I would like to speak (read: type) to you today about a strange and beautiful phenomenon I have recently discovered. However, before we get into the revelations, some background information is necessary. I know, it seems like revelations should just happen to you, effort-free. I apparently think they should be difficult.
I am an undergraduate Animal Biology student who has recently entered into the wondrous realm of ~Research~. I capitalize this and surround it with ceremonial squiggles of importance because it is the Holy Grail of accomplishment at the University of Alberta. You might have thought you were going to university to gain practical skills and higher knowledge that would eventually, I don't know, employ you? The University does not understand this idea. The University thinks that you have come here to learn about the fantastic, the wonderful, the epiphany-inducing, panty-dropping art that is: ~*~Research~*~. They would like nothing better than if you never got a job and just stayed happily ensconced in the loving embrace of Mother Research forevermore.
So. I recently began Research. Because of my involvement with Research, I began to interact with these alien organisms called "Professors" and "Graduate Students", who I had always assumed were simply necessary structures at a University and who I had never thought of as being people, per se. But as I got to know Professors and Graduate Students, I realized that they are just like you and I: they have thoughts, they have dreams, they even have beards. Beards that might represent a certain sadness. (But that is a rant for another day. If you are interested in Sadness Beards, I recommend this provisional reading in the meantime.)
Over time, **!Research!**, that capitalized wonder that I had always scoffed at and sort of resented, became...I grit my teeth...enjoyable. Yes! I admit it! The sweet songs of Lady Research had lulled my spirit and soothed my soul. Research is a saucy minx, and she knows just what to warble in your ears, like a cheeky songbird who knows you all too well. We all know what those tweety little bastards can be like. I thought to myself, Sarah, you could be a ~~Researcher~~. So rather than fight the evil urges within me, I embraced them. And how better to embrace your future potential than to find yourself a cozy situation in which you will live in a plywood hut and research squirrels in the Yukon?
So I find myself a cozy situation in which I will live in a plywood hut and research squirrels in the Yukon. This is an example of something that we in the biz call Field Work. You may think that I gratuitously capitalize too many words, but you will soon find that Field Work is worthy of the sarcastic emphasis. Because if Research is the Holy Grail of accomplishment, then Field Work is...the Holier Grail. Of more accomplishment. Charisma, I have it.
Field Work is the life you left behind when you moved the big city. The pastoral landscape you once inhabited, free from the woes of modern society. The simple life, when it was just you and Ma and Pa and Ol' Bessie, the reliable but now aged dairy cow you raised as a young lad. Field Work represents a better time, when people knew what was good and right, and we didn't have a life fraught with Sorrowness Beards. We had Outdoorsy Beards when we did Field Work, Outdoorsy Beards of Joy. We pranced with the wild animals and drank the sweet nectar of Mother Nature. We didn't worry about writing up our research, or doing anything relevant to really progressing our careers, if we're being honest. We just were. We existed in harmony with the universe.
And this. This is the phenomenon I'm about to finally get at. If you ever want to know what someone's face looks like before they enter a cinematic dream sequence, in real life, mention the two magical words to a Professor or Graduate Student: Field Work. When they hear that you are off to find yourself in the fabled land of Field Work, a few key events will unfold right before your eyes.
First, if they happen to be a nice person, they will ask a bit about the Research you are about to embark on (this step is optional - they may simply launch themselves into the next step, unable to help themselves). Second, their eyes will glaze over as they break eye contact with you. Their gaze will become hazy as they lose grasp of the physical world around them, a fog falling over their visage. They may lean back in their chair, or clasp their hands in a melancholy way. Third, they will utter a phrase. There is no one specific phrase that always escapes, but it will be something like this: "yeah, Field Work is awesome."
And then you know you've lost them. You may as well slowly rise from your seat, gather your belongings as silently as possible, and tip-toe slowly out of the room. It's the kind thing to do. Let them enjoy the peaceful meditation they have entered. They are revisiting their youth, imagining themselves scaling a great mountain or wrestling a cheetah to the ground (whatever they picture, they probably haven't actually done it). They're saying, "Bessie, I'm home."
Friday, 4 April 2014
Monday, 3 June 2013
Even the hairs? Even the blinks?
So. After a no-holds-barred debate in my head over whether writing stuff on a blog constitutes a desperate plea for attention or a sociable and friendly way of sharing my thoughts with others, here I am. My debate came to no useful conclusions. And hey, maybe I am desperate for attention. I'm not ashamed.
I know everyone gets songs stuck in their heads (we all do, don't we? Now I feel a weird urge to go look up cognitive studies to see if anyone knows what part of the brain causes earworms. And by extension if there are people who are relatively normal but can't remember music. The perils of writing stuff while on the internet are great indeed). But do you ever get phrases stuck in your head? I do. Bits of poetry ("whose woods are these I think I know - his house is in the village though"), which I guess is ok because it's close to music anyway, and proverbs and just general other stuff I've read (A Song of Ice and Fire is terrible for this. "What is dead may never die." How am I supposed to go cheerily about my day with that phrase bouncing around in my head?). Now that I think of it, this could be a great study tool if you could manage to get something you were supposed to memorise stuck in your brain.
Anyway. Last week I had "even the hairs on the head are numbered" following me around and popping into my brain every couple hours. This falls into the vague proverb-y category of phrases. Vaguely Bibical? And yes. According to a snappy little google moment, this phrase is in the Bible not once but twice (Luke 12:7 and Matthew 10:30, if you're wondering, fun fact). In the religious context the idea, I think, is that God is so omniscient and cares so much about you that He knows the number even of your tiny little hairs. Which is nice.
