Not just a Coffee Shop

I learned something thing week. This shouldn't really come as a surprise, since I'm currently attending university, but I learned an important thing this week. At least, important to me.

What did I learn? There's a geographic term for places such as public parks, coffee shops, and lounges. They're called "third places." I'll explain. It's really quite simple.

The first place is where you live. The second place is where you work. And the third place is where you gather. They're seen as increasing important places as the world urbanizes, with one product of urbanization being the shrinking of so-called first places, and the fluidity between the first and second places. In plain terms, apartment-dwellers tend to lack suburban luxuries, such as large rooms for entertaining and back yards, and with telecommunications people can work from home. It's why coffee shops are so successful in the city.

The big characteristic of third places is that they are venues for social interaction. They're a place to hang out, to have a chat, to meet and mingle. If you've ever attended a write-in, you likely met in one of these places.

So that's basically my big revelation of the week. Can you tell I'm looking at doing urban and community planning?

Now that we've established what a third place is, have you got one? Mine is Blenz downtown, as I've said in a previous post.

photos by Billie Hara, me

Bees on the Blog

So I mentioned in my last post that it's finally starting to feel a little like spring here in the Valley. Meaning that it's generally sunny and above zero, but my standards have changed drastically over the winter. With the arrival of what I consider spring-ish temperatures and weather, I've done a little bit of cleaning on the interweb. Yup, I've been busy.

The most dramatic change is probably to this blog. I know I just redid it over the summer before leaving to Singapore, but the plain black and gray was starting to feel drab. That, and I broke the layout and formatting while "previewing" new Dynamic Blogger templates. Yah, I may or may not have hit the "apply to blog" button by accident. Oops.

Really, only the background and some of the colours have changed. I switched to the Picturesque template and added a photo of mine from Cambodia as the background, and I also cleaned out most of the sidebar junk that was still on the old yellow colour scheme. Cleaned out as in deleted. So if you want to stalk my Last.fm, Flickr, or Hype Machine you'll have to make one extra click to the About Me page. Oh, the humanity, woe is you.

I also changed my Tumblr microblog. It once claimed to be "the microblog companion to my main blog," but it was starting to feel redundant. So I've remotivated that space to be a showcase of one of my interests, urban and architectural photography. Just call it me gathering inspiration for my career one day.

Oh, one last thing: I'd love some feedback on this blog layout. So, how's it look?

photos by me

Flickr Opinion

I take a lot of photos when I travel, and I have travelled a lot. All those photos are sitting pretty on my hard drive, but should I get them onto Flickr? Obviously there are a tonne, so I wouldn't be putting everything up right from the get-go. I just sort of want a general opinion, 'cause I'm not sure if I want to put in that kind of effort, hahah. I'm very lazy by nature. So yah, to Flickr or not to Flickr? That is the question.

Oh, and that photo to the left is one of mine from Santorini in Greece. If you ever get the chance to visit that island, do it.

on (My) Writing

I'm sitting here in a coffee shop, on a stool looking out the window. Not the same window that Declan looks out, or even the same city he looks at (that would be my hometown of Victoria, beeteedubs). But it's an identical set-up, really: laptop on the counter in front of me, bag on the stool to my right, big cup of coffee on my left. The only difference? I'm drinking a caramel macchiato, not a black double.

Oh, and I'm not writing. Technically speaking. Yes, I'm writing this blog post. I don't really count that. I mean writing writing. Like, Elsie or Red King or Oracle. I'm not doing that kind of writing.

It isn't that surprising, though. If you're a fellow Protagonizer, you probably know already that I like to start things. My profile says I've posted 38 stories. I can think of three off the top of my head that are finished: Crown'd, Errands, and Human no Longer. That's a terrible track record. But it's my style.

Now, I don't want to say that I'm never going to finish any of those stories you might have liked. Somehow I managed to wrap up Errands in seven months or so, whereas I've been coming back to Elsie for over three years now. By comparison, then, Red King is just a little baby! There's still plenty of time for me to write chapters in it, right? Right.

