Reversive(c).

I am blogging to cure the fever. Well, I'm actually just stuck waiting for my sister to come home with the flu pills she took with her to work. I need them. I'm getting a tad ill, O.o... This all seems funny to me, as I predicted something of this sort would occur.

You see, I have had a most exuberant weekend because a few things, namely: Shooting for Rifflandia and assisting on an engagement shoot, meeting some extraordinary personalities and doing so many things that my sleeping pattern is now disrupted. As for Rifflandia, I will do a detailed post on the subject as I enjoyed it tonnes, BUT, I do not yet have a copy of Adobe's, "Lightroom 3." So I don't want to upload some pictures before they have been sorted, scrutinized and edited. Oh, back to my "Seeingness," I saw a downturn in all of this, as this is the nature of the universe. You can never be so high without a little low. We'll see how this flu develops.

Coming to you from this fever of mine is something of reversive (c), inversive and subversive nature. Let me elaborate.

Reversive: Osawa f/4.5 80-200mm lens. (at 80mm wide open) I held this lens towards the lens attached to my Canon 50D - in a reversive manner, of course.

Inversive: Inverse to the Osawa was my Canon 50mm f/1.4 (at 50mm ((DUH)) wide open).

Subversive: (I'll get to that later).

So maybe it's the fever - or sleep deprivation, or an amalgamation of various other factors including the before said contributors - but I found this really interesting. Although not super-sharp, and under sub-par light, this is a picture I took:

I like what the Osawa lens has done to this, vignetting wise, and MACRO wise. I could get in even closer with my Vivitar 28-90mm f2.8-3.5, but I don't feel like posting something that cool just yet. I want to get some better lighting and a little more structure to the shot. As this picture was shot, I was holding the lenses together with one hand, the other on the shutter, and moving the camera body towards and away from the subject - talk about manual focusing. For lighting, my iPod was on the flashlight app balancing with one end jabbed between the two last rows of keys on the keyboard, and a polaroid picture acting as a flimsy "pillar" holding up the iPod and angling it towards the fn key.

This was a fun shot.

(A) All (p) this (p) time (l) this (e) blog may (i) have (M) been (a) for (c) something (P) other (r) than (d) showing (u) you (c) this (t) picture. (P) This (l) post (a) was (c) destined (e) to (m) happen (e) and (n) cure (t) my fever.

(c) Copyright Brian Van Wyk - Please see: Section F43 (Words which kick more ass than a dictionary can understand)

Weather Proofing.

Not much to say here, but that my shoes are not weather proof to rain; however, my camera seems to be. It never rained much today at the Site C rally - about a dam which the BC government wants to build on Peace River (to power 500 homes in california) - but then again, does it ever rain much in Victoria? Unfortunately not. I've found a couple of instances where the rain has been just hard enough to pitter-patter on the window - and I could only hear it if everyone in the house was completely quiet.

Where are the rolling thunderstorms?! Apparently this never happens here. I miss lazing under a corrugated roof listening to the torrential bursts of atomic cumulonimbus clouds above... and falling asleep. Feel the movement of air particles from lightning strikes 25 kilometres away - measured by seconds in delay.

As for static discharge?

I need a little electricity.

Not a picture of David Suzuki. He didn't pitch. O.o

Long time Since.

It has been a long time since, for many things. Other than these things, which I don't really need to go into, it's been a long time since my last blog post. It has only really been a month and 5 days or so, but it feels like that amount of time was really much longer, despite days going faster than normal lately. Much has happened in life since Logan's Pub. Much good, much bad - can we ever have everything?

It's raining outside and I'm in a bit of a thoughtful mood. Wow, I can be cryptic sometimes. In fact, that's what the majority of my comments are. Crypticism... Is that a word? No. My iPod tells me it is Cryptical.

You make of it what you make of it. Quick updates: I have started buying my gear that I need to head into photography as a career. I ferried over to vancouver to pick up a sweet second hand deal on a 50D. Looks like I'm a Canon freak now. Hey, they offered me the better package at the time I needed it - well, a Mr Tai did, from Vancouver.

I'm currently shooting as much as I can, when I can. There are still many steps ahead of me before I step into photography as a full time career, but I will take them as I can, when I can. Soon I may start a new blog dedicated entirely to photography.

