Confidence is overrated

So if there is one thing I've learned so far in my University career it's just that. Confidence is overrated. You might be thinking it's good to believe in yourself and take pride in your work, well sorry to say this, but you're wrong.

So far the only thing confidence has gotten me is disappointment. Like I said in an earlier post, usually I hand in a paper thinking it's terrible and I'll be lucky if I pass. Believe it or not, this is a much better way to hand in something because when I get my grade, as long as I passed, I'm happy. Sure, maybe I only got 70% but hey it's better than the 30% I thought I deserved.

You've probably realized by now that something like this has happened to me recently. You are correct in thinking that. Over this past week I've had most of my exams and I have also received my grades for many of my final papers. Out of the five papers I handed in I was only confident in two, my english and poli-sci. I thought these two papers were some of my best works, but apparently not. I got 68 on both of them... I was pretty heartbroken about both of these. It's not a good feeling to do all the required readings, show up to class, and then work relatively hard on a paper just to learn it's only satisfactory.

Now I mentioned there was another three papers that I handed in. First was my anthropology paper. I had no idea what the prof wanted. I threw together a ten page paper that was mostly pictures and hoped for the best. Somehow I managed to get 80% on this paper. Another paper I handed in was for my pop-culture class, followers of my blog should know how I feel about that course. Anyway, I had to write a paper about a movie in it's relation to the modern self. I chose Watchmen cause I love that movie. I wrote 8 pages about this movie and how Rorschach and Nite Owl embody the modern self and I got 80 on that paper as well. Finally I had a history paper about television. It sounded fun when I chose the topic but sadly the history of television is much more boring than you would think. I wrote 11 pages of what I felt was garbage and handed it in to one of the most intellectually intimidating professors I have ever met. I got 70 on that paper. Alright so basically what I'm saying is that the papers I have no faith in are apparently my best. I don't get it.

The thing is even if I had gotten 68 on any of those last three papers, I would've been happy. Confidence is a risk with little payout. The best case scenario is that the prof agrees with you, it is a good paper. But most likely, at least in my case, the prof won't agree with you and whatever mark you get you'll be disappointed with. On the other hand, if you hand in a paper thinking it is terrible, then  when you pass it is one of the greatest feelings in the world. When I saw I got 80 on both of those papers I was so much happier than I would've been if I had gotten 80 on my english or poli-sci.

In conclusion, believing in yourself and whatnot is great, just be prepared to be humbled because you're not that great...

Christmas and Growing Up

So it has come to my attention that Christmas is less than two weeks away. Crazy huh? I've made an observation over the last few years, it seems that as we all grow older Christmas grows with us. When you're a kid you count down every second up to Christmas morning, but these last couple years it has almost caught me off guard. Especially since both this and last year I've had an exam less than a week before Christmas, it's a little hard to get into the spirit when you become more concerned with all the terrible things we as humans have done to the earth and each other, thanks Anthropology.

I've told myself that this is why I don't seem to be as excited about Christmas as the years go by. I'm just too busy with school to really enjoy the holiday, makes sense. But maybe I'm just outgrowing Christmas in general. When you're a kid it's just so easy to love Christmas. Any day you got a present was your favourite day. It could be a completely arbitrary day in the middle of August, if you got a present that day, it was your favourite day.

Any Christmas special can tell you the meaning of Christmas, but the more important question is what it means to you personally? When I was young, it was the day my brother, my sister, and I, woke up way too early and sat on our couch and waited for our parents to get up. As the years went on eventually we stopped waking up so early, and it came to the point where we all started getting up at the same time. Does this mean that Christmas means less to me or that Christmas just means something different. I recently enjoyed the Community Christmas Special in which the meaning of Christmas was the belief that Christmas had a meaning. The belief that it isn't just another day.

I like that meaning. I think it becomes even more about our personal interpretations of Christmas as we get older. Like I said earlier, as a kid if I walked out into the living room on a regular Wednesday and found a bunch of presents, I'd be just as happy as I would be on Christmas. If that happened to me now, sure I'd be happy, probably more confused, but it certainly isn't the same as Christmas.