Write?

Right. I should get on that. And as a closing question, have you got any writing tips? Not, like, "make yourself a better writer" tips, but "progress at a pace you're satisfied with but still actually progressing" type tips. Or whatever, I'll take what I can get, hahah.

photo by ....Tim

to Retire

those of you who follow me on twitter or have me as a friend on facebook might have noticed my recent computer woes. those of you who don't might have just noticed that nothing in the body of this post is capitalized. i know. there's a reason for that.

the keys running along the left column have decided to go to a better place, some lofty keyboard in the sky. so i no longer have use of the ctrl, shift, caps lock, tab, tilde, or escape keys. i can still use the ctrl and shift keys on the right, but have you ever tried? it's amazingly awkward when you also want to capitalize a letter with your right hand. it just doesn't work well. so i'm just foregoing the shift key altogether.

before there are cries of, 'why don't you send lappy for repairs?,' i'll have you know that this laptop has been serving me faithfully for almost five years. sure, i've had to replace the cd-drive, the hard-disk drive, and the ram, but those were easy fixes to do myself and, in the later two cases, were actually upgrades from the previous hardware.

anyway, suffice to say i'm now procrastinating [i'm supposed to be studying for exams. and circular brackets take too much awkward effort] by looking at laptops. currently i have my eyes on the recent dell xps 15z. it has the look of a macbook, but with windows 7 inside. of course, i'd be installing ubuntu as a dual boot, which is the part that has me worried. according to the dell and ubuntu forums, the graphics card in the 15z isn't well supported under ubuntu. apparently it works fine with 10.04, though, so i should be fine if i do choose to pick this one up.

i'm more than a little disappointed that it's my laptop that has chosen to start falling apart, 'cause i've already decided upon a replacement for my netbook when that decides to go the way of the dodo. for those interested, i'd love to have an asus eee transformer. i'm in love with it.

any other laptop suggestions? i've only really looked at dell and asus, since those are the two brands that i have used before. i know that sony usually has some good machines, and probably samsung as well. any advice would be great!

ultimately, i want a performance laptop, not a casual one. i need to be able to do photo editing, move around really large batches of files quickly, and run graphics intensive programs like google sketchup. a studio laptop won't cut it. i need me some power, 'aight?

update: the dell has all but taken the back seat to the toshiba satellite e305 and the asus u46e-bal5 (someone seriously needs to introduce them to product naming). they might not be as pretty as the dell, or quite as thin, but they both manage to pack in a tonne of features. i hate making decisions.

photo by bigpresh, acrugnola, and gillyberlin

a Picture Challenge: 6 - in Different Shoes

 

No, I don't want to be the lead singer of Metric. Or the drummer in the background. Or the guitarist you can't see on the right. No, I'd like to swap lives with the bass guitarist on the left, who you can sort of make out.

Why?

Because then I'd get to spend the day with Emily Haines.

Whose shoes would you like to test out for a day?

photo by me.

a Picture Challenge: 5 - a Favourite Memory

Funny, this photo seems a tad familiar. Oh, I know why! It's because it was my Ptag avatar for a while. And it's the URL icon thing for my blog. And it's the background image for my blog button (which you should post places. Hint hint). 

But it's also a photo from one of the best days of my life to day. A bittersweet day in hindsight, but a day on which I experienced my first "perfect moment." I wrote about it on Ptag somewhere, I'll try to search down the link sometime.

Anyways, the gist of it is that I was celebrating my best friend's (at the time) 17th birthday, a surprise party which I had a big part in organizing. It was the afterparty that gets the credit for being "that moment," though. We trekked off a path in Brentwood Bay to a small stone beach, lit up a fire, and just hung out until 1 or 2am. It was before the days that drinking was necessary for fun. We talked, laughed, sang, and all the rest for a good five hours. I miss that simple innocence.

