Life is something to do when you can’t get to sleep.

So late last week I visited the Guinness Book of Records site. I was eagerly anticipating reading the world record for the “most papers written in a week”. Sadly, they didn’t seem to have this category. There were, of course, ample records announcing that it took 49 days for Bill Kilborne to walk on his knees from Perth to Darwin, and that Kim Friesen managed to hoover up 30 grapefruit rinds with her nostrils in 2 hours. Bitter and disappointed, I turned my attention to writing my final paper of the semester, disturbed that it would not be breaking any world-wide endurance records.

You see, in one week, 7 days, 1/52 of a year, I wrote FOUR papers, and did two presentations. Well, I didn’t do the last presentation, but that’s just a formality. More on that later. However, I did push the limits, attempting to break my own personal record for sleep deprivation. This was a fascinating, if somewhat unnerving experience.

It all started on the 23^rd of November. I had a presentation for my Limnology paper to do. 10 minutes plus 5 for questions. Piece of cake, panic attacks excluded. So I did it, and contrary to my visions prior to it actually transpiring, I did manage to survive the experience. Someone suggested that I get out of it by crying and running from the room. This seemed slightly…. excessive to say the least. Really though, it wasn’t as like I thought about it for any great deal of time.

Next, I went to work on the Lim paper due Sunday. So I exalted the horrors of acid mine drainage’s effects on aquatic ecosystems in around 15 pages. Wonderful. Due on Tuesday afternoon was the paper for Psychology 375 (Clinical Psychology). So, I wrote 10 pages about depression treatment efficacies. The only hitch was that I had to hand it 3 rough drafts. I haven’t produced a rough draft since high school, so I manufactured them after the fact. Hope nobody from there reads this. They are trying to get the cheaters. May they all rot in hell (the cheaters).

Everything was going according to plan. The only problems was the time frame of the next two papers. BISC 404 (Plant ecology) was due on Thursday morning, while psychology 384 (Developmental Psychobiology) presentation AND paper were due on Friday morning. So I wrote my paper on plant associations for plant ecology, and handed it in on time. Cognitively, I was still going strong, though I had started to feel a little tired as I had labored up at CementLand^TM from 8 in the morning to 12 midnight for the last few days. Still, things were looking up. I had only one more paper (and a presentation) to go.

This was where all the wheels started to come off the bus…

I got up Thursday morning at 5am to put the finishing touches on my plant paper, did so, and handed it in. Then, after the hellish monotony of another 4 hours of lectures, I headed, once again, down to the CementLand^TM library’s airless computer bunker. Oh sure, I have a great computer at home, but I just cannot concentrate at home. Sue me. Others have threatened to for less.

So I blew through the first 4 pages of my paper entitled : Effect of Mercury Neurotoxicity on Behaviour and Brain Structures. I know you think this sounds exciting, but you’d be wrong. It started off fine until I hit a wall at around 10:00 P.M. I just couldn’t think anymore. I had only 5 pages done, and when I got kicked out at closing time, I still only had 5.5 pages done. This was hour 19 of straight consciousness. So, a fellow inmate ( psych 384) and I (who, oddly enough was writing a paper on sleep deprivation) headed to a computer lab that was (ahem) unlocked in order to finish writing papers. Everything went to hell. I really couldn’t think anymore, and every word was a struggle. So, finally, at 5:30 in the morning, hour 24.5, I finished my paper. This was the start of something interesting.

I went home, changed, came back to school, handed my paper in, and attempted to formulate my presentation that was supposed to happen at 10:30 A.M. My eyes were so sensitive to light I couldn’t look at an overhead projector, and I was unable to form complete sentences. Well, that isn’t unusual, but this time it was particularly severe. It looked like the people in that particular tutorial were going to get quite a show. They didn’t, because for 2% of my tutorial grade I was not going to make a colossal fool of myself. So I just didn’t go at all. Oh well. The rest of the morning consisted of writing a limnology lab up, and then going to all the rest of the limnology presentations that had not been done the week before. This lasted until 6, hour 36.

When I got home, I realized that I was on the edge of something big. I had been up for 36 hours, and what little was left of my brain was starting to unravel like TA marking his 70^th paper in a row. It was time to push the limits of my endurance.

It was time to destroy the bus.

I remembered back in earlier days in when I was at College when I had stayed up for 49 hours. This was not due to circumstances completely under my control, but managing to survive the earlier experience, I wished to repeat it for, uhm, scientific purposes. Already being at hour 36, another 13 hours didn’t seem unattainable. In short, I was curious just how deranged I could get. I took notes. Thankfully I do not own a video camera.

What followed, I can only describe it as the way it must feel to be slowly going mad. Actually, I quite enjoyed it, sad to say. To realize that I didn’t have the fullest grip on reality was quite a liberating experience right up until the point where I tried to grab the background of a web-page with my hand and caused some damage in the process. To my finger, thankfully, the computer monitor is just fine (but probably a bit confused).

Hour 38 had to stop watching TV as it was too bright and I couldn’t really see the picture anymore anyway. So I listened to the crap that is there on a Friday night. It sounds worse that it… looks.

Hour 40 I was starting to feel tired. So I decided to go for a run, hoping to invoke the invigorating qualities that I had enjoyed before. Sadly, this proved to be rather faulty logic. I turned back after a block or two. I nearly ran into a parked car (my own).

Hour 42 Laying on the couch, I was still listening to the television. Had visions of baking cookies, but I couldn’t find a recipe. Thankfully. I don’t have the ingredients for cookies.

Hour 47 I wrote a song in a program called ACID. This was interesting, but is likely the worst piece of muck I have ever produced, and I have created some doozies!.

Hour 48 I got a bit of a second (sixth?) wind. I realized that breaking my record was close at hand. It was nearly mine!

Hour 48, 30 minutes I started jumping around, I was afraid that I would fall asleep.

Hour 48, 50 minutes I told myself that I was just going to lie on the floor for a few minutes. Sadly, this is when I lost the battle. I woke up 20 minutes later, but the dream was over. I was mad. I was lying on the kitchen floor.

I know when I am beaten, so I just went to bed. Oddly enough, I couldn’t sleep. Curiosity killed the cat.

