On Election Night

I do realise that it has been absolute ages since I have last blogged. I should probably apologize, although I am not entirely sure who reads this to even be bothered by my absence. Not a whole lot has happened since I last wrote, but even the significant stuff can be left out for now. I figure the best thing to do will be to carry on as usual, and hope that you catch yourself up, on your own accord.

I know I was starting a novel,and I do intend to finish that at some point in my life, but that time is not now.

I titled this blog 'On Election Night' because I'm currently watching Channel 4s Alternative Election night. You see, it is literally election night here in England. It's meant to be a big one, but to be fair I haven't really found that I've been bombarded with election bullshit all that much, compared to what I am used to back home. They do elections a lot differently here. It's not nearly as in your face here, which I suppose has it's own perks. The Canadian system, while on paper is meant to resemble the British system, takes a lot from the American hoop-lah down south.

I really only notice these things the longer I am away from Canada. We really do like to posit ourselves as anti-American, but increasingly I've noticed we have an awful lot in common.

Not manners though. We have those. They don't.

At any rate, I will try to update more. Turn a new leaf. :)

Until tomorrow. x

On Thinking About What It Means to be Canadian

In the summer I read a pretty great book by a Canadian author, called 'The Cameraman'. Inside it, there was a quote, as a preface to one of the chapters (or sort of, at any rate) that I found very interesting... it read:

"Canadians sit quietly on their stumps and watch the country to the south - the flight of the great bald ego. They are judging, and jealous. But they get the gift of perspective"

Initially this really made me think...it made me think, and I realized that it was absolutely right! Have a read of it, and consider how absolutely profound and true it is!

That's my tidbit for the day.

On Just Wanting Christmas

Well, I can honestly say that I am so very OVER working these days. I feel as if I am checked out, mentally. I cannot be asked to plan anything these days. I have some lessons left un-taught that I had planned earlier in the year, but I cannot be asked to make up new ones for the last few lessons I have with each of my groups this week. I am being a complete and total lazy moo.

I can't really help it, because the kids are projecting this feeling of apathy as well. It can't possibly be my fault, it's all on them. If they come in full of reckless energy, then it just seeps into me.

I should also admit that other things are on my mind, namely the thought of being home in Canada. I just cannot wait to go home for the holidays. I can already smell my house; the distinctly 'home' smell that it has, of old wood and warm candles. I also can't wait to snuggle up with a blankie on the couch, sip a rye and ginger, and just enjoy it! Ah, free time. I can't waiiit.

I've checked out of England, at the moment, and cannot wait to be in MY country, with MY family and MY friends, with MY boy!

ROLL ON, CANADA!

On Having the Love

I really enjoy this song. Here is the video and lyrics below:




Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air
I know I can count on you
Sometimes I feel like saying "Lord I just don't care"
But you've got the love I need To see me through

Sometimes it seems that the going is just too rough
And things go wrong no matter what I do
Now and then it seems that life is just too much
But you've got the love I need to see me through

When food is gone you are my daily meal
When friends are gone I know my savior's love is real
Your love is real

You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love

Time after time I think "Oh Lord what's the use?"
Time after time I think it's just no good
Sooner or later in life, the things you love you loose
But you got the love I need to see me through

You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love

Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air
I know I can count on you
Sometimes I feel like saying "Lord I just don't care"
But you've got the love I need to see me through

You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love

On Making A Discover and Chapter Two

I think I have had a breakthrough. I was reading one of the NUT union magazines that gets mailed to me, when I stumbled upon an article about Assertive Behaviour Management. It was a very brief article, that summed up what it meant to use assertive language to control a classroom. Instead of losing your temper, and saying "What are you doing?" or "Is that what I asked you to do!?" (in essense, asking questions), you need to take a more assertive role. They gave a few examples, such as saying "I realize that you would prefer to talk right now, but I need you to do [insert task here], thank you".

By doing it this way, you're taking away the option factor that comes with a question, and making in a very personal demand; I NEED and THANK YOU are more assertive, and clue the students into the fact that you are in control.

All day today I practiced talking this way. I can't even count the number of times I said "I need you to" and "thank you".

And guess what. It worked.

I will try it again tomorrow, and let you know how it went.

