"There's Life Outside Your Apartment"

Up to this point, I've had a late class on Mondays which is voluntary as far as attendance. My classmates decided Film Theory/History wasn't very relevant to Sound Design as the instructor rarely mentioned sound in the first two classes. True, he was covering silent film, but it didn't help that old interviews with silent movie actors often said (imagine crotchety crabby old voice, "Sound is the worst thing that ever happened to film". I believe some of the sound guys were offended.

I've continued to go though since it's sometimes interesting and I no longer have to take a test!I Sure, it's slow at times, but other times you get to watch clips of everything from "Rear Window" to "Indiana Jones". Of course, it's not like watching a normal movie because JUST as you start to settle into it, the teacher pauses the shot at says things like (Imagine snotty British accent here...though my teacher is not English, and I mean no offense to the wonderful British people but they do have that accent which can sound so superior...and THAT is how my teacher sounds from time to time)... Um, ok where was I? Oh yeah..teacher says "Now you'll notice here Steven [Spielberg] purposefully frames the shot so you can't yet see Indiana Jones face. We're not even sure it's Indy. But behind him you'll see a lot of smoke and that's how you know his gun fired even though all you heard was a whip crack as Indy disarmed him. Then we switch from a wide shot to an Extreme Close-Up. That's when you can see nothing but the face...". Blah! Totally killing the action scenes! Nobody watches a movie this way. Sure...maybe film buffs on their 300th viewing....but I should mention that nobody in this class is a film major. I think it's 2-D (that'd be animation) and me, the lonely Sound Design student. Ok, ok, framing is good for Animation people...but we've only seen a couple of old Warner Bros. cartoons, and NOTHING from Disney. For Shame.

Moving On. (he also says that as he's prone to tangents as it's clear he's VERY into film) The class is also nice because it's located at the campus opposite to my normal classes and provides a good 20 min. walk. Ok, sometimes that's annoying, but it allows me to explore and take new routes nearly every time. This evening, when I left, I took a slightly longer journey as I backtracked to my old building to get my bike (it's not safe at this other campus as they have no bike lock-up. Darn those blood-thirsty bike thieves. So as I left class I "went to parts of the city I never visit and rarely think about". (true that's because I don't know the city that well, but it's a line from a song I like which merits a mention. On this particular evening, I just had a lot of thoughts, and I'll try to share them. You'll have to forgive me though as I'm sure I forgot half of them (all interesting!) thanks to that lovely bike ride WAY uphill on my return trip to my apartment. After that, you're lucky if I can think of anything aside from, "WATER!". You know, i really need some kind of latchy-harness thingy to put on the bike to hold a water bottle. Yup, for my 20 min. out-of-shape ride. That would be good.

For tonight's film class, we used the last 60 minutes of class to see the first 40 minutes of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". Surprisingly, this is one of the few "old classic" movies I've actually seen. In fact, I saw it my freshman year on my first college degree. I imagine it's fitting that I then see it again for my first term of my next school experience. Of course, the first time it was in a nearly-abandoned old basketball gym complete with broken, garbage bag-covered windows and projected on a sheet. This time it was in a theater and interrupted several times with comments like "How did we know she was going to take the money and run? Notice what Hitchcock told us using only camera angles...". I found most of that pretty funny since the first time I didn't catch ANY of what Hitchcock was telling me. I know I didn't pay attention much. Sometimes it's hard for my 21st century attention span to focus on early 20th century storytelling. I have grown to appreciate it more, but I really have to focus (is that sad? or normal?).