I found this bird in a parking lot. I had just turned my camera on with a memory card for the first time. Next time I go looking for birds, it will be in parking lots. Birds here seem to have the coolest attitude.

FIrst Gig

Last night/this morning was a first for many things. My first Canadian Pub experience was also my first band gig. And by this, I don't.... actually I do mean to mislead you (all in the name of suspense, right?)

I don't have much time between now - at the library - and my bus to work, but here is last night/this morning's story.

If you're wondering, which you probably are, it was my first band photography gig. A few nights ago a friend called me up to photograph his band. Fortunately, I could move around my work schedule and fit the Gig in, despite not having all the best gear/preparation for the gig.

I paid a visit to Camera Traders to pick up what I could get the day before and I stumbled across a flash with a sensor. While not as great as a wireless flash may have been, it was really fun getting members of my family and co-workers zapped by it unexpectedly. In the end, the flash did not work out. Strobe work is extremely complex, and near impossible to master in an environment you don't get to play around in before the band starts. So, of course, I abandoned the flash, turned my ISO up to 800 (O.o) - which my K-x handles exceedingly well - and captured what I could with the terrible lighting in Logan's Pub.

I now understand why the vast majority of band photo's are in black and white; at least I think this is because of all the conflicting colours of light. With what equipment I had and the conditions I was in, I was quite pleased with a number of exposures I had taken.

As well as shooting, I did a bit of networking... I really need to design a business card, it would have been handy last night. Perhaps there is prospect of more gigs in the future for me. It all depends on if the other bands like what they will see once I am finished the editing process.

On the stage last night were Staves, the T.O.C, Chris Neal and West Coast Daze. On the dance floor was me, grooving and shooting; a bit unexpected to some of my friends who envision me on the stage more than on the dance floor or behind a camera. Hey, I can still play guitar; perhaps one day I will need someone to take photo's of me on stage.

On a side note: the, "I'm a photographer," phrase works quite well at bars.

[=



In this photo: Devon Delarge: Homie and Member of "West Coast Daze".

What a splendid moment...

Recent fires up-island have smogged up the air and made for some really cool shots of the sun - If I had gotten there sometime before this shot, I would have had some. This was the last of the sun I could capture before it faded, not behind the horizon, but into the thick smog.

I was not alone; it seems the deck where I took the picture for my post: "Quack!", was quite a popular place for photographers who were also trying to shoot the sun. So the only thing I can say about this picture is that the red casts a slight ominous layer on the lake.

Now, if you look closely, you and see what looks like popler, from trees, or cotton. I thought it was some product of group of trees somewhere alongside the lake. Here is a better picture:

So after a brief chat with some photographers, I stumbled upon something quite interesting; this dock usually has something interesting to capture. In this case, it was a bear:

Still, at this moment, the only significance to anything I had placed on this bear was the randomnity of it. I took some pictures, smiled, and pointed the "Drowning Bear" to the others on the deck. One then said, "Yeah, there's bear shit everywhere."

Not as in "shit" shit, but the insides and organs, so to say, of a bear. The red sun over this lake, with two murdered bears (One drowned, one gutted and strewn across the lake) made it a very pleasant experience for me; I was highly satisfied, even after missing my chance to shoot the sun).

On my return the next day, to try my luck with the sun again, the victims were removed, as were any traces of them. All that I found on the deck was caution tape:



O.o

Pow Wow...

Everytime I say "Pow Wow," a certain Bon Jovi song pops into my head. So I only have a few pictures remaining which I took, IN EXISTENCE. Some awesome ethereal being made me save a few on my camera, which is not the same awesome ethereal being that made my Dad delete everything off of the computer. Accident, of course... I should be more careful with where I store my photo's; all 18 000 of them.



So picture A is a picture of a chief called, wait for it, "White Lightning." Yeah, it's pretty hardcore. I took a photo of him and didn't realise I was close enough to be included in the ceremony, let alone to get struck.