For now, have a read of the second chapter that I've just completed.

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When I was twelve years old my family moved house. There were a lot of reasons behind the move, one of which was so that we could be closer to my Nana, who was at this point starting to get weaker. At the time my mum wasn’t working full-time, so she could go over and help Nana with the housework. That wasn’t the number one reason why we moved, not initially, but it was definitely something that helped to tip the scales. Mostly, we moved because my parents had fallen in love with this great, old red-brick century home.

It makes me laugh now to think of the house as old. Living in England has really opened my eyes about the concept of ‘time’ and ‘age’. Time is something we have a very warped perspective of in Canada, and America too, I reckon. We look at a Victorian home, with its wooden trim, smooth wood floors, grand rooms and ceilings, and hard brick exteriors, and see a ‘fixer-upper’; a house with a lot of ‘character’, as I remember my mother saying once. We take pride in having our houses look fabulous after one hundred years of hard living, when really the amount of time that has passed since the home was first inhabited to present time is nothing more than a drop in the hat. You could easily trace the different families and generations that passed through its doors.

In England, time is something completely different; it’s something truly grand and wonderful. For one thing, Victorian homes are situated in relatively new areas of a town or city. You’ll often find the city centres are filled with the older buildings with quaint thatch roofing, cobbled stones and narrow streets. As you move further away from the centre, you’ll start to find newer and newer homes (though the ability to maximize the space available has never seems to have changed). Time in England, and I’d venture out to say in all of Europe, is part of a much grander history. When you see a castle, situated on a lonely country bluff, or a village church steeple from miles away, or the thatching on a home being replaced on a bright summers day, you suddenly are struck with how old things truly are; how life carries on, buildings carry on, centuries after they were initially conceived.

As a child, even if you are a mature-for-your-age twelve year old, the fact that you are moving into an ‘old’ house makes the act of moving ten times worse. As your parents wax poetical about all the work they’re going to do on the house to improve it, all you can see is the house as it currently stands; crusty, crumbly and possibly haunted. The stairs creak as you walk up them, and the wind seems to whistle in a different tone than at your former house.

In fact, the house you’re leaving behind didn’t even have trees for the wind to whistle through. It was ideally situated in a brand-new subdivision; one of those early 1990 build suburbs; the ones that were constructed during a renewed emphasis on the working class living in clean, cookie-cutter subdivisions. A new school was built in the area to cater to the increased population, a grocery store went in, and the process of moving away from the centre of town was prolonged once more.

I couldn’t understand why my parents wanted to leave our nice ‘new’ house, in our nice ‘new’ area of town to live in some old, musty smelling house on the main street of a town a half hours drive away. I just did not see the appeal. I tried to understand their reasoning; I really did. There were things I liked about the house. For one thing, I had loved walking confidently around one of the upstairs bedrooms, proclaiming it ‘MINE’ should my parents (stupidly) decide to buy the dump. It was big, drafty and had a HUGE front window, which the reader in me thought would be perfect for Saturday morning snuggles in bed with a book. I also liked the idea of the in-ground pool. No kid can resist the allure of a pool; all summers leading up to the move were constantly spent trying to make friends with people who had pools. If we moved here, we’d be the cool kids with the pool. I’d be rolling in friends (the idea that people would use me for the pool had never occurred to me at the time).

I also liked the spacious back yard. It had apple trees, mulberry trees, raspberry bushes, and lilacs in the spring. It was so picturesque, like a quaint home in the country, and it was on the main street! I had more than one day-dream about setting up for a picnic back there, with a gaggle of little girls around me, sharing whatever girly gossip young girls of that age share.

Despite all these positives though, I detested having to leave my friends behind. When the move finally happened, I took it badly. I spent the first few weekends having sleepovers with my old friends; they’d come to me one weekend, and I’d go to then the next. It must have been hard on my parents, to watch me struggle with the change so poorly. I’m not sure can say I’d be particularly good at watching my own child suffer, but then again I’ve not had to deal with that yet; I’m still too young to even consider children (despite the fact that my mother was my age when she had me).

