November
Two months have past since I last had a desire to express myself. I had lots of time to time and I have thought about nothing. I’m really having a hard time right now with school. I have five courses with 4 labs and I work part-time on the weekends. I am overwhelmed with school work. And I have lost myself in school work. I don’t know who I am anymore or what I like to do. It seems when I get a free minute I just sit in front of the television. I don’t think anymore. I don’t…hmmm I don’t remember what I use to do. What did I do to have fun? Oh right, I use to ride my mountain bike, play hacky-sack, walk my dog, go for hikes, photography, visit friends in Calgary, collect rocks (I mean go into the field and collect rocks), research mines and exploration projects and many more things. Since September I haven’t done anything! I have lost myself. I’ve lost the ability to communicate with people. I’ve lost free thinking.
I am really looking to next semester. I have dropped a course (with a lab) to free up some time so I can find myself. But as much as I would love to think about next semester, I need to finish this one. I need to survive another 6 weeks. Right now all I want is to do good at school. I have a scholarship that I will lose. My mark are barely acceptable. As I mentioned earlier, I have taken on too much and I am overwhelmed. Something to think about, or not.
Summers Over
Wow, the summer is almost over. I have one more day of work left at the landscape company and then will be working at Safeway very part-time. I had a very interesting summer. It wasn’t the work that was interesting but the people I worked with. I was very fortunate to meet a group of people that were outside my circle, actually very far removed. These people were young, faithful to their beliefs, athletic, friendly, artistic, free thinkers and activists. Yet, sometimes naive about the world outside of their community. This last point doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things but I thought that it was interesting observation. Their was one individual that really made me see myself and what I’ve become.
For the sake of keeping this person anonymous but the fact that no one reads this blog (and if you do, I hope my on-line diary can give insight to your own life) I will use the name Dan. Dan. I hear him speak and all I can think of is, “holy shit, that’s how I thought 10 years ago!” What really upset me was, why don’t I think, talk and act (meaning, doing actions besides sitting on my ass watching tv) like that anymore. Can I be the same way as before or do I know something or have I seen something to change my mind and my thoughts? I will ponder this for a while. Perhap, even make a list. I do know this: I am not happy and I have to make change.
School starts September 2nd, I have to get my shit together.
I’m still here
Hello all, I would like to assure my 5 readers that I am still around, just uber busy. Thank you, please come again.
Weak
Well, I don’t really feel good about it but I asked Jane and Jamie to make an announcement in the second year classes. I felt that someone younger than me and better looking should inform other young people about the cool things going on with the student geological club. I don’t have a lot of responsibilities, so when someone does the announcement I feel as if I’m not doing my job. It’s something that I need to deal with.
Talking about dealing with it, I didn’t do that well today. I went off an a tangent about certain female geology students. I became angry when I found out that I am totally not in the loop. Well I guess that’s what happens when one gets old. In the past two weeks I got more age type comments then before.
So, there I have it. I will never fit in again and will most likely be on the fringe of society, maybe even a rebel. Why not? I am the coolest person I know!
Speechless
I can’t remember who told me, but I do remember that it was a couple of people, that once I return to school the men will be different. I thought about it, and also came to the same conclusion that men in an academic setting have to be different than men I work with in the bush. I mean, the men at school are educated and civilized or so I assumed. Wow was I so wrong. Now, I understand that half of these men I speak of are boys still in age and maturity but it didn’t prepare me for what happened on Tuesday night at a study group for optical mineralogy mid-term.
I was studying with 3 guys, I will give them fake names: Matthew, Mark and Luke. Anyhow, out of the blue Matthew says that he was studying in a public place and then the cute girl from our min. class sat near him and he lost his concentration on studying and had to leave. Mark then says “Which one, there’s only two.” I thought wow, I guess I’m not one of cute chicks (lol) and then thought, out of about 100 students there’s only 2 cute chicks! However, Matthew did look at me and apologized. Then Mark said a comment about our prof and something about needing extra help and discipline. And then the three of them proceeded to talk about the prof, I thought I was back on the rig! I just sat there shaking my head in disbelief. And there I lost all faith in academia. I had a sneaking suspicion that I held acedemia in high regard but I realize now that I did and now I am sad.
But why should I really be disappointed when I, myself, haven’t really shown proper behaviour. I know that I have been pretty rude. So is this behaviour something your suppose to learn at university? Shit, I hope the younger people aren’t looking at me for “guidence” or something. It is obvious (at least to me) that I am no role model.
Dinner Party
Last night was the first time that I ever had a dinner party. My friend Sara and Chris came over and I had a good time. Unfortunately I was ill and not my 100% chatty self (sarcamism). I realized, while cooking dinner that I didn’t have half the things that I should if I’m to have company over. Like what you ask? How about a chair for everyone. Oh, when we got to the dessert, I ran out of forks and Sara and I had to use plastic ones!
I still can’t believe that I was so ill prepared. But I am glad that they came over.
However, I realized that I need to work on my conversation skills. And try to talk about other things than rocks and geology.
I did it, I did it…Yay!
