I am thriving in this setting. I feel like I am doing things that matter. I know I am learning significant things. Taking trips to the Library, up and down the isles, looking for books. Searching through Indexes and Footnotes, I can not help but appreciate the quality of learning I am getting. Not required but definitly needed to continue on here. It is the type of learning I need to have before I take any steps further. The idea that I will not be able to present anything to the class by the end of the symester, is an idea I am not very pleased by, but from the looks of it, we would not have much to present.
I guess I will just need to sit back and take it all in. Learning Reflections are on the horizon. Christmas Ho!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Taking the Time
Ok, so I suppose I have been thinking quite hard about Aquinas in a whole. The philosophy, the system of intrigue it seems to have, and rather than dive into what happened in class between the professors and I, or expressing my opinions on how I effected others, I will simply just tell a story.
It was the first day of grade 11, and the two English teachers at the time, Miss Blanchette, and Miss Watson, were a pair of old hippies who obviously had a nack for pointing out how bad every one of their students were at English. Grade 11 was the grade everyone was afraid of going into, basically for the reason that they would be taking English with one of these two. They were a scary pair of woman with their moth filled clothing, and ugly hair.
The first english class was with both of them standing at the front of the classroom with a stack of paper as high as the desk, almost literally. They were exams. They were 100 question, 8 page, peices of hell, with simply one sentance as each question, which u would need to pick out what was wrong (or not wrong) and write it on the side. I literally almost shit myself looking at it, and trying to go through it knowing I would surely fail.
And I did....with flying colors.
15 out of 100 was my final score on the test, and when I looked at it, I hung my head low, put my head on the desk, and nearly cried. I was also not the only one. 85 percent of the class failed that exam. The teachers simply gave it to us, and let us leave the class for the day. As I left the room, I could feel this overwhelming sense of doom. I did not feel like learning where I made my mistakes, I did not feel like correcting anything, I did not feel like learning more about punctuation or spelling or anything to improve if I were ever presented with a similar situation. I did not want to learn. Simply because I felt like I was already a fool.
It was the first day of grade 11, and the two English teachers at the time, Miss Blanchette, and Miss Watson, were a pair of old hippies who obviously had a nack for pointing out how bad every one of their students were at English. Grade 11 was the grade everyone was afraid of going into, basically for the reason that they would be taking English with one of these two. They were a scary pair of woman with their moth filled clothing, and ugly hair.
The first english class was with both of them standing at the front of the classroom with a stack of paper as high as the desk, almost literally. They were exams. They were 100 question, 8 page, peices of hell, with simply one sentance as each question, which u would need to pick out what was wrong (or not wrong) and write it on the side. I literally almost shit myself looking at it, and trying to go through it knowing I would surely fail.
And I did....with flying colors.
15 out of 100 was my final score on the test, and when I looked at it, I hung my head low, put my head on the desk, and nearly cried. I was also not the only one. 85 percent of the class failed that exam. The teachers simply gave it to us, and let us leave the class for the day. As I left the room, I could feel this overwhelming sense of doom. I did not feel like learning where I made my mistakes, I did not feel like correcting anything, I did not feel like learning more about punctuation or spelling or anything to improve if I were ever presented with a similar situation. I did not want to learn. Simply because I felt like I was already a fool.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
so uh...pirates?
Sinse my last journal I have learned that pirates use eye patches to keep one eye focused in the dark when they decent into the lower decks to slay enemy cannon crews, while the other eye is focused to the light. I have also learned that pirates kept parrots as pets because it was the closest thing to a personal lasting relationship with another living thing than they could get.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Faithbook
Aside from my learning within my own life, school has been quite insightful, and I will share both sides of things in my post.
School
Debating can be fun, and learning journals, and crazy pink shirted lecturers who write books. It's about those moments when learning is not just remembering, but growing. I feel as though I have been going through some changes in the way I think of learning. I feel like as I sit in class with my fellow students and take in things I couldn't imagine me getting anything out of years ago. For one, I have learned that popularity can often be a bad thing, but popular people often know they are bringing attention to themselves, which often turns negative. Paparazzi are bastards. However, did they hire their own paparazzi to watch themselves? The man with the many haircuts, and parez hilton, just seem to be people who want attention and fame like the people they watch and follow. It is an odd cycle.
Turning points proved to be a fruitful experience. However, it seems that most of the turning points for the people in our class, were traumatic and often quite sad stories. Maybe there is music in the misery? Connection through tragedy.
