Stigmas

Someone recently showed me this movie trailer.

I took one look at the title and decided it was a ridiculous concept, and there is no way it could possibly work.  Then I watched the trailer and… well my opinion is largely unchanged, actually except now I’m intrigued to see it.  I still think it’s a ridiculous concept, but in looking at the list of big names who are acting in the movie, they must see a value in it.  Either that or they’re all needing to fulfill a contract with Universal, which I suppose is possible too.  But I digress.

“Cowboys & Aliens”.  Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?  The name says b-movie pretty loudly to me.  Now before judging too harshly about that, think of Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones.  That title also screams B-movie to me and yet because of the Star Wars name, I had no doubt I would see it in theaters.  I mean, yes I have heard and made complaints about the name, but it was never a big enough issue to really consider missing the movie as I did with Cowboys & Aliens.

There also just seems to be some sort of stigma against our interstellar neighbours, in semi-historical contexts.  I give you the example of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  Sorry for the upcoming spoiler alert, but it turns out that the crystal skull actually belongs to the skeleton of an extradimensional being.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people complain that it makes no sense, or that it makes the movie a joke.  My question is why is that any harder to believe than any of his other adventures?  In his first film, Indy finds the lost ark of the covenant and everyone dies a horrible death after opening it.  In his second adventure on film, he sees someone get their beating heart pulled out through their chest, life through it and then finds and returns a magic rock to bring prosperity back to a little village in India after being magically brainwashed.  And finally in my favourite movie of the trilogy, he finds the freakin’ Holy Grail.  It’s guarded by a knight who is centuries old and then uses the grail to literally wash away the gunshot wound from his father.  You accept all of these at face value, but you have a problem with aliens?  Really?

What really troubles me about stigmas though, is not the opinions people have of certain movies, but rather the fact that stigmas can affect our opinions of people without us even realizing it.  For example, while I’ve been planning out this entry, I heard a contestant on Jeopardy with a southern accent.  My first thought was, and I’m ashamed to admit it, “how did she make it onto Jeoparday?”  Yup, that’s right.  I’m apparently biased against the intelligence of people from the southern United States.  For anyone who reads this from that area, I do sincerely apologize and I’m taking steps to correct my way of thinking.  It does scare me though to think of what other assumptions, or stigmas are just lurking in my mind waiting to see the light of day.  To quote G.I. Joe, “Knowing is half the battle.”  If you know what the assumptions you make are, you can start changing them for the better.

I don’t really know who reads this, or if these words have any effect on you, but I do hope that it at least gives you pause to consider what some of the negative assumptions you make about people are.

Until my next coherent thought,

Mike

New Beginnings, and Re-acquaintances

Hey guys,

It’s been a really long time since I’ve updated.  I’m not going to give any excuses or now seemingly empty promises to update more frequently.  I do feel bad about not updating when I said I would, but I’m working on it.

So, for those of you who don’t know yet, I am now the president of a youth run organization called Presbyterian Young Peoples Society, or PYPS for short.  I’m actually very excited to be the president of this organization because of how much it’s meant to me over the years.  PYPS was one of the big things that really got me thinking about God and the place faith has in my life.  It’s also one of the places where I’ve created some amazing friendships, and me some very awesome people.  To be given the chance to really contribute and give back to the organization that’s given so much to me is really a huge honour.

I mention this now because today we had our first PYPS Executive meeting, and it went quite well.  Actually no, it was awesome!  I had a little too much planned to cover today, and we had to save a bit for the next meeting so we wouldn’t go over the two hour time limit I set for myself.  But that’s alright, I’m still super excited to be running the show, and I can’t wait for the next meeting!

The other thing that I wanted to mention quickly today was that my birthday was last Friday, and as would happen, I got a call from my best friend back in Calgary!  I haven’t spoken to him in years, but he called me up and we talked for a good half hour just catching up a bit, then he had to head out, but just hearing from him, and the fact that he remembered my birthday after all these years was a pretty awesome birthday gift from him.  His birthday is just a few days away now, actually so I had better not forget his birthday this year!

AIESEC work is still keeping me busy, as is my school work.  I was actually at UOttawa this weekend giving a presentation about my trip to Turkey.  It was lots of fun, and I’ve gotten some good feedback from it.  I’m kinda hoping for some criticism too so I can improve my presentation skills.

Since I’m now doing lots of AIESEC, PYPS and school work, I’ve got very little free time.  Yet for some reason, I’m completely insane and have been trying to find ways to occupy more of my time… one of which is trying to find a good company name, which I don’t really have a product for, so having a company name is kind of pointless at this point but… well… I guess I’m not really into doing things in a logical way. And hey, who knows?  Maybe this name will become really big in the future.  I actually kinda hope it does, but first things first, I need to find a product to make.