Things may have gone a bit smoother for me if the town we’d moved to had been at all accepting of ‘new-blood’ (as I affectionately started to call myself). Perhaps it is phenomenon that exists in all small towns, or perhaps it is a product of this particular small town; whatever it was, integrating myself into the youth culture of the town proved to be more trouble than nought. I still don’t think I’ve managed it, thirteen years down the line.

Sure I made friends; I think the element of ‘newness’ played on my side for a few days. On my first day, I remember asking my mum to do my hair in a French braid, because I felt that I was at my most attractive with my hair plaited back; it allowed me to show off my teeny tiny ears, which for some bizarre reason I felt were my best feature. I also took ages picking out a suitable outfit. I can only vaguely remember what it was at the time, but I think it was something like thick green corduroy trousers and a striped green top. I could be wrong, but that sounds like something I’d wear when I was twelve and looking to impress.

Recess on that first day I had a circle of girls around me. They were firing questions at me one at a time.

“Where are you from?”
“When is your birthday?”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“What do you like to watch on TV?”
“What are you wearing?!”
“Did you mummy do your hair for you?”

I struggled to answer each of them, and felt supremely overwhelmed by the whole experience. I was also struggling to decide whether some of the meaner questions had been intentionally malicious or were just the product of a young and honest mind trying to suss out a new presence on the playground. After recess I followed one of the girls back inside, and she led me to our French lesson. I remember sitting at the back of the room, fighting back tears as I struggled to control my emotions. Moving house had been hard enough, but to be thrown into a school and have the girls at me like hounds was too much for my frail mind to take.

As the days started to wear on, my timidness seemed to intensify. Where I had been bubbly, cheery and popular in my old school, I found it really hard to be that person in my new school. I tried to get on friendly terms with a few of the girls, but was mostly met with not-so-subtle rebuffs. They just didn’t seem interested in me. I felt as if I were a bother to them. It was hard to deal with, and slowly my self-esteem seemed to shrink into itself.

I think a lot of my self-image issues in my later teen years started with the poor start I had at my new school. I was made to feel ‘uninteresting’ and worthless, stupid, ugly and immature. The things I was interested in were mocked, the way that I dressed was a constant source of laughter, and the things I said were pointless drivel.

Despite all the hardships, I eventually managed to associate myself with a very talkative, very chatty young girl who physically (but certainly not mentally) was a lot like myself; small, slim, with pale skin and light hair. However, where I was quiet and reserved, she was loud and boisterous. She had a laugh that one can only describe as weird. It bubbled up in these odd, irregular bursts. It was unique, bizarre, and undoubtedly loud. She was just Jenny. Crazy, goofy, unpredictable Jenny.

We were joined at the hip, inseparable, for about a year. Slowly I stopped pining for my old mates, and was content to spend time with Jenny. She helped me to open up, and brought me out of my new-found shyness. I owe a lot of Jenny, because being around her brought out my own sunny interior once more.

In hindsight, there were a lot of things that could have signalled to me that things with Jenny were not as great as they seemed. For one thing, my Nana never took a fancy to her. She’d sit and listen to me as I nattered on and on about our exploits, but she remained uncharacteristically silent for the most part.
It also never occurred to me to ask Jenny what she did when we were apart. I never thought that on these occasions she’d be back with the other girls, but she was. Perhaps she was friends with me out of pity, I am not sure. I didn’t get invited to most of the big get-togethers, but I was never really made aware of this fact. I had a good relationship with my younger sister, and when I wasn’t playing with Jenny I would spend time playing with her and her friends. A few times I remember going to big group sleepovers at Jenny’s, but these always went fairly poorly. I always felt out of place unless it were just Jenny and I. Her attention seemed elsewhere when the other girls were around.

I remember telling my Nana about this, during one of our tea-time chats. I must have mentioned it in passing, which surely signalled to her my own subconscious discontent. She took a sip of her tea, savouring the warmth of it for a moment before she replied to me.

“Why do you suppose that is?” she asked me.

“I don’t know? Maybe I’m just being silly,” I said, already doubting myself. Doubt was an emotion I was becoming good friends with.

“No, I don’t think that’s it. I think you may be on to something,” she said, pausing. “True friends are hard to find.”