It is interesting. I have heard that physical changes start happening in the brain after 56 hours. It starts going to “mush” apparently. I can only imagine what that must be like, but I gather I don’t want to find out. I wrote an entry for this page near the end, but you don’t want to read it. Really, you don’t.

Its too bad that an earlier edition of this update was lost due to a tragic power loss during saving of the file. I hate computers – they are evil! I could only recover a few sentences from the broken and battered file I found after I rebooted. You have been deprived of one of the funniest rants I have ever written. A minute of silence….

I haven’t been updating much because school work has reared its ugly head once again. I have four papers and two presentations to do in the next 13 days. The CementLand^TM “library” hasn’t been helping out much either. A library is somewhere you can find books. Most of the books and journal articles I want I have to go to UBC for. This is why I use the term “library” loosely in this context.

For the last two weeks or so there has been a Translink display outside of the library. I suppose us students are supposed to “ohh” and “ahhh” over the fancy architectural designs that these new rapid transit stations offer. Why do each of these have to be an architectural “marvel”? I asked the representative if this was the most cost effective way of doing it. “Oh, that’s what the people wanted!”, she said. Right. For articles on this, I refer you to a journal in the library. Apparently, this would be the most fitting place to comment on both the CementLand^TM library AND Translink.

Another interesting thing is that Translink’s President or whatever claims he doesn’t ride the very system he is in charge of because it is “inconvenient” and not “fast enough”. Really? That’s why us common folk don’t ride it either?!! His idea as to how to pay for all this “upgrading” is to impose a vehicle levy of around $75 for every vehicle in the area “served” by Translink. This is all under the banner of punishing those horrible polluting cars and get everyone to ride the bus. This, despite the fact that transit is “inconvenient” and not “fast enough”. New SUV’s (Suburban Ugly Vehicle’s) are charged more than Uncle Bobs ’82 Honda Civic with the rotting muffler simply because they weigh more. Now, lets say you live in Langley, a suburb of Vancouver. Langley is under the stranglehold of Translink just as Vancouver is. However, there is very little resembling a bus system in Langley. Where I grew up, a bus comes by in the morning, and comes back at night. Apparently, this is “convenient” and “fast enough” to the point where people out there should pay the same as someone living in Vancouver where a bus ambles by every 10 minutes.

However – don’t despair you Langley living persons!!! I’m sure that all the money from your transit levies will go to getting YOU, the people who need it, the bus service you are paying extra for! I’m sure that it won’t go to simply covering the cost of flagrant cosmetic fanaticism of the new skytrain stations! Then you can join the happy hordes that have horrible and frustrating bus experiences every day!

The year I rode the bus to CementLand^TM was one full of rich “learning” experiences. I learned a lot about human behaviour, misbehavior, and psychosis. The bus to CementLand^TM wasn’t quite as bad as it is in other places, though I did manage to overhear a great number of interesting things. Sometimes you just get one quote out of the person and then their voice wafts back into the vocal flotsam and you never hear another word from them.

“If it wasn’t for my horse I would never have gone to University”
“And then Uncle Frank said : put down the plunger”!
“If its tourist season why can’t we shoot them”?
“I think Jason still thinks I’m female” “I can’t decide if I want to marry Frank or Brian”
“All the really GOOD sentences start with So. Don’t they”?

And so on….

Then there was the time when I came back from a late night in Vancouver on the bus than runs up Hastings Street. This was at 1:00 AM. I don’t recommend this, but if I hadn’t done it – I might never have met Santa Claus. So when jolly old St. Nick joined me on the otherwise empty bus he sat right next to me. Not only did this fellow wear a Santa suit in the middle of June on a hot and muggy night, he actually (apparently) believed that he WAS Santa Claus! Strange, all the other schizophrenics wore normal clothing. He even asked me what I wanted for Christmas. “World Peace” I said. I don’t think that was the best choice of answers. He seemed to get agitated and said : “Man! I’m not JESUS”. Really? Were you LAST week?

Remember to take your medication boys and girls. I should have asked him why he was riding the bus. Where were the reindeer?

So the other week I actually rode the bus even though I have a fully functional car. I was in the mood for excitement! (sad… I know). Unfortunately, as these things usually go when they are forced, nothing interesting happened unless you count the new hat I bought at MEC. Mr. Excitement.

So, and as all good sentences start with “so” – I’ll tell you a bus story from someone I know at CementLand^TM. I listened to this story, and while I did not ask permission to use it here, I will repeat it anyway. May she never find it written here.

She was sitting on the bus going home from CementLand^TM. She was absentmindedly rubbing her foot up and down the leg of the seat in front of her as she read some kind of book. When the next stop came, the guy in the seat in front of her got up, turned around, and gave her a really big smile, shook his head, and left. At that point, much to her horror, she realized that it was not the leg of the bus that she had been rubbing against. I can only imagine what was going through the mind of the guy in front of her. The guy across the aisle from her kept looking at her after that. I have had some damn uncomfortable bus rides, but nothing quite as embarrassing as that. Hmmm….

After the hooting and knee slapping had died down, I introduced the concept of Frotteurism, and unfortunately had to explain what it was. Even more unfortunate was that the response was : “Oh, it sounds like you know…”. Well, how do I respond to that? Obviously, I pointed out that this knowledge was the result of taking many psychology classes, an explanation that only resulted in more and questioning and lame defenses on my part. Unfortunately, none of my defenses “took”. I guess I make good sport.

So fear not Langley SUV owners! Your faithful regurgitation of funds when they are required of you will go towards enriching the lives of those in the big city! Think of the entertainment that our faithful bus system will give us! Think of the joy the fancy new skytrain stations will bring! Wow!

Last weekend I took another trip to the Safeway in Aldergrave. I have been known to have “interesting” things happen when at these sorts of places, and this was no exception. In fact, it was probably more frustrating than usual.

So I walk in the door. I look for one of those basket thingys (technical terminology is dizzying I realize). I have never gotten one of those carts, perhaps owing to a traumatic experience about 15 years ago, I cannot be sure. At any rate, I only needed to get a few items, and I was not interesting in juggling them all the time, so I needed a basket. There weren’t any.