But the phrase "even the hairs on your head are numbered" got me thinking in kind of a different direction. Because the hairs on your head are numbered whether God knows it or not (and no, I'm not going to wade into debate on that point). There are a finite number of them. Just like there are a finite number of:
This is not the first time I've ever thought about this. I have a habit of setting up really trivial math problems to solve in my head on long car trips. I swear this is not as math nerdy as it sounds. I have a lot of weird road trip games to play in my head and the language-based ones are way nerdier. Anyway. Since I am far from a math savant, my problems tend to follow the line of "How many words did I submit in academic writing over the past year?" (Cop-out answer: too many) or "How many books have I read in my life?" And every time I think about how many things theoretically have a number, it amazes me.
There are all these enormous numbers that we'll never know and yet exist and make up the facts of your life. You've read all those words yourself. Those hairs are attached to your head. And you'll never know how many of them there are. For some reason that seems totally mind-blowing to me. It's just...cool. I can't decide if I'm comforted by the idea that there is a number for all these things (or do numbers and math in fact exist without human knowledge of them? I watched a Youtube video about this today...) or if I'm scared of the weird sense of looming mortality that this gives me. Because obviously, if there are a finite number of breaths I've taken so far, then inevitably there are a finite number of breaths I will take ever. Maybe this is why websites like this one exist, so obsessively counting and quantifying types can document their lives in the same way that more literary types use diaries - all in our human attempt to fend off that terrible sense of looming DEATH.
Well, that ended cheerily. Isn't math and thinking about existential dilemmas fun? Maybe I'll be a mathematical philosopher in my next life.
Smiling? Grimacing? Calculating?
Charlotte
I know everyone gets songs stuck in their heads (we all do, don't we? Now I feel a weird urge to go look up cognitive studies to see if anyone knows what part of the brain causes earworms. And by extension if there are people who are relatively normal but can't remember music. The perils of writing stuff while on the internet are great indeed). But do you ever get phrases stuck in your head? I do. Bits of poetry ("whose woods are these I think I know - his house is in the village though"), which I guess is ok because it's close to music anyway, and proverbs and just general other stuff I've read (A Song of Ice and Fire is terrible for this. "What is dead may never die." How am I supposed to go cheerily about my day with that phrase bouncing around in my head?). Now that I think of it, this could be a great study tool if you could manage to get something you were supposed to memorise stuck in your brain.
Anyway. Last week I had "even the hairs on the head are numbered" following me around and popping into my brain every couple hours. This falls into the vague proverb-y category of phrases. Vaguely Bibical? And yes. According to a snappy little google moment, this phrase is in the Bible not once but twice (Luke 12:7 and Matthew 10:30, if you're wondering, fun fact). In the religious context the idea, I think, is that God is so omniscient and cares so much about you that He knows the number even of your tiny little hairs. Which is nice.
But the phrase "even the hairs on your head are numbered" got me thinking in kind of a different direction. Because the hairs on your head are numbered whether God knows it or not (and no, I'm not going to wade into debate on that point). There are a finite number of them. Just like there are a finite number of:
- Mosquitoes in the world
- Times you've eaten bacon for breakfast
- Times you've eaten breakfast at all
- Books you've read while eating stuff
- Books you've read at all
- Words you've read
- Times you've blinked
- And so on and on and on.
This is not the first time I've ever thought about this. I have a habit of setting up really trivial math problems to solve in my head on long car trips. I swear this is not as math nerdy as it sounds. I have a lot of weird road trip games to play in my head and the language-based ones are way nerdier. Anyway. Since I am far from a math savant, my problems tend to follow the line of "How many words did I submit in academic writing over the past year?" (Cop-out answer: too many) or "How many books have I read in my life?" And every time I think about how many things theoretically have a number, it amazes me.
There are all these enormous numbers that we'll never know and yet exist and make up the facts of your life. You've read all those words yourself. Those hairs are attached to your head. And you'll never know how many of them there are. For some reason that seems totally mind-blowing to me. It's just...cool. I can't decide if I'm comforted by the idea that there is a number for all these things (or do numbers and math in fact exist without human knowledge of them? I watched a Youtube video about this today...) or if I'm scared of the weird sense of looming mortality that this gives me. Because obviously, if there are a finite number of breaths I've taken so far, then inevitably there are a finite number of breaths I will take ever. Maybe this is why websites like this one exist, so obsessively counting and quantifying types can document their lives in the same way that more literary types use diaries - all in our human attempt to fend off that terrible sense of looming DEATH.
Well, that ended cheerily. Isn't math and thinking about existential dilemmas fun? Maybe I'll be a mathematical philosopher in my next life.
Smiling? Grimacing? Calculating?
Charlotte
Friday, 1 February 2013
Scoring the World
Haven't you ever wished for a way to quantify a person's awesomeness? Well then, the authors of this blog are proud to present the Charlotte and Sarah Universal Point System (with bonus sassy input from Candace Farrar, AKA Kandace Pharrar when she is in sorority mode - but that's a story for another post). In an age gone by, in a land called Strathcopia (our high school stompin' ground), we felt the same need, and had far too much free time. Therefore, in the wilds of Social Studies 10-1AP, a point system was born (actually several different point systems, but for the sake of this post, we'll call it ONE point system with many facets).
