Farwell English 380

Oh last blog entry, how I will miss writing you!
The writers that we had in class today were insightful and I was genuinely interested in what they had to say. It was surreal. Here I am thinking that no one thinks about Edmonton the way we do outside our little class but as the writers showed, there are others that do feel a connection as well. I have to give a shout out to Heather, who is an awesome prof! She is the only one that I have had in my post secondary career that has brought in writers to the class, who interacts with us on a more intimate level. I actually wish that more classes were like that. I use to find that when I sat in a class I always wondered what the other individuals were thinking, where they came from. It made me feel isolated from the Edmonton community, I would just sit down and absorb the information. Now I feel like I am more connected with other people, mainly because I realize now that there is a community, a network of resources that I had never thought of before. I think that now, more so then I ever had in my life, love Edmonton just the way it is. I can grumble about the weather and the lack of anything to do, but really I just have to look beyond lull and find something to do. In the end I would like to say that I have enjoyed this class, and I don't think I will be forgetting the impact it has had on my life in the near future. I hope everyone has a good summer and excel in their academic careers. Lots of hugs. -Emmy

Randomness

I am unsure of what to write about as our class comes ever closer to the end. I think I will be upset when it's over, I actually enjoyed learning about Edmonton with my peers, it was amazing to have to many different views and opinions on issues we discussed in class. I've decided since this class is about all of the differences that brought our city together I will randomly comment on a few things. I was on the bus the other day thinking about the poetry classes we had and the whole talking about the stars and the gods, listening to the new Metric songs for the first time, when the chorus to Front Row came on:
"Burned out stars they shine so bright
All of us
Burned out stars they shine so bright"
It's true that stars when they burn out tend to shine brighter to us because we are seeing them explode from earth and it takes a while for the brightness to hit earth. I then came around to this thought that Edmonton is like a burned out star. I feel that we are glowing brighter now than we ever have before. The city is moving forward, it is expanding and we are becoming more culturally diverse. It lead to something more profound at the time, but I have had a stressful week and did not get my thought out completely but I thought I would share that random blurb into my thoughts. I also decided that to commemorate the poetry classes I would try my hand at a not so good version of a haiku for Edmonton, so here it goes:
Edmonton is home
many things hidden and unearthed
continuing to learn.
TADA!! Okay, so it's not that great but I am bored and tried. So I think I will end this post here, I am sure you have all discovered how much I lose my mind when I am stressed about finals, my thought process goes all over the place. Just one last thing before I go. Remember when we were talking about our heroes having different sides that might not always be great. For example, Emily Murphy and her involvement in Eugenics, well I found out something about Dr. Seuss. Beloved creator of Cat In The Hat also was involved in political cartoons, and I came across this one that I found very interesting. What do you all think?


http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/axis-conquers-philippines-7.jpg

Edmonton... Edmon-mum!

The other day we were in our "World Cafe" and we talking about Edmonton personified. I decided that if Edmonton was a human, she would be a mum. Now I know it seems kind of silly but I decided a little while ago that Edmonton was a mum. She can be all sorts of different kinds of mum, a cool mum, a hippie mum, a business mum or even a farming mum. She can from all different kinds of cultures or backgrounds and still be our mum. I think of Edmonton as a mum mainly because being from St. Albert, makes me feel like she is always looking out for us. I feel like as St. Albert we are that child that mum's thought was such a darling as a child but now we are teenagers and are being rebellious. We refused to be annexed, we even tried to pull the..."Why don't you become St.Albert?!?!" like the little brats we are. We are spoiled and whine a lot, but Edmonton is still makes the rules and plans fun stuff for the summer so we have something to do. Edmonton has other children too, and keeps some of us close... because some of her children went wild *Fort Mac*, some of her children just decided it was time to go, or be closer to their father once Edmonton and Calgary got a divorce and now they battle over everything! Edmonton, to me, has always been a feminine city (probably because of the culture and art). Calgary is more likes a dad, with it's stampede and the sprawl of the city. I don't know, thinking about Edmonton as a mum makes me feel comforted...probably because I am from her spoiled child and always feel like Edmonton will take me back under her wing.

Who ya gonna call? GHOST BUSTERS!