As we grow up we start to care about different things. Maybe we realize that superficial goods don't buy happiness, or maybe we can just afford to buy our own happiness. Maybe we start to realize the importance of family. It's a lot easier to appreciate the time you have with family when you don't see them every day. These last few Christmas's have been a transitioning for me. I started realizing that the presents are no longer the most important thing about Christmas, it really is family. All the Christmas specials were right.

"Every time someone says ‘Happy Holidays’, an angel gets AIDS" Jon Stewart

So about this time every year Christmas and all the other winter holidays creep up on us. And with these holidays the ever growing controversy behind the appropriate yuletide greeting grows. The politically correct thing to say is "Happy Holidays" but does this make anybody happy? Basically anybody you talk to will either say "I hate hearing 'happy holidays'" or they'll say "I don't care, leave me alone." I would bet you a lot of money that nobody would ever rather hear "happy holidays" than their traditional holiday greeting.

The question is who is happy holidays for? I don't personally know the origins of the phrase, but the general understanding is that it was coined to be a politically correct version of Merry Christmas. So what I want to know is this, do people out there actually get offended by Merry Christmas? I realize not everyone celebrates Christmas and that's fine, people can do whatever they want, but why do they have to take it out on the people that do? I don't celebrate Hanukkah but if someone said "Happy Hanukkah" to me I certainly wouldn't feel offended. And also do these bureaucrats not even think about Jehovah's Witnesses? Do they realize that they don't celebrate anything ever? So saying "Happy Holidays" to them, in theory, would be just as offensive as saying "Merry Christmas" to a Jewish person. How long will it be till they clue in and just start saying "Good Winter."  

This whole "Happy Holidays" thing is actually quite a deep problem. Yes, I would much rather hear people saying Merry Christmas, but is that fair? If people are actually offended by Merry Christmas shouldn't we as Christians be more sensitive and try to avoid offending people even if it means doing something we don't necessarily like? It's easy to argue that everyone else is just too sensitive and we're right, but you have to look at this objectively. In Canada we claim to be proud of our diversity so shouldn't we do all that we can to accommodate  people of other faiths who have other traditions?

This is a double-edged sword. On one hand by saying "Merry Christmas" it could potentially be seen as us purposely ignoring other traditions and forcing Christmas on the general population. On the other hand by us not saying "Merry Christmas" it's like us rolling over and letting the government control what we say, it's like Nineteen Eighty-Four but more arbitrary.

So what's right? Are these words really worth all the commotion? I don't have the answers to these questions, what you say around this time of year is your personal choice so do whatever you want... Merry Christmas.

Self-Conscious Writer here.

So as some of you know I'm at University for a Bachelor of Arts. This involves taking a wide variety courses, such as english, history, anthropology, political science, and many other silly courses. These courses have very little in common except for the fact that in all of them you will be writing way too much. Some times I can't believe how much stuff I have to write. Luckily I'm a pretty quick writer. I can usually hammer out a 10 page research paper in a few hour-long sessions. The problem I have though has nothing to do with the amount of time I take, it's about what I write. Since I've never actually failed a paper I assume I'm at least a decent writer, but almost every time I have to hand in a paper I do it shamefully with my head down.

It's been a long time since I've felt really proud of something I've written before I hand it in. Sure, after I get it back and the prof's given me like 80, than yes, I am proud of myself. But the problem is I require the reassurance of the prof to tell me what I've written is good, most of the time I have no idea and I assume the worst.

This is why whenever someone offers to edit or read my papers I usually turn them down. I feel ashamed of my writing, like if someone were to read it they'd forever judge me. Recently such an offer was made, but this time I'm going to take him up on his offer. It's not just because he happens to be a poli-sci major and has already done the class I'm in, it's because I realized it's stupid not to get someone to at least proofread a paper. Almost every paper I've gotten back the prof has said "make sure to proofread carefully," but I just ignore it. I laugh it off and continue to ignore peoples offers for help.

