.: 12 :.

.: 11 :.

.: 10 :.

One is the loneliest number...

"Every Day"

Requiem for a Dream

Before I delve into the deep stuff, this one song is just one of my favorites lately. Many people consider it to be the epic song, and if you've heard it, you'll know why. Just a really nice piece of music, that's all.

However, there is something more to it.

Requiem for a Dream

A requiem is a mass written for the dead. A solemn chant for the repose of the dead. Something that resembles such a solemn chant. A musical composition in honor of the dead. Lot's of definitions.

But for a dream?

Yeah.

A beautiful and solemn chant written to honor a dream progressing towards death.

"I have a dream, A song to sing. To help me cope, with anything..."

You see, I like to make random connections to my life. I have a few dreams about where I want my life to go. I don't want this to be my song. And yet in only 20 hours that I've had it, I've listened to it non-stop. I can't stop.

Right now, I'm working really hard to write a letter that will drastically change the course of my life, and what I choose to do with the rest of it. Of course, it all depends on the answer, but if it's the answer that I seem to want, then who knows what my life is going to look like? Will I still be living in Calgary when I graduate? Or will I leave it all behind to chase this dream? If no, will I be able to revert back to my normal self? To pretend I never had those thoughts?

Do I want to spend all my savings for a few flights to BC? Or should I just block it out of my head and pretend it never happened, dreaming of the things that come easier?

This dream feels so good, so right, so wonderful. I take it with me every day, every minute. I cannot stop thinking about how I want to live that dream. Yet I can't shake the feeling that there's no sense wasting my time on something so stupid and difficult.


Requiem for my dreams.

*Play*

.: 9 :.

Hiking in Paradise ValleySo on August 16th, at about 10:00PM, our neighbours asked us if we wanted to go over for a 'camp-out' in their back yard. Seeing as it was so nice out, I decided to go. Let me tell you, sleeping out in the open with just your sleeping bag and pillow is an amazing experience. Even with all the light pollution in Calgary, the stars are brilliant, and the moon is a beautiful white orb. The clouds slowly drift by, highlighted by the moon behind it, accented with red from the streetlamps below.From there, we woke up around 8, and were told we were going hiking right away. Hour and a half later, we're in the parking lot for the Paradise Valley trail. From there, it's 6.7km to Lake Annete (or is it Anette?), where we stopped for lunch. Another 4km brought us to the Giant Steps, an amazingly beautiful series of waterfalls (below)

So that was 4 hours of hiking. At this point, some clouds started to move in, bringing a half hour rain storm. Pretty refreshing actually. Unfortunately, the trail we were expecting to take (which would take us on a loop of the valley, rather than back-tracking) was closed, so we had to take the longer route of going all the way back where we came from. All in all, it was a 21km hike, taking us about 6 hours I think. Then it was into Banff for some dinner at Earls (Chicken clubhouse sandwich, no tomato) and then ice cream at Cows (Gooey Mooey and Don Cherry). Hour and a half later, we're back in Calgary.

And so now, if anyone is interested, I want to do that hike again sometime. But this time, it's going to be a photography hike. I want to take a girl up, and take pictures of her in a really nice, big dress (a.la. wedding or something). Don't ask me why, but I just think that they would pair up so well. Double the beauty in a single shot. That and just some nice portraiture on the mountain. Nothing makes for a better profile pic (in my opinion) than a background of the rugged Rocky Mountains.

Peace, and good night :)

&

Plans

I really wish they could be made quickly and easily. I finally am sure that I will be coming home Friday, which is great!

Problem: I don't know if I'm going to be coming back. And I really want to, because there will be other people here if we do. Not like now, when the only person my age I can talk to is myself. It sucks though, seeing as we just had a fight, and so it's a little difficult to have a normal conversation with myself...

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Red Right Returning
Pirates Don't Try To Make Amends
To Best Determine Motor Vessel Speed
No Dumb Men Have Sail Powered Planes
T V Makes Dumb Children
60D ST
Red Fish

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If you're one of the very few who know my situation and were there to witness it, please let me know what you think. I only have two very biased eyes.

Yes, I'm random

August 8/9th, random iPod entries


"I'm shakin' my fist in the dark, and I'm asking why, why, why, why?"

-----

I'm starting to wonder if I have any readers now. I mean, really, unless someone brings it up in conversation, I get no feedback on it at all.

-----

Ok, so to give me some greater privacy and space, I have moved into a tent on our cabin yard. And directly above me, on the outside of the mesh ceiling vent, is a little frog. Like, how cool is that? Talk about random. (I hope he eats all those noisy mosquitoes...)

-----

Here I sit in a chair at our cabin on Shuswap lake, bored out of my mind. I is rainy and miserable outside, making me feel miserable too. I have my music to listen to, but not a whole lot else. I think what I'll do next is write a song. I had a start of an idea last night, so maybe I'll be able to remember some of it.

-----

Things for me to look into:
-August Rush soundtrack
-Music by U2
-Powers of ten YouTube
-Music made from sounds in XP YouTube
-Walking on Sunshine
-Golden Compass
-Barrage
-Pine Nuts
-Watchmen (film)
-DekePod
-Toothbrush!!!
-Departures (tv show on OLN)
- [] to be (check box)
-Put some cash on iTunes account for movies (Oceans 11, Minority Report)
-A rider is doing well when he's looking ahead, and about to tire out when he's looking at the pavement right in front of him.
-Foam for Pelican
-Memory card from dads camera
-Emma Trelevan
-Here comes the sun
-Portrait Lens. 100mm?
-Photographymentor.com
-audiblepodcast.com/twip - free ebook

Where to begin?