Might I ask, have you ever had one of those perfect moments?

Author's Note:

Looks like I've written a few things based on or inspired by this moment over at Ptag...

the Strait

Moments Pass us By

photo by me.

Haircuts for Lemmings

Yah, that's right: haircuts for lemmings. You read that correctly. And I'm serious. Except I'm the lemming.

Last year a few of my friends organized an event called Cut for a Cure, a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society. Money was raised, pies were thrown, heads were shaved. It was a good time. I MCed, received no pies to the face, and didn't let the clippers near my head.

This year I'm joining in.

The event isn't until the spring, but the CCS accepts donations year round. I've set my goal as $250 (collectively, the UBCO group raised $8000ish last year), which is a pretty expensive haircut. Those of you who have me on Twitter (@jackerbie) have probably seen the link to my event profile page already, but I'll share it again for those non-Tweeters:

http://cancerevents.kintera.org/jackerbie

That's my quick schpiel. Now, have you ever been a social activist lemming? What for, why, and what became of it? I wanna know what else I can get into this year!

Fifteen Key Authors, expanded

Today I was tagged in one of those chain notes on Facebook. It wasn't about a girl with no nose or skin who might come kill me tomorrow night, or the plight of a legless, goatless boy in the mountains of Peru. No, it was a simple question: who are the 15 authors who have most influenced you?

Since I did an influence map a few days ago, I figured I might as well answer this question and post the results here. So, here goes, in no particular order.

Tad Williams. He writes really big books. Like, 700 pages apiece big. But ever since I read War of the Flowers for the first time (of five), I've been hooked on his writing.

Sergei Lukyanenko. Technically, I guess I haven't read any of his work. Rather, I had the joy of waiting around for his translators to make his original Russian novels available in English. He's my anti-Twilight.

C.S. Lewis. I grew up in a white, Christian family in the West. Need I say more?

Madeleine l'Engle. I started reading her work before I even had a clue what a mitochondria was, and loved her fiction even then. Now, I appreciate it so much more.

Ursula K. le Guin. She's a crazy lady, but in a good way. Most of the time. It isn't too often that I can apply gender theory so well to popular fiction.

R.A. Salvatore. Drizzt was one of my idols, no lie. And I'm pretty sure my Forgotten Realms books were passed around half of the male class population in grade 12.

Greg Keyes. I've only ever read a couple of his books, all for the Star Wars franchise. Really, it isn't him who is impacting, but the quotes in his novels. Foremost: "Everything I tell you is a lie. Every question I ask you is a trick. You will find no truth in me." Sound familiar?

J.R.R. Tolkien. Again, I grew up in a white Christian household in the West. 'Nuff said.

Dr. Seuss. There was a time when I could recite some of his entire works by rote. I also studied one of his books in first year English. Rad, eh?

John C. Wright. I only just discovered his novels last summer, on account of the awesome cover art, and luckily the writing was as good as the art. His work with Greek mythology makes me squee like a schoolgirl.

Homer. Where would I be without the Odyssey? Seriously.

Banana Yoshimoto. I think she might have the same vague obsession with windows as I do. With her work, you're never quite sure if you're getting fiction or not.

Lewis Carroll. Every day I look at an excerpt of his, regarding the ability to believe impossible things. Apparently the Queen can believe six impossible things before breakfast, and that impressive.

Murakami Ryu. I've only read one of his novels, but I'll be on the lookout for more fersuure. His imagery will stick with me for a long, long time, twisted as it is.

H.P. Lovecraft. Gotta love me some Cthulhu!

So, that's my list. Care to share an author or two of your own? Think of it as a sort of book swap, minus the books. Savvy?

on Not Going Under

First off, a big thank you to Chris Corner and Sue Denim. Those of you who read  my Influence Map post should remember who Chris Corner is. Why am I thanking him again? Because while I was getting my wisdom teeth taken out, this is what I was listening to:







And yes, when I say "this is what I was listening to" I do in fact mean that I chose to be awake for the whole procedure (minus the parts where I fainted). It wasn't that bad, even. They froze me up real good so I couldn't feel any pain, but the pressure still registered a little. I even kept my eyes open for most of it, which was really strange when the dentist started putting in the stitches.

