Firstly... they need a mood icon for restless. Some sort of pacing animal would be appropriate. Cuz seriously thats what I feel like, been feeling it for a couple days now. Like there is some feral creature in me pacing in a cage that is too small, its shoulders hunched, ears flattened, pacing, pacing... waiting.

Waiting for what? I dont know.

Im restless, winds of change have touched me and I have a need that isnt met, an itch that I cannot scratch and a mind that is boiling over with restlessnes.

I need something... a walk, to run till my breath burns and my legs feel like jello, to paint, to draw, to swim, to meditate, to go find a punching bag and wail on it, to talk, to sleep, to be alone, to be with friends... maybe all those things or none of them.

Oh poor little heart why do you swell with such desire, such burning for some untasted fruit I have not discovered, or perhaps have forgotten the taste of.

Last night I could hardly sleep for the longest time.

But why the irritation, the frustration the emptyness with things...
Is the frustration sexual, spiritual, mental, physical... *sigh* could be any of those or none of them or all of them

how poorly can one know themself than to not know what one wants/needs when their mind and body scream for something like a starving infant. Give give give... but what?

Grr, perhaps writing will help to fill the hole, that is what it is really a hole. And I, a vessel, am empty; asking to be filled, enlightened... comforted.

Perhaps it is just my own anxieties of late that are making me feel this way. So many things I worry, and so many things I want and cannot seem to achieve.

Grr, i need to get out and do something.

Bah!

I was sitting there on the cool damp rocks watching the sun set on an almost glassy lake and knowing it would be the third thanksgiving which he would not be joining me for.

Work. It was always work.

I had hoped so hard, thought about all the wonderful things I would make, show off my excellent cooking skills. The pumpkin and apple pies, the squash, the cranberry sauce... all will still be made but with a lacking joy, a bitterness knowing that once again he will not be there to savour them, and once again I will be alone.

It felt like the air was pushing against my chest. Im not sure if there is a term yet for it, for that feeling when you cannot cry but inside you are crying. When your mind is a hysterical maniac beating against your skull screaming profanities, threatening to harm itself and crying out injustice; all the while the outside is a stoney face of neutrality. A rock, cold and unfeeling in its demeanor, unable to change, to produce those tears, to shiver and quake in heaving sobs.

And I thought of Icarus, that myth that is supposed to be one of pride... and I realised it is not about pride. Well perhaps it is, but it is about something else as well.

The story of Icarus is the story of dissapointment. The very personification of it in fact.

Like most, Icarus starts out with hope, that hope we feel at potential. Unchallenged, unfettered we rise and soar on our new wings of possability. Soaring through the skies of dreams, hopes and desires. That sun, our goal, we soar towards it... only to be burnt by reality. The facts grasp and tear at our feathers, stripping our wings of their glory.
Hope cannot hold. And down we plummet into the sea of despair (the usual outcome of all dissapointments). It is that plummet which is the dissapointment, that downward spiral into ourself. That pressure and weight upon ourself which tries to choke us with the lonely absense of potential.

In the old story Icarus drowns. Sometimes that ending is true; other times however, Icarus is strong and swims out, and upon reaching the shore he rises up upon new wings enlightened.

Perhaps though even the death is not the end. Neil Gaiman's Sandman series seemed to express better than anything that to change is to survive. And sometimes, if we cannot change, a part of the old self must die in order for a new enlightened one to be born.

From despair Icarus rises again towards the sun and sometimes, just sometimes, he grasps it.

Today I, Icarus, did not reach the sun. I was hurtled into the cold waters of the very lake I was sitting near. But tomorrow perhaps I shall rise up on new wings of potential and maybe I shall even grasp the sun.

I shall still be lonely on thanksgiving, Caitlin will have her Michal, and I... I shall have a puzzle, and a book...

Its nothing new.

But maybe there will be a day soon where I shall have my Love to myself with no work, or technology or other people to get in the way, and when that day comes I will have grabbed the sun, and danced with it.


