What am I modeling?

Here I am, living in Fredericton. I had my first day of orientation for my Education degree yesterday. One of the topics that stuck in my craw was "dress code". I know some of the other Ed students are struggling with this as well -- after 4 years as university students, we now have to put together a "professional wardrobe".

The thing is, with all this talk about us becoming role models, I am thinking very carefully about which values I want to model for the students. If I go out and buy a bunch of new clothes to wear during my practicum, I would consider that to be modeling consumerism and materialism. 

I was telling some of my fellow students about how I had scrounged in my mom's closet and had some vintage blouses from the '70s to wear. Did I detect a couple of strange looks? 

My practicum placement is in a middle school (grades 6-8). Students at that age are desperate to fit in and "be cool" (I remember this because I used to be that age and I wanted Roxy t shirts SO MUCH). I want to be the kind of role model that shows that confidence and self-respect have nothing to do with wearing the latest fashions. I want my dress-sense to express my sense of humour about myself and the world around me, and my desire to avoid conformity when it compromises my values. So while I will have to respect the dress codes rules and keep a kempt and modest appearance, I want to respect my own values as well. 

My landlady is taking me on a shopping trip to Value Village this weekend. Apparently the VV here is awesome. And thank goodness I bought so many cute pairs of shoes before I got so concerned with personal integrity. 

Resuming my wandering ways

So here I am using the free wi-fi at the Toronto airport. I'm about halfway to my destination: Fredericton. I am increasingly disillusioned with travelling and I long to settle somewhere and build something real. I had to take 7 pounds of clothing out of my suitcase at the airport, at the last minute (I was overweight).

I tried to watch movies on the plane but I am starting to feel like pop culture (in this case, Hollywood) contaminates me when I engage with it. I don't want to fall out of touch with the things that normal people do, but   I've been finding it hard to stomach. I watched five minutes of Red Riding Hood before I deemed it intolerable. Then I spent the rest of the time watching Never Let Me Go, which was extremely depressing. I guess it was maybe trying to make some points about medical science and ethics, but I feel like everyone who watches it will be like, I emotionally engaged for an hour an a half with the issue of medical ethics while I drank a soda and ate buttered popcorn.

I stopped by the bookstore in the airport. I always love seeing which books are being sold in airports, because it is a specific sort of demographic that they cater to (wealthier people who fly a lot) and I think the books reflect that. Some of the titles that jumped out at me: Learn Just Enough to Get Laid, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, The Power of Positive Thinking, Outliers, How the West Was Lost, and Becoming Enlightened by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. If only I could get enlightened on a plane. Sigh.

There was also a book about making friends, and turning online friends into real friends. I considered this book, because I don't know anyone in Fredericton and I don't want to spend too much time alone because my mind is a scary place. When I am alone I can either: a) be really reflective and self-examining, or b) watch tv online (especially Coronation Street -- it's like candy for my soul).

I am seriously contemplating getting my boots polished while I am here. They need it.

untitled

Googling how to spell spontaneity.

Gertrude Stein

I think I like Gertrude Stein she said she is much better to read if you haven't listened to too many opinions of her beforehand.

A painful process

I was going to compare my time in France to growing pains. As in, when much growth is undergone at one time, the body struggles to adapt, making it more painful than a slower change. This is probably true of my mental experience in France, but of course I'll never know how I would have been different had I never gone.

This isn't true of actual growing pains though. Apparently they are not associated with growth spurts, and doctors don't really know their cause. 

So you can pretty much disregard this whole post.

Sowing wild oats

I'm pretty tired, so this is going to be a copy-pasted explanation from Wikipedia (sorry):

"Sowing wild oats" is a phrase used since at least the 16th century; it appears in a 1542 tract by Thomas Beccon, a Protestant clergyman from Norfolk. Apparently, a similar expression was used in Roman Republican times already, e.g. by Plautus. The origin of the expression is the fact that wild oats, notably A. fatua, are a major weed in oat farming. Among European cereal grains, oats are hardest to tell apart from their weed relatives, which look almost alike but yield little grain. The life cycle of A. fatua is nearly synchronous with that of Common Oat (see also Vavilovian mimicry) and in former times it could only be kept at bay by checking one's oat plants one by one and hand-weeding the wild ones when they were in flower but the grains had not ripened yet, lest the wild oats seeded themselves out. Consequently, "sowing wild oats" became a way to describe unprofitable activities. Given the reputation of oat grain to have invigorating properties and the obvious connection between plant seeds and human "seed", it is not surprising that the meaning of the phrase shifted...''