About the time I'm walking away from class and realizing I've seen this movie for first term school before, I get to where the Downtown Roman Colosseum looking Vancouver Library is located. Since it's only 8:10pm, I figure it might still be open and I should finally check it out. Sure enough, it was open. All 7 floors of it! (complete with food court - closed...and escalators!) I didn't stay too long...just wanted to walk the layout (up all 7 floors) and test for the completeness of the collection. How do I do that? I look for a little known book that is often mislabeled as children's lit...and it happens to be my favorite book. "The Far Side of Evil" by Sylvia Engdahl. In this case, it's in the Young Adult section (I can take that...but it really is just a regular old adult fanta-sci book). they have it, AND they have her other books (so rare, I've only read 2 of the 4 others). Three of her books are set like a trilogy, and they had it in one book. I've read one book, because that's all the Effingham County Public Library in Illinois had. So wow. Go Canada. I don't have time now, but I'll be back to check that book out. Right now I'm in the middle of re-reading Harry Potter 5. (have to prepare for the movie and book 7 coming out this summer!)

Satisified with my library find, I left and felt I was just like Belle when the Beast showed her his castle's library. Sigh of happiness... Mmm...maybe Canada's my Beast. I think that would be ok. It's something I've always looked at with curiosity and a slight amount of awe (who ever hears anything bad about Canada?), but since I've been here, it's been very much a love-hate relationship. Part of it is just being so far from home and friends and family. And part of it is just stupid Canada! This is reinforced by the fact that earlier I walked by the main post office building, and I've confirmed with Canadians in my class that Canadian mail is the second slowest on the planet. (apparently Costa Rican mail is slower but it's run by the canadian gov't. I don't understand, but you can ask The Crabby Canadian in my class who told me that) It's really crushing to me that the mail is slow because it's lousing packages and bills...AND I love mailing things. But what's the point if it's three times as pricey and 10 times as slow? Seriously, I just mailed an "express" package to Chicago and it was tiny and lightweight and cost more than I'd pay for overnight in the U.S., but it's still going to take 4 days. Grrr.

Still walking the evening streets of Canada, and growling about the mail, I have to wait at one of many stoplights. This particular corner has one of the things I like about Canada. Very Disney-like actually. They have lights in a lot of their trees. Usually it's on the trees near fancy restaurants, but at least it's not Christmas. Twinkly trees are fun, and it feels a bit like my more recent "home". So just as quickly as I was praising Canada for its books and growling at it for its extreme interpretation of the term "snail mail", I'm back to enjoying the beauty. It's nighttime now, but earlier I was running errands on my bike and it was very clear spring had sprung. Flowers everywhere, and as I rode my bike, I passed throw "snowing" cherry blossom trees. Just like a movie scene. I think it's been about 6 years since I've really had a Spring. it's nice. Even though there was sleet last night!?! Crazy weather.

Passing the twinkly light trees and restaurant, I move to one of the busier streets and pass a couple of bums. Bums? Homeless people? Housing Challenged? I don't even know. but this guy was pushing a cart full of aluminum cans for...recycling I imagine. I wonder if that's a lucrative hobby here? Ok, it can't be or the bum wouldn't be a bum. But..well...can I turn them in for cash somewhere? Cuz, you know...I'm a poor student. Maybe I can use the extra cash.

Vancouver has quite a few homeless people. I've read brief articles about some thoughts on the situation. During orientation our Student Services people said not to give the "bums" anything because there were government programs to help these people. Which made me think...yeah, but how do they here about it if they stay in the same block or two? They don't have a mailbox...or Internet...or a phone... Despite there being more homeless people than I've ever been around, I don't feel unsafe. But I do feel uncomfortable around them. I wonder if most people do because homeless people represent our biggest fears because we don't know why they're homeless. It's easy to pass them by and scoff that they must be lazy or have been incredibly foolish to get to this point. But then our heart says, well what if it was just a string of bad luck and it could happen to anyone? Personally, I don't hand money to these people because I don't trust them. I'd rather donate to a church or charity. On the street...I want to know their story first. I mean, prove to me that you're here through bad fortune and no fault of your own and that you're not earning $300 a day for sitting there. Yes, that's a lot to ask, but it's what I think. I keep thinking there should be a documentary asking people how they get there so we'd all be more compassionate. Is there one? Anybody know?