I asked an employee who was standing next to the front door where I might find one. He looked around, said that they must all be with customers at the moment. Right, whatever. I decided that I could track one down on my own. I did – there was a stack of them next to one of the checkouts. However, when I tried to retrieve one, this lady started badgering me about budging in line. She said all kinds of things. Then she accused me of this while addressing the cashier – who told me I needed to go to the back of the line. Strangely enough this cashier was someone I went to high school with. Very difficult person to deal with at the best of times. A mood with more swings than a playground. IN a shallow attempt to make myself feel better I noted that she at least was fat and acne’d now. I tried to explain that I wasn’t jumping the line but I eventually decided that going to another line would be quite simply less frustrating as the crazy-line-lady was getting more belligerent. Someone needs to go back onto their medication!

So at the other lineup I found the baskets. The only problem was that this lady was letting her two demon spawn play in them at the moment. I asked if I could get in there to get a basket. She said : “but my kids are playing in it”!!! Apparently this meant that I could not utilize it for it INTENDED PURPOSE! Silently, and in my mind I was screaming and muttering…. This wasn’t exactly a textbook basket retrieval. Since there are now alternatives to Safeway in Aldergrave, I just decided to go and get as many items as I could comfortably carry and flee to another store for the rest. Thankfully, I didn’t even attempt to pay with my debit card, or I am sure that there would be a whole story there too!

Another thing of note at the Safeway was the someone had mutilated all the pizza shells. Strangely, this was the case at the other store as well. Aldergrave is not the best place to live, even though I have limited knowledge of this since I only lived there for 3 months over three years ago. A lot of whackos there, especially late at night.

I recently took great satisfaction in completing a survey that allowed me to completely vent as to what I thought about SFU. Perhaps this was magnified by the fact that I had just gone through he ordeal of an advisory appointment with the Biology department, and things did not start off well. First, I go into the office in the morning and ask who I might talk to in order to determine if I have all my courses:

“Well”, she said, “Mr. Medford (the advisor) won’t be back until the 15th of December”.

Me: Is there anyone else who can do it?

Advisory secretary: No.

Me: You see, I really need to know now because I want to know if I need another semester or not.

Advisory secretary: How many credits do you have?

Me: Don’t know exactly – around 140

Advisory secretary: Oh, you should be fine! (as if credit hour totals were all that mattered!!!! @*&!% !!!).

Then she turns away as if the conversation is over.

Me: “I really need to know about individual courses. Are you sure there isn’t anybody who is here that I could talk to before December”?

Advisory secretary: Well, I could give you an appointment with Mr. Medford this afternoon. Would that be all right?

I felt like yelling things but I didn’t.

This is a typical conversation with an SFU bureaucrat. This particular person has screwed me over before – because of her incompetence I have spent weeks trying to undo what I did in the wake of her advice. It is also a reason that I get a little bitter from time to time. Its very common up there. The actual appointment went quite well, and I got all the information I wanted despite their attempts to keep it from me.

So when I got hold of this survey I ran amok in the “do you have any further comments” section. I basically told them that academically this is a fine school. The problems I had were that students are frequently presented grossly inaccurate advice by those who are in charge of this information. These mistakes have cost me, by my estimation, thousands of dollars as well as a large amount of wasted time. My personal favorite was :” No, we don’t offer bursaries this semester” (a lie). Apparently though, this is ANY university, so I guess I can’t complain too loudly.

Another recent incident has to do with the recent American election. First they said that Gore had Florida, then he didn’t, then it was even, then Bush had it, now…… who knows. They (CNN among others) even declared Bush president. Can’t you just all sit back and wait until they count ALL the votes? At the very least this whole fiasco might finally teach Americans that YOUR vote counts too (and I don’t pretend that Canadians don’t need this lesson as well…).

Tonight it is Hallowe’en, an event that I have never really looked forward to, but tolerated until it was over. I never liked getting dressed up, and never got to eat the candy anyway (candy made me very sick). However, the fact that it is Halloween (no matter how much I hate it) does tell me important information today – that it really isn’t a war outside. I was afraid they blew up my car – but it was only a garbage can. Boooom! Today I decided to not put my mail in the mailbox near my house. I figured that I should wait until tomorrow, since my mail would likely be cooling ashes in the morning, since that particular mailbox seems to be on fire a lot anyway. Where I grew up we were “lucky” if 5 trick-or-treaters came to our door. Here, in Coquitlam (significantly more urban) it was like a constant symphony of doorbells, shrieks, screams. I live in the basement, so I didn’t answer the door. It did take some getting used to (this is the first Hallowe’en I have spent at home even though I have lived here 3 years). I am used to the dog barking right after the doorbell rings. Where is the barking dog? Hallowe’en isn’t complete without a barking dog!?

The other day I was reminded about someone I “knew” in High school. He used to go into the bank, take about 5 deposit/withdraw slips and write things on the back. This, in itself, may seem innocuous (relatively). Of course, he used to write bad things. For example: “This is a Robbery! Give me all your money! I have a gun!” I can only guess as to what sort of shenanigans this would cause when the teller turns over the slip to stamp it. He never stuck around to find out, but it could have been interesting. I’ve been cautiously checking my bank slips ever since…

I was telling this story on a field trip and people were appalled! Someone thought I was the one who did it! So I told the story of an old woman (to direct suspicion away from myself) I followed while driving. I noticed that she was weaving around a lot, and overran the stop line at an intersection like it wasn’t there. Then she ran a red and thread the needle between two trucks. When I caught up to her I expected that she was drunk, or she was on her cell phone (indistinguishable often). She wasn’t doing either. She was hunched over the dash, gripping the steering wheel with only one hand. The other, was holding…… binoculars. Guess she lost her glasses! I have always wondered why I just drove past and didn’t report her.

Hello? 911?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for cynicism but read the following excerpt from an ad:

If a $750 rebate doesn’t seem like much now, just wait until you see your first paycheque!
You’ll need all the help you can get. That’s why there is the $750 grad rebate. Use it in
combinations with any other offer to purchase any new…. …. including the completely
redesigned Neon. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to afford to take it anywhere!

