Revisionist History

I'd like to say that this blog served its original purpose beautifully. That it was an amazing insight on the life of a Torontonian expatriated to the Maritimes. That it was an outlet for me to vent out my joys and frustrations from living in a place so far from home on so many levels.

Unfortunately that wasn't really how it turned out.

If I can describe best how I feel about my time in Fredericton, it can be probably put best in a single word: fatigue. Being tired and sapped of energy on a variety of fronts left me unable to spare some time or even a thought to updating and posting my thoughts on my life in Fredericton. And it wasn't like I was trying to be this way. A lot of times I deleted posts that I'd spent hours writing, simply because at their core, they were horrid little rants that didn't serve any purpose except to spread more bile and vitriol on the Internet (as if it didn't have enough of it already).

So here I now am, in a time and place far away from Fredericton, and I have to admit it, I have to be honest, and I have to be plain and truthful to anyone reading these words: I'm happier for it.

As a great man once said through the collective voice of a particularly intelligent band of Cetaceans: So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

Questions Worth Asking

I’ve learned in my life that when Christians speak of Jesus you must ask some basic questions.

Are they speaking of Jesus as he really was, or as they imagine him to be?

Does this Jesus bless and approve of a privileged status for one group, color, denomination or nation?

Does this Jesus call us to discipleship or simply preside over a way of life we’ve come to call the “Christian lifestyle?”

Does this Jesus cross barriers, or does he send us back to hang with our own kind?

Does this Jesus have a mission, or just a moral agenda?

Does this Jesus show us where the Kingdom of God calls us, or does he spiritualize the Kingdom so that we never have to really think about it unless we’re about to die?

Is this Jesus a white, American Christian? Or a middle-eastern Jewish teacher?

Does this Jesus leave me alone? Or does he call me into community?

Does this Jesus give me a spirituality that makes me a “good Christian” on my own comfortable terms, or does he offer me a spirituality grounded in grace, but calling me into the tension of discipleship beyond the boundary lines drawn by religion?

Does this Jesus serve as the official spokesperson for organized religions lobotomized version of the Kingdom and the King, or is this the Jesus who started a world changing, cross-cultural movement of people filled with the power of the Kingdom of God?

From Jesus says Cross the Line, at Jesus Shaped Spirituality.

Postscript to "being from Toronto" (or, My big fat apology to AJL)

A while ago, I wrote about something that, at the time, kinda bugged me a little bit. It was about assumptions and outward appearances - specifically, those of a racial nature. I took a little incident that was, in the grand scheme of things, not really as bad as it could have been (or, not as really as bad as it ever was) and wove it into a grandiose post about racial uneasiness (which by the way, I do feel somewhat reassured on, after conversations with people like my therapist).

And now, thanks to that wonderful literary device known as "retributive justice" (or what some would just call Karma) I find myself falling victim to those very same assumptions - not quite racially based mind you, but they were assumptions nevertheless, and that they weren't racially motivated doesn't make them any less wrong.

...Take 3

So fast forward a few months after the aformentioned incident. Since then, he and I actually got be pretty good friends and while I didn't knew him extremely well outside of our Christian Fellowship group, we knew each other pretty well, well enough to trade friendly barbs and jabs here and there as only two fans of Monty Python and the Holy Grain could.

Anyway, the other night we were conversing and he brought up a comment I'd made earlier about how I found him quite intriguing (which was actually what I'd said). As if he read my mind, when I was trying to answer his question of why I found him intriguing, what he said was something to the effect of "Well, it's probably because I'm not what you expect..."

And well, that's right - he wasn't what I'd expected at all. Lo and behold, we had much, much more in common than I'd thought - shared general socio-political interests, shared theological interests, attitudes and experiences, even shared experiences and thoughts concerning The Opposite Sex...oh and of course, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Oh, and we've both developed a liking to Rickard's Irish Red.

