The Zany Adventures of Jordan Oram

So apparently I've gotten a job during my break between terms 1 and 2. After a tumultous week of trying to weigh options between accepting "the job" or sticking with school, I've chosen to stick with school. Then I was offerend "the job" for the time I was on break. I accepted. But then we realized that I wouldn't be able to renew my first aid before then. So it was a no go. Then yesterday I was told that in light of my other noteworthy skills and abilities and whatever else, that if I still wanted the job during the break that I could have it. So I agreed. And now I'll be working during the break. It was a tricky decision because, while I'll still be able to hit up Sechelt and see my 'rents new place for a day or two, I'm not sure I'll be able to cruise Abbotsford and hang with my greatly missed peeps.

Such is life and the decisions made with the choices that come ones way.

Ok.. time for me to adios so,
Adios!
Jordan

Update and Random Crazyness

Yeah so we're just coming up to final exam time here. The first one is on Thursday. But I'm probably not going to get much studying done because one of my good friends is coming to visit me (hopefully) tonight and for the next couple days. (who? who? you sound like owls. Maybe I'll post a picture afterwards)

Add to this mix the following Jordanic happening. I was offered a job yesterday. Yes, me. Now.. how do these short notice really interesting and somewhat attractive job offers keep happening to me? Does this happen to other people? Or is it just me?

So basically... i've been offered a job, living in a tent on a small island, working with school kids, for a couple months in the spring, and could do it in the fall also. I'd have to find something else in the summer (maybe the little business Scotty and I are cooking up?). Oh and it pays quite well. Though if I were to momentarily pause my schooling after this term, the next time term 2 is offered is, I think, next January. So that would add to the time it'd take till I'm done the program.. but I'd be better set up fiscally for it.

Yeah... so.. exam time eh? lol I've got so much swirling in my head it took me awhile to get to sleep as my body was practically buzzing.

Oh the wacky wildness.

And now.. Jordan's Top Favorite Biking to and from School things...

Biking there...
The first couple blocks while I'm warming up as I dodge cars at the 4-way intersection and take to the sidewalk.
The construction zone and the nice people who tell me to stop everyday. Like today I"m gonna do something different.
How if you've lots of time to get to school, then every light is green on the way there. But if you're a bit behind and hope to hit every green light, you get mostly red. lol
Arriving and getting to do the ever so class "Farmer Blow" technique (def's highlight)

Biking back...
Mirror's whizzing by the head
Buses whizzing on ever side
Passing long lines of traffic as they go light to light
Passing anything.. it's fun
dodging doors suddenly opened in front of you
How my eyes water from the air when I go downhill fast (I'm not crying!)


Ok ok.. it's time for me to go.. lets see.. leave you all with a couple pictures....

Who wouldn't buy yerba mate from these guys? eh eh? :)


We were laughing about how our heads almost got stuck... time to get the butter out.. how many people are suddenly reminded of the time their sibiling or friend got their head stuck between two railings or something? Darn those ears.. they work so well going in and are such a nuisance backing out.... :) Later y'all

Oh What A Night

Late december back in 63..

It's amazing how brief comments by old friends can so utterly cheer up your day. It's like in the brief engagement all of the positive weight in the relationship is brought to bear momentarily back upon you and... it's just really awesome.

So thanks, I appreciate it.

Funkadelic Pictures

This is like where's Waldo? Where's teh Sasquatch (aka Parks Worker... ;) )

Sunday's Trip To The Beach

3 Days Done

Two tests in the last two days and today was our project presentation. I was involved with a dramatic piece for Chapter 2, the game show host for "Transference Jeopardy", and the singer/songwriter who did a summary of Chapter 6 in song. So at least it wasn't boring. :) Oh and I got bored so I shaved for the presentation, so as to look "professional".




What else is up? Well.. having searched somewhat fruitlessly to find someone working the Yerba Mate here on the Island my buddy Scotty and I are thinking of bringing some in and selling it at Farmer's Markets etc. We're looking into it. ;) At least then I wouldn't have to wait to go back to Abby to pick up some more Yerba. :)

Here are a couple pictures I took while Scotty and I were cruising the beach yesterday and discussing plans.




Well I'm gonna get on with my day, may you have a good one.

Ok.. and for those of you who are wondering what it looks like to receive a massage from a student at WWCMT...

The Aftermath

Dream's Device to Morning's Sight

I was just woken up by thoughts of you and pain in my chest. Apparently all that we've gone through has left it's mark. A piece of real estate is permanently yours inside my heart. During my darkest of days when all seemed lost you were there beside me and together we survived.

