Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Obsession

I miss talking to him everyday. He's away right now and there is no email and no cell phone. So, there is no talking.

I like talking to him. I want to hear about every minute detail of his day. I want to tell him about mine. I want to cook supper for him and wash dishes with him. I want to cuddle. I want to kiss him good bye at the beginning of the day and hello at the end of the day.

I want to have sex with him. I want to figure out how to have sex together.


I don't need to know what the future holds. I just want to know that it holds something good.

I love and hate the beginning of relationships. I hate not knowing where the bumps will be and I hate being a fool for love. But I love the rush and the exhilaration. I love the discovery. I even love the freaking out (a little).

I can't sleep. My heart is racing. I'm thinkingthinkingthinking. But I'm thinking nothing. I just have static when I listen.

I'm trying to convince myself of two somewhat opposite things. 1) I want to get married and 2) this is infactuation right now and let it go and breathe and wait and wait and wait.

I don't know what this is. I don't. I have to wait and see. I want to see. I want to see him again. I will see him again. I want to see him again soon. Technically, I will see him again soon. But it feels like not soon enough.

I know that I get crazy feelings at the beginnings of relationships. And none of them have ended really well.

I have hope with this one. I think. I don't know.

I don't want to give any absolutes incase I'm wrong or something changes.

I saw Matt this evening. J and M and I and Matt were at the Dekker for wings. I always feel like shit after I see him. I feel fat and stupid and worthless. He dated me and didn't like me. Was repulsed by me.

I don't want that to happen here. I don't.

How can I prevent it? I don't know. I just have to wait.

There's nothing I can do about it.

I know this.

But I'm still going to stew over it. Heavily.

LJMeme

Your Name: Kelsey Lorraine
2. Age: 26
3. Single or Taken: Single, finally
4. Favourite Film: Boondock Saints
5. Favourite Song or Album: so many
6. Favourite Band/Artist: The Cat Empire
7. Dirty or Clean: Naughty :)
8. Tattoos and/or Piercings: two in each ear. One set of which I regret
9. Do we know each other outside of LJ? Hells yeah
10. What's your philosophy on life? *shakes fist at sky and shouts a la Kirk* Justice!!!
11. Is the bottle half-full or half-empty? Half empty, because I've been drinking, but it's refillable
12. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest? Yes
13. What is your favourite memory of us? Right before we walked out of Masawa, when we were standing there
14. What is your favourite guilty pleasure? Sex/Porn/Toys or watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report daily
15. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you: I have less stuff than you'd think, I just pile it big...
16. You can have three wishes (for yourself, so forget all the 'world peace etc' malarkey) - what are they? Really good fundraising ability, slightly more self control, more ability to foc...is that shiny over there?
17. Can we get together and make a cake? Yes
18. Which country is your spiritual home? Australia
19. What is your big weakness? I think I get frustrated easily
20. Do you think I'm a good person? Yes
21. What was your best/favourite subject at school? Math
22. Describe your accent: Middle Canadian, with hints of Australia in the questioning, apparently
23. If you could change anything about me, would you? We could live geographically closer...
24. What do you wear to sleep? Nothing
25. Trousers or skirts? or Nude!
26. Cigarettes or alcohol? Alcohol
27. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together? (If you have no idea, just say something crazy, it'll entertain me!) Get sushi, read comics, discuss naughty things and then you'd go back to hang out with your family because why are you hanging out with me if you're dying?
28. Will you repost this so I can fill it out for you? I have, in fact, done this

Where I'm at

I feel like I've fucked up my life in so many ways and I'm trying to sort it out and it's hard and I have avoided hard work (internal) for so long because I was scared and I'm not now but I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work there is to do. I royally fucked up my semester. Royally. I. I accept that I have done this. I want it to stop. I want to stop it. I need a break. We'll see if summer is enough. Also, it will depend on the appeals committee letting me back in or not. We'll see.

Interesting?

I'd like if I had something interesting to talk about. I don't feel my life has that many interesting anecdotes. I'm sure I could think of some but I mainly remember the blog not when I'm happy but when I'm unhappy.

