"before we fall asleep..."

We’re all busy. Meditating monks in their cells are busy. That’s adult life, filled to the ceiling with things that need doing. (It seems only children and the elderly aren’t plagued by lack of time—and notice how they enjoy their books, how their lives fill their eyes.) But every person has a space next to where they sleep, whether a patch of pavement or a fine bedside table. In that space, at night, a book can glow. And in those moments of docile wakefulness, when we begin to let go of the day, then is the perfect time to pick up a book and be someone else, somewhere else, for a few minutes, a few pages, before we fall asleep...


I'm far to busy to write anymore, but this is from Yaan Martel's letter to Stephen Harper. He sends him a book every two weeks and you can see them all if you click on the appropriately titled link somewhere to your right.

In six weeks I never have to sit in a lecture hall again and then hopefully I'll get back to this thing because life will be exciting and full of beaches and skydiving or something.

Christmas anti-materialism

Well apparantly I get bored of pretty much everything I try to do, such as this blog. However, since Christmas is looming (and this year, for some reason, I'm getting really into it) I thought I'd share some delightful holiday goodies....

First, check out this ballin' website: http://www.adventconspiracy.org/
The video on the main page made me cry, and I think they've got some sweet ideas.

Also, I was in Oregon for a girls' youth retreat last weekend and this kid Austin came out to speak about this organization he started when he was 9 called Hoops of Hope. I wont explain it since the site already does that, but it's a sweet organization to keep in mind! http://www.hoopsofhope.org/

Sucker

So I know I've talked about him before, but I really dislike Banksy for several reasons, and I find him hugely overrated. However, the only aspect of him that wasn't overrated, in my opinion, was that for years he's managed to put up street art in some hardcore locations without getting caught or even photographed - nobody knew who he was. Well sir, now that's down the drain too.

Banksy's identity in Time magazine

Take that, Banksy!

My body is as absurd as my mind

Things that I'm allergic to:

-Cotton candy, because it makes me ill for days on end
-Green tea, because it gives me these insane intestinal spasms that I have to keep pills on hand for
-Fake Christmas trees, because there's something in the plastic that makes me break out in a body rash
-Caffeine, because it means I itch, can't gain muscle weight, and have mild attention-deficit
-People (I'm serious), because I'm allergic to the protein that our skin and hair omits - kind of like 'live' dust.

Conclusions:

-I am hungry at the fair, I don't get enough anti-oxidants (I hope that doesn't come back to punch me in the face one day), I dislike holidays for more than their materialism, I am a student who can't wake up, and I am miserable in malls and theatres.

Good times. I guess it's better than wheat, dairy, or normal-people allergies...

Film class!

This week I registered for my second-last semester at SFU, but the really exciting news is that I'm taking The History and Aesthetics of Cinema until 1945. I get credits for WATCHING BLACK AND WHITE FILMS all semester! I have a friend who took the post-1945 class, so structure-wise I know what to expect - I get to choose a film of my choice to discuss for my final paper, which pretty much means I get to talk about how the way a film looks reflects it's content and themes. So obviously I'm going to do Citizen Kane. I am so much more excited for this class than I am for pretty much everything else I'm excited about right now, except for seeing Spenser because I'm going a little crazy.

I also cut my friend Jonny's hair into a mullet last night.



Annnnnnd that's pretty much all I have time to say, because I'm being bombed with wartime term papers. World War II was poo, don't study it - study something interesting and NOT overrated, like Africa.

<3

Ten things that changed my life:

10. "Your Song" by Elton John and "Time of Your Life" by Green Day

9. Salvador Dali's "The Temptation of Saint Anthony"

8. English 347 (American Lit before 1900) with Dr. Everton at SFU

7. Death Cab for Cutie

6. Going to Paris, Prague, and Germany

5. Green Bay Bible Camp

4. The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

3. The day I picked up a paint brush

2. My mother's heart

1. The day someone asked my Grandpa what the highlight of his life was and he answered, "Margaret"



What are yours?

Work and words

Today at work, Nancy and I are planning all of the music for our VBS programs this summer - I'm doing the PowerPoints of the lyrics and she's making up actions for the songs. She was reading over this one song and said, "these lyrics suck. What does being invincible have to do with Jesus?" to which I responded, "you do know what 'invincible' means, right?" She answered, "of course I do - it means you can't see him!" This is why I love working with her.

Our office also looks like a jungle. We weren't too pleased on Monday when we had to rip out carpets and empty the sanctuary for the painters because we were dressed all pretty and were already stressed about what we were supposed to be doing - plus, the lack of gloves when we were getting rid of the carpet made us pretty typically female and catty. Our solution was to move all the plants from the sanctuary into our office temporarily, instead of putting them into storage. It looks pretty ridiculous, not going to lie.