Ok this was way more dramatic than I wanted it to be. An interesting interpretation of the allegory perhaps but too heavy on the melodrama.
I blame it on the PMS, PMS makes life suck in general.
So does having a sore ankle.

Now maybe less whining and more sleep.

Yes. Sleep is good.

The End.

*potential spoilers to the movie 9 contained within*

So I saw the movie 9 today, it was an interesting movie. I wish it had been a little longer and given a little more of a view into the world it took place in.

One thing I did find most interesting in it was the stance it takes on the human soul. The film rather directly gives the stance that there is something "special" about the human soul, intrinsic, and unique. Well not just that but it gives the stance that there is a human soul for first, something at least amongst intellectuals I know, especially the younger ones there is a growing disregard for that belief. However the movie takes this further by defining the soul by embodying it into "pieces"/characteristics of humanity. This further defines their stance on soul by implying the soul, or at least the soul of the individual in question, a person who meant well, clearly, was that it defines what makes us human in our emotions and behaviour.

Now this is a wonderful belief, the idea that we have some little thing inside us that makes us good people, gives us the possibility to love, to care, to be strong, courageous, curious, creative. Yet there are also some problems with this concept. Firstly is the soul only the "warm fuzzy" feelings of humanity/those we define as "good". Many very misguided people have been "courageous" and done terrible things in demonstrating that courage. And what about bad qualities? The character of 8 clearly showed strength, but also a bit of cruelty. Does the soul then also include the Pandora’s Box of our emotions?

And does every soul have the same qualities? What about psychopath’s souls? Clearly they don't have love or compassion or mercy. And if you through horrible torture were to scar someone so badly that you made them cruel and hateful does that mean you have in essence "destroyed" a part of their soul.

Now why I ask is because the movie directly says that when the scientist created the machine it was imperfect and easily corruptible because it didn't have a soul (Sounds like a rather biblical description of humans, divinely made because of their soul...) Anyways so the implication is that if you make a machine it doesn’t have a soul...
At least that one didn’t.

Now my big question is...how can the machine not have it, and the 9 little golem-like people have one. Now chances are the scientist figured out how to put his soul into the other things.

But one interesting thing about their concept of soul in the movie was while it gives personality qualities... its like base default qualities, no memory. None of the characters had the memory of the guy who gave them life. A Tabula Rasa concept (blank table) idea where were all born blank slate, in theory, only with the imprint of the qualities of the soul that gave them life. Hmm... a strange attempt to breach the gap between the innate versus blank slate argument.

It raises interesting questions, under this concept of the soul how much of us is made by it, how much does it control in our behaviour. Was the soul they received from the guy already a developed thing from his experiences meaning that a new soul would still default to Tabula Rasa, or does it mean that the qualities were innate to begin with/always existed in the soul.

Now moving on I must argue something, there are many concepts of the soul, for the movie it was something that could be transmigrated, for some it’s the essence of humanity, for others animals have one too. Some go so far as to say... everything has a soul from the smallest rock to humans. Which one must then ask what is a soul, is it just a human concept of what makes us "Special"?

Science seems to argue this is not true; there is growing evidence that much of us including our behaviour is influenced, if not controlled by our genetics/internal biology. If you have one genetic code you will be likely to develop addictions or be a thrill seeker or be creative or rational or emotional or have a low pain thresh-hold. But even genetics hasn’t yet explained us all. As my anthropology professor last year pointed out, turning to animals to see what makes us human and them animals may turn up a lot of interesting information about animals and how we are very similar but won’t tell us much about ourselves and how we work. After all, when the human genome was announced, many people proudly shouted "we are 98% chimp!" evolutionists and animal scientists and behaviourists looked proudly.
But there are only 4 basic DNA building blocks... C-A-T-G (and in RNA based viruses U instead of T), which is why we are also 35% daffodil.

That’s right, you heard me, 35% daffodil. However, while one might be proud to say they are 98% chimp, I have not yet heard someone announce them self to be proud of being more than a quarter genetically the same as a house plant.

