Shuswap lake is such a beautiful thing. I can get up at any time I like, take whatever I want for breakfast, and laze around until noon. Or, I can get up at 6, jump in the lake, and go waterskiing. Today I stayed in bed till 8, made some coffee for those who wanted it, and now I'm here at the computer typing into my blog. I'm feeling quite relaxed as I head into today, and I'm wondering what it is that I'll do. So far I'm just feeling motivated to work on my future film Waiting for Yesterday. I don't think I'll say anything about it just yet though, to keep you in suspense. Oh, here's a good joke (unrelated to WFY).

The little boy says to his grandpa, "Grandpa, can you make a sound like a frog?"

"Well I guess I could, but why do you ask?"

"Because Mommy says that when you croak, we can go to Hawaii!"

From the mouths of babes... :P

I really wish I knew how many people are reading this. I don't mind if no one's reading it, but really, it would make me feel so much better if people did. So maybe it's boring and random, but at least there's some substance here. How about this: if I write something profound, will you consider sending a link to your friends? Or maybe bookmarking this page? Well, here goes:

In nature, there is one thing that drives every animal - the will to survive. Behind that is the idea of 'survival of the fittest'. That means that in a group of say, elephants, when they are moving away from their predators (lions), some will be able to move faster than others. The slowest elephant will be the one that is killed, and therefore the entire herd is that much faster. "A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link". Now, it sounds harsh that only the strongest animals should survive, but that's exactly how natural selection works. Now if we look at humans, we'll see the opposite - when a person is close to death, we spend thousands of dollars trying to keep them alive, when really we should be letting them die. Ouch, that didn't sound so nice, did it? But really, we need to let all the sick people die so that our species can be that much stronger. Is Euthanasia on humans legal in Canada? I think it should be. Hmmmmm, this argument is so much better in person. Still, it sounds kind of profound, right?

There's this guy called Aesop. He wrote a book full of fables, and I'm going to look for that as soon as I get home in 2 days. They're short little stories that have an often applicable lesson built in. If you ever get a chance, please take a look. I might start writing a few on here, depending on if I find it or not.

That's about all I feel like writing at the moment, so again, thank you for reading, and I hope you'll visit again soon.

Graham

I was wrong. I gave up on writing a blog because it took too much time, and I just didn't have enough to write about. This isn't what I had intended to have happen when I began – I had been wanting to be one of the rarities that was a blog that lived. That idea never took off too well. But now I've had a long summer of adventures, and really the only people I can share it with are those whom I actually am able to talk to. That might just be the best way, but writing is really a good skill, and even I could do with some practice. On top of that, I'm also learning how to touch type (without the stupid 'home row' technique). Right now I'm typing this on a laptop in a van traveling from Ucluelet to Calgary (though not all in one trip). I have just left Kamloops, and while typing this, I'm looking out the window, enjoying what little scenery it has to offer as we race by at 110 kilometers per hour. So this is really a good time to muse on my digital notepad to those few individuals, like yourself, will read. I'm wondering if anyone who has read my blog has also visited Kamloops. Where are all these people in their big gas guzzling vehicles going in such a rush? This big winding strip of black pavement just encourages us to go from A to B, while skipping the A.1 and A.2 in between. There must be billions of stories flying past me at this very moment. Why has that barn just become run down? What made that person build a house so out of the way? Who lives in that little house? Maybe they aren't all that interesting, but we'll never know, will we? Unless we stop and consider what is around us, we'll never know what we've just driven by at 110 kilometers per hour. That cargo container on that train could have anything in it, but I haven't the slightest clue. It could be the clothes I'll be wearing, the food I'll be eating, or something I'll never even come in contact with. What was the life of those little Chinese men who built the railway like? Who drives the trains? God, I could ask these questions forever, and really, none of them will ever be answered – because I don't look for an answer, I just expect it to come to me when I ask it. I know myself that if I want to succeed in the film industry, or anything for that matter, I'll have to ask less questions, and pursue more answers.

