Please, just cut off my legs.

So I've taken the highest dose of arthrotec allowable for about a year now for my knee. It's a stupid genetic thing where the muscles in my leg aren't cooresponding with my knee. I also have other prescriptions for when it gets especially painful.

Now, I've live with this for a few years so I'm used to it. But now my other leg is buggered up?!

Yes, I experienced a foot drop yesterday. If you're not sure what that is; essentially one of my feet is paralyzed. Well, I can move it left and right but I can't point it upward. The muscles in my leg flex just fine but the foot doesn't move so somewhere along the line, the nerve dies. I can't see a neurologist for a few days so I have a cane to walk with. The doctor gave me a choice of cane, half cast, or crutches. I opted for the cane because crutches are too big and a half cast will stop me from going to work. The only reason I need a walking aid is because without being able to lift my foot off the ground properly, my toes drag on the ground and I fall down a lot. Like, more than usual.

So a cane for one leg, meds for the other. Seriously, how stupid is that?

Piano=best instrument.

Just had my second piano lesson and I have to say, it's going swimmingly... which is a term that I don't really understand. Swimming has little to do with piano. Very little.

Two classes in and my teacher says I'm almost ready for the second level book. Isn't that crazy? But at the same time, most of the people that start piano don't practise as much as I do and are usually like 6 years old. But I'll take what I can get.

"In your face, little 6 year olds! Why don't you do some long division instead!?"

Sidewalk arts.

So the rain has come and destroyed my sidewalk chalk arts. Yes, that's right. I bought a 40 peice bucket of sidewalk chalk and spent hours drawing two very large pictures on the large slabs of concrete that make up my back yard. One of the pictures was a full color badass crocodile driving a red hotrod. The other picture was an exact rendering of my own hand done in purple and shaded with blue and bits of white. Okay, it wasn't an exact rendering but it was clearly a hand and almost had a 3D-esk feel to it. But now they are fuzzy and faint images of a once great beauty.

Ah well, I think I'll take the hose to them now and draw a turtle racing a snail.

Loner?

I went for a 3 hour walk last night from midnight until 3am. I don't really know why. I just knew that I had to get out of the house and I really had no where to go. I ended up at a Tim Hortons since it was so late and I hadn't slept in 20 hours already, I needed some serious cafienation. I like walking at night without my glasses because in the blurry darkness it's hard to focus on anything. It's good for letting you escape into your own thoughts without distractions from passing cars or cats on their own midnight strolls.

By the time I ended up at Tim Hortons I had started to think about the people in my life. I'm not a loner but sometimes I think I'd like to be. I've started alienating myself from the people I work with. I work with a group of 5 other people and I actually managed to go a whole week without seeing any of them. Wasn't hard either. I hadn't actually planned on it. Just couldn't bring myself to pretend I like them. I tend to spend all my time in another department from the one I actually work for and I don't mind 'most' of them. And they are usually out anyway. I even stopped taking my coffee and lunch breaks so that I don't have to talk with the people from my department.

I really wish I had a point to make with all this. Most of the people on my MSN don't talk to me now because I've seperated myself from most of them and now I'm doing the same thing at work. I'm very close with my friends and the hand full of people on my MSN that I still talk to. The people that I talk to on MSN probably have no idea how much I appreciate what they have to say. Even if I seem like I don't care sometimes, I want them to know that I'm honestly interested. I'm tired of listening to story after story of my coworkers cheating on their wives and getting high and all the glory days of drunken driving and petty vandilism.

It has nothing to do with my ego. I don't think that I am better than these people. They have families to take care of and are in control of every aspect of their lives. I on the other hand live with room mates so I don't even pay for the house on my own. I have no wives to look after, no children to raise. My responsibilities are few and far between and for that I should take notes from my coworkers. But I am still an adult and I think it's time I stopped pretending to like people because others think I should. I think your friends say a lot about the person you are. I might not like who I am but I'm sure as hell trying to become better. It's a good sign that I can reject relationships like the ones I've made with my coworkers.

