Righteous Debt

How far are you away from a B. Ed.? I feel like University programs overlap each other in so many ways that getting a second degree is often less work than one might think. UBC? They have a nice campus.

30 hey, I feel you on that. For so many goals it seems like 30 is the day that it all has to be sorted out by. A career, marriage/kids, a house. The thirty demographic is always a strange one because there are so many of our generation at that level who are still doing the stuff they did when they were in their early twenties. I guess it shouldn't really change that much, but hitting the bar 3 or 4 nights a week and being a weekend warrior is not a path to righteousness by any means. More like perpetually debt. Unless debt=righteous. The thought of having kids at our age always seems like an obvious no to me, but then I think about what things will be like in 15 or 20 years when that kid gets cool and you're not yet over 50, that seems like a nice place. CJ has some family with tight generations and their events are always fun and packed. Her grandma Judy is about the same age as my parents!

I would love to be paying a mortgage right now rather than paying rent. I came out here with that idea in my head and since have resolved to save it till I graduate. Not working and spending money sucks, but I guess it is all with ambition of putting me in a place to rake in some mad scrilla.

Motorcycles are awesome. I try to ride mine to school as much as possible, except that bridge is tolled at 75.cent and I never carry around quarters, sometimes I get across and realize this so I beg them to let me through. Though in the winter the bike gets parked so maybe I have to graduate and then drive down to Argentina to live.

I have recently taken on Surfing. I have been out a quite a few times this year and am starting to get a handle on it. I have even found a board to buy, renting adds up.

I will be home for the holiday season, on the17th you? A hockey torunement for sure. We should each build a team and then play head to head, with pilsners in beer kosys, and nets turned face down. It could be our annual home coming. Though it won't get in the way of mixing the teams, we don't wait all year to come home and become each others opponents.

What are you listening to these days? Cj bought a Beach House LP which is really good, otherwise I am computer and Ipod less. The record store will need to become my friend.

After my University Experience?

Alas, dear chum, I am nowhere near this "after" you refer to. Sure, I graduated with a B.A. a while ago, but as it turns out attaining that particular level of post secondary education is equivalent to what graduating high school would have been 15 years ago. As such, I am doing several courses right now in order to go back and get a B. Ed. which at least is a professional degree and has a particular career path associated with it. Whether I'll actually be able to get a job afterward amongst extensive teacher layoffs is another question. I guess what I'm saying is that being a cog in the machine doesn't sound too bad from some perspectives; at least it's a reliable income. May I also say that, while it is reassuring to hear that you are having many of the same misgivings I (and I assume many of our generation) do, I'm a little unnerved by the fact that you have a couple more years to get where your going before you hit 30, while I have about 13 months. I don't know why that particular age seems like a finish line of sorts, but that's the way it feels. Anyway, glad to hear you're liking school, I've always suspected an education in something practical would be more rewarding in a lot of ways. Going to be in Alberta for X-mas?

Always start at zero

Dear Jong,

It has been way to long since either of our last posts. I think that the standard of quality may be to high for us to consistently make entries, Or that could be my problem. Potentially we have to lower that standard to ease the burden of potential disappointment to our readers in order to get some entires made.

I am in school right now. I feel pretty committed in a way I never was UofC, to bad it cost so much more. The classes I take are not any more challenging but the end product seems more tangible as a goal and as a tool to walk away with. The graduates of the program are well introduced to the industry by the time they graduate and seem to find placement in a variety of different applications.

I see this perspective where my diploma though grants me access to a new layer of the economy still limits me to a certain sector of it, but this is really only a limitation to someone who isn't willing to ply their learnings outside of the box so easily set up for them by the institution. Similarly, I see many friends, holders of bachelor degrees, who are given their rather broad degree and told the world is their oyster. The institution fails to narrow their career path for them and instead they are left to their own devices to carve something with their new tools. This place forces some to make a decision: more school or work for the man?

Does this kind of describe how you felt after your university experience? Some peoples ultimate goal from their education is essentially becoming a cog in the machine and getting paid well to do it but otherwise where do you go? I probably need to know a greater spectrum of graduates and the twenties are also a very transient decade.

Just came to mind recently.

You know what else came to mind, errors in counting. Let's say you and I have a timed trial, except we have no stop watches and are going to rely on the other counting the seconds. So you line up and I start counting as soon as you take off. 1....2....3....4.... and so on. I reach 28 by the time you finish a lap and we get ready to switch, what do I tell you when you ask "Blair, how long did it take me complete that lap?" I would likely say 28, but I didn't start counting from zero, I started counting from one, so what I should really tell you is that it took you 27 seconds to finish that lap.

Dillon is coming out here soon, I told him I'd start collecting bottles and cans to start a fund to fly you out here for a Bare/Bear Hands show. Plane tickets are expensive though, you may have to start collecting on your end.