“I think I had true friends once...but then we moved. Except...doesn’t that mean that ...that they weren’t true friends after all? Cuz if they were, well, we’re not friends now, right?” I said, thinking out loud. The slow realisation of it was a bit troubling to me. No true friends? How dire!

“You’ll make a lot of friends in your life, my dear, but few will ever count as true friends,” she mused. “True friends will be the ones you keep for life. They’re the ones that stand by you through thick and thin. You could do something catastrophically stupid, and they’d be there to pick you up afterwards.”

“Uh huh,” I said, deep in thought.

“Do you think that Jenny is there for you?” she asked me, point blank.

“YES,” I said, steadfastly. “Of course she is. She is my best friend!”

I fingered my half of the Ying-Yang friendship necklace I’d given to Jenny. Of course she was my true friend. She wouldn’t have accepted the necklace if she wasn’t. Right?

Nana smiled at me.“Of course she is,” she said.

I don’t remember much else about that conversation. The one thing I do remember, looking back, is that she seemed to be warning me about Jenny and about people in general. It wasn’t that she was telling me not to trust people; that more often than not you’ll meet a lot of ‘duds’. I think the thing she was trying to get across to me was that I had to be selective; to see people for who they really were. Obviously I’ve learnt that a true friend, like my Nana had said, is someone who will hold your hand through the really tough times, even if they don’t agree with what you’re doing. They’ll never say a bad word against you, and when bad words are said about you, they’ll be the first to beat them down with their own words of retaliation.
I think my Nana knew all along that Jenny was a dud. I think she could see where that friendship was going to go right from the start. I wish I’d have know it as well, or failing that, that she’d have given me better warning. However, we all know that life’s lessons are best learnt the hard way.

On Starting a Novel

Right...so I've often thought about writing a novel of some sort, but I've never really been sure if I've got what it takes. I read loads, and I write loads on here, but I'm far too modest to think that I'm any good at it. However, Michael has been encouraging me lately to try my hand at writing a draft of a novel, and today I sat down and started a chapter. I thought I'd post it here, and see what people think of it. It's meant to be a bit autobiographical, but with some elements of fiction. I'm going to make up quite a lot of it, but base it loosely on my own life. The idea is that it should centre around a young woman (very much like me) who is coming to terms with who she is. She uses her grandmother as a standard for what she hopes to become, and struggles to come to terms with whether or not she's half the woman her grandmother was...in the end, she will come to realize that she is, so please don't think that the first chapter (which ends negatively here) is an indication of where the novel will end up...

Let me know what you think...

A few days before my Nana died, I visited her in intensive care. I remember thinking that she looked so small, so frail, tucked tightly into the bed. She had oxygen tubes through her nose, and while that would probably scare some children, it was a normal sight to me. She was dying from emphysema, and had been using an oxygen machine to help her breath for a number of years. I don’t think there are many other diseases in the world that kill you as slowly as emphysema. Slowly but surely, as the years went by, my Nana was being suffocated. Each breath was one ragged step closer to the end. It was a hard concept to wrap my head around at the time, but I understand it now.

She was acutely aware of all this, for she would often share with me the mistakes she made in her youth, particularly about smoking. Even today, on the odd occasion that I have a smoke, I feel a sharp pang of guilt. I can almost feel her disdain. My Nana was a very intelligent woman, and as strong as they come. She was never one to bite her tongue, even if it meant offending someone; if she knew she was right, she’d say so. I know that if she could speak to me, she’d tell me I was being an absolute idiot to smoke. She’d shake her head softly, her eyes closed as if in physical pain. She would then point her thin, strong finger at me, and say, “Krista, you’re a damned fool for doing that to yourself. Did my death teach you nothing?”

Looking back, I think my Nana has taught me a lot about life, even though she’s been gone for ten years. I think once she knew she was dying, years before it actually happened, she’d made a conscious decision to give me as much advice as she possibly could. She must have known that she wouldn’t be around to see me meet my potential as a woman, and so she started speaking to me as if I were an adult when I turned thirteen.

The first time she did this was over a discussion about sex. The two of us were sitting at the table in the kitchen. It was eight or nine at night, and we were having a cup of tea. Living in England now, I don’t associate any special feelings with tea. It’s something I drink in copious amounts on a daily basis. However, back then it was a special ritual between my Nana and I. I only ever drank tea with my Nana. It was our ‘thing’.

