End of Summer

So with the end of August having just happened, I thought I'd share some summer camp stories, or as I've come to think of them, MountainView Memories. To clarify, the summer camp that I attended most of my summer camp career and where all my camp stories come from is called Camp Mountainview. A camp run by the Salvation Army located in Northern B.C. between the towns of Houston and Smithers.

And so I will tell you of Corey my first camp friend, the brass alarm clock, and the midday shower. I will also share with you photos of my friends and time there.

Before I start I should clarify something, Camp Mountainview has more than just summertime camps, throughout the year there are a few weekend long camps which I also attended. Actually my first time at what I will now refer to as CMV (Camp Mountainview) was during one of those weekend camps. That was when I met Corey, as I mentioned above he was my first camp friend. He was very charismatic, but other than for that reason you wouldn't normally assume that he was a pastor's kid, or at least he didn't fit into one of the stereotypes attributed to being a pastor's kid (but then again that's not odd, seldom have I met one who does). Corey was a player, and he knew how the game worked, now I can't tell you if he still plays or if he has now become a one woman man. Okay, so from time to time he'd need help covering or manipulating the truth so he wouldn't get caught, and that's where I'd come in. I was known to be quite honest or at least more honest than Corey when it came to certain things. So some of the girls he would get involved with would talk to me, confide in me, and ask me about Corey, I would stretch the truth and did this for two reasons.

1. Even though the girls were my friends as well Corey was my friend before they were, and the length of time that someone had been my friend meant something to me.

2. At my core I've always felt like I am a story teller, because telling stories has come easy to me, and even though there is usually a string of truth running through most stories (like the one I'm telling bending subtle facts are easy and simple to do).

So I thought I was helping and I would do what I could to help because that's what friends do. But looking back I regret helping him cheat, but I don't think I'd do it any differently because me and him probably wouldn't have become so friendly, even if we now don't talk.

Okay, so now, the brass alarm clock. This might sound like a joke but this story start like this. This one time at band camp, well okay it was "creative arts" camp technically, but that's because at that time there was very little interest from campers in brass instruments. There were only two of us there for that reason on that year, me a trombone player and this guy named Luke a trumpet player. (A little thing that I should mention is that the last night of camp was once known as prank night, where campers could pull pranks on the other campers or staff on staff. These pranks had to be done before everyone else wakes up, they had to be essentially harmless and it usually ended up being boys versus girls. For example, the female CIT's one year put an aluminum canoe at the top of the stairs blocking the door to the chore boy's cabin; they then knocked on the windows to get the boys attention, but also to taunt them. In retaliation the chore boys were far less creative and the next week they flew one bra belonging to each CIT from the flag pole. Another time the girls cabin spread honey on the door handles and door step and then covered the honey in puffed wheat cereal. And this is what I consider retaliation for that.) How Luke wasn't there for the above stated incident but I was, and it wasn't hard to convince him to help me with my prank because who isn't up for a little summer camp mischief. So what we did was borrowed the alarm clock from one of our counselors and set it to go off at 4:45 am, (enough time for us to wake up, get dressed and outside for 5 am, 2.5 hours before we'd normally be getting up) we grabbed our instruments walked to the outside of the girls cabin, and we made noise with them, because to say we played them would be wrong. We blew into our instruments with the purpose of being loud enough to wake the girls up so much that they couldn't get back to sleep, but that was not the result. We ended up waking up the whole camp and though Luke and I were amused everyone else seemed a bit grumpy until after breakfast and some a bit longer than that.