Closed-minded facist Bible thumper? Au Contraire. As a matter of fact, someone for whom I've developed a profound amount of respect. Not that I didn't respect him a lot before, anyway - but now it's like that respect has taken on a newer sense of depth. I compare how I think of him now to how I thought of him, say, when I first met him, and it's so wholly embarrassing that I could ever have thought that. I mean, what else would you expect someone who's a leftist/socialist "Liberal Christian/Reformed Catholic" anti-war and pro-women's/LGTBQ rights wacko, so used to congenial ostracism and polite isolation (or downright hellfire-and-brimstone righteous indignation) when he first meets one of the people coordinating and heading up the local Christian group? If you've been through more than your fair share of Christian hatred and intolerance then I'm sure you know what I'm getting at, but nevertheless maybe you're also probably thinking of the kind of feelings I really should have had, but didn't - the feelings should have been there instead of an emotional sensation akin to a caged animal thinking that the fanged baddies are all around him.

If there's a moral to be learned from all of this, it's that we are so comfortably perched on our moral high horse when we accuse people of making undue assumptions and prejudices based on first principles that we never truly see the forest for the trees - we end up being guilty of the same sins we accuse others of making (something I'm sure I've opined about before, but in my usual fashion probably forgot about). Come to think of it, that's quite a bit of the root of why we're so downright unpleasant to each other, isn't it?

Nevertheless, what I can only offer is a tip of the hat to my friend for a wonderful evening's conversation, an humble apology for my own embarrassing sanctimoniousness, and, a resolution that next time, I'll try to do just a little better than before.

"...Don't you take this from me/I'm still wanting your face on my cheek..."

I had some pretty good entries lined up for posting - no, really, I did. I use the past tense because my hard drive crashed last night, leaving me without 30 GB worth of files and two steady months' worth of work, emails and other various miscellanea. And yes, I know the lecture about backing up. So please, just don't say it.

I know I've opined before on The Chrysalis about how my study of biological history reflects my own personal history, but lately I'm thinking about it for different reasons, not in terms of how I grew up with my dad but in terms of how I grew up with other people. I find myself thinking of past mistakes I didn't fix when I should have fixed them (or just shouldn't have made at all), and past people I cried over who in the grand scheme of things weren't really worth the tears I shed.

It's times like these when I look back and can see in my head all of the friendships I've made, past and present, which worked, and which ones didn't. I remember all of the fights I had with Paulina, wondering if that would be the end of it once and for all, and yet somehow still ending up with a wonderful friend who had a unique understanding of how I'd been feeling that few people could have. I remember getting nice little PM's from Jo on BIOME or a brief little email from Catherine asking how I was (which, even though it was one line long, I could readily imagine being asked in her bubbly voice from a face capped in a knitted hat, peering sweetly at me beneath wide thin-rimmed glasses).

I think about all of those people (and a lot more of course), and I realize just how much like them my few friends are here; people who actually feel happy when they're with me, people who look forward to spending time with me, be it five minutes or five hours. It feels nice to really be wanted by someone doesn't it? We don't really appreciate that until we're in a place where we aren't really wanted, or just ignored completely, and it's then when you're thankful for all of the little smiles you'd be given by a friendly face in an empty hallway or a busy cafe.

And then I think about the friendships which didn't make it - or at least, the ones which I tried to make work but ended up seeing fail right in front of my eyes. I can think of the emails or instant messaging sessions telling me The Truth about how people would feel about me, and just how deeply hurt I was. I remember most vividly when someone actually did that to me and how, for weeks afterward, I'd felt sad and depressed over hearing it.

I keep thinking over and over about how I could have or would have changed things, and I can imagine in my head an idealized notion of what things would be like if I'd done the right things, at the right time. I talked about this to my therapist on campus and she told me about how, after you go through the little checklist in your head (well, my head actually), ticking off all of the things you did right, you then realize that at the end of the day, maybe you didn't really screw up as bad as you did - and maybe the fault isn't all yours to take for yourself.

It's for this that I left Toronto. I'd felt like I'd had this threshold of failure and awkwardness inside of me, and the past two years had filled me up with that to the point where I was about to burst. "Never change a winning game, but always change a losing game." - that's what Dan's tennis coach told him once. After so many years of trying to play with a shitty forehand against a stream of volleys, I've decided that it's time to try out my backstroke.

