Abit of an Undercurrent, as if a Tap Left Running.

Hello cyberspace! I'd say there is no need to apologize for my absence this time around, as it has been brief, as far as I can tell.
I just thought I'd leave everyone with abit of an update on the status of this blog, as well as a few other helpful tidbits of information, as well as what I've been up to since I last posted.

First things first; although I haven't got much of a chance to post as of late (in general, at least), I thought I'd just give everyone a heads-up: this blog will remain in constant use by myself for as long into the future as is foreseeable, but my school and social lives are both getting quite hectic, especially considering the onset of my 12th and final year in school. Lately, I've been feeling abit smothered, and in the back of my mind, abit nervous. Why, or for what, I'm not sure.
It seems as if my life is slowly transitioning into something I'm ready for, yet not quite ready to embrace with open arms: the life of an adult.
Most of my friends, and most outspokenly, both of my parents, all seem to think I should get a job, and I think I should as well, and should really start looking into that this week, as I've finally got a pile of resumes printed out and ready to be handed out to the town employers. For some reason, I'm abit afraid to get a job, as I feel it'd seal the deal with that drastic change that's inevitably barreling towards me like a semi-truck with broken brakes, and it's not like I can resist it, as I'd like to embrace it, but at the same time, I'm afraid to embrace it too soon.

Alongside, although possibly in part because of this, I've been feeling a slight undercurrent of discontent within myself, as I seem to be developing romantic feelings for someone who just so happens to be 3 years younger than me, and this is bothering me not so much because of the age difference, but because I feel as if these feelings are manifesting themselves to quickly (as I only met her last Thursday at a dance), like they did back when I was this girls age, and every relationship was an innocent and quick affair; so in a sense, it's as if my romantic maturity is regressing, but I guess I've got to brave it out and let my common sense endure. It bothers me in another context, as I don't believe in casual relationships. When I get into a relationship, I assume it's a serious one to begin with, as it seems to be that technically, there is no such thing as short-term relationships; just long-term relationships that were cut short for a legion of different reasons, the bothersome reason in this case being that if I was to get into a relationship with her, or someone her age, I'd have to figure out what the both of us would do once I graduated, as the longest I would probably stick around would be until September of next year, after which I plan on moving to Victoria with a couple of my best friends. Although... all of this could just be wishful thinking on my part, as I only just met her, and I am hardly in a place to say that we are going to be in a relationship, although it would be nice to have a girlfriend again, and her and I both have alot in common. I don't know. Usually, I would opt not to rant about something of this nature, as it's quite personal; but I felt as if I really needed a place to vent this into words this time around, as it really is getting under my skin, in a sense.

Anyways, second of all, a bit of information that the readers of my blog may like to know is that I've published an eBook of 20 of my poems, and have also published, extensively, my poetry on the website Hello Poetry, which is free to read (and there just so happens to be a couple poems on there that have yet to be published to my blog, and may well never be).

It's about 11:20 PM on a school night, and I'm feeling pretty tired, so I think I'm going to head off and hit the sack. The philosophy articles that I promised you in August are on there way, but they've been postponed until further notice due to all the above reasoning's, so you will see them, but as to when, I'm about as clueless as you are.
Good night blue planet.

The Town They Called a City

Just as the pyramids would,
In the deserts of Cairo,
Snow-capped mountains gleam distant,
As if Kings on the Main.

This distance complete,
Through the eyes of the beholder,
As from a sea-sided office,
We with watch with wonder lust.

Bright streetlights,
And red lights, and green lights,
And stop signs,
As decadent name-change,
Perceives as if older,
As bigger, as bolder.

Musicians and artists,
Poets and Marxists,
Authors and boxers,
All convene to sing songs,
As egalitarianism,
Sings us a calm, blinded lullaby,
As the idea to be grasped,
In this young mind of mine.