First came BBPs, a way of rating one's British-ness. It is universally acknowledged that a person in possession of a high level of Britivity is downright awesome. BBP stands for Bonus British Points. We recognize that this seems to imply that everyone has a baseline level of British, but really, the "bonus" just makes this a better acronym. The way a person might earn BBPs would be to use British colloquialisms non-chalantly in an average conversation. Such phrases may include, but are not limited to: faucet, jolly good, brilliant, rubbish or petticoat. A subset of BBPs examines an individual's fashion sense. At the time of their inception, examples of British-type fashion would include: bowties, ascots/ascot-style hats, three piece suits, peacoats and bowler hats. Now that in this modern age such fashions are depressingly common, earning fashion BBPs could be confused with being "hipster." It is imperative that one uses caution when assigning these points. Another important distinction to make is that a person who is verifiably British does not automatically receive BBPs; (s)he would have to exhibit insane feats of eccentricity to score points. The epitome of one with high BBP status is Sir Richard Branson.
AGB (Acts of Gentlemanly Behaviour) were next assigned. This is a particularly good category, as it can be applied to average fellows (not every fellow can aspire to earn BBPs, but AGB points are readily achievable with just a modicum of civility). Examples of AGB-worthy behaviour include: letting a classmate use a piece of lab equipment before you, holding open doors, pulling out chairs, helping people pick up dropped books and helping someone who has had an embarrassing moment. In certain circumstances, girls can also earn AGB points; however, this point system was initially developed as a tool for evaluating a male for potential dating.
FBFPs, or Facebook faux pas, are a substantially less positive system for identifying those moments we all suffer: Facebook chat failures. We can all remember a time that we hastily pressed the enter key and subsequently sent a non-sensical snippet of unfinished text or uncalled-for emoticon (accidental winky-face anyone?), and of course there are always poorly thought out conversation exit strategies to consider ("well...I have to go wash my dog now. Bye!"). FBFPs may be a mark of shame, but they are also an easy way of acknowledging your mistake with a bit of humour and without causing further awkwardness. Here is an example conversation in which use of the FBFP is a great solution to all (or some of) your chat woes:
Sarah Nason
Pahaha the thing you spend the least time on is always the funniest
And I mean that TIMES TWO!
Charlotte Forss
You switch into caps lock and you no longer make sense.
Sarah Nason
Hahahah when I sent that the first time it showed up as me sending the first part twice! Damn you fb, you make me fbfp!
Another type of points that emerged were YAPS and YADS. These two highly related categories are probably not very useful for the average person's life because they refer directly to no one other than Sarah Nason. YAPS are You Are Pleasing to Sarah and YADS are You Are Displeasing to Sarah. But one could easily substitute Sarah with their own name though, so do not disregard these acronyms completely! An easily explained system, you assign a YAP_ point whenever someone does something you like and you assign a YAD_ whenever someone does something that you dislike. Also, it should be noted that "you are pleasing to me" is a very creepy and potentially villainous thing to say, so if you are assigning a YAP_ you can also do evil hand gestures to drive your point home.
Hopefully this helps you blog readers in your judgmental exploits, much as it has helped us.
Hoping you didn't assign a YAD_ to this post,
Charlotte, Sarah and Candace
First came BBPs, a way of rating one's British-ness. It is universally acknowledged that a person in possession of a high level of Britivity is downright awesome. BBP stands for Bonus British Points. We recognize that this seems to imply that everyone has a baseline level of British, but really, the "bonus" just makes this a better acronym. The way a person might earn BBPs would be to use British colloquialisms non-chalantly in an average conversation. Such phrases may include, but are not limited to: faucet, jolly good, brilliant, rubbish or petticoat. A subset of BBPs examines an individual's fashion sense. At the time of their inception, examples of British-type fashion would include: bowties, ascots/ascot-style hats, three piece suits, peacoats and bowler hats. Now that in this modern age such fashions are depressingly common, earning fashion BBPs could be confused with being "hipster." It is imperative that one uses caution when assigning these points. Another important distinction to make is that a person who is verifiably British does not automatically receive BBPs; (s)he would have to exhibit insane feats of eccentricity to score points. The epitome of one with high BBP status is Sir Richard Branson.
AGB (Acts of Gentlemanly Behaviour) were next assigned. This is a particularly good category, as it can be applied to average fellows (not every fellow can aspire to earn BBPs, but AGB points are readily achievable with just a modicum of civility). Examples of AGB-worthy behaviour include: letting a classmate use a piece of lab equipment before you, holding open doors, pulling out chairs, helping people pick up dropped books and helping someone who has had an embarrassing moment. In certain circumstances, girls can also earn AGB points; however, this point system was initially developed as a tool for evaluating a male for potential dating.
FBFPs, or Facebook faux pas, are a substantially less positive system for identifying those moments we all suffer: Facebook chat failures. We can all remember a time that we hastily pressed the enter key and subsequently sent a non-sensical snippet of unfinished text or uncalled-for emoticon (accidental winky-face anyone?), and of course there are always poorly thought out conversation exit strategies to consider ("well...I have to go wash my dog now. Bye!"). FBFPs may be a mark of shame, but they are also an easy way of acknowledging your mistake with a bit of humour and without causing further awkwardness. Here is an example conversation in which use of the FBFP is a great solution to all (or some of) your chat woes:
Sarah Nason
Pahaha the thing you spend the least time on is always the funniest
And I mean that TIMES TWO!