16 Chiefs gathered to join in on traditional dance and ... traditions, obviously. While members of one tribe sang, others struck their drums in synchronisity, the dancers did their thing in a circle, rotating, round and round. There were a number of interesting things one could watch out for, including a man in a motorized wheelchair who persisted to join in regardless of the feathers and traditional dress he was lacking. However, What caught my eye most was this thing:

It's a GIANT ICE-CREAM MAN!


That is all, as I myself don't know what it was doing there. Regardless, White Lightning did not seem to be lactose intolerant, which sucked of course, because there was not going to be epic battle for me to shoot.

On a side note -{HA! CATCHY, maybe not}- I saw another Ice Cream man down at VEMF.

As far as my life is going at the moment: Awesome. Things seem to be falling in place. My cellphone seemed to have fallen out of my pocket last night too. I was in a park, and when I came back in the morning - because you can do that in Canada - I found it covered in dew and water. It works, but there is water in the screen. As well as this, I spent my time between 06:30 and 08:00 picking up garbage and drying wet benches (I swear, the Gardeners think that watering the wooden benches will make them grow). The grass was really thick in the Mediteranean Gardens - which no one goes to - and I got my shoe's soaked. I don't think the crazy hole at the bottom of my shoe helped either.

Today was also my first day working at the gate, handling a lot of people's cash, a lot of the time. Actually, all the time, and always walking, and squeaking and walking, and squeaking... faster and faster and squeakier and squeakier. I got the job done, though.

Another job I need to get done is organising my photo's. I have too many, and too many people want some uploaded/surrendered to them. Tomorrow I will be doing all of this. Because it is the new month, I have another 100 mb's on flickr, so my slideshow I posted earlier will GROW.

Also, a toast to serendipity.

o.O

Brian Needs an Adventure.

I need an adventure, but perhaps you have figured that out already. The reason I say that is because I need a fresh picture to update you with. I was going to go on an adventure today; however, due to my overuse of my Pentax lately, coupled with my forgetfulness, I forgot to charge the battery. It is charging, as we speak.

So here is a picture of a long past adventure:



This was a beach adventure with some South African friends we met here. Pebble beach is arguably one of the better beaches I have been to here. No fine white sand - as is the norm on this island - but big pebbles. Lot's of them. They give great colour and texture when the light is right and the water hits them. In fact, I got some sweet exposures that day, including one of my favourites:


I was once a functioning pipe, but I'm not too sure what it's function was. It did lead into the ocean, but WHO WOULD WANT OCEAN WATER? Perhaps, this is where water was originally pumped into the ocean; this is highly probable, considering the archaic look of the thing.

Actually, a more probable hypothesis is that it may have once pumped water out of the ocean. Considering its decrepit state, and the fact that there is a colossal hole in it - as colossal as holes get in pipes - this would explain the rising sea levels we are experiencing lately. Forget melting ice-bergs, those theories are outdated; only mad men would believe in such radical arguments.

I may be... I am correct in my hypothesis, but for the life of me, I still cannot figure out why anyone would want vast amounts of NaCL water. Anyone out there got any ideas?

On a side note - (!!!! BRAINWAVE !!!! - I will get back to this later#$%@) - I am sitting here between two Macbook Pro's. Gah, one serves a graphic designer and the other a writer. I'd like to comment on the most persausive attribute to the Macbook's of late by making a simple observation.

I have been here for the past 2.5 hours. Both Mac's have been here for as long, or if not longer. The difference between me and them: They don't have a robust power cord weaving through chairs and floorspace to the nearest outlet. Their batteries must be self-sufficient or something. Maybe they do actually last 10 hours.

#$%@ - I FOUND A NAME FOR MY BLOG!
I think it suits the fact that my blogs have an atmosphere of randomnity to them. (RANDOMNITY IS A WORD - I SWEAR THE DICTIONARY IS WRONG!)

Hamba Kahle :)

I AM STILL ALIVE...

I am here to write a blog...

I am here to write a blog...

I am here, to write a blog...

I am, here to write... a blog.....

Where am I? I'm at Starbucks... My interenet is down at my house, so here I am...to write a blog. As one of the three followers I have might know, I have not updated this in quite some time. I can not make the excuse that my internet is down, because here I am, sitting in Starbucks, writing my blog, without breaking much of a sweat. It's something I should have been doing regularly.

