Exactly How Wrong is it to Strangle People?

Are we talking burn in hell for all eternity wrongness? Fighting lawyers, politicians and crooked salesman for a tablespoon of cold water? Or merely a stint in purgatory? Or do you thing the wrongness is relative and gauged on a sliding scale, kind of like insulin? The more legitimate your reason, the less the wrongness. Example: going back in time to strangle Hitler before the Holocaust= A-OK. Strangling someone because they sat in your seat at the theatre= eternal damnation.

I need to know the answer to this question. Because I've recently started a month long session of the 5 day a week, 8 hour a day type of schooling. Which means I spend 40 hours a week with my class. This ain't no J-School class. There are no balanced, informed political debates. In our "Politics for Nursing" class someone asked what a premier is. Not WHO the premier is, that's kind of understandable, names are easy to forget. WHAT the premier is. Yesterday our class on liver failure began with the world's dumbest girl talking for 10 minutes about how she'd gone to a question forum with the candidates for our riding and no one should vote for the liberals because he was rude with the other candidates. Not that the liberals plan on cutting health care (sort of a nursing concern) or that the NDP is the only party that really has anything to say about retaining nurses. Just cause he's a big meany pants.

I was almost able to handle it when it was 2 days a week. I went to school, sat in awe at the things people said, came home, blogged about it and then went about my life for 5 glorious days, until I had to do it all over again. Now I don't get that kind of reprieve. And people seem to be taking this opportunity to really show what they've got. There's one girl that talks an average of once every minute and a half. I counted. Not asking questions or participating in a discussion. Just putting up her hand, interrupting the instructors and stating her opinion on everything from conflict resolution methods to abruptio placenta.

There is also the instructor. Or, to be fair, one of the three instructors. Two of them are great and have been my favorites since the first time they taught me. But one of them.....I don't have words. So, instead of a description, I will just post the tally we've been keeping in class:

Personal Stories Told That In No Way Connect to Class : 42
Declarations of Personal Greatness: 27
Excuses For Not Doing Her Job: 17
Mocking Students: 34
Sounds Effects Reminiscent of Epileptic Seizures: 12
Technological Failures: 8

That's in 4 hours, we didn't start keeping a tally until halfway through the last day. That's an average of one inane personal story every 6 minutes. It's fun. I know all about her car, her dog, her husband and the time she went to Disneyland. What I don't know anything about is the stuff that's going to be on my insanely scary 9 hour long exam that determines whether or not I can actually BE a nurse. So that's good.

They make me insane. On reflection, I'm pretty sure I could pull a "not legally responsible" or "way too Eff-ing crazy, your Honor" if I strangled one of them. I'm just still not sure about the morality part of it.

Staying Sane 101: How to Work Nomadism into an Otherwise Functional Adult Life.

I haven't blogged in a while. Somehow having the most free time since the beginning of the year translated into simply not having enough time to blog.

See, I've had 2 weeks off school. I'm only just, this week, starting up another round of staring listlessly towards the front-ish part of the classroom while attempting to keep my brain alive by folding origami paper balls. You can tell I'm thrilled. Anyhow, I've known for awhile that I was going to have those 2 weeks. Ever since I figured it out I've been joyously planning ways to fill them with things that make my heart happy. Here's what I did:

1. Made my parents drive the 6 hours each way from PR to Chilliwack so that I could see them. Visited. Hugged. Even nomads need love. Stayed with my Dad's family. Had a scintillating debate with my uncle about how not all Muslims are terrorists. Was informed that all bad things happen on the 7th of Ed (a month on the ancient Jewish calendar) by my aunt. As she is not actually sure what day on the normal calendar that is I'm deciding to ignore the predictions of doom. Had another debate with my uncle when he threatened to not order me a pizza because I requested spinach on mine, rather than sausage. Apparently vegetables on pizza are "crap."

2. Went to Van and visited B. Ate a LOT of sushi. Drank coolers in the sunshine. Attempted to sunbath in the wind and cold the next day. Froze myself almost to death, but got a sunburn (SUCCESS!). Shopped. Randomly ran into my little sister in La Vie En Rose. Had coffee with her like two grown-ups would do. Felt weird. Hung out with a group of very, very serious kareoke singers. Sang. Did not impress anyone.

3. Went to Tofino for 3 glourious days. Attempted to surf. Mainly failed, but caught one wave on my knees. Loved every second of falling off/attempting to catch waves. Hiked straight down a hill for an hour. Lost shoes in mudhole mid way. Hiked barefoot for half an hour. Got incredibly soft skin. Considered patenting process- cardio bootcamp/spa day. At the end of the hour hiked to the world's most awe inspiring beach. Questioned decision to travel ever again. Pondered possibility of becoming a hermit. Ate the world's best chocolate chip cookies and realized that, as a beach hermit, I would have a difficult time aquiring said cookies. Gave up hermit plan. Sunbaked in first ever bikini!!! Got wicked tan, thanks to recessive Metis genes. Hiked straight back up hill. Died a little and then continued to die for the next week everytime moved legs. Hung out with surf instructors, got very jealous of lifestyle. Learned to sing every single word to Desaparacido while drunk. Now feel fluent in Spanish. Ate life changing sushi (seriously). Learned how to make fruit salsa. Never, ever wanted to leave, but had to as:
a) not a good enough surfer to be instructor
b) selling spray painted t-shirts won't pay student loans
c) job being crazy and stealing empty bottles from people's garages is taken.

