Daily Archives: October 20, 2015

Thoughts for today

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Blogging in class. Everyone else is learning how to use Audacity. I already know how to use Audacity. So, this is me time.

Audacity is an audio editing program, and I have used tons of those, going all the way back to a program that came with my Sound Blaster sound card (remember those?) called Master Blaster. The great thing about Audacity is that it is open source, ergo free, and yet it is as powerful and as packed with features as anything Adobe wants to charge you 1000 bucks for.

So I have used Audacity a fair bit over the years. I am no power user, but I can do basic cut and paste work, and that takes you pretty far. Plus I know a little bit about the advanced stuff, like filters and tone generation. So, no worries.

Glad about the election, if not exactly overjoyed. Justin is PM now, and that is that. I voted my conscience and that is all any of us can do.

Harper did manage to do one decent thing, and that was to lose gracefully. He said that “the people are never wrong”, which is a pretty classy thing to say when you lose. It’s almost as though he knew he would lose and was ready for it.

Part of me wishes it had caught him by surprise and he had gone weeping and wailing to the press about how unfair and mean the Canadian people were.,.but that is not a very nice part of me.

That is the lizard brain, schadenfreude, crush your enemies, see them driven before you part of my brain, and while I accept it as a natural part of being a human being – we all have our primitive id lurking beneath the mask of civilization – I also know that the definition of civilization includes the degree of control we have over it.

Dammit, why am I so sleepy? I got plenty of sleep last night. I hate this shit. I was hoping using CPAP would fix this mysterious sleepiness I get for seemingly no rational reason and which makes my life far more tense and draining than if I had solid and dependable islands of wakefulness.

It could be a temperature thing. It is pleasantly cool on this classroom, and maybe that is having the same effect as it does when I sit in front of my computer. This would suggest that if I was able to get my entire bedroom to just the right temperature, I would sleep a whole lot better.

Hard to manage without AC, though.

It can’t be poor sleep habits, because mine have improved greatly. I hardly ever nap during the day any more. I would love to say that this is due to my will of iron and swami-like level of self control, but in reality, most of the time, I couldn’t if I tried. I have been doing a lot of hard coding cognitive work ti separate “I physically require sleep” from the bed-seeking “I could sleep, probably, if I wanted” . And I think it is paying off.

It’s a lot like the difference between real physiological hunger and the emotional desire to eat, fueled by “cravings”.

It helps to remind myself that I don’t want to sleep through life. I want to live it. I want to be a real person, and endless dreaming destroys that.

Corn nuts makes a poor classroom stealth snack, person behind me. They are like, the loudest food in the world besides ice cubes.

My mom crunches ice cubes. She also likes corn nuts. Hmmmm

(—)

I am in Psych 1200 now. We are dealing with Freud. Poor old Freud. People scored a lot of cheap iconoclast points off him by pointing out that the man who invented modern psychology was not the best in the world at it. Do we expect the guy who invented the surfboard to be the best surfer of all time? Of course nit. In fact, he probably was not very good at all.

So yeah, a lot of Freud’s theories have not stood the test of time, and some of them seem downright juvenile, but he was the first. Cut him some slack. He invented psychotherapy. He invented the entire idea of helping someone by talking to them.

We hug and cuddle because it reminds us of the pressure of the womb. That is why autistics are comforted by pressure. My professor and I just figured that out. Man, psychology is cool. Autistics reject human touch, often violently. So a good hug will only horrify them. But if people press them on all sides with nice soft cushions, it can have the same effect.

Being claustrophobic, that sounds like Hell to me. But whatever goats your float.

Repression equals overexpression. It must be true, it rhymes. Luckily, it actually IS true.

Got exam back. 83.8 percent. Not bad for someone who didn’t even know there was an exam that day. For Kwantlen, that is an A-. Which means I have been an A- student most of my life.

Check out 72 bpm for music – unuversal baby rocking rate!

(—)

Back home now. I’ve eaten, I’ve watched an episode of Bones while doing so, and now it’s time to blog.

Luckily, I actually managed to write like 850 words while in class. Not bad. So this won’t take that long.

I did not manage to get to the post office to get my student loan today. A number of factors led to me not getting out of the apartment till 12:20 pm, and by that time it was too late to get to the post office to do my thang and still make it to class at 1 pm. So, no dice there.

BUT, I did go to the library and get my student card. I am now a fully authorized student, so to speak.

I will try for the post office again tomorrow. I don’t have to be in school until 2:30 pm, so it should be easier to get a jump on thing like I did Monday.

And then…. I will actually be able to pay the university! And from there…. onwards to victory!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Election night dread

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I’ve been dreading this election.

I have been dreading it ever since I learned in Journalism class that 80 percent of Canadians agree with Harper on the niqab thing. Could my beloved Canada truly have fallen for this blatantly racist smokescreen issue? Could my nation be falling to the forces of crazy evil stupid? Could we truly have fallen so far from our own ideals that we would let the demon Harper continue to contemptuously soil every single good thing about us like an incontinent harpy?