Right... so... life as I know it now is something like this (for those of you who care): I am working fulltime at the Butchart Gardens. If I am not working, I am out on an adventure somewhere. I rarely spend time at home besides an hour before and after I sleep. Adventures can be anything from photogging around with someone, to carving up unknown territory somewhere, to trekking down to starbucks to catch up on things.

...Oh right, I don't have much time to do this because I procrastinated earlier on flickr and in a couple of moments, I will be leaving to play some ultimate Ultimate-Frisbee.

On the subject of flickr:

I figured out I can do THAT!
(that is, copy and paste html... no big deal)

For those three established readers I have, enjoy... For those people that read this whom I know, that have told me, but have not actually legitimized their relationship with my blog... GET ON IT! You can expect some beefier posts in the future...

It's always great to know who reads this thing. Most of you out there that follow this from Fakebook have a gmail account and can comment/add my blog to their cyberlife. So why not? As well as that, I encourage you all to write a blog... We can be blog buddies... It would be SWELL.

Oh yes, photo Info...
The shot of me taking a photo was obviously not taken by me... It is marvelous, and I stole it from Kristina K... there is no messing around when it comes to her and her pictures. She is also too lazy to post it on facebook, so I took the liberty of doing it myself.
The other one is what I saw through my camera a few moments later...

:)

Happy? (to those who have been urging me to do something about my blog)

I am...

Early Post for an Early Morning Trek.

Some people out there won't believe how early the sun comes up in Canada; not even I understand it fully as I am at the lowest latitude in the country. This shot was taken in the early morning on a longboarding adventure. How early? Try 5 a.m. on a school day when your school starts 4 hours later (enough time to watch 4 episodes of Dexter... O.o). The endeavor was not simply to go on a longboarding adventure, yet, if I never had a longboard, I would never traverse all that land so early.

Everyone is talking about the Soccer World Cup lately. If for some reason you're ill-informed, listen for the sound of buzzing bees; this will not lead you to a hive, but most likely a T.V. blaring the sounds of the infamous vuvuzela. Yes, I got up at 5 a.m. (Already bright outside) to watch the opening ceremony and eventually longboard just before 6 a.m. in order to get to a friends HD TV in time and add my friend to the convoy on the way.

My friend, Connor, can be seen on the left, exiting his abode with his school bag, a longboard (of course), and a bowl of yogurt (of courser-er). To my understanding, this is the first footage shot of this being at the fresh hours of 6. For those out there that know anything about longboards, YES, that is a Dervish, flex 1 with Sabre trucks and Orangutan wheels O.o . Does it make early morning endeavors easier? I have no idea whatsoever. I suspect so, unless that yogurt packed some galactic punch (I am referring specifically to the milky-way when I say "galactic punch") that got us up the hills of Cordova Bay.

We got to our destination in time, and watched the soccer. If anyone out there that reads this knows me, they know that I do not ever watch soccer. HOWEVER, THIS IS SOUTH AFRICA IN A WORLD CUP ON HOME SOIL AND I AM MISSING OUT ON IT! IF THERE WAS A HIGHER ''CAPS" BUTTON I WOULD PRESS IT! So in an attempt to make a connection between myself and my lifelong chommies back home who are on 5 week vacation to party their asses off where 18 is legal, I am watching the soccer. Longboarding this distance to get the best experience possible (I don't own an HD TV) is not the only odd thing I have done to assume this connection.

Yesterday I found myself glued to a school computer in the career center after I was kicked out of the library for streaming video. I was streaming the opening ceremony, live, from the other side of the world (almost literally - how many people can say that with and edge of truth?) during lunch and my third block when I should have been in class.

Now, for another story, completely separate, but oddly directly related. Centurion Mall, 3 years ago: I happened to be there while a free concert was happening with Prime Circle and an opening band I never had heard of, The Parlatones. I found them odd (The Parlatones), especially with a megaphone blasting away at the mic a metre in front of me. It's taken three years for this band to progress to where they are now, and as I sat in the career center streaming the footage live, they came onto stage and I experienced them from the furthest point imaginable (not really). I'm not a major fan, but it blew me away how much they had progressed since I had seen them a couple of years prior. A career choice in music is a tough choice, but obviously good things do happen. It is still an aspiration of mine; however, we shall see how life progresses in the future. For now, I have 5 DAYS OF SCHOOL LEFT. Let me tackle that first.