Isn’t this just being a little bit harsh? It’s not like all of us have crappy jobs immediately after graduation is it? Geez!

I’m just curious why all the vaccination/blood donor clinics I have ever seen at schools have always taken place in cafeterias. I was by the SFU donor clinic the other day and I noticed someone who freaked out when she saw the needle (how did they think they extracted it?). Maybe it was just a bad food flashback. It’s not like they waved it in her face like the dentist likes to! Actually I saw more than a few white/green faces there. One girl walked by with her hands held up so that she couldn’t see it (the people lying down with needles in their arms). I also saw someone who appeared to be grossly violating the cookie limit. Get the campus security forces in there right now! Hell, they harass ME in the library, why not fight actual “crime”? Well last week I had an interesting field trip to the UBC research forest. It was not so much interesting because of the actual content but because of the vehicle we drove there in. I volunteered to drive (a university vehicle) because: 1) I like to drive 2) the last time someone from class drove “we” nearly killed a bicyclist (who was rather pissed off at his near death experience). The SFU Biology minivan and I had an amicable relationship until I decided to use the brakes. You see, there is a big curve at the bottom of one side of Burnaby mountain. It seemed that someone decided that the fast lane at the bottom would be a great place to stop and park (a whole entry could be devoted to just that one stupid person), so people had to jam on their brakes to avoid “smucking” the apparently disabled car. Anyway, I jammed on my brakes only to find that they were basically nonexistent. Just before I was to enact my decision to drive up onto the shoulder rather than rear-end about 10 of my class mates, I managed to stop the MinivanFromHell^TM. Now, my passengers didn’t really know what the hell was going on, since it just appeared that I had stopped neatly about a foot behind the other van. What they didn’t know is that I had the pedal jammed to the floor for the last 150 meters. Wow – that got my attention! Then the stench of burning brakes hit us, and we had to open the windows. When we reached the forest, someone commented on the brake smell, which was still apparent even an hour’s drive later. I got my revenge, however. I “bottomed-out” the MinivanFromHell^TM a number of times on the gravel road in the research forest. The metallic bang and the sound of spraying gravel is most satisfying if you want revenge on a MinivanFromHell ^TM, and it isn’t your vehicle! This being an SFU vehicle, I suppose that they will probably give it a brake job sometime next year, or when people are killed, which ever comes first.

The other day I was studying in an SFU cafeteria and was party to an interesting conversation, if you can call it that. A girl asked this guy she was eating with (presumably boy-“friend”) to get her a chocolate bar. When he came back, she yelled out loud : “why can’t you get me a chocolate bar that doesn’t resemble a piece of shit!” This was alarming, and caught the attention of many. She is right, of course. However, I don’t know who I feel more sorry for 1) him – obviously he is attracted to abuse, since I think this is likely not an isolated incident, or 2) myself – because I have had a few chocolate bars since and the previously gratifying experience has been somewhat tainted by the earlier reference. At least I don’t hang around with….. “that”.

I have decided, today in particular, that my “skill” of remembering exactly what happened on particular noteworthy days is not something that I always enjoy. Today it downright sucks. I have realized that sometimes even good memories should be forgotten. Sometimes, Mike, why can’t you just forget? Sure, some people can remember doing a particular activity on a certain day a number of years ago. I, however, can remember exactly what people ordered for dinner, wore, said, and what route I took to driving somewhere. I am not sure exactly why this happens, but as soon as I notice the date (the dates of “interest” at least) I remember all kinds of things. The real kicker is that I cannot seem to remember simple things like to eat dinner, or breathe when I am running. Dammit! I was going out to my car in the SFU parking lot last week, tired from a lab that lasted 5.5 hours (Limnology lab = poor instructions, good TA’s, time better spent doing other things). So I walked up to my car, opened the door, and got in. I, being my usually perceptive self, realized that something was wrong when I noticed that the interior of the car was a light grey color. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, except the inside of MY car is blue. Needless to say, this was alarming and took me a few seconds to fully absorb. I had used my key to unlock the door. Well, I immediately vacated what, I was pretty sure, was NOT my car. Apparently, there is another red Subaru station wagon with a roof rack and rear deflector in the SFU parking lot, and it has a door that my key will open. Hmmm….. I remember being able to open other Subaru vehicles with my key, but unable to start them. If I had not immediately vacated the interior of this car, I might have at least tried to start it, first checking to see if any potential owners were in the area. While I find this particular revelation about my keys interesting, I do not wish this knowledge upon the actual owner of the car. First off, he/she probably wouldn’t like that I can open their car whenever I want and secondly, I don’t want them to be tempted to attempt to open mine. Perhaps they already have. What followed this particular event was even more bizarre. When I got home, in my usual parking spot in front of my house, was a red Subaru station wagon, roof rack, and rear deflector. What????? I stopped my car in the middle of the road and just stared. Someone taught me a word a few years ago : surreal. I think this applied. Of course, despite my initial confusion, this was a car of someone visiting my landlord. So I parked behind them, but sadly, never was present when they emerged from the house to see two nearly identical cars on the street. Hey – nice car!

The food at the SFU cafeterias sucks. This might be the case with a great many cafeterias in Universities and Colleges, but it is still something that bothers me – especially considering how much they charge for the crap they expect us to eat. The terms LeadBread^TM and SandMuffins^TM have sprung from exactly this manner of frustration. One of the last places of solace in terms of SFU food has been the pizza served in just one cafeteria on campus. UBC has pretty good pizzas too, in the SUB. However, recently, this pizza at SFU completely sucks (wanna bet that UBC’s is still good?). Now, if I can make a great pizza, and in my opinion I can, then anybody should be able to. Apparently, they changed where they get/make pizzas, and the resulting flaccid tomato covered discs just simply are not worth the effort. For starters you have to put something in the sauce other than just tomatoes (nearly fell into the Dan Quayle landmine there!). The following will be immediately apparent to anyone who has ever attended SFU. Of course, while decreasing the “quality” of such pizza they have…. wait for it…… increased the price! Great! I have noticed an alarming trend in recent courses I have taken. Since most of my courses are now fourth year, most of the students in them have been around nearly as long as I have. However, being the recipients of all kinds of background knowledge on a multitude of topics, I have noticed a trend to overthink very simple problems. For example, in the previously mentioned 5.5 hour lab, we couldn’t do a simple dilution calculation. You have X concentration of liquid, you want to make 1 L of Y concentrated liquid. How much of X do you want to add to water? This, at best, is a grade 11 chemistry problem. I figured out the right answer immediately, but we were all sure that it was wrong (myself included). No, no, no – it can’t be that simple….. So we thought about it. We conferred with other groups, they didn’t know either. What the hell is this? I think that my brain is finally full, and the new information coming in one ear is just indiscriminately displacing some of the old, which falls out the other ear. Maybe I can stop remembering what happened on certain days now….