So if we have a soul... either the daffodil also has a soul or there is a very very specific genetic mutation in that less than 2% of our genetics that is unique that makes us exclusively have one... not likely.

To go further than those 4 shared building blocks... were all carbon based life forms, you want to get down to it and the atoms in my body are things I share with rocks, trees, the air, water, fire, animals, and other humans. And while my body has a variety of different elements in it than said rock or tree, and in different amounts, but at the atomic level, me the chimp, daffodil, and the rock are all a bunch of protons, neutrons and electrons rotating, jumping around, vibrating, forming, breaking and reforming bonds and jumping onto other things. Thus, using, generating and becoming energy in one shape or form.

So where does the soul fit in. If were all the same at the particle level it seems rather unfair to proudly declare "ha-ha rock, I have a soul and you don’t!"
Which means, either there isn’t a soul, it’s just made up in our heads to comfort ourselves with the fear of the eventual termination of our existence as a sentient thing, and to try to explain ourselves as a sentient thing that far too often thinks it the only sentient thing. Or there is a soul but it is something that exists within that big cohesive force in the universe, of atoms, of electrons jumping orbits, of nuclear centers forming and being reformed.

... yes folks I will come out of my closet and admit that inside me is a closet pantheist... behind all the science and philosophy, whitehead and some pagan nature loving concepts got together and said... there may not be an intelligent designer, but there is an energy in everything and maybe in that energy lies the potential for a soul, that making of bonds and energy we generate, share etc.

It’s a weird idea but are not our relationships with people much like atomic bonds and things being formed. You build up energy, it heightens, you form or break a bond, reform one, the energy levels jump around, and sometimes with cohesive other times repulsive forces. And that energy in one way or another has ramifications, it affects things. ... yeah, yeah butterfly effect... but it does, i put my energies into a painting, someone sees it, they feel an emotion, maybe it inspires them to something or brings a new idea into their head. You scold a child, it causes a fear, and their future actions are impacted by that fear of being scolded.

And in that argument is something key, if enough people believe in a soul they are directing their energies towards it, the mind is a powerful thing and perhaps thus in believing in a soul we in the very act create it.
Not to say that if I believe hard enough in a giant purple sock monster with green tentacles and 6 eyes it is going to suddenly pop into reality... but already in my own mind I have created it, and in reading it, it has entered your mind. Thus forming a collective consciousness in which it takes on greater life through existing in the mental.

Ok maybe I’m crazy but it seems that often our dreams take us to impossible places, someone had to imagine flying before it happened, someone imagined going to the moon, to under the sea, to bring back a body by restarting the heart after the person is technically dead. Maybe the very thing of the soul is that which lives on in the collective consciousness after we die. Shakespeare is immortalized he lives on through his plays, and all the plays inspired by him, and movies and paintings, etc.

Ok new thought, if that is the case than what about Joe Nobody who is in an unmarked grave and who no one remembers was his soul immortalized? For a time he was, and maybe on a greater level all the Joe Nobody’s are still remembered collectively in certain situations, tributes to the unknown dead, the fallen soldiers, the ones who died in plagues, devastating natural disasters etc.

This brings me back to the machine. In my cognitive philosophy classes one of the interesting concepts was the question of the possibility to create artificial intelligence. Some argued that it was not possible because it would have to be very similar to a human being to think like a human being. And then also would a machine have a soul. Clearly that machine in 9 did not have a soul of its own, and the 9 characters needed souls which they got from the guy. But i guess it all lies in how you define the soul, I would say, yeah the machine was not humane, it had no humanity merely destruction. But it also was as the guy said "easily corruptible" in the movie they blame that on lack of a soul but are babies not the same. While there is a lot of evidence that many serial killers are born with an inability to have a conscious, I also believe that if someone is deprived of knowing/experience love/affection/care then they will not understand them. The machine was taken by the military and taught to destroy.

What would have happened had the scientist kept it and taught it to be kind, to heal, to create and mend?
Perhaps the machine had a soul it was just developed in a negative way.

