sweet, wonderful Literature

A friend asked me the other day “What’s the point of reading fiction? It doesn’t teach you anything concrete, like a self help, or history or biology book.” I launched myself into a full fledged defense of fiction, and as I heard myself talking, I realized just how much a teaching instrument I considered literature to be.

When I graduated from the bowels of the earth, aka Sandford Flemming and the Engineering conditioning, I felt myself awakening from a hazy dream. I had absorbed a ghastly amount of information: programming languages, circuits and their laws, data systems and their intricacies, and a whole truckload of acronyms that I can’t even begin to remember. The wasteful thing about all this was that it had failed to change me as a human being into anything better than I had been before. All it did was give me a headache.

That summer, like one escaped from incarceration, I breathed the fresh air, and picked up a book. It wasn’t on Network Systems, or C++. It was wonderful, liberating fiction! And for the first time in four years I felt myself really learning. Learning about the human soul and the world of ideas. In that one year after the liberation (ha!) I felt that I had learned so much more than in those four years that my fat student loan had just paid for.

So I tried to convince this friend that fiction IS indeed full of things to learn. The best part about it is that it is not spelled out to you and underlined as information in a self help book is. It’s there like a mystery, for you to decipher from the story and from between the lines of a story. It’s like a courtship, with stolen glances and sweet anticipation, rather than a drawn up prenup agreement. It changes your mind like no training manual ever will.

So read on, brave souls! Read on!

Subway Woes

Yes, again!

I am not predisposed against the TTC. Really, I’m not! But as long as the daily ride remains detrimental to body and soul, I must speak for fellow sardines everywhere, or else we will all lose our humanity. I am surprised that in a country like ours that values safety above all things, the monstrosity of the subway experience is tolerated. It’s not just crowded; it’s a health hazard! You hear about medical emergencies on trains all the time during rush hour. Well, no kidding! People are so packed, they can’t breathe!

               

So, it makes me wonder… While the city is expanding and the subway network remains the same, what is going through the authorities’ minds when they approve new residences and condominiums? Do they actually have a plan in mind to improve public transit or are they hoping people will just get so fed up with this mess that they will either: 1) die of heart attacks and asphyxiation while on the subways, or 2) move out of Toronto.

The mystery of the missing plants.

I came back from vacation to find my plants … dun! dun! dun! … GONE! All of them, except the bamboo.

Today I have been told that they were taken to the ground floor for mass watering over the holidays. I went downstairs and found the room, but it was … dun! dun! dun! … LOCKED! I could see them through the glass, alongside other plants from other offices. Were they happier here, I asked myself? Did they spend the two weeks exchanging office anecdotes and humming to each other? Did they even want to come back? Would it be cruel to separate them from their newfound friends?

But alas, I am not a plant researcher, and my office does look really empty without them, so I got the key to the room and retrieved them. They’ll see their other plant friends next Christmas.

On a similar note, the coffee maker carafe was gone too. WHO WOULD DO SUCH A THING?!!!

Going back to work …

… is harder than getting married.

My feelings waking up this morning ranged from denial to anger, to despair and finally to utter wretchedness. But in reality, work is not the monster that I make it out to be. I really don’t know why I get this reaction! I have a history of being at my most productive when I am most busy. In university, I would read through an entire novel during exam time. (I don’t know if that can be called productive though …) So why this tantrum of emotions before going to work? It’s inexplicable to me … Although seeing my hamster happily burrowed and drifting off to sleep as I walk out the door might have something to do with it.

New Apartment

This past week I have been making more lists than in the last year put together. I find that I love making lists - writing them down on paper, tearing the page out, folding it, and placing it in my coat pocket.

Some things already in the apartment:
- wine
- a kaleidoscope
- coffee maker
- coffee filters
- ground coffee
- coffee mugs
- milk
- sugar
- tea spoons
- limited furniture
- paintings

Some things not yet in the apartment:
- cookies
- the rest of the furniture
- curtains!

Coffee, together with a cookie!

I have mentioned that I dislike a coffee that is not accompanied by a cookie.  I will elaborate.  Coffee on its own is really just mud water that will eventually make me unable to fall asleep.  By definition, anything that prevents me from drifting into slumber is undesirable.  Therefore, coffee on its own holds little attraction for me. 

 

However, add a cookie into the equation (oh, how geeky!) and my entire outlook changes.  While a coffee alone is uninteresting and utilitarian, the company of a cookie turns it into a social engagement.  Now both my hands are occupied, and instead of one monotonous set of movements (raise hand, sip, lower hand back down), a whole new and intricate dance is possible:  You can bite, sip, chew, swallow, or sip, bite, sip, chew, swallow, or (the best one yet!) dunk, bite, chew, swallow, sip, “ah!”

So, if you ever see me drinking a solitary coffee, you may be sure of one out of two things: either I am broke and cannot afford a cookie, or I have already eaten my cookie and I am just going through the motions of finishing the mud water in solemn contemplation of the cookie’s absence.   

Athos     

from Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”

” …

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

…”

Athos’ old writing grounds

all41athos.spaces.live.com