They call this no small town,
In which not one arcade resides;
Gun crime is never,
In percent, as we ride,
A wave of communal,
Small-town "world peace,"
We'll take some money,
Off the governments lease.

In a sense we are distant,
Different, contesting,
A world which conforms,
As if all can and will be,
A slave to a master,
Sociopathic disaster,
As we run faster and faster,
Away from that stream.

We are the masters of our fate,
As we rate the world's hate,
On a scale from 1 to 10.

We are secluded,
Yet unconfused, not diluted;
We are more aware of this world,
Than it is of itself.

We set the sidelines,
As guidelines to life,
As we watch with some bias,
As we remain neutral to strife.

We are the Power,
And we are the River,
Ripped from the main-stream,
We create; we are free.

Dedicated to my hometown of Powell River,
British Columbia,
Canada.

Like the Jaded Sidewalkers

Men clad cleanly, polished boots and bowler hats,
Women wearing short skirts or long dress,
Boys no longer boys deny their old,
With rock and rap, skate shoes; how bold!

Indifferently they carry on,
I am you, and you are him,
She is fat and she is slim,
Registered in heads dead depth,
As we pretend to see no man who chokes on crystal meth.

Like the jaded sidewalkers,
Who cram these city streets;
A glance is but acknowledgment,
As all shuffle in quick feet.

To say the least, we will pay none,
To those who are not us;
To say the least, we think we've won,
Ignore the drunk mans fuss.

Like the jaded sidewalkers,
Who view in black-and-white;
No middle-ground perceives a frown,
As they sleep amid streetlights.

The morning rush and nightly blitz,
As people scurry too,
Destinations, dealing smiles;
Self-help books to start anew.

As talk through text, online, or phone,
Dominates the daze,
Indifferently, ignore eachother,
"Nothing need be said inside this maze."
The CEO, he acts as King,
With peasants treated well;
Their brains blunted to buried states,
"He's bad; but he'll get his due in hell."

Everyday they rise early,
To catch the mornings speed;
"I do this by the clock because,
A life, so rich, I'll lead."

"Conforming kills the mindless soul,
To fight off human urge;"
You're free, yet unaware of this,
So conforming, you won't purge.

Like the jaded sidewalkers,
Who, like zombies, follow sway,
A human hand on island sand,
'I saw him not,' or so I say.

To Hide Within Invisible Walls

Xenophobic, homophobic, racist, sexist, conservative, and rigid. Traditional values treated humans as sheep to a Shepard, and although modern values hold parallels and comparatives, it seems, at least the illusion of freedom prevails.

In the 1860’s, you would be shot for murder in the sense that the ‘punishment fits the crime.’ Life was expendable to the greater good, or, as the Wild West confirmed, for nothing greater at all. In addition, people of separate race, nationality, or sexuality were treated as inferior, and attempts at extermination would also be made from time to time as these feelings of ‘superiority’ came to a boiling point. Moreover, death became the norm; something everyone was required to deal with due to its almost daily inevitability due to a serious maintained decline in the health of the masses. Isn’t death commonplace in today’s world as well? Yes, but it seemed tradition almost endorsed it when it came to certain ‘undesirable’ members of society.

Now that’s not to say that this sort of thing doesn’t occur from time to time in our contemporary world, but it seems that it is a suppressed flipside of the projected reality we live in. Racism is kept to individuals or groups, masked as a joke, making it hard to really interpret when it’s meant playfully or seriously; yet it remains a very real part of modern society. As for xenophobia, homophobia, and sexism, they are just as real, but not quite as intertwined and widespread as racism seems to be. On the other hand, all of this seems to be pointing to the negativities of today, when in fact the positives outweigh them by ten to one. We have running water, both hot and cold; access to upwards of 1000 channels on television, which can either help or hinder our open-mindedness; and unconditional access to information on absolutely anything known to man via the internet, which can only help ones open-mindedness, as the internet is selective as opposed to subjective in what you will absorb.

