Tag: College

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Canada is Bipolar

I can’t believe the weather here. Only yesterday we had glorious sunshine with temperatures over zero. In fact, on my very short walk between buildings, the sun felt so warm on my skin I could almost imagine what summer would feel like. I reminisced over the blast of heat that assaults you, stepping off the plane in Hyderabad. The thought was almost comforting. Spring must be here, I thought.

Then, today the snow falls. Wind drives the small flakes down towards the windows and the ground like rain. The sky is white, and the cold air beats at the flapping flags outside the college. With weather like this you would think that spring is months away. I’ve heard some Canadians argue that it is. I think it’s terrible. With the weather cold and dreary as it is, work and assignments seem as forbidding as the thought of going for a long walk outside. Why can’t Canada just make up its mind with its weather? I love the sun. I wish it would stay all day, all month, maybe even all year. But I wish it didn’t show it to me for a day, only to hide it again for another month or two.

If anyone has extra sunshine and wouldn’t mind, please do stuff as much of it as you can into an envelope and mail it to me. Then I can sit in my room, snow falling outside, and open those little envelopes of warmth. If only.

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Old Friends and Frozen Feet

Sometimes you forget that you have been missing things until you’re enjoying them again. This weekend I had the wonderful pleasure of having Daniel visit me in Red Deer for the weekend. After a crazy lack of proper directions and almost no arrangements of when, where and how to meet each other, he made it into the front doors of the college late Friday evening to meet me while I lounged, waiting in flip flops on the window sill of the main hallway, catching the strange looks of those passing by.

For so long I had been looking forward for this wonderful chance to spend time together and hang out again, yet when it actually came, I hardly noticed it was unusual to have Daniel around. The good memories of the past seem to lapse into familiarity in moments, no matter how long you have gone without them. We spent our time catching up over cups of tea, wonderful food, chopstick walrus teeth and far-too-late bed times with make-shift sleeping arrangements. I was only glad for my health’s sake that we don’t get to hang out all the time, or these dark lines under my eyes would soon become permanent residents of my face.

Thankfully we managed to do everything that we had planned for the short weekend, including a children’s story book about Mr. Poo, a character Daniel created back in high school, and a picture of us painted with mud, baring our arms and teeth as we stood shirtless and shoeless in the snow. For some reason the idea of being barefoot in the snow didn’t actually seem that terrible to me. I had this strange idea that it would be almost too cold to feel properly, or that it would take a minute or two for my feet to actually realize what was going on. Unfortunately, feet have a very apt sense of temperature, and after a couple quick pictures we slipped our snow covered toes back into our shoes and ran shivering back to the residence buildings.

Time went so quickly, it seems like a dream now that I think of it. Daniel is back to Saskatchewan, and my college life resumes with a blasé normality. And yet, we had a wonderful time – reminding ourselves of past antics in boarding and the all the crazy things we did during our time in Pakistan. I forgot just how much we packed into those few years. It wasn’t until we were explaining it to a friend, who generously hosted us for Saturday evening and all of Sunday, that I realized just how insane our ‘exploits’ sounded to a outside listener. Flaming arrows, fish cremations, riots in dorm halls, evading bedtimes and burning snow-witches. They were good memories. They still are, and with old friends around, these old memories are exchanged, cherished and brought back to life again.

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Don’t Slam the Toilet Seat!

Coming into this year of living in residence, I had very few worries about how I would get along with my flat-mates and the problems associated with four young men living in close proximity. Being that I had spent time with almost twenty boys in dorms, for a great portion of my school life, I figured there wasn’t much that I hadn’t faced before and worked through. However, this has not always been the case.

The guys and I get along fine. We have no reason’s for getting angry at each other or anything of the sort, which is such a blessing. But I find that often it’s the little things in life that seem to pain me most. I’ve never had a plank or anything of the sort get under my fingernails, yet the tiniest sliver seems able to make its way in at times dig deep at a nerve. It makes me worried about marriage in a way. That perhaps it will be these same little things that get under my skin and drive me crazy.

Do you really have to let the toilet seat slam when you put it back down? Why can’t you let it down gently? And why do you leave the dishcloth sitting in the sink after you’ve done the dishes? It never dries that way and pretty soon it will get smelly if you keep doing that. And do you have to make such a racket taking out the dishes in the morning when some others are sleeping? And why is it you have to stomp so loud on your way around the house and back from the bathroom in the morning? Why, why, why?

Thankfully, these little annoyances in life are just that: very little. They are certainly not something I would ever explode over. I’m sure someday, when I’m married, it will be these little things that will drive me crazy, if I don’t drive my wife crazy first. But it’s comforting to know that these are just small frictions that come hand in hand with sharing space. They aren’t an excuse for the outbreak of World War III.

There are parts of life that you just have to get used to. You learn love, forgive, and to live through these differences and make for the best. I suppose that’s what family is all about.

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College

College is such a strange thing. At times I think the only real purpose of college is to keep you busy for a number of years, until you are mature enough to deal with the requirements of life. You spend four years to get a piece of paper that says you spent that time doing something intelligent, and people respect that. Do they see these people in these classes? Do they see them walking the halls in pajama pants, living off of intravenous coffee ingestion and talking to their friends during most of a lecture. Are these the scholarly sages we present recognition to?

But drudgery is an excellent teacher. If not for the mundane academics of college, teachers would never learn how to be long-winded, dusty and rigid. No, they must walk the halls long enough, until they forget what sunshine looked like, how it felt to be a child. They forget how it felt to play outside, jump in puddles and lie in the grass. Then, and only then can they be handed the baton and sent off to teach these beings that they have spent long years estranging themselves from.

Having lived amongst desks for four or more years of their life, these objects become familiar – too familiar. The rigid lines of the classroom are the only world they know of learning. So used to being spoken to, when allowed to speak they ramble their ideas as if no one has ever stopped to ask them what they thought. Perhaps no one did. Silence has become their only way of survival, the air they feed off of to push their way through the books, papers and lectures. Why should they expect any different when they are finished? They spend long years sitting, listening, working – why can’t they expect the same of those they go on to teach?

But there is hope for some. Some wade their way through the confines and still remember what sunshine was like. They remember the carefree joys of play and the smell of fresh flowers. They learn – first to toil and labour amongst words, ideas and ideologies, spreading out life in papers so thin that they lose their taste at all. They do all this, and then learn again. They learn to live, breathe, smile and to stop to watch the sun set. Life comes back like blood in a cold arm held too tightly, or warmth in cheeks exposed too long to the chill wind. They live again – fueled by the pain of their sentence and bursting for joy at their freedom.

I only hope that this will be my story too.

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“Brighter Tomorrow Meal”

The “Brighter Tomorrow Meal”. A meal usually consisting of scraps of food from the fridge that would not and, perhaps should not, be put together and ever called a meal. This meal is usually built on childish hopes that the following day will bring better meal planning and may even yield a meal one would consider worthy of showing to their mother. The “Brighter Tomorrow” meal is one that should be kept to oneself, as people around may worry after hearing of this hapless meal. It should also be noted that consecutive or repeated use of this meal may result in malnutrition, weight loss, and sometimes death. As a result, most doctors and loving mothers would strongly advise proper meal-planning with healthy food sources.