But the best part?

Afterwards, in the recovery room, it was decided that the multiple times I fainted were caused in part by low blood sugar, since I hadn't yet eaten that morning. The solution? One of the nurses brought me a Dixie cup with apple juice. She was the cutest most grandmotherly nurse I have ever met. Anyways, she had to force feed me the juice because I wouldn't find my own mouth, on account of my lips and jaw being numb still. My tongue was also numb, so she had to tip back my chin and literally pour the juice down my throat, making an effort not to drown me in it.

That would be a sad way to go.

"Man drowns in apple juice after dental operation."

What are some other embarrassing headlines to announce that you've kicked the bucket?

video footage from the French film Les Chevaliers du Ciel (2005)

my Influence Map

Have you ever taken a step back and asked why you are who you are? It's not really something you think about too often. It's not something I think about too often. But now is not often; I just pondered those thoughts.

The result? This:

please click for full size view

Pretty nifty, eh? It took some work to put together, and even more work to actually think about. I tried very hard to use only photos that I have taken, but that started to limit the representation of my influences. Here's a bit of an explanation for each one, frame by frame.

Spirituality: I was raised in the Seventh Day Adventist church and attended Christian elementary and high school, so religion played a big part in my development. But not just Christianity, or just religion: I've taken bits and pieces of other philosophies, too, probably like the majority of people out there. (photo by me)

Chris Corner: He's a musician, the front man of IAMX and co-founder of the disbanded group Sneaker Pimps. As with the other artists on this map, it's his way with words that has influenced me most, as well as the messages in his lyrics. (photo by Vera Hofmann)

Sia Furler: Another musician, Sia embodies the childlike, carefree, but mature and political adult. She is outspoken in both her art and in her public life. (promotional photo, no listed creator)

Metric: A Canadian band, with singer Emily Haines at the front. Really, I think it is Emily who influences me the most, but I have to give the rest of the band credit, too. I could listen to their latest album Fantasies all day, and frequently do. (photo by me)

Star Wars: Do I really have to explain this one? The films, the books, the entire mythos behind it all. I was raised on Lucas Arts, and continue to be influenced by the franchise today. (photo by We Made This Ltd.)

t.A.T.u.: I always get lots of flak for enjoying the group t.A.T.u. Most people recognize the girls from their two (English) hits in North America, few know that they lasted as a group for ten years. Once their presence completely faded away in North America I knew I'd never be able to see them perform live. I beat that impossibility, though, by seeing them in Italy while backpacking. (photo by me)

Greek Myth: Besides being a Star Wars nut when I was a kid, I had a major soft spot for Greek mythology. I adored the stuff. I read Homer's Odyssey for fun, only to read it again in AP Literature and then bang my head against my desk in second year English because no-one knew what it was about. (photo by me)

UBC Okanagan: Where do I even start with this one? Moving away from Vic has probably been the single most impacting thing I have ever done in my 21 years of life. It completely changed the direction of my education, earned me a tonne of new friends that I know I can count on for almost anything, taught me so much about myself through living with (completely rad) room mates each year, and given me so many opportunities to experience things I never would have tried if I had stayed in Vic. That about sums it up. (photo by UBC)

Mirrors: I should probably also add windows. I have a strange fascination with them, and both often show up as motifs in my writing. (photo by me)

Island Living: Whenever I need an excuse and don't have anything valid, I usually just retort with, "It's 'cause I'm an island boy." (photo by me)

Home: What do I need to say about this one? My family has had a significant impact on me, and will continue to. I have amazing parents who are determined to present me with every available opportunity that approaches, and a sister who is pretty much my best friend. That, and my family (including me) is rather cooking-oriented, so I'm never starved for baked goods. Ever. (photo by me)

Now, what has influenced or impacted you? Feel free to answer in the comments, or write your own post about it. You can find a blank template for the Influence Map here.