The machine soul, from Data in Star Trek, AI, I Robot and the machine in 9 one sees a wide concept of machines with the potential for either being human or far from it. I would argue if we are going to give things souls, Data had a soul, especially in the final movie where he sacrifices himself. This is if I define a "Soul" as compiled of an understanding and behavioural demonstration of human reactions/the capacity to have such behaviour and to gain understanding of it. It isn’t really fair to say we understand why we behave the way we do. I can list the reasons why I love someone, but I cannot list why specifically I react with that emotion because of those things/why those things create that response.

If I programmed a machine that was capable of learning, developing and reacting with those human behaviours, would it not be considered human in its behaviour and possess a humanlike "soul"

Now i still have issues with this concept of soul because it is limiting, and because well when we examine and look for intelligence we look for "human intelligence", but dolphins didn’t evolve like humans they evolved for a dolphin environment (and an underwater one at that) while humans evolved for a land based environment. To live in a specific environment requires a different intelligence. One even sees that when examining different cultures, they have a different cultural intelligence that is in part environmentally based... and that’s just on land.
So who is to say that the dolphin isn’t sentient just like us, that they don’t feel forms of emotions we do? But that their intelligence developed differently.

The machine would be much the same, the environment we develop it in will give it an intelligence unique to that environment (which includes all factors living and non living its exposed to)

After all (yeah I’m going Cartesian on us for a moment) we are very like machines... or perhaps the machine like us. I guess we model things in our own image. But see, i have a code that impacts certain defaults in my behaviour. My genetics means I may be more likely to feel pain, emotions, to think creatively or sentimentally rather than rationally, to produce more or less of a chemical that alters my emotional and perceptual experience (ha-ha yes embodiment theory, to take us away from the dualist implication associated with the body/machine argument). So just like my code that gives me a unique perceptual experience compared to someone with a different code, my machine will have a code too that gives it certain strengths and weaknesses and also sets its task. My code tells my lungs to breath; its code may tell its pistons to fire regularly, or its fuel cell to process H20 into hydrogen and oxygen.
Either way, we both have a code, mine is made up of C-A-T-G and its of... well let’s say a computer program I wrote (highly unlikely as I know very little about computers never mind writing a program) but theoretically saying I wrote it to make it have a specific perceptual experience, and to learn from experiences, react to them based on past experiences... to learn, maybe even to analyze sounds and voice to pick up tones of emotions, joy, hostility, same with faces... suddenly it can react to those same things we use to react to.

And once again when we go down to it, we got different codes, but are still made up of elements, some of which we shall share in common. Where the difference will exist, which will give my machine a different "soul" and "mind" is the body and the code. The code will place the limits of its perception and define the capacity and default way in which it will react to its environment, and the body will affect the perception and how it experiences the environment as an active agent.

Together it will compile a mind, a mind that may have and produce similar reactions to us but it will still be a new mind, a machine mind because of the way its body reacts with the environment. E.g., a machine will not need to eat food like we do, it may need to consume a fuel source but how it experiences that "hunger" would be very different to us.

So, my verdict: I’m still going to be a bit of a pantheist here and say, were nothing special, a bunch of molecules that reacts with the environment differently than the rock does, but if we have a soul it exists either as that collective cohesive energies that permeates in all things... or that it exists within the collective mind, the world of all things imagined, remembered, created and thought up, and in that sense perhaps finds new life even if there is no afterlife, maybe the afterlife exists within the minds of others.
(For an existentialist, you’ve got to give me credit; I’m taking a pretty damn positive leap here).

And if we want to say there is such a thing as a soul then yes i think a machine could have it, now if we want it humanlike, the machine will have to experience the environment in ways similar to humans, e.g. have awareness that allows it to feel machine pain, hunger, fear, sickness etc, have machine abilities to communicate, learn and react to the environment. But yes it is possible for both a machine mind and "soul" that we could identify as being similar to a human mind and "soul"

And that ladies and gentlemen is my rant, longwinded and crazy as it is.