My dream was like a WB Drama. Something I don't watch. Except for season 6 of Gilmore Girls because I was at camp without anything else on and I watched the whole thing in a few days. Then I went and read on the internet what happened in the next season. I was pissed. Still am. I like Luke. I haven't watched an episode since.

But in my dream we were both at some social party with other people we didn't really care for. We saw each other out of the corner of our eyes but nothing was said or acknowledgement given. Instead you drew close to your date an kissed. It kicked me in the gut. It floored me. All of this after the passage of what? 5,6,8,11 years? So what did I do? Well I very obviously kissed my date publicly for all to see, in unacknowledged acknowledgement of you. A serious teen drama. What an oxymoron it seems. So, in my dream, I walked outside and felt sick in my stomach. Being with the one I was with rather than who? You, the one I wanted. Then our dates walked away in perfectly scripted timing as you came out for air too. We didn't see each other until it was too late. I wanted to say that I missed you. But you were angry at my kissing the girl. I tried to explain but it came out muddled. It only made it worse. You stormed away. I hurt. But it was all so deeply hidden. So deep that it could only come out in a dream. Only in the dark hours of the night. Only at 5am in the dark damn morning. No rationality, only pure emotion; raw; visceral.

The kind of emotion you feel deep in the still of the night. Half asleep they run rampantly willy nilly. (Whoever is that Willy Nilly fellow? He must be in great shape!) The kind of emotions and thoughts that aren't available in the day, aren't available when awake, because all of that rationality gets in the way. So I'll say it now when I'm still half asleep. I love you. Always will. You live in a house on a swamp in the corner of my heart and you always will.

I'll wake up later and look at this. Wonder what I ate for dinner, maybe salmon patties and salsa are a poor choice. I'll say some chemical reaction caused my nocturnal heart pangs. But for now I lay here enthralled and weakened by a strength of emotion that isn't able to escape or be felt in the day; in the living hours, or half living hours of the heart-shielded zombies. Shuffling around surface relationships looking for something that will surpass the past, or at least help express it.

The taste is fresh on my lips and the last note of a certain song still lingers in my ear. It always will. It will always be there. As life and time move on. Of course I want to call you right now. Irrational as it would seem in the morning. I want to tell you how much you mean to me. How much you helped me through. How for a time you were a large part of me. What is this? Jerry McGuire?

Teenage drama. How I loathe it. All that hormonal/emo crap. No control. At the whim and fancy of enzymes, receptors, and high school girls. The best a guy can do is try to shrug into a survival suit as he's tossed overboard, try not to inhale too much salt water, and pray to the weather gods that they will look down with mercy upon the poor sick fool.

Of course the phone call will never happen. As I wake up, it never will. Things in the night stay there and the day clouds the night with it's intellectual "higher functioning" light.

The ravages of heavy emotions move on leaving various detrius and debris in their wake.

I won't call you with this. Maybe I'll email you. Say Hi. Wish you well. The day time thoughts of a day time world over top the night time heart untold. Because it is day now. The light is lifting the spell; the curse. To the night it is magic, to feel, to be held in thrall, to ache, and pine, and fly, and soar. To the morning's advance it is silly dreaming. I love silly dreams. I love the magic. And on that acreage to the side of that aorta or ventricle, whatever it's called, I'll always love you.

Well I'm lying here now more awake, and somewhat aghast at all I've written about all that's past during the last 4 plus page expression of me on paper. Now the head comes creeping in. Can't damn well leave good enough alone. Starts looking for connections and in it's arrogant self conceit starts making them too. "You like penguins because you had a penguin toy in your crib." And crap like that. Maybe I like penguins because I damn well like them. Maybe it was just an easy project to do every year in school because I'd just repackage the previous year's assignment; with updated art work and bibliography of course. They shouldn't be upset. It's just like what they text book people do.

I know that I want to, one day, have another deep thrilling scary painful wonderful amazing relationship. And I know I don't feel ready yet. So I find short term ones, which is a step up from the "unrequited give me journal fodder artistic pining" ones, thankfully. So I run into people who, like me, are interested in something with out pressure, with out a long term 3 year forecast. But I want them to have that wonderful thing my heart once alluded to; connected to. And I feel that I'm not able to be that person yet. And they say they're ok with that, just be here for a bit longer. But I want that something more that frightens me, that calls me onward, that wakes me up in the middle of the night with WB Drama Dreams. And I want that for me, so of course I want that for them too. Because it does really all come from out of the same place. It's just easier sometimes to externalize rather than look at the deeper, personal, more intimate truth. And I'm not willing to support the lesser pursuit of mediocrity anymore. I want more for me and them. Not just the temporary fulfilment of a moments validation. Not just to be together so you're not alone. If that's the case I'll choose the alone that I might be available for the better. I'd rather be alone in stillness seeking the truth, then surrounded and encased in the hollow lie.