Oh, DRAW FOR SOUTH AFRICA? SAY... WHAAAAAT? This means that we're on par with the entire group and still stand a chance of breaking through into the knockout stage. I won't get my hopes up, though. France is a killer team.

Vuvuzela's seem to be a killer South Africans are immune to, not the French.

*chommies - Friends

Exit

This is an exist.
This exit exists at
school.
I will
exit this exit
soon.
Exciting?

Indeed. There are 7 school days left in which I need to finish my classes. 7 DAYS!
DID I SAY 7 DAYS.
For the life of me, I can not imagine how anyone can go through another year of school. Sure, it is great socially, and it expands the mind, blah blah blah. Quite frankly, I have found that the last couple of weeks have not benefited my life much, with respect to knowledge I will need for the rest of my life; However, much has happened in the last hand full of weeks in the social side of school life. Grads - or Matrics, as I once called them (still do, I dare not call a Matric a Grad) - are coming together and some social barriers seem to have been broken down. Maturing? I think yes. Many people are finally coming to terms with how trivial certain things can be.

As for the actual graduation night, I shall see how worth my time it is. I was quite content with receiving my "hypothetical" certificate at the rehearsal. Technically, I have hypthetically graduated. If only the work I still have to finish in these 7 days could be hypothetical.

Right, so that was a pretty dry blog.
My humour will be restored once I hypthetically finish my homework.

-on a side note, I woke up with the song Hakuna Matata stuck in my head this morning. Sick joke, or just my mind reiterating my socio-acedemic ethos?-

Upload Picture. Umm, which one?

I'm Back...

By this I mean that access to internet at my house has been restored. Cyber-life can now continue, however, I will attempt to restrict it as I find it is addicting. Very addicting. I was playing for an hour on Poker Stars today; instead of doing something productive, (I have argued this point however, and I firmly believe Poker is more productive than homework; perhaps poker it will become a future source of income).

Look at me now, rambling on and on. My writing muscles - or typing phylanges in this case - have been dormant for quite some time now, but that does not mean that life has been as empty as my blog. In fact, life has been quite exhilarating lately. Today is the first day since the rainbow cloud that I have had a couple of hours to myself. I will attempt to tell you of all that I ever so vaguely write about, but it will be vague itself, as it will take a tonne of writing to fully exemplify all the experiences I have had lately, and unfortunately I don't have the time.

Starting with the Rainbow Cloud, otherwise known as a circumhorizontal arc, I was quite fortunate to see it. It appears only in certain months of the year, and its rarity is directly proportional to the latitude along which you lie. The cloud itself has to be a cirrus cloud and hovering at a certain level in the sky, at which the sun refracts light through it's ice strands from its 58 degree angle. I didn't know any of this at the time, but the sight itself was certainly enough to keep me at the beach where I was playing football on a sand bar with my Comunity Recreation class, and skip History; a "felony" I've oddly never commited until then.

Since then, I've been incredibly busy with a few main things, namely (in no particular order, I don't choose favourites over these) : longboarding, photography, canoeing, camping, hanging with my friends and girlfriend, partying, exploring, working, and school - although, my mind hasn't particularly been attending school.

The picture I've uploaded was taken at a parking lot in Campbell River, en route to Sayward Lakes. As you may see, it was a bit rainy and mucky, and it escalated up to the point where we finally pitched our tents 20 km's down a stretch of lakes. The toughest part of the day was not actually the 2.5 km portage, but the super-rare steak I specially flame grilled. Now I warned my food buddies that they should check the center of it with a knife, but at that point I'm sure we would all eat through our arms for any form of fleshy sustenance.

