Experiencing Culture

This week I would like to start off by saying that the guest speaker we had, was the best one that I have ever seen, I could not take my eyes off him when he was speaking, I found him very interesting.

Before Mondays class I had no idea that there was “different types” of natives. I only ever heard of first nations and assumed that every native was of first nations decent until Monday. It surprised me when he said that the Inuit pay income tax, I had no idea that they had to sign a treaty not to pay income tax. I thought that all natives had a tax exempt card and didn’t have to pay taxes. When I was younger I used to think that it was unfair that they had tax cards and “we” didn’t, but then I thought who cares? Because I would take one if I was native saving the taxes on everything is a lot of money, and the fact that I get a carton of cigarettes for 50$ less than anywhere in the city is awesome.

When Andrew went on to talk about being up on a reserve, secluded in the eastern part of Canada, it really exited me, it exited me to know that I might be able to do this kind of thing in the future, after I graduate that it. Helping out children in those kind of situations that he talked about is what I want to do, its what I'm passionate about, if there's one reason I'm here its to help children and youth. I made a career choice on Monday as to where I would like to go when I'm done school, and that is to find a job working on a reserve up north either in Quebec or Nunavut doing what Andy does or did. I figure that I don’t have a lot of “ties” here in Belleville, I mean I’ve got a couple of great friends, a good family (for the most part) but no girl friend, so there’s really nothing keeping me here. Going up north for 6 or 10 months would also be a great experience, I've only been away from "life" for 4 months this summer when I was at camp, and their was tons of people up there and parties going on and everything. I would love to get an opportunity to go up to a reserve I think I would do great. I hope he was serious when he said to call him for a beer or coffee, because I would love to sit for a couple of hours and pick his brain. The talk with Andy also really exited me about going to Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory on October 14^th, I can’t wait to see what it’s like, and I want to see who they are as a culture. I visit the reserve every week, and I hardly know anything about it. I have never been their just for a “visit” witch on October 14, I will step out of my comfort zone and start learning a few things about the culture itself.

I can’t wait to start on my group presentation, my presentation topic is European family’s. I am very excited to learn about the European culture since I don’t really know anything about it, I know that they have high speed trains, and that they use trains for transportation a lot more than we do in Canada, and that they have very fast cars like the McLaren MP4-12c with its 3.8 litre V8 twin turbo engine which kicks out 592 horse power, it gets the job done. I’m going to have to do some more research but I found something interesting that said that the borders in Europe refer to social cultural boundaries. I don’t know if that is true or not, you can bet if it is I will be putting it in our presentation in a few weeks.

http://www.europeword.com/blog/europe/facts-about-europe/

Not to mention 90% of the music that I listen to comes from Europe. Bands like Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest, also possibly the greatest rock band in the world: The Beatles. I've been wanting to add music to a presentation for 2 years now, and who knows I might just do it. I can't ruin the surprise though you'll have to wait and see.  

Power Slave

My summer was awesome, I worked at a 24 hour camp, I had 9 boys aged 7-9. It was pretty much the greatest summer I've ever had, I had so much fun and learned so much. My boys were aspirers, ADHD, and ODD, I think about them everyday, I got offered a job for next summer, which is cool because it said that I did a good job this summer. Most nights I wouldn't get to bed until 2 or 3 in the morning and be back up at 630 for meds, again a great learning experience. Other than that, I didn't do a whole lot this summer, I mean it was 24 hour days, it was long and hard but I loved every second of it.

http://www.campkodiak.com/

I got home and did absolutely nothing for 13 days, after sleeping about 14 hours over the whole summer, I felt that I deserved some "me time". I was so happy to get back to school having 13 days was nice, but did it ever get boring fast, I mean there's only so much MLB the show 11 you can play.

Culture and Diversity class was interesting, I remember hearing get out of my comfort zone, and I thought that I'm comfortable with everything, that was short lived when Chris said go to church, and I was like "oh man I would not fit in there" I learned something new, after class was over and I had a mindset that I wasn't uncomfortable with anything.

I want to learn about religion, the reason is because, I don't know a lot about it. One of my best friends from high school "converted" to mormon, and that was very hard for me to deal with, because we had always caused trouble smoked swore and partied, and then one day he just decided to stop all of that and be a "good boy" Not that there's anything at all wrong with that. I felt like I lost a good friend, and on top of that he shoved it in my face and tried to "convert" me a bunch of times even after me telling him countless times that I did not want anything to do with his church, the two times I went was only for support, once was to see him get baptized, and the other was to see him get married. Between the years of him joining the church and getting married, we reconnected as friends he understood that I didn't want anything to do with it and we were reunited, he had to do a mission for 2 years in Utah, so we didn't get to see each other for quite a while. Not even a month after he got back he met a girl and got married, I was so exited to be invited to the wedding, only I didn't know that we had to wait in the lobby and not get to see it because we weren't members of the faith, his own brother didn't even get to see the wedding part we sat for 15 minutes, then they came and told us that it was over and they were married. He and I never had good luck with women, and he used to say women are attracted to "elders" elder is what he went on his mission to become, and I think the only reason he became a mormon is because he wanted to be married, so after knowing the girl for a month they got married, they now have two kids and are getting divorced, I tried to tell him that it wasn't a good idea to get married so quick and that she wasn't a nice girl, but he wouldn't listen, if I was in the same situation, I'm not sure if I would listen either. Since his divorce, he has almost turned back to his original being he swears non stop now, he doesn't smoke and still goes to church every Sunday. I would like to find out what it is that makes him believe in it so much, and why he thinks that religion is the "be all & end all of life" those were his words to me when he started attending. Overall I would like to find out what makes people in general believe in god and Jesus, I can't think of any reason to believe, because this world is a very horrible place to be at times, there is good but there is way to much bad for there to be a "higher power" that in theory could stop bad things from happening to good people and to people that can't defend themselves like children, when I'm in a conversation about religion, people often say god works in mysterious ways and everyone has a choice, I knew a little girl she was 8 years old and been molested more times than you can count, she didn't have a choice, and who ever I'm in the conversation with doesn't have an answer and the only thing they can say is that "god works in mysterious ways" This is why its hard for me to believe, and hard for me to understand why people believe that there's a god when all this bad stuff happens, not to mention I think its kind of childish to believe in something that has never ever been proven to exist, but I would like to find out more on why they believe.

I think this will be one of the most beneficial classes of the whole CYW course.
My goal for the year is of course to pass, but my other goal is to not have to work a shift at auto systems, I would love never having to step foot back into that place ever again, if I can manage OSAP well this year, I should be able to make it the whole year without working, my sub goal to that goal is to manage my money better, because in the past it just gets spent, I'm only buying things I "need" this year like books and gas, nothing else.

Thanks for reading folks, see you next week


John