Story time. I was in grade 6, and my multimedia/music teacher Mr. Bottemly decided to try doing a little thing called a 'Middle School Update' – basically a short video presentation that showed what was going on in our school. Anyways, I was intrigued by that, and I really wanted to be a part of the next one. The problem was, I was too scared to ask if I could do it, because Mr. B had mentioned that he was going to get some grade 8's to do it. Then in the parking lot of the Brentwood Co-op, I had an epiphany (I think I'm using that right :P) and realized that I'm never going to get anywhere if I don't ask for it. In the end, Mr. B let me do it, and all went well. I still have the video, but I don't think I'll be showing it to anyone too soon as it's pretty bad. So the moral of the story is – if you don't ask, why would someone ever think of asking you?

Wow, I'm really liking this again. It used to be a chore, but now it feels almost like I'm actually talking to someone – mainly you. Being away on vacation means that I don't really have a lot of people to talk to. One exception to that was just a few days ago when I went Sea Kayaking with some friends of our family. After dinner, three of us started talking out of boredom, and we hit some really deep topics. I'm talking Scuba-diving here. For example, we talked about how we might all be blind, and really all we 'see' is made up. So when I'm looking at another person, they look like what I've always considered a human to look like, but if I saw what they were seeing, I would look totally different. Or, I was able to put forward a theory to disprove time travel. I'll write it out separately:

Firstly, time travel to the future is impossible, because the future does not exist yet. What that means is that we have not been presented with the options that we will be, and have not made our decisions that those options will require; therefore the future does not exist, and will not until it happens. Second, time travel to the past cannot exist (in the form that we would interact with the past) because there has been no time in history that someone has recorded a visit from the future. So imagine that you are going to travel back to the year 1999, December 31^st at 11:55. If you went to Times Square in New York, and then stepped out of the machine, hundreds of people would see you, and millions would see you on TV, and therefore the world would know that time travel would exist. That hasn't happened though, has it? So unless in the future there is some way that travelers are concealed from the past, it never will be possible. Period.

Those are two of the many 'deep' topics we touched down on. And now I'm going to have a go at another. One of the weirdest possible emotions and feelings humans can have – love. And in particular, who will I love? I'm going to be self-centered right now and only talk about myself. I have never had a girlfriend. But as I am now going into grade 11, I'm noticing that a lot more people are in relationships, yet I still have no one to spend my time with, and give my love to. This isn't a personals ad, nor a complaint, just musings, and questions that I'm am looking for answers to. Having just spent a week and a half by the ocean, I have been washed over with a wave of romanticism. I would love to walk down Long Beach at sunset, hand in hand with someone I have deep feelings for, and just talk about whatever comes to mind, or even just take in the sounds of the ocean rolling in. Not a relationship that is sexual, just one where I can know that my feelings of love are being returned in full. The only problem with that is that pretty much every time I've heard of this happening, relationships have fallen apart. If I said I loved her, I don't think I would be able to just stop when times were rough. I want dedication, but it seems as if in today's culture, that's a pretty big requirement that lots of people aren't able to commit to. Divorce, cheating, adultery – what will it take to have just honest, pure, unassuming and total love? Is it that hard to do? I guess I wouldn't know, as I've never been in the standard love relationship. Still, in the past people would stay together for life – the idea of divorce was hardly ever brought up. Now it's happening every day – no one seems to go untouched by it. You could say that the new standard is to get married, and then divorce as soon as you get tired of each other. That's really no way to solve a problem. If it doesn't work, give up and try again? What's the point of even getting married then? I might as well just say this then – to my future girlfriend: I will do whatever possible to love you in the fullest, to be as romantic as possible, and to know when we spend too much time and when we don't spend enough. I will listen to your opinions, and treat you like you should be treated – lovingly. In return, all I ask is that you would do the same for me, and love me till we can love no more.

I hope you didn't find that corny, because that's not what it was intended to be. I want love! Agh!

There is one song by ABBA (you'll be able to download it by Saturday on the right, even though I shouldn't) that for some reason just makes me come to the point of crying. Even though it's from a woman's point of view, it really just describes how I know I'd feel if she left me. Please listen. I want to know if anyone else feels this way. Send me an e-mail. I want to know. I promise that I'll respond. I like human contact. That's about all I can say right now. I'm arriving at my destination of ShuswapLake, where I'll be staying for a few days, and then heading back to Calgary. So depending on what the weather's like, I might write another entry before then. So, thanks for reading this (or skimming it), because I really appreciate having someone actually make use of what I've written. And, as always, send me an e-mail to let me know what you think.

Graham