I run about every other day. Not very far yet (3-4 km) but still we have to start somewhere right? I don’t know why anybody would want to run! This is, quite frankly, a rather horrible thing to do to oneself. Extreme masochists, gaining pleasure from the most horrific acts of self-infliction, refuse to run.

Masochist – “Run? That’s crazy talk! Why the hell would I do THAT to myself?”

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are times when running is a necessity. I would think that running is quite an acceptable activity under very specific circumstances. For instance, if you are presented with a situation where a rather large animal (human or otherwise) is pursuing you with intent to do harm, I would say that running is an acceptable activity. By all means – get the hell out of there! If the local hells angels chapter is rather disgruntled after just one water balloon incident -by all means – RUN! Notice that these instances of “acceptable” running are when danger confronts you. However, I notice people, and I do it myself, that seem to run without this manner of potential dismemberment right behind them. When I was a kid, wondering why I kept seeing people running. I always was looking behind them for the tiger (or other sort of exotic kid-fantasy animal). Sadly, I could never see the tiger.

After a couple months of personal research, I have concluded that running is a bad idea. I cannot come up with a suitable number of negative adjectives to describe it. Never, ever do this to yourself. You see, if you start, ignoring all the Surgeon General warnings, you will not stop. I have fallen into this trap. I plan to go running. I decide to go running. I go running, all the while wondering why? Why? Why? I cannot stop, and I guess that the first step should be to admit that I have a problem.

I have heard various propaganda campaigns that suggest that running and other physical activities will prolong your life. What if this IS true? Does this mean that I will tack on another 5 years of a bedridden, drooling, “feed me with a spoon” existence to the end of it? Why would I want this? Oh sure, they tell you that your living years will be better by being “fit” but I think that the scenario I outlined is much more realistic. You will run your whole life. You will suffer the whole time. The end of your life will go downhill, you won’t be able to run, and the nurse will tell you the airplane hanger story to get you to eat your strained peas. Remember that I am not a pessimist. I am an optimist with life experience.

Damn, I think I should start smoking just to get rid of all those “bad” years coming up at the “end”.

Recently, I bought a bunch of clothes. This is something that I absolutely hate. Its not actually obtaining the clothing, its the inevitable obstacles that the store will put in my way seemingly in order to make it just that much more difficult to actually BUY it. Change room locked? Well, you won’t mind chasing the people around the store to get them to let you in will you? One store, which I repeatedly abuse myself by shopping in, has a keypad on the change room door. Punch in the code, it lets you in. So I paid attention. The next time I needed in there, I let myself in. They didn’t like that at all. I pointed out that they should change the door code from 12345. Seriously. A few months ago I went up to the cashier in said store and asked to be let into the change room to try on some things I might want to buy. This would have taken the cashier perhaps 10 seconds, as it was next to the till. No, she said, I would have to wait in line. There were 10 people in line!! I was still standing there, dumbstruck, when another guy came up and asked the same thing. She told him he would have to wait in line as well. He, obviously slightly shocked as well, said: ” Uhhhhh… No…. I guess I’ll just change them here”. He proceeded to start taking off his pants, which got rather quick action. We didn’t have to wait in line. I was thinking of adopting a different strategy, but taking off my clothes right then and there wasn’t one of the options I was considering. Maybe next time.

Today, while walking from my car, I noticed the SFU rent-a-cops standing around a car. One of those “typical student cars” – expensive looking sports cars with all dead cow skin interiors and tinted windows. Sadly, it was sitting in the middle of the SFU B-lot, up on blocks, with all four of its tires missing. Its owner was there telling his story, whatever it was. Strangely, I was more amused than sad. I recognize this guy, and the violated car he kept angrily pointing at. This was the guy who hit me with this very same car while stalking me for a parking spot! Justice rears its ugly head years later in the form of a tire heist.

A brief word about the “B-lot stalkers” as they are known. These people follow you nearly from the door of the school out to your car, just to get your parking spot. Some of them don’t seem to care if they block traffic to do it. I guess the strain of walking more than 100 feet to a building is just too much to bear. They ought to put the fin on the roof – hunting a la Discovery channel shark special if I ever saw it. These cars invariably have one of those fin things anchored to the trunk. Some may describe it as a “carrying handle (Friesen, 1998)” but to me it just makes your pretentious sports car look like a shopping cart. I suppose it makes a difference in those few minutes when you pull up beside a like minded stranger at a stop light, rev your engines, take off like five angry biker dudes just piled out of the van behind you. I suppose, for those few minutes it is truly worth it, screaming down the hill, just before that telephone pole comes rushing up to kiss your forehead. I’m generalizing here, but the statement would stand up to most scrutiny. Of course, I drive a station wagon, so maybe my stance is somewhat biased.

Tonight I ate too much turkey. Gorging myself on tryptophan rich foods does strange things to my mind. I’ll apologize in advance (as I always should) for where this may eventually lead.

Five quick and easy steps to becoming internationally famous!

