Paranoia Saves Lives

How we love to travel. Our generation (among others) totally gets off on culture and genuine life experience. It must be one of the biggest reasons to feel good about yourself ("Yeah, it feels good to really appreciate how lucky we are") or to attract people ("Yeah, I can totally understand how lucky we are. Damnit, the injustice makes me so upset. Hold me?")
The general consensus is that traveling makes you a well-rounded person... wiser, more responsible, and compassionate and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember right now. The whole process of it; affording it, planning, dealing with difficult situations, dealing with totally moronic people (this would be the person you're traveling with) and submerging yourself into a world completely unknown to you are ambitious and challenging.
I'm not even sure how I can adequately describe the whole process and the ways it affects or how it affects a person. Yet with daily and weekly newspapers, entire magazines, books and television shows are dedicated to travel; it would be insane to deny the phenomenon.

But why?
Fact: exploring lesser known parts of the world has a high correlation with turning a person into one of those douche-y, self-righteous, organic-buying, save the lemurs supporting hippies who won’t shut-up. Having stated that, there are some who come back as indisputably extraordinary people.
Sub-fact: I like saving the lemurs and organic fruit tastes better - but that is it!

Fact: traveling spreads disease. Every potential pandemic we encounter occurs because some jerk decides to go traveling. Maybe I'm insane, but my greatest fear in 1999 was being hit with the Ebola virus and it's still something I think about regularly. Out of SARS, AIDS, avian flu, H5N1 and the "super bug"; I imagine it to be the worst one. Additionally, if you've ever been diagnosed with some crazy foreign bug it'll make you cautious about future destinations. In my case, I had to spend two days in a hospital because of some lame-ass Costa Rican parasite I got from river rafting. I went to the hospital once I came home and while I was writhing in pain, I turned my bedside TV to the Discovery Channel. I forget which show it was but it just so happened to be doing a segment on a relatively new disease originating in Costa Rica that had killed 2 Canadians already. That SUCKED! To add insult to injury, the protocol for diagnosing intestinal pain is ridiculously invasive.

Fact: constantly being mistaken for an American is exhausting. Even when you prove you're Canadian, others will be like "OK, but that's still pretty much the same, no?" I usually respond with "Obesity rates, yes; politics, no."

Fact: exchange rates that don't work in our favor make traveling a difficult feat. Plus, shouldn't we be spending locally at the moment? Our dollar is tanking. What does this mean? Should we be shunning travelers until our economy picks up again? Who actually understands what's going on anyway? I'd like to know more than if I should be 'worried' or 'confident'... CBC's "bottom line" needs to be more idiot proof for people like me.

Fact: sharks and dinner-plate-sized spiders live outside of Canada.

Fact: increased incidence of natural disasters. On the brighter side, if you’re vacationing in the states sometime after Obama’s inauguration you’ll be less likely to die from delayed aid.

Fact: Greyhound busses…

... Ex-Maoist insurgents in Nepal, constantly collapsing infrastructure in Haiti, violence against women and children in South Africa, no peace in the Middle East, deadly heat waves in New York, shadow-casting mosquitoes in Sierra Nevada, and floods in the Midwest... Aaaaahhhhh!

No, I’m just jealous that I can't get the hell out of Vancouver. November sucks.

Cringe Worthy Facebookers

After so many years of facebooking, I think I've become familiar enough with the unwritten etiquette associated with the site and thought I'd share my thoughts on bad FB moves...


1) Profile pictures:
a) The "I can see you holding the camera, you douche" syndrome. I'm not saying it makes them a bad person as everyone has taken a picture of his/herself in the mirror at least once. It's only when someone has clearly hit their head against the vanity wall so many times s/he neglects to work the camera out of the shot. Then s/he just might be a total douche.

b) Chronic profile picture changers. You know who you are.

2) Basic and personal information:
a) "Looking for: dating, a relationship, whatever I can get." People who fill out their personal information like they're applying for a dating service have got to be kidding themselves. It's more terrifying than anything.
a.i.) In case anyone was still wondering, "single" makes you seem desperate.

b) Angst-y or existential anything. (Maybe this makes me a slight hypocrite... only slight.)

c) Song lyrics. Sometimes you wonder how it occurred to an individual that only Miley Cyrus could eloquently express their ego.

3) Status updates:
a) The "..." or "is."

b) Inappropriate information. Sometimes it's just TMI, TMI my friend.

c) To the second updates. iPhones are great, use them responsibly by not letting us know your "sleepy" "can't be bothered to pay attention in class anymore" "wants to marry coffee" " regretted drinking coffee"

d) Song lyrics. Yes, they seem to be everywhere.

5) Wall posts
a) Spam, obviously.

b) Including your name at the end like it's an email. I knoooow who it's from it says right there! (there are some exceptions to this)

c) More than 4 consecutive posts from the same person. You're making me look like a loser. Go away for a bit!

d)Wall posts so long they should have been messages.


6) Friends:
a) 500+ friends means the person has either got nasty OCD or an explosive STD.

