i think it's envy

since i've started attending OISE, i've picked up the very sketchy habit of surreptitiously checking people for wedding rings. this is because i got tired of being surprised when someone in class casually referred to his wife or her husband when sharing with the class. also to see if the ladies are single, naturally.

in undergrad, most people are coming directly out of high school with a handful of very obviously career-folk coming back to school for extra learning or qualification. in graduate school, the demographic is very diverse. fresh out of undergrad students are a minority in teachers college. a good block of my peers are moving on to teaching from other careers they've decided to leave behind, or are recently immigrated to Canada and are seeking qualifications for continuing their careers here.

a good number of people at school are about-to-be-married, married, raising children, sending their children through post-secondary studies etc. there is an eye-opening amount of experience congregated here. sometimes i wonder what i'm actually bringing to the table.

peace by piece of muffin

of all the courses i'm taking, physics is the one that scares me most. the workload seems to be building up momentum, without me having to actually hand anything in yet. all the preparation for those big assignments are like the shadows that loom ominously as a sign of impending danger. every physics class, while fun and engaging and thoroughly edifying, is another chance to freak out about the future and the possibility of failure. my expectations for myself as a teacher are high, but i clearly have not fully considered the steps necessary to achieving such lofty heights.

as i ate my lunch and did some reading, suddenly very motivated to do course readings and take notes and prepare for future assignments (thank you motivational fear), my mind wandered. my mind wandered to the animals in the courtyard in which i sat (Munk building, pointed out to me by Catherine) and so i watched them.

i watched a squirrel nibble on berries in the bush along the building wall. i watched it climb into a tree and confront the incumbent squirrel; they stared at each other for the longest time before parting ways to different branches of the tree. i watched the sparrows flit about, dipping their heads below the grassline to pick up unseen food. i watched them chirp and chatter to each other.

i had a muffin; it had nuts.

i couldn't finish the muffin, so i disassembled bits of the stump and casually scattered little bits around the bench (the 'bench' was actually a long cement block and i sit there to eat on sunny days). first at quite some distance away; then a little closer and closer and closer. one sparrow saw the first offering and swooped in for a bite. more arrived to feast, never fighting, but noone waiting in line.

i tried to get some to land on the bench next to me so i could see them more closely; it was too early in the relationship for that. they did not mind hopping close along the ground though. at one point, i had about 4 birds within 14 cm of my foot. i stopped seeding the ground with muffin crumbs for awhile, but about a dozen birds remained in the vicinity, hopping around, occasionally peering at me with inquiring gazes.

22 [...] "For this reason I say to you, do not worry about your life, as to what you will eat; nor for your body, as to what you will put on.
23 "For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
24 "Consider the [sparrows], for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds! [...]
29 "[Do] not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not keep worrying.
30 "For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things.
31 "But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you." - Luke 12

and so i was reminded.

squeam

hidden due to disturbing content.

this morning, i got to church early for service. on the footpath leading from the parking lot ot the church office there lay a dead mouse. and it wasn't just a mouse who had a very good night and died of a heart attack. this mouse would've been cute (as mice tend to be) had it not been for the unfortunate decapitation. now decapitation creeps me out the usual amount, but only if it is clean, insofar as getting your cappa detated is ever clean. the head was not cut off, it was torn off. about a third of the mouse's back skin was shorn from the musculature. if its head was on proper, it would have been face down in a pool of its own blood. i did not take a picture.

anyway. since it was early, i felt it was necessary to dispose of the body prior to kids arriving. now i generally love fuzzy animals, so seeing a dead mouse is no fun. seeing anything dead is no fun. seeing a dead fuzzy something that's showing inside bits is the least fun of all. i saw a dead raccoon behind the church office 'garage' once; it was slightly disemboweled and totally rigor mortised. i ran away like a freaked-out leperchaun.

it took me 3 minutes of staring at it to commit to cleaning it up. i went into the kitchen to search for possibly helpful supplies, preferrably things that would prevent me from making direct contact with the body. i found some work gloves that Art normally uses to mess around with the fire pits. i found a ziploc sandwich bag that looked big enough to hold and seal the corpse. i went back outside to grab a small branch so that i would not have to make contact with the gloves.

i put the gloves on and flipped the sandwich bag inside-out over my left hand. stick in hand, i stood over the poor little thing and spent 6 minutes screwing up the courage to proceed. i formed a pocket with the bag on my hand and positioned it behind the mouse, spreading my fingers wide so that i wouldn't actually have to even feel the body. i lifted the rear of the mouse with the stick and shifted it halfway into the bag. the front stuck to the sidewalk a bit because the blood had congealed. at this point i noticed that the head was still intact and had its eyes been open it would've been looking at me. fully committed, i torqued the body fully into the bag and quickly flipped it to hold the mouse on the inside. then i dropped the bag and silently squealed and skipped away (like a freaked-out leperchaun).

after i had composed myself, i picked up the bag, sealed it and dropped it into the dumpster. the stick i chucked away. back at the sidewalk, i pulled up the hose and sprayed away as much of the blood that i could. there were two patches: one was the original point of attack and the other was the final resting spot of the body. and that was how i started my day.