I’m now also very tired, and my voice is shot from speaking for about 6 or 7 hours today, so… time to do school work!

Thanks for reading!

Mike

Context

Okay, so I’ll admit it now.  I suck at remembering to update this blog.  It has been around 2 weeks since my last entry, and I am really sorry about that.  If I don’t keep updating regularly, even those of you who actually know me are not likely to keep checking back.  I do have some news that might help me to remember to write in my blog.  I have to write 6 blog entries for my Philosophy course, and so I will be writing them here and copying them over to the school “blog” site.  I’ve taken a look at the blog and it looks more like a message board than a blog to me.  But, it’s where my posting has to go therefore that’s where it will end up.

Anyway, the idea that has been bouncing around in my mind a lot lately has been the concept of how important context is in understanding absolutely everything that we do.  Take almost any quote that you hear and remove it from the context from which it arose and it will either lose meaning, or you will be able to infer a completely different meaning from the sentence.  This lack of context can very easily change the meaning of a sentence.  For example:

“They will store food.”

What is this sentence talking about?  Is it talking about a refrigerator?  Maybe a granary or silo?  Oh, or perhaps mice, squirrels or hamsters.  Just searching “They will store food” on Google, quotations and all, will give you over 20,000 results (as of September 30,2010 11:03 am).  Simply removing the quotations will give you a staggering 243,000,000 results.  Where in all of that are you supposed to know what that original sentence was referring to?  How are we, as humans, supposed to filter through all of our accumulated knowledge to understand what someone else is trying to say to us?

Context.

It’s as simple as that.  If we know the context of the sentence, if we can understand what is going on in the world at that time, we can understand each other.  Oh, and before I forget to mention, I found the previous quotation from the wikipedia page on the bridled titmouse.  (Bonus points for noticing that the bridled titmouse was the inspiration for that birdlike design on the top of my blog.)  But this context is so important for understanding.  Even simple words require context to be quickly understood.  The best, and fastest example I can think of to demonstrate this is a simple one word question: “Sex?”  Now, there are two distinct ways that we can interpret this question.  The first, and more likely scenario (at least in my mind), is that someone is asking for the gender of the person or creature being registered for some service or other that requires a form to be filled out.  The second way, and quite possibly the way that most people think of first (I must count myself among them), is as a proposition for physical intimacy, albeit a clumsy and slightly awkward one.  So if “sex” can be interpreted in two ways, and there is no way to differentiate between the two either phonologically, or literarily, how do we know that the attractive veterinarian’s secretary is asking us for the gender of our cat, and not a quickie in the office closet?  Based on the context the secretary is simply asking for the gender of our cat.  If we are incredibly lucky, or incredibly smooth and winning, then the secretary could potentially be requesting a quickie, but such events are unlikely to occur.

Context isn’t just important for the present, or for recent history.  Context is just as important to understand what has happened throughout history as it is to understanding “eggs and rice” as a response to “what did you eat for breakfast today?”.  In fact, context is arguably more important to understand history, and historical documents.  We live in the present time (philosophical arguments aside) we usually know the present context of things that we read see and hear and read.  Not as many of us know the full historical context of Plato when he was doing his great works.  In fact, I had to do some research to learn about the context in which Plato wrote Cratylus.  And by research, I mean I asked my professor about it.  Plato was living in a time where Greek was the “enlightened” language.  The language of learning.  All other languages, to him, would have been considered barbarian languages, if they were even considered language at all.  That’s not to say anything of his personal life, which I can’t speak of here since I have no credible sources. (Sorry, Wikipedia, you don’t count as credible.)

I’d like to leave you with a quick comic from www.xkcd.com that I think shows more or less the importance of context.

Used with permission from XKCD: http://www.xkcd.com/794/

Cheers!

It is time…

Hey y’all!

It is time.  The break is over, and school is starting again.  I’ve picked up most of my responsibilities again, and I’m ready to go.  It’s time to call all the animals back to Pride Rock and it’s time for my life here to start again. (By the way The Lion King is pretty much one of my favourite movies ever.)

Sorry for the long delay in blog updates.  It took a lot longer than I had expected to get settled back in to the Canadian way of life, and trying to get everything settled for getting back into the school year.  Okay, that’s not entirely accurate.  I also spent most of my free time playing StarCraft 2, instead of letting the internet know what I was up to.  I do apologize for that, and hopefully my school schedule will make it easier to do semi-regular updates of this blog.  I would have to say that you shouldn’t expect the updates to be daily anymore, but I will be aiming for around three or four per week, depending on how eventful my week is, or what I have to talk about.