Hmm so yesterdays omniscient experiment was ok... there was a great sense of distance though. Perhaps including stream of consciousness will help.
So we are looking at something like Virginia Woolf's style?
Shhh we are not writing like a scizophrenic postmodernist today... that was last week.
But the postmodernist fragmentation is so fun... see you are still addicted to your elipses...
NO! We must explore the omniscience, we must insert... La Place's Demon
If you two mention that damn cognitive philosophy once more I will scream
But absolute causal knowledge would be hilarious
I will scream scream scream.
Ok ok no La Place... but only if you promise not to bring in any more quotes from the musical version of Oliver Twist.

(to get joke see [link])

So moving on to omniscience, today as was yesterday I shall write this journal entry in omniscience, and try to decrease the distance felt between reader and character by allowing a more permeable layer between the narrator and characters mind. However like all omniscient narrators (here goes the post modernist again...) I do not advise that anything that they say be trusted. You never know what they may fail to report or conveniently leave out.

So let us begin.

Clare had intended to sleep in today. She had, despite her best effort to get to bed early, been led into temptation and spent the late hours of the night drawing a birthday card for her friend Connor. Everything seemed to be telling her to go to bed, from her tired eyes to the fact that she could not find her favourate art pencils and ended up having to use some second rate ones she had lying around. Never the less, she sat there on her bed in her pajamas, knees folded sketching out the oulines and proportions of a dragon. To her surprise she succeeded in getting it to actually look rather dragonlike, even had given it changing sizes and textures of scales and perhaps a mildly fierce face. With everything well drawn, she finally went to bed, intending to sleep in.

She was woken up to a phone call from her father wanting to know for some lady where she could buy the packages of 10 bus tickets. *I dont want to be bothered right now* she thought. It was only 10:30 am and she wanted to sleep till at least 11:30 if not noon. Her eyes were burning and tearing mildly, it was either a bad allergy day or a bad pollution day or both. Her chest felt mildly like someone was sitting on it, which made her mildly more irritated. Sighing after hanging up the phone she grumbled and contemplated going back to sleep but decided it would be best if she got up ate something and took some allergy medication.

She didnt want breakfast, breakfast was boring, in fact, she thought, breakfast was perhaps the most boring meal of the day, such few choices, especially if you were too grumpy to feel like cooking. She did however settle for a half grapefruit and a vanilla yogurt. She then settled down on the couch in the living room to keep her mom company while she watched the terrible morning telivision programs that aired.

Her mother had had the cast for a week now, she was still complaining about it, sitting there in the chair her leg up on the foot stool. Clare could not help but laugh when her mother asked "is weekday morning television really this awful all the time", the slice channel was indeed relatively corney, airing nothing but makeover shows. Her postmodernist course coming back to haunt her as she witnessed the consumerist experience, watching as a pair of fashionistas helped a woman go through her wardrobe, throwing out over 300 lb worth of clothing.
How sad.

Bored with the television and disinterested with watching the auto show on tv, she sat there in her blue flannel pajamas with the polar bears on them, with her sketch book, doing the finishing touches on the card, cleaning up the dragons outline, detailing the scales and trying her damned hardest to give it dimension. Hand made cards were something she made a point of trying to do for her friends, it was a kind of old world token that was rarely recieved which she tried to keep up. That and most commercial cards these days were corny, as far as she was concerned.

Disrupted by another phone call from her dad informing her one of the guys working on the crew was coming up to get a new camera as his had died, she rushed to throw on some clothes and get outside the appartment door before her german shepard caught wind that someone was coming. Pandora loved visits from the guys on the crew but always barked so loudly whenever anyone came to the door.

This was clearly one of those days where she was not going to get much done. Finishing her drawing she made lunch for her mother and herself, grilled cheese sandwiches. She had just got them on the plates when her father came in, the element went back on and letting the melted cheese on hers begin its process of returning to a solid she made one for him. All the while maintaining two different text message conversations, one where she felt a mild pang of guilt being a couple hours late to answer and not anywhere near the university. And the other with a girl wanting her notes from one of her courses to study over the summer, she felt bad there too for though willing to lend the notes, her writing was terrible and in a few places where she may have drifted momentarily off to sleep... illegible even to her.