4. Returned to Kamloops. Spent almost a whole week recuperating. Watched a lot of movies. Became laziest person in the world and loved every minute of it. Almost bought bike (with streamers on the handlebars) but checked bank balance first. Dream of cruising down road with streamers flying crushed. Then realized that Kamloops is 90% uphill no matter which direction you go and felt better.

5. Went out to Barriere to visit second family. Went to Pow Wow, watched very cool native dancing. Ate bannock. Was, apparently, there to be hooked up with future husband (according to second mother) but didn't know that, so failed to fall magically in love with anyone. Got drunk. Very drunk. Somehow managed to explain single transferable voting to my second mom while shloshed. Very impressive, as I don't actually understand it when sober. Pet the dogs, threw the tennis ball for them a thousand times. Sat in the hot tub once, for five minutes, before getting way too drunk to handle hot water. Ate chocolate for breakfast (it kills the hungover shakes).

So. That's what I've done. You can see I've been far too busy and important (read: hungover) to blog. I anticipate a much better blogging to time ratio in the next three weeks....I'm tired of playing hangman with whoever is sitting next to me and plan to bring my laptop to class and play hangman online instead.

Regression is a Circle

It's actually kinda funny how life seems to move in a circle. I mean, they talk about it in pretty much every single new age-y book there is. The Lion King gets all the animals in the Serengeti to sing about it. Working in the hospice everyone is constantly talking about "the circle of life and death." But, as a general rule, they are talking about the fact that you are born, you live and then you have the potential to be turned into compost and grow plants to feed people but will, in actual fact, be buried in a big box or burnt and pollute the air just a little bit.

OK, so that's the big circle. I get it. Cicular. Awesome. But I wasn't aware until just recently that there's a lot of little tiny circles in that big circle, too. For example: my housing situation. I seem to be regressing in the housing world and doing it in a very,very circular manner (see visual aid 1). Or possibly a sideways bell curve. Or a straight line and now I'm just going backwards. I'm not sure, but for the sake of my first paragraph lets just go with circle. It's actually weird. Let me explain.

Step one forwards: I started out living in my parents house. That's normal, the average person lives in their parent's house when they are growing up.

Step 2 forwards: I moved to my cousin's house, then to the ranch, then after a series of short term things (Thailand, ranch one again, ranch 2)

Step 3 forwards: I moved into the dorms.

Step 4 forwards: After two years in the dorms I moved in with roommates.

The top of the circle?: I took off and spent a long time living in a random collection of hostels, Tim Horton's, Costco parking lots, TV rooms at Cambodian bars, kitchens and bus stations. Just for argument lets call that the top, the point of the circle where I start turning around. I know in the regular definition of living spaces (4 walls, you pay for it, it's generally safe and you have the ability to wash your hair) these might not have been what most people would define as the high point.....but it was fun.

And now it all starts to go backwards.

Step one backwards- I get a roommate again. But the second half of the circle is apparently not as much fun as the first half. This time, instead of a roommates that I can buy wooden "simple" signs for, who dress up like superheroes with me and bake tater tot casseroles, this time I get a girl who acts like she's 15, lets her dog shit on the floor and has loud sex that forces me to leave the house.

Step two backwards- I move back into the dorms. This time it isn't free. B does not live across the hall. Instead, across the hall lives a girl who spends equal amounts of time screaming at her boyfriend (SHUT UP! No, YOU shut up! I'm not doing that! YOU do it!) and laughing like a hysterical jack in the box. It's like living across the hall from a mental health case study and really I feel like there should be a PowerPoint on the wall asking me what medications I expect to be prescribed for this cut and dry case of bipolar disorder.

Step three backwards- I actually expect this one to be a good step. I think I may have maxed out the negative in 2009. So I'm going to move in with my uncle, aunt and cousins and look forward to it. I have nothing to rant about here.


THE FINAL STEP- I move back home. Actually another one I'm looking forward to ....but there's something anticlimactic about moving back home. I'm going to be an RN and my parents are still going to have to drive me to work.


Isn't that weird? I'm actually retracing my steps through time. It's like Father Time read my Dear John 2009 blog and decided to take me seriously, but accidently just set the dial on reverse and left it there.

Copycat

I love reading over other people's blogs and seeing them laugh about all their analytic stuff. So I decided to try it out. It took me about a month to finally get around to figuring out how to add tags or whatever they are. I still don't quite understand what I did, but it worked. So now my site is being tracked by internet things......I'm not exactly computer literate. I've only been signed up for a little while. I have one search query that directs people to my blog. Somehow 3 people have typed in EXACTLY

"How wearing sunglasses can be positive reinforcement."

Hmmm.

Dear 2009: 2008 wins

Dear 2009

We haven't had that much time to get to know each other yet. I know that we've only been together for two months, and one of those months was a short one. I just feel like if I let this go on for any longer it won't be fair to either of us.