Maybe one day when we're old and gray we'll run into each other and then we'll say "Hey way back yonder when we were younger here's how it went down." Then we'll go sit on the porch swing, hold hands, sip tea, and smile and shake our heads as we watch the little school boys pester the little school girls and remember how it all started so very long ago. Maybe.

Vintage Hot Tubs

I bike past a place every day. It's called Vintage Hot Tubs. There are some things that I'd buy vintage. My thermos. Neat clothes. Maybe some things for the house.. if I ever upgrade from my backpack. ;) Vintage Hot Tubs sounds like something made out of cast iron that you put over top of a fire and heat up over a long period of time. I can actually see a design schematic for something like that in my head. I think I'd get one of those. Ok... I'm weird. It's just an odd title for a business that sells hot tubs. Mind you.. it's got me thinking at least and remembering it. In fact, if someone were to, today, ask me about a hot tub store that's the one I think of right away. Just like the "Hidden Treasures" furniturish store in North Van. I remember that because it's name is so untrue.. unless they've thrown sheets over all of their couches and the tables are buried under the entertainment centre section. Then they could at least call it "Poorly Hidden Treasures" But no, the title is Hidden Treasures. They're not really hidden if they're in plain sight; if you proudly proclaim their "hidden" status on the front of your store alongside a busy street to all that drive past. I don't dispute the treasure statement.. could be.. I don't know if I don't go in. But the "Hidden" is clearly erroneous. That said... if someone in North Van asked me about a furniture store I'd wonder if they'd checked out Hidden Treasures.

Makes you think.. but no matter how well those erroneous titles seem to have stuck with me, I'm still not going to call my future RMT business Hidden Vintage Massage. Though people would remember it. And if you've read this you may too.


Can you guess who's desk this is? Oh and yeah.. there was a girl in the back but when I took the picture of my desk she said "am I in that?" like she didn't want to be. So I said "no" and crappily halfassed airbrushed her quasi out of the picture. It was kinda cool actually.. cause when you just run the airbrush through there once it kinda looks like the person is beaming out.

Mate Mate Man

The other day was a bit of a tempestuous day. Emotionally I was off kilter and tossed about like salad at a salad fight. A series of events acted as trigger points that I later traced back to the root fears.

The event that brought me first to an awareness of my off-kilterness? I'd done some photocopying for our group and one of the girls said she didn't want one. That was all. But for some reason I felt almost sick, rejected, vulnerable. It was really odd. The feelings didn't match the input. So I noticed that something funky was happening. I hoped that the bike ride back would allow me some distancing time and that I'd be able to hunt down the facts when I got home. So home I cycled.

Once home I donned my spelunking gear for internal exploration, turned on the headlamp, and began my descent into the beyond inside.

I found that a previous revelation that day had set me up in the vulnerable position. A previous revelation had battered my walls. It had knocked me askew. What was it? Well one of the 3 other guys in the class had decided to drop out. Having only 4 guys in a class of 38, you get to know the guys pretty quick. Not only that but he and I had hung out and had some nifty good plans for different things. Like starting a little Yerba business at Farmer's Markets, to sell stuff and play guitars, and all kinds of other fun. It was good times. And than *bam* it wasn't. Rumours were flying around. He'd gone to Manitoba. He was called back to his home planet. He was going into surgery to become a female. (Ok.. not all of those were rumours that spread around class.) And I was upset that I hadn't heard anything about this.

Dig deeper lad, deeper.

So I did. And found this was a slightly similar scenario to what happened at the beginning of the year with a lady that I sat next to in class. She's an awesome person. But was having a hard time. So I encouraged her and hung out with her. She was going to get me to help tutor her. It was a bond formed through slogging it out in the trenches of an overwhelming experience. And then she didn't come to class for a couple days and missed our appointments. I didn't know what was going on. Then someone said that she'd dropped out.

All of these experiences share similarities. All triggered and inflamed the similar old familiar fears. That there's something wrong with me. I know it's not rational. Yet obviously there is a part of me that is still afraid deep down sometimes. And that's the part that needs to be heard. Needs to be embraced. Needs to be worked through.

