Timshel

I find myself in the thick of another work week. You are looking at me sardonically. You are trying to figure out why this is note worthy at all, and why I'd even mention it.

Well, I mention it because, despite the matter of fact tone and the lack of any indicating punctuation - I was complaining. This week is paticularily bad because last week I was on vacation; spending hours in the lake and enjoying beer-thirty every time the clock struck the half hour. I love my family camp. It is too far away to be convenient, usually too crowded to be comfortable and yet I love it unconditionally. There are not many things in my life that get that kind of affection from me. The point of my digression: this week has been taking its time.



One very nice thing about being there is the chance to catch up on some of the reading that throughout the year I put off and convince myself I don't have the time to finish. This year's book to finish was one recommended to me way back in the winter by a friend, with confirmation that it was their favourite book ever. John Steinbeck's East of Eden.

Whenever someone tells me something is their favourite, before putting it in my hands, I always find that there is this great pressure to find it as great as they do. I feel almost obligated to like it, and then in revolt of being forced to like something, I enjoy it less than if I had just approached it with an open mind. However, this is an exception to the standard rules of my twisted brain. Although I won't say it is my favourite book, or one of my favourites - it is certainly one of the best I've ever read. It is really that good.

The book's theme can be loosely be summed up in a word, 'timshel' which in the book is said to translate to 'thou mayest' in English. The word is introduced in the book after a discussion on the proper translation of the story of Cain and Abel from the bible. It is concluded that what God said to Cain was "Thou mayest conquer over sin", in regards to the conflict of good and evil. Now I don't want to sound like I'm going off on some religious tangent, I am not religious. However, I do feel like one can walk away from this message with more than just some holy revelation. The concept of timshel as a basic Human 'attribute' is amazing. Thou mayest.

The book follows the life of a man named Adam, and further in the life of his son's Cal and Aron (who not coincidently mirror Cain and Abel). Throughout the story, you observe this delicate balancing act of good and evil that is occuring through the actions of the characters. Great feats of evil always seem to be counteracted by some equally good outcome, and vice versa. It is written superbly, such that in a way you don't really realize it is happening until late in the book. I won't spoil it, read it.

Let me get to the point. The moral as I took it is that in our lives, we have the power to make it what we want. Thou mayest achieve whatever you want. There is a character in the novel called Tom Hamilton, who Steinbeck implies is on the edge of achieveing greatness in his life. Tom's life is filled with moments of great courage and great cowardice, the latter as deep as the former is high.

I don't know if it is selfish of me as a reader, or simply that I am just human, but I wanted to relate to this character so completely. I did relate to it completely. I can't claim to be on the edge of greatness, but I don't know who out there doesn't feel that their life is this balance of choices - with the options in essence being a flip of a coin between cowardice and courage. Which path do you choose? Short answer; you have the choice to make your life whatever you want it to be.

I suppose the biggest criticism to this would be if you told me that there are factors out of peoples hands. That where someone ends up in the world is ultimately based on the cards they are dealt from the beginning. This is a fair point, and I agree that some people's places in life are out of their hands in the most general sense. However, this is not what I meant, not really.

How you should view my interpretation is in a much more 'spiritual' sense, spiritual used loosely. I mean to say that it is 100% your choice in how an event effects you. You have the power to choose how you treat others, or to decide whether that traffic jam in front of you really is the worst thing that has ever happened. Although these small personal choices probably won't get you a mansion and yacht on their own, I do believe they add up in a different way.

One doesn't have to be stoic and immune to emotion to make these choices either. All you need to do is approach everything a little more rationally - how important is this really? Is it in my best interests to take every bad occurence that occurs as a reflection of my luck and who I am? IS treating a stranger like dirt truly necessary? In some way, everything in your life is partially your choice.

Is that not freeing? I'm in love with the concept.



To anyone that cared about the last post regarding Africa, I'll most likely be going at the start of January. I emailed someone a description of what I would be doing earlier today, so I'll just put it down again here:

The location of the study is the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in the volcanic mountain regions of Uganada. While there I will be working with the endemic golden monkey species.

The monkeys have never been properly studied to a great extent, and although the gorillas in the park are protected, the monkeys are still poached to some degree illegally. Snare traps, local domesticated animals and illegal harvesting of their forest habitat's bamboo (a food source) are all threats to the monkey's continued survival.

Since these monkeys are only found in this small region, and their population sizes and ranges are so small, an effort is being made to study them and observe their behaviour before it is too late. The hope is that by providing the Uganda goverment information about the monkeys, they will use them as a target for tourism and conservation - thus protecting their numbers more actively and effectively.

The organization I'll be working with is still in its fledgling states, as it is only a year and a bit old - so I get to come in on the ground floor to help acclimatize these monkeys to people and conduct preliminary studies and observations.

