music and growing up

The other day I was talking with some friends about the state of 'indie' music and all that jazz. Well, not jazz, but you get the idea. I was saying how I was bored of most of it, and that I hadn't heard much in the way of a band that really grabbed me, that really hit me hard and made me want to listen to them all the time and download as much of their music illegally as I could and tell everyone I knew. It's been awhile since this has happened, regardless of the genre.

Voyno said it was cause I was getting old. Something to think about. People do seem to get to a certain age and just kind of stop exploring new whatever. Think of all those parents listening to what they listened to when they were teens and young adults. Those are the same people that never figured out how to program a VCR (a what? I'll explain what that is in another post) because the technology eventually got the better of them and they couldn't or wouldn't keep up anymore.

It's Ludacris -ahem, scratch that. It's ludicrous to think "the artists of today aren't like they used to be." The second you say that, you are officially a crotchety old man with nothing better to do than to romanticize the past and its adherents, and demonize the present and its current generation. It's the same as "_______ aren't built the way they used to be" and "kids today..." These generalizations built on ignorance and a discomfort with a changing world. You hear it about texting all the time, and facebook and everything else. It's not worse or ruining communication or destroying our youth. It's just different. You can either engage with it, understand it, take up the parts you like and discard the ones you don't. Or you can let it pass you by (whatever it is) and gripe about it.

So today, I won't gripe about being bored with it, or that it's losing its way, or that it all sounds the same. I'm going to get active, check into some bands, and figure out what it is I like and don't like. Just think about how many people didn't give the Beatles, MJ, Radiohead, or any other really great band a chance because they were too narrow minded and set on what they already liked (or more accurately, thought they liked) to explore them?

India

Not much blogging while away on my trip. The idea of a 'travelblog' and semi frequent updates of a trip is a great idea. Until you're actually there and the power is cutting out 4 or 5 times per day and it's hot as hell and pretty much doing anything sounds more exotic and fun than updating such a blog. Now that I've returned home (where still just about anything is, or at least should be, more relevant and important than posting,) I'll make some posts regarding my musings and stories from India.

Here are a few Indian contradictions I noticed in my travels. Really, the entire country is a massive paradox. Some of these are amusing, others downright irritating, all of them mindboggling, to me at least.

1. Energy efficient bulbs in every socket, alongside one inch gaps under doors and around windows of rooms with airconditioners.

2. Rather strict rules about smoking (i.e. not in most buildings, not on outdoor train platforms or anywhere in public in some cities even!) in areas with some of the worst air pollution in the world.

3. A people who is laidback and never seem to be in any kind of hurry, until you get them behind the wheel of an automobile.

4. Crores of starved and destitute people, who are often ignored or treated with outright contempt alongside large feeding sites for pigeons.

5. Male/female relationships marked by ultra conservatism and no public displays of affection in the land of the Kama Sutra and countless inspired statues and monuments.

6. A massive and highly efficient train system with traincars and station platforms without markings.

A Few Interesting Things I'm Remembering About Train Travel

The scenery. It's different from highway scenery. It's kind of like an alleyway of the countryside. It's rough parts of cities you've been to a hundred times that you've never seen. It's graffiti on industrial buildings that would never be tolerated anywhere else. It can also be quite magestic and beautiful. It's travelling on train bridges that you can't see under you over canyons and rivers.

This is not an airplane. The staff will accomodate you if it is possible. There aren't a lot of rules. Bring what you want on the train. There is no searching or 'customs.' the guy that checks your baggage probably sold you your ticket and will likely be the one to check it as you board.

The motion. It's a smooth, steady, and slow push forward. There's also a side to side rocking motion. Never very strong but always present. A whistle blows nearly continuously and sounds very far away.

The French/ English signage. It reminds you that this thing travels coast to coast and is one of the few indications in the West of our country's French history outside a government building.

The bathroom sinks. The faucets jut out about a centimeter from the sink bowl and leak water, apparently using only the powers of gravity, down the back of the sink.

Stopping, for a moment, between train cars is pretty neat. It's cold and metal and windy and, best of all, forbidden.

An Experiment

in not using the internet.

A hiatus.

For one week.

Maybe two.

Email, it stays. Hard to get away from that.

Equally hard to get away from facebook, twatter, awkwardfamilyphotos.com, menwholooklikeoldlesbians.blogspot.com, and various other sites that are really relevant and meaningful and important to keep up with day to day.

Which makes this so necessary.

It's time to disconnect

.

thinking out loud.