Minor Philosophy

If you had the choice between living for only six more months, but knowing those six months would be the happiest of your existence, or living a long but ultimately unsatisfying life, which would you choose? Why?

That was a question posed by my friend Ana Cristina to me via my Formspring account. My answer was less than satisfactory:

Six more months. It comes down to a personal philosophy I have, one that would take an entire blog post to explain. Huh, maybe I should get on that sometime.

Well, sometime has now arrived I believe, so I'll make an effort to explain that piece of personal philosophy here.

I once read an analogy about the pain-pleasure binary, long before I was studying these sorts of relationships at university. In fact, I think I might have read this particular analogy before I was in high school, even. It is as follows:

"Two men are standing on level ground, each with a large pile of bricks. Both are challenged to build a high tower with their pile. The first man immediately starts to stack his bricks, overlapping in such a way that the structure is sound. The second man instead takes a shovel and begins to dig a hole. Laughing, the first man taunts him.

"'We have the same number of bricks, fool! By starting your tower lower than mine it will be impossible to build one higher.'

"The second man smiles, but doesn't reply. Once he is happy with the depth of his hole, he begins to stack his bricks, emulating the pattern of the first man. The first man continues to taunt him.

"After some time, the second man's tower has achieved the same height as that of the first man. When the first man goes to start the next layer of his tower, it starts to wobble and sway. He braces it with his hands, but realizes that if he continues to build upwards the structure will fall.

"Seeing this, the second man smiles once more. Supported by a firm foundation, he continues to add layers of brick to his tower, winning the challenge."

The bricks represent the men's happiness, the ground their experience of pain or unhappiness. Even if the two men's towers had been equal in height, the second man would have used more of his bricks in constructing his.

Don't get it? Try to remember a time you were at your most sad state, at your lowest, if you will. One of my friends lost her best friend last year, and I wasn't sure what to do. Remember, I'm a green - I don't do well with emotional matters. So I wrote a short note reminding this friend that she had a whole family of supporters here at the university. I slipped the note under her door when she was in class with a teabag. She still maintains that that was one of the most thoughtful and caring things that anyone has ever done for her.

A note and a teabag.

Because she was at such a low point, coming back up to level ground was an enormous jump in her happiness.

Is this starting to make sense?

Now, back to the question at hand: would I rather take 6 months of bliss or a lifetime of mediocrity. There's a second part to my happiness philosophy that is integral to the answer I gave. Again, this will probably be most accessible if I frame it as a serious of questions to you.

Think about the best day or week you have ever had. What made that time so amazing? Likely, it was because something little went just right, and things kept going up from there. That's the key: things kept going up. The most recent experience you have becomes your base for comparison. Taking a very green approach to this, to continue being happy you need to have a more positive experience. Anything less will cause you to be unhappy, and experiences at the same "level" will likely not elicit any emotional response.

Look back at the example of my friend: had she been at level ground or in a state of happiness at the time, my gesture would have meant very little to her. Yes, she might have been thankful for my thoughfulness, but it would not have impacted her emotionally in the same way.

Savvy?

I think this post is becoming much too long. Feel free to fill up the comments section with questions, critiques, or your own personal philosophies.

tower photo by me

my Caffeine Landscape

I'm sitting in one of the many Starbucks I frequent as a student, and just finished reading two of the articles I wish to use in one of my research assignments. But this isn't about my assignments, or about my experience in Starbucks; it's about a concept that is now starting to make sense to me.

Nature isn't a thing, it's a relationship.

Think about it for a moment: what exactly do you define as nature? The forest outside town? The park down the street? The moss growing in the cracks on your walk? Now, try to come up for a definition of nature that can include all those things, but exclude all the things you feel aren't nature. It's hard, isn't it?