I'm really starting to wonder who I am now. I can't count on anything to be the same, nor can I cound on myself to deal with the changes. I'm second guessing myself about every decision I make, which keeps me from doing anything really...

Of anything in the world, it's my friends I want to value the most. In all honesty, I take my family and beliefs for granted, because I have always had them. Not so for friends. I care about you more than anything, and honestly, I would do anything for you. I've mentioned a few times that you can (and should) text me any time, day or night. I would gladly talk to you at three in the morning, even go find coffee somewhere if you wanted. There is nothing more important in my life than you.

More than ever, I feel like I've really messed up. All it takes is one little thing, and I'm way off the edge. Talking openly to my friends is one of the few things that can calm me down.

For example, I went sailing for ten days, as you have obviously heard. The night before I left, I felt like I should make a special point of saying goodbye to my closest friends. A was on MSN, so I said bye to him, but M was not. I sent her a text message saying goodbye, and also just checking that everything was going well. So I guess I was more than a little disappointed when I still hadn't received a reply the next day. Of course, I had already warned that my phone would be off for the duration of the trip, so it was my fault really. Either way, it left me feeling like a friendship was being threatened, and I snapped. When I returned to our cabin, I wrote about my trip and all, but in my final paragraph, concluded with the statement, "maybe I got my revenge though, because for once, I hardly thought about you."

Someone slap me already!!!

I didn't mean it, I wrote while I was angry, and I am so sorry. I did think about you specifically, and I really wish you could have been there. You would have loved it. All it took was for me to just have some time talking to friends, and I completely forgot about the whole thing. Now I feel like a jerk all over again. I am so sorry, and I really don't want this to become a habit...

Another major life change that took place on the boat was that I got to see Jenny again. A very wise person noted that a lot can change in a year. A lot does. And yet, thankfully there are things that also stay the same. This was one instance of that. I really don't know if there are words that can adequately express my feelings of grief and loss now that we are thousands of miles apart. I had to constantly remind myself of this in order to keep myself from taking actions that would undoubtedly hurt me in the near future. Yet whenever we sang that happy refrain of,
"I would walk 500 miles,
And I would walk 500 more,
Just to be the man who walked 1000 miles to fall down at your door..."
I found that something in me wasn't just singing the words, but that I was actually singing them to her, with complete and utter honesty. Now the memories are fading like a sunset, and no matter how many pictures I take, it will never be quite like being there.


And now I'm at Shuswap, disconnected from all those I miss the most, and entering the uncomfortable spiral of self-pity that is going to kill me one of these days. If there were a viable way for me to come home right this instant, I wouldn't hesitate to take it. I want nothing more than to give you a hug, and to just have, at the very least, a day to hang out with my very best friends. If you feel so inclined, the sound of an incoming text is music to my ears. Other than that, I'll just continue sitting in this tent, longing for the day that I come home.

Writing in the wind

For those of you who are still unaware of it, I am currently writing to you from our cabin at Shuswap Lake. I returned from sailing on the 4th after a long day of travel, and will likely be coming home to Calgary on Wednesday the 13th.

At this very moment, a pretty interesting storm is coming in. The flag is full out, the boat is tugging at the anchor as hard as it can, and huge white-caps are all over the place. We are expecting thundershowers today and tomorrow, so I have a pretty good feeling that I'll be seeing more of this in the next few hours.

Now I'm stuck on what to write next. I find it interesting that even though the wind is blowing like crazy right into my face, I'm hardly cold at all. A few weeks ago, weather like this would have me bundled up and inside as quick as possible. Now I'm outside in shorts and a t-shirt, hardly feeling the wind at all. When I walk across the beach of rocks by our dock, I no longer feel the sharp rocks, I hardly notice it any more. It's interesting how the body adapts so quickly to it's surroundings to make your life easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable. If you've ever looked at the hands of a wood-carver, they are calloused and rough from their work. It's like they have their own kind of built in gloves that harden their hands to protect them. What causes the body to do this? Is it some sort of micro-micro-evolution?

In the same way, our body adapts long-term to surroundings. If I remember reading correctly, we have eyelashes to prevent dirt from entering our eyes during sandstorms and the like. Would the human body have developed those if there were no need for them?

Of course, then we have to go into the discussion of evolutionism vs. creationism, something I'm not particularly wanting to argue, and therefore I won't.

I just think it's so cool though how our bodies, without any conscious effort, make these adaptations. And so if it does it physically, does it not make sense that our bodies adapt in small ways mentally? It certainly makes sense that they would. Logic is a good example of it. Imagine if you had no logic, only memory. Math would become grotesque! Simple addition would mean the memorization of every combination of numbers, would it not? Memorize 2+2, but what about 2+3? It would be something else to memorize. Instead, logic does it much faster; 2+2 is 4, 3 is greater than 2, so 2+3 is 5.

Or maybe I'm way off base with these arguments. You decide.

One thing I am sure about is that our world would fall apart, literally, if friction were to suddenly disappear. Friction holds our world together. Nails would be easy to pull out, cars would have little or no grip on the road, and you wouldn't be able to stand up in the way that you do. I am of the opinion that if we suddenly lost all friction, our world would quickly collapse. Thank goodness for constants.

Anyways, I've jabbered on for a good long while already. I wasn't really planning on writing anyways, I just did for the sake of it (I'm actually really bored of Shuswap, seeing as I have no one to occupy my time with...)

So have a great day/night, don't forget to cheer Team Canada, and talk to me!

&