Ok, this is a song that I've known for at least 8-9 years, thought it was a typical pop song about a guy who lost the love of his life and is now crying his heart out over the loss of his girlfriend. Only problem is that I never saw the video for it. And what do you know, I randomly stumbled upon this video today and I was happily listening to it and remembering all sort of childhood memories, when I realized that the song is actually about.... a TURTLE!! Pffhahahahaha!!! Now THAT was unexpected! And random, but that's besides the point.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
It's always good to have a PhD
"-Lucky for him, his daddy had a PhD. Do you know what a PhD is?
-An advanced university degree or a doctoral degree?
-Wrong. A PhD stands for 'Papa has Dough'!"
Hahaha voir que c'est ça que j'apprends dans mes cours de droit! Bah, pas juste ça, mais c'est surtout de ça que je me suis souvenue... oui, il y a le vieux monsieur juif qui voulait faire sa mini cabane de bois dans son balcon pour pouvoir prier à Dieu et qui est allé à la Cour Suprême du Canada pour se battre pour son droit de le faire... oui, il y a le monsieur qui a poursuivi le Premier Ministre ET Procureur Général Duplessis et qui a ruiné sa vie juste pour le principe de faire justice (bah je pense qu'il était aussi intéressé par l'argent dans sa poursuite, mais ça, il l'a pas vraiment eu)... oui il y a la Charte des droits et des libertés du Québec avec son fameux Article 3 qui te donne tous les droits du monde, juste pour te limiter par la suite avec l'Article 9.1 qui met le bien-être de la société québécoise avant tes libertés personelles.
BUT PhD!!! God that's priceless hahaha!!
-An advanced university degree or a doctoral degree?
-Wrong. A PhD stands for 'Papa has Dough'!"
Hahaha voir que c'est ça que j'apprends dans mes cours de droit! Bah, pas juste ça, mais c'est surtout de ça que je me suis souvenue... oui, il y a le vieux monsieur juif qui voulait faire sa mini cabane de bois dans son balcon pour pouvoir prier à Dieu et qui est allé à la Cour Suprême du Canada pour se battre pour son droit de le faire... oui, il y a le monsieur qui a poursuivi le Premier Ministre ET Procureur Général Duplessis et qui a ruiné sa vie juste pour le principe de faire justice (bah je pense qu'il était aussi intéressé par l'argent dans sa poursuite, mais ça, il l'a pas vraiment eu)... oui il y a la Charte des droits et des libertés du Québec avec son fameux Article 3 qui te donne tous les droits du monde, juste pour te limiter par la suite avec l'Article 9.1 qui met le bien-être de la société québécoise avant tes libertés personelles.
BUT PhD!!! God that's priceless hahaha!!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Brazilian conversations
"You're too far away. We can't have a conversation because I can't kick you!"
Hahaha! And THIS is what they teach you in school kids!
No, but seriously, today I was forced (but pleasantly so) to see martial arts in a completely different way. What do you think about when you hear martial arts? Self-defense right? Well, Fabrizio (author of aforementioned quote) presented a confrontation between two opponents as a conversation. And it goes like this: "Hi! How's it going?" (kick in the head), "Not so bad, not so bad" (duck), "How's the family, they're doing good?" (kick from the side), "They're doing alright, yes" (dodge to the side), "Good weekend?" (head butt), "Oh yes, very relaxing" (sidestep to the right), etc.
Now, I can't say that this applies to all martial arts, but this is the mentality of a capoeirista or a intimate to the art of capoeira. These are also the same people who, when they start a fight, they say that they are going to "play". For the uncultivated people out there who don't know what capoeira is (such as myself until up to two-three weeks ago), it is a African/Brazilian form of martial arts mostly composed of kicks and, as weird as it might seem, dance moves. During this "game", you have to keep your center of gravity as low as possible and that sometimes gives the players (what I like to call) the look of crawling worms. It also leaves the inexperienced apprentice with very, VERY sore thighs and the feeling that your legs will no longer support your weight at the end of the day. However, even if it is SUCH a pain to play (and I'm not even talking about the show-off walk on your hands and do back-flips type), capoeira is beautiful to watch!
Buuuut, all that to say, that I did find the metaphor of a conversation as quite beautiful to describe this practice.
Hahaha! And THIS is what they teach you in school kids!
No, but seriously, today I was forced (but pleasantly so) to see martial arts in a completely different way. What do you think about when you hear martial arts? Self-defense right? Well, Fabrizio (author of aforementioned quote) presented a confrontation between two opponents as a conversation. And it goes like this: "Hi! How's it going?" (kick in the head), "Not so bad, not so bad" (duck), "How's the family, they're doing good?" (kick from the side), "They're doing alright, yes" (dodge to the side), "Good weekend?" (head butt), "Oh yes, very relaxing" (sidestep to the right), etc.