Kessel was the first to arrive at the appartment, all boys were coming upstairs for their rides home. He sat in her room which was still in a state of post-exam mess with books strewn around and laundry dumped uncerimoniously in a hamper waiting to be put away. At least it was in a hamper, she thought. Kessel sat there looking at her graphic novel collection and showing her some web comics on her computer, she sent him home with a stack of Fables graphic novels, and introduced him to her Sandman collection. She needed to get the first one back from amber, that would require a visit probably.

Michal and Connor arrived later, and she presented Connor with his card. Later she would kick herself for forgetting to photograph the dragon, one which she was actually rather happy in how it had turned out considering she had little experience in drawing them. On the other hand pencil is hard to photograph, and so it was not surprising she forgot.

Caitlin came later, taking careful effort to insult her clothing, shoes, and as much about her appearance as possible. "Don't wear those shoes, only if you are exercising do you wear those shoes!" "You dress like a homeless person"... the list went on.
yeah, a homeless person wearing a Danier leather coat that cost a couple hundred dollars. So her running shoes were worn and in need of a new pair, they were comfortable. Unlike Caitlin, Clare was a believer in comfortable, serviceable clothing. Pants that did not reveal ones ass crack upon bending over, shoes that did not leave blisters, cuts and descending metatarsals when worn, shirts that did not make her boobs pop out of her top. Maybe it was very casual and even a bit frumpy, but on a day where she had no intention of seeing people and going anywhere really it was an improvement over her pajamas.

As soon as Caitlin and Michal left, she went and had a shower, enjoying the luxury of the hot water, which like some form of cleansing ritual also washed away the stress of the exams which had taken place over the past week. The shower was a place of privacy and creativity, the best ideas always were sparked in the shower. Emerging from it into the cool dry air, her hair wrapped up in a towel atop her head, she checked on her mom before retreating to her bedroom, picked up her pencils and began to draw. At first she knew not what to draw, and so decided to go with the most basic thing... her own hand. It has been far too long since she had drawn anything, and it was enjoyable, even if she was frustrated with her shading job on it. Using a pencil crayon to sketch initial linework as Mike had suggested was helpful however and she finished with a certain level of satisfaction.

Supper was late, with her mother out of commission, between her dad and her there was a larger toss up of groceries to get, dogs to walk, house work to do and dinners to make. Her mom usually did groceries and dinner.

She was late to fencing, as per usual, and thus missed footwork, she had hoped to be there ontime but it just did not work out that way. It was to be her last class before she went up north and she was sorry to have to leave. She really enjoyed the fencing, and put in her all to the fights that day even when she was over thinking and getting frustrated with her own footwork. Alas the summer hours cut it short and they had to leave at 8:30.
It sucked. Waiting for her dad to arrive she showed Mike some pictures from her sketch book. Pandora was in the car and wired as usual.

With each passing day the prospect of starting work in a week away from teh city and her friends seemed bleaker, more lonely, an imposed isolation. Not that she would not feel equally sad to leave the lake and beautiful wooded environment upon her return at the end of the summer. And the gardening, there was nothing quite as satisfying as working with ones hands in the earth. For that matter there was nothing quite as satisfying as working with ones hands period. Perhaps her father would start a project to build something this summer. Clare loved using tools.

Time was ticking though and she had to go to bed, he plans of doing some necissary summer shopping before going away were squashed by the fact that her mothers hospital appt turned out to be the next day. So she would be sitting around waiting while her mother got her cast taken of and quite possibly another one put on. A book and her mp3 player, as well as a writing pad were necessities to keep from going crazy. She didn't like hospitals. Every time she had ever been in one it was to see someone close to her who was very sick. To her, they reeked of unpleasantness in a way that was not physical but psychological. The memories of the cold colours and holding a familiar frail hand with horrid tubes in it still haunted her. Yes a book, and an MP3 as well as a writing pad and maybe even some white paper and a pencil were definately necessary.