Charlotte Forss
You switch into caps lock and you no longer make sense.
Sarah Nason
Hahahah when I sent that the first time it showed up as me sending the first part twice! Damn you fb, you make me fbfp!
Another type of points that emerged were YAPS and YADS. These two highly related categories are probably not very useful for the average person's life because they refer directly to no one other than Sarah Nason. YAPS are You Are Pleasing to Sarah and YADS are You Are Displeasing to Sarah. But one could easily substitute Sarah with their own name though, so do not disregard these acronyms completely! An easily explained system, you assign a YAP_ point whenever someone does something you like and you assign a YAD_ whenever someone does something that you dislike. Also, it should be noted that "you are pleasing to me" is a very creepy and potentially villainous thing to say, so if you are assigning a YAP_ you can also do evil hand gestures to drive your point home.
Hopefully this helps you blog readers in your judgmental exploits, much as it has helped us.
Hoping you didn't assign a YAD_ to this post,
Charlotte, Sarah and Candace
Sunday, 30 December 2012
How to Write a Letter
Dear you, whoever you are,
I love letters. I love their neat and tidy formatting. The way they look laid out on a page of beautiful stationery. The shape of handwriting snaking across the page.
A lot of people love letters. And to talk about letters. They write newspaper columns, TED talks, and radio shows dedicated to the handwritten letter. It's not hard to understand why, of course. People love letters at least partly for the same reason that people love vinyl records and typewriters. They're old-fashioned enough to be cool again. A stylishly retro form of communication. Is there a word for the sensation of feeling nostalgia for a time before you were born? (Unsurprisingly it's an ailment common to history majors).
I don't love typewriters though. I don't have the same attachment to rickety clankety machinery that I do to the far older technology of flimsy pieces of paper. You can't doodle on an e-mail. You can't cover the envelope of a Facebook message with tiny cut-out snowflakes.
Now, I may be old-fashioned and fond of impracticalities (I'm the only person my age I know who writes proper cursive) but even I am not suggesting that anyone resort to letters as a primary form of communication. I'm far too addicted to my electronic forms of communication and I refuse to believe all the depressing talk that the internet is making us into a race of disconnected zombies.
I do, however, see the letter as a good deed. I, like most of humanity, feel the urge to make this seemingly endlessly sad world of ours better. I can go out and donate money and time and fight a dramatic fight against all that's wrong in the world but some days (most days) it all feels too overwhelmingly awful. On those days, I'll settle for little acts of kindness that make the world a little bit better for one person - it's time to bake cookies, smile at strangers and it's time to write a letter. Writing a letter is the choice to focus on communicating with another person for a neat, tidy 30 minutes or so.
I'm overstating it a bit, I know. I'm not really a paragon of Polly-Anna-ish virtue. I don't really write letters as a Good Deed, most of the time. I do it because I like to. But it is a nice thing to do. And I do think the world needs more letters. So. Without further ado, for those who want to write a letter (or perhaps reply to a letter?) but would like a helping hand, here is Charlotte's Completely Unofficial How to Write a Letter (after all, the best way to encourage people to write letters to you is to write a couple yourself. And who wouldn't like a pleasant surprise in among the bills and Walmart flyers?)
1. Before beginning this process you will need to assemble the following: pen (oh, alright, or pencil. But I don't like pencil. It's smudgy.), paper (fanciness of this is up to you. I'm a dangerous woman in a stationery store, myself, but I've also written on loose leaf.), envelope, address of the recipient, and stamp. Optional supplies are almost endless but may include: glue, colourful markers, old magazines, dried flowers, glitter, lip-stick for your hot love letters, I don't know what else I can come up with...
2. Sit down. Take a deep breath. Pull the paper towards you. Write the date in the top right corner. Write Dear Whoever on the left next line down. Go down another line. Write something other than "How are you?"
3. Are you stuck already? It's not that hard, I promise.Just push that "How are you?" out of your brain. It'll make your whole letter stilted, really it will. Try telling the other person about the place you're writing from. Presumably it's different from where they are. Try telling them about a moment recently that made you think of them. You have been thinking of them, right? You're writing this letter to them aren't you? Try telling them something funny or awkward or interesting that happened to you recently. Your life isn't that boring. I have a boring life and I always have something awkward or funny or interesting to write about.
4. So. You've made it past the first sentence. I congratulate you. Now. The rest of the letter. It's easiest if you come up with a bunch of main themes to ramble around. It's sort of like writing the Dread Essay but without having to keep that formal tone and worry about how to avoid first person. In my experience there are two main types of letter (in the letters to friends category, that is. I'm not taking responsibility for your love letters. You've got to figure that out yourself): the News letter and the...hmmm...we'll call it the Rambling letter.
The News Letter is for you if you have an interesting life or at least a life that has changed in important ways since you last talked to the person you're writing to. (See, look at that preposition ending a sentence. That's how casual this letter writing gig is.) You basically just tell them about all the fun times you had moving to Paris, boating up the Amazon, getting married, moving to Alabama, working as an intern for that big magazine. Whatever it is that you interesting people do.
For the rest of us, there's the Rambling Letter. Sample group of ideas to explore: I had a really good salad yesterday, I love tomatoes, my grandma used to have this awesome vegetable garden (memories, blahblahblah), I think that's why I love to garden, thoughts about loving gardens, wouldn't it be nice to go on a gardens of the world tour - we could start at Versailles move on to tulips in Holland...blahblahblah dreams about travelling... Wishing you all the joy of a good salad. Love, Charlotte.
