"Why Don't You be the Writer, and Decide the Words I say..."

Dear Serious Sonneteers,

Do you ever reach a point where there's no more "up" from here?

It's almost like you've been climbing a mountain. You've prepared yourself for months, conditioning your body to handle the challenging elements so you can face any obstacle head on. You are proud of each step even if it may be misplaced, because you are still moving towards a goal. You push forward despite the looming possibility of failure. You fight against doubt. Simply imagining the top is enough to boost your morale.

And then you reach it, the idolized precipice. It surpasses your expectations, satisfies a dream tucked profoundly within the folds of your heart. Not only have you made it, you've proved to yourself that you are capable of something great.

Yet, another thought soon consumes you. Without a goal, without anymore rock to climb, there is only one direction to go. What a horrible realization that no matter how much you've labored to climb, you will at some point have to stumble back down. From that point on, the feat doesn't seem as significant. You are a person who has climbed a mountain, but who's world is slowly falling to pieces.

I am a person who has climbed a mountain and is waiting to tumble back to earth. Ellie Golding seems to understand my predicament, or at least listening to her song "The Writer" is causing me to have delusions of sympathetic singers. Anyways, it's been a rough week and I'm starting to doubt the significance of success. Hopefully you're in a better mind set.

Please post some sunshine soon,

arctic hipster

P.s. Kudos to any of you who noticed the new font.

Breakfast Dance Party

Dear Dancing Manics,

This morning Student Council helped wake up a bunch of stressed out teenagers.

For the last couple years the council has been serving cereal, fruit and yogurt during exam week to "feed young brains". The program is pretty successful considering the majority of high school aged students have a tendency to sleep in, rushing to school without having eaten breakfast. Not only does skipping a meal slow brain function, it also can drastically affect mood. High School students' bodies are already running rampant with hormones that cause them to lose concentration on normal lessons, not to mention we have the attention spans of nats. However, we still become engulfed by various education experiences, although not academic. For example "How To Text While Having Eyes Remain on the Board", "The Effects of Red Bull and Monday Mornings" and my personal favorite, "How to conjure the Correct Answer When a Teacher Singles You Out for Clearly Being Stuck in La la Land". From a teacher stand point, the odds are already stacked against students when it comes to school and a lack of food only worsens the situation. 

Lack of food + Stressed out Teenager = Incredibly Difficult Exam. 

To relieve some of the tension in the school this morning, my friend and I suited up in complete 80's aerobics wear and blasted some dance music. Not only did the crazy costumes attract students to the food table, but they also caused some giggling. Between the two of us we had sparkly safety orange head bands, two pairs of bright purple tights, teal body suits and some rad rasta fire sneakers. The atmosphere was incredibly lightened compared to  a typical exam morning. My friend and I were dancing while dishing up cheerios and milk, kids were shyly grooving as they moved towards the gym, and teachers were bopping as they passed our table. A real breakfast dance party to sneak in a bit of fun before taking a desk in the gym. 

Well... we had fun at least. Perhaps not everyone was as pumped as we were, but you have to admit it'd probably would make the exam seem a lot less scary when there are two eccentric girls wearing fluorescent outfits offering you cereal bars. Besides, spandex in the morning is great way to start your day!

Dance, even if you're by yourself,

Arctic Hipster

"I Want You to Read This Essay Between Now and When You Die"

Dear Sunset Watchers and Final Moment Gawkers,


Today was a day of lasts. 


It's the final day of the semester, evoking some contradicting emotions. This morning our entire Senior Drama class arrived fifteen minutes early, knowing full well our director would be late. We may have pretended to expect the Black Box door to swing open at any moment, but all any of us really wanted was to was to be together for one last time. Slouched against the entrance to the drama room chatting about things that didnt' really matter, leaning against one another and smiling despite being completely exhausted, holding hands as couples, but also just as friends. We were the image of familiarity. 


The past couple months have knotted our heart strings together by a single thread, a profound love of drama. Had it not been for drama I wouldn't have known some of my best friends. We would probably have seen each other in the halls but never cared, never took the time to become friends. I can honestly say that I love my cast unconditionally and would drop everything to help any one of them who needed it. I also know that they would do the same for me. We have been together through thick and thin. The day of the plane crash in Old Towne, the nights we got standing ovations. 


But today was our final class as a cast, and not without some tears. Our Director revealed to us that he enjoyed our cast the most in his last ten years of teaching, which is saying a lot considering he taught Dustin Milligan. Sharpies in hand we signed each other's cast t-shirts and joked that if anyone got famous we'd all get rich. However, I can't imagine ever selling mine because of the sentiment attached to it. Family relics come to mind, and I'm sure my grand children will laughingly appreciate "That Strange T-Shirt of Gramma's".

The other last today included the last cupcakes raffled off in French and an interesting last text in English. Our teacher left us with an essay by Mordecai Richler titled "1944: The Year I Learned to Love a German". The author is Jewish firstly, and in context 1944 would be a year many Jewish children learned to hate Germans for what they had done to their people. Our teacher explained that he had given it to us because he wanted us to understand the impact of literature, finishing his lecture with "I want you to read this essay between now and when you die". The impact of the statement startled me not only because of the directness in which he had said it, but also the implications. He wanted us to read the essay because it would make us better people, because reading is important. 

There are a lot of reasons to do things that are not required. From spending a couple extra minutes outside a drama room door, to reading an essay about a Jewish man falling in love with a book of German Origins, we may do things because in some way we feel the need to finish them. Drama is over, but I don't think any of us would have accepted it without our non-verbal good byes this morning. 


