It has become my fate to eat breakfast in the dark 5 days a week due to 8am classes twice a week and 7am work shifts three times a week. Granted this makes for many EARLY mornings, ergo meaning I eat breakfast in the dark. I must say it's a strange feeling to go to bed in the dark and to wake up and eat in the dark. Almost as if I am a little kid again, waking up ridiculously earlier in the middle of the night to snack so my parents won't know. Alas, this is my reality.. and to be honest... I am beginning to love it.
Side affects of this "love affair" I am having with early mornings include, dark circles under my eyes, an unignorable need to take a nap every afternoon, and a great affinity for sleeping in through church on Sunday mornings because it is my only day to sleep in. For now, my love of these quiet, still, and dark mornings will overshadow the side affects that I have thus far encountered, alas, I fear the day when I just long to ignore the blaring alarm for one last glorious grasp at the warmth, comfort, and worry-free bliss of sleep.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
IS Conference
Is there such a thing as righteous anger? Righteous anger, not at an act committed but rather at an attitude or shared attitude?
If so, I think I may have experienced it in all it's glory today. Bi-annually my university-college has what we call an "interdisciplinary studies" conference. This year the organizers decided to have the conference on the Truth and Reconciliation commission that has been established in Canada to deal with our past regarding Residential Schools. I think that this is a very important subject, regardless of your beliefs or knowledge on the subject. For many of us, our knowledge on this subject is limited if present at all. And yet, it seems like no one cares.
I guess to truly understand my grudge, you must understand the conference more fully. It is mandatory to attend six of these conferences (so three years) to graduate from this university. On top of this is the fact that we are to write a short, and I mean short (750words), essay on what we learned, or questions we have on the subject of the conference. To give you an example of conference subjects, this fall's conference was on "Invisible Dignity" regarding the people throughout the world who have been ignored, shunned, hurt, and forgotten. The conference before that was entitled "Thought for Food" which involved discussions on the global food crisis and possible ways in which it can be dealt with. To be frank and honest, sometimes, if not numerous times these conferences can be dry, and hard to listen to - especially the morning sessions. But that does not mean that the topics these conferences address do not deserve our time and attention. The mandatory attendance and essay, I'm afraid, have ruined this conference. Students attend only begrudgingly so that they can get the grade and get out. This is really very regrettable. What these conferences have to say is important. Important to know, important to talk about, important to be present in society today.
Normally you would not hear me, or rather read me, advocating for the IS Conference but something has been stirred in me and I am realizing now how important and essential these issues and ideas brought up by the conference are. This conference has particular resonance with me. Residential Schools are not ancient history. The last one closed in 1996, and as I'm thinking most of us were alive and well during 1996. We watched this happen, our government watched this happen, and perhaps, most disturbingly- the church not only watched this happen, but initiated and ran these schools. We owe something to these people whom we stomped, beat, and abused the culture out of yet many students at our school do not care enough to attend the conference. I don't understand this. Residential Schools happened right here in Canada. The affects of these schools is evident, the hurt and pain is still there. Why don't people care what happened? Why are we content to think that reparations and settlements are going to fix the suffering these people endured? Why have we been so close minded, so stubbornly believing that everything wrong in Canadian Aboriginal society today is their own fault?
I just wish that we, as students, could step up and take this conference, these ideas more seriously. Drink more coffee, more Coke, more Pepsi, more tea- whatever caffeinated beverage you prefer. Go to bed earlier. I don't know. But what I do know is that it is essential for us as a generation to step up and discover what is going on in the world around us, in the nation around us. Believer or not, student or not, we owe it to the world we inhabit, the country we call home, the people around us, to fight ignorance. To stand up and say, "I want to know what is going on in this world, I want to work for positive change, I want to see something happen. And something happen in this generation, not thousands of year from now, but now. I want to see change."