Random and unrelated conclusion to this post.... here are my three favorite words:

-Euphemism - the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.
-Relapse - this is the name I sign off with when I wheatpaste or spray around Delta
-Interstate - it was in a line from a Death Cab song, I think it's interesting

Blonde Moments and Marble Slab

This morning Nancy and I were driving to work and we noticed that the Honda in front of us was painted a blasphemous puke green color. Nancy said it was gold, but I said it was green, and we couldn't decide until we drove up next to it to get a better look. When we finally checked it out (this was the worst part of my morning, yuck) I said, "it's gold with a green tinge," and Nancy replied, "is that what's written on the side to label it?" I thought that was pretty funny and it made me feel better that Nancy asked a dumb question since yesterday I burned my hand on the lawnmower spark plug. I don't really understand how or why I did this, but it happened and now I have little square burn marks and no feeling in my fingertips.

On a better, less stupid note, last night I went to Marble Slab for ice cream and it was the most delicious experience of my entire week. They make the ice cream fresh and after you choose your flavour they mash it up with the toppings you choose on a slab of marble (this explains the name...). I got my chocolate peanut butter ice cream mashed with Skor bar in a waffle cup. It's amazing and I'm a huge ice cream fiend so I recommend it! Although, for those of you who are easily embarrased and think this sounds like a great place to go, you probably shouldn't bring me along. I'm over-animated and highly excitable enough on a daily basis, so throwing terrific tasty treats into the mix is probably a bad idea for your sanity. I think the girl serving me was a little overwhelmed by my energy....


http://marbleslab.com/

Amanda's irrationality (word?)

This is exactly why I'm so terrified of fire, I know it sounds silly, but whatever. Fire is poo...

Super wise

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t knowhow to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing."

I saw that today on somebody's Facebook and thought it pretty much nailed it. That's all I really wanted to say... enjoy your Sunday, kids.

Adulthood is poo

I don't have anything witty to say, I don't have anything to recommend, I haven't come up with any life-illuminating ideas to share, and I don't like to talk about very personal things online.

So much for posting, I guess.

What I really want to do though is up and move to Victoria. I want to pull an Emily Carr and I want to pull a Tyler Durden all in one. Pretty much what I mean is I want to move away for a month or two with no television, car, phone, internet, etc. I want to live in a studio apartment and make just enough money for food, rent, and art supplies. I want to work minimally somewhere interesting and spend the rest of my time writing and painting. I don't want to be distracted by others or by things; I want to sleep simply and eat simply and be simple.

I think this is a pretty good thing to do once I finish my B.A. You know, spend years working for a grade point average, and then reject everything. After that I want to work at camp because camp was pretty badass this weekend. Then I want to dilly dally, THEN I want to go back to PDP.

So much for being normal and getting on the whole carreer thing. But then, normal doesn't exist, so... whatevz.



ps. buy Death Cab's Narrow Stairs, just trust me on this one.

Nada Surf, Al Gore

I finally went out and bought Nada Surf's "Lucky" album. It's good, but different: their older stuff was a lot more experimental with genres and sound etc etc., and this album is the "mature" one. I love it though, and it's on at HMV for $14.99 AND it comes with a bonus disc.

In other news, I like to make lists of unrealistic Life Goals (like punching someone; I know this will never happen) so I thought I'd add another one: I'd like to meet Al Gore. Not because I think he's particularly cool, but because I no longer feel particularly cool. I mean, I felt cool when I was going green and doing little things to save the planet. I felt cool when I thought about how hot our summers will be after all of this global warming business (which made me feel good because I figured that as I was saving the earth I would be temporarily rewarded with a killer tan). Now, I don't feel so cool anymore, and I'm pretty sure Al wouldn't either if he lived in Vancouver.

Snow? Give me a break. I'm going to go retire my Tide Coldwater now.

Love filtered through grade school Art class

I know it sounds silly, but crawl inside my head for a minute and imagine that the people you love are layers of paper mache pressed against your heart. When you have them, they're tons of fun to work with as you make shapes and mold the paper and create things inside of yourself. When you lose them, the mache hardens - but it isn't a bad thing. The hardened layers make a foundation that's stable and tough, kind of like the bones keeping you together. And when the person who lasts forever comes along, they get to have a stable, strong heart to use as their foundation because when it's their turn, paper mache isn't the only option. They can paint or draw or collage or glitter or use whatever their heart desires for your heart. And they create a work of art inside of you and while all of this is going on, you're doing the same thing to them.