(And I'm not trying to be melodramatic. It just comes off that way when you talk about something as saturated as a disliking of people. There are a few I don't mind after all. Just letting you all know that I'm not a sociopath that wants to take his anger out on the general public. Anyone that truly knows me that I still have my childlike side that will strike up a conversation of nonsense with strangers should the urge hit me.)

Lifes list updated.

Well I've decided to add a few more things to my list. The main reason I'm posting it on here (as I'm sure none of you care about it) is just for my own sake. When you can actually read it it seems more concrete.

Cooking
Sculpting
Wall Climbing (though I'm already pretty good)
Kayaking (also pretty good at)
Writing (just want to write one novel thats good enough to end up at Chapters)
German
French
Chinese/Japanese (one or the other)
Juggling
Fighting (some sort of martial art)
Dancing (mostly social dances. Waltz, samba, tango, etc.)
Painting
Drawing
ASL
Acrobatics (seriously wanna move like the yamakazi)
Guitar
Piano

Just gotta keep working at them. Started piano today (very fun) so hopefully one by one I'll get real good at these things. I don't need to be a master at any of these. Life is to short to do only one thing. At least, for me it is.

MS Paint Magic!

The new template is still very buggy so it'll be a while before I put it on the site. Thus I'm going to go ahead and post before it's finish.

Today I've decided to show off the magic that is my MS Paint art. MS Paint is the simple 'paint' program that you find on all computers (usually under accessories). These were all done while I was supposed to be working at work. Most of them are actually unfinished. I usually half to stop when my boss walks in and it's boring to start them up again. These are a few of the more completed ones (though probably only 2 or 3 are considered done). Enjoy!

I'm not really sure what this is supposed to be. Maybe a rug. Took me the longest of all the pictures.
This was the first picture I did. It started the obsession at work.
This is the only picture that I'm still working on. I cropped only the monster but there is actually an entire city being created. It'll be amazing when it's done.

Ugh, default settings.

How can I call this blog home when so many people have the exact same template. The very thought makes my skin crawl. Best be startin' up the photoshop.

I'm scared.

Fear isn't a common emotion for me. I was never afraid of the dark. Never worried about ghosts. Never even occured to me that I could be kidnapped. I've lived in ignorant bliss.

But now I can't help but be terrified of death. It feels like death is popping up all around me. All of a sudden my mortality feels likes it's being held by a thread. One small tug and it's gone. I keep asking the question: What happens when you die? But there is no way to find that answer. Well, there is one.

I'm seeking religion. Or rather, I'm considering it. A friend of mine is being absolutely fantastic in helping me figure out if religion is what I need so that I can start sleeping again. It'll give me answers for death but I don't know if I can neccessarily believe those answers. Do I want answers that I know are false or will simpling having something to tell myself be enough, even if I don't believe it?

Eye contact.

Society has created absolutely rediculous rules. The other day I found myself on a bus sitting in a chair that faces towards the side of the bus, rather than to the front. Why is this worth mentioning? Well when you face the side of the bus, you find a row of people facing right back at you.

Why are we so afraid of eye contact? As soon as someones gaze crossed mine, their eyes hit the floor. Every time I smiled at someone they gave a meager glance before examining their shoe laces. Looking around I saw many people cross glances with other people and it was always the same story. I almost felt abnormal watching unhindered. By the end I just closed my eyes and listened to my music until the boss stopped. I didn't like making people uncomfortable and truth be told, being comfortable when everyone else is uncomfortable, makes me uncomfortable.

I'd be nice to live in a place where I could give a friendly greeting and be on my way. We are all born into the same world. Why should we be afraid of each other?

Art 1.

Well, another day, another post. I had decided to write a post about validation but I'll leave that for another day. If you recall my list from the post previous to this one, you'll notice that drawing was on it. I draw all the time actually. It's something I'd like to develop but at this point I've reached the ability to draw things that look like what they are actually supposed to be.