2009, in the time we've spent together I've been almost homeless twice, been told that I am a horrible nurse and lived through personal financial crises that were resolved only by borrowing a lot of money, sorta the same effect you have had on the world in general.

I know this is hard to hear, but I just think my relationship with 2008 was much healthier. We were adventurous, '08 and I. At this exact time in '08 I was happily hungover and sleeping through a bus ride from Siem Riep to Bangkok, about to fly to India. '08 and I hitchhiked across Canada, we slept in Costco parking lots and befriended other parking lot hobos. We drank formadehyde based Thai beer, ate poutine from pie plates and got free muffins from the Tim Horton's night guy in Winnipeg. We expanded our horizons, learned new things and let the world come at us as it wanted to.

With you I'm starting to feel stifled. The adventures I had with 'o8 are something that never seems to happen with you, 2009. All we do is go to class and clinical. Your financial demands and extreme need for time commitment mean that I can't do fun things like go to Montreal for the weekend whenever I want to. You've turned me into someone that gets upset over the idea of sleeping on a floor rather than rejoicing over the thought of reduced rent.

I don't want to be harsh. I'm sure for someone with a need for stability you will be the perfect year. In this world there is someone that will love you and all your scheduled activites. I just think that you should be free to find that person and let me be free to go back to '08. I hope we can still be friends. Maybe we can hang out next week? '08 and I will be on the beach in Malaysia.

Love

Millie

Imitating a Washing Machine and Other Fun Things To Do When Your Roommate is a Shithead.

So my roommate moved out. After all the initial drama caused by her surprise announcement that she was doing so I'm pretty glad she's out of my hair. Her family came and moved her out at 8 am on Saturday, a time when I am not exactly known to be at my very most chipper. At first the fact that she left me with absolutely no dishes, furniture or storage space (she took most of the cupboards) made me angry and the way the eerily empty apartment echoed whenever I walked freaked me out a bit. But then I realized that not having any dishes means I won't have to wash HER dishes and a completely empty livingroom translates into a brand-new, hardwood floored yoga studio, complete with candles (she took the lamp). So yesterday I bought a frying pan, a plate and a fork and today I turned Mates of State way up and danced around the gloriously dog shit free kitchen.

Then I decided to do some laundry. When Tian moved out she took the nice, new washing machine with her and replaced with some old funky looking thing that is probably from the same era as Claire's old stove, just less of a cheerful harvest gold and more of a depressing cold porridge brown in color. Tian, her mother and her sister (who all look disturbingly like the same person) assured me it worked. I'm naive. I fell for it.

So I took all my clothes and threw them in and poured in a generous cup of expensive-ish yummy smelly laundry soap. And then I tried to turn it on.

I've never heard an appliance sound constipated before. I makes this weird, low pitched, "I'm going to blow up soon" type buzzing when set at the "wash" part of any setting. At the rinse and spin cycle it rattles like an unmedicated Parkinson's patient but remains mysteriously free of water. In short, it is not a functional washing machine. And now I'm really angry.

I washed my clothes tonight by dumping them all in the tub and walking back and forth on them like I was making wine. I am now reduced to backpacking-through-Asia standards of hygiene, except there, if I shelled out the 50 cents, someone else would walk on my clothes for me. Since I don't usually get angry I no longer have appropriate ways of dealing with my anger in my repertoire of social interactions. Would someone with more experience being upset please tell me what to do?

Time for a New Coping Mechanism

Apparently, somewhere in the world, there are people who have mastered the art of coping with stressful situations. These people have come up with some actual productive thing to do that helps them handle badness. I've talked to people who claim to be this type of person. They don't drink copious amounts of gin from a bucket or purposely make happy people miserable when shit goes down, like a normal person would do. Instead they do things like go to the gym, write poetry or bake apple pies.

I have not mastered any of these useful and mature ways of dealing. Instead, when things get rough, I assess the situation, decide how bad things are and then, calmly and collectedly, run as far away as possible.

Yes, it's true, I am an escapist. The only thing that cures my stress is getting as far away from what causes it as possible. When actual physical distance is not possible I like to destroy my brain function to the point that I can't think, and therefore can't stress, any longer. When credit card bills come, I go to the movies. When school works piles up and I suddenly come to the realization that if I want to pass this year I will have to pull 5 straight all nighters, I drink a bottle of wine with a friend and go to school hungover, smelling like a brewery and absolutely unable to string together a coherent sentence, let alone focus on the lecture. I'm pretty sure I've always been this way. I have a vivid childhood memory of packing my piggybank and teddybear into a plastic suitcase to run away from home at age 8 because I couldn't understand my math homework. And the worse a situation is, the farther from it I want to get.

Up until this year this strategy has worked very well for me. Running away from shitty roommates has led to better living situations. Running away from immediate financial crises has led to jobs which allowed me to correct said crises. Running to Asia to cure a nursing-school-boredom induced coma was a definite success.

I'm starting to think, however, that this method of coping needs reevaluation. Apparently as you grow up your problems do too and if increasing stress equals increasing distance needed.....I may have to start spending all my time in Fiji. But then what if Fiji gets stressful?