Her week was filling up, shopping would still have to be done at some point. Clare was going to see her old friend from highschool who she hadnt seen for three years thursday evening, it should be interesting. She wished she could see everyone before she went north but that might just make it that much harder to go.

It was time for bed, and tomorrow maybe something good would happen. She hoped her mom could get a cast that provided her more mobility. She hoped the wait would not be hours long.

Tomorrow is another day and we shall see what shall come of it.
Thus ends part two of our omniscient narration experiment. I fear my life does not make an exciting story.

Today this journal shall be written in the perspective of a third person omniscient narrator. I do not advise you trust this narrator, despite the fact they seem to know everything. The narrator after all should never be trusted, even if they are in fact the same person they are writing about. Who knows what details may be left out.

She awoke today grumpy, it was 10 and despite her being up her father did not seem to think to make breakfast for her along with his mom and himself until she asked him to throw an egg on for her as well. The bacon was crisp... but not quite as crisp as she liked it. Bacon was only truly delicious if it was dry and shattered into brittle pieces when bitten, not chewey and greasy but stiff and brown, only seconds away from becoming burnt. Today it was still slightly chewey, but the egg was perfect, cooked so the center still ran over the toast.

The honey was still warm from the microwave after her father had zapped it, trying to reliquify a honey that had crystalized. The tea was hot and seemed to help wake her up and ease away the grumpyness and sleep. On cold winter days she liked to cup her cold hands around the warm ceramic cups, feeling the warmth of the tea pass into her cool fingers. It was summer but the sensation was still comforting.

Her dog had disturbed her in the middle of the night wanting into her room. She loved her dog; but hated the sense of entitlement that seemed to be held by one who should dare disrupt her at such an hour with the annoying shaking of ones collar and pawing at the door, only to then insist on being picked up and helped on to the bed. The night unlike the two before seemed dreamless, or at least she did not remember any dream

By the time she was dressed, had put her hair into a braid that would not hold and had walked both dogs she already knew she would be late for fencing. The dogs had thankfully been both very good on their walks and the walks were pleasant. She found herself singing broken bits of half forgotten lyrics to a song she had heard in a mucical production of Aladdin directed by Ross Petty, who was also the evil Vizir in it. It had been televised and her parents had taped it, Bruno Gerussi was in it as Aladdin's mother, the guy who used to play Jeff the Manaquin on Today's special was Aladdin and Karen Kane was Shahrazad. It was watching Karen Kane there as a little girl that had made her briefly aspire to want to be a ballerina, a dream that sank down and never even made it to a ballet class. The song certainly came from somewhere else, perhaps a depression song, its upbeat lyrics seemed to go well with the patterns of light and shadow that played across the sidewalks. "Grab your coat and get your hat, leave your worries on the doorstep, life can be so sweet on the sunny side of the street"... "I used to walk in the shade, with my blues on parade, now I'm not afraid..."

....

She made it to fencing an hour late, was greeted by smiles, little fencing was acomplished but looking at an art book on dynamic figures and a sketch book her friend had kindly showed her took up most of the time. It was enjoyable. "I wish I could draw like that" she couldnt help but think... but if she could she might not be her, and perhaps she could if she ever seriously set herself to it. Those who dabble in many talents may be a jack of many trades but a master in none, and she could not help but dabble in many things, knowledge was like a drug and she could not get enough of it.

She did do some footwork and a short bout in fencing. She still could not tell if she had improved this year, they said she had, and she hoped she had, but from her own phenomenal consciousness it was hard to tell, it seemed at times she had grasped new skills, could perhaps parry better, was starting to gain a better sense of her own movements more confidence in attacks, but at other times she felt frustration, making the same mistake again and again, parrying the wrong parry.
Rome was not built in a day. She would continue because she enjoyed it, but like most things her confidence that she would ever find something she might truly shine and sparkle at, stand out like gold against blue velvet, were unlikely. Perhaps the only thing she might ever get to be gold at was being that Jack of all trades but master to none...
A cynical thought from a mind that should not be so cynical.