I am also required to help teach conservation to the local children by spending a day a week in the classrooms teaching. Very exciting.




Again, thanks for reading,

Much Love,

Sean

Africa?

Today I am feeling something that has been eluding me for quite some time. An unsettled feeling. A nervous apprehension. It is fantastic!

Not since the rigors of the Japan application process have I had felt even a semblance of anything close to this. This, however, is drastically different from Japan. Because, unlike Japan, I've already been accepted for this. Earlier this morning I had the pleasure of opening my email to find a message that went like this:

"I have been on the case and I am very pleased to tell you that we would love to accept you onto the volunteer program.

I have attached the volunteer handbook for you, if you have any futher questions please do not hesitate to ask away. I will send you over the report shortly also so you can have a read of it.

Kind Regards,

Andy"

Uganda? Africa? Golden Monkeys? Me? Very possible, very soon.

I am scared, nay I am terrified that they have accepted me. I love it. It is very easy to fail and then slide right back into where you were. Now I am forced to make decisions, plan my course, and take steps to follow through - how liberating!

All the day to day montony that I have been focusing on for the past while seems to have become, once again, dismally unimportant. Instantly. I'll say it again, I love this scared feeling. Without intention, I think this has become my most upbeat post to date!

It may seem like a wierd concept to like to feel nervous, but when you're failing to find comfort in the known and routine - sometimes you get it from the most unlikely sources.

This is the best news I've had in a while, and now I have a weekend of the hillside music festival to let it all soak in.

Best weekend ever? I might say it's close!

Much love (and much excitement!),

Sean

Improving

When I put the year in review, it is fair to say that anyone that had any contact with me from about late February to mid May had some idea that I had applied to a teaching job in Japan. Whether that contact was first hand, or you heard it from somebody else or were just bombarded with facebook status while going about your day - the point is that I was vocal about it.

So, of those that actually cared, it may have been strange come the end of May and beginning of June, when all of the sudden it was no longer a topic of discussion - and the results of my months of interviewing never came to light. At this point it is pretty easy to put one and one together. It equals two. I didn't get the job.

It is an interesting thing to experience when the culmination of months of focus on an objective brings no resolve. I spent three months focused on one goal, only to have it turn out to be for not. I'm not bitter, but it really was an interesting experience. It felt like the floor had been taken out from under me, and I was just floating. Directionless.

I wonder what it feels like to accomplish a life long goal? I'm sure there is happiness in success - but to some small extent there must be a hole where before there was purpose.

There are several ways that you can react to this, I found out, and I think I went through them all in turn. The first, and most obvious, is to sulk. Here I was, rejected, and now had to go back and tell all the people I had it hyped to, that I had failed. That isn't easy, nor is it fun. Sulking isn't something I'm good at though, and as a consequence that phase didn't last too long. By nature I can be a bit of a brooder, pessimistic at times, and at other times openly cynical and sarcastic - but generally content to exist.

The second reaction was to try and patch the hole that had formed. When you spend every day waking up, antcipating what it will be like when you finally accomplish your objective - there forms this almost purpose driven quality to your life. Everything else you do day to day (good or bad) becomes almost irrelevant, as you are so future oriented. Then, all of the sudden the day to day was all I had again. There was no big thing on the horizon, the here and now took precident. Therefore, much like when I returned from South America, I began to cast around for something to focus my energies on - leading to the third reaction to rejection: what can I do differently?

I was forced to ask myself the question "Why the hell didn't I get it, and what can I do to make sure I don't fail again?" This, I guess is where I'm just starting to get into. Although I'm still waiting to hear back about volunteering in Africa, and have set all these goals for myself down the road - there is a part of me that wants to assess what went wrong, not simply move 0n to something else. And to be really honest, I think there were better qualified applicants. That is what went wrong.

That said, I did get VERY close to landing the position. As an idea of how close I got, they were so on the fence about me that it took them an extra two weeks to reply after my interview. Of all their recruiting stations in North America, I was one of about an average of two a year that ever gets called back for a second interview. Second interviews are not really a good thing, but it did mean they weren't ready to give up on me. So I was close, but still failed. How can I tip the scale for next time?

Short answer: self improvement.

In one of the most competitive ESL countries to teach in, I was a hair short of good enough. Therefore I think now is the time to take it upon myself to improve. They weren't wrong, I'm not a teacher. I'm a biology grad, and have very limited teaching experience. But, there is always hope!

As of this fall I believe I will enroll myself in a TESL course. It is happening in Waterloo come September, and takes place on weekends. These courses go over the basics of not only how to make English easier to teach as a second language and classroom dynamics when working with kids, but also application processes, interviewing techniques, cultural insights as well as supplying resources. Fantastic.

Pros: Teaching experience, looks good on a resume, one of the first things looked for during most ESL applications, close to home, accesible times, offer job finding support.

