening of time is the last thing in the world that I want in a number of other areas, not least of which would be the oncoming door at the end of the tunnel that has yet to be opened. Getting there faster is hardly my idea of fun.
Time is something I'm apparently not terribly good with, in the same way that some are not terribly good with money. Not only do I waste a rather large amount of it on a surprisingly regular basis, as some do with money, but I'm also useless at doling it out in well-budgeted portions, and being realistic about what I can do with the amount that I "have". The following are things that I am currently feeling a desire to do:
- Join a gym
- get back into Jiu Jitsu in a serious way
- find a band
- travel
- finish this degree by the end of next semester
- not screw up the aforementioned new arrival
This is not a comprehensive list, either. It's simply a smattering of things that, when you consider that I hardly have an unoccupied evening as it is, serve as an example of my tenuous grasp on reality when it comes to time and the limits that it imposes.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
My cousin's friend has just published a collection of short stories, published by the same good folks responsible for Exile: The Literary Quarterly.
This evening I went with him to the book launch party on the Danforth, which featured my cousin's friend, along with four other writers, reading some of their newly released work.
The whole thing was thoroughly enjoyable, since I find myself more and more missing the literary atmosphere than an English degree had me taking for granted. I'm not sure if I need to go to more events like this, or stop going to them altogether.
They're not making this whole "choosing a life-path" nonsense any easier. I'm now thoroughly confused. I do enjoy my current program, and while I'm there and focusing on it, I can really see myself making a career out of it, but I don't really know any of the specifics involved in that at this point. However, there are still times when I think about, or hear about, the old conversations about books and poems and whatnot where I find myself thinking twice about where I'm going and what I'm doing.
I now have this insane desire to simply abandon my further education to pursue a career in writing. Where I would come up with the talent for that, or the ability to somehow support myself financially, I have no idea. That's what makes it insane, I suppose.
I guess the only thing I really know for sure is that I want to do something. My biggest fear right now is going through life doing something in some half-assed, irrelevant way. I don't want to be famous, per se, but I do think that I want to make some sort of mark on whatever field I go into. It's an odd situation to be in, and I'll leave now with a picture that seems to be an adequate symbol for confusion in general and my own lack of perceived direction in particular.
This evening I went with him to the book launch party on the Danforth, which featured my cousin's friend, along with four other writers, reading some of their newly released work.
The whole thing was thoroughly enjoyable, since I find myself more and more missing the literary atmosphere than an English degree had me taking for granted. I'm not sure if I need to go to more events like this, or stop going to them altogether.
They're not making this whole "choosing a life-path" nonsense any easier. I'm now thoroughly confused. I do enjoy my current program, and while I'm there and focusing on it, I can really see myself making a career out of it, but I don't really know any of the specifics involved in that at this point. However, there are still times when I think about, or hear about, the old conversations about books and poems and whatnot where I find myself thinking twice about where I'm going and what I'm doing.
I now have this insane desire to simply abandon my further education to pursue a career in writing. Where I would come up with the talent for that, or the ability to somehow support myself financially, I have no idea. That's what makes it insane, I suppose.
I guess the only thing I really know for sure is that I want to do something. My biggest fear right now is going through life doing something in some half-assed, irrelevant way. I don't want to be famous, per se, but I do think that I want to make some sort of mark on whatever field I go into. It's an odd situation to be in, and I'll leave now with a picture that seems to be an adequate symbol for confusion in general and my own lack of perceived direction in particular.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Confusion, Hope and multi-headed chelonian reptiles
So today classes start.
That, friends, is the grand theory under which I will operate, hoping that I can somehow track down the actual location of my first lecture this afternoon. Failing that, tomorrow is when classes start. Either way, it's finally here.
Now we get to see the impact of a set routine and structure on this whole "readjusting to 'home'" thing. It looks and sounds promising though. This weekend we went on the Wycliffe College annual fall retreat, and met a bunch of new folks, which was cool. One of them was a guy who had spent a year in Uganda with his wife, and said that the set routine and workload provided by school, not to mention the ready-made social networking tool that it is, definitely helped in the readjustment process.
Our apartment is also almost completely set up. Today I go out and get a monitor and a printer, then all we need is a desk where we can set up the computer and away we go. Internet and cable arrive on Wednesday, as well. That'll be cool.
That's pretty much all I've got at this point, so I'll leave you with a picture of aforementioned multi-headed chelonian reptile.
That, friends, is the grand theory under which I will operate, hoping that I can somehow track down the actual location of my first lecture this afternoon. Failing that, tomorrow is when classes start. Either way, it's finally here.
Now we get to see the impact of a set routine and structure on this whole "readjusting to 'home'" thing. It looks and sounds promising though. This weekend we went on the Wycliffe College annual fall retreat, and met a bunch of new folks, which was cool. One of them was a guy who had spent a year in Uganda with his wife, and said that the set routine and workload provided by school, not to mention the ready-made social networking tool that it is, definitely helped in the readjustment process.
Our apartment is also almost completely set up. Today I go out and get a monitor and a printer, then all we need is a desk where we can set up the computer and away we go. Internet and cable arrive on Wednesday, as well. That'll be cool.
That's pretty much all I've got at this point, so I'll leave you with a picture of aforementioned multi-headed chelonian reptile.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Culture shock, documented
So this is it: a new blog.