There are many points of congruent similarity between the modern and traditional worlds; some of the more arbitrary points being the most outspoken in continuity, such as fathers still being abit more overprotective of their daughters than they are of their sons, in a hopeless attempt at the preservation of childhood innocence. This is not to say that it is as outspoken as it once was in the 1860’s, but it is to say that it is a very real remainder of the social programming we, as humans, underwent during the days of the Wild West and the Industrial Revolution. The very real existence of homophobia that still exists in today’s society is another point of congruent similarity one could draw on, yet it is a similarity with difference. In the 1860’s, homosexuality was effectively suppressed throughout every enclave of society as a whole, yet still stood defiant in its existence; but in the contemporary world, it would seem that the tables have turned, and it is now homophobia’s turn to be widely suppressed. Now, that is not to say that homosexuality is the preference of the majority, but it is to say that the acceptance of homosexuality is the preference of the majority. Sadly, just as homosexuality in the 1860’s, homophobia still stands stubbornly defiant in its tensely-guarded existence.

Nationality, and in a pseudo-realistic sense, nationalism, still remain as significant knots to our past, both recent and ancient, in the sense that they take from the past to build the identity of an arbitrarily marked geographic location in the present. I mean, honestly; what would Greece be like without Hercules? The United States without Abraham Lincoln or George W. Bush? Canada without John A. MacDonald? They’d be much different in the patriotic sense, that’s for sure. On the other hand, the difference is quite major once you really get down to it, requiring we’re not referring to Neoconservatives, whose nationalist rants tend to give government a bad face, time and time again. The difference is the idea that nationality can be exchanged, especially in North America, where a place like Canada acts more as the world’s Petri dish when it comes to diversity in every field, in which every country is represented as if each immigrant citizen were part of a foreign delegation directly representing the original; and places like the United States act as the world’s melting pot, as to create some sort of hybrid nationality in which every country is represented in a form autonomous to its origins. This isn’t to say that xenophobia no longer exists, as the Muslim scare among sects of the population throughout the western world following 9/11 clearly show, but it is to say that xenophobia has significantly eased its cruel restrictions since the days of Prime Minister Robert Borden, and President Taft.

Sexism, as is still obvious among the more ‘redneck’ members of society, holds similarities to the problems of modern racism in the sense that it is constantly masked as a joke, and as such is hard to interpret as a complete social reality. It is obviously still there, as there are still cases of men finding it hard to work under a female boss due to sexist reasoning in the sense that they seem to believe it is breaching their ‘code of masculinity,’ but as opposed to the dictated lower-wages for women prior to the Second World War, it is certainly a significant and positive difference. That is not to say that modern sexism only applies in the sense of men to women, as it very much applies in the sense of women to men. In the ‘less progressive’ sects of society, there are women who still believe in maintaining the masculine image upon men as the ones who go to work as the breadwinners, and leave the women at home to care for the house and the kids. These are usually the same women who jump to creating blanket-generalizations of men the world-over, especially when they have fallen victim to masculine arrogance from such men who truly believe in the stereotypes themselves. Now, on the other hand, modern society holds very large differences in contrast to the world of the 1860’s, one of which includes the acceptance, and occasionally endorsing of homosexuality, as was examined 2 paragraphs prior. It also holds a major difference in the sense that even a majority of mainstream society seems to look down in confusion on those who stick to the stereotypical traditions.

So, in all honesty, it seems that 1862 and 2010 have more in common than may have been previously thought in the field of human societal norms, yet progressive pins-and-needles seem to be pushing themselves through the fabric of tradition to weave a new reality. Even if we are still restricted within the walls of society, the illusion of freedom prevails as it never possibly could have in the old world.

Please Note: This was originally written as an essay for my Grade 12 English class.

Affairs as of Late

Well, cyberspace, I apologize once again for my momentary lapse in making addresses to the blogging world. I've been busy either relaxing, or spending time with what a friend of mine's horoscope described as his 'true-blue' friends.