After all of these thoughts on homeless folks, I also start thinking of walking and smells. Sure, I miss my car (a lot!) and hate exercise as transportation, but I can't help thinking it's really a good thing on so many levels I never would have guessed. Here I get to see a lot more of the city, and time to enjoy it (instead of a blur of buildings). And I also think people would pollute less if they walked or biked more. yes, I know, you're thinking "duh, because there wouldn't be car fumes then!"... But I'm thinking of olfactory pollution. Do you know how many times my NOSE has been offended by smells from walking around? The worst is from many of the Asian restaurants...primarily anything with curry. Ulghh. I honestly will not walk on one side of my campus building during the day because of the curry restaurant there. It's like a nasal assault, and a florist doesn't even have the courtesy of being nearby to correct the offense. (BTW, the Library Colosseum has a Library Florist. I'm not kidding) I guess it does help me save money though...if I'm hungry and walk by, it'll totally kill my appetite and then I can save more money! But biking also saves me food money. I no longer walk daily by the heavenly smell of the Domino's pizza near my house. Plus, I don't want to stop and have to lock up my bike just to pop in to buy food. And we've already mentioned the blood-thirsty bike thieves. Can't leave the bike for a second without the chaining ritual. Argh.

Ok, as a distraction from bike thieves, I now start laughing to myself because I see a nice group of Asian girls running to make the crosswalk light. Why am I laughing? Because I think to myself "I haven't seen this many Asians run since the last Godzilla movie". And that's a horrible thought because I don't even watch Godzilla movies, but what can i say? Everyone's a little bit racist? It just looked like such a cliche since all these girls were running...they had the same haircut...and they were all wearing boots. Most were wearing cowboy boots and all the boots were on the outside covering their pants (some of you know how horrible this fashion statement is)...oh yes, and they were all giggling. Weird. But please, I have nothing against Asians other than anything curry..and that stretches to the middle-eastern areas too.

At this point (especially if you're bored) you're wondering when on earth my walk will bring me back to my campus and my bike. Well, almost there. I'm about to the main building, but I'm on a street where I notice that even garbage bins get locked up. There have been news articles about this too. Some advocate all trash areas being locked up to prevent dumpster diving (I've seen some homeless people doing it in the bins behind my apartment). I'm not sure why that's such a big problem. I'm totally for dumpster diving (in a limited capacity for myself. Got a great basket for the cat toys recently...just sitting nicely outside the trash cans. clean and nice!). I figure, it's a form of recycling since people throw too many good things away. Oh well, not my call I guess.

Now here's something really fun for you. Should you ever be in Vancouver and want to stay Downtown, I highly recommend the Murray Hotel. Not because it's particularly exciting...because it's not. Nope, I recommend it because as I was walking by this evening, I saw THE cutest white kitty cat sitting at the front glass door staring out. Any hotel with a kitty in the lobby ranks high on my list! And speaking of cats...and Hitchcock movies...I recently rented Rear Window, so maybe that sparked my peeking a few windows on occasion (people seriously need to pull their blinds around here...and everywhere. Why do people leave them open? Well, says the self-proclaimed vampire. I never open mine...evil sun!). Last week on one of my last bus trips (ok, I'm sure there will be more; just more rare now that I have a bike), I looked up above one of the business buildings into a clearly residential section. And in the window of this residence, there sat a wicker table and chairs. On the wicker table, there was a gray tabby cleaning itself in the morning sunshine that had been so rare up until last week. Awww...

Vancouver is bike friendly and cat friendly. I love it!

Shortly after seeing the Murray Hotel Cat, I was back to my bike in the campus bike lock-up. And after that, I really don't remember much other than huffing and puffing up the darn hills of Vancouver (stupid. darn. hills. I. hate. bikes. expensive bus passes. and hills!!). You might be grateful i forgot the rest since it probably took all of your lunch hour to read this. ;) Regardless of my rambling thoughts as I walk through a City (they have a TON of coffee shops here and lots of Subway shops. hmmm..)...I highly recommend walking around your home streets some evening...just to see what you see...and have a few random thoughts yourself.