On the socail front
I have noticed an improvement in my socail life. I care a little less and with that I am able to move past my insecuries and speak my mind. Besides a few harsh exceptions, I am making friends, and working towards a pretty decent future.
I find however, that my faith is something I have learned to be more interested in lately. Some woman in my life have been challanging me with ideas I havent thought about for some time, and it is with that, I have personally become curious once again. Can my faith be salvaged? Is there hope for every fallen man? Is it ok to care?
Short and pretty unsatisfactory entry for me today, but it has to be done.
JB out
School
Debating can be fun, and learning journals, and crazy pink shirted lecturers who write books. It's about those moments when learning is not just remembering, but growing. I feel as though I have been going through some changes in the way I think of learning. I feel like as I sit in class with my fellow students and take in things I couldn't imagine me getting anything out of years ago. For one, I have learned that popularity can often be a bad thing, but popular people often know they are bringing attention to themselves, which often turns negative. Paparazzi are bastards. However, did they hire their own paparazzi to watch themselves? The man with the many haircuts, and parez hilton, just seem to be people who want attention and fame like the people they watch and follow. It is an odd cycle.
Turning points proved to be a fruitful experience. However, it seems that most of the turning points for the people in our class, were traumatic and often quite sad stories. Maybe there is music in the misery? Connection through tragedy.
On the socail front
I have noticed an improvement in my socail life. I care a little less and with that I am able to move past my insecuries and speak my mind. Besides a few harsh exceptions, I am making friends, and working towards a pretty decent future.
I find however, that my faith is something I have learned to be more interested in lately. Some woman in my life have been challanging me with ideas I havent thought about for some time, and it is with that, I have personally become curious once again. Can my faith be salvaged? Is there hope for every fallen man? Is it ok to care?
Short and pretty unsatisfactory entry for me today, but it has to be done.
JB out
Friday, October 16, 2009
It's ok Aaron, I am ready to speak for myself.
For years and years I always thought that the only way I could ever get my points and beliefs accross was to speak through words on a page. Through blogs, journals, short stories, a book. However, it has been a month or so, and today I felt like Moses finally being able to speak for himself. I know that might be extreme, because I am no man compared to Moses, but I felt as if I finally used my voice to get my own point accross. I spoke out and took my opinions and beliefs and shared them, even debated them, with others in my class. I questioned not only the opinions of others, but my own aswell. Going into that debate I felt like if valid points and explanations were given to me, I would take them and mold a new point of view on them. This was however unnessisary.
This new way of going about things, has me very excited.
It reminded me a lot of the excitment I feel when I become addicted to a new music album. Like everytime I listen to it, I am going to take something new from it, and learn and grow with it in the moment.
Turning Point
When I was quite young. I was living with my mother and my sister Kelly. I wouldnt have been more than 12 years old, staying with them in a small community in Northern Ontario. My mother was your stereotypical hick. She had a long curley black mullet, a missing front tooth (which is a seperate story alltogether), and she wore plad all day every day. My mother was a hunter of all sorts of animals, from beaver and muskrat, all the way up to full grown moose. It was a day like no other for me, and I had no idea what effect it would have on me and my family from that day onward.
She decided she was going to take me out to hunt deer that day. It was springtime, and all the snow and ice was melting away, which was apparently a good time for her to haul out the 4 wheeler and park it a ways into the forrest. We came accross some tracks, and began to follow them on foot until we came accross a clearing. Low and behold there stood a deer, which was from what i remember quite small from other deers I had seen at that age. She aimed at it, and took the shot, and it ran off into the wood. We ran over to where it was, and there was blood in the snow. She had shot the deer in the neck, and it had ran into the forrest to get away from us. We followed the track because it was only a matter of time before it bled out. We followed it all the way to Larney Lake. This lake was not very large, and the ice was melting in such a way that it now only had ice in the middle of the lake, and water was exposed around the edges. The deer had crawled into the lake, and split up some of the ice, and drowned itself.