So that was my journey at the end of last week. As of last night I'd resolved the fluttering remnants of my internal delusions when I ran into my buddy online yesterday. Turns out he's still living in the area, getting other stuff in line, going to re-start in September, and still wants to get the Yerba thing going as well as hang out. That's life. Full of different lessons and places to explore. The outside exploration is fun and challenging and good; the inside tougher and more marvellous by far.

Time to jet off to class and get palpated. It's my turn to be the demo today. We're doing muscles of the calves and feet. So I get to share my calf crack. :)

And maybe I still get to be the Mate Mate Man after all :)

Are The Rumours True? Could it be?

What have we here? Is it a new thermos? Oh yes. Yes it is! The Yerba shall flow once more. Blind shall receive sight, and weeping shall turn to paeans of gladness.



There you have it. My new Thermos with my still to be named Guampa. The guy who sold me the thermos was named Peter. I've though about working off of the name Peter, ie Petros- rock. Maybe Pedro or Pietro. Though looking at the South American history of the guampa.. maybe Pedro is the better choice.

The two other suggestions I've received are,
From Jenna- Benvolio (the only one from Romeo and Juliet's generation to survive the whole affair). Seen as a guy who attempted reconciliation and to defuse situations rather than automatically turn to violence. Yet he was willing to stand up when he felt it necessary. That's a pretty funkadelic name.

Ian Brown glibly dismisses Benvolio and petitions for Navin. If you don't understand that reference.. then you need to go here.

Any suggestions for the name of the Guampa? Or the new Thermos? To see more of their (and my) adventures keep an eye on my flickr account.

On a side note.. it doesn't help that much that all of my helpful friends, who've offered their services for me to practice on, live on the mainland when I've got an assignment due on monday. Maybe I'll just have to put on a sandwich board and walk the streets.. but that could be horribly misconstrued.

On Feeling A Little Low

Do you find moods come and go?
Ebb and flow,
Like the waves of the sea?

Why is it? I sometimes know.
Oft times though they arrive so
unannouced.

Leaving me,
to discovery,
of what is really happening.

Or morosely,
moving on with the journey,
waiting for the shoe to drop.

The lightbulb to flicker.
The world to spin into place.
Revelation to reveal.

But I'm not there
not there yet
yet there I go.

Mishmash before school.

Yes I must bolt out the door soon.. but first!
I have a new thermos. It's official. But I don't have a picture as of yet. I know... you're all eager with anticipation. But fear not! For soon you shall see my new thermos.. perhaps I will also unveil my name of choice for my guampa. Though that contest is still open. (The name Jordan's guampa contest, if you didn't know :) )

On with the quick show.
Bike commute to school past the old anglican church. Construction in the back. New Vic meets old Vic. At least they're keeping the old VIc around whilst they build their giant monoliths.



On Tuesday's bike-a-riffic adventure I biked back to Moss Rock at the start of my journey. As I was biking down a road to I knew not where, I passed this circle of purple flowers protectively surrounding this poor naked tree. It's kinda like a nudist visiting Hawaii. As long as they don't bust out the "you wanna lei" line I'm not running yet.



Birds Watching Bird Watcher
This retired gentleman (I don't know how you retire from being a gentleman.. maybe that's when you transition into a life of cranky old man?) (just kidding) (he was quite nice) was out visiting for a couple months from Ottawa. We spoke for nigh on half an hour on various different topics. Climate, climate change, politics, school, work, life choices, etc. It was rather an interesting and good conversation. I'm finding myself in more of them as I go out on my adventures. Especially with older people. I think they generally have a lot to add to society and have usually thought out stuff pretty good. It's unfortunate that their intelligence and wisdom is often unheard or unsought and they end up being marginalized. So there's a challenge for you. Engage in a conversation with a random person today. And if you pick an older person you're more likly to end up in a long conversation.


And I wanted to finish by heading to the top of the hill. I was down at the Chinese Cemetary and didn't really know the roads. So I just found the bottoms of the park where there aren't houses, picked up my bike, and climbed up. I only had to do it through 2 sections removed only by a short 5 min bike ride portage, before I made is successfully to the top. It's a snazzy view from up there. I recommend it. :)



So since I went to Mt.Tolmie as my "breaking in the bike" bike ride, I think I've covered most of the high points near the house here... the next closest one is Mt.Doug but that'll take a bit longer... mayhaps it'll be the next bike-a-riffic expedition. Something for the weekend. :)

Time for me to run like a fast biking school boy. Adios and good times. Live life well and choose your choices with wisdom.

And talk to random people. Respectfully. But if you find yourself in a line up.. make a comment on something. Look around and smile and greet people as you pass them on the street. It's a thought isn't it?