Well, it's about 11pm on my 21st birthday and I've returned from all birthday festivities and decided now is a good time to make a decent update on this blog. (Maybe 22nd birthday the focus will be on staying up late)
I know Steve needs something to make fun of me for (like long posts for example), and I have some questions I need some opinions on.. which I will bring up a bit later on in this post.
I'm pretty much settled into Charlottetown. They are great folks. By "they" I mean everybody. Tim Hortons workers, librarians, people in cars who actually stop for pedestrians. Great.
When we leave our house in the morning, Kate, my host mom says "Be good! And if you can't be good, at least try to be nice." She's constantly making super sarcastic comments and keeping a very straight face. I start laughing hysterically, and others (especially the Russians!!) look blankly at her or laugh awkwardly.
She said, after making fun of our Russian supervisor for having very long legs and therefore awkward looking knees that "Many truths come out of jest" or something along those lines meaning that the truth is usually found in humor. He had a kiniption fit when he found out that the first thing she noticed about him was his knees, and not his trendy hairstyle, expensive clothes or modelish good looks. (I'm talking about Cheslav, aka Chessmate, for the Swedes who were lucky enough to meet him..)
I've also discovered the local library. You get a free library card, and you don't even have to wear a ratty touque and beg for it. I took out about 7 books, and Galia keeps telling me that I'm crazy for having taken out so many books. Her observations about my apparant mental instability has started a very intense debate about whether or not reading is a good passtime. So I'm asking anybody who has any opinion on this to please come forward and let me know what they think.
Galia prefers singing and dancing to reading. I also love to dance, but the singing I find kind of ridiculous. Mostly because I'm a terrible singer, and singing can be done while doing other activities, so it's not fair to consider it a hobby on its on (in my case anyways)
Galia also claimed in her argument that reading "makes people fat" and "is sooo boring"
So, please let me know. Is reading good or bad??
I started reading "Why I hate Canadians" by WIll Ferguson, and apparantly Will Ferguson did Canada World YOuth about 20 years ago. He wrote a chapter about his experience and I was up all night laughing about it. He describes it to a "T" I've been carrying around the book reading parts of the chapter to my fellow CAnada World Youthers.
And describing the entire program: "In the Third World, North America is either glorified or vilified. We are either glamorous millionaires or capitalist vampires. In the same way, in North America, the suffering of the Third World is written off as something on the periphery; an object of charity and pity. Canada World Youth brings the two sides face to face, and few myths survive the contact. Consider it a principle of human interaction: it is very hard to hate- or idolize- someone with whom you have made moose-shit necklaces" (he made moose-shit necklaces with his host family in Canada and his Ecuadorian counterpart. apparantly it's odour free and handy for making decorate jewellery)
4 comments:
Nope, I enjoyed the long post this time. I've been incredibly sick in bed all week and have been looking for things to do. I read three books already. At one point, I watched Pirates of the Carribean three times in a row on my laptop because I was too tired and sick to bother getting out of bed to find a different DVD. Blah.
Anyway, "Why I Hate Canadians" is a fantastic book. I've given it as a gift several times. I should have recommended it to you. Sorry!
It's 277 days until I leave for Australia. Wheee!
-- McQueen
I wouldn't go so far as to say that reading makes you fat and boring, but I'm pretty sure it makes you fat. At least it made me fat over the holidays. It's like food though, it only makes you fat if you enjoy it. School reading doesn't make you fat. I'd say dancing makes you thin and gives you stories to tell, but reading makes you fat and teaches you how to judge the stories of the thin people and then make up better ones to impress everybody so maybe they won't notice that you are fat.
Besides, mental instability is always interesting.
Happy Birthday!
Amanda
all reading ever did for anyone is give them insight into other people's ideas, dreams, concepts, opinions, made people less naive, less narrowminded, recorded our history, changed our lives and made us overall more well rounded people. and who needs that sort of thing when you can be thin and ignorant singing at the top of your lungs in your kitchen cooking for your husband. cause what i find brings people together are common interests like being skiny not theories or insight- like ew. but like they say everything in moderation so try not to eat too many books- especially those fattening Russian ones.
Happy Belated 21st darling!
As for reading. I guess that explains why I spent the majority of my life being overweight...and boring. I love reading. I even love how I mispronounce a whole bunch of words due to my reading them long before I heard them (see: subtle, omnipotent). But I guess if you spend all your time reading you don't get exercise? I don't know. I guess reading making you overweight can be argued. The boring part I'm not so sure. Maybe she means it makes you boring because spending your time reading about someone elses life verses leading your own makes for worse stories. But I find the more I read the more open minded and aware I become.
I don't know. It's hard to tackle. Personally I love singing and dancing and reading and lots of other things too. So I find it hard to find any of them substandard in a way.
Anyway I just wanted to say hi, and sorry for the lack of emails, I sort of made myself a little hermit like for the last few weeks, but I think I'm coming out of my funk, so I'll email and complain about it all to you soon. Just thought I'd let you know that your last post about Timmy's inspired me to go, because I realized that I haven't been for ages. MMM everything bagel and mocha....so awesome!
(So Steve what about long comments? Are they okay?)
Post a Comment