My mother took one sharp look at the scene, and ran away into the woods leaving me alone on the shore. She returned about 20 minutes later on the 4 wheeler, and immediatly jumped off and ran around to the back of it. She poped open a container she kept strapped, and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels wiskey. She screwed the top off it, and began to chug half the quart. At this point, I was unaware what was happening, and beginning to panic quite a bit. However what would happen next was when my life became unnessisarily real. My mother began to strip her clothes off, in the middle of the woods in the spring, and when she was naked, she ran into the lake and started to swim out to where the deer had drowned itself. I was concerned for her, and I can remember the scene quite vividly. She tried to drag the deer out of the lake as a whole, but it was much too heavy for her to do on her own. I imagine asking me to help was more than she was willing to ask for, and so she ran back to the 4 wheeler and grabbed the machete from its belt. She took a douzen swings at the middle of the deer, and when it was cut in half, and she had a considerable amount of blood on her shaking body, she hoisted the pieces onto the back of her 4 wheeler, put her clothes back on, sat me on the deer, and drove home.
She spent 3 weeks in the hospital, and I am sure she got her moneys worth from the deer itself. Her reasoning was that if she drank the wiskey it would keep her body warm long enough to extract the body from the lake. She was after all an expert swimmer in high school, so why not right? Needless to say our family was not the same, and I have quite a humorous look at the whole story. It was a turning point for me in a way that I had to experience something so extreme and real, but also because devorce, odd looks from relatives, and answering questions as a 12 year old, were large parts of my life that followed this one event on this one day.
I hope I didnt freak anyone out with the story.
Oh btw I dont have a partner for my journalism interview, so I am writing this here because I have to interview someone, but will not be interviewed myself.
So far anyways.
:D
Justin
This new way of going about things, has me very excited.
It reminded me a lot of the excitment I feel when I become addicted to a new music album. Like everytime I listen to it, I am going to take something new from it, and learn and grow with it in the moment.
Turning Point
When I was quite young. I was living with my mother and my sister Kelly. I wouldnt have been more than 12 years old, staying with them in a small community in Northern Ontario. My mother was your stereotypical hick. She had a long curley black mullet, a missing front tooth (which is a seperate story alltogether), and she wore plad all day every day. My mother was a hunter of all sorts of animals, from beaver and muskrat, all the way up to full grown moose. It was a day like no other for me, and I had no idea what effect it would have on me and my family from that day onward.
She decided she was going to take me out to hunt deer that day. It was springtime, and all the snow and ice was melting away, which was apparently a good time for her to haul out the 4 wheeler and park it a ways into the forrest. We came accross some tracks, and began to follow them on foot until we came accross a clearing. Low and behold there stood a deer, which was from what i remember quite small from other deers I had seen at that age. She aimed at it, and took the shot, and it ran off into the wood. We ran over to where it was, and there was blood in the snow. She had shot the deer in the neck, and it had ran into the forrest to get away from us. We followed the track because it was only a matter of time before it bled out. We followed it all the way to Larney Lake. This lake was not very large, and the ice was melting in such a way that it now only had ice in the middle of the lake, and water was exposed around the edges. The deer had crawled into the lake, and split up some of the ice, and drowned itself.
My mother took one sharp look at the scene, and ran away into the woods leaving me alone on the shore. She returned about 20 minutes later on the 4 wheeler, and immediatly jumped off and ran around to the back of it. She poped open a container she kept strapped, and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels wiskey. She screwed the top off it, and began to chug half the quart. At this point, I was unaware what was happening, and beginning to panic quite a bit. However what would happen next was when my life became unnessisarily real. My mother began to strip her clothes off, in the middle of the woods in the spring, and when she was naked, she ran into the lake and started to swim out to where the deer had drowned itself. I was concerned for her, and I can remember the scene quite vividly. She tried to drag the deer out of the lake as a whole, but it was much too heavy for her to do on her own. I imagine asking me to help was more than she was willing to ask for, and so she ran back to the 4 wheeler and grabbed the machete from its belt. She took a douzen swings at the middle of the deer, and when it was cut in half, and she had a considerable amount of blood on her shaking body, she hoisted the pieces onto the back of her 4 wheeler, put her clothes back on, sat me on the deer, and drove home.
She spent 3 weeks in the hospital, and I am sure she got her moneys worth from the deer itself. Her reasoning was that if she drank the wiskey it would keep her body warm long enough to extract the body from the lake. She was after all an expert swimmer in high school, so why not right? Needless to say our family was not the same, and I have quite a humorous look at the whole story. It was a turning point for me in a way that I had to experience something so extreme and real, but also because devorce, odd looks from relatives, and answering questions as a 12 year old, were large parts of my life that followed this one event on this one day.
I hope I didnt freak anyone out with the story.
Oh btw I dont have a partner for my journalism interview, so I am writing this here because I have to interview someone, but will not be interviewed myself.