People cheered her up though, having conversations that meant something, shared something, where she felt she could be honest and herself. Those brought her up, geared her brain in ways which made her feel intense excitement and her thought soar and fly fast and far. It was stimulating. And she felt a need to gorge on such intelligent conversations before going away, away to where life was both freeing and stifling at the same time.

For lunch her friend got her to try something new, chicken shwarma. It was quite good and the thought of finding something new she liked to eat also pleased her. Good food on campus was rare and hard to find especially as the year dwindled down and places didnt bother to open.

Tomorrow was her modern canadian exam, like most exams she would be calm until the hour before it when a few butterflies would hatch into her stomach making any eating at that time impossible, she would eat breakfast and a late lunch after the three hour exam, that was the best way to do it. It was also the best way to arrive early and calmly wait, wait and review lightly, and quietly internalize the nervous energy so it could act as a driving force to make her hand scribble quicker and her brain rev its engines, a formula 1 racer burning rubber as it races down the track to victory.

She hoped it would be victory.

She made it home by bus as the dark clouds were thick overhead. Not long after arriving home the wind began to increase. She had known as she walked down the path to her condo that it would not only rain but storm somewhere nearbye. Not just from the clouds but that feeling of uplifting energy that she got. Thunder storms did not frighten her, in fact a good storm filled her with a feeling of freedom, like some tension broken and a great joy at the sheer awe and beatiful power of nature.

As if to make its performance seem extra significant the storm started while her parents were watching a program on the storms in yosemite park, of one which killed some climbers when lightening struck the top of the mountain. Lightning and thunder crashed and flashed across both the television screen and the view from the window simultaneously. She watched it and heard sirens call from far below. Her inner post modernist thought the scene was extremely hyper-real, more attention paid to the tv than the natural phenomenon outside.

The storm blew through quickly, leaving behind a reminder that there is often light after the darkness, from her balcony she looked out and admired a gorgeous rainbow, she could see the full arc stretch far up into the sky and across a large distance of the city. Despite hating at times the appartment, there was one thing she could not argue with, there was few things that beat the fantastic view of being at the top story of a condo. As the rainbow faded she returned inside to help with dinner.

Studying was reserved for the evening when she was most active and awake. Tomorrow evening she would draw, a pleasure she had not taken part in in a very long time.

Times draws on as she ponders over the day she has had and what the days to come might entail. She has a week to pack up her life for three months. A week to see friends, collect addresses for letters, go shopping and pack up all she wants to take up north with her.

In a week she will be working, and when not working she will find time to think, read, paint, draw, do puzzles, and to run. She will run on the road, her white bandana stinking of bug spray, the horse flies, deerflies and black flies trailing her, biting her legs and the back of her neck. She will run till her shin splints scream and the breath burns her lungs and her legs feel like they will turn to jello if she stops. Its those moments which she thinks are the best, to run till your body says stop, and after that, push it, push it till you cant push any more. To feel each breath burn the lungs and to then go cool off by jumping in a lake, swimming strokes, till the arms equally ache, and then to lie there, floating on the water, letting it carry you along till you feel a part of it. The lake will be cold to start the year, there has been rain so it will stil be cool. But the moment it hits 70 degrees 6 ft down it is time to swim, and swim she will.

The next day she will wake up with a soreness that tells her she pushed it, it will make certain movements like sitting and pushing doors require more effort. But each moment of pain will bring with it the pleasure and satisfaction of knowing it was earned. And when they go away she will be stronger and able to run longer, farther, harder, and able to swim strokes for over an hour in the dark waters of the lake.

Till then she must bide her time and at the same time dread the change, leaving the security of the rythem of life she has settled into. Her inner modernist hates change and the first week will be one of nostalgic withdrawl, as she misses friends, and lives in her head more than anywhere else, imagining the people in her life that mean so much to her.

The clock is ticking and it is time to go.
"... gold dust at my feet
on the sunny side of the street"