See, you've probably filled a good two pages by now, easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. And all you'd done recently was stuff your face with tasty tomato salad.
5. The other key to a good letter is questions. Not too many. Just enough to rid of you of the sense that you're madly monologging about tomatoes. This is easy in the News version because you can simply ask what the other person has been up to lately. In the Rambling letter, using the tomato salad example, you could ask the other person whether they did anything interesting with their grandparents (ok, potentially a dangerous topic if they've died recently but hopefully you know your friends well enough for this), what memories they have tied to food, what their dream trip would be...
The other note to make about questions is that if you reply to a letter, I don't think you necessarily need to reply to all the questions the other person asked you. They probably don't remember and it tends to lead to stiltedness - they're not interviewing you, it's not that high pressure. In fact, possibly you should read the letter, absorb the general sense of it and then put it aside while you write a reply. That way, you can respond to what was important (because that's what you'll remember) and then add a bit of interest of your own
without the crutch of just following along in the order of the other person's letter. Just a thought.
6. If you're the doodling type, doodle a bit in the margins. I don't why this makes letters better but it does.
7. Sign your name with a flourish.
8. Fold it up nice and neat and put it in your envelope. Carefully write out their address. Stick the stamp on.
9. Now it's time for the glitter if you're so inclined. Decorate the envelope as much or as little as you like. I'm personally fond of obsessive compulsive type repeating patterns in coloured pen or miniature collages.
10. Find a post box. Slip it in with some good wishes and consider a good deed to be done.
11. Wait for a response. It may or may not come. Don't let that discourage you. Just send more letters.
And there you have it. From someone who's been writing letters since her letters had a crayon picture on the front and three sentences written in gel pen on the back.
Happy Writing ( and Happy New Year),
Charlotte
I love letters. I love their neat and tidy formatting. The way they look laid out on a page of beautiful stationery. The shape of handwriting snaking across the page.
A lot of people love letters. And to talk about letters. They write newspaper columns, TED talks, and radio shows dedicated to the handwritten letter. It's not hard to understand why, of course. People love letters at least partly for the same reason that people love vinyl records and typewriters. They're old-fashioned enough to be cool again. A stylishly retro form of communication. Is there a word for the sensation of feeling nostalgia for a time before you were born? (Unsurprisingly it's an ailment common to history majors).
I don't love typewriters though. I don't have the same attachment to rickety clankety machinery that I do to the far older technology of flimsy pieces of paper. You can't doodle on an e-mail. You can't cover the envelope of a Facebook message with tiny cut-out snowflakes.
Now, I may be old-fashioned and fond of impracticalities (I'm the only person my age I know who writes proper cursive) but even I am not suggesting that anyone resort to letters as a primary form of communication. I'm far too addicted to my electronic forms of communication and I refuse to believe all the depressing talk that the internet is making us into a race of disconnected zombies.
I do, however, see the letter as a good deed. I, like most of humanity, feel the urge to make this seemingly endlessly sad world of ours better. I can go out and donate money and time and fight a dramatic fight against all that's wrong in the world but some days (most days) it all feels too overwhelmingly awful. On those days, I'll settle for little acts of kindness that make the world a little bit better for one person - it's time to bake cookies, smile at strangers and it's time to write a letter. Writing a letter is the choice to focus on communicating with another person for a neat, tidy 30 minutes or so.
I'm overstating it a bit, I know. I'm not really a paragon of Polly-Anna-ish virtue. I don't really write letters as a Good Deed, most of the time. I do it because I like to. But it is a nice thing to do. And I do think the world needs more letters. So. Without further ado, for those who want to write a letter (or perhaps reply to a letter?) but would like a helping hand, here is Charlotte's Completely Unofficial How to Write a Letter (after all, the best way to encourage people to write letters to you is to write a couple yourself. And who wouldn't like a pleasant surprise in among the bills and Walmart flyers?)
1. Before beginning this process you will need to assemble the following: pen (oh, alright, or pencil. But I don't like pencil. It's smudgy.), paper (fanciness of this is up to you. I'm a dangerous woman in a stationery store, myself, but I've also written on loose leaf.), envelope, address of the recipient, and stamp. Optional supplies are almost endless but may include: glue, colourful markers, old magazines, dried flowers, glitter, lip-stick for your hot love letters, I don't know what else I can come up with...
2. Sit down. Take a deep breath. Pull the paper towards you. Write the date in the top right corner. Write Dear Whoever on the left next line down. Go down another line. Write something other than "How are you?"
3. Are you stuck already? It's not that hard, I promise.Just push that "How are you?" out of your brain. It'll make your whole letter stilted, really it will. Try telling the other person about the place you're writing from. Presumably it's different from where they are. Try telling them about a moment recently that made you think of them. You have been thinking of them, right? You're writing this letter to them aren't you? Try telling them something funny or awkward or interesting that happened to you recently. Your life isn't that boring. I have a boring life and I always have something awkward or funny or interesting to write about.
4. So. You've made it past the first sentence. I congratulate you. Now. The rest of the letter. It's easiest if you come up with a bunch of main themes to ramble around. It's sort of like writing the Dread Essay but without having to keep that formal tone and worry about how to avoid first person. In my experience there are two main types of letter (in the letters to friends category, that is. I'm not taking responsibility for your love letters. You've got to figure that out yourself): the News letter and the...hmmm...we'll call it the Rambling letter.