So far anyways.
:D
Justin
Friday, October 9, 2009
(insert clever title here)
Journal or Diary, that is the question
Is this a learning Journal, or Learning Diary. That is what I want to know. Is there a difference? Does journal mean it is written for a man, as to a Diary written by a woman? If so, why do the teachers use the word journal over diary, because the majority of the students in our class are female? Something I am curious about, and would like to learn for my next "journal" entry.
So this week so far has been a bit here and there. The focus of our class time, and out of class time, seems to be focused around the play Doubt. The teachers seem to enjoy it because the play itself bridges the gap between Religious Studies, and English for aquinas. But where is all the Journalism love? It seems to be that Religious Studies and English get to have all the fun together while Journalism does its own funky thang(Props to M Camp, for creating an intriguing class).
Not to single out the teachers here, they have the authority to do what they like, and this Blog is used for learning purposes, but I am curious to know just how much planning is done behind the scenes with all of our teachers together. Just how much do these guys know each other? How long have they been around? If I wanted to sit down and have coffee and discuss Monty Python movies, would they accept? In the case of Thom Parkhill, I am almost certain he would say yes, and because this is a learning journal, I will explain to you why I have learned that this may be true.
I was constructing a paper for my psychology class, which I was going to attend the day after, and I was becoming flustered, our class for aquinas was out to lunch, and Thom was the last one to pack up his things to leave, and I was baginning to watch my favorite sitcom The Big Bang Theory, on my laptop. He immediatly asked me what I was doing, and when told him, he expressed interest, without being too intrusive. We exchanged pleasentries, and he exited the class.
I have a friend, no a Best Friend, by the name of Ryan Jess. This man is a teacher, in a school on the northern part of New Brunswick. I have known Ryan many years, and he loves what he does. Ryan often expresses to me how he knows the gap between him and his students. They are mearily high school students, so having any kind of relationship with them outside the classroom is frowned apon, but does this mean it would be wrong? Ryan knows that in society, much like society in the play Doubt, that relationships between people in authority and their pupils, can be a tricky thing.
To me, as a man, I know I could get to know Thom Parkhill and he could most likely become my good friend. He is quite alot older than me, and I am his student, but society would most likely never think twice about it. Myself, a lot like my friend Ryan, have sat and conversed about why there are so many boundries.
Can a boy, not be curious about what it is to be a man. Is it wrong for a boy to ask questions? To seek knowledge, much like a man seeks it from an elderly. In my mind, I have difficulties with doubt. A man may want to harm a boy, because he seeks bad things. But another man, may seek to help a boy, in order to be a mentor to that boy. Bad men are everywhere, and they appear in many places, so how does a man help a boy without suffering judgement from others.
My mind races at 4:40 in the morning. I am sick, I am sore, and I find myself conflicted by this play in ways I never thought I would. I hope my views do not offend. I also hope I can sleep tonight.
I guess this is what university is all about.
Is this a learning Journal, or Learning Diary. That is what I want to know. Is there a difference? Does journal mean it is written for a man, as to a Diary written by a woman? If so, why do the teachers use the word journal over diary, because the majority of the students in our class are female? Something I am curious about, and would like to learn for my next "journal" entry.
So this week so far has been a bit here and there. The focus of our class time, and out of class time, seems to be focused around the play Doubt. The teachers seem to enjoy it because the play itself bridges the gap between Religious Studies, and English for aquinas. But where is all the Journalism love? It seems to be that Religious Studies and English get to have all the fun together while Journalism does its own funky thang(Props to M Camp, for creating an intriguing class).
Not to single out the teachers here, they have the authority to do what they like, and this Blog is used for learning purposes, but I am curious to know just how much planning is done behind the scenes with all of our teachers together. Just how much do these guys know each other? How long have they been around? If I wanted to sit down and have coffee and discuss Monty Python movies, would they accept? In the case of Thom Parkhill, I am almost certain he would say yes, and because this is a learning journal, I will explain to you why I have learned that this may be true.
I was constructing a paper for my psychology class, which I was going to attend the day after, and I was becoming flustered, our class for aquinas was out to lunch, and Thom was the last one to pack up his things to leave, and I was baginning to watch my favorite sitcom The Big Bang Theory, on my laptop. He immediatly asked me what I was doing, and when told him, he expressed interest, without being too intrusive. We exchanged pleasentries, and he exited the class.