That's because nature isn't a thing, but a concept. Nature is nature because it is outside of yourself, because you define it by what it is not. You walk through nature, appreciate nature, maybe you even fight for nature, but yourself are never really part of nature, are you?

Nature is something with ownership. Nature is something with value. Nature, then, is something that can be sold, right? It isn't sold that often, though. What is sold is the experience of nature, the park pass or the kayak rental or the guided tour. Again, nature is something to be experienced.

Just thought I'd share that, since it's consuming my thoughts at the moment. Now, I'm studying culture (read: ideologies and power structures) and human/social geography, so that puts a bit of a slant on my views. Care to help correct that? What did you come up with to define nature?


pinecone photo by me

Just Another Friday Night

I'm what's called a Residence Adviser. This means a lot of different things at a lot of different university and college campuses, but at UBC it means that I am in charge of building a strong residence community and ensuring that the Residence Code of Standards is followed.

In short, a lot of what I do is not fodder for this blog in a legal sense. Heheh.

What I can say is this: tonight I asked someone to put out their cigarette, since he was smoking in front of the air intake for the residence building. It's kind of illegal here in British Columbia. He didn't want to. So I got a little less polite and a little more forceful, throwing out words like "illegal" and "ticket-able offence." Still, he wouldn't budge. In fact, he wanted to fight me over it. So what happened next?

"Girls, could you call security? Thanks."

What would bring someone to want to fight another person over something as simple as putting out a cigarette? Seriously. Sometimes these university students, who are obviously smart enough to be admitted to UBC and retain student status from year to year, blow my mind. I just... don't understand it. Am I missing something?

Oh, and thankfully they guy's friend came and helped out. I got an apology and a handshake out of the deal, and I called off security.

And that's a short snippet of what I do here at UBC.

edit: it's currently 3:06AM, and I am obviously not in bed yet. Instead, I'm doing paperwork. Paperwork. At 3AM. Rad.

New (School) Year

Y'know that inane practise where people pretend to commit to things at the beginning of each new year? The whole "new year, new you" kind of mentality. Well, pointless as it may be, I'm going to try for a head start this year, start with my new school year rather than the new cardinal year. What's so special about January 1st anyways?

So my list, starting this October, reads as follows:

• send more postcards
• run, twice a week
• buy whole wheat or whole grain more
• branch out from "the staples"
• eat in with friends more often
• write something at least every other day, notes not included
• get to know people's names better
• eat less, more often
• compliment people more often

Now, why the snail? Because snails have determination. They don't go fast, but they know that. They also know that they'll arrive at their destination sometime, at their own pace. And because they are taking their time getting to that finale, they have plenty of time to think about what that finish really means to them. They can change it, modify, decide that they really don't want to end up there. So that's why I've got a picture of a snail.
So, with the inspiration of the snail in mind, is there anything you might want to accomplish next month?

snail photo by me

on Ankles and Consequences

I don't know where to start. In fact, I rarely know where to start in the majority of my endeavours. Stories, projects, task lists... I may know where the start is, but how do I start it?

Usually it's just a matter of sublime inspiration.

While procrastinating the start of this blog, I went to update my Blogger profile. I filled out the typical fields, stating my name and occupation and biography. But then, at the end, I came across a most unusual question:

"How is an ankle unlike a consequence?"

I found this seemingly random comparison delightful, and hasted to answer the question in an equally quirky fashion. But as I started to mull my answers, I became more and more critical of the question. Eventually, I answered by writing this:

One cannot leave their ankles behind as they walk away.

How enlightened of me, no? And then I started thinking again. Can I actually walk away from my consequences? Is that not a negative image, promoting irresponsibility? Maybe.

I'm happy to walk off with both ankles and my consequences behind me. Who's to say I haven't met those consequences already, and am now venturing past them? This is becoming much too philosophical for my tastes.

So I open up the question to you: How is an ankle unlike a consequence?