Went to Winnipeg over the weekend. I enjoyed it but now I'm having issues with aging. I got to S&R's house around 9 and we hung out there until 2ish. I enjoyed the part where S and B and I sat in the kitchen talking about sex. There aren't many people with whom to discuss sex. It sure didn't work the next night at the Dekker with J and Matt (catholic and ex whom I know doesn't like sex, talking about sex, the concept of me and sex). That was awkward.

I slept in until 10 on Saturday. We went to Superstore to get sushi fixings and then to the dress store for to be measured. I'm not impressed that dress shops have sizes 4 out. Like an eight (fancy dress) = a 4 (regular sizing). This puts me in plus sizing for the extra fifty bucks. Yay.

The highway between Brandon and Winnipeg is so boring. I need to plan better with music because then I have something to do. I get the feeling that I'll be opting for the bus this summer. Then, I can read and sleep on the way. I do enjoy the exhilaration of driving (sometimes, for part of the journey) but I get lonely and it's just not stimulating.

So, I need to finish my essays (all of them) by the time I go to work in the morning. And I've had all day (and weeks and weeks of time) in which to do them and so I have three one pagers and three 6-8 pagers. What the hell? Seriously. Clearly, I seem to have giving up. I'm actually kind of looking forwards to not going to school next year. I think it would be good. We'll see.

Physical and cultural genocide: Discuss the genocide in Rwanda and the role colonization played in precipitating it.

Karl Marx believed that all societal conflicts arose due to class differences. In the case of Rwanda, he would have been correct. The distinction between the Hutus and the Tutsis was one of resource ownership before Belgium arrived in the country and made people card-carrying members of one or the other group, the divergence being the number of cattle owned. Upon arriving in the country, the Belgians, acting as any colonial power, decided to do business through the local ruling class, the Tutsis. When the Belgians withdrew, the country became two; Rwanda and Burundi. In Burundi, the Tutsis remained in power; while in Rwanda, the majority Hutus, gaining strength from numbers, took over the country politically. In 1972, the ruling Tutsis in Burundi killed over 100,000 Hutus (rebels and otherwise) to retain power. In Rwanda, the killings were reversed; the ruling Hutus killed Tutsis as well as moderate Hutus. Over 500,000 people were murdered.

Colonization played a large part in creating the situation which allowed these murders to take place. By rigidly separating groups which had semi-fluid membership, the colonial power began driving the thin edge of the wedge between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Separation of groups is one of the best ways to dehumanize the other's membership. If individuals from group A believe that they have little in common with individuals from group B, group A members feel more comfortable shunning and disenfranchising group B members.

Colonization also brought Rwanda onto the world stage like never before which lead people (especially those who became the recipients of violence) to believe that fraternity would lead to intervention. One of the double-edged swords of Statehood is sovereignty over the geographic region which one rules and the exclusion of other States interference. Neighbour States tend not to interfere with internal matters; similar to the way that neighbours in apartment buildings do not always phone the police when they hear suspected family violence.

We can use the term 'genocide', prefixed with 'cultural', to what has happened here in Canada to Native people. There was a deliberate and systematic destruction of the language, culture and way of life. One would not go so far as to say that many of the deaths of Native people in Canada could be attributed to physical genocide because they were not specifically planned.

Genocide is an ongoing problem in the world. Fear, mistrust, lack of education and understanding and laziness lead to genocide. The suspicious view of one group by another, coupled with ignorance toward their culture and way of life can lead to genocide. The laziness to challenge one's own views as taught by fearful people can lead to genocide. The view of 'others' as being fundamentally different from the self can lead to genocide. The term 'ethnic cleansing' should never be used to describe genocide. Linguistically, it lends itself better to describing a mikvah than mass murder.

This reading and topic were an important one to the course because too little is taught about genocide. The problem is dismissed as 'too big' a topic in people's minds and they dismiss it, thinking “what can one person do?” It is important to remind people of the horrors and atrocities which have occurred and continue to occur. The Caplan article addresses the problem that one can not take on every cause and even every version of one cause. It is okay to not be an expert on every genocide, as long as one acknowledges the problem and works to find a better answer.

