my former glory (not so glorious)

So I found this little gem today

I was searching for any news I could find on what had happened in the high school provincial games in Manitoba this week (volleyball) and so I googled mbci volleyball. I came across this little feature uploaded five years ago that I never knew existed.

Yup, you may have guessed it. That's me in grade 12. I have not changed. I look exactly the same. I know the numbers are hard to see but if you look at the knee brace that's me.

It's so weird watching myself. I am totally critiquing everything too. Like 'terrible pass' or 'nice hit' - if you go to around 11:29 you see me completely give up and kick the ball. Not sure what happened there.

This does fill me with a little bit of high school regret because watching myself - I really was not as good as I thought. I could serve like a pro, but I was so slow. Although I think in this game I have a pretty decent kill percentage. I just remember that being an extra tough year for volleyball as far as my team went. There was a serious division on the team and of course being team captain and trying to be a good person and be the peacemaker like I always do I felt that I was constantly in the middle - although I probably put myself in there.

I hope that I have the excuse that this was early in the season and I was still recovering from knee issues. I do feel that despite my hours clocked on the bench during club I was a lot better. Perhaps because I was getting pushed more by the team around me.

One thing I hated about this year was the fact that I was team captain and received no awards or recognition. I'll never forget that, because despite the fact that I was fairly average and played many sports I was a good leader and I think that you can see this from the film.

I just hated getting benched with this team. I also did not get set very often.

It's also cool that there are girls that I played club with on the other side of the net.

This also makes me wonder what other gems are going to be out there for my children to discover.

I'm odd

Well first off a big thanks for y'all that got me to over 4,000 page views.

Todays post isn't going to be extremely thrilling. More just me trying to think that I'm not the only person in the world that does this. I was just spending some lovely time reading and listening to music and so I came across a sentence fingers were laid theatrically over lips. And after I read this...I totally did it. Like as though I couldn't visualize what was happening in the book so I needed to try it for myself. I think that I often imitate small expressions from books. Maybe because I think they'll be cool for me to try out in my own life.

I also do this with accents. I totally read my characters with different accents. A few months back I read the book The Help which is about black maids during the 60s and the author wrote the 'black' parts with some of the words and slang and spelled words the way these characters would pronounce them. I accented the shit out of that - in my head of course....

I also always feel that I would be great at doing these in real life because they sound unreal in my head - not true. It's the same case with German, I review words and sentences in my head all the time but they never come out the way I want. I guess I just need to be a little bit more confident.

Please tell me if you can relate to any of this...

Actually please just tell me you read books.

your twenties

They always say that your teens are the toughest years of your life.

That was not the case for me. I was quite happy with who I was and myself during junior high and high school. I think the naivety really helped me through that a lot. Looking back I'm sure that I thought a lot higher of myself than some of my peers did. Whether that was being passed over for awards or different sports things. Going back I wouldn't change anything because I was happy at that time and isn't that what it's all about. It kind of sucks looking that you were disillusioned from reality but that's part of life isn't it?

Maybe the reason that my twenties seem a little tougher is because my teens went so smoothly. Obviously there were some points where friends would be friends one day and not the next but I was pretty immune to that and just didn't really care. But now without that structure of high school it's strange for me that I get to make decisions on my own. It may be the fact that I still live my parents in the summers or that I am financially dependent on them that keeps me from acting like someone in their twenties. Last summer I got back to the house later than anticipated and my parents were disappointed because I didn't let them know I was going to be late. I can totally understand their point, but at this point in my life it's weird that I should have to be accountable to people with my comings and goings. I'm sure they feel the same way, but hey, they're parents - the care.

Sometimes I think people in their twenties have such a difficult time because the fact that they never really learned how to be motivated is catching up with them. This is the perfect opportunity to start projects, get involved and all that jazz. It's so much easier to stay at home and sleep the whole day because finally you are allowed to sleep in with no repercussions. But your twenties are tough because they really build your foundation for what you are going to do within the world.