1.Go to a lake with all kinds of curious scientific equipment and take it out onto the dock.
2. Be fumbling with and quietly swearing at said equipment when approximately two bus loads of tourists descend upon the area – hooting excitedly.
3. Attempt to look busy and confident as you lower your defective equipment using faulty ropes into water of an unknown temperature into depths that you cannot accurately measure. Record the data anyway…
4. When asked if you are a “Scientist” say yes!
5. Pose for pictures. So many pictures.
The relentlessly exciting events of my life unfolded in such a way on Saturday so that I found myself in the Aldergrove Safeway buying a can of cranberries and a carrot cake at 11:30 PM. La vida loca! Occasionally, the “chit-chat” given by the cashier gets on my nerves. Things like :”I can’t believe you don’t have an AirMiles card!” or…. “Hey – how ’bout that weather!” For some reason, it didn’t bother me at all on this occasion, perhaps because some of the statements made were somewhat interesting. Cashier Girl: “Boy – that looks yummy”!
Me: “Huh?”
Cashier Girl: “This!” pointing at the carrot cake. “Yummy!”
Me: “No, actually its pretty bad”. I said it with a straight face too.
At this point she looked at me like I was more than a little nuts. Don’t worry, I’m used to it. It has happened before, it will happen again.

Me: “I was kidding”.
She thought this was funny, thankfully. I don’t know why.

Cashier Girl: “Are you going anywhere for thanksgiving?”
Me: “Actually, I AM somewhere. I’m in Langley visiting my parents.”
Cashier Girl: “Oh. Really, its nowhere. I live here. Trust me, its nowhere.”
Me: “I know. I used to live in Aldergrave… but its not THAT bad”.
Cashier Girl: “Trust me, it is a really awful place. Really”.
I wasn’t going to attempt to dissuade her from her rather steadfast statement, and I didn’t want to know the details that seemed impending. Sure its a crappy place, but its no hell. Besides, I bought carrot cake there, so it can’t be that bad. Right?

Well, it seemed more “yummy” when I was there. Oh well. Blame the tryptophan.

What WAS interesting was my field trip to Mount Seymour. We hiked up there looking at various plant species. This was good. However, what made it interesting was that one of the students (not me this time) nearly killed a bicyclist with the SFU van. Ooops. He (the bike guy) was none too happy, and voiced his displeasure in his near death experience by banging on the side of the van and swearing profusely. Hmmm… maybe I’ll volunteer to drive next time. Why is it that it takes nearly dying to sometimes make people feel alive? He should thank us – but YOU explain that to him.

About 6 months ago I was sitting watching television. It is rare that I sit in front of the television while doing nothing else, usually I am reading, sleeping, eating, or giving witty responses to certain crackpots who send me email. However, on this particular day I was sitting there doing little else but displaying my infinite wisdom as a fantasy Jeopardy contestant. Usually, I do pretty well, if nobody else is around. So there I was, watching television, and I looked down and realized that the end of an era was upon me.

Now, I have never been a fat person. I have been the opposite of fat for the most part, two dimensional, skinny, whatever. People have expressed concern that I would blow away in the wind. Once I got food poisoning, lost 25 pounds in a week, and the most frequent response was : “where did you find that much to lose”? Reminds me of the joke : “I got food poisoning today. I don’t know when I’ll use it”.

If you get food poisoning, I don’t recommend that you EVER use it.

So when I looked down, the fat that has decided to take residence around my middle was rolling all over itself. I stared at it. I couldn’t believe it. Folds! I may have uttered an audible profanity. Actually, I’m sure I did. Normally the abdominal area was muscle, not particularly well defined, but muscle nonetheless. I guess I deluded myself into believing that this is what was still there. Sure, it was still there, and more of it than ever, but it was obscured by *f-a-t*. Ug. Mr. Bellybutton – where are you? My once fairy tale relationship with my metabolism is apparently over. The honeymoon just up and died right there. From here on in, and I expect it to get worse, I will have to beat the ever slowing beast into submission through (ack) looking after my diet and physical unpleasantness/exercise.

It was clear though, that I had to change, and I don’t like change but I’m going to keep eating carrot cake if it kills me.

So I did nothing about it for a long time. Now, I cannot be called a fat person, but perhaps the term : “thin – fat person” applies. The solution seemed obvious, I would have to actually carry through with my New Years resolution of the last 5 years. Yup – EVERY year this has been my New Year’s resolution. Every year for the last five I haven’t done it.

In my first year of College I used to run. Around the school. To the border and back. Around the neighborhood. This was usually to relieve stress, which it did in part. I gave it up partly because I did not own a pair of shorts, which caused obvious problems. Try jogging in jeans and you will wonder along with me (now) as to what the f*ck I was thinking. In high school I used to run because they made us. I could do a 2.4 kilometer run in 9 minutes. I thought that was good at the time, but I never knew if it was for sure because nobody else in the class actually RAN the 2.4, they walked it, which was usually good for a pass (oh… 15-16 minutes). I rather preferred to sprint because I was good at that. 50 meters in 6.5 seconds, my best I think.

So now that I have found the problem (fat), and designed a solution in part (exercise – ie. running) I went about figuring how exactly I should do this. No, not HOW to run, but how far, how much, etc.

So I put off that for a week.
Then it took me a week to actually do something with the information I had gathered.
I should point out that while the internet is a fine place to learn how to tie a tie (didn’t have a clue how and nobody to show me) I am sure that it isn’t a place to learn to run. Sure, the information may be there, but the incentive ultimately had to come from me.

So I waited another week.

It was obvious that I needed a pair of shorts in order to do this. My crazy and stupid and crazy days of running in the middle of the night in jeans while it was 5 below outside were long gone. So I bought a pair of shorts. Fantastic. I was now prepared for my new running career.

Remember the part when I said that I could run a 2.4 in 9 minutes. That was in grade 10, the last year of physical education that I took. Grade 10 took place in 1990. That’s 10 years ago for you math experts (I checked it with a calculator). Now imagine that you have not worn a pair of shorts for 10 years. How white will your legs be? That flash in the sky last week – that was the sun reflecting off of my legs. Bloody hell, with the UV index being low like it is, I’ll be white until next summer. Damn!

Now, lets get down to what I really wanted to talk about: The running.

One website outlined a few rules/tips to remember:

1. look where you are going (duh!)
2. pace yourself
3. you won’t believe how quickly you improve (complete bullshit)
4. don’t run in the dark (double duh!)
Obviously, there were a great deal of other “helpful” pointers, none of which I will mention because they are not particularly relevant to this particular discourse.