It's interesting that this is the way I feel yet this blog has become one of my favourite ways to kill some time. I think writing this and realizing people are going to read it is kind-of therapeutic. It's like if you're afraid of heights you climb the highest building, if you're afraid of bugs... you get a bug. For me it's the fear of people judging my writing, so judge away.

There's racism everywhere!!!!

So as previously mentioned I'm in a pop-culture studies course. Last week we discussed racism in television shows. We were given two examples Friends and Sex and the City, according to my prof both of these shows are quite racist. He explained to us that because neither of these shows feature a minority as a main character that makes them racist. I was very troubled to hear this. I don't care if Sex and the City is racist, that show is pretty terrible, but Friends? That's one of my favourite shows! I refused to believe that one of my favourite shows was racist.

Let's take a look deeper into my professor's lesson. If a show does not feature a visible minority as a reoccurring character, uh-oh, it's racist. I apparently like a lot of racist shows. Think about your favourite show... You got it? Is there a minority as one of the main characters? If you said yes, congrats you're not racist, but if you said no... I've got some bad news for you...

If you haven't guessed it by now, I think this lesson was garbage. Just because a show doesn't have a main character that's black, or Asian, or whatever, that doesn't mean the writers specifically said "there is no way that Joey is going to be black!" I'm not saying there aren't any racists in the television business, I'm just saying it isn't fair to jump to that conclusion.

This leads to a pretty undesirable end. If this is how you determine a show is racist, you're asking them to put in a token character simply because he's a different race. What is more racist, not hiring a minority because there was a better actor that just happened to be white, or purposely hiring a minority solely based on his race? Pretty sure the latter is much more racist.

Another discussion that came up from this had to do with realism versus progression. That question was basically should a television show use a stereotype or not. Let's take the stereotype of Middle-Eastern cab drivers, if statistically in New York there is a majority of Middle-Eastern cab drivers should the show feature that. Should the show follow that statistic and be realistic or should the show avoid any sensitive issues. This is an interesting topic. Personally I think people need to stop worrying so much about these things, most television shows were not made to be this deeply read. I can't believe I'm paying for this class...

Political Science and why I skip it.

So as previously mentioned, I'm a university student. I've got a pretty heavy course-load this semester and occasionally I will skip a class or two. What I find the most interesting about this is what class I decide to skip. It's almost always my Political Science course and I don't really know why. I don't particularly hate that course and it isn't even at a weird time. It's 11 to 1230 on tuesday and thursday, and I'm already there for Anthro earlier. But so far this semester, probably like a quarter of the time I just go home at 11. This is also one of the worst classes to skip as I find out when I have to write a paper for him. His papers are unlike anything I've ever written. He doesn't want us to do any research other than the stuff he assigns us, he doesn't care if we cite properly as long as we cite somehow, and he even said we could write it in first-person. I've never heard a prof say things like that. First of all the research thing isn't that odd since we usually have like six articles to read anyway, but the not citing properly? If there is one overlapping thing I've been taught by all my profs is that citations are the most important thing in a paper and if not done correctly you could be expelled for plagiarism. But this guy just says "whatever, just put a last name." Then the whole you can write in first-person. If there is a second overlapping thing I've been taught by all my teachers since like grade ten is that you never write an academic paper in first-person. But I digress, his papers are weird and based heavily on lectures and discussed readings, so I shouldn't skip this class, I know that, but why do I?

Lets take a look at my other classes that I rarely, if ever, skip. I have an english literature that I have yet to read anything for, an Anthro that I kinda enjoy, a history that is excruciatingly boring most days, and an english pop-culture studies. I've never missed anthro, I've only missed the english lit once to work on a paper, and then I've missed three of the history and other english course. If I had to pick my least favourite course it wold have to be history, and even though this course is in the afternoon and I could easily just go/stay home, I don't. I go to the class, I sit through 80 minutes of who knows what, and I almost always complain. Another class I really should be skipping is my english-lit. First of all I almost never read whatever we're talking about, and secondly it is my only morning class on monday, wednesday, and friday. So if I skipped the class I could sleep all morning! But I show up for the hour consistently.