And well, I probably could not live the rest of my life with an unread essay on my desk.


May you finish what you start, no matter how hard it is.


Arctic Hipster

The Ultimate Five Minute Blog Post

Dear Readers Who "Just Don't Have Time" Today,

You're in luck because this is going to be a fairly straightforward and compact post. 

Life has been moving quickly: Finished two three hour mental marathons (a.k.a. Departmental exams) thus my creativity has been temporally maimed, "Hamlet: Zombie Killer of Denmark" runs tonight in the blackbox theater and someone you may recognize is definitely running the light board, and Baby Brother Hipster has become Teen-Hipster making him fit the JB haircut even more.

In other news, there have been nice days weather wise (However,  I say this relatively, because up here -25 is pretty nice). The sun has decided to grace us with her presence, and so she deserves to be documented. We are gradually seeing more light, and those couple extra minutes make a difference indeed. It's hard to function when it feels as though everything is blanketed in darkness. Paired with the cold, the lack of light affects can cause the world to look more lonely than it actually is. The social climate changes with the time of year here. Although the continuous night allows for viewing of the aurora, it can drastically change a person's mood. 

So much for being straightforward!

"I wanna light up the sky, Light it up for you...."

Arctic Hipster

Dear Marker, Please be Nice to my Soul.

Dear Alberta Education Marker,

Tomorrow all of us English 30-1 Students are going to be submitting a correctly formatted piece of our souls for evaluation.

Perhaps you don't see the three hour exam for the monster it is because you have already paid your high school and university dues. However, you too are affected by the emotional destruction caused by diploma exams: you have become desensitised. It will not occur while reading dozens of essays and personal responses that in your hands you hold the entire future of a student.

Every university requires English 30 as a prerequisite. But that will not matter. All that does is the use of proper grammar and appropriate choice of literature details. When I open up the darkest part of myself to demonstrate my understanding of a text, you will not be seeing it with empathy but as the result of literary devices used to create mood.

While I write I shall pry apart my ribcage and allow the words to flow out in the rhythm of a heart beat. I will use figurative language to persuade you to think I'm smart. I will mention specific details that will impress you, but only in a distant way, because to you I am words on a page. Little do you know my guts are spread on the pages you read. But you don't know me, and you don't know what I'm capable of. You don't expect a northern girl to kick your exam's ass. You will see my paper as a number, mark it with an unfeeling hand only to throw it back into a pile of a hundred others.

Writing is ripping out bits of ourselves then trying to make sense of it on paper. Under what circumstance should this be allowed in a system that is suppose to teach children about the merits of literature? All that results of a English Diploma exams are overtired, stressed teenagers who are bleeding on the inside from pouring the continence of their hearts into a paper that might only get them a sixty. How is it possible to submit students to emotional warfare, then have educators wonder why kids drop out of high school?

It is unfair and immoral to force someone to relive a moment of "great loss", then to ask them to structure it so that strangers can deem their experiences "pertinent to the topic". Art is subjective, and reflects the creator no matter how analytical the piece may be. Students take it as a character fault when they create art only to have it rejected.

Yeah, I get the whole "But we're just as good as them" reaction when kids in the communities get their exam scores. After all, it's hard to imagine what is going on in Alberta and it's reassuring to know we're able to measure up. That still leaves the problem of the almost alien scores though, as they are created by mysterious beings far away from earth it seems. If a student gets one hundred percent of sixty, how do they know when they succeeded and when they had difficulties if they are not allowed to see their paper again?

Anyways, I hope dear Marker that you can be kind with the pieces of soul heading off your way in the near future.

Live Long and Prosper,

Arctic Hipster

How the Contents of my Fridge Became Breakfast

Dear Sunday Sloths,

Some days it's nice to just cheat on making breakfast.

Here's a way to impress yourself: Eggs-a-la-Laziness. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

1Tbs butter
1/2 Onion, chopped
1/2 Pepper, chopped
Last Night's Baked Potatoes, chopped

5 Eggs
1/2 Cup Salsa
Pinch of Cinnamon and Cayenne

2 Green Onions, chopped
5 Cherry Tomatoes, cut in half
A handful of Cilantro, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a cast iron pan (or other pan you can put in the oven), melt butter and fry Onions and Peppers on medium high heat until translucent. Add chopped Baked Potatoes and cook until brown.

3. While potatoes are browning, whisk together Eggs, Salsa, Cinnamon and Cayenne in a mixing bowl. Pour mixture into the hot pan, allowing eggs to gel. DO NOT STIR!!! Sprinkle on Green Onions and place Cherry Tomatoes in mixture.

4. Bake in oven for 11 Minutes, until eggs are puffy. Let sit for two minutes, then garnish with cilantro. Cut and serve.

Feel free to add cheese or hot sauce, depending on your taste.

Bonne appetite mes amies!

Arctic Hipster

Building Up the Library and Burning the Midnight Oil

Dear Creative Creatures,

At some point it all begins to sound the same doesn't it?

The melodies that once spun tales of broken heart strings are reduced to a formula. Novels that were the idols of sophistication and the solution to the human condition become words cleverly arranged on just another page. Colors that embodied the darker parts of an ulitmate truth seem nothing more than pretty pictures. Everything has been done, overdone, over-redone.

But not here, and not now. There is a place between places called a perspective, and it is one thing that has not been seen before. It is the life boat of an artist.

I challenge you to figure out yours, and I will explore mine, and then we will sail friends.

Fly the colors but don't tell them our names,

Arctic Hipster