My block break

I went to Van for a day and a half. Here's van:

And here's Elly sleeping on the bus in van.



The happiest piece of graffiti ever!

Elly and I had vaguely planned to go visit her friend in Bellingham, but then I forgot my passport and realized that I should better spend my time organizing myself at Quest. Then Elly changed her mind too, and went back to Quest with me.


So then we wandered around the campus..



The colours!! It's so beautiful.



The next day I spent a good three or four hours laying on my blanket in the gravel pit with this glorious view. Soaking up the sun, reading a book, not worrying about time or things to do or anything. That was the best.

Quick note

Class was good, we did a math test diagnostic (doesn't count for points, just to let the tutor know where we're at in life. well, in math, anyways). I have no homework!!! woah, man! First time in.... dunno how long.
I got homework in life though. Like defining what I mean by the Awakening, and how to place objectivity and subjectivity in the context of my question. Planning out the rest of my academic career. And trying to feel like a normal human being.

Some parts of me are broken right now.
Dunno why, dunno how.

One day I'll be better.

But also read a novel the other day, my first one in a little while (last one was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in Egypt if I remember correctly). Read Ender's Game in a day and it hit home. It had some of the same themes I've been thinking about, some different ones.. Now I'm restarting Tales of Power by Carlos Castaneda. It's like a story about being a warrior, if by warrior you mean someone who can see and who does what might normally be considered magic. It too, has some important themes. It's about living right. That's pretty important. Speaking the language of the universe (though now that I think of it, I did read the Alchemist over the summer). When you think about it, you start seeing the same themes everywhere. It's inescapable. The universe is all.

Last Saturday

Saturday morning was awesome.

I got up early and peacefully, leisurely started doing my homework. Like doing homework was the most luxurious treat one could imagine.

Then I brought Ashley forth into this wonderful day, and we made cream of wheat together

Then we went by the waterfall a quick 7 minutes' walk from our place.. in the middle of the forest, you skip the bridge and scramble down to the shore.

I love human products randomly abandoned in nature!

Then we walked another 25 minutes to get to THIS waterfall. Quite a bit larger than the last one. Where that tree is growing out from the rock, on the left, is where kids often go cliff jumping. I've jumped off the lower one that's kinda shiny and hard to point out, still a good few meters off the water.

Ashley peeking through the rocks back at me.

This is cold, cold glacier water.

And me and Ashley went skinny dipping in it.

Walking back over the giant bridge, we look across the way...

....and down at the huge waterfall.

And then we found this cutest snail on a path in the forest.

the answer

a world devoid of opinions, a world entirely objective, would either be completely fake and lying and insincere, or completely devoid of morality. and this is really coming back to the creation of a mass society. a world sanitized. a scary place, a complete void of humanity.

(which can be overcome by expression. completely biased, subjective, feeling, expression of self)

Looking to kill a couple minutes?

I was looking through the Walrus' website as part of my Media and Politics class, and came across this charming story: An Arboreal History According to the Guild of St. Luke. You should check it out. It takes less than a minute. I love it!!

Also, EPIC is a documentary about the state of media in 2014. It's 8 minutes long, and gives an alternate view of things. Interesting to think about.

I'm sure you've heard of the Daily Show, a comedy 'news' show. Well John Stewart went on Crossfire in 2004. It's just really interesting to watch. Actually, it's because of John Stewart that Crossfire was later canceled. (If you're a little more interested you can read with wiki bit here)

I love getting up early on weekends...

The sky seems hung over. Draped on the shoulders of the mountains, falling all over the place, making a mess of the landscape.

Mamquam River

Me and Bruna biked to downtown Squamish. (yay biking!) on Thursday. On the way back we stopped by the Mamquam River.

Here's Bruna waaaay down the path, tiny among the trees...

I love graffiti. Here's something random and picturesque.


Bruna and our bikes


A cool rock


The beach and the old riverbed

Notebook magazine

Completely randomly... I'm a fan of the Edmonton Small Press Association in Edmonton and they sent me a message saying that Notebook is releasing its last magazine, come down for a party!

Shenenigans: Fire

There was a fire alarm in the building last night. It was about 11:30ish when the insane beeping goes on throughout the building. I descend the stairs past Theresa on the phone with emergency services and she tells us to go out to the tennis court parking lots. We all walk over there and we're all checking on our friends and roommates. Of course I have no coat and no shoes...

We're beside the northeast corner of the building, and Caleb and James Berry have piled their mattresses outside of their room, and there's four people on the balcony of the room above them. Gab is scared of heights and doesn't want to jump, so Kirsty climbs up to try to help somehow. The fire trucks are on the other side of the building talking to Theresa when we all find out there's no actual fire. A couple of drunk people took out one of the fire extinguishers and sprayed it everywhere. Apparently the fumes seemed kind of like smoke. So Gab and Jaimie and someone else and their very drunk roommate all make a run for it down the stairs. We all still have to stay out of the building until they can clear all the foam and fumes. We all wander over to South Village where Jaimie starts to play us wonderful piano tunes. Honestly, the whole room of about 8 people are affixed, listening to her amazingness. Then they tell us that if we inhaled any smoke we should get checked out by the paramedics, so I take Tatiana to get checked out. We still couldn't get in to the building until like 12:30ish. End of story.

I can't find my camera

Here's some" old" pictures from this summer.






I've been peer tutoring this first year kid. It's so cute, helping him! He's so earnest! He just has trouble organizing his thoughts sometimes. We've done three different brainstorming sessions. It's cool to see how it clicks in his head.
Also, I got my first essay back--I had to ask for an extension because I was in over my head, not used to it all again, and misread previous hw assignments. I got an A- Awesome

HEY YO!

Oh my goodness. The day before yesterday was a day of amazing connections. There's a certain core group of people here who are just amazing people, like Hannah and Bruna and Kirsty, who are all living together. That room has such power in it. Such a good force. It makes me happy to be their honorary fourth roommate. Then there's Jamie, and a new addition to Quest, Jamie's roommate Elly.

Actually it's hilarious because lots of people (including myself, admittedly) say that Elly and I look like each other. Some people thought she was my sister. I said that we should be friends just for this reason and then it all took off. She spent one year in Kenya, the past summer working for the conservation corps in Southwest United States, and we read each others' minds. Also, she's exactly three days older than me. It's so mysterious and awesome and the kind of person who I can spend, honestly, hours delving into the pockets of the universe with, yet we never even come close to exhausting the riches it has to offer. We're only left more awestruck and intrigued.

Just now I was hanging out with Dustin and suddenly, randomly said, "I want to go to Van". This despite the logical side of me that says I have a ticket to the music festival in Squamish this weekend and I really wanted to see Said the Whale because I've been listening to them for two years and today's their day, but suddenly I felt like I should go to Van. Then Elly comes by the room and asks if I want to go to Van with her. What?? That's awesome.

I have some homework to catch up on but... I might just be going to Vancouver today.