For the most part, I've been quite happy and content, but in the complex intertwining of a still slightly developing teenage sense of self, there are momentary lapses in self-confidence and self-esteem, which are, of course, nothing new to myself or anyone else around my age.
You know the days...
Those days when you wake up at a friends place after spending the night, feeling kind've gross due to the fact that you didn't brush your teeth the night before, and you feel greasy due to not being able to shower or change out of the same clothes you've been wearing since yesterday morning.
It seems when you look in the mirror, the extra frizz on the top of your hair is more obviously outspoken than usual, even after a shake and a brush; and the gray rings underneath your eyes seem much more pronounced than you are usually used to noticing. Superficially, and at some mental degree, it doesn't really matter to you; but then theirs that part of the mind that governs social interaction that's telling you that you're not looking up-to-par with the rest of society.

Also, I've been back to school, and I'd honestly have to say that 3 out of my 4 classes are quite good and exactly to my satisfaction, even if my Psychology class isn't quite to my expectations in the sense of social interaction, as it's filled with a majority of people I either don't know, or just so happen to be the richer, generally more attractive side of the school society admirably nicknamed 'preps.' As for the fourth class, I'd honestly have to say it's my least favorite for a legion of reasons, the first and most obvious being that it's a math class; but that's hardly what I consider the problem so much as it's the fact that it's a Grade 10 Math class, and I just so happen to be a Grade 12 on my final year of high-school.
Now, that's not to say that I have any real problem with the age difference (in fact, 2 of my ex-girlfriends just so happen to be in the class, and luckily we all maintain good friendships between one-another), but I do conform in a sense to the school culture that people are part of their Grade's, and frankly, I feel completely out of place and a little embarrassed to be sitting in a class of a 2 year difference, which I was technically supposed to have done 2 years prior in the first place.

Some of you are probably going to (rightfully) assume that I must have failed somewhere along the line, and as such, am required to repeat the course. In reality, I never took that specific course in the first place. In Grade 9, I requested to be put in a simplified (Essentials) math course instead of the 'mainstream' (Principals) course, in an attempt to escape having to do math to any serious degree, and opting instead to simply scrape by until I could be finally free of such a burdensome course in Grade 11. Through some sudden sense of real intelligence, I realized I may, in fact, need the Principals course for future use, and decided to join the Introduction to Mathematics course as to transition back into the Principals course for the end of Grade 10. Half-way through the first semester, they split the Intro course in half, with certain people being above a certain percentage, and the other half below. I was in the group that was below, and as such, all of us were taken to a smaller room, in which we were given access to more one-on-one time with the teacher as to assist us further in learning.
By the end of the semester, everyone in the class had practically given up on any serious effort in the course, and the teacher decided to have us do a 2-week crash course in the Grade 10 Essentials course, as so we could at least take the Essentials exam and not need to take the course in the following semester. Needless to say, I passed the course, and passed Essentials of Math 10, moving on to Essentials 11 the next year.

Following the completion of my Essentials 11 course in the first semester of last year, we had a presentation of University and Colleges in the surrounding regions, and I decided to see what the requirements would be for the University of Victoria (UVIC), the school I'd had my eyes on for quite awhile, as I'm smart in a political, philosophical, historical, musical and poetic sense (but not in the sense of math), and discovered that I would be required to have Principals of Mathematics 11 to do absolutely any course at the University. In anguish, I decided I'd pursue the goal regardless, and signed up for Principals 10 and 11 for my Grade 12 year, asking for the Grade 10 course to be taken online (which, as obvious, I got in a classroom instead).
Basically, in my mission to cut down and possibly avoid math entirely, I ended up prolonging my need to endure it.

Hopefully, this calculated conundrum works out to my wanted specifications (and I apologize for the terrible pun). Until next time, peace out blue planet!