I must say I think I did well tonight. I was 100% out of my comfort zone. For the first time in 20 years (since grade 9) I’ve participated in team sports. Growing up in Ontario, I’ve never did any sports outside of what was required in school. Actually, I don’t ever recall going on a class ski trip or any other sport event for that fact. I grew up in a totally arts environment. My friends in Ontario were artistic just like me. I never did understand what all the fuss was about sports. Still to this day I know nothing about hockey, football, baseball, basketball, rugby, lacrosse, or soccer. I have a Team Canada hockey jersey that I wore to university last week. I now have guys talking to me about hockey. Bhahaha, I think it’s funny but for some reason I feel obliged to at least know the score of the previous nights game (tonight Calgary played Buffalo, 5-2).
Anyhow, near the end of December there was the sign up for fustal. A fourth year geology students, Jamie, asked me if I wanted to play. I said no, but paused for a minute and then asked “What’s futsal?” Then Jamie tells me it’s indoor soccer that’s played with a smaller ball. For a couple of days I thought about it. I would walk up to the sign-up sheet and look at it, read the names on it and think some more. Well just before the deadline I signed up and thought why not. I’m the one that want to experience student life. Well there were students on the sign-up sheet (actually it was only students). Okay, I’m taking a leap.
So last week I was sitting in the geo club room and I started to think about when futsal was going to start. I knew that it was suppose to start at least mid-January. So I asked the sports coordinator and she informed me that it had already started and to talk to Nadia. Great. That’s awesome. Why the fuck didn’t they inform me via e-mail or in person. Well, Jane, who happened to be on the futsal team over heard and said that they would like for me to come because they are short players. And I thought it was weird but she apologized for not letting me know. I didn’t see it as her fault. She wasn’t responsible for getting the team together and the paper work, that’s the job of the sports coordinator.
Well tonight I played my first game. I didn’t know what I was doing, okay, that’s a lie. I knew that I had to get the ball away from our net. However, now I realize that I should have passed the ball but I was having a hard enough time not tripping over the ball let alone trying to pass it. I heard one of my team members mumble under her breath about staying on my person. I had no idea what she was talking about and asked her about it. She ran by me saying “I don’t know”. Tonight was the 1st game the Dirty Ores didn’t win and partially I feel responsible because I was the newbie. Hell, I had to ask someone how to put on my chin pads! I have to say it’s a great feeling to be part of something and being able to relate to others through sports. Also I am seriously considering quitting smoking. It’s only been 4 hours after the game and my calves are killing me, but in a good way.
Oh ya, by the way the score was a tie, 5-5.
Reality…check
While I was on my to university this morning I did what I alway do: listen to Perfect (Exceeder) by Mason/Princess Superstar and Danger!High Voltage by Electric Six. These songs were introduced to me by my friend K-Dawg this summer at work in an oilsands mine. They are high energy songs that get me going in the morning. As I was listening to these songs I was thinking and almost fantasizing about working. I was dreaming of throwing 50lb bags of bentonite chips. Why? I started to laugh.
For the past five years from January to mid-March I have been working on a drill rig drilling for tarsands. It was so much fun. Sure I got stressed and unpleasant but I learnt life skills and how to deal with people. I was thinking about when would the next time that I will be doing that and then reality hit me…not for another 2 winters. Wow, that’s a long time to be away from work. What will my attitude be when I return to work from university. Will I be just as excited to go back to living in a camp? I can’t say foreshore (sedimentologist talk for, for sure) but I would like to think that I will have a good attitude and still be excited to get out there.
Friendships part 1
I was excited to return to university because I really wanted to meet new people. I just moved back to Edmonton, where I haven’t lived in for about two and a half years. My immediate family lives here and a couple of old friends that I happened to stay in touch with over the years.
For the past six years, I have spent the majority of my time working in isolated areas and living in camps. When I am working in the arctic for exploration I live in a tent camp in the middle of nowhere. The arctic camps are small, with a maximum of 36 people (usually only in the summer months). These are small and intimate settings. I usually make friends and hang out in the evenings socializing (in the geo world that means drinking lots of booze). When I work in the oilsands, north of Fort McMurray, I’m also in a camp but these camps are huge, anywhere from 60 to 5000 man camps. However, the 5000 man camp was short lived. We, the people working at Kearl, had to move there for a couple of days when our original camp caught on fire. Even with all those people it was pretty easy for me to meet people and make friends. Friendships in the field are short lived. It is very difficult to keep those friendships alive once the job is over. People go back to their original way of life or go to another job. I have been very fortunate these past couple of years, where I have made bonds with fellow works and a supervisor and are still friends to this very day.
So I hope you can appreciate my excitement with having a stable life, living in one place and going to university with like minded people (well, this is what I thought). I realized that I am older than everyone else but I think I am young at heart and like to have fun. But I also realized quite early on that the younger students, are shy, awkward and scared to give out to much information. I’m in second year geology where it’s still very competitive. I don’t give a shit about competing with anyone. I just want to finish school, get my degree so I can get back to working. So I started to talk to people who were sitting around me in my classes. Sometimes it was a good experience and sometimes it was bad. But it usually works out that we remember the bad experiences more so than the good…(to be continued after my return from Hawaii! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year).
