Oscar

I didn't watch the Oscars last night.  I played Far Cry 3 instead.

Does that make me a terrible actor?

In other news, my wrists hurt so much I can barely type.

Probably because of the Far Cry playing.

Now if only I played the guitar...

I kind of wish I was a rock star.

No particular reason, I just think it would be cool.

What We Leave Behind

I've been reading my great-grandfather's autobiography.  I didn't even know he'd written one until this Christmas.  I was visiting my grandpa when his sister came by - a sister I didn't even know lived in Alberta, much less the same home as my grandparents - with seven copies of their dad's life story that she didn't know what to do with.

Needless to say I took one off her hands.

It's been interesting.  The pieces of my family history have been passed down to me in a tangled ball, some sections clear and linear and others so knotted up that I have no idea if they actually belong to the same string of history or are just a little scrap that got caught up in the mess somehow.  I've been able to sort out some of the stories now; like, Grandpa didn't work in a CO labour camp during WWII, but Great-Grandpa was a supervisor at one.  And we might not be German after all, but Prussian or Polish; thanks to the names, dates and birthplaces Great-Grandpa drops in the beginning of the book, a co-worker of mine was able to find baptism records for probable (Prussian) ancestors dating back to the 1600s.

Very cool.

It's making me wonder what I'm leaving for future generations.  What story will they be able to piece together out of the bits of yarn that make up my life?  Will it make sense?  Will it be interesting, or will it be a list of dates and names, purchases and addresses?  Will any of my thoughts be left behind or am I just leaving data?

I think, given that I've kept a fairly steady journal since I was 6, that there will be plenty of my thoughts to go around for years to come.

But it's still making me ponder my daily choices, when I realize that somebody, someday, may look back and feel pride - or regret - that they are related to me.

Smarter Than a Fourth Grader

I wonder what children learn in school these days.  Today a grade four student asked me what the word racist meant.  (I had described Adolf Hitler as a racist.)  Is it a good thing or a bad thing that she didn't know the word?

I don't know.

Is it normal for grade four students to not know what rationing is, or what the word solidarity means, or what WWII is, or what the Great Depression was?  Or that you do not actually need literal sugar to live, because blood sugar isn't created by actual sugar?  They don't know that we grow grapes in Canada or what molasses is, or what soap was made out of, or what nitroglycerin is used for.

Is it terrible that they don't know that we have sheep in Canada, or that silk comes from silk worms, but they know what allies are and what bullets are made out of?

I have no idea.

I don't know when I learned these things but it feels like I've always known them.

Sometimes I wish I remembered that moment of dawning realization that must have occurred for me when I first gained these pieces of information.

And sometimes I just wish grade four students knew more than they do so I could communicate with them more effectively.

My Day

My neck has been twinge-ing all day, as in, I move my head at all and my neck says, haha, nope.  Bad idea.

I must have slept on it funny, although I don't remember kinking my head completely over to one side at any point during the night like an exorcist's nightmare.

It didn't stop me from being productive, it just slowed me down.  As in, I only cleaned one bathroom instead of both of them.  I walked slower on the way to the dog park.  I had to take more ergonomic breaks from the computer while researching immigrant cultures (and really, who's bright idea was it to make a display about immigrant cultures?  Oh right.  Mine).

And now, when Z. wants to destroy my Stephen King novels until I get her another facecloth to ruin (she's already killed three of them), I'm going to have to compromise and get her to play with something else.  I just don't think I can play tug-of-war right now.

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I also made delicious, delicious Vietnamese noodle bowls for supper.  I am super impressed with myself over this.  Mine had shrimp and S. had chicken - he doesn't like shrimp.  I've never bought or prepared shrimp before so I went with pre-cooked, frozen ones.  They were pretty good, speaking as an amateur shrimp eater.  The whole meal was fricken amazing, speaking as someone with a lot of experience eating food.

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I am getting way too interested in television series on Netflix.  I've got several on the go - The 4400, Sherlock, House of Cards.  I've made a deal with myself.  If I haven't written at least one scene (or, if I'm working on my novel, if I haven't made steady progress for an hour) then I can't watch Netflix.  So far it's working.  I'll get that damn play finished yet.  The novel too.  Watching television is a strong motivator.  Who knew?

And on that note, I'm going to go write another scene.  House of Cards won't watch itself, you know.