The News Letter is for you if you have an interesting life or at least a life that has changed in important ways since you last talked to the person you're writing to. (See, look at that preposition ending a sentence. That's how casual this letter writing gig is.) You basically just tell them about all the fun times you had moving to Paris, boating up the Amazon, getting married, moving to Alabama, working as an intern for that big magazine. Whatever it is that you interesting people do.
For the rest of us, there's the Rambling Letter. Sample group of ideas to explore: I had a really good salad yesterday, I love tomatoes, my grandma used to have this awesome vegetable garden (memories, blahblahblah), I think that's why I love to garden, thoughts about loving gardens, wouldn't it be nice to go on a gardens of the world tour - we could start at Versailles move on to tulips in Holland...blahblahblah dreams about travelling... Wishing you all the joy of a good salad. Love, Charlotte.
See, you've probably filled a good two pages by now, easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. And all you'd done recently was stuff your face with tasty tomato salad.
5. The other key to a good letter is questions. Not too many. Just enough to rid of you of the sense that you're madly monologging about tomatoes. This is easy in the News version because you can simply ask what the other person has been up to lately. In the Rambling letter, using the tomato salad example, you could ask the other person whether they did anything interesting with their grandparents (ok, potentially a dangerous topic if they've died recently but hopefully you know your friends well enough for this), what memories they have tied to food, what their dream trip would be...
The other note to make about questions is that if you reply to a letter, I don't think you necessarily need to reply to all the questions the other person asked you. They probably don't remember and it tends to lead to stiltedness - they're not interviewing you, it's not that high pressure. In fact, possibly you should read the letter, absorb the general sense of it and then put it aside while you write a reply. That way, you can respond to what was important (because that's what you'll remember) and then add a bit of interest of your own
without the crutch of just following along in the order of the other person's letter. Just a thought.
6. If you're the doodling type, doodle a bit in the margins. I don't why this makes letters better but it does.
7. Sign your name with a flourish.
8. Fold it up nice and neat and put it in your envelope. Carefully write out their address. Stick the stamp on.
9. Now it's time for the glitter if you're so inclined. Decorate the envelope as much or as little as you like. I'm personally fond of obsessive compulsive type repeating patterns in coloured pen or miniature collages.
10. Find a post box. Slip it in with some good wishes and consider a good deed to be done.
11. Wait for a response. It may or may not come. Don't let that discourage you. Just send more letters.
And there you have it. From someone who's been writing letters since her letters had a crayon picture on the front and three sentences written in gel pen on the back.
Happy Writing ( and Happy New Year),
Charlotte
Monday, 6 August 2012
Quarantine!
| Noun: |
|
It's true: I can be a bit of a hypochondriac. I'm not a germophobe - when picking up that ancient jellybean from under my dresser, I have no qualms about sticking it in my mouth and eating it. "I've got a young, strong immune system. I'll be fine," I tell myself confidently as my teeth work through the hardened sugar. As soon as I get a nose bleed though, or a headache, or a momentary pain in my lower back, my faith in my body's defenses flies out the window: Leukemia! Brain aneurysm! Kidney stones! I'm dying! It's one of the many reasons I will never be a medical doctor. (Others include perpetually shaky hands, squeamishness, a fondness for regular sleep and a terrible bedside manner.)
Obviously hypochondria can be an actual psychological problem. And obviously it can be a very annoying tendency. But it's also kind of funny. Sure, when you're freaking out at 3 in the morning that the weird twinge in your back is actually spinal cancer, it doesn't seem that funny. But I tend to lack a sense of humour when suffering insomnia (worst discovery of all time: there is a - really ridiculously rare - genetic disorder that causes people to actually die of being unable to sleep. How am I supposed to get to sleep knowing that? ). With a little bit of sleep though...it's funny in the way all our little neuroses are funny if we look at them objectively.
My illness fears were a lot stronger when I was little. I blame it on being an early and precocious reader. A children's history of Toronto that I read in Grade 2 or 3 may have sparked a long-lasting love of history but it also sparked an almost equally long-lasting horror of polio. There was something terribly vivid about the description of the experience of being stuck in an iron lung that caught my paranoid imagination. I started to read the newspaper at about the same age and quickly discovered a whole new host of ailments in the Health section. I was also fond of stories about pioneer girls in which there was always someone dying of typhoid or cholera or blood poisoning. Then I found out about Black Plague.
"It doesn't exist anymore, Charlotte. That was hundreds of years ago."
"But sometimes monkeys still get it. And this one woman in the US got it and died."
I was kind of a strange kid. Clearly, it wasn't just the reading - I was also naturally anxious and simultaneously completely horrified and a little bit fascinated by death. I refused to go past the wolf enclosure at the zoo after I heard my parents saying that one of the wolves had died. I also read obituaries (ok, I read everything. I even read the sports section when I was little.)
While diseases like polio, cholera and the Black Death were pretty remote from my modern life, the media provided several front page stories tailor-made to freak out the young and paranoid. There was West Nile Virus. There was Mad Cow Disease (alright, fine, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) - particularly horrifying to me because of emotional news reports about people who couldn't remember their families. I lived in Toronto when the whole city was panicking about SARS. My Girl Guide camp was cancelled because our leaders were nurses and had to work crazy overtime hours.