I have a friend, no a Best Friend, by the name of Ryan Jess. This man is a teacher, in a school on the northern part of New Brunswick. I have known Ryan many years, and he loves what he does. Ryan often expresses to me how he knows the gap between him and his students. They are mearily high school students, so having any kind of relationship with them outside the classroom is frowned apon, but does this mean it would be wrong? Ryan knows that in society, much like society in the play Doubt, that relationships between people in authority and their pupils, can be a tricky thing.
To me, as a man, I know I could get to know Thom Parkhill and he could most likely become my good friend. He is quite alot older than me, and I am his student, but society would most likely never think twice about it. Myself, a lot like my friend Ryan, have sat and conversed about why there are so many boundries.
Can a boy, not be curious about what it is to be a man. Is it wrong for a boy to ask questions? To seek knowledge, much like a man seeks it from an elderly. In my mind, I have difficulties with doubt. A man may want to harm a boy, because he seeks bad things. But another man, may seek to help a boy, in order to be a mentor to that boy. Bad men are everywhere, and they appear in many places, so how does a man help a boy without suffering judgement from others.
My mind races at 4:40 in the morning. I am sick, I am sore, and I find myself conflicted by this play in ways I never thought I would. I hope my views do not offend. I also hope I can sleep tonight.
I guess this is what university is all about.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
To be Frank
I was walking down the street sometime last week, and I was thinking. There was not anything particularly specail about the thoughts, but it was constant, and it was different to me. Everything seems to be different as of late. I sit in class, and talk about things like genocide, and how horrible it was, and how people are out there going through horrible things like this even today. This uncontrollable thought, is bringing up things from the past I have left unresolved. It is shedding a new light on past relationships I have had, people I have offended, places I have visited. My mind is expanding with knowledge as a pose to ego, and I dont want it to stop.
I was walking down the street sometime last week to go to work. I have to leave my house about an hour early, if I want to make it there 15 minutes early. I was braught up to be a punctual person, and I have never challanged that my parents were right to teach me to be punctual. I have believed that I should show up early, prep myself to be ready to work hard, and then begin my day. I respected my parents when they taught me this, I never questioned it either. It may be a small idea to live by, but even if it was a big idea, I would most likely never question it. It would be natural to me.
I was walking down the street sometime last week, and I felt like part of a community. Walking to meet people on the campus I was now attending university on, for a trip to the Fredericton Playhouse for a production of the play Doubt. I was dressed formally, and feeling like I was part of something good. While watching the play, I noticed that my mood are gradually becoming more positive, and work seems less of a problem, and more of an enjoyable activity. Not to brag, but I am definitly learning more in University than I ever did in college.
I was walking down the street sometime last week to go to work. I have to leave my house about an hour early, if I want to make it there 15 minutes early. I was braught up to be a punctual person, and I have never challanged that my parents were right to teach me to be punctual. I have believed that I should show up early, prep myself to be ready to work hard, and then begin my day. I respected my parents when they taught me this, I never questioned it either. It may be a small idea to live by, but even if it was a big idea, I would most likely never question it. It would be natural to me.
I was walking down the street sometime last week, and I felt like part of a community. Walking to meet people on the campus I was now attending university on, for a trip to the Fredericton Playhouse for a production of the play Doubt. I was dressed formally, and feeling like I was part of something good. While watching the play, I noticed that my mood are gradually becoming more positive, and work seems less of a problem, and more of an enjoyable activity. Not to brag, but I am definitly learning more in University than I ever did in college.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Truth at 3:16 am
I am now coming to the realization that University is what I had always dreamed it would be. As I worked away at my full time jobs, I pictured myself at a desk in my home, chugging coffee, and staying up until the early morning hours. Doing homework, sharpening pencils, and cramming knowledge into the empty space that is my brain.
Tonight I made that dream a reality...and quite a harsh one.
From the looks of things, I will need to get use to this way of life, and I am ready to see it through. Tomorrow I will be passing in my assignment, and when I do I will be asking myself the same question I always do sinse I started aquinas. Did I do this correctly?
It seems I have been in University for weeks now, and not one of my professors has gone over the correct format to write a paper in. I can write until I am blue in the face, but when it comes to layout, I find myself trying to remember Miss Watsons Grade 12 english literature class from 6 years ago. I know these are small issues, and they will eventually be addressed, but they become much more apparent to me when I am awake at 3 30, and have to be up again at 9 to walk to campus.
Oh what A Life I live.
Happy reading
JBro
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