This particular night wasn’t long after my thirteenth birthday. I remember feeling quite grown up at the time. I didn’t want to be treated as a child, but felt that most people spoke to me as if I were one, and treated me as one as well. However, I viewed myself as separate from my peers; they didn’t accept me much at the time. I wasn’t well liked, and spent a lot of time on my own. As such, I spent much of my time with my nose in a book, and if I weren’t reading, I’d be doodling silly little Japanese style girls. You know, the ones with gigantic breasts, thin waists, and long flowing hair; All things I wished I had. I didn’t know my place in that world yet, but I was awkwardly trying to position myself within it.

My Nana and I were sitting at the kitchen table, sipping on our tea. Tea time was always a time when we’d talk. I can’t even remember half of the things we talked about now. Instead, I remember the way I felt talking; I felt happy, and loved. I loved my Nana, and she loved me. She’d ask me about school, and when I told her about the troubles I was having with the girls in my grade, she’d shake her head sadly.

“Jealousy has a strange way of affecting people,” she said.

“What do they have to be jealous of? I’m a loser,” I replied.

“You are most assuredly not a loser, my dear. You’re a lovely, bright, intelligent and friendly young girl,” she said. “You’re also pretty. You may not see that now, but I see it, and everyone else sees it.”

I stared deeply into my mug, and felt the heat rise in my cheeks. I wasn’t very good at accepting other people’s praise of me, mainly because I just didn’t feel it was deserved. I suffered from a severe case of low self-esteem. I think to some degree I always will, but that’s another matter.

“Other people often see what we ourselves cannot,” she continued. “Perhaps they see your potential, and are threatened by you because of it. If they push you down, and keep you there, then you can’t rise up to challenge them. It’s sad, really, but often people put down others because they’re insecure about themselves.”

“Maybe,” I said, not really believing her. Nana’s are supposed to say nice things about their grandchildren. She had to say these things to me, but I doubted that they were actually true. I felt uncomfortable talking about the whole thing, to be honest. I had accepted the fact that I was not attractive, and that I was a loser. It hadn’t been easy to accept at first, but now that I’d come to terms with it, I didn’t like to be told otherwise.

“They are jealous,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“Maybe,” I repeated. “But...” I paused for a moment, unsure of whether to breach the topic with my nana, “they are all so much more popular than I’ll ever be. Plus they’ve all got boyfriends... no boys ever look at me.”

I instantly felt silly for saying anything. It showed my own jealousies, and made me just as petty as they were. My envy, of course, was directed towards their ability to attract members of the opposite sex. My thirteen year old self was extremely envious of that. I had started to take an interest in boys the year before, and it slowly got stronger and stronger. At the time I had an undying love for a blonde haired, blue eyed boy in my grade.

“Pffft! Boyfriends?” my Nana laughed. “Sweetheart, never ever base your value as a person on men. You don’t need a man to make you whole!”

I looked up at her, unsure of what to say. What she was saying had nothing to do with what I had said, or so I thought.

“Listen. I’m going to tell you something now. I’m not sure if your mum has talked to you about any of this, but I think that you are old enough to know the truth. Don’t rush into anything. Don’t rush into a relationship, just because everyone around you is in one. Boys will say anything to you, to get what they want. You’re a pretty girl, and you’re too sweet. Some day the right boy will come, and he’ll treat you the way you deserve to be treated. But before him, a bunch of wrong ones will come. And they will try to get you to do things, like sex, that maybe you aren’t ready to do.”

I nearly spit up my tea. Did my Nana just say something about sex? Dear god! It was the last thing on my mind. I was attracted to boys, but I was absolutely terrified of them. The idea of even talking to a boy made my cheeks flush bright red, and I’d develop a nervous shake in my hands.

“Okay,” I mumbled, hoping she’d drop the subject.

“And let me tell you something else. Sex is great. It feels really good, for both the man and the woman. But that doesn’t mean it is something you should just rush into. You should wait, and do it when you’re in love with someone, otherwise it’s cheap.”