Cons: Expensive

As I see it, regardless of the price tag the course is worth it. Three Saturday and Sundays in a row for about 10 hours a day and the course is complete.

I don't expect the completion of this course to override any of my other existing goals though. I view it as a tac on to my personal aresenal that will let me have the experiences I seem to be craving these days. I still want to do everything on my short list, but this sounds like an excellent tool in helping me accomplish that goal - and maybe even direct me to doing something I might enjoy as more than a passing thing.

On a funny note, if the course doesn't get you a job within six months of taking it they offer a full refund! Oh, but wait, there are strings attached. To recieve a full refund you are required to supply twenty rejection letters from schools around the world, and excessive detail on each one(what colour is the principals tie?). Along with handing in the letters, you then have to return all your texbooks, course materials and... course completion certificate? Yep, they make you give back your course certificate! Essentially making it seem like you never took the course at all! Although, I will say that if you go 0/20, maybe you're barking down the wrong career path.

Then, after all that, you can have your full refund (minus a $95 administration fee!).

It is nice to feel like I'm taking steps in the right direction, even if I'm not completely sure I am.

much love,

Sean

Positive Feedback

Today I think I broke my record for the sleepiest I've ever been for consecutive hours. Know the burning feeling you get behind your eyes when you are stupidly tired? You know that 7am-on-a-Saturday and you forgot to turn the alarm off -drowsy. Where you curse yourself for being so dumb as to not turn off the alarm and spend the next four hours tossing and turning until finally dragging your ass out of bed.

I feel like I've been spending a lot of my awake time with that feeling recently. Today's tired fesitivities were the culmination of both a) 11 pm hockey last night and b) somehow getting myself out of bed this morning and getting dressed to find out I had another hour until my alarm was supposed to buzz. Which, in truth, is a very mixed blessing. You're so very happy for the windfall of the extra hour before truly having to activate, but know very clearly that no sleep over that next hour will be meaningful in any way shape or form.

I think more than anything though, this permanent hazy mental state I find myself in recently is because I've just been awake a lot more. And, I think, for an incredibly good reason. From shortly after I wake up during the work week my day basically belongs to my employer until five. Now although this is pretty standard, it can be an eternity when you're not overly enthused about the prospect of straddling the chair in your office for the next eight and half hours. Great company, great employer - but I'm not an office worker. Therefore, the closest I can equivilate my mental state to when I walk out those office doors at five is a jail break at a prison. Get out, and maximize all the time you can before they find you and bring you back.

So I find myself monday through friday staying up until one or two in the am and as a consequence wake up sleepy everyday. And, after I muddle through the work day on a cocktail of rice crispies and coffee, by the time days end rolls around I'm just finding some energy! So then you stay awake later again, wake up sleepy, rinse and repeat. To give it the biochemical terminology, it's a pretty heavy positive feedback cycle.

So why not rest on the weekends to get some energy back? Hell no, I'm not devoting my time on my two free days to gain energy for my prison term. Hilarious idea, though.

I just wonder how many people live the same as me in the regard? Stay up late to avoid work, go to work tired and under preform. Hate work because you're under preforming and tired, and then stay up late again because you don't want to go back to work in the morning.

I feel like if I don't get out of my cycle now I might never do it. A lot like kinetic and static friction... I feel like getting started in the right direction is the hardest part, but once I get moving it'll be easier to maintain.

Think about it, let me know. It has to be more common than just me, anyone else live like this? I know there are enough people who hate thier job that I can't be the only one.

As an aside, someone brought it up to me yesterday that 'we' (people my age) are often reminded that youth is wasted on the young. However, I'm not sure we are trying to waste it... I just wonder if we're not aware of all the options available to us.

Now, I need a vacation so I can quit coffee, again, for the fifth time.

Peace in the east,

Much love,

Sean

A Gratuitous Introduction

So I've been looking for a place to vent for awhile.
I don't really want to write to anyone specifically and furthermore I don't really want to write anywhere where I'll have to read it myself. Lucky for me, as a young man of this technological age, I have options.

Internet listens. Thanks, Internet.

I realize I set this blog up as a travel blog - and unfortunately am currently all dressed up with nowhere to be. Sad tale, eh? However, I have plans and dreams and ideas that won't be snuffed. Will NOT be snuffed.

I guess the rut I find myself in now is the culmination of several months of build up. I find myself in a job I can't foresee myself in long term, with plans that are tangible yet hard in execution. That is not to say that I couldn't get it done, but of course, there are factors. The first of course, being money. The second being family. I'm not saying my family would stop me, but it sure is hard to justify to your parents that you want to run across the world when you're living in thier basement.

I was recently told a phrase that kind of caused a mini paradigm shift in my thought processes. Upon speaking to my wise sisters they were telling me the different ways of thinking that people from opposite ends of the world seem to have.