I also have to spend some time organizing all of my previous posts and maybe polishing them up a little.  Though, to be honest, I kind of like it when the author (in this case me) leaves things in their original form.  It makes the writings more… lively, I guess you could say.  But that will be an ongoing project, and I don’t expect it will make much of any difference to the regular viewings of this site, but hopefully (and I flatter myself to think that people will be doing this) it will make it much easier to search through older entries to find one that you’re looking for.

It has been an interesting few weeks since I’ve come back from Turkey.  There is indeed a reverse culture shock happening to me right now, it’s has been difficult to get used to some things again.  Traffic lights, and stop signs were the biggest readjustments that I’ve had to make.  I also really miss the fresh bread that I would get at every meal, and I have given serious thought to getting a bread maker.  Then I realized that I’d have to actually take the time to make the bread, and that after one use I’d be bored and would probably never touch it again.  Still, the temptation is there, if only to have fresh bread that one time.  Another big difference is being able to talk to and understand what everyone is saying.  I had forgotten how much you learn about random strangers by inadvertently eavesdropping (or for some of us I guess it’s purposely eavesdropping) on their conversations in public.  Since I didn’t speak Turkish, I was… I guess insulated, or isolated from what was going on around me.  Knowing everything, understanding everything, is a surprisingly large burden to bear.

Another issue I’m having is the food in general.  I’m not used to Canadian food, and in looking back at what I used to eat before I left for the summer, I’m not sure now how I ever survived on those foods.  I have been making much more of an effort to cook healthier meals, and I’m loving it so far.  Hopefully my enthusiasm for cooking will continue after my courses get into full swing.  I was also told of a great online Turkish Cookbook that I’ve been using a little recently.  It’s actually very good, and it’s in english.  So if any of you are interested in Turkish cuisine, you should probably go and check it out.

Anyway that’s all the time I have to write today.  I have laundry to do, groceries to buy and a long overdue haircut waiting for me.  I hope you’re all well.

You’ll be hearing from me soon,

Mike

Home… sleep…

Merhaba!

I have just arrived home to Canada again!  It was a long trip and I am completely exhausted.  This will not be the last time you hear about Turkey from me because in my sleep deprived state, I cannot even begin to do justice to my past few months, or even my last day in Turkey.  There will be another post or two… or many, dedicated to Turkey and talking about my experiences there.

For now, I just want to mention:

1. Sprite bottles look short and fat now and I don’t know if that’s because they’ve been changed since I left, or if it’s because they are a different shape in Turkey.
2. Everything looks so much more colourful right now.  Maybe because I’m low on sleep and hallucinating things, but everything just seems so vibrant.
3. I drive like a maniac right now.  Again, is it because I’m tired, or maybe because I’m used to the traffic in Turkey?

That’s all from me.  Now off to sleep!

- Mike

Dolmabahçe palace and hamam

Merhaba!

So I’m finally visiting Istanbul!  It’s a pretty awesome city so far actually.  It’s much more crowded and busy than Yalova, but I guess that’s to be expected.  I’m currently staying in a very cute hotel in Sultanahmet.  It is pretty clearly the tourist area of the city since there are signs that I can understand, and everyone seems to speak english.  It’s… well, I’d like to say it’s nice, but honestly it’s just weird right now.  And if it’s weird here in Turkey, I have to ask myself how it will be back in Canada.  Will it be weird there too?

Anyway, I woke up very early this morning to take a trip over here on the 7:30 ferry, and then I spent most of the day with Kim, the sister of one of my friends in the school in Yalova.  It was a lot of fun actually, and Kim and I got along very well.  It’s almost too bad that she’ll be busy tomorrow since I think it would be fun to hang out with her a little more.  Ah well, I’d feel bad dragging her around to all the tourist spots anyway.

So Kim and I went to Dolmabahçe palace today.  It was… incredible, actually.  Incredibly opulent, and it had quite an amazing history.  Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures of the interior, but apparently I can download them from the internet.  It’s rather hard to really describe the palace and do it any justice.  I might try later though when I’m not quite so tired.

I’ve just come back from a hamam, a Turkish bath, and wow, what an amazingly relaxing experience.  I decided to get the luxury package that includes an oil massage, and it was glorious.  The hamam itself is like a giant sauna with a giant marble table in the middle that you’re supposed to lie down on.  With the package I got, I had an attendant wash me, and get rid of the dead skin.  It was really nice to be pampered like that, and my goodness did I ever have a lot of dead skin.  I definitely want to go back again, but maybe not with the massage, because it’s quite expensive.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  I’m going to sleep in a wonderful, comfortable bed, and sleep in as late as I want… well… until 11 which is checkout.  Tomorrow will be a big long day full of sight seeing and awesomeness.  I’m not sure there will be another update before I’m back in Canada because I’m not sure when I’ll have internet next.  I hope all o y’all are doing well.

