Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
am i a slacker?
i just found out that i probably *can’t* get the required courses i need done in time to apply for the master’s program in counselling psych at athabasca university (i need to get another course as a pre-req i didn’t realize)… in order to get in i would have to finish 3 more courses on top of the two i am already taking by may 8th…. fat chance of that.
but strangely enough – i felt relieved about it when i discovered that today – because it takes the pressure off and i can take a few more courses even in the upcoming year which will bolster my application a lot (rather than just having a few required courses, i can expand on that a bit more). plus, i was wanting to take a couple of hands on counselling courses at the local community college and this will afford me the opportunity.
i feel like i’m slacking or something though to be taking an extra year at it – not that i’m sure i even am going to do that masters degree… the courses i am taking are interesting in their own right and i assume i will use the skills i am learning in one way or another. just taking courses is making me feel like i’m finally working towards a better me again – that’s enough i think? i don’t understand why i can’t just let go of doing everything in exactly a certain, perfect order.
it’s stupid.
my birthday
yes, it’s true – i am aging…..
but not officially for another three weeks. in any case (and in the interests of early planning)…..
i officially turn older on february 8th which falls mid-week this year (no fun!) – since i did nothing for my birthday last year, i decided i would like to do *something* this time around – so this is what i am planning and if you like me and want to come along you are invited:
february 4th (it’s a friday)
dinner at the buddhist vegetarian restaurant in the downtown eastside
and
drinks at the wise afterwards
i’m thinking dinner around 6:30 and the bar 8:30 or so…..
email me if you are going to come for dinner (just to make sure we get a big enough table) ….
and i promise not to drink too much…. (at least not so much that i have to write long posts about the fact that i drink too much) !!
prioritizing tragedy
i’m feeling good this morning – am definitely relieved to be done the exam for my counselling methods course (i think it went okay) and got a solid night of sleep in (7.5 hours uninterrupted!).
now i just have to finish the final paper for the aforementioned course (on the application of ecopsychology theory to counselling methods) and that one will be out of the way, meaning i can focus on finishing the other course i am taking (child development) and start yet another. i have decided trying to do more than two courses at a time is just foolishness given the full-time workload i already have going on.
was just having the morning chat with my co-workers – and today’s topic went from mudslides in north vancouver, to the rapaciousness of developers building on unstable land masses (in LA) and then finally to the tsunami relief efforts (we are nothing if not a rambling bunch). in any case, i was glad to discover other people in my small sphere are having the same critical reactions to the tsunami relief bandwagon that i have been grappling with.
now don’t get me wrong, i think it is great people want to give money to doctors without borders and unicef, and that this disaster has struck a chord in the global population to help those who have lost everything. at the same time, i find it highly circumspect so much attention is being paid to this particular disaster when the 500,000-1 million deaths from war and sanctions in Iraq are pretty much ignored, the 1 million slaughtered in the rwanda genocide were only momentary news, and the 20 million deaths since 1980 from hiv/aids are discusssed only in the context of a problem we don’t have any answers to.
why is the global community responding to the tsunami tragedy with such emphasis while readily ignoring every other disaster of the past decade? the media emphasis certainly has helped that along – and at root i think it comes down to the concept of the deserving and undeserving. the earthquakes and tsunami are seen as forces outside of our control, those affected as victims who deserve our support because what happened to them wasn’t their fault (and clearly it isn’t – if anyone could be blamed for the terrible death toll it would have to be western developers who have denuded the forests along the beaches to build hotels – but i digress). we do not afford the same consideration to iraqis and africans, nor those with hiv and aids living in other parts of the world because on some level we secretly (as a society) believe these other people have made bad choices — either supported the wrong government or allied themselves with the wrong side of a civil war, or been unsafe around the bodily fluids of others – and thus don’t deserve our sympathy or our support dollars.
never mind that all of these things are constructs of a heartless system based on profit and not on valuing life, that an iraqi child has about as much say in who their government is as any child, and that falling into the “wrong” ethnic group in a genocidal conflict has more to do with colonial histories than anything else.