I've thought about this for a while and I've deduced  the reason to why I skip poli-sci and no other course. It isn't about how much I enjoy the course, it isn't about the professor, it isn't even about the time. It's about who's in the class with me. This just occurred to me recently but in every one of my other classes I have at least one friend, and even though during the class we obviously don't talk, that bit of communication before and after the class keeps me coming back. I've noticed that, unlike high school, university for me is a lot less social. I have yet to make any real friends at university and the only people I talk to are the ones I've known since high school. In poli-sci I don't know anybody so even though I don't think about it that way, I find no reason to go. But on tuesday night at 5:30 when I have to go to class, I don't mind cause I know I've got a buddy in that class. This has been an eye-opening revelation. Maybe I should make an effort to make friends in poli-sci...

More than just a day off...

So today is an important day. It is Remembrance Day. This day comes around every year and I am always not too sure what I should be doing. I almost hate that we get this day off from school because how many people forget why they don't have school? How many kids are playing the new Call of Duty that always comes out a couple days before Remembrance Day? I'm not saying it should be classes as usual today, but the importance of this day cannot be forgotten. This is something I almost forgot this year.

At UBCO they also gave us Friday off. They did this and called it our "Mid-term break" for this semester. So now everyone has a four day weekend. This makes it even easier for this day to get lost in the shuffle. I was talking to a friend of mine a few days ago and he made a good point. He said that wrapping up Remembrance Day with Mid-term break waters down the effect of Remembrance Day. I agreed with him, but I couldn't help but wish Remembrance had happened on a Tuesday cause that's my busiest day. I immediately regretted saying that. This is more than just a day off. I shouldn't be wishing it was on a different day because it isn't about the day off. It's about honouring those who served/ are serving our country. I hated that I thought about it that way.

That is what got me thinking about this. How many other people are just thinking about it as a day off? I know when I was young I knew what Remembrance day was, I'm sure most kids do, but did I really understand the importance? I doubt it. In all honesty I probably was one of the kids playing that new video game. It wasn't until like high school that I would make a conscious effort to wear a poppy and think about the day. Even in high school I never attended a Remembrance day ceremony other than the one at school. So did I really get it? Do I really get it now? I've been wearing my poppy for the last week or so and I attended the ceremony at the university but what else? I know whatever I do on this day is not going to be enough to properly honour the men and women that we owe everything to.

Parking Lots: Where Society Breaks Down

So yesterday I had to go to the mall to pick up a present for my buddies' birthday. I figured it wouldn't be too bad cause all those young-ins would still be in school, and my problem has nothing to do with the mall itself being busy, it's the parking lot. I usually hate parking lots, there are a few I despise, Plaza 33, Walmart, but the worst has to be the mall. I entered the lot over by Sears and drove over to the Chapters/The Bay lot and in that very short trip I had way too many close calls. People constantly cut me off, stopping wherever they felt like, and not abiding by any laws whatsoever. Combine this with pedestrians crossing everywhere and you have the most stressful 5 minutes I have ever spent in a car. I have a few pet-peeves when it comes to driving and almost all of them come into play within a parking lot. Like I hate it when people just throw on their hazards and think that gives them the right to stop wherever they want. Or when pedestrians cross wherever they want. If you're on a crosswalk I'll stop for you but if you just stand on the side of the road less than a block away from a crosswalk, there is no way I'm stopping for you.

I like to think I'm a pretty good driver but parking lots are the most painful experience I have to deal with on a daily basis. Granted I don't have a very hard life but parking lots aren't helping anybody. They're like the perfect storm of bad driving, crazy j-walkers, and total anarchy. Parking lots are where society breaks down. If an alien race was watching us in a parking lot they would deduce there is no intelligent life on this planet.

I like Radiohead, I think...