"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe, Life Goals

I just finished an American Literature course at SFU - the title was "The Career of Deviance in American Literature," which meant we did a lot of readings involving strange people, strange events, and strange crimes. Subsequently, I feel very well read because not only did we cover a lot of material, we covered a lot of incredibly difficult and complex material. I'm talking Melville, James, Hawthorne, Lippard, Thoreau, and POE.

Edgar Allan Poe was one of my favorite writers (surpassed only by Herman Melville and his novella, "Bartleby, the Scrivener") because he's dark and twisted and exemplifies perversity (not the sexual kind) and deviance perfectly. His short story, "The Black Cat," may very well be the best short story I've ever read.

It's only five pages, I'll love you more than bacon if you read it.

http://www.online-literature.com/poe/24/


Also, I've been thinking more about my future and my temporary dislike of school. I've decided to quit being foolish, so my plans of being an astronaut and whatever else I brainstormed are going down the drain faster than Avril's career. However, I have made a list of things I would like to accomplish, preferrably in the next few years. My Life Goals are:

-Travel to India and other parts of Asia
-Learn sign language and Braille
-Learn to Banghra dance
-Punch somebody in the face
-Paint something humungous on the concrete in the Bog so it shows up on Google satellite

I have a feeling the first thing that will happen will be the punch because I've never been in a fight and I watch Fight Club constantly, I have quite a bit of sass, and I know some very annoying people - one in particular. Melville would say that he is "an intolerable incubus." This is why everybody should read Melville.

"When I grow up I want to age gracefully"

I hate school. I hate school. I hate school.



I don't actually hate school. I hate schoolwork. Which is kind of funny, because I'm going to be in schools for the rest of my working life, marking schoolwork unless I can get out of it.

When I was six, I wanted to be a hockey player because they make so much money (gender inequalities didn't matter to me at the time. Neither did the fact that I tried to take skating lessons and hated my teacher so much that I walked off the ice and never came back).

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a dentist, because they make a lot of money. People kind of gross me out though, and I eventually realized I didn't want my fingers to be all up in their mouths digging around for dirt the way my great aunt digs for dirt about my love life ("When your grandma was 19 she was married with a kid. How are things going for you?").

Eventually I wanted to be a vet because I have a soft spot for animals. When I was younger we had a 'pet' possum who lived under the shed and ate the carrots I fed him. His name was Opi. Years later, my father exterminated his decendants; I was upset. One day I realized that I'm not emotionally stable enough to deal with sickness and death.

Finally, I settled on being a teacher, which started off with an inkling towards science - but then I hated my science teachers and loved my English teachers, and here we are. I'm really lucky to have known for so long what I want to do. I'm lucky that I'm passionate about something and I'm lucky that when I graduate next Spring I'll know where to go from there.


But after writing page after page of literary analysis papers, after reading book on top of book, after taking a notebook full of notes, I'm starting to loathe it all. Therefore, I've made a list of new possible jobs:

-Super famous artist with galleries in Japan and Italy
-Astronaut
-Bank robber



I think this sounds reasonable.

The Female Body, Christopher Walken

For any Pulp Fiction veteran out there, think about the scene where Butch and Fabienne are lying on their hotel bed and with that beautiful French accent (I think French women are the most beautiful) Fabienne says very innocently, "Potbellies are sexy ... it's unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same," and think about how this is the perfect statement about the female body.

For anybody who knows a little history, think about the ideal Ancient Greek female image and how she was proportioned to have some meat in her bones while still remaining graceful, as can be seen in the extremely famous "Venus de Milo" sculpture (I saw it in Paris at the Louvre, so sassy).

For any art buff, think about the way Renaissance painters portrayed beautiful and regal women in their work: full of bellies and hips and curves.

For anyone who saw or read about the Britney Failure at the VMAs, think about how the media and how your girlfriends described Britney's post-two-children body: fat - even though I almost guarantee that everyone who said those things is more endowed in the waist than Britney is, post-two-children or not.

I think the next article I write for The Peak is going to explore these four topics.




***Pulp Fiction reminded me of the Gold Watch scene and how brilliant Christopher Walken is, which let me to think about how money he was whenever he hosted SNL, which led me to Wiki-search him. While doing this I learned that he is an Oscar Winning actor, but more importantly, that he has been married to the same wife since 1969. He has been active in Hollywood for the past fifty years, and has been married to the same woman for almost FOURTY years without failing at what most in Hollywood fail at. This has nothing to do with my Peak article, I just found it immensly interesting and now have even more respect for Christopher Walken.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/7/7c/300px-Bellini_mirror.jpg

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/g/greek/venus_de_milo_louvre.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1149/1360519653_ee08b8fcf9.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Walken