Thoughts from the Post-Scriptum

It seems only fitting that with the beginning of a new chapter in my life that my blog be wiped clean of its past. while i'm sad that my entries are no longer archived here jason has informed me that i can pull them from google cache.

this week is already proving to be intense, i moved into the new place on sunday and promptly celebrated with gillian (my new roommate) and kevin over four bottles of wine and far too much pizza. spent most of monday unpacking and setting up my office in the spare bedroom (which, i'd like to think is looking pretty snazzy.)

tuesday was spent working a golf tournament that i'll be at from thursday to sunday. when i got to sean's place last night i checked my email for the first time in a few days and as it turns out i had a class this morning at 8:30am i freaked out a little, resigned myself to my fate and now im here on campus.

the next few days are gonna be rough, long days plus trying to get myself ready for school but thanks largely to sean and gillian being really patient with me these past few days i think i'll be able to pull it off.

i need sunday....

"i weep for narcissus, but i never noticed that narcissus was beautiful, i weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, i could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected"

~"the alchemist" by paulo coelho

it's been a while since a proper post...

i moved in with gillian a little over a week ago, it's been a chaotic and hectic week. i spent most of the weekend working at a golf tournament which is thankfully over only to start classes this week. since i didn't have class today i spent it puttering around the house and trying to get my wireless router to work to no avail.

my surrogate grandmother isn't well, my mom has warned me to be prepared... needless to say i'm a little stressed about her. i can't help but feel as though she is my last grandparent who i actually had a relationship. my grandfathers and i didn't see each other much until my grandad moved in with us but by that point i was away at school most of the time.

a housewarming is on the horizon... every cloud has a silver lining.

"When we had Rwanda, almost everyone said we should not let it happen again. So we have a big challenge in Sudan." ~Kofi Annan

CBC reported today on a speech the UN Secretary General gave about the current situation in Sudan. How do we manage to forget everything that happened in Rwanda so quickly?

One of my collegues in the MA program and and I were talking about her interest in doing a project surrounding how governments communicate about issues of genocide or rather how they are not speaking about these atrocities. I was thinking about this today, why is it that we know what is happening in Darfur but manage to put it on the back burner while thousands of people are being displaced from their homes and killed.

This has been happening for THREE YEARS people and still our governments do nothing! What is wrong with this picture?

busy weekend overall, saturday i was g's date to what could best be described as the WHITEST wedding imaginable. i felt a little uncomfortable at first but then i became friends with the bartender fernando who after a few heavily poured gin and tonics helped make me feel far more comfortable.

i met the infamous stepmother. wow. eyes as red as the fires of mordor. not to mention a drunken stumble that reminds me of my late night bar shifts at the pita shack.

lately i've been feeling really off my game. i sit down to write a blog entry but nothing swims to my head like it used to. i make plans then break them, i disappoint people, i forget to write things down and most importantly i don't feel particularily smart.

this may sound silly but i'm used to walking into a classroom and knowing that i was in the top 10 percent of the grade point average. it is a pretty comforting security blanket to have. it's a terrifying feeling for me to feel so average. i sit in classrooms full with the best and the brightest and i can't help but feel insignificantly small in comparison. maybe because i was so driven to get to this point i was actually pushing myself harder than i am now? i don't know.

i was talking with lucas and talked about how sometimes i wished i followed something a little more conventional rather down this foxhole of academia. while i know this isn't true sometimes i wonder if my life wouldn't be simpler if i was an accountant.

the imposter complex is a notorious condition that affects graduate students and academics the world over.

the imposter complex usually takes hold of unsuspecting graduate students and manifests itself through feelings of incompetence, insecurity and anxiety around whether or not they actually belong in the program of study they have undertaken. one of the major signs that you have been afflicted with it is a constantly feeling that you are going to be asked to leave the program because you are too stupid to be there.

my complex has been going full tilt for about two weeks now, i'm sitting in class listening to lecture and feeling as though any moment the nerd police are going to bust in and escort me off campus citing that i was let into the program by mistake.

make no mistake anybody in grad studies can identify what i'm going through and in fact i was forewarned about the imposter complex and how it would rear its ugly head as soon as i had my first lecture. sure enough it did.

i think i'm trying to deal with it the best i can although i know its affected the relationships around me, my ability to do simple tasks and the confidence in myself.

i've discovered a whole new level of neurotic.

i've been browsing the live with culture website to look for events that are a. fun and hip and b. free.

there's a lot of stuff there, you just need to learn to dig!

my thoughts are with you at this difficult time manDi...

i'm not going to lie these past few weeks have been some of the most trying times in a long while. the constant second guessing, feeling stupid, inadequate, thinking that everyone around me is secretly thinking to themselves "the admissions committee must have a really sick sense of humour."

thankfully i think i'm starting to feel a little more at ease, today for the first time it felt less like i was treading water desperately trying to keep my head above and more like i was slowly starting to swim. i think it happened when i was reading an article about the development of the telegraph machine and understood the article and was able to contextualize it.

if it hadn't been for S. these past few days i'm pretty sure i would have gone completely insane.

i was chatting with lucas briefly on chat today whilst in the middle of the newest emotional breakdown and suddenly i remembered something he had posted on his blog ages ago:

bill of rights,

you have the right to ask for what you want.
you have the right to say 'no' to requests or demands you cannot meet.
you have the right to express your feelings, positive or negative.
you have the right to change your mind.
you have the right to make mistakes and not be perfect.
you have the right to determine your own priorities.
you have the right not to be reponsible for others' behavior, actions, feelings or problems.
you have the right to expect honesty from others.
you have the right to be angry with someone you love.
you have the right to feel scared and say 'i'm afraid.'
you have the right not to give reasons for your behavior.
you have the right to make decisions based on your feelings.
you have the right to your own needs for personal time.
you have the right to be playful and frivilous.
you have the right to be healthier than those around you.
you have the right to be in a non-abusive environment.
you have the right to make friends and be comfortable around people.

you do. yes, you really do.

i printed it out, it now lives on my desk.