I figured out something very interesting while researching for my essay. Oral and written works become so varied over time! The same ghost story about the Firkins house in Fort Edmonton Park has been butchered and maimed over the years, twisting the facts about the house and making the oral history change. I find it amusing that they say a boy died in the house and suddenly it's the Firkins son that died (they had no son). From there the story takes on dramatic twists and turns such as he had TB or it was actually a ghostly woman that pushed the last owner of the house down the stairs! They become ridiculous over time, taking on new lives and fully coming away from the history of the house. It made me think. I know that history is heard from the winners perspective but this has me questioning how much truth is behind some stories. I mean, someone could just come up with an outrageous story that over time people believe is fact and then it becomes new history. I tried to tell my friend that no one died in the house and she got angry at me saying yes there was because there was a ghost and it left me a little exasperated. I told her "Dude, I am looking into this place for my essay and a guy in my class (Dickie) who works at Fort Ed even told me there was no one that died in this place." Her reply was "I don't believe you, this is like an oral history Emily and I don't think that books would write about it and everyone would know the story if it was false." This then followed with my eye twitching and me having to walk away before I strangled her. It is this experience that has made question how much history and literature I should take to be true, or if I should just take it at face value and leave myself open to other interpretations. It just seems like we are told at a young age that the book, the teacher, the parent is right... but history changes.... it makes me wonder what to believe.

A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end - and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral.

The last couple of classes has had me thinking about past, present and future. The past is something that I never really thought about before. Sure, we all ended up in Edmonton for whatever reason but I never thought about the area past my family's involvement. To read Goyette's book and find out stuff about the area that I live in and how it was settled long before anyone in my family decided to settle is a unique perspective to think about. I now look out my backyard window onto the area where they are digging up ground for the Anthony they are building and wonder about who walked over that land and how they affected the way the land was settled, since my house borders Edmonton and St.Albert. When I thought about how the world is really all the same way it made the earth in itself seem more realistic and approachable, since I am one that has not left North America. This then had me think about my present, about how I am going to school here instead of elsewhere to take my schooling and that I did it to be in the familiar close to home. As well, thinking about Edmonton and the fact that the buildings get torn down whereas in Victoria where I was during reading week keeps very old buildings. I questioned what I thought about this demolition of the old and it made me feel sad that we are losing this past. I think that's why I love visiting cemetaries. I am always trying to find very old gravestones, because that's something that links me to the past with their moss covered words to the beautiful stone beneath. I find these markers comforting in a city that can not see the stone past the grimy moss and has to get rid of the filth. After our discussion last week I thought about how the past and the present as I know it would be gone if the world ended up being taken over by the wildlife. There would be no one to take care of the grounds in the cemetaries, no one to keep the buildings intact and no books or other sources in which to tell our history to future generations, as there would be known. Thinking about the world continuing on as it had before humans ever walked it made me realize that we do live in a circle of time, everything that was will happen again... there was the ground in which we came from, that we then inhabited and die on and go back into the earth. In some bizarre way it made me feel calm knowing that even though humans might not be around forever that the earth is pretty well it's own living creature in itself that will keep aging without us.


~quote by:Maynard J. Keenan

parade:A large gathering of tourists, orientals, or small teenage girls. Usually offending people by their presence.

“Citizens of the Streets: Parties, Processions, and Revolutions” was a prime example of what I have missed in my now twenty three years of existence. I never realized how important it was for me to be a part of that Remembrance Day parade when I was a young girl, all I could think of was people looking at me in my dorky Girl Guide uniform. It is important though, I now know that. My cousin two weeks ago graduated from the Marines, my mom describes it as an awe inspiring event. She said she almost cried when she saw 500 uniforms walking in formation, especially when she thought of what could happen to them. It was an important event for so many people, but before I would not have thought anything about it. I can remember being in school and wanting to go protest student rights so badly with my friends. Everyone had left school except for me and another girl in my class, we had been left behind because our parents would have murdered us if we had left school to protest. I had wanted to be involved, to have my voice heard and my feet to pound the pavement but I was unable too. I remember yelling at my parents for weeks after saying "Damn the Man!". To be a part of that group of people walking toward a certain goal would just be amazing, I want to be apart of something bigger than myself and hopefully one day I can be.