This hasn’t exactly been the best experience, at least not starting out. However, I recognize that the best way to learn anything is through mistakes related to the way you went about obtaining your goal. Not wanting to deprive myself of this potentially rich learning experience, I proceeded to violate rules 1 through 4 on my first day.

There is a park just up the hill from where I live that is cool, inviting, has a lake in the middle of it, lots of forest, and will hold my interest much better than the crappy cement scenery in my neighborhood. The violation of rule number 2 was not a big deal. Sure, I forgot I was no longer a sprinter, and suffered the consequences but this is what I expected would happen. I was ready for soreness, cramps, lung bursting pains and all that fun stuff. The violation of rules 1 and 4 were perhaps my most profound of mistakes, since they came at the same time, and they came in the heavily wooded Mundy park in Coquitlam.

When I heard the huffing and puffing of the person running behind me I looked over my shoulder to have a look. Perhaps being inappropriately distracted and somewhat foolhardy anyway does impair your peripheral vision system, but when the tree and myself came rushing up to meet each other, I was certainly not the winner. Luckily, I got the full brunt of the impact on my shoulder, and didn’t have my head collide with it in any way, shape, or form. The collision spun me around and I landed on my back. I stayed there for a while.

The worst part was the laughing.

This girl running behind me asked me if I was ok (as I lay on the path) but could not hold back the giggles. Damn – probably not the best time to meet a new person, in obvious pain and laying on your back after running into a stationary tree (its not like IT hit me). She was still laughing when she ran away. Ouch.

This was a strange and stupid way to start. However, it was not the last interesting event. Later on, while going back to my car I stepped on a rat that was the size of a small dog. Why it didn’t get out of the way I am not sure, but I didn’t stick around to ask it.

The next time I went running (this time around the neighborhood) didn’t go to well either. While I didn’t run into any stationary objects, I did manage to collapse on some guys lawn. I became intensely dizzy and nauseous after about 15 minutes (the pace yourself part again), leaned on a telephone pole for support, and collapsed on his lawn. Not unconscious, just conscious of gravity. He came out and though I had gotten drunk and passed out on his lawn. He understood when I explained it, but boy was he grumpy! As it turns out, and this isn’t new information, when I do exercise I unconsciously hold my breath. Thats bad news. Its not too bad during something like pushups but try running! Enter : the grumpy mans lawn.

Tonight I ran for half an hour. Sure, not a lot really, but better than the last two times. Considering much of it was uphill (I live on the side of a hill) and then downhill again I am surprised I lasted that long. I didn’t run into any trees, parked cars, or buses. I remained conscious the whole time! My new running shoes are like springboards, and they don’t leak (rained like hell tonight). Maybe I’ll give this thing another try. Target is to beat my grade 10 time which isn’t overly ambitious for sure, but is a target for now. We’ll see. Keep breathing dammit!

First off, a couple of short things.

First off, I am really starting to realize the poor quality of the SFU paper. I’m not talking about the “lets pat ourselves on the back excessively propaganda” paper released by the administration. I’m talking about “The Peak”. The quality of “journalism” ranges from horribly stupid to rather good. Unfortunately, the former of those two qualifiers is the more prevalent quality that you will find there. A guy I know was approached by someone there and asked a question related to the raising of the minimum wage in BC to approximately 8 dollars. They then print some of these responses, next to a picture of the person. He launched into a long, well reasoned account of what this would do to employers and the employees as well. This took about 10 minutes. Then at the end, as he was walking away, they asked him if he had a job. He responded : I don’t’ care. I don’t have a job, I don’t even want a job. So, under the question about the minimum wage, this latter statement was all they printed next to his picture. A statement that was not even the response to that particular question. Needless to say, he’s slightly pissed. I think that they should just start handing this paper out on a roll. That way, it can be easily used in the bathroom where it belongs. If the Peak were a person, it would be true testament to what mother’s are supposed to say – that if you didn’t stop making that face that it really would have stayed that way.

So now we have all kinds of children out buying Harry Potter books. This is a trend that doesn’t have to do with wrestling, video games, or other destructive influences, but with READING BOOKS! SO lets BAN IT! Obviously, a children’s story that involves witches is completely unsuitable for children, and now that its popular, lets ban the books! What the hell is that? I just think that it is just too often that a handful of whackos can make policy change for everyone else. This is one of those rare things that makes me bang my hands on the table when I hear it on the news.

The other day I parked next to a Porsche boxster in the SFU parking lot. The typical student car, if there ever was one. When I came back, it was still there, but there was a guy there with the hood up, adding windshield washer fluid to it out of a Mcdonald’s cup. Not interesting, in itself. However, it got a whole lot more interesting when the owner of the car showed up! Instantly, the guy with the cup dropped it, and ran for his life. I have never seen anyone run down in such short order, but the owner caught him after about five strides, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and dragged him back to his car. “You the one who keeps putting milkshakes in my washer fluid?!!!!”. Apparently, this has happened before, and while he didn’t kick the ass of the milkshake wielding villain, he probably scared him enough to preclude any further infractions. What his motivation was is probably the most interesting part of this story, but sadly, I will never know. With events like that – who needs to make up stories?

Confrontation with others usually comes unexpectedly. The gun waving incident : “Hey! – did you just look at my girlfriend”? The ice tea incident: “uhhhhhh…. why is the ICED tea HOT”? The closet incident: “You call THIS nothing to wear?” The hamster incident: “I’m not going in there after it – YOU go in there after it”! Lets not forget the phone incident: “I am calling my friends in Abbotsford for some human contact”. Ouch! Sometimes though, I can usually expect that some sort of interpersonal conflict will come from a situation imminently inevitable. For instance, signing up for courses at UCFV, buying a parking pass, asking for help in the SFU bookstore, or the recent phone call to the Medical Services Plan of BC as to why they refuse to process my documents now that I am no longer covered under my parental units plan and this has been going on since April and now I am not covered and they refuse to acknowledge that I have TWICE sent in the very same forms that they sent me last week and I want to know why their response is normally something akin to plugging their ears with their fingers and dancing around ethereally saying “we cannot hear you” even though I am imminently due to be smashed into by a bus. Sorry, the punctuation part of my brain is on break. Damn unions!

