Les P'tits Canards, Part 2

Good news!

While Downtown T.O. burns to the ground, there was a small victory in my hometown on Friday. Syncrude was found guilty for the deaths of 1,600 ducks that took a dip in one of their tailings ponds! Now, the company could face $800,000 in fines (chump change for any oil conglomerate) OR 6 months in prison for company executives.

Personally, I think the second option sounds fairly attractive!

Late Registration

Ugh, its that time of year again....enrollment appointments. Am I that lame to make a huge deal over enrolling for classes?

Simply put, I haven't had the best of luck registering in classes: I've take twice as many first-year courses as I'm allowed to (meaning at least one extra term), I always fight to get into a 6th course only to drop it after the first week of classes and, most importantly, I have this obsession with scheduling days off. I actually haven't had a 5-day week of classes since high school. This awesome setup has come at a cost though. Rather than taking classes that I'm genuinely interested in or might benefit me in my career, I've taken exciting courses like The Fundamentals of Drawing (alright kids, lets draw some more naked 50-year olds), Freight Planning (trucks or trains?), Stormwater Management (there's too much shit in our water), and my personal favourite, Social Psychology in Everyday Life (too much for words...whoever said the Arts were easy never sat through one of these lectures).

My intense scheduling, along with my waffling over specializations, minors and other buzz-words to add to my diploma, I've managed to screw up all the hard work my advisor put into making me a simple plan to finish my degree in 3 years. On top of that, I'm going to Brisbane for school this year (ch'yeaaa)! Probably the only downside to Australia is that school there is really lax. They take 4-courses a term and mostly have 3-year degrees, meaning most of courses I'm taking only transfer over as first or second-year courses, which I definitely have more than enough of.

Yesterday, I was telling a project engineer about my colourful year at school and he asked me the question I absolutely loathe hearing: "When are you gonna be finished?" He then began to glare wildly when I told him that I wasn't really sure when I'd be graduating. Oh sorry, I didn't realize there was suddenly a stigma attached to enjoying my youth...

In reality, it makes me restless to not know when I'll be finished my undergrad, to not be able to make plans or try to envision where I'll be in two years. But I'm trying to keep it all in perspective. I have the rest of my life to slave away at a 9-to-5, what difference does one year make?

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P.S: Random pet peeve-- I hate when I decide to spend my lunch break lurking blogs and the only ones I come across are about Catholic families or new babies.

Le Snobisme

I'm starting to settle into my summer here in Edmonton and, as usual, I'm starting to second-guess my "life choices." In case you didn't know, my life has been interesting lately. I spent the first 18 years of my life living in the white-washed suburbs of Edmonton. Then, I did a year of liberal arts and got accepted into a really good Business School for International Business, and I threw it all away on a whim, as I figured I'd never be happy building a career on helping corporations maximise profits and take advantage of people, while infusing buzz-words and schmoozy language into everyday conversation. I left the Texas of the North to study Urban Planning at Waterloo. Ever since then, I've been bouncing back and forth between the two places, never staying in the same spot for longer than 4 months. It's always been my dream to go away for school and relish my newfound independence. I began to over-indulge in telling people about how I was so glad that "I got out of St. Albert," and I started to show contempt for people who "just didn't have their shit in gear."

Nowadays, I feel so unsettled, like I'm rootless. I don't really have strong relationships with anyone simply because I only see most people about four times a year and have terrible time keping in touch with old friends. My concept of home has become a "grey area." I have a hard time feeling grateful anytime I have a change of scenery. On top of that, I'm constantly poor, which kinda sucks. Bourgeois kids just aren't raised to have budgets and make sacrifices.

These uncomfortable feelings really bitch-slapped me in the face a few days ago. I got in a fight with my parents after they let my brother drive the family truck to the U of Alberta campus to drop off his writing portfolio, while I took the bus there just two hours earlier to do homework. My mom got mad a t me and awkwardly described me a "Toronto Snob who intentionally acted like he wasn't part of the family." She apologized almost immediately and has been especially nice to me since then, waking up early to make me breakfast smoothies and letting me drive her Toyota.

To be honest though, it didn't really offend me. Well, the part about hating my family offended me, but I actually took the "Toronto Snob" name as a compliment. I've never actually lived in the city, but I wouldn't hesitate to pack up and go there after my undergrad. But whyyy you might ask???

Well for starters, Toronto is actually a city. Edmonton might legally be a city, but it's not actually a city. Relatively speaking, Edmonton is small. Only a million people are brave enough to live this far north, and for some reason they all feel they need to live on a half-acre of cheap land and still have a 20-minute commute as their reward. Our only claim to fame is a shopping mall, a decrepite shrine to capitalism and over-consumption. And it's not even a nice mall......

On the other hand, Toronto has a lot going for it. It's Canada's largest city and one of the most multicultural cities in the world. They actually consider social progress and sustainable living to be a good thing, rather than some toxic evil that's just going to make it harder to drive your Hummer H2 to work.

Does Edmonton's Riverfront look like this?

The whole incident reminded me of this awesome quote from one of the most random movies I've ever seen, Hamlet 2. At the end of the movie, the whole cast goes to NYC to celebrate the launch of their Broadway play (OH SHIT, SPOILER ALERT!!!1111). One of the kids, Chuy, tells his teacher about how awesome New York is compared to Tucson, their hometown. Their drama teacher responds, "Chuy, you're going to live a magicial life because, no matter where you go, it's always going to be better than Tucson." This will sound stupid, but this quote kinda motivates me and gives me hope that these restless feelings will shake off as soon as I peace out for new adventures!