Now to the midday shower, this happened at the teen camp week on my second to last summer that I attended which would have made me around 16 I believe, maybe 15. It was an early August day, it was around 3 in the afternoon we had just come back from swimming in a local lake and we had free time until dinner. A group of us had just dropped off our towels and started walking down to see if we could find some fresh wild strawberries and then the rain started "the way you fall asleep, first slowly then all at once" to paraphrase John Green. It wasn't a cool rain, but it was a nice warm summer rain. But it wasn't a light rain either but a heavy rain, which gave the group of us an idea; one of us I cannot remember whom but they ran quickly to their cabin and then brought back with them a bottle of shampoo. So we were out there not caring about our clothes getting wet and we were washing our hair with shampoo and a warm heavy rain shower and not long after we had finished washing our hair the rain had stopped, as if it rained just so we could wash the lake out of our hair.

Post Script: Did you ever go to summer camp? If so what are your favourite memories?

Also it this means anything, it was not romantic at all and it didn't mean anything to either of us and it wasn't even all that big of a deal, but that camp was where I touched my first boob.

Above: Me
Left:Corey

Loss...

I have a hard time crying in front of people, and this is for purely a vain reason. Crying is not a nice thing to do or to look at. But today, I did, I couldn't help myself. I lost someone very close to me today. Now it's not that I didn't see this coming, he was 16 years old and for a male house cat that is definitely not young. Also over the past year he slowed down, and his ability to climb stairs and onto the couch diminished greatly, he lost the ability to contract some of his claws, and near the end of May, he had a major seizure and since then I noticed yesterday that he had lost weight and wasn't cleaning himself as thoroughly as he used to. Also I knew this was coming when my mom told me that she had made the appointment to have him released from his pain and that was today. So this afternoon me and my mom put him in his cat carrier and took him to the vet, and before I even got out of the car, my mom handed me a napkin because I had already started crying. And even though with knowing that this was going to happen and time to prepare for this I still felt the entirety of this. The pain of loss is not something that you can appropriately suppress.

So my cat, he was more than just a pet, he was a member of our family. Here’s a little perspective. I have a brother and he is 15 so we've had Spunky (the cat) for a little longer than he has been out of the womb. He's been with us through every family move from city to city we've done and he's lived everywhere that I've lived. Not to mention that he was my first pet.

He did live a long and full life; he lived in four different towns and even more different houses. He fought a wild raccoon and won, he brought a multitude of birds, snakes, and mice to our door step as thank you gifts. He had a great hunters' spirit when he needed it but he also was always there to snuggle up and meet anyone who came through the door. He never brought home fleas, and would always try and clean out my beard whenever I've had one. He was the kitty that did it.

There's no doubt in my mind that he will be missed and that I will remember him always.

Post Script:

This is the best tribute I could bring myself to make. It is just really hard.

Sluts, Skanks, and Whores.

Sluts, skanks, and whores. Let’s talk about that. It is very obvious for those living in common place North America that these are not nice words, and yet we still use them. The thing that all three of them have in common is that they are used to villainies primarily females for having sex. And I think that is the purpose of these words, but I believe that the use of these words has become far too common.

So what I want to do is help clarify the appropriate times to use the words, to be clear none of this is meant as slut shaming that is not my intention and this is based wholly on my own opinion. If I offend you, I am sorry. As I mentioned earlier, these are not nice words but they are also angry words, and it does not matter what tone the person who is speaking these words uses they will not be anything but angry words, whose purpose is very clearly not kindness. Give it a try and see if someone will feel something besides anger when you use these words directed towards them.

Okay now let’s get started with common dictionary definitions.

• Slut: “a promiscuous woman.” Derogatory.
• Skank: “a person, esp. a woman regarded as unattractive, sleazy, or immoral.” Slang.
• Whore: “a promiscuous woman.” Derogatory.

Needless to say these all reflect poorly on females who enjoy and have sex. And so I’d like to redefine these words so that they do not villainies woman for liking sex. And here are my definitions.

• Slut: “a man or woman who participates in a multitude of sexual acts with a multitude of partners without any sort of regard for any of the other parties involved.” Derogatory.
• Skank: “a man or woman who participates in sexual infidelity knowing that it is infidelity.” Derogatory.
• Whore: “a man or a woman who uses sex as a form of manipulation to further ones goals, and or personal gain without any sort of regard for any of the other parties involved.” Derogatory.