Let it stay...

Well, let's go over what I have:

- a roof over my head
- food (sometimes, provided I synchronize my life to the dining hall's schedule)

Let's go over what I don't have:

- laundry
- dishwasher
- heating
- telephone
- Internet access
- window curtains
- shower curtain
- a social life

I realize that it'll all be hunky-dory in a few months' time when this is all done, but I really don't care right now at this point where things are promised to be in a few months' time - I only really give a damn about the way things are now. And right now things really don't look so good.

The last few days have been really grating on me. And it's not just the lack of amenties which is frustrating me; it's just the general string of frustration which seems to be coming at me non-stop. It's nothing terribly substantially major, just things which build up over time, more and more. If it's not one thing, it's something else, and if it's not something else, it's something extra.

But there's one more thing. I'm completely, and totally alone. I've made aquaintances with one person, but she's hardly in a position where she's to fend for herself: she's got her family with her, as do many other people in the building. And for the people who don't, they're all wonderfully chummy with the others on their floor or in their suite.

Today, my roommate and I did some shopping for some essentials and it really hit home just how much of a disadvantage I am without a car. Ever moreso without a driver's license. This whole driver's license thing is starting to really get to me again - and while on the one hand I have a reasonably valid excuse for not having one, on the other hand I really don't. Stress, stress, stress. When will it ever end? Will it ever end?

Labour Day in Fredericton

Monday Afternoon. It's Labour Day. I moved in yesterday morning without any specific incident, although I felt a lot of pity for a poor family (Indian?) whose reserved van taxi ignored the reservation they made and picked up three other people from the airport, leaving without them. I almost took him myself, and I would have felt pretty bad if I did (then again, if I had taken him, I wouldn't have known about the family). On the flight going into Fredericton, I chatted up a nice second-year transfer student from Malta going to STU. Thinking about an earlier conversation I had with Jordan about the nuances of socializing before I left, I tried to turn that into something along the lines of meeting up with her later on, but she declined. I guess it came out wrong. It's been a long time since I've had a chance to be in that kind of situation. Then again, I haven't been in many of these situations to begin with, and I never was really good with them anyway.

All of the fears I had about the building from when I was here the other week seemed to be pretty true (though they did finish laying the bricks for the outside walls). No TV, phones, or Internet access. No laundry. No dishwashers. No heating. Everything else seems to work, though it's just my luck that the "everything else" is the "everything else" that I need.

This afternoon a fire alarm malfunctioned. A bit of a nailbiter, since the alarm control/status panel in the lobby reported a fire breaking out in the basement floor down the hall where heavy construction was still taking place. An electrical control panel was hastily covered with cardboard with various warning signs. I figure, if there's any place for a fire to start (barring some idiot carelessly leaving something on a stove or in an oven, or something smoking-related) it would be there. I got a chance to take a look at some of the other people in the building. The majority of them all girls, all somewhat pretty (I suppose) and all most likely WASPs (Something tells me I can get away with using that here). All of them on some level appeared to be somewhat annoyingly irritating. At the very least, none of them seems to be anyone I could see myself talking to. I'm at a point in my life now where I'm not about to start wasting my time on people who don't find me interesting enough to talk to. I've been through that, you know? Making conversation with people who don't think of you as something worthy of any thought beyond a passing interest in frivolous conversation, of any effort beyond a few words spoken here and there is something I just don't care for anymore, and I like think I left all of that shit behind back in Toronto. Maybe if I painted my face white, dyed my hair blonde, and wore blue contact lenses I could change that. Not that I'm about to do that or anything.

It's been three days now (since check-in opened up; two since I arrived) and my other two roommates aren't here yet. Something tells me that they probably asked to get reassigned to other rooms in other buildings, at least until the other stuff here comes online or perhaps for the rest of the school year. I've not seen anyone else from my floor, so for all I know I could be alone here in the basement, where my suite is. I did see a charming young couple coming up the stairs while I was heading down, so maybe they're occupying a suite or room of their own. Not that that's any help to me.