Procelain Philosophy 6: Sharing Pains

i'm not very good at sharing about myself; it usually takes an inordinate amount of effort for me to come up with an anecdote from my day. most of the time, the anecdotes i do have are about others and not myself.

much of it has to do with a guardedness that seemed to have appeared around the time of puberty that never exactly came down. if i remember correctly, prior to grade 7 i could unequivocally tell you exactly how i felt about a situation (sad, happy, mad) simply by the expression on my face. then one day i decided not to be such a crybaby and subconsciously took up partial stoicism. it certainly helps in shrugging off potential situations and issues before they can pick up momentum. apparently it is rather noticeable too, which i, ironically, did not notice until some people mentioned it.

another significant reason i can think of as to why i have difficulty talking about what went on in my day has to do with all the talking to myself that i do. when i'm not saying anything outloud, i am likely discussing something with myself, adopting various viewpoints and working out the reasons behind everything. by the time there is opportunity to talk to someone about a situation, i've already talked about it to death with myself. if i were to say it outloud, it would feel like i was repeating myself, and i don't like repeating myself because it seems inefficient.

perhaps my standards for what constitutes a good story to tell are too high. i know i dismiss certain events from my immediate memory for not being interesting enough to illicit a laugh (or emotional response in general; or lively discussion in the comments). i do consider myself to be a rather boring person.

so, the plan for this year (and on) is to spend more time outside my shell, take more risks and be more vulnerable to both good and bad things. letting bad things roll off my back and onto the floor is great and all, but if i don't learn to deal properly with the little bads, i won't be able to deal with the big bads that aren't as rotund when they inevitably rear their ugly heads.

breaking ice

today was my first official day of classes at OISE. i had physics in the morning (8:30) and english in the late afternoon (3:00). as is customary (and required by school policy), i was innundated with syllabi; every assignment, test, activity, mega-crazy group project was outlined with the mark and due date displayed.

i understand the reasoning behind giving out course outlines on the first day, going over course and school policies on behaviour, professionalism and plagiarism, but it makes it no less daunting. some of these assignments are not only massive, but very clearly above and beyond where i would guage my ability to be. for a couple of moments today, i contemplated freaking out (just a little bit) and considering other career options (birdwatching still very much in the picture).

fortunately, i've been reading ahead in my Psychological Foundations for Learning and Development class (which i will take for the first time next Thursday due to school policy regarding religious observances). Piaget surmised that learning and growth resulted from disequilibrium -- phenomena or situations that defy previously held schemes, beliefs -- forcing the mind to adapt and rethink and expand upon those old mental models to try and reach equilibrium again. learning is facilitated most readily in an environment that hits that sweet spot of disequilibrium: not too easy, not too hard.

this means getting uncomfortable and being unsatisfied with myself and striving for more out of myself. when first contemplating possible careers, i told myself that i would not want to do a performance related profession, like cooking, painting, acting, etc. naturally i chose the one career that makes you stand up in front of at least 60 people a day and interact with them in mindbogglingly creative, engaging and informative ways so that they can pursue fruitful careers and support their own livelihoods and the well-being of their families. no pressure. of course all of life is a performance and you'll always have someone watching over what you are doing and evaluating you. to prevent anxiety from taking me to an early grave, i must remember daily that i am performing for an audience of One (well, Three in One).

hopefully this will be reflected in my actions and choices as my instructors are taking the time to know their students personally with vested interest in our futures. it was somewhat surprising to find out that they followed the careers of the students they've taken under their wings quite religiously and it was totally encouraging; i am now full of courage.

new courage helps in first day situations. each class has 'forced' student interaction through a variation of the same icebreaking game: profile hunt. a certain quality or achievement is listed and you have to find a classmate who fits the profile (e.g. has at least two kids, fluently speaks at least 3 languages, has read at least one Harry Potter book). this forces us to talk to people and to try to get to know at least one thing about them.

i've played this game before and it can be done extremely shallowly if one so chooses. since these are going to be the people i am going to be stepping into the professional world with, i decided to strive for a little bit more than what was on the page. normally i abhor small talk, but it is much easier when you start by telling yourself, "i'm going to care about this person." then small talk is no longer small talk and it is big talk. as a result, i've made a new friend in my english class whom i can conveniently subway with on at least Tuesdays and Fridays because she lives in the east end around Tim and Viv, worked a summer with Edward "Mr. Technology" C. at Seneca, and is one of the bestest friends of Dorcas. i was struck dumb by the number of connections and amount of overlap with someone who was a complete stranger just seven hours ago. i so don't need Facebook.