So back in grade 11, on my birthday, a friend of mine got me a Radiohead cd. It was "The Best Of" (see attached image), and I was stoked. It had like 30 of the best Radiohead songs and this is just what I wanted. Over the next few weeks I really fell in love with Radiohead. I put the cd on my ipod and I listened to it all the time, but then something happened. I started noticing that I would only listen to about half the songs. Then I wouldn't even put on Radiohead I just went back to shuffle and I thought fine, this is where it stops, I like about half the Radiohead songs and I'll listen to them when they come up, but something changed. Pretty soon I was skipping all but a few select songs, such as "My Iron Lung" "Just" or "True Love Waits." And as time went on I soon realized I was skipping those ones too. Now if I made a conscious effort to not skip the songs, I could listen, and enjoy the songs, but something in my subconscious would take over and just keep skipping. I usually skip a lot of songs for no good reason but this was different, it's been a while since I've actually listened to any Radiohead. In fact if I check my recently played only "True Love Waits" appears on that list.

Does this mean I really don't like Radiohead? Then why do I tell people I do? Most likely if you've ever asked me about my music preferences I'm sure I said Radiohead. But do I really like them? It almost feels like I want to like them but deep down I really don't. I went through a similar thing with The Beatles. I just thought I was supposed to like The Beatles, so I did, I even bought a greatest hits cd, but soon I was skipping all of those songs too. Now there isn't a single Beatles song on my recently played list, and I am fine with that. I came to the conclusion that I don't like The Beatles, but I do respect them. Is that what's going to happen with me and Radiohead? But why do I bother saying I like them? Radiohead isn't like the Beatles where you say you don't like them and the room becomes silent like you personally insulted everyone in the room. People aren't too crazy about Radiohead, even in my group of friends I think I'm the only one who insists they like them. I think its because somewhere even deeper inside me I do like them.

Value Village and Bad Parenting 101

So those of you that know me might know that I've been working at Value Village for the past 5 months or so. Now this job isn't terrible but it definitely has its problems. I'm sure that throughout the existence of this blog I will talk about the problems enough times that you too will dislike the job, that's my goal anyway. So today I am going to talk about the some of the kids that come into the store.

First of all I just need to say that a lot of kids I see in there are behaving perfectly fine but there are enough of the bad ones to make up for that. Here's an example from the other night. I was on the cashier just tidying up because it wasn't very busy when suddenly I heard a bone-chilling shriek coming from a couple tills over. I turn my head slowly, half expecting to see some deranged man shoving kids into a potato sack, but what did I see? A couple of parents paying for all their stuff and trying really hard to just ignore their screaming child. There were two kids with them, there was a girl probably about 7 and a boy about 5. The girl was the one screaming. I didn't make out exactly what was going on but by the sounds of the child's scream, she wanted a doll. The craziest thing happened after a couple minutes of her screaming, the boy just starting screaming as well, for no conceivable reason! This kid didn't want anything he just felt like screaming I guess... Now first I have to commend the parents for not giving in, good work, but I'm not sure the best way to deal with kids is to just ignore them. I don't claim to be an expert on kids and if this is appropriate then feel free to let me know, but somehow this seems wrong. So now there were two screaming kids at the front of the store being dragged out by their parents. The parents didn't say anything, they just grabbed the kids and left the store. That example doesn't happen very often. There are a lot of screaming kids but the parents usually step in a get them to shut up.

Another  way too common occurrence in Value Village has to do with the toy section. This place is like Lord of the Flies, total anarchy. I don't know how many times I've gone back there and seen a lot of kids, a huge mess, and no parents for miles. Usually I don't care. I wash my hands of the situation and go somewhere else in the store, but sometimes I get sent back there specifically to clean up and this is the worst. I go back there and begin just grabbing any loose toys and throwing them back on the shelves, I consciously put the coolest toys on the top shelves to hopefully avoid this situation but it never works. Now after I've put away about half the toys, the kids are starting to notice me. This is where I get nervous, thoughts go through my head. I become convinced that these kids are going to rise up, attack me, and reclaim this area as theirs. And I'm not really afraid of kids attacking me but I'm afraid of what I'd do in that situation, like when is it okay to hit a child? But I digress, these kids stare at me and I just continue to put the toys away because that's my job. After I've cleaned up most of the mess I begin to wonder where the parents are? I'm assuming not every kid wandered in from the local orphanage. The parents just leave their kids with the toys cause they know they won't leave, what kid would. If this was any other store the parents would be holding there kids hand but because we sell second-hand stuff they figure who cares if they break it. Parents, I beg of you, keep track of your kids cause I'm sick of risking my personal security to clean up after your little terrors.