Your teens are there for you to shape a your personality and find out what is important to you. This is often done through experimentation and going through different phases - and mixed along with hormones is extra fun for your parents. Then this is solidified during the late teens, for most this is in university or when you move out. Then early twenties you are finally free from most of the institutional aspect of your life, unless you are a little bit late, or really smart getting a professional degree. But now you are faced with figuring out what on earth you are going to do with your life. Literally you can do whatever you want. There may be some red tape in actually doing whatever you want - but the biggest thing holding you back is yourself. That's the toughest part is narrowing down all the crap and ideas you have in your head and actually pursue something. This usually means giving up something be it money, or connection to family or otherwise and that's what makes it the most scary. Gosh - is this the first part of starting to give stuff up. Maybe as you grow older the big theme is starting to give things up.....

You that are older are probably just laughing at me thinking that I know nothing - and when I read this in three years i will probably think the same.

I guess I'm talking more about what I've observed from peers that are going through university and really making my own assessments. I'm not an expert - clearly.

tidbits #283

I realized that I talk about movies a lot - this post will be no exception

I was watching sleeping beauty and it is such a horrible message. When the little princess is born the first two give her the gifts of beauty and a beautiful voice. Judging by the archaic-ness of the first gift I'm surprised that the fairies would allow her to have a beautiful voice. I figured women wouldn't actually be allowed to talk. Or it could just be the pet that is allowed to come out of the kitchen only the entertain the guests by singing, but she's not allowed to talk other than that. Obviously I shouldn't be surprised, judging by the time that this film was made which was 1959 (coincidently the same year my father was born, age spoiler!) If you've watched any of the show Mad Men all these values shouldn't surprise you at all.

I was also watching the Sarah Jessica Parker 'masterpiece' I don't know how she does it. The story talks about how she has to try to balance her high powered career, with her family. In the film her character seemed to constantly put her family in the back seat because she was working on this project she had a lot of passion for. The movie basically told me that you can't have it all, and if you want to you should feel guilty about it. There was also another foil that was super-focused on her career and accidentally got pregnant and decided not to terminate the pregnancy. Is this some male based strategy telling women that it's ok to get pregnant so that they can make sure that men stay in charge.

Am I reading way to far into this?

I didn't enjoy the movie anyways.

I do realize that I sound like a ranting feminist here - which I am not. I just am a realist and like to think that I am aware of inequalities and honestly I really only care the most about them when they are happening to me personally. I am to self-centered to protest anything.

Are Tv shows getting less funny

I remember when I was a little kid and all I wanted to do was watch the simpsons, but no - mother and father wouldn't let me because I wasn't mature enough. I think this lasted until I was 15 and looking back now it's weird to see my parents not letting me watch that.

Anyways, I used to think it was such a funny show. Then I was allowed to watch family guy and I loved that show even more than the simpsons. Through the first two years of university I would generally watch both of these on TV, if I missed the simpsons I didn't care, but family guy was always a must. Eventually I just stopped caring for the simpsons altogether because I don't think that it's funny anymore. Family guy just pushed the boundaries so much more, and appealed to me so much more and I just couldn't deal with the simpsons anymore. It seemed so juvenile.

Another show I used to watch consistently was the office, my mom and I would watch it together if we could, but if not together I would call her to discuss the episode. One time she even hung up on me because I forgot it was on that night (at this point I worked thursdays so I watched them all online the next day). But now, I have no desire to watch it.

The point of these being - have these shows just not been funny, or have I just watched them to long that I got bored with them. I'm soo upset this year because my favourite show of all time it's always sunny in philidelphia BLOWS this season. I have forced myself to laugh in nearly all the episodes, except two that were actually funny. Maybe it's because these shows become popular and when they do they can hire more writers, and perhaps this dilutes some of the core aspects that initially made the show funny. Another favourite show of mine is 30 rock, and I have not found a change in humour levels because tina fey has been at the helm the entire time.

I don't know if anyone else has any opinions about these TV shows, or has felt the same way - but is all TV just going through a slump right now? Last summer sucked for television and I never watched anything but big brother (although summer usually sucks), but was it worse this year? Or maybe my expectations are to high?

motivation

About 7 minutes prior to writing this post I was sweeping up my room and it gave my the inspiration to blog. I'll give you some context why.

