No juxtaposition, just inspiration.

I just finished watching a two hour program about Stephen Hawking's search for the Theory of Everything. And to think I get a little worked up occasionally about having a few assignments due on the same day (shame on me)

I was first introduced to Stephen Hawking and his theory of the origin of the universe in a documentary called, A Brief History of Time based on the book of the same name. The book gives an overview on subjects of cosmology such as the Big Bang, black holes, and his views on the basic laws which govern the universe. With a colleague named Roger Penrose, they implied that Einstein's Theory of Relativity would have a beginning in the Big Bang an an end in black holes. It was this idea that gave birth to the necessity to unify General Relativity with Quantum Theory. They conjectured that black holes would not be entirely black but emit radiation, evaporate, and disappear. The universe would no longer have an edge or boundary in imagined time, implying that when the universe began it was completely determined by scientific law. This video created by the American Museum of Natural History gives the viewer a snapshot of the area of exploration they are working with up to this point.

If I understand a mere thimbleful of what Stephen Hawking is trying to discover, I can consider myself smart. I admit to not fully comprehending what he says, but I know he does it with a passion and an ultimate sense of purpose to unravel the awe of the origins of the universe. Crippled by Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), Hawking has outlived early predictions that he would die 40 years ago. Once Hawking discovered at the age of 21 what would happen to his body over time, his dreams became disturbed and he dreamt he was to be executed. Hawking realized he had little time for a life of purpose so he focused his energies on research and science, determined to leave a legacy behind for future generations to build upon. Hawking married and took a position shortly after as a theoretical physicist and had three children. Hawking has been a professor at Cambridge university for decades, written countless papers, lectured extensively on black holes and theoretical cosmology. Much of his life has been spent in a wheelchair and he still works to discover a unified theory.

There are days when I feel the strain of the requirements of schoolwork. Not only to complete it, but to the best of my ability as well. A certain amount of anxiety comes with this as it would for anyone. When I watch a program like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am inspired and reminded that no matter how much adversity I feel I am being subjected to, it is nothing compared to the experience of others. I could even say it's relative.

Sick and I got the blues...

I called in sick today and removed myself from classes for the second time this week. I hate this. My body has let me down again, but it's put up a good fight I suppose. I don't know what the hell is making its way through school right now, but several of my classmates have been felled by the same bug this week and were no-shows as well.

On one of the days I was driving into the city to attend classes I was obsessing about how gross my body felt. I was beginning to feel this scourge inside my body was holding me captive from what I needed to accomplish. Suddenly a musical phrase popped into my head.

'If you ain't got your health, you ain't got nothing.'

Inside my head, I began to hear a single acoustic guitar plucking out the blues, popping out a catchy little rhythm. The sound has followed me around since that morning, so I couldn't help but try to put the tune to a few simple words characterizing my situation. It came out like this.

Rolled myself outta bed today,

Feeling wrong, far from ok

I thought, what's up with that?

Flicked the light, looked in the mirror,

My eyes beet red, lookin' real poor

I felt, I'd been hit with a bat.

I didn't feel like this ten hours before.

I hope I'll never feel this way again.

A mild sore throat I thought I could ignore.

You ain't got your health, you ain't got nothin'.

Called in sick two times this week,

All my joints ached, I heard them creak

I thought, gettin' old's a drag.

Blew my nose and was shocked to see,

All the colours staring back at me

I shivered, the stuff made me gag.

I didn't feel like this ten hours before.

I hope I'll never feel this way again.

A mild sore throat that kicked me to the floor...I tell ya,

You ain't got your health, you ain't got nothing...oh no,

You ain't got your health, you ain't got nothing.

(apologies to Chris Petty for the poor grammar, but it's the blues and that's just how it is)

Last Men

"I still have chaos in me!" the naked man shouts into the empty void of his bedroom to the mysterious voice from above shortly after waking up from a hand-job he's just received from his spouse. We find out later this man's name is Hugo and he will begin to prove just that.