Canoeing 46 odd km's in three days was quite a great experience, even though I princessed the 3-man canoe most of the time. We engaged in race walks, wrote messages in the sky (over-exposed photographs and flashlights), dodged killer hacky sacks, bonded, sang german rowing songs, yarrrred the passing canoes and started playing the pen-15 game across the mighty Campbell Lake (where the winner was decided by the contender with the most competant diaphragm when it comes to belting a certain word for "male genitalia" louder then the previous person, until a decibal is reached piercing the ears more so than the silence of the abyssal lakes we traversed). [[I'm too lazy to edit that mouthful... deal with it]]

With regards to any new additions or alterations to my life, I had my orientation at Butchart Gardens and have somewhat "officially" stopped working at Redbarn until the summer is over. I stepped into a uniform for the first time since my Crawford College era in South Africa, sporting two items I haven't worn since I was a wee boy of 11 - a peak hat and vest. I will find a way to make myself unique in the somewhat conformist ideals of a uniform - perhaps a double popped collar, or vest-under-sweater-combo.

With 13 school days left before exams and graduation, I've thought much about the freedom I will be experiencing soon after that with no obligations but the obligations I force upon myself. Come this summer a few things, new and old, will occupy my time more so than they do at the moment: guitar, gaining some muscle (wow - did I just say that?... soon I will be blogging about protein shakes... my valid excuse is that I need some extra toning if I do land the tree planting gig for next year may/june) and a new skill which I haven't yet decided upon. It could be tap dancing or a martial art, specifically Kendo, or even something as simple as cooking as I now have access to Butchart Garden's lend library and their array of cooking books. Soon I wish to get into the poetry slam scene of victoria, even though it dies down in the summer.

Ah, a busy life requires sleep. I need sleep. Right now.
(My next few blogs will be more to one subject, as opposed to a major blab... Let's hope)

Untitled, for now.

Unfortunately,

my iPod does not allow me to post blogs. :(

This means my blogging life is now hell, because we have no internet for the time being.

-life in other active areas has doubled up though,

considering I do not use the computer anymore-

I've just managed to grab my dad's Laptop for a second,

Stick my SD card into it,

Rip some photo's off...

And click upload,

and now I have to go, until I can edit this post,

Or perhaps I will leave it...

There is definitely a LOT to talk about with regards to the RAINBOW CLOUD...

I haven't in fact figured out what it is yet.

As for this speed blogging, I must be off...

(It has just come to my attention, that I was pressing the enter button far too much, perhaps I want it to read like a poem; I have been to too many poetry events lately.)

Matcha

I am coming to you from a strange place... Serious coffee... STRANGE you might ask, well, strange because I'm not drinking coffee at Starbucks like every other person in canada (Let's forget that the alternative to Starbucks is Serious Coffee for now). In fact, I'm not even drinking coffee, or tea, or Matcha - which is a drink you must try - I'm just soaking up the free WiFi on a mac belonging to Carolyn, who is taunting me with the scent of Matcha. So, this blog seems to have mentioned Matcha twice, and now I have found the point of this blog; Matcha (with a capital letter, yes, it's that good).

Matcha is ground up green tea leaves that have been "latte-fied" - for lack of a better word to describe it. It is green. (My mind seems to resound the word FULLSTOP after that statement).

Let's get serious [HA!] here, I'm using their WiFi because I have no internet. A recent wind surge seems to have destroyed the server, so now I'm sitting here in Serious Coffee writing a stupid blog about Matcha because I have no pictures to upload and nothing interesting to say.

Soon I will have internet; perhaps I will blog from a strange place again.

Pun Cred: Carolyn [seriously...]

Photo: Google Images Upload... TEMPORARY!

[Edit: The photo has been changed to one of mine - 1st June 2010]

Conquered.

Recently, or as of the past year or so, I've adopted a sort of... "DO IT!" mentality. Where in many cases I'd just shun an idea away on the thoughts of it being just too much of a schlep, or with regards to my procrastination, I have been forcing myself to do things for the hell of it. It spured me into trying new things, like longboarding, and actually getting around to attempting things that have interested me for years, such as photography. In many ways these experiences turn out great, and some of them bad - atleast then you have experienced the sour.

Now, I have never traversed more then a couple of km's on a bike, also, the last time I actually rode a bike was about 6 years ago. Today, I took part in the cc350; a fundraiser targeted at installing solar panels on top of my school. The aim was to have teams of 5 and complete 350 laps around a 400m track collectively. So that equals out to 70 laps per person, or 28 km's each. Unfortunately not all the members could show up immediately, and one at all, so it was up to me and another Red Barn boy to keep up with the crowd.