Elisa - Eppure Sentire (Un Senso Di Te)

a un passo dal possibile
a un passo da te
paura di decidere
paura di me

di tutto quello che non so
di tutto quello che non ho

eppure sentire
nei fiori tra l'asfalto
nei cieli di cobalto c'è

eppure sentire
nei sogni in fondo a un pianto
nei giorni di silenzio c'è

un senso di te
c'è un senso di te

eppure sentire
nei fiori tra l'asfalto
nei cieli di cobalto c'è

eppure sentire
nei sogni in fondo a un pianto
nei giorni di silenzio c'è

un senso di te
c'è un senso di te

un senso di te...

my new favourite song of right now...
it's italian and i'm having difficulty translating the lyrics, due to not knowing Italian beyond a variety of pastas and musical terms. i've got most of it, thanks to babelfish, but the poetry of it does not seem to be there yet. if i get it, i'll post it.

i like it because it is moving; both rhythmically and emotionally dynamic. it's nothing fancy or groundbreaking, just... optimistic sounding.

not sure why she does that weird microphone waving thing effect, but i suppose it proves she's actually singing. look around on YouTube for studio versions.

psyched

you know what's a great way to start your first day of post-graduate education? waking up at 5 am because your alarm clock is screwy and changes the clock time if you change the alarm time too fast so i woke up an hour earlier than i wanted to on top of having trouble sleeping that night even though i tried to get to bed early in preparation of today's long day of lineups and information overload.

this year is going to plow past me so fast i will only really be ready for it after it has come and gone. first practicum in 6 weeks! Tuesdays and Fridays go from 8:30 to 10:30 and 3:00 to 5:00, one 2 hour lecture for each Teachable (English/Physics). Thursdays are the worst: 8:30 to 12:30 and 1:00 to 5:00 for a 4 hr Teaching Seminar and a 4 hr Psychology of Learning and Development lecture. Wednesdays are the best: 8:30 to 12:30 for my only elective, Drama Strategies for Teaching. everything is the same for next semester, except no class on Wednesdays and School and Society instead of psych. if anyone wants to hang out for lunch on TU/WE/FR, let me know.

chatted up some familiar faces (even one from high school, whom i've talked to maybe 2 times before) and got to know more recent ones a little better. don't actually know anyone in my cohort (YR/Durham region) yet. the new people that i did meet are all in different cohorts; slight chance i'll see them in a Teachable, if i remember what they look like and what their names are.

subwayed back to Scarborough with Helen, a UTSC classmate of the same program whom i only started talking to today, which made what would normally have been a snoozer of a trip rather pleasant. at every junction of the trip, i tried to gauge where the doors of the subways would stop by looking at the dirt patterns of the platforms and the arrayment of commuters (Psych powers) and got 2/3 tries; on the way to school this morning i guessed them all (2) correctly by intuition, which is cool but not as fun.

ouchies

i don't follow celebrity stuff that much, but i was browsing around looking for The Office updates when i decided to check on Pam Beesly's MySpace blog (Pam, played by Jenna, will often post while filming background scenes because pretending to work in an office is really just as boring as working in an office -- but their computers work). anyways, now i am vicariously crushed. click here if you are a snoop (it's not a spoiler, but it spoils something inside, that's for sure).

Kestrel (Alpha)

i write this post from Opera 9.5 Alpha, a public pre-release build of Opera's latest development, codenamed Kestrel. since it is an alpha-build, it is bound to be buggy, but so far i haven't had any problems with the usual browsing experience. i'm not a power-user by any stretch of the imagination. download here, from the Opera Desktop Team blog.

there are new features galore and most of them look promising. there isn't anything as big and flashy as Speed Dial, but mostly little minor usage improvements (click for video preview). my favourite so far is drag to scroll (opera:config#UserPrefs|ScrollIsPan).

the big thing that no one else really cares about (since only one or two other people reading this use Opera =P) is how my blog looks in the archive section:

Opera 9.23 vs. Opera 9.5 rendering of Blogger Archive Arrows

the downward pointing arrows render correctly, but the horizontal arrows are not. the top and bottom halves are overlapped, thus forming some manner of squished arrow. this is corrected in Opera 9.5.

most of the real changes are taking place under the hood, so everything is faster with an even smaller memory footprint. the mail client, M-2, as also been improved. i will likely begin to use it when 9.5 is truly released.