me against the world

It’s the late afternoon of Christmas Day 2006.

I’m trying not to take a nap. I really don’t know why though.

My brother gave me season four of 24 for Christmas. I am just halfway through season one. I have been told to try my hardest to catch up and watch all five seasons before season six starts on January 14, 2007. It’s not going to happen.

As with Lost, every episode leaves me clutching to the edge of my seat, my heart thumping, blood pressure rising, waiting to see what will happen next.

In order to live, I can’t really watch many episodes in one day. I might just pop a vein.

This is the first Christmas Day in my 21 years (that I can recall) that the weather has been good enough for me to wrap up warmly and go for a bike ride.

So I did just that. But, I forgot all about the fact that I would be riding at high speed with cold wind rushing into my face and down my shirt. I returned home with a rather large head rush.

Thank God for tea.

Also for the first time in my 21 years, I beat my brother at chess today. It was all because he made a fluke mistake and I wouldn’t let him reverse his move. Ha.

The Godfather of Soul passed away this morning. As far as my memory serves me, he was going to be touring in Canada in the next few weeks.

His songs really did make me “feel good” (despite the fact that I don’t got you).

(Please forgive my cheesiness…)

Meanwhile, Ethiopia vs. Somalia is taking off. Oh boy…

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas. If you are anywhere far east of our time zone, then I shall restate that statement just for you: I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

Keep safe everyone.

And you asked me what I want this year
And I’ll try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe
We’ll find better days

‘Cause I don’t need boxes wrapped in strings
Designer love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe
We’ll find better days

So take these words
And sing out loud
‘Cause tonight’s the night
The world begins again

I need someplace simple where we could live
And something only you could give
And that’s faith and trust and peace while we’re
Alive

And the one poor child who saved this world
There’s 10 million more who probably could
If we all just stopped and said a prayer for them

I wish everyone was loved tonight
And somehow stop this endless fight
Just a chance that maybe we’ll
Find better days

- “Better Days” by John Rzeznik
- Song performed by the Goo Goo Dolls.

So, most of you will not be surprised to hear that I’m planning on writing a year-end blog post with random comments and points about 2006.

I’m sure you’re all really excited to read it also :D

Anyway, here is my teaser. Meg at meish.org has been running the Mayfly Project for six years now. Visit the site to learn more, but basically you sum up your year in 24 words.

So here is mine:

started with pain and confusion. found a way. focused on important things. internship! met beautiful people. amazing experiences. growth. comfort. courage. learned to breathe.

Has anyone ever noticed how bad news and events come all packaged together every once in a while?

As in, there’s always this period where it feels like one bad thing after another just keeps happening, all at once?

It’s happining in my life (and many of my friends’ lives) right now.

People are passing away, going to the hospital, having problems…

But that’s life? Is that all we can say in response?

It sucks.

Recently I have noticed that I can be a stickler about politeness. I can be quite forgiving (especially towards my friends) but from time to time I get rather agitated about it.

I like when people say “please”, “thank you”, “have a nice day”, “how are you?”, “sorry”, etc. When someone doesn’t thank me after I do something for them, I’ll turn away and with a grumble say “you’re welcome” sarcastically.

I get irritated when I let someone into traffic, or pause to let him or her turn across traffic, and I don’t recieve a “thank you” wave in return. In fact, the arrogance and rudeness of many drivers can give me so much stress in the morning that I’ve had to change my route to work to a less-busy road. It seriously drives me crazy.

There are some people who know first hand about this stickler status because when they ask me for something, sometimes I will look them in the eye and ask them to repeat the question until they say “please”. I usually get parent-like when it’s someone I do a lot for and feel the need for a polite request and appreciation once in a while. How can that be too much to ask?

And it personally hurts me when someone I care deeply about is rude and doesn’t ask how I am doing. Even if I know they don’t want to know, it’s rude and I would like a little bit of respect - especially if they’ll ask other people in front of me.

But I also think my irritation depends on my mood.

Anyway, I just finished reading Lynne Truss’ Talk to the Hand. I loved her grammar book, and this book was just as humourous as that.

But reading it made me realize how much I appreciate politeness and how often a lack of it can stick out to me in my daily life.

I try to be polite to others but I know I am not perfect.

I always say “thank you” and “have a good weekend” to a cashier, even if they’re too busy talking to a co-worker and not paying attention to me. Which is quite rude, if you ask me, because I’m the customer and they are getting paid to pay attention to me, no?

Truss’ book was a great read with many examples of how polite behaviour is in decline, including the rude cashier. My favourite topic was on the universal “eff off” reaction, but the topic that hit home hard was the rude driver.

I especially hate it when someone flashes their lights at a stupid driver who, like I mentioned at the top, has just cut in dangerously, and then said driver gives you the finger (aka, the universal eff-off reaction).

GAH.

Ultimately, as Truss points out, politeness is about respecting one another and getting along in society. It helps people feel appreciated and so they will be happy and will probably do something nice for you in return.

Treat people the way you would like to be treated. Isn’t that what they always say?

Yesterday was the anniversary of the 1989 Montreal Massacre.

People were talking about it all day and it really upset me. For those who don’t know, a man (who shall remain nameless because he doesn’t deserve the fame associated with his name) entered an engineering class and killed 13 women.

Yesterday was one of those days when I felt really down about the world.

As I thought about these women and what I thought about it all as a female who is studying both the Arts and the Sciences, I thought about all the violence that has occurred in places that people honestly believe and expect to be safe (schools, for example).

Then, in an unrelated conversation, someone brought up the fact that one small handful of the world’s population owns the majority of the world’s money (I don’t know the exact figures, but a co-worker did approximate calculations to make his point), and what this means.

So I got frustrated about certain issues that I’ve always known and randomly thought about. I thought about how while these women were murdered, many thousands of people around the world are dying right now at his very moment.

From poverty, disease, and/or war.

It’s all depressing, upsetting and frustrating. I left work almost in tears because of my anger towards the actions of some of the members of our stupid human race. Most of all, I hate feeling confused and unsure of how I can change the world. I realize that’s a feat too large for a single person, but I just can’t figure out how to do my small part.

But I know there is hope. And even if there isn’t really, I choose to believe that there is.

A friend of mine from work told me to look up Where The Hell is Matt?. I realize Matt has been famous across the Internet for a while now, but this was my first time seeing this guy dance around the world.

If you haven’t seen the videos yet, please watch both: you can find them here.

What’s even better is that a whole bunch of people from around the world recorded their own segments and someone put them together to make this amazing video.

Every time I watch the videos I can’t help but smile and get this warm tingly feeling. I even laugh out loud at some of the clips. It’s so nice to see humans around the world, laughing, smiling and dancing along happily in the same way. They are all sharing the happiness associated with being innocent and silly like children. They are also sharing the beauty of the world. It’s so simple and so nice, and makes me think about how small the world really is. And this technology of the Internet helped connect these people to make it happen.

Little things like this give me some hope, even though I can’t explain exactly why or how.