I figured I went so long without updating the last one that a new post alone wouldn't do (although I did that, too), so I started a whole new one.
It also seemed fitting considering the entire life/lifestyle change that we have undergone in the last four months. Let's see...
In April, we were living in Korea, fully comfortable with the culture and food, getting a good handle on the language, making good money and had a solid and excellent social network to keep us company.
From there, we spend a month doing the budget traveler/backpacker thing around Taiwan, Vietnam and Laos. We were alone, just the two of us, for most of the time, but had the company of the various other backpackers/drifters that we met along the way, staying in hostels and guesthouses and seeing new and exciting things.
After that, we spent a month living and working (on a volunteer basis) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Back to a sense of routine, working with what might possibly be the cutest bunch of kids in the entire universe, and trying to come to grips with the horrifying history of the country while trying to reconcile that with the inestimable warmth and friendliness of the people.
Then, at the end of all that (and after another week in Thailand - this time down south by the beaches) we came back to Canada.
Over the last two months we've become starkly aware of the truth behind that thing you've heard people say about "reverse" culture shock being worse than what you felt when you originally left home. I'm also no longer comfortable calling it "reverse culture-shock" since that has a distinctly ethnocentric ring to it, in my ears. It seems a little like saying that Arabic or Hebrew is written backwards. It actually all depends on you point of view. So what I'll say to you is this: the culture shock of coming back "home" to Canada has been far more difficult to overcome than that of adjusting to life in Korea. Two months into our time there, we had friends, steady jobs, we were enjoying the food (granted, it was still a work in progress) and generally happy with where we were. After two months in Canada, and even now in Toronto, I still wonder where all the people are, what happened to all the traffic, and why I can't seem to ever remember what I know used to be completely mundane and ordinary elements of social interaction.
Now before you say anything, I realize that the two situations are starkly different. For one thing, we've not had a home, per se, for the last two months. Rather, it's been spent bouncing back and forth between family gatherings of all kinds, with day-trips downtown as part of the tedious process of apartment-hunting. Also, in Korea, we arrived and jumped straight into a built-in routine that lent itself very nicely to passing time and making friends. After all, we automatically had one very large thing in common with every other foreigner we met there.
So, to end it all before I bore everyone out of ever checking in on this blog again, I'll sign off on the hopeful note that school is starting next week, we have a nice (if tiny) apartment, and things are generally looking up.
This blog will be very much more general and broad-based than our blog documenting our time in Korea, which we tried to keep to specifically culture/travel/wacky Asian topics, but hopefully it'll still be interesting from time to time.
I'll also try to spruce it up a bit with some pictures and things occasionally.
See ya!
-Ryan
I figured I went so long without updating the last one that a new post alone wouldn't do (although I did that, too), so I started a whole new one.
It also seemed fitting considering the entire life/lifestyle change that we have undergone in the last four months. Let's see...
In April, we were living in Korea, fully comfortable with the culture and food, getting a good handle on the language, making good money and had a solid and excellent social network to keep us company.
From there, we spend a month doing the budget traveler/backpacker thing around Taiwan, Vietnam and Laos. We were alone, just the two of us, for most of the time, but had the company of the various other backpackers/drifters that we met along the way, staying in hostels and guesthouses and seeing new and exciting things.
After that, we spent a month living and working (on a volunteer basis) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Back to a sense of routine, working with what might possibly be the cutest bunch of kids in the entire universe, and trying to come to grips with the horrifying history of the country while trying to reconcile that with the inestimable warmth and friendliness of the people.
Then, at the end of all that (and after another week in Thailand - this time down south by the beaches) we came back to Canada.
Over the last two months we've become starkly aware of the truth behind that thing you've heard people say about "reverse" culture shock being worse than what you felt when you originally left home. I'm also no longer comfortable calling it "reverse culture-shock" since that has a distinctly ethnocentric ring to it, in my ears. It seems a little like saying that Arabic or Hebrew is written backwards. It actually all depends on you point of view. So what I'll say to you is this: the culture shock of coming back "home" to Canada has been far more difficult to overcome than that of adjusting to life in Korea. Two months into our time there, we had friends, steady jobs, we were enjoying the food (granted, it was still a work in progress) and generally happy with where we were. After two months in Canada, and even now in Toronto, I still wonder where all the people are, what happened to all the traffic, and why I can't seem to ever remember what I know used to be completely mundane and ordinary elements of social interaction.
Now before you say anything, I realize that the two situations are starkly different. For one thing, we've not had a home, per se, for the last two months. Rather, it's been spent bouncing back and forth between family gatherings of all kinds, with day-trips downtown as part of the tedious process of apartment-hunting. Also, in Korea, we arrived and jumped straight into a built-in routine that lent itself very nicely to passing time and making friends. After all, we automatically had one very large thing in common with every other foreigner we met there.
So, to end it all before I bore everyone out of ever checking in on this blog again, I'll sign off on the hopeful note that school is starting next week, we have a nice (if tiny) apartment, and things are generally looking up.
This blog will be very much more general and broad-based than our blog documenting our time in Korea, which we tried to keep to specifically culture/travel/wacky Asian topics, but hopefully it'll still be interesting from time to time.
I'll also try to spruce it up a bit with some pictures and things occasionally.
See ya!
-Ryan
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