7) Photos:
a) Tagging limbs. I'm glad this trend has tapered off but it's still very much alive. It used to be a bit funny back in '07, but since then we've all been accumulating photos and cannot be bothered to have more than 10 arm or leg pics.

b) 500+ pictures. Sometimes, other peoples' photo collections can be a great procrastination tool but if there are more than 500 you know they're just going to be a lot of stupid junk... like 30 photos of a new haircut.

8)Applications:
a) I will make a zombie out of the next person to send me a zombie invite.

b) People who beat my tetris score.

9)Events:
a) Getting messages from events is NOT cool. It would be but event coordinators have taken to sending messages that let us know the event will still be happening... which was sort of assumed in the first place. Plus, getting a facebook message from anyone other than a best friend or someone you intend to bone is totally lame.

b) Invites that are more than 3 weeks in advance. I'm not saying I'm cool... but I'll have to put you down for a "maybe."

10) Notes:
a) Ones that bitch about stuff, I guess. They're not always fun to read and can reek of self-destructive predisposition. In my defense, this one was maybe a little fun to read and I promise all of you I'll start studying at 10am.

Cisca the Creep-o

There are many forms of facebook procrastination. Most characterize themselves as extensive wastes of time producing no real sense of accomplishment. These are often reduced reading the facebook newsfeed once, twice, three times over... or, ferociously clicking entirely though someone else’s photo album. Yes, manya time this will be the form; perhaps even so much that we forget the other, more disturbing types.

Well, I let it go too far (again.) In an attempt to avoid biomechanics homework, I searched for something to do on iTunes. On the left-hand side I noticed the 'Shared' menu had picked up 'Todd Packer's* Limewire Music Folder.' Intrigued, I decided to take a gander at what music ol' Todd Packer* was into. Not even a moment after the list reviled itself to me, did it dawn that I could facebook search this guy!

So I did.

Todd Packer* is a Capilano student, in a relationship with Mini Mouse* and a Christian. He has a bizzare, almost sick sense of humor... and a really bad profile picture. Even though we have one mutual friend, I doubt I will ever meet him.

Another fun-fact is how gross he is about his relationship with Mini*... last status update: "Todd* is thinking about how much he misses Mini*."
Meanwhile, Todd's* girlfriend isn't much better... last post on Todd's* wall: ".. i think i may say what i have been thinking of saying for the past 100 moments in time..
i miss you."

Gag.

Given the decadence of Todd's* public (internet?) display of affection, religious views and bizzare sense of humor; it didn't surprise me to learn that he is also a former resident of Abbotsford.

Given everything I've just mentioned. I'm sure Todd* is a gentleman and a scholar, one who could easily beat me at a game of chess. However, the convenience of facebook makes prejudice a difficult thing to avoid. Lest the lessons of this note be:
a) you (probably) cannot judge a person by their profile.
b) limited profiles are good
c) writing a note is a GREAT way to procrastinate.

*Names have been changed

Ka Boom

It's not the water heater. A week of complaining and quasi-threats to leave the country if they didn't fix my water heater, have blown up in my face.

As it turns out, we never actually had a full tank of gas to begin with. The little gas we managed to suck for our tea and lukewarm showers was the dirty inch of the barrel.
When we thought we had magically been given a full tank of gas because a mysterious bill for 1,573 pesos arrived at our door; we were so wrong. We didn't realize we might be getting an electricity bill, as well.

Of course, any story like this has a kicker...
We ran out of gas on Friday and understood we would not receive more until the end of the weekend because of the Independence Day celebrations. However, as timing is everything, some smart 'shady leftist guerilla group' decided to destroy 6 separate pipelines at 2am Monday morning. All of these lines had once before fed us sweet, sweet natural gas. The Veracruz government, from where the attacks took place, swore they had the necessary security measures taken during that fateful morning. When I heard this, I tried very hard to suppress my anger driven and very temporary racism.

At times when it gets to be a bit cold or I could really go for some more tea, I like to thank the 2 men whom I live with for cooking their beans for multiple hours at a time. I also like to think about the prolonged hot showers they like to take... And then I kick myself while I'm down by remembering how the damn Dane won't ever do his dishes.

No one knows when we'll have the pipes restored to obtain our lovely gas again. I'm guessing a week. Of course, when I mentioned this, the Dane laughed and said 'you're forgetting that you're in Mexico' which I promptly replied with an “oh, yeah... fuck”

Minus the negative and rather depressing experience this has been; I like to think that this somehow gets me one step closer to becoming a Zapatista. Even if they are not the actual group behind this; if by taking a cold shower I am somehow supporting a liberation front of some autonomous Mexican municipality, I am so down.

Bug in the Bathroom.

Five days ago, upon wanting to use the washroom I was confronted by a most disgusting creature. Horrified, I trapped the bugger underneath a bowl and decided to deal with it later.
Now it has been five days and still nothing has been done. No one has even mentioned the seemingly misplaced bowl.
I think I will let it stay there or let one of a few things happen:
1) let it die (if it ever does)
2) suck it up and scoot it out of the house
3) get the Australian guy deal with it (Australians like creepycrawlies, no?)
4) make it my very own Mexican pet