I recently finished my oral comprehensive ethics exam. It was kind of a big deal. With its completion, I am presumed competent enough to apply out to internship sites this fall, I am officially considered a 'Ph.D Candidate,' and I have completed another program milestone. I actually don't know that I passed and won't for another couple weeks but I feel that I did. I feel that it went very well and have no qualms with counting my chickens, as it were.

This test was something that certainly inspired a fair degree of anxiety, nervousness, and worry in the weeks and days leading up to it. Of course such a thing would. I wavered back and forth between feeling confident and woefully unprepared. It didn't help that my cohort is such a bright and dedicated bunch of gals who at any given time seem far more prepared and suited to the profession than I feel that I do.

Those feelings of woeful unpreparedness and catastrophication were happening in a different place compared to the feelings of confidence and ease. My dreams were haunted by ethical issues for several nights before the test. My stomach clenched and wrenched and toiled for weeks before the exam. That feeling of being hungry all the time, hardly being able to eat, and yet also wanting to throw up was a familiar companion over the past week or so. I could feel my jaw tightening and clenching late in the evening before bed - sure signs I've resumed grinding my teeth. I felt the worry and the doubt. In my body.

My confidence and ease happens in my mind. In my thoughts. Throughout this pressure filled time, I was able to keep a pretty optimistic attitude. While feeling all of these extremely uncomfortable feelings, I was telling myself that everything would work out, that I tend to do well on these sorts of things, and all kinds of other positive things that I know to be true. Others would ask how I was doing, how things were going. I would say that it was fine, that I was doing real well, that things were coming along and everything would go well.

And I wasn't lying. I felt that. I do feel that. And that's what happened. But my physiology betrays me. It's incongruent with my thoughts. If body and mind are essentially one, intrinsically interconnected, than what does that say about me and my experience? Was I fooling myself? When does positive thinking and optimism become denial? Does it matter?

I just found this picture on a friend's bands blog. Wow. Powerful stuff. The words, not that print behind the book. It's okay too I suppose. So simple, yet so difficult to do sometimes. Sometimes? All the time? If you're like me, then very often at least. It's always the simplest things that are the gosh darn hardest to do. Be kind. Forgive. Listen. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Relax. Live for today. Brush your teeth. All necessary to be fulfilled, all incredibly difficult to do day-to-day.

These 4 points are probably all one needs in order to cultivate a happy life. How so, you did not ask?

Everyone feels like everyone else, just not at the same time: So there's no need to feel stupid, or alone, or misunderstood in a given situation - we all feel like that. There's no need to worry about what others think of you, cause they wonder that too. There's no need to harm others, because they're the same as you.

People are unpredictable: So don't try to pigeonhole them, stereotype them, judge them, or count them out. It goes for yourself as well. You are free to be whomever you want to be. You are not who others say you are.

Letting go is better than maintaining control: Be spontaneous. See where life takes you. See where people take you. Allow things to unfold as they will, not as you want them to. If it's uncomfortable - move toward it. Trust yourself.

Absolutely nothing good can come out of overthinking things: Surely some things should be considered carefully. Very true - but everyone knows when they are overthinking something. Playing out scenarios that have yet to occur. Worrying. Doubting. Making themselves crazy over something that hasn't happened yet. Or maybe it already happened - and so it has passed. It's what your mind brings to a given situation that determines how you'll feel about it.

These 4 things, as simple as they are, are what it's all about.

Spring has sprunked.

Can you feel it? It's in the air. It comes with the warm weather, the bright sun, and the longer days. It's evident as classes come to an end and people start venturing out more. It's in the music you start to hear from open car windows, in the chirping birds, the walking in zig zags to avoid puddles, and in the shedding of layers. The streets, bridges, and trails of our city are alive with people and kids and pets again. Another winter has come and gone and hope and excitement about a new season is palpable. Ever notice how people around here say it's going to be a great summer, every summer? What a a great feeling and perspective.

Many complain about winter. They are long and can be pretty harsh. This one seemed to start off early and cranky and held on a long time. Global Cooling was tossed around by academics, politicians, and lay people as the new thing to furrow our brow and shake our fist at. I think our winter makes our summer special. I don't think we would appreciate summer nearly as much without a long and trying winter. Summer in Saskatoon is special, and it's hard to describe what I mean using words. You know what I mean. Cause you've lived it. And cause you've experienced a prairie winter or two.

And so it is with life. You can't really have the dizzying highs without the terrifying lows. One gives meaning to the other, defines the other, and helps to set them apart.

I can hardly wait for the highs and lows of summer 2009.