It is currently 12:48 pm on friday november 11 and I have just returned from the school library where I was doing homework from 10-12. I was up at 8:30 this morning after falling asleep around 1-1:30 last night. Needless to say I'm a little bit tired.

This seems to be a minor reflection of the mood I've been trying to put myself in - a mood in which I am not so damn lazy and actually do things. I've already been in Germany for 2 months and I feel like I don't have that much time left in this area, and when thinking about spending time here in my flat on stumbleupon (best/worst website ever) or going out and seeing something new I'm gonna take the second option.

Even keeping my room clean is something that has been done with as much effort as I have done this year. In fact, I have even hand washed the floors at least once and certainly plan on doing it again, possibly even today. At the beginning I was even more diligent and keeping my room clean and making my bed everyday - but that has fallen through a little. I do want to make a better effort - actually I'll take a little blog break to do this.

Done.

It's going to be important for me to keep this level of motivation up because I'm super broke and cannot afford to travel with my friends (pity post) but I'm ok because I still will be making new memories for myself and that's for me the point of travelling, to see things that you've never seen before. Personally tourist kind of places are not super exceptional to visit, or don't really have a huge draw because I feel like I already know them because I've already been super exposed through tv, movies and other media outlets. How many times have you heard of this really neat hiking trail that gives great views of the Rhein-Neckar Valley...likely never and I like to be able to discover these things. The only problem is that it sucks to have no one to share these memories with.

Last night I got to create another memory because the Heidelberg-Mannheim film festival is currently running and last night was the opening night. They also had films for a dollar. Clearly I'm in germany and my german may not be up to par to watch an entire movie so when looking through the program I looked for films that could possibly be from other countries and so I found one with an american director. All was kind of cool and the director introduced the film in english so I thought this could be my lucky day. It was in russian! But it had both english subtitles on screen and german titles on a separate screen below the big screen. I am glad I went - certainly worth the price of admission, but it was a strange movie.

I guess I'll just be playing some more "get on the first train anywhere"

I'm excited

#occupymannheim

Yesterday in my sales and customer relationship management class we had a guest speaker from an organization called UBS.

I payed (or would I use paid) attention for the first hour I'd say, at least that's when I first looked at my phone. It was a decent presentation for the first bit. But really just got boring after a while. I think it may have been my complete un-interest in wealth management. It was a very interesting presentation because he was basically trying to explain how they need to attract customers - and how they have to make sure that their clients are 'wealthy' enough. In my head this even means the upper middle class are not welcome in this group. If you are not a millionaire this organization does not care about your wealth. That's fine. I understand that some businesses focus on this - and others focus on the normal everyday person. That's fine. It was just interesting because of all this #occupywallstreet stuff that's going on right now - which as much as I've read about it I'm still not sure I completely understand everything.

I do understand that people aren't happy with banks and the disparity created between the classes that is growing.

Just a sidebar to this - maybe their riches are growing in some part because there are these firms that are working to grow their money properly and grow investments. I mean - how are people like me going to expect to make the same kind of returns as someone with a lot more money. It's just not possible. I guess this could be one of the problems?

But anyways - this whole lecture makes me again think about being in business school and it's a fact; people go into business to make money. That's why businesses exist. That's why people buy shares - it's a driver of capitalism and that is the kind of society we live in. We can't deny that fact. Don't get me wrong, I do want to make money one day. But I don't think I want it as bad as a lot of my colleagues. It is a little strange that I'm going to get a business degree because I don't know if I agree with a lot of businesses.

I was riding on the tram the other day and the way we went drove past a lot of enormous factories. I realized that factories kind of scare me, like all I think about is pollution and depressed people. Like I know a few people that work in factories and no one is every happy about their job. It just gives me a weird uneasy feeling in my stomach and I can't quite figure out what it is about large organizations that do that. I think it makes me feel like I'm inadequate. If I was working in one of these large organizations in an upper management type position and did matter so to speak, I still don't think I'd be comfortable. It also could be that I just really need to work somewhere that I truly believe that what they are offering is of value to people and not just churning shit out to make a buck.