So my definitions might all be about sex and they do slightly villainize it, but you also have to notice that I did not go for gender specifics, and all include villainizable circumstances surrounding sex and not sex itself. To mention it again these words are only to be used strictly in anger. But not only in anger, but I do believe that there should be justified cause and recognizable proof before using these words. But since swearing is not something you do with intense forethought only justified cause is okay.

What this really is showing is the misuse of words. Considering the power language holds in today’s society it is good to learn to use it properly.

Post Script: What are some words that you think redefining?

Five Thousand Three Hundred and Thirty Three characters. (Blog Of Love.)

In the spring of my eighteenth year I had this fascination with trying to analyze and explain love. Though in all honesty it was more for the purpose of convincing myself that love is not all bad and is something that I want and deserve. Now the love I am talking about is people love, the love either between two people, or the love one person has for another not the kind of love someone has for say their favourite food. From there I catagorised love in three different ways: Social, Familial, and Romantic.

Social love is the kind of love you have in association to social relationships “friendships”. The love shared between close friends, the friends that you can tell anything to, rely and depend on, the friends that you are not afraid to be yourself around because that’s what they expect of you. Familiar love is that which pertains to family. It is almost semi-obligatory sort of love, because no matter how mad they make you, or even if you claim to hate them, you still even if it is only subconsciously you always love your family. Now I should clarify or add that this is within reason I am not saying that every family has love in it, also I should mention that family transcends blood because there’s more to being family than sharing blood. Finally, romantic love, now I don’t mean the overly media saturated physical “love”. This is one of the problems in today’s society, love is an overused word also often misused meant to either receive physical gain or as some sort of manipulation tool. The media also has transformed romantic love into something that is needed to be happy, where as you don’t, you can easily be happy without being in a romantic relationship. But romantic love is just more than the love of friends, more than the obligatory love of family, because romantic love is not obligatory or compulsory it is a very natural and involuntary action. To paraphrase John Green “falling in love is like falling asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

Now let’s talk about falling in romantic love, to be precise the physical effects and sometimes dependency in relation to falling in love. The results could end up being an addictive substance, not by any means comparable to caffeine, tobacco, controlled and illegal substances or alcohol (Yes, I do consider alcohol to be an addictive substance). Basically it is in the same category as any substance that has an effect on one’s neurochemistry. When it comes to falling in love it is the addiction to a combination of three specific chemicals that effect neurochemistry.

-Phenyl ethylamine: speeds up the flow of information between nerve cells.

-Dopamine: feel good chemical.

-Norepinephrine: stimulates adrenaline production, makes heart race faster.

This blend of these chemicals is what is known commonly as the “falling in love” stage of romantic relationships. The stimulation of that chemical combination can actually override the part of the brain that controls logical thinking. I have an issue with the addiction to this chemical concoction, and how this makes people almost dependent on being involved in romantic relationships to make themselves happy, and as a result when they aren’t in a romantic relationship they lose their sense of “self”, all they want is to be in a relationship and there can be no substitute for them having that feeling. These people hop easily from one relationship to another only ever getting through this first stage of a relationship. This helps promote the societal view that to be happy you need to be in a romantic relationship, which is completely false. The possible results of this are that they much like any other addict want more and then once it reaches the point in which the feelings change and the “high” wears off they believe that they have “fallen out of love” or they go the other way and they continue on with it, allowing the relationship to progress past the initial stage. But this could result in the relationship being either co-dependent or one member being heavily emotionally dependent on the other, whereas in a healthy relationship should be neither, but they should be independent partners.

