10.26.2006,09:32
eight days a week
I'm in the midst of working an eight day stretch right now, between two different jobs. If I take subbing calls next week, this could easily stretch out to 10 or 12 days, except that I think I might need a day off sometime. This is madness, but on the other hand, I'm delighted to actually be working for the school board now. It's going to start being all cold, rainy, and November-y soon anyways -- a good time, if you ask me, to bury yourself in work and hide till spring time. I just have to survive that long...

I got a letter inviting me to the Faculty of Education Student Awards Reception last night, because of the scholarship I received. Ma belle soeur thought it was hilarious. It's the night before my grad and even I don't think I can handle that much pomp and circumstance in a single 24 hour period.

I'm going to work now, again.
 
posted by sasha
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10.22.2006,12:35
faithless leading the hopeless
(don't bother)
you'd think after all of this that i'd at least have something to say...

i remember a time when i was scathing and seething because things were wrong and could be better.
i remember a time when my priorities were one of two things: frivolous or world-saving.
i remember a time when it felt important to range, rage against the dying of the light.

sometimes, these things are futile. ideologues just stay that way and most people balk at the notion that they can be held responsible for the entirety of their actions. it's a system out there, a big hairy institution, so what can little old me do? -- a question that dismisses individual solutions like reducing consumption or voting with your principles and wallet intact. only, i think that's the kind of solution i believe in now because we're so walled in behind our individual rights that we've lost sight of individual responsibilities and can't even say anymore that moral values of selfishness and exploitation are wrong. we're so into this 'everyone has the right to their own beliefs' BS that we can't even bring ourselves to condemn the things we really, really ought to condemn. welcome to the era of the liberal individual destroying the world, one fat-imbued, slave-laboured, customer-serviced, petroleum by-product produced bite at a time because it's their god damned right!

i don't know how most people sleep at night. i don't know why it seems so hard to admit that the universe doesn't orbit around us, insisting instead on a pre-copernican order where all things centre on the self and thus all others, further from the self, are lower forms and thus less worthy of compassion.

ethics of the double-Os: it's all grey matters now.

without you, no me. without us, no we. without rights, no responsibility.

but we have rights. we gorge ourselves at the rights buffet, without keeping up our end of the bargain. dine 'n dash, our moral compass for the future.

(you were warned)
 
posted by sasha
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10.17.2006,09:26
grad redux
Another degree, another stage-walking at the Chan Centre. This year, it's at 1:30 pm on Thursday, November 23rd. I'm still working out the whole whether or not to bother thing, but it mostly depends whether the people who made it happen decide they want some pomp and circumstance.
...More goofy robes. The whole thing is so medieval.
 
posted by sasha
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10.14.2006,09:48
something else is needed
(this is now a repost. I didn't want it gone forever, but the spam comments had gotten out of hand.)

funny isn't it, how labour day now seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with labour. I think it's part of a bigger *don't talk about labour* policy that has come from our closeting of class. We can talk about how evil all kinds of discrimination and intolerance are, but the poor are still, in many people's minds, supposed to pull themselves up by their boot straps. This, of course, is utterly ridiculous, since on some level all of the other problems we identify boil down to class.

We say it's so sad that single mothers are so likely to live in poverty - proof of discrimination against women - and the same for many ethnic groups - proof of racism. These people actually all belong to the same group, one that has alarmingly high probability of living in poverty - POOR PEOPLE. We just don't talk about it that way any more.

And what, you might be thinking, does any of this have to do with labour day? Labour day is now "back to school day" which could be a pertinent time to pay attention to the proportion of students without laptops, let alone lunches. It could be a time to consider whether we really still allow universal access to post secondary education. It could even be a time *gasp* to think about labour.

When we think of the word labour, it's not to the white collar professions that our minds go, but to the dirtier, harder, and on a far more basic level, essential tasks. Building infrastructure and homes. Manufacturing. Driving. So on. A whole lot of labour, and in those cases, a whole lot of unions to protect the labour. What about the jobs that our really essential to our 21st century lives though? Service jobs. Customer service. Food service. The terrain of exploited youth and minority groups aplenty. What labour movement there might have been has now been crushed by the service industry.

At the very least, look twice at the person who scans your pens through the till or serves your ikea lunch. It was supposed to be their day, but we don't talk about labour or class any more. Our discourse of consumption has made them invisible and labour day is now another day to buy stuff. Lots of it.
 
posted by sasha
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10.11.2006,11:04
holy hot bed batman
Well well. I don't think I could have generated as much controversy as I did with the post awhile back about my pal Dov if I'd actually been trying. I sure got a lot of nasty e-mails, and on the whole was alarmed by how many people seem to use vice magazine as their bible.

One point that came up a lot was the whole "but other people are worse" line, which is of course cute, because it has the obvious retort "but other companies didn't make their millions of CLAIMING to be good." Clearly a company that claims to have ethics and values that guide their business should be held to a higher standard.

A number of people were also upset and claimed I was "telling peeple" [sic] what to do. Alas, no, I did not do this. Although I certainly wish I could control much of the population, the reality of that would be frustrating and futile. All I do is make my decisions. You make yours. This comment clearly stems from my condemnation of an action (giving more $$ to the company currently at issue), however an inability to differentiate condemnation from control simply suggests that perhaps a great number of us could have used a logic and argumentation class somewhere along the way.

Oh dear! My catty tone seems to have returned too. Wonder who I'll offend now. Tis a field of landmines after all - don't say I didn't warn you. If you want to believe everything I say is intended dead-pan literally, then don't read this next line where I'm going to suggest that Stephen Harper (yes, you should have stopped reading by now) should be tied to the side of a barn and horse whipped.

As much as I do enjoy indulging people (especially when they're being self-righteous) I will now be putting this issue to bed. I will not answer further e-mails on the topic (unless you actually manage a unique argument, but that hasn't happened for weeks, so don't hold your breath) nor will I be replying to further messages posted hear.

My last word on the topic is this: relative silence doesn't mean nothing's going on. For all those who claimed this was hearsay or that there was too little information, let's remember that Dov paid all of the women he raped (allegedly) and abused (repeatedly) to keep their mouths shut. He bought their silence wholesale and tried to repackage it and sell it back to us. I'm just sad so many were willing to buy.

This has already been given far too much airtime. It ends here.

See? Over! This line is about how the Harper govt's budget, with it's billion dollar cuts in a year of many billions of surplus, makes me queasier than a US spinach consumer riding a tiltawhirl.

Hey Canada, have you figured out yet that we can't all be Alberta? (and thank dog for that!)
 
posted by sasha
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10.06.2006,09:52
so I guess the pilgrims have now hit plymouth rock. I advise running.

It's a good thing my family does pleasant things, becuase the nature of this 'holiday' make me queasy.
 
posted by sasha
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