They told me that everyone they had met from Australia worked jobs, and did thier day to day activities to live. Work to Live. Then they proceeded to slap me in the face with the reality of the way North Americans think: Live to work. Is this not true?
You buy a car to get you to your job. You work that job to save money to buy a house. You buy that house close to work to make it easier to get to. North Americans live to work. Think about it. How many times were you told that you couldn't get a career without schooling? The sole purpose of school is to get the career, so you can work till you're sixty five. Then you can have fun. I'm not sure I want to have all my fun when I'm too slow to enjoy it.

Now try explaining this to your cohorts when you're twenty two and just spent thousands on a university education. I swear people have been looking at me like I have two heads when I've been trying to explain that I don't want the career, the condo and the three kids. Not yet anyways.

Now before you write me off as a low-life hippy, I'll state that I'm not opposed to having to work in my life in order to survive. Work is a necessity. Money is a necessity.

That said, why can't work be more than a job? Why can't work be an experience? Thus begins my quest to not avoid work, but perhaps do what I have been told is truely impossible, and find happiness in a job. I'm not without talents, and I'm not without education - and although I've been told I lack drive in my life - I'm not without ambitions.

Therefore I pledge to all the readers of this blog (me editing?), I will be out of this country by the end of the year. I will find something I enjoy doing and attempt to make it work for me. Hell, I don't even have to enjoy it, I'm just going to do new things. I may not get rich following this course, but I once heard in a song "maybe happiness is wealthy, if you spell it right". Take this how you want, but the way I see it, wealthiness is a self described feeling, not a monetary value. Maybe it is in the most literal of senses.

I actually am kind of incredulous when I watch myself type out these words. A year ago today I was still fairly new at my current place of employment. I may not have known much about the field, or have overly enjoyed myself doing it. But, I was employed. I was fresh out of university and already had a job that had future possibilities. I felt really good, the world was my oyster. So why when we step a year forward am I so drastically different. How come every day of work is a punch in the head. Why has the previously vivid colours of Canada seemed to have turned to rather muted tones.

I can say, simply, it is because I got a taste of the world. Last November, on a whim, plans were put in motion to go to South America. There were two reasons for why this trip happened suddenly - one being that my oldest sister had always dreamed of seeing Peru and I was more than happy to step out of my bubble. And secondly, some Australian exchange students to whom my sisters had become pretty solid acquaintences with were also making thier way down there for several months and we had the opportunity to traverse a good part of the trip with them.

It is also fair to mention that being a suck as I am, I had developed a pretty big crush on one of the Aussies, and thus was more than obliged to jump into pot when her name was dropped as an attendee.

Fair to say, I didn't just step out of my bubble, my bubble popped. Something about the whole trip was so freeing, liberating, and dare I say character building? I have not been the same since.

It truly was an eye opener, no doubt about that. All the vistas were breathtaking, and all the people had thier own story (some longer than others). Besides learning how fast I could run up a mountain with an Argentinian, I also learned that I would never truely be happy sitting at a desk until I'm sixty five. Not in the short term anyways.

Returning home was gut wrenching, and sad to say I became desperate for an escape - literally applying for anything and everything I could to make distance between home and myself. Home hadn't changed in my absence, hadn't become less hospitable. I, however, had changed, I was no longer looking for the old fix of routine and stability. And, despite so many nay-sayers, was very loud and opinionated about where I wanted to be in the upcoming years. Ad nausea. Sorry guys.

Now you might be asking why if I applied to so many places am I not already buying my plane ticket to leave? Well, you see it's not so easy. Some I wasn't qualified for, some I applied too late for, some I added to my mental list of things to do, and some I'm still waiting on. Therefore I am going to officially make a list of what/where I want to do/see in the near future (couple years).

- Teach English in a foreign country. I may have been turned down for Japan, but Korea may be in my future - and experience breeds opportunities later.

- Tree plant in Western Canada. Despite all the people telling me why I shouldn't do this, the few that had the guts to tell me why I should had much more convincing arguments.

- Somehow traverse a country by WWOOFing at different locations as I go along. Meet the people, save the planet.

- Go to Japan. I WILL be in Japan soon. Man I want to go there so bad. And as a tack on I want to backpack Asia as well.

- Volunteer in Africa. I am currently waiting to hear back on a position I applied for. Things looks good. And perhaps climb Mt. Kilamanjaro while there.

- Work Visa in Australia. The visa costs $200, the experience lasts me forever.

That is my short list. Those are my goals. As an idea of where I currently stand - I'm basically just going through the motions. I'm working my job without (audible) complaint, and saving money while waiting for a life changing reply from a man named Andy.

I have mountainous dreams that I believe to be about as high as this rut I'm in is deep - and maybe, just maybe if things turn out right I might just find myself back on some level ground.

This blog was very long, and I'm going to try and keep them shorter in the future.

Much Love,

Sean