Now, I can't say that this applies to all martial arts, but this is the mentality of a capoeirista or a intimate to the art of capoeira. These are also the same people who, when they start a fight, they say that they are going to "play". For the uncultivated people out there who don't know what capoeira is (such as myself until up to two-three weeks ago), it is a African/Brazilian form of martial arts mostly composed of kicks and, as weird as it might seem, dance moves. During this "game", you have to keep your center of gravity as low as possible and that sometimes gives the players (what I like to call) the look of crawling worms. It also leaves the inexperienced apprentice with very, VERY sore thighs and the feeling that your legs will no longer support your weight at the end of the day. However, even if it is SUCH a pain to play (and I'm not even talking about the show-off walk on your hands and do back-flips type), capoeira is beautiful to watch!
Buuuut, all that to say, that I did find the metaphor of a conversation as quite beautiful to describe this practice.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
The Flea
I stumbled upon this hilarious poem by John Donne that I had studied in English in CEGEP and I felt the compulsive need to share it. Ironically though, it kind of contradicts my previous post. Then again, I never agreed with the author, but I did find his arguments quite ingenious. So he gets brownie points for the cunning!
Overall, this poem is about a man who tries to convince his lover to sleep with him even though they are not married.
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
Note: in the time that this poem was written (meaning the XVIth-XVIIth century) the letter "s" was written in a similar fashion to the letter "f". Now try to replace the "s" in the third line of the poem with "f" and see what that gives hahaha!
Overall, this poem is about a man who tries to convince his lover to sleep with him even though they are not married.
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
Note: in the time that this poem was written (meaning the XVIth-XVIIth century) the letter "s" was written in a similar fashion to the letter "f". Now try to replace the "s" in the third line of the poem with "f" and see what that gives hahaha!
Friday, January 7, 2011
Romance without regret
Quite funny and an interesting point of view to consider. It is basically a conference/talk on sex and why you should wait in a relationship before making that step. I do not agree with all the points such as that of waiting until marriage, but I do think that waiting is important.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
In between the lines
This is another one of my pointless rants on life. I don't even know why I'm writing it here or what I hope to achieve by complaining about this, but maybe by expressing it, I will finally be able to stop thinking about it and get it out of my head. I really hope, because I'm really tired of going around in circles with this topic.
Let's suppose you go about your life in normal fashion for a while and everything follows its normal course. Spring follows winter, the snow melts and then the temperature increases. Suddenly, summer is here, outside it's hot, everyone's happy. Autumn follows, the leafs fall down, it's getting chilly again, Halloween comes and goes, etc. etc. And suddenly you discover that you have been living a lie (whether it's intentional or not). You've had your doubts of course, but like any normal person, you ignore them and move on with your life. Because of course humans are fragile beings who need to live in denial in order to remain happy and have elevated the practice of lying to themselves to the state of an art. And then psychologists come along to help them uncover that which they knew from the beginning, but which they didn't want to see because they couldn't deal with it. But alas, I'm drifting from the subject at hand.
So, imagine that for whatever reason, the past months of your life have had aspects which differed from that which you thought you had perceived. Ok. You deal with it, you adjust your perception and you move on with your life. Easy enough, right? WRONG!! Once you get used to the idea, you start playing with it, turning it around, probing it, testing it in various situations, in other words you start thinking about it (I know, most of my problems begin when I start thinking). It's like getting a small glimpse of the backstage after a play and then you can't help wondering how everything was orchestrated so that the illusion fitted your perception, all the while staying just that: an illusion. And somehow every moment starts being put into question. Every glitch that you overlooked acquires a new meaning. You start wondering if maybe you could have figured this out by yourself and way sooner at that. Maybe you could have avoided it altogether. And despite yourself, you start questioning intentions and people, not knowing exactly what was the truth and what was not.
Maybe I am too innocent and naive for this world. Maybe I'm trying too hard to find something that doesn't exist. Things just seemed so much more simple a couple of years ago. There was black and white. Now there are just too many shades of gray to keep track of.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Food for thought or How the materialist theory of history is related to my lazy study habits
I think I fell in love today.
For the very first time in my meager 20 years of existence, I am looking forward to a course and I am NOT disappointed after the first class!! And I bought the book and I started reading it right after class (and a bit before) and taking notes and....now I sound like a nerd. That's what my friend told me when she saw me studying on the first day back to school. I don't caaaarrreee!
But that rant wasn't the purpose of my post (I know, could've fooled you). I actually wanted to share a piece of information that I learned and that I find shocking (even though it really isn't when you stop to think about it). So dear reader, imagine this: in humans, the frontal lobe of the brain, which is largely responsible for personality and organization, doesn't fully develop and continues to change until well into one's 20's!!!
Ahhhh I know, right? I can see your face right now. Amazing, incredible, fan-freakin-tastic, why are you getting so worked up over this useless piece of information, you nerd? Aha, well I shall tell you, avid reader of mine! This means that from certain points of view, there is still hope for me, while from others I just might be doomed.