Now, that could have seemed very negative and I have yet to discuss the power that love holds. If there is no power in love then it would not have anywhere near the same effect on us that it does. But perhaps the power love has is all due to us giving it that power. When you think about it, love can give you strength to do many things; inversely love can break a person beyond repair, and then turn around and fix it all. “Because when you love someone there’s no limit to what you can accomplish.” This quote from the TV show Kyle XY implies that there is some hidden power in love. This further explains how much power love holds, this shows that love has the power to make mountains crumble. Now, let us look at the saying “Time heals all wounds,” now in many ways this could very well be true but as I see it this does not apply to “firsts” (To be clear, firsts, first person you’re in love with, first person to break your heart, and first person you sleep with).  This is or course within reason but, you don’t generally forget your “firsts” because they are the ones who set down the initial framework for the future. Forgetting and/or getting over your “firsts” is one of the hardest things a person can go through in the scope of romantic relationships, and yet what is implied is that what it takes for this to happen is time. Now how I see it is not time that helps get you over your “firsts” but what really helps if finding that one person. But I want to be clear that finding that person should not be your driving force or ultimate priority. Because even though I said that finding that one person will help you finally get over your “firsts”, friends will help greatly and being with your friends a whole lot easier than finding a new person to be in a romantic relationship with.

The questions of love.

Is love for me? Can I even be in love? Or will I just hurt them as they try to love me? Is this what I want? Do I really want to open myself up for pain, depression, anger or sadness all in hopes that it turns out differently.

The decision to choose to love or allow yourself to be loved belongs to each person.

Post Script: Love is a natural force much like gravity, we as people cannot limit it. We should strive to let love flow, not try to control it, but adequately navigate it. As if we were a leaf in the wind getting.

Boxes

I'd like to preface this by saying that I usually first write this out before I type it here to edit myself. But I feel like this is something that shouldn't be edited and should just come straight out. (Also Josh this isn't the blog post I mentioned in my e-mail.)

I don't like boxes. I'm not talking about those physical boxes, but the immaterial boxes that we put people in, that we even put ourselves in. I don't fit in most literal boxes and if I do I overflow. Because trying to fit someone into being one single thing just doesn't work. And even if you can fit someone into a single box, who says this box is the same from one person to another. And for this same reason I don't think that you could properly even Venn diagram a person. Now this is because not only are people more than one thing, but people are just more, more than the sum of their parts. Now in saying all this I am reminded of the movie The Breakfast Club but in particular this quote "You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain ...and an athlete... and a basket case... a princess... and a criminal... Does that answer your question?" Now this just shows that this is not a new or an original idea and yet people are still doing it. 

Now, I'd like to explain what is bringing me to talk about this. And because I can only guess that my Twitter may get passed around due to me now having it in a way linked to a university club I am part of. 

So here's the situation. Me plus three other people sitting in a Tim Hortons around 10:30-ish and being election time in the United States, the topic of politics came up. So being Canadian, we were discussing which of the presidential candidates we'd vote for. Now in saying this we only limited this to Dems and Repubs, we left out Green and Libs, so it was Romney vs Obama. But unsurprisingly we all agreed that Obama should win, but that's not the part that sparked this but it was one of the post discussion comment made by one of the other people there. "Only I just think he's a little too pro-choice" paraphrased of course because what the exact words were. What I took away from it was that even though we share a religion, our beliefs are different, we are in the same box, but different boxes at the same time. At that time I mentally was curious to know what they would think if they found out that I am pro-choice, or that I am pro allowing gay marriage to happen.  I said "mentally curious" because I did not actually mention any of this. I have a problem discussing in person what my beliefs are with people that I'm not like super close with. This is because I can actually handle the internet trolls and criticism more than irl trolls and criticism. My mom and my close friends know more of the specifics of my beliefs, and that's just fine with me.

Post Script: A question: If you are American who do you plan on voting for, if you aren't who would you vote for? Leave your answers in comments below.

Post-Post Script: It appears that I have made just over $1.00 in AdSense money in September, so thank you. I will be posting more so I can get that up to $100 so Google will actually send me that money.