Cheers!

- Mike

From the end of the silk road…

Merhaba!

So, I was in Bursa today.  It was a nice time, mostly I was shopping with my AIESEC friend to try and find souvenirs for myself from the city.  Bursa was at the end of the silk road, way back in the day, so they are pretty famous for their silk products.  Silk products which I ended up getting a couple of for fairly inexpensive prices.  And my good luck continues, the two stores that I decided to check out and see both had owners who spoke english, and very good english at that.  It’s pretty awesome.

Anyway, I’m off to Istanbul very, very early tomorrow morning so I need to get some sleep to prepare for another awesome day.  Hopefully I’ll have internet before flying out of Turkey on Thursday morning so I can update you on my trip.  Though… lately I’ve been doing such a good job of that, I’m not sure you’d notice.

Cheers!

- Mike

The Teacher is out…

Merhaba!

And so ends my teaching job here in Turkey.  I must say it was a lot of fun, and I’m really going to miss it here.  I had a joint going away party tonight with one of my coworkers.  She was accepted into a university in Izmir which is, I’m told, around 8 hours from here by bus.  It was a good time with the friends I’ve made.  Originally, we were going to head out to the beach for a BBQ, but plans eventually changed to have something closer to everyone’s homes.

I got some pretty nice going away presents too, and I’m not going to lie, I did get a little choked up after getting them.  I really wasn’t expecting anything, and I will most definitely be remembering Turkey when I see these things.

Also, to my friends in Canada, a brief warning.  I’ve gotten used to the Turkish habit of shaking hands and kissing both cheeks, and quite frankly, it feels weird not to do it when saying hello or good bye to those I consider friends.  So don’t be alarmed if I accidentally start to do that to you when I see you again.

I’m looking forward to travelling and seeing some sights again starting Monday.  First, I’ll be going to Bursa (hopefully) to see some friends there for the day, and then I’ll be back to Yalova for the night.  Then the next day I’m off to Istanbul to spend my last two days there seeing the sights.  Tomorrow though, I’m just going to be relaxing here in Yalova, and doing some packing and planning for my next few weeks before school starts again.

I’ll try to post some good pictures tomorrow, but for now it’s time for me to sleep.

Good night!

- Mike

Close to the end…

Merhaba!

I can’t believe how close I am to being on a plane bound for Canada again… It’s… well I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it at the moment.  I’m rather conflicted.  I’m both happy to be getting back to Canada, and sad about the fact that I’m leaving Turkey, and all the friends I’ve made here.  I mean, I’m now Facebook friends with many of them, and hopefully we’ll keep in touch, but I’m really bad about keeping in touch with people.

We’ll see what happens.  Anyway, I’m exhausted so I’m off to sleep now.  Oh, I got a going away present today too.  It’s a Turkey soccer shirt.  It looks very comfortable actually… and it really drove home the fact that I was almost on my way home… wow…

Okay, sleep time here.

Cheers!

- Mike

A fact of my life

Merhaba!

Today I ran into one of my former students on her way to work and help out at her mother’s cafe.  She invited me out after my classes to come visit her at work and hang out and talk since she couldn’t make it to classes due to Ramazan.  So I took her up on her offer and spent a good hour and a half talking to her and her friends who showed up.  It was a great time, actually.  She also served me this delicious dessert.  Think of it like… hmm… like if apple pie and cheesecake had a baby.  It looked kinda like a cheesecake, but it tasted more like apple pie.  It was utterly delicious.  It’s name was something I don’t remember in Turkish, but translated it apparently becomes “Chicken breast”.

Her mother owns this very cute, very homey little cafe.  The kitchen in the cafe looks exactly like a kitchen would look in a house.  It’s very cute, and I wish I had known about this place earlier.  I would definitely have gone there more often.

But this is the way my life seems to work.  I tend to find out about the good places, and the good things to do really close to the time that they don’t exist anymore, or I don’t have access to them.  For example, TV shows.  I always end up liking the ones that are canceled soon after they’re released, or I get into them near the end of their run.  It really sucks sometimes.  Oh well, at least I can enjoy these things for a little bit of time before they’re done.

Anyway, it’s time to go enjoy some of the delicious soda and snacks that are unique to Turkey.

Cheers y’all!

- Mike