For example, like many students in this world, I have a fundamental flaw and which is that I do everything (or almost) at the last minute. Which means that I'm very familiar with the concept of starting to cram 6 chapters 3 days before an exam. And that is not good. I always wondered what my grades would be like if I actually studied on time (or if I could actually remember the material from a course for more than a semester). BUT, with this new fact put into light, it might mean that my organizational (or lazy) habits are just a consequence of the not-yet-development of my brain (just as teenagers are more prone to depression over small things because they are not yet mentally equipped with the maturity needed to deal with them...that is not a judgement, it is a fact). So yey for that (though I'm not kidding myself too much)!
On the other hand, personality traits that I used to admire in myself no more than 3 years ago from which I have strayed and which I thought still hidden deep down inside, just waiting to come out again, well I might have to face the very real possibility that they are gone! So my creativity might have been blown out the window (maybe I still have some hope for this one), my environmental sense gone down the drain, my empathy completely dried out and my cool, aloof, non-mushy-huggy-touchy-feely character completely broken down. And I have noticed in the last couple of years that people and experiences to which I am extensively exposed have changed who I am and have shaped the way I see the world. I initially thought this might be a phase caused by the afterglow of the exposure (like a cake that is still hot when you take it out of the oven) . However, I might now be forced to reconsider that assumption and come to terms with the fact that these changes might be permanent. This has also made me realize that when you choose a field of study or a job, even though you might not pursue a career in that field, even though you tell yourself it is a temporary disposition until something better comes up, it might still affect your personality for better or for worse. The same reasoning applying to the people you spend your time with. And it might bring some credit to Marx's materialist theory of history. What he basically says is that human nature does not exist and that human behaviour is only dictated by the mode of production which causes the social conditions available. Therefore, capitalism would encourage individualism and selfishness in people, while communism would encourage a sense of collectivity and of selfless involvement in the community. However, I don't think Marx was talking only about people under 30 years old.
Anyway, I think that pretty much resumes what I had to say on the subject. Therefore dear reader, I hope that this discussion will make you think twice before making a choice in the future for it might affect you more than you think!
For the very first time in my meager 20 years of existence, I am looking forward to a course and I am NOT disappointed after the first class!! And I bought the book and I started reading it right after class (and a bit before) and taking notes and....now I sound like a nerd. That's what my friend told me when she saw me studying on the first day back to school. I don't caaaarrreee!
But that rant wasn't the purpose of my post (I know, could've fooled you). I actually wanted to share a piece of information that I learned and that I find shocking (even though it really isn't when you stop to think about it). So dear reader, imagine this: in humans, the frontal lobe of the brain, which is largely responsible for personality and organization, doesn't fully develop and continues to change until well into one's 20's!!!
Ahhhh I know, right? I can see your face right now. Amazing, incredible, fan-freakin-tastic, why are you getting so worked up over this useless piece of information, you nerd? Aha, well I shall tell you, avid reader of mine! This means that from certain points of view, there is still hope for me, while from others I just might be doomed.
For example, like many students in this world, I have a fundamental flaw and which is that I do everything (or almost) at the last minute. Which means that I'm very familiar with the concept of starting to cram 6 chapters 3 days before an exam. And that is not good. I always wondered what my grades would be like if I actually studied on time (or if I could actually remember the material from a course for more than a semester). BUT, with this new fact put into light, it might mean that my organizational (or lazy) habits are just a consequence of the not-yet-development of my brain (just as teenagers are more prone to depression over small things because they are not yet mentally equipped with the maturity needed to deal with them...that is not a judgement, it is a fact). So yey for that (though I'm not kidding myself too much)!
On the other hand, personality traits that I used to admire in myself no more than 3 years ago from which I have strayed and which I thought still hidden deep down inside, just waiting to come out again, well I might have to face the very real possibility that they are gone! So my creativity might have been blown out the window (maybe I still have some hope for this one), my environmental sense gone down the drain, my empathy completely dried out and my cool, aloof, non-mushy-huggy-touchy-feely character completely broken down. And I have noticed in the last couple of years that people and experiences to which I am extensively exposed have changed who I am and have shaped the way I see the world. I initially thought this might be a phase caused by the afterglow of the exposure (like a cake that is still hot when you take it out of the oven) . However, I might now be forced to reconsider that assumption and come to terms with the fact that these changes might be permanent. This has also made me realize that when you choose a field of study or a job, even though you might not pursue a career in that field, even though you tell yourself it is a temporary disposition until something better comes up, it might still affect your personality for better or for worse. The same reasoning applying to the people you spend your time with. And it might bring some credit to Marx's materialist theory of history. What he basically says is that human nature does not exist and that human behaviour is only dictated by the mode of production which causes the social conditions available. Therefore, capitalism would encourage individualism and selfishness in people, while communism would encourage a sense of collectivity and of selfless involvement in the community. However, I don't think Marx was talking only about people under 30 years old.
Anyway, I think that pretty much resumes what I had to say on the subject. Therefore dear reader, I hope that this discussion will make you think twice before making a choice in the future for it might affect you more than you think!
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