Genocide is a hugely relevant topic for Native people in Canada. States are not mononational. They contain people who claim different cultures, ethnicities and national memberships. The First Nations of Canada represent a significant portion of the population of Canada and can act as a significant lobby group upon the Provincial and Federal governments. People everywhere have an obligation to speak up for the rights and safety of others when they cannot do so themselves. Native people in Canada could become a powerful lobby for international peacekeeping action, to help prevent genocide from being a three paragraph story at the back of a newspaper.


References:
Caplan, G. (2004). The genocide problem: “Never again” all over again. The Walrus. October 2004. pp. unknown.

Maybury-Lewis, D. (2002). Indigenous peoples, ethnic groups, and the state. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.


(P.S. My favourite line is "Linguistically, it lends itself better to describing a mikvah than mass murder.")
(P.P.S. Genocide = Bad, in case anyone was wondering.)

My history

I do get myself into some doozies of some situations.

Who, for instance, goes to Australia for a year, alone?

Who sees an ad for work in the outback, calls, gets the job over the phone and packs up and drives to nowhere?

Who hooks up with a guy from town and hangs out with him and not two weeks later trades the 'V' plates for 'L's?

I suppose a good answer to "why?" is "why not?"

Current Obsession

Lately, I've become obsessed with getting married. Like, in my head, I'm trying to marry myself off.

It's different though, this time. I'm not trying to pair myself with anyone in particular or anything. I'm just WANTING TO BE MARRIED AND A HOUSEWIFE ***ALL THE TIME***.

I even know what's causing this latest obsession.

You see, I become obsessed with someone(person) or something(item or idea) around the end of February or during March sometime. When I just freak out at how much work there is to do and then, instead of doing any of it, I read/watch obsessively my obsession. Last year, it was Stephen Colbert. This year, it is early twentieth century daily life.

I'm reading blogs. I'm following links. I'm ...imagining. Really, this isn't healthy. It does not help my GPA. It does not help my future. It does not help my present. I'm escaping into a fantasy world in which I imagine less stress and less problems. A more productive way to spend my time might be *MY ACTUAL SCHOOL WORK* (and, if you want to get technical, I could do the aforementioned school work when it's actually due. Not *NOW*, 12-48 hours before the finalfinalfinallast cutoff date.

Yeah. Maybe.

I've taken my eye off the prize

I sure have! I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I don't know where I'm going. I currently feel like I have no goals and no purpose. I work. I go to class. I don't do any school work. (Seriously. I have the fucking time and resources and everything.)

AND I KNOW HOW EASILY EVERYTHING COMES TO ME WHEN I PUT EVEN A MODEST AMOUNT OF EFFORT INTO IT!!!

I can write. I understand the material. I have the physical skill (re: clay). I am just not working towards anything. There is no reward. My grades are fucked this semester anyways. I spent much of this semester freaking out and so that doesn't help.

I don't even want to go to school next year. Mainly because it'd be my last year and then what would I do? Besides, if(when) I get kicked out (again), do I even want to appeal it?

I need a goal. I need a purpose. I want a reason.

I'm tired of starting things and not finishing them. I'm tired of being out of shape. I'm tired of not fitting the 'pretty' clothes. I'm tired of feeling like I don't deserve nice things or things being easy. I'm tired of spending money. I'm tired of not having money. I'm tired of being in debt. I'm tired of having too much stuff. I'm tired of having messy living arraignments. I'm tired of having a dirty house. I'm tired of being uninspired to cook. I'm tired of not having the patience to bake. I'm tired of being indoors when there's a whole out of doors that everyone (especially R) enjoys. I'm tired of not seeing R. I'm tired of avoiding my stuff, whilst I hide, and then being away from everyone whilst I try to finish stuff late. This is bologna!

I'm changing this. I don't know how or to what but something's got to give.