At some point between the end-ish of elementary and the beginning-ish of junior high, I mostly got over my biggest fears of illness. Maybe I just learned to take myself less seriously. Maybe I got busy enough that I didn't have to analyze every little ache and pain. I still anxiously check my moles to make sure I'm not getting skin cancer. I still feel a spark of panic when my joints feel odd, when I find a weird splotch on my neck. But it's funny now. Sort of. And I like to think there are certain fringe benefits to paranoia. I may have higher blood pressure from anxiety, but I'm unlikely to let undiagnosed symptoms develop into something terrible. I'm unlikely to let myself get obese or go to the tanning salon or take up smoking. Plus, the stories of weird little fears can be exploited to produce new blog material.
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
A Different Lens on Life?
I know it's supposed to be a good thing to put yourself in someone else's shoes. As in, have some empathy and try to see the world through another person's point of view. But what about putting yourself in your shoes' shoes? Is my tendency to imagine what it would be like to be an inanimate object a sign of insanity? Consumer culture run horribly amok? Or just a very strange kind of empathy?
I read a book when I was little about the life of a doll and all the different girls who played with her over time. (Can google help me once again? Victory! It's called Hitty, Her First Hundred Years. In case you were wondering.) Alright, a doll at least looks like a person. But I like to think about what it would be like to be a phone and listen to everyone's conversations. Or a house and watch people's lives. Or a pair of shoes, feeling all kinds of different ground, new types of dirt and gravel. Would a person's feet feel like completeness or oppression?
Like a lot of people, my most emotional relationships with inanimate objects are with clothes. Wow. That sounded very weird. I don't talk to my clothes. Not anywhere near as much as I yell at my computer. Although sometimes I dance with them while I'm putting laundry away. But I digress. Actually, I think this is mostly a girl thing (although what do I know? I've never been a guy. Possibly there are hoards of men who know the grief I felt when my pink flare pants went to the secondhand store when I outgrew them in Grade 2). Clothes are some kind of weird embodiment of us. If you (like me) live in a climate with a 6 month winter you can recognize your friends 100 meters away by their winter coats. You think carefully about what to wear to a job interview or a first date because your clothes are supposed to say something about who you are. A piece of clothing can embody a phase of your life (school uniform, all black wardrobe, prom dress). I can think of several scenes in books where women stand in front of their closets pondering their clothing as a reflection of an ended relationship. Clothing sits next to your skin. It absorbs your sweat and your soup spills, blots your tears, and cleans your glasses lenses.
Which brings me to what I actually meant to write about (believe it or not, I didn't really intend to wax poetical about the power of clothing). Glasses. Of all the inanimate objects I imagine the lives of, glasses are my favourite. I was thinking about this because as I was unpacking moving boxes last week, I came across the glasses cases that hold all my old pairs of glasses. I am easily sidetracked. I tried on all the old pairs of glasses: the red wire-framed children's glasses from when I first became bespectacled in Grade 6, the black pair with tiny rhinestones half fallen out, the swirl armed burgundy pair that encircled my eyes up until a year ago.
It looks very strange to see yourself in the mirror in your old glasses. It's like temporarily reverting to whatever age you were when you wore those frames. And then you wonder (if you're me) whether you're seeing the world the way you did when you wore those frames. Just through the power of having put them back on. The reason I'm fascinated by imagining the life of my glasses is that my lenses have seen almost everything that I've seen. Those are the glasses that looked at my first time table in junior high. Those are the glasses that first saw the my high school locker. Those are the glasses that read my high school diploma exams. My sister pointed out that my lenses have steadily got larger - I'd like to see that as a metaphor for a broadening outlook on the world. All of this is, of course, ridiculously whimsical and silly. The size of your glasses means nothing. But physical switches between pairs of glasses as the years run by is a nice metaphor for me about the ever-changing lens through which I see the world. (That's one thing you can say for putting your head inside the heads of objects without heads. It gives you piles of metaphors.)
Wondering whether my flip-flops are smiling at me or grimacing,
Charlotte
I read a book when I was little about the life of a doll and all the different girls who played with her over time. (Can google help me once again? Victory! It's called Hitty, Her First Hundred Years. In case you were wondering.) Alright, a doll at least looks like a person. But I like to think about what it would be like to be a phone and listen to everyone's conversations. Or a house and watch people's lives. Or a pair of shoes, feeling all kinds of different ground, new types of dirt and gravel. Would a person's feet feel like completeness or oppression?
Like a lot of people, my most emotional relationships with inanimate objects are with clothes. Wow. That sounded very weird. I don't talk to my clothes. Not anywhere near as much as I yell at my computer. Although sometimes I dance with them while I'm putting laundry away. But I digress. Actually, I think this is mostly a girl thing (although what do I know? I've never been a guy. Possibly there are hoards of men who know the grief I felt when my pink flare pants went to the secondhand store when I outgrew them in Grade 2). Clothes are some kind of weird embodiment of us. If you (like me) live in a climate with a 6 month winter you can recognize your friends 100 meters away by their winter coats. You think carefully about what to wear to a job interview or a first date because your clothes are supposed to say something about who you are. A piece of clothing can embody a phase of your life (school uniform, all black wardrobe, prom dress). I can think of several scenes in books where women stand in front of their closets pondering their clothing as a reflection of an ended relationship. Clothing sits next to your skin. It absorbs your sweat and your soup spills, blots your tears, and cleans your glasses lenses.