So there you go. Kids have become the bane of my Value Village existence and you parents aren't helping.

Check your pretentiousness at the door.

So later today I have a night class which I have begun to regret taking. It's English: Reading in Popular Culture, sounds awesome right? That's exactly what I thought but this class is the prime example of how a professor can totally ruin a class. The prof is John Leblanc and I feel bad saying anything bad about the guy because he is a really nice guy, its just he is super pretentious when it comes to music, tv, movies, or anything related to the media. So far in the class we've listened to a bunch of music, and we've watched clips from tv shows and movies, which he always ruins the endings to. So even if I had a remote interest in whatever we were watching he spoils it by giving away the major twist. The first movie we were assigned to watch in full was a movie called Elephant, ever heard of it? Yeah didn't think so. This is my first problem with this class, it isn't pop-culture. We should be looking at popular music, tv, and movies, yet he almost always picks really obscure "artsy" texts (he calls everything we look at texts by the way, told you he was pretentious).

Elephant is one of these "artsy" texts that he seems to think is really well done. Spoiler alert, it isn't. The plot to this movie is based on the Columbine shootings and it tries so hard to be different and interesting, but it fails in almost every way. Anything interesting at all is overshadowed by poor movie-making and atrocious acting. 90% of the scenes in this movie feature the backs of high school students walking throughout the halls not doing anything interesting. This movie is only 80 minutes long but somehow over half of it seems like it's just filler. The other major problem with this movie is the acting. All the actors are incredibly wooden throughout the movie. Everything about it feels so contrived, while watching it I could just see the script being read, that's not a good thing by the way. Now I could forgive the terrible acting if this movie had anything interesting to say. You might think that this is a social commentary, but what is the comment? That kids with guns are bad? That bullying is wrong? That the school system is flawed? Everything this movie tried to say has already been said a hundred times in much better ways.

This is how I feel about pretentious movies like Elephant, they think because they're "artsy" they can break the rules of film. Like the rule that states your movie shouldn't be just a bunch of kids walking around doing nothing for an hour. The fact is that when you break the rules you're left with a boring, silly movie that is condemned to be taught by pretentious professors who think they know what a good movie is.

Introduction to a blog

So I've decided to start a blog... Not too sure what else to say in this first post. I wish I could tell you what to expect from this blog but, in all honesty, I don't know myself. I wouldn't be surprised if by next week I lose interest and never think about this venture ever again, but who knows, maybe I'll really get into this. Currently I'm thinking the former is more likely.

Right now you're probably thinking a couple of things. First you're thinking "why would this guy write a blog?" And secondly "and why would anyone ever want to read it?" To the first question, it boils down to a number of possible different reasons. Maybe I have a lot of really interesting thoughts that are just dieing to be heard by someone, maybe I just really enjoy writing and I don't get enough of it in university, but the most likely reason is that I'm just bored. This gives me something to do when I'm procrastinating. Thats right, to avoid writing I have decided to write. Doesn't make a lot of sense but who really cares and who are you to question why I do things? Now to answer your second question with a question. "Why are you reading it?" I'm assuming you know me somehow, and therein lies the main reason that somebody might read this, to gather more knowledge about the enigma that is Matt Burke. If by some twist of fate you have absolutely no idea who I am well you've probably stopped reading by this point but if not then this calls for an introduction... Hello, my name's Matt, I'm a second-year university student, I'm a history major going into education, I live in Kelowna, B.C., and that's about it.

This first post marks the beginning of something. I'll occasionally update so feel free to stop by anytime, no need to call ahead, it's just always nice to see you here.