Broken Pattern

Question 6

The single most important idea that I’ve picked up in the course this year is the whereabouts of life. We often forget in our busy lives that us “oh so simple” humans are the product of billions of years or minor variations coupled with sex and struggle. The worst part is that we can barely fathom what we’re talking about. The figures that we use to explain our world are often too large or too small to comprehend. We talk about billions of years of evolution, millions killed in war, or thousands dying overseas, but still, only when we talk about fifties or twenties can we actually picture what’s going on in our head.

It’s also amazing how far we’ve grown from nature after all these years. Only a few thousand years ago were we living on this planet like “normal” animals, picking berries and shrubs and making babies, sleeping in the trees and fighting the harshness of nature. In seeking out a more comfortable lifestyle, we’ve detached ourselves from the bosom that has fed us and every other living thing on Earth for billions of years: nature itself.

Despite our inability to really understand how far we’ve gone, the view from the sky allows us a minor glimpse of what we have done. Flying to and from Boston recently I’ve passed over many islands and land masses which were once plentiful with trees, plants, and wild animals. But now, during the day we see the buildings as little blocks on the circuit board cities that we’ve created; highways and streets acting like veins to keep this horrid body alive. At night, the Earth becomes a light show; neon signs flashing so bright that they can be seen from miles above; at times the words are even legible. Our super highways become a streamed traffic of red and yellow lights, moving back and forth like oxygenated and oxygen deprived blood cells.

But what are we missing out on? Last year I flew over the Arizona desert. Beautiful mountains, streaked with differing brushstrokes of red and yellows mark the evaporation of the great seas that once covered the Earth, and in their wake they leave a standard art that not even the greatest artists could hope to achieve. Similarly, flying at night recently next to the full moon allowed me to see the original flashlight of our planet. The moon’s reflection streaked across the ocean, lighting up uninhabited islands that would otherwise be completely overlooked. Is it any wonder that the early humans thought these great masses to be Gods?

In a way, they still are. Gods give life, take life, and alter life, just like our celestial bodies do. Can you imagine the volume of the sun, a constant sea of bubbling plasma that’s more that one million times the size of Earth? It’s magnetic strands pull strips of plasma (?) up and around so far that Jupiter could fit through it. The sun’s proximity allows for the optimal development of life on our planet, and in a few billion years it will consume Earth when it too decides to die. It will grow so large that it will consume Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth.

To assume such a mass as god would be far from farfetched, but keep in mind that there are much larger stars, thousands of galaxies and an infinite of space out there that hold even more secrets and wonders than we can find in our little milky backyard.

Blazin On a Sunny Afternoon

I love garbage day. It’s the one system that has brought humans down to robot behaviour. No one misses garbage day. The night before you can be walking around and all the pails and bins will be out. But any other day of the week..nothing. It’s only on this day of opportune that you may relieve yourself of your filth. If you fail to meet it, you are graced with your waste for yet another week.

Interview for Hell

Everyone’s aware that as our civilization slowly decays and dies we only see more gratuitous violence and sex. Where we tend to focus on the downfall or so many things in our culture, I happened to find a positive consequence: Halloween. What can be more true to heart of Halloween than teenagers running amuck, dressed in costume, seeking to destroy public (or private) property while looking for someone to bang for the night. It’s the perfect spirit for the holiday.

This turnaround of the holiday has been done so well that it’s hard to find a good (and by good I mean decent) female costume to wear that ends past the upper thigh (here I’m not complaining).

When you’re little, you go around trick or treating. Just two years ago my friends and I would work on our own costumes, trying to make them somewhat scary and horrific. When we would get to the houses, we’d demand to have the candy that we deserved, for our costumes if nothing else. Nowadays, not only are nearly all the costumes entirely store bought, but they’re not even scary anymore. Princesses and Spider-Mans come to my door. I wish I had the heart to tell the stupid kid that Spider-Man already asked me for candy you lil fake.

But the true beauty and spirit of the holiday comes when you reach adolescence, which happen to rhyme with “sweet excellence”. At this point in time, Halloween dawns its true form, which is reckless behaviour accompanied by gratuitous lust. Insert the cut-off nurse costume, or French maid outfit. Add some parties, include a bunch of narcotics and you have Halloween, one of, if not my favourite holidays.

So what are we supposed to do now? Optimistic thinking. Next time someone badgers you about the current state of what they perceive to be the collapse of their utopian environment (this is a damn good sentence so far), just imagine everyday as Halloween and throw some recyclable garbage in the trash.

Up and down the City road,
In and out the Eagle,
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop goes the weasel.

As I might’ve said before, I come from a rather decent high school and I take huge pride in my abilities in English, especially writing and analyzing. So you can imagine my disdain when I join the Cegep slackers community and find myself having 70’s thrown at me by my narrow minded, semi-biased “my way (which is usually the book’s way) is the right way”, and even sometimes moronic teachers, especially in English class.

Due to this, I’ve come to adapt myself to the new surrounding. Seeing it impossible to please the teacher, I’ve decided that I will choose to please the class, utilizing my teenage angst as a key element to affront the teacher. Such actions took place a few classes ago when we analyzed “Pop Goes the Weasel”.

For this, you need some background. My teacher butchers poetry to an absolute. She fails to feel the rhythms or emotions, and her bad voice only helps drive the dagger through the poet’s heart (luckily, most of them are long dead). On top of that, she has her own pre-determined views of the poems, which she shares with the class while shutting down any young student’s attempt at creating a new, original analysis.

Back to present day. My teacher begins to explain what she thinks she knows the poem to be, referring to what I read in our book. She mentions how the poem is probably about a place where men used to drink back in the day, that the Eagle was the place’s name and that she was unsure about the rest. By the way, she never cited her sources.

My friend was sitting next to him so I started to tell him what I thought the poem was about and by the end we were both laughing. She realized I had something to say and questioned me by asking, “Trevor, do you have an analysis?

“In fact I do” I replied, and so commenced a journey of words that would not rest until completion.

“I think the poem is about prostitution.”

The teacher, quickly seeing her mistake acted hastily to shut me up.

“Oh, ok.” She tried to regain control of the class, but it was lost.

“‘Up and down the City’ road refers to the men looking around for a prostitute from whom to rent service.”

“Alright, that’s enough” as heads slowly turned and eyes of students met with my own.

“‘In and out the Eagle’ represents the act of sexual intercourse.

“All right, that’s enough” but it was too late; the focus of the class was placed upon me.

“‘That’s the way the money goes’ refers to the fact that the men paid for the actions they are pursuing.

By this time she had lost all control as nothing can stray teenagers away from talk of sex and prostitution.

“And ‘Pop goes the weasel’, well, what else?”

I sat back and looked at what I had done. Sure I may have disrupted the class, but the kids were happier and I was going to get a bad mark anyways. At least now I deserved it. And I’ve come to develop a better way for me to go through English class. From now on I mark myself based on how the class reacts to my comments, as long as they are intelligent and humourous observations or witty puns. Lately, I’ve been getting high 90’s.

I have just come to realize that for the past 3 years I have used the exact same scrubbing technique when cleaning my body with soap. Now think about it..Imagine how many times you shower, and no matter what time it is nor place you’re at that you apply those soapy suds in the same manner. That’s a long time to stick to a rudimentary structure. I vow that from now on, I will put a conscious effort into providing my posterior with an original scrub!

How sore are my legs

And aching is my back

As heavy children sit,

Sit in my lap.

I am the chair

Poem Title: The Personification of a Chair