So I challenge you if you're going to King's that you would not let the IS paper dull your interest in the conference. I challenge you to not fall into the typical pattern of thought among students that the conference doesn't really matter and to step up and realize that there is something larger at stake here. If you are not a King's student, I challenge you to attend and think- scratch that, if you are anyone, I challenge you to attend and think. Or maybe even just think- read the newspaper, question what you see, question whether or not it could have been prevented, ask why it happened, ask how it can be changed. Challenge yourself not to live your life content to sit on the sidelines and make no acknowledgement of what is going on around you. Take responsibility for the world in which you live. Find out what is going on- both good and bad. Life is not fully lived unless you truly see the world around you.
If so, I think I may have experienced it in all it's glory today. Bi-annually my university-college has what we call an "interdisciplinary studies" conference. This year the organizers decided to have the conference on the Truth and Reconciliation commission that has been established in Canada to deal with our past regarding Residential Schools. I think that this is a very important subject, regardless of your beliefs or knowledge on the subject. For many of us, our knowledge on this subject is limited if present at all. And yet, it seems like no one cares.
I guess to truly understand my grudge, you must understand the conference more fully. It is mandatory to attend six of these conferences (so three years) to graduate from this university. On top of this is the fact that we are to write a short, and I mean short (750words), essay on what we learned, or questions we have on the subject of the conference. To give you an example of conference subjects, this fall's conference was on "Invisible Dignity" regarding the people throughout the world who have been ignored, shunned, hurt, and forgotten. The conference before that was entitled "Thought for Food" which involved discussions on the global food crisis and possible ways in which it can be dealt with. To be frank and honest, sometimes, if not numerous times these conferences can be dry, and hard to listen to - especially the morning sessions. But that does not mean that the topics these conferences address do not deserve our time and attention. The mandatory attendance and essay, I'm afraid, have ruined this conference. Students attend only begrudgingly so that they can get the grade and get out. This is really very regrettable. What these conferences have to say is important. Important to know, important to talk about, important to be present in society today.
Normally you would not hear me, or rather read me, advocating for the IS Conference but something has been stirred in me and I am realizing now how important and essential these issues and ideas brought up by the conference are. This conference has particular resonance with me. Residential Schools are not ancient history. The last one closed in 1996, and as I'm thinking most of us were alive and well during 1996. We watched this happen, our government watched this happen, and perhaps, most disturbingly- the church not only watched this happen, but initiated and ran these schools. We owe something to these people whom we stomped, beat, and abused the culture out of yet many students at our school do not care enough to attend the conference. I don't understand this. Residential Schools happened right here in Canada. The affects of these schools is evident, the hurt and pain is still there. Why don't people care what happened? Why are we content to think that reparations and settlements are going to fix the suffering these people endured? Why have we been so close minded, so stubbornly believing that everything wrong in Canadian Aboriginal society today is their own fault?
I just wish that we, as students, could step up and take this conference, these ideas more seriously. Drink more coffee, more Coke, more Pepsi, more tea- whatever caffeinated beverage you prefer. Go to bed earlier. I don't know. But what I do know is that it is essential for us as a generation to step up and discover what is going on in the world around us, in the nation around us. Believer or not, student or not, we owe it to the world we inhabit, the country we call home, the people around us, to fight ignorance. To stand up and say, "I want to know what is going on in this world, I want to work for positive change, I want to see something happen. And something happen in this generation, not thousands of year from now, but now. I want to see change."
So I challenge you if you're going to King's that you would not let the IS paper dull your interest in the conference. I challenge you to not fall into the typical pattern of thought among students that the conference doesn't really matter and to step up and realize that there is something larger at stake here. If you are not a King's student, I challenge you to attend and think- scratch that, if you are anyone, I challenge you to attend and think. Or maybe even just think- read the newspaper, question what you see, question whether or not it could have been prevented, ask why it happened, ask how it can be changed. Challenge yourself not to live your life content to sit on the sidelines and make no acknowledgement of what is going on around you. Take responsibility for the world in which you live. Find out what is going on- both good and bad. Life is not fully lived unless you truly see the world around you.
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