meaning – the euro-american world has some responsibility for each of these tragedies, thus they can not be discussed in the same way, thus we must blame the victims for what befalls them, thus there is nothing we can do – they must help themselves, thus the media and our governments focus on the “safe” tragedies – the ones we can not be blamed for.
how cozy that is – how safe we become as a society only acknowledging the suffering we are not complicit in – and not only that, but can profit from both militarily and economically. what we can expect to see now is a sort-of marshall plan of disaster relief – that is loans from governments and aid contracts given to the corporations of the west (much like what has happened in the “rebuilding” of iraq), along with the tendency for governments to use disasters to their military advantage (the us eager to put troops in indonesia, the indonesian and sri lankan governments using the opportunity to suppress civil unrest and divert aid resources to military outfitting). the upshot is that the people affected are assisted to a minimal level (their villages and towns are rebuilt over time but their daily living conditions don’t change all that drastically over a decade-long period), euro-american corporations profit, and global power continues its long slide towards concentration in the hands of the united states.
and i am not talking conspiracy here – i do not believe this a plan cooked up by a small and shadowy group – rather, it is the logic of a system with priorities skewed in such a way that no matter what happens it seems to privilege the same rich few at the expense of the many.
*phew* now that’s ranty… anyhow – it was good to discuss this with other folks who have the same qualms i do – capitalism has the ability to pervert anything, even our best civic intentions…..
insomnia
stayed with a friend out in the valley last night, and had a blissful two hours of driving in monsoon-like conditions to get to work this morning. it’s nine in the morning and the sky is still twilight with dense clouds and buckets of rain expected to continue through the week.
my life continues on its regular tilt-a-whirl existence. margot came to the coast to visit this weekend, and we got very drunk with my friend fraser on friday night at the legion in roberts creek. that lead to a lazy saturday and then i came to the city on sunday for a resist! collective meet. stayed at margot’s sunday night, spent monday hanging out in coffeeshops on the drive studying for a psych exam i have tonight, and then drove out to chilliwack yesterday afternoon.
and now i am working.
something odd has been going on with me since the beginning of december – while my regular drinking has curtailed to a great degree (my pints three times a week has gone down to drinking once every three weeks), but when i do go out for pints i *always* end up drinking waaaaay too much. it’s like now i store up for a binge and then sorta just let myself unravel every few weeks, when the rest of the time i’m living a fairly straight and over-achieving existence. i’m not happy about this because i think it is speaking to some unfulfilled need for human contact (drinking is entirely social for me), and on some level alcohol has always been about that for me…. but because alcoholism is so rampant in my family (not my parents, but everyone else on both sides) i am aware of the need to keep that aspect of myself in check. i am unsure about the best approach here as abstinence seems unneccesarily harsh, but i no longer trust myself to drink even a little unless the situation itself is very low key. (oh – dear abby, don’t fail me now).
i think this has been contributing to my on and off insomnia in any case – as my sleep schedule is highly variable when i have been drinking – and this alone is probably reason to steer clear of the demon drink… as it is, i have an exam this evening after work and i’m going to be writing it on 3 hours sleep….
now, all things are not bad – and in fact i feel pretty good at the moment… spent last night with a close friend who made me a lovely dinner of pasta and codfish, have a visitor coming later this week who i have not seen in many months, am glad to be getting this exam done with (we’ll see if i’m actually ready for it when i get there), and i’m very very close to finishing the stitched rug i have been working on for the past 7 months. as well i have professional, educational and personal goals that have value to me, and have renewed my commitment to building positive relationships and action attentiveness towards those around me…. but what i have difficulty doing is finding peace in all that i am doing, and finding the space in me that is self-accepting. i am able to enjoy many small moments for which i feel endlessly priveleged, but somehow the whole experience occurs as a struggle rather than just what is.
damn! this introspection is way too much work!
(slightly) melancholy
sometimes i don’t treat people very well – always in a way that is unintentional – which seems to be something based on my own failure to understand that people close to me actually do care what i do, to myself and to them. i often make an action based on this idea that no one really regards what i do with much concern – which of course discounts the experience of those who do want to be a part of my life.
i am just realizing now how my inability to love myself, translates into an inability to understand the needs of others.
Red Cedar 