Which brings me to what I actually meant to write about (believe it or not, I didn't really intend to wax poetical about the power of clothing). Glasses. Of all the inanimate objects I imagine the lives of, glasses are my favourite. I was thinking about this because as I was unpacking moving boxes last week, I came across the glasses cases that hold all my old pairs of glasses. I am easily sidetracked. I tried on all the old pairs of glasses: the red wire-framed children's glasses from when I first became bespectacled in Grade 6, the black pair with tiny rhinestones half fallen out, the swirl armed burgundy pair that encircled my eyes up until a year ago.
It looks very strange to see yourself in the mirror in your old glasses. It's like temporarily reverting to whatever age you were when you wore those frames. And then you wonder (if you're me) whether you're seeing the world the way you did when you wore those frames. Just through the power of having put them back on. The reason I'm fascinated by imagining the life of my glasses is that my lenses have seen almost everything that I've seen. Those are the glasses that looked at my first time table in junior high. Those are the glasses that first saw the my high school locker. Those are the glasses that read my high school diploma exams. My sister pointed out that my lenses have steadily got larger - I'd like to see that as a metaphor for a broadening outlook on the world. All of this is, of course, ridiculously whimsical and silly. The size of your glasses means nothing. But physical switches between pairs of glasses as the years run by is a nice metaphor for me about the ever-changing lens through which I see the world. (That's one thing you can say for putting your head inside the heads of objects without heads. It gives you piles of metaphors.)
Wondering whether my flip-flops are smiling at me or grimacing,
Charlotte
Thursday, 26 July 2012
The Intimidation Syndrome
I enter the break room, tempted by the promise of my fellow receptionist at the front that there were chocolate bars to be had back here. (that's right folks, this one's gonna be in media res.) Of course, I had hoped they would have been in plain view and I could have subtly snatched one and made my sneaky escape. However, I am greeted by an empty counter top and one veterinarian standing idly waiting for her lunch to finish microwaving. My gut instinct is to turn around and retreat, but this would have been extremely odd and over dramatic given the circumstances. I boldly step forth, trying to remain casual.
Me: So, I hear there's a chocolate bar bonanza going on back here?
small pause
Me: I want in.
Vet: Oh yeah, I think they're in the bottom drawer there.
Me: This one?
Vet: No -
Me: Oh, this one. (grabs a chocolate bar) Aw yea...
exits room
Wow, I actually think that reading that is more painful than having been a part of it. Clearly, the awkward was a-rampaging in this sad happenstance. Why? Why did it have to be this way?
Because of the intimidation factor.
The intimidation factor can make people do one of two things: act overly-formal or act overly-casual. In this case I wanted so desperately to make the vet believe I was like whatever, she doesn't scare me, that I acted abnormal because of my strained casualness. Such is the woe of overthinking and trying to impress people. For some reason acting naturally completely evades you sometimes when it comes to dealing with people who are intimidating - I'm sure everyone can think of a time they said or did something totally stupid because of who they were talking to. Your brain just trips yourself up and once you've said something weird enough or done an awkward enough gesture, there's just no saving it. It's the time you clapped your friend's dad on the shoulder, immediately knew you stepped over the line, and could do nothing to make amends. It's just over.
If I can give you all any advice from my experiences, it's this: ALWAYS go for over-formal. You can do no wrong this way. The worst that can happen is that easygoing people will make fun of you, but at least that breaks the ice and then you can ease out of your overdone politeness. With over-casual, there is no win. The chances that people are going to be easygoing enough to accept that you are for some reason acting like their best friend are very slim. And if you go for over-formal, you are guaranteed to never experience the terrible moment where you jokingly say "shut up" to your friend's mom and forever feel regret and shame. (Yes, it happened to me.)
Me: So, I hear there's a chocolate bar bonanza going on back here?
small pause
Me: I want in.
Vet: Oh yeah, I think they're in the bottom drawer there.
Me: This one?
Vet: No -
Me: Oh, this one. (grabs a chocolate bar) Aw yea...
exits room
Wow, I actually think that reading that is more painful than having been a part of it. Clearly, the awkward was a-rampaging in this sad happenstance. Why? Why did it have to be this way?
Because of the intimidation factor.
The intimidation factor can make people do one of two things: act overly-formal or act overly-casual. In this case I wanted so desperately to make the vet believe I was like whatever, she doesn't scare me, that I acted abnormal because of my strained casualness. Such is the woe of overthinking and trying to impress people. For some reason acting naturally completely evades you sometimes when it comes to dealing with people who are intimidating - I'm sure everyone can think of a time they said or did something totally stupid because of who they were talking to. Your brain just trips yourself up and once you've said something weird enough or done an awkward enough gesture, there's just no saving it. It's the time you clapped your friend's dad on the shoulder, immediately knew you stepped over the line, and could do nothing to make amends. It's just over.
If I can give you all any advice from my experiences, it's this: ALWAYS go for over-formal. You can do no wrong this way. The worst that can happen is that easygoing people will make fun of you, but at least that breaks the ice and then you can ease out of your overdone politeness. With over-casual, there is no win. The chances that people are going to be easygoing enough to accept that you are for some reason acting like their best friend are very slim. And if you go for over-formal, you are guaranteed to never experience the terrible moment where you jokingly say "shut up" to your friend's mom and forever feel regret and shame. (Yes, it happened to me.)
Hoping there was more smile than grimace in this post,
Sarah
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