At the end of the day, I completed more laps then I thought was possible for me - not knowing how easy 28 km's actually was. Our team finished a total of 312 laps, second to a team who completed the 350 laps - the supercharged, superhuman, Vikes on Dikes. I totalled 110 laps throughout the day, which allots to 44 km's. A crazy experience for myself. My legs are not feeling it, but that's not to say they won't feel it tomorrow.

On another note, today was also the first time I succesfully got a proper panned image, as you can see. Also, "today," in this context, is actually yesterday, as it is already 01:06 am... I'm too scared to sleep and let the lactic acid go rampant on my legs.
Today was definitely a sweet experience, as opposed to sour.

Word of the day: Sizzle.

Canoein'

Another step towards indoctrinating me into the Canadian lifestyle is to force me into a canoe and put me on a lake; a step my Comunity Recreation 12 class has taken. Now, there wasn't much forcing involved, getting in was something I wanted to do... I'll get to the forceful activity later.

"Com Rec" is the oddest thing to a South African. It was not conceivable to me that one could come to school, and in the middle of embracing the academic lifestyle, spend an hour and a half of your day playing pool downtown or doing rock-climbing, lazertag, hot yoga (another new experience inconceivable to africans), dodgeball or in this case - canoeing.

We have a 3 day trip coming up soon involving canoeing/minor hiking/camping and awesomeness (as the awesomeness will be concentrated in sayward lakes, no awesomeness will be concentrated on my blog for that time, aweh). Fortunately, and unfortunately, we have to train for this trip. On the positive side, I get to go out and canoe between a Literature test and a History midterm and revive the braincells that were decimated while writing an essay on metaphysical poetry of the Renaissance. On the flipside however, you have to train for anything that may happen, including capsizing your hull. This is where the force comes in (not in the jedi sense).

If you're wondering why my title is " Canoein' ", I am not trying to be gangsta. I'm trying to emphasize how "Canoe" and "in" are in the same word - "in" to the water that is. Gunning it for the center of the lake, we congregated as the teacher had told us to; in a spread out formation - far from one another. After waiting for commands, I got bored, and as I looked the other way, our teacher signalled to my loyal german buddy, whom I dearly trust, that he should capsize the boat we were in without me noticing. I Turned to ask him, "What happens now?" but before I could do so, I witnessed a titanic showmanship of brute force as he rocked the boat left in a single motion. Needless to say, I was now "in" the ice cold water...but so was he; something which at first I knew not from sight, but from the icy squeels he made as I turned to drown him.

Ofcourse, the "drowning" part is absolute hyperbole, and it wasn't only him squeeling, it was me... as well as squeels of laughter from the rest of the sadistic class who probably thought the sight of my crazy, lush, immaculate, manly, godly (yes, both manly and godly) and tasty hair getting wet was a cruel joke.

I am alive to blog the story though. This picture - and here's the catch - was not taken today. It is today's picture of today, but it was taken on our first canoeing training day. Since then, I now know the intricacies of the J-stroke, and how to capsize a boat - both integral parts in my journey into becoming a member of the Great White North.

Word of the day: I think since I tried to start that trend, I have jinxed my subconscience and this phenomenon does not happen any more.
Location: Claremont Secondary School.

Yes, that is a beer bottle, a very large one indeed. If you're wondering why this is of any significance - because, ya'know, gargantuan beer bottles are commonplace in the modern public - this picture was taken at my school. Given that, this may raise even more questions for you; Beer brand? I don't know myself, but I could inform you truthfully that the eyesore of a metal structure holding the beer bottle in place is a new addition to the school. It is reinforcement for any seismic activity that may occur in Victoria.

As I understand it, I am now living on a fault line, something a South African is not familiar with, and after a year and two months of being connected somewhat to the ground, I am still not familiar with an earthquake. My mother claims to have been woken up by them multiple times which is perfectly reasonable, as I have been known to sleep in my tent through a pride of lions bellowing territorial roars which can be heard a staggering 8 kilometers away. Suffice to say, minor tremors have not yet factored into my life...at least in my conscious reality.