The set darkens and once the set is re-lit we see a man named Doug dressed in business casual pacing around what now resembles a motel room. What follows is a manic confession and plea into a palmcorder for Warren Buffet's ears to transform the way his company treats pigs in order to maximize profit. Doug is an agricultural engineer for Buffet's company and is upset that a recent barn fire has claimed the lives of an entire barn of pigs. A slideshow he was meant to present at a Agricultural Expo on Human Factor Analysis is now re-tooled to reflect the shame he feels toward the poor treatment of pigs he's been involved with the past twenty years. The pigs were helpless to escape as they were confined to a metal stall of only eight square feet, screaming as the flames took their lives. A further indignity, they've been forced to stand or lay only a few inches above their own excrement their entire lives. Doug contemplates their death was maybe a release from the hell the pigs were subjected to and actually rejoiced in their own immolation. Clearly in the stages of his personal "light bulb moment", Doug's empathy for the animals he's helped diminish for profit's sake now rule his actions and thoughts.

(intermission)

Enter a restaurant and a scene of three round dinner tables. You are witness to a small retirement party (or 'quitting party' as Hugo states) for Hugh and the four white balloons tied to the backrests of chairs meant to represent his guests. Hugo is ebullient as he interacts with each guest and talking about his condo in Costa Rica and its potential for medical (and sex) tourism. We soon discover Hugh is in crisis as the relationship he's had with his wife Juanita has crumbled due to the birth and death of their Down syndrome child due to a botched heart operation. He's been employed at a hospital in the Patient Safety department and finds himself feeling disappointed and useless. He speaks to the dynamics of Human Factor Analysis and its shortcomings as well. He acts out his soul-searching exercise in front of his quests wildly at times, admitting that his most recent decisions may be caused by his abrupt departure from his Prozac medication. As the evening progresses, Hugo manages to offend each one separately and they get up to leave (enacted by the waiter entering the set and removing the balloon) and he eventually finds himself sitting alone with the waiter having a scotch.

You need to enjoy a barrage of dialogue in order to enjoy these two plays. Except for the hand-job woman and the waiter's appearance, they are one-man plays. I don't find this a negative and I commend each of these actors for being solely responsible for keeping their audience engaged. Peculiarly, I felt the swearing in the first play by Doug (Krakendorf) was appropriate, but not as much in the second (Puntarenas) by Hugo where it felt tossed in for the sake of it. Small theatre productions are known by many to be edgy. In walking through the doors of Theatre Projects Manitoba to see these two short plays, no one should be surprised by what they hear.

The Bold and the Beautiful

So no, there won't be any links on this blog to the daytime soap of the same name. With any luck it will meet the fate of other "quality daytime programs" like Guiding Light and As the World Turns. But I digress...

According to Wikipedia, Harbin is China's tenth largest city. This may not make an impression on many people when first presented with this Wiki-fact, but Google this city's name and you're not likely to be disappointed.

Each year this city of 9.8 million puts on arguably one of the largest ice festivals in the world and the scale is phenomenal. Each January since 1985 the city creates palaces and towers of ice carving and shaping all things cold.

Not to be outdone, The Forks in Winnipeg created a tower of ice this year as well. Though nowhere near the accomplishment designed in faraway Asia, it is still enjoyed by all who come to take a look.

China has the reputation of being a manufacturing juggernaut with cheap labour, but it also has this jewel to point to to remind us that they create more than just widgets.

Call McGruff the Crime Dog

I first blogged about Rusty, the stuffed animal on top of Little Saigon, last year on September 11th. It was the second blog post I made for my P.R. class and he was one of the first things I noticed on orientation day. I could hardly believe it then when I looked out the window from W308 on Tuesday and saw that the big lug was gone.

I went to another window to make sure my eyes did not deceive me. 'Maybe there's too much snow on the roof ', I thought, 'Maybe Rusty is underneath a snowbank!' I began to put two and two together when I saw the large shovel leaning up against one of the outside walls. It seemed clear from the trails in the snow that someone had been clearing snow off of the roof. Rusty had been brought in from the cold. Yay Rusty!

But wait! Something looked different other than the obvious change in season from one photo to the other. Could it be? No! I don't want to believe something that terrible could have befallen Rusty! As I looked on in horror at the photo and Rusty's absence, I felt a twinge of despair go through me.

There's a gang tag just above the roof line that wasn't there before. Had Rusty been kidnapped, or even worse, come down off the roof to enter a life of crime. If any 10 inch paw-print graffiti sprouts up in the area, I'll have my answer.