Ramblings aside, I will be bringing doodles from my notebook into the computer and rendering them clean and neat for your enjoyment. But since I haven't had time to finish a picture yet I'm going to show you my latest two photoshop creations.

The Ninja Berry!


And the Extreme Yo-Yo (Note the barbed wire string and spiked finger ring)

To be or not to be... a doctor.

Yes, I know that was a cheezy line to use and yes, I realize that the line from Hamlet questions whether he should actually exist or not. So technically I'm saying "To exist or not to exist... as a doctor". But symantecs aside, let me make my point.

I want to be a doctor. Always have basically. I never thought I had the ability to become one but basically now I know I can. But recently I realized that this begins my dilema.

To be a doctor is to dedicate your life to medicine. But that also means that you have very little time for anything else. I've spoken with my doctor about his life and while he loves his job, he has no time for other things. During med school, recidency and sub specialty training, I'll have 15 years of just medicine. Yes, I'd enjoy it, but today I created a list of things I'm going to learn... and I hope to complete the list soon. Not that most of the things can actually be completed.


Fighting (some sort of martial art)
Dancing (mostly social dances. Waltz, samba, tango, etc.)
Painting
Drawing
ASL
Acrobatics (seriously wanna move like the yamakazi)
Guitar
Piano


There were more things but since I left my notebook in my car, I will have to write them down later... or more likely not at all.

If I choose medicine, there is a good chance I won't be able to accomplish all that. I guess I'll start them for the next year and when it gets close to going back to school, I should decide what is more important. The only thing I have to do is be happy and if I can learn all that and become the well adjusted person I wish I was, then there is a good chance I won't even miss medicine. Time will tell.

Experience.

This is something I wrote about 7 months ago. Every now and then I'll jot down something from my notebook.

Everyone has something to hide. How do we stop these secrets, these thoughts which devour our reasoning and take away any fragment of psychological stability or freedom, from destroying the person we truly are?

Only a man, whose life is an open book in an ever growing library, can truly be himself. Without anything to hide, a person can say or do what is in his heart. But does the absence of comprehensive depth not also corrupt? Perhaps only through doubt and fear can a person appreciate the pure.

As a society we base our achievments through wealth. Has a man that has spent his life creating an empire of riches through daily work missed out? Without time to enjoy what he has created, his life will be a short story of success.

The old phrase "Life cannot be measured by the number of breathes you take but by the number of times you've had your breath taken away" means more to me now, in this time of monotomous stabilty, than I once believed possible.

The problem with my writings is that I often forget the events that caused me to write what I did. I guess it was my attempt to justify keeping things inside. Most of my thoughts don't have a deffinitive answer. I often throw the ideas around in my notebook and when I feel satisfied that I've written enough I stop even if nothing is clarified.

There's hard, and there's life.

All I hear is complaining. Everytime someones askes me how I am I usually have the same answer: Great. And most of the time when I say it, I actually am great. But when I ask other people how they are I get the usual drivel of how hard a day they had. "Work sucks. School sucks. Relationships suck." I'm not complaining. If my friends want to be miserable, I'm not about to stand in their way. But do they honestly think their lives are so damn hard? Just once I'd like to hear "I'm great too". It'll never happen though.

I met a girl two nights ago. Well, talked to her on MSN. Refreshing is the only word I can think of to describe her. If she told me that her day was hard, I'd believe every word of it. She has cancer and has had many many surguries. But she's happy. She's chasing a dream of becoming a doctor.

Just a one hour conversation has put a lot into perspective. I don't complain often. I've always known that I have a good life and even the bad things could certaintly be worse. I wish I had the hard life though. I mean, I'd rather be rich and fat and happy but if I was able to take all of another persons suffering, I'd do it.

I guess all I'm saying is; If your heart is still beating, it could be worse.