Hold that thought for a second.

On Friday, after a strange but good day at CementLand I went out to my car. On the windshield there was this parking ticket. Never mind the fact that I bought a parking pass, I managed to pick up a ticket for not having a parking pass “properly displayed”. This – I have to admit, was true. At this point lets split into two different versions of the story. The truth, and the fiction.

the truth: (troooth)noun1.the quality or property of being in accord with fact of reality.

What was mentioned earlier about having actually bought a parking pass for the semester was true. I find it much easier to drive to school and park there for 94 dollars than to go through the visceral agony that is a ride on a Translink bus. What I managed to do to myself was to throw my old parking passes from previous semesters in my glove compartment. When I buy a new parking pass, I also put it in that same glove compartment – which has never seen a pair of gloves either. Although, it does mysteriously contain hair clips and someone’s “scrunchy” – another term which just looks recockulous written down. Just exactly where these items come from I am not sure but suffice to say they are not mine. Being somewhat “dim-witted” – I failed to check if the pass I wrestled from the glove compartment at the beginning of this semester was the correct one. Sadly, it was not. How I managed to get away with an old parking pass (that expired in 1998) for such a long period of time surprises me. Usually the SFU rent-a-cops pick up on such things faster than that.

the fiction: (fik’shun) noun1. novels, short stories, and other prose writings that tell about imaginary, and sometimes read, people and happenings. Both characters and events in fiction may sometimes be partly real. So there.

Once upon a time I bought a parking pass like I mentioned. I faithfully stuck it to the lower left hand corner of my windshield (the only place where it will be accepted) and awaited the merriment that would ensue from being able to park in the wondrous parking experience that is B-lot, or “BLOT” as my pass reads. This is one of those acetate things that stick to glass which is only fair since stickers suck and are hard to remove. Long, long ago, I applied mayonnaise to said windshield in order to get the sticker “stickum” off of my window. Yeah – not a solution that most think of, but try it – it works really well. Consequently, I have a greasy windshield which, with even more consequence, makes those acetate parking passes fall off when the window heats up. So when I get out to my car, my valiant parking pass is facedown on the dash, and the ticket is under my windshield wiper poised to ruin what was otherwise a reasonable day.

Now, exactly which story I told the traffic and insecurity people at SFU I will not divulge short of a cash donation, however, it really isn’t important. For whatever reason, I got a parking ticket even though I had a pass. This was the crux of the story that I gave to the rather severe looking gentleman behind the counter. My argument, you see, was that I obviously deserved citation for my grandiose parking rule infringement, but that I did not deserve to suffer the monetary consequences since, as I mentioned above, I DID have a parking pass.

This is where we return to the section on conflict. Now, this being SFU, and this being a parking ticket, I steeled myself for the battle that I was about to enter into. I imaged all sorts of scenarios, all of them possible within the realm of chance (at SFU), and most of them culminating with my unmarked grave being found out behind the tennis courts in the year 2010, thus explaining my disappearance and the health of the garden. So explained the situation, he retreated to collaborate on my imminent execution with his colleagues : “Well… we can fit him in between that girl from yesterday and the guy who whispered too loud in the library”. Then he pointed to me, and the woman shook her head (seriously). I knew that I, or my wallet, was doomed. When he came back he explained that while I should have “known better” (his exact words) I would get off with a warning this time, but if I did it again, I would get the fine on that occasion. What? This wasn’t how it was supposed to end! I walked out of there with a strange feeling, as though I had just escaped with a lesser experience than I had imagined.

Maybe conflict doesn’t come if it knows you are prepared.

I should point out that I fixed the guestbook. When I uploaded my new site I was very careful to make sure that the page looked ok, but not if it WORKED, which it didn’t since I deleted the script that runs it. Ooops. I managed to get it back up, but my search engine was not so lucky. I think I should just bury the whole thing in the backyard.

I very seldom get physically angry with people. Examples of “physically angry” would include punching, kicking, etc. It is also very rare that I get verbally abusive, though it happens more often than physical action (but still rarely and usually from the soundproof confines of my car). This is the sort of unacceptable outburst that I usually save for inanimate kitchen objects. Just this evening, the tomato paste in one of those damn narrow cans vexed me to the point that I struck it with a large spoon. Not to the point of mutilation, just enough to get my point across (teachin’ you a lesson!). The inanimate objects and I have been at war for many years (THEY started it). This is most likely because they just sit there, unmoving, with their little smiles and their little attitudes and they yield no promise of changing their behaviour at any point in the future. Damn! Outbursting (not even a word but…) by me in this manner is most often done in a very private setting. There are no visitors around, no friends, no family. This, sadly, has not been the case during every instance of “kitchen rage”. Once, in the company of others, I swore and enacted my vengeance upon a roll of sandwich wrap. It was ugly, let me tell you (the situation). You see, Saran wrap is hard enough to deal with at the best of times, it sticks to itself, it sticks on the roll, and it refuses to stick to what you want it to. Its cousin is even worse – “handi”wrap is a devious little bastard of a wrap that was engineered for the sole property of its affinity for sticking to itself. The original aim of this product was to punish prisoners by repeatedly making them attempt to find the edge on the roll. When this program was abolished in the early ’80’s, the resulting use found by the manufacturer rendered it the denizen of kitchens everywhere. One day it managed to get itself, through NO fault of my own, stuck on the roll, and withdrew its edge so that I could never find it. I proceeded to smash the roll senseless on the edge of the counter. I looked up, saw the horrified faces of those in the adjacent dining room, and quietly withdrew from the scene of the crime, tossing the evidence in a garbage can on my way out (which tried to trip me for good measure). Ever since then, the inanimate objects have been out to get me, a collaboration that I also blame as the principle reason that my cooking often doesn’t initially work out as I had planned. This sort of kitchen handicap has plagued me ever since they decided to put their little knives in my back every chance they got. Today the tomato paste just decided to twist the knife a little more. I can only imagine what they will do to thwart my attempt at making carrot cake tomorrow, but at least I can take solace in the fact that it will not be (all) my fault.