Rumour has it that Victoria is expecting a major earthquake. It comes every odd century or so and we're long past the average interval. Will it happen? Will it be my first experience with moving ground? More importantly, will the bottle be removed before the earthquake hits, and if not, will the bottle support the metal giant, or shatter into an array of filtered light, projecting it's flying shards of stained glass upon the school grounds?

Location: Back Courtyard of Claremont Secondary School.

Breaking my heart.

Well that's a misleading title. Today we dissected a pigs heart; mine was certainly - hopefully - not on the tar smeered dissection tray. My heart was not infact near broken as it has been well kept after lately...atleast I hope so. If a pig could keep such a healthy heart, and considering it is the closest thing to a human heart I ever wish to hold in my hands, then I think I will be just dandy.

On the topic of posting a picture everyday - wow... Tough to do when you're too busy to upload, or you've been too busy to take a good picture during the day, so when you can upload, there is nothing to upload; in other cases, your siblings might hi-jack your computer.

I've recently decided, somewhat, that this blog goes out to whoever comes across it/whom ever I let know about it. No secrets will be kept here, just me, rambling on about whatever it is that may have interested me in the day... You can choose to like it, or hate it... or "you", so to say, may not exist and I may forever be blogging to an abyss of no-one-ness.

I feel like adding a few things to each blog post. Maybe i'll start a trend with.. well.. myself.
I have words that hover in the haze of my thoughts all day. A single word, for each day. Sometimes they come from no where, rarely, they're made up, and more than likely, they're weird and I heard them subconsciously...

Todays word of today:
well, today I didn't have one, and unfortunately I can't remember the other ones because I did not blog them. I will put an end to that by blogging more frequently. (attempting to, atleast.)

Quack

I came home today directly after school for the first time in weeks to play guitar, again something I did for the first time in weeks. I finally sat in front of my computer, with my Pentax chilling in my bag next to me, and it occurred to me that I had not shot a good picture today because I had not gone anywhere or done anything interesting during or after school, besides playing guitar. So when I looked out the window, and saw the sun was slowly setting, I thought I'd do some exploring. I haven't shot a picture during golden hour and thought I would find something cool, not knowing what it was yet.

I moved here a week ago and know nothing of the area. I thought it would be fitting to longboard down the Lochside Trail. To cut things short, I found a dock on Swan Lake, and started getting bored with nothing interesting to shoot. THEN... A random duck came quacking in and landed behind me. So here it is, the picture of the day; you never know what will happen when you go on random treks with your camera and you're longboard.

Centennial Square - 420

So the story goes that everyday after school, a group of shool kids ventured out to a flag on the boarders of the school, and blazed everyday at 4:20 pm. The news spread, and thus, a revolution was born. On the 20th day of the 4th month each year, protesters, so to say, spring up around the globe in aid of the "Legalize-Weed" campaign, gathering in parks and public places to light up a joint and bask in the cloud of smoke manifesting around them. It was here, in the ominous purple haze hovering around me, that I realised... just what did I realise?

That I should whip out my... Pentax, ofcourse, and join in on the fun, documenting the event. There were youth, all the way to elderly... yes, people old enough to be my parents. Some old enough to be my parent's parents.

As for my veiws on weed being legalized, I cannot yet say what I feel. I can however marvel at how I did not see a single policeman, unless they converged undercover to join in on the "Pass the bong" session taking place under the tree's. What say you? You, being defined as...

Well that's another thing I should define:
WHAT AM I WRITING THIS FOR?
For now, Enjoy the pictures of the day, (I will be attempting to upload atleast 1 everyday), whoever you are...

First Post

So...

I've decided to take my first step in blogging, inspired by many things, namely, turning eighteen; an event I will elaborate on in another post. I am already 3 months into being eighteen, and so, you can see how much of a procrastinator I am. This blog will morph from time to time, to suit whatever it is that needs to be blogged, but for now, it will give me a place to showcase my photographs, practice my writing, document my life (from 18.25 years old), and attempt to mitigate the procrastinator in me.

The only reason I chose this picture was because I shot it today, but perhaps it has deeper meaning? A winding road ahead... Pffft... Who actually attemps to shoot pictures with deeper meaning? Apparently many people; this one was surely just a quick thought.

Location: Longboarding down lochside.