Could we really be ready for five more years of this catastrophic nightmare?

Now that the election results are coming in, I can see that this is not going to happen, and my earlier dread seems foolhardy. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have 163 seats, and the minimum for a majority government is 170, so it looks like JT will be our new prime minister despite seeming, to an old phart like me, like he’s too young to shave.

I don’t like him. He seems very fake to me. Fake like Hillary Clinton, but admittedly, far better at it than she did. I don’t like the idea of the leadership of Canada seeming hereditary, like we voted for Justin simply out of nostalgia for his last name. I don’t like that Canadians apparently lack the vision to see that the Liberals are never going to bring about any kind of real change and that Canada needs a lot more than a kinder, gentler plutocrat.

More importantly, I don’t trust him. I don’t trust him to have the interests of the everyday Canadian at heart. I don’t trust him to stick to important Canadian principles rather than compromising with the forces of intransigent evil at every turn and then expecting us to pat him on the back when he sells the farm for a song, because after all, we still have the little red schoolhouse! For now!

Basically, I do not trust him to know when to be unreasonable. To put your foot down, stick to your guns, ignore your advisors, and do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do regardless of what the media and the opposition are going to do or say about it. Some things are simply not negotiable, and I don’t trust J.Tru to have the confidence, maturity, and integrity to be able to do this when it is called for.

And it will be called for.

Still, the traitor Stephen Harper has set the bar so low that it would take a doctorate in geology from a very good school to find it, so that all Justin Bieber Trudeau has to do is refrain from gleefully rolling in his own shit to seem like a superstar.

The important thing is that the Anybody But Harper Party seems poised for the win. It bothers me that Harper will lead the official opposition, with probably something like 100 seats, when what the big-L Liberals need most is an NDP opposition nipping at their heels and their conscience.

But at least Historical Villain and International Man of Misery Stephen Harper will no longer be in power.

I really don’t like him.

An atheist’s prayer for Canada

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This prayer goes out to all of Canada, from Gander, Newfoundland to Vancouver Island,

I pray that we are kind.

I pray that we understand that the foundation of all morality is not authority but compassion, and that it is through kindness that we make this nation stronger. A tribe that lets its weakest die is a tribe that soon has no members. The tribe that cares for those most vulnerable and thus turns tax burdens back into tax payers is the tribe that thrives.

I pray that we are courageous.

I pray that we can find it within ourselves to fight for the weakest among us. That we have the courage to call those who would feed on the week to make themselves strong what they truly are : cowards. And bullies. And the opposite of civilization. I pray that we have the strength and courage to put ourselves at risk by daring to come between the wolf and the flock. I pray that we can continue to be the true north strong and free.

I pray that we are wise.

I pray that we can see that it is by division that the corrupt conquer the just, and that only by seeing through the illusions of difference to see the true Canadian spirit within every one of us that we can resist the tyranny of the powerful over the masses. I pray that we can see that, despite their supposed power, the tyrants of today are not more powerful than we the people, and the only thing we have to do to unstead these petty children is refuse to let them get away with murder any more.

I pray that we are just.

I pray that the Canadian public continues to believe in the core Canadian principle of fairness. That we understand that what can be done to one of us can be done to any of us, and thus remain willing to treat all Canadians, regardless of religion, community, or ethnic origin with the same just and merciful regard we would wish for ourselves.

I pray that we are intelligent.

I pray that we are intelligent enough to see through the smokescreen of meaningless side issues concocted by some team of bloodless, heartless consultants somewhere whose only purpose is to pray on our fears and drive us further apart so we are easier to conquer. I pray that we are intelligent enough to keep our minds focused on the common, everyday issues that affect our common, everyday lives instead of being distracted by the callous manipulations of those who have nothing but contempt for the everyday Canadian taxpayer.

I pray that we are mature.

Mature enough to see past out own immediate short-sighted interests to the future of the nation and the world we are leaving our grandchildren. Mature enough to understand that some things are worth what we pay for them via taxes, and that sometimes we are the ones who must restrain our inner children and accept that there are rules, limitations, and obligations that we must accept not as burdens imposed from above by some sadistic authority figure, but because they are the price of living in this great nation of ours and only thieves and slackers try to get everything while paying nothing.

I pray that we are sincere.

I pray that we mean it when we declare ourselves to be on the side of the angels. I pray that we mean it when we take pride in Canada’s history as the people who do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, the ones who show up when peace needs a keeper and when freedom needs someone to fight for it. I pray that the good graces of our neighbors and friends continue to be of value to us and that we remain able to see ourselves as part of the world and not an island unto ourselves.

I pray that we are kind, courageous, wise, just, intelligent, mature, and sincere.

In other words, I pray that we are Canada.

And that’s all I have ever wanted us to be.