~* Definition of Parade brought to you by the lovely people at urbandictionary.com

Concrete Jungle

Something was said in class today that really stood out to me; that there is whimsy in walking. I never thought about it before, but it strikes me as true. I never once have questioned the way I walk, but when I am in between classes I walk very quickly and with my head down (which is more to avoid ice than anything else). However, when I am not trying to get somewhere in a hurry I generally stroll. I never knew I did this, but I see why I do. When I am just walking along I try to take in everything, every sound and movement because I can. I find that I see parts of Edmonton I have never seen before when I allow myself to take it in. Whether it be the construction on campus, or new graffiti on the side of a building, it is always interesting to see how life is ever changing. I find I can drift through the streets and go unnoticed even by my friends if I so choose, which is nice when I am having an adventurous type of day and want to explore the world around me. I like walking down the street with my ipod on so that I can compare the beat of my music to the beat of the city, and more often than not it seems to mesh well. The best of any city though is when you can walk through a forested area and hear the trees rustle and the birds sing. Bringing nature and city life together like that, to me, shows how society can interact with nature if we give it a chance. It is nice to escape from the stresses of every day life and walk around the city whether it be in nature or walking down the street in our urban jungle.

Edmonton musings

So I would like to start off saying that these blog entries are difficult!
Hagen mentioned how "every community needs a town square." This had more meaning looking back on it then I had thought about during class. It all started when I was looking through the Edmonton Archives online earlier tonight, because I was bored and decided not to be creeping around on Facebook. Looking through the pictures I realized, I have no roots in Edmonton. I have lived on the fringes of Edmonton my entire life but my family is not from here, my parents and grandparents will have no pictures in the archive. It just was...a weird moment. We have family photos that remind me of the ones in the archives but none of them are from Edmonton. I have never thought about how little of a footprint my family has left on this city, when some people can trace their roots back for generations. My parents talk about their hometowns and it's awesome, but at the same time it is annoying because I have little information on what their time in Edmonton was like before I came along. This is not something I ever thought about but it actually showed how much I rely on my friends to be my community. It may not be the community that Darrin was talking about, but I think it suits well. My community is made up of all sorts of people, from different parts of the world. Our parents decided, however many years ago, to move to the Edmonton area. I am who I am today because of these people, my community. We all have different traits, we all go our different ways but find ourselves back together again. It ended up making me feel better, knowing I have this community and I hope with their help we can leave a little bit of footprint on Edmonton. If not at least I can have memories like my parents of their hometowns. This probably seems very jumbled so I am sorry that it is, but all of these thoughts sort of came together this way. My community has made Edmonton be what it is to me, has helped me form my own footprint. ^_^ Anyway, I am done rambling now.

Traffic me Edmonton! First spark!

Okay, so I was taking the bus into Edmonton this morning, you know, doing the usual commute when I happened to look up from my ipod induced oblivion to realize that we had stopped moving. So St. Albert from as far back as I can remember has never had really bad traffic which makes it frustrating for me to go into Edmonton. There is so much traffic on 137 ave and "St. Albert Trail" (which brings me onto a tangent, ok! there is nothing like confusing anyone from not around Edmonton by making the road St. Albert Trail, Mark Messier, St. Albert Road, St. Albert Trail, St. Albert Road... in that order!) so if there is any kind of accident you are screwed and might as well call your first class a write off. Today however was the day I realized that there is bottlenecked traffic from 118th ave traffic circle and "St. Albert Trail". This is why I end up late for my first class when it snows!! Stupid bottleneck. I mean, come on! I don't really drive and I can relate to Jane Jacobs. If there was less roads going into the one centralized area we would be better off, we need to start thinking on a mirco level instead of the macro. This reminds me of L.A. actually. I was in California a couple of summers ago and the best invention I have ever heard of is a carpool lane. We would pass the cars going slower because there were 5 of us in the minivan, and of course being teenagers straight out of highschool...we totally pointed and laughed. However, even with this lane for car pooling traffic in L.A. it is ridiculous how bloody awful the traffic is there! This round about talk is how I basically want to say, I now have a greater appreciation for St. Albert and its named streets and its NO traffic. *Even if I dislike living here* :P Until next time ~Emmy