I felt faint with horror, having listened to this. My Nana had just told me sex felt great. The world as I knew it was imploding. The last thing I wanted to picture was my nana having sex and enjoying it.

“Okay,” I said again.

She was silent for awhile, looking at me with this knowing look. As far as I know, my Nana never regretted saying the things she said. She was an intensely proud woman, and I think she felt justified in voicing her opinion, no matter what the circumstances. She must have known that years later, after she’d gone, I’d think back on this talk, and realise how right she’d been.

However, at the time I tried hard not to remember that talk. It wasn’t until that moment in the ICU that it came back to me, amongst other memories. I stood at the door to the room, looking in on my Nana, and was flooded with all my memories with her. I was fifteen at the time, and wasn’t ready to lose her. There was so much I wanted her to see.

Her eyes opened slowly, and she focused on me standing in the doorway. She beckoned for me to come to her. I shuffled slowly over to the side of her bed, unsure of where to look. I didn’t like seeing her like this. She was such a strong woman, and yet here she was, laying in bed, tubes and wires everywhere, looking so small. Small and tired, and...not my Nana.

She couldn’t speak. I think it was too painful for her, what with all the tubes going down her throat to keep her alive. Someone had gotten her a little pad of paper, which she used to communicate with the nurses or various members of the family. She beckoned for me to get her the pen, which was on the bedside table. I grabbed it, clicked it open, and handed it to her.

It was hard for her to write. Her hand weakly held onto the pen, and she couldn’t put much pressure on it to write. Her hand moved slowly, shaking the entire time. I was watching the back of her hand the entire time, trying to see how the IV was implanted into the skin on the top of her hand. Her veins looked thin and winding. I hadn’t noticed how small her hands were before, but I noticed it now.
She finished writing, and angled the pad at me.

“Just like me” it read.

She pointed at me, then slowly back at herself. I burst into a fit of tears, unable to contain myself.

The thing is, I cried because I wasn’t sure I was. I wasn’t sure I deserved to even be considered as good a woman as my Nana, and even to this day I am not sure. My entire life I have associated her with this beautiful, headstrong, independent woman. She was proud, to a fault sometimes, not leaving the house once she had to start using oxygen; it was a sign of weakness that she was ashamed to have anyone see. She ruled over the family, held it steadfastly together, despite growing rifts. The feeble relationships between my mother and her siblings were held together through my Nanas’ sheer force of will for it not to fall apart. She wouldn’t allow that to happen, not while she was alive. Nothing escaped her sharp wit. Nothing went unnoticed. So how could she have possibly compared myself to her? How could she be so wrong?

On Christmas Break Approaching

It's nearly December. I can hardly believe it. It feels as if the school year has just started. I'm not complaining though; I am quite content with the idea of having some time off. I'm not overly thrilled about the waiting game I will have to play once back in Canada, but it will be nice to be home. I'm not sure how long the Visa application will take to go through, but I hope it's not TOO long. I don't know how much leeway the school is willing to give me, in terms of being late for the start of term. There isn't too much I can do about it though. I got the earliest appointment that I could, and I am doing my best to ensure I've got all the paperwork filled correctly. At the end of the day though, I am human, and I'm unaquainted with this bureaurocratic nonsense.

But anyways.

I am quite excited at the thought of being home in a few weeks time. I can't wait to show Michael my home, my Canada. It will be really great to be back home, feeling comfy and cozy. I love Christmas as well. It's my favourite time of the year, and not just because of the presents. I enjoy the time spent with family. I just really love the feeling that you get on Christmas Day; waking up early, making coffee for my dad, the unwrapping, the eating of Fluffy omelette, the eating of smoked salmon, cheese, crackers, chips and dip...and then that long awaited, mouth watering TURKEY. The house is always so warm, with the oven heating things up, and the fire (even if it is electric) glowing bright. Even the tree emits a warm twinkle. I love sitting around the living room, talking and laughing with family, sipping on a drink and just relaxing and enjoying the time spent with family. It's a great day, and will be even greater with Michael there - to include him in the family tradition!

Anyways, talking about these things makes me want it to come faster, so I should stop, for fear of making myself too anxious! I'd hate to wish my life away!

Cheers.