Lorem Ipsum, and All That Jazz

Ok, so for the benefit of the small percentage of the small percentage who read my blog, know me in person and don't know what's going on...I'm moving. Or rather, have moved. I tried to keep this a little under wraps because I didn't want to actually start talking about it until I'd had all of my i's dotted and t's crossed. Well, I'm not at that stage yet (HR hasn't cleared my paperwork and my residence building on campus is still under construction) but I'm far enough along to say that yes, I once and truly have now moved on from the University of Toronto and Toronto, and on to the University of New Brunswick and Fredericton. I suppose I should leave a final coda message on The Chrysalis, but right now I'm feeling both tired and lazy. And besides, with the exception of one person to whom I feel particularly connected to, I've notifed everyone I've wanted to notify about the details and circumstances of my move - everyone else I know can just bite me for all I care.

I don't know if I'll keep up with the same kind of style I'd been using earlier. The whole evolution/creation thing is tired, and it seems like I can't say a word about my feelings without someone getting annoyed and pissy about it - so, I'm going to play it by ear a little until I find a happy new equilibrium.

Hitting the ground, running

Got together with my supervisor for a good few hours or so hammering out the details of my work. As always I've got a whole sheet full of stuff to do - and this time I think I can get through it all. It's a fair bit of work, but the sooner I get it done, the sooner I'll be able to work on other things too.

The campus is beginning to come to life now. I saw a school group touring the campus, school camps out on the fields playing, and more than a few undergrads lurking about. Steve has a summer NSERC student about who's work reminds me somewhat of Rosanna McGuire's work back at Joker's Hill in 2003, when I was working for Marc. I hope to get the chance to meet her sometime.

Somehow I keep on being amazed at the demeanour of the people here. Yesterday, we were eating lunch at Wendy's and one of the girls working the counter was going around offering mints to the customers. Huh? Rather odd to see someone doing that even at a place like the Pickle Barrel back in Toronto. I feel sorry for the girl, having to do that and get the bemused and bewildered looks of people munching on their burgers and fries as a thank-you. I should have taken one to make her feel better. Anyway.

Later on I decided to strike out on my own for dinner - had some pizza at a place near an Indian restaurant we ate at on my first day here. I asked for take out, and the woman at the front didn't just shove my pizza into a bag...she wrapped it up in foil, put it in the bag, and then stapled it shut. Wow.

I was on my way back to the city proper from campus when a girl who crossed the street smiled and said hi to me for no apparent reason. Yeah, I'm definitely not in Toronto anymore.

How does it feel? (When you're alone and you're cold inside...)

I landed in Fredericton on Monday just in time to catch the rain. A light spitting rain that would ebb and flow into something bordering on a torrential downpour that stayed somewhat sane. I ventured out, with my supervisor's umbrella in hand, to somehow make some sense of this predicament I've found myself in.

The campus is on the side of a hill - you're greeted at the front gate bordering Beaverbrook Street by a large hill with the building housing the Registrar's Office (Sir Howard Douglas Hall) up top, immediately to your right. To the left is the Faculty of Kinesiology, housed in the Lady Beaverbrook Gymnasium. Note to self: find out who these "Beaverbrook" people were. I think I'll need to make a local investment in a bike; the hill is going to be a killer on my poor knees.

The campus was completely deserted. I mean, totally. Here and there I could get a glimpse of people who'd already moved into their dorms - I couldn't figure out if they were grad students or not. The only other activity consisted of a few brave souls running errands, and two rather comely girls working the front desk at the empty and diminutive bookstore. I don't know why the girls here seem so much more prettier than the girls back home. There must be something in the water, I suppose. (Man, I know someone who's going to chew me out for that comment, I'm sure). It was a mixed blessing, I guess. Wandering about aimlessly, while not having to worry about looking like you're wandering about aimlessly. All you needed to do was to just hide your map the moment a car or truck drove by. Then again, maybe they were passing me by wondering what on earth could possess someone to be out here in the rain.

And all the while, as I walked the empty walkways and streets, I couldn't help but think of a song which seemed to fit my general mood and sentiment so well...