I'm Back! ...Kind of.

I mean, I'm in Canada now, just not Calgary. :P

Greetings my illustrious, loyal, numerous blog followers! Where has the time gone? It seems like forever ago that I last posted.

First off, let me say that Mexico was nice, but as far as I'm concerned, Canada is WAY better. I'm currently reading The Wizard of Oz for the first time, and I thought what it said was actually very fitting. Yes, I know what you're thinking "There's no place like home.", and that IS what I was going to say, but there's more to it than that.

In the book, there's a conversation that Dorothy and the Scarecrow have that doesn't appear in the movie. Dorothy is walking through Oz with the Scarecrow, and she sees the amazing flowers and trees and everything is really colourful. Dorothy explains how everything in Kansas is gray, and the only people around are her aunt and uncle. The first chapter explains that the only thing that brings Dorothy joy is her dog Toto... and Toto is IN Oz with her!

When Dorothy is asked why she is so eager to get back to Kansas, she says simply that "There's no place like home." I don't know why, but after that context was given, the statement held a lot more weight for me.

In Mexico I saw palm trees, beautiful beaches, and had tons of amazing food. But none of that matters to me, because at the end of the day it's not my home, and there really is no place like home. There's some kind of intrinsic value to it that pure setting can't beat. When you have a place where you feel you can truly belong, where you have friends, and a life ahead of you, no beach in the world could possibly be worth more.

*sniff* *sniff* I'm getting all emotional now!

But seriously, I really like Canada. Like, A LOT. So I think that I'm gonna stay a while.

As for blogging, that may not be quite as consistent as I'd hoped it could be. As my internet connection here is VERY touchy. There may be some days when I won't be able to post on the right day, but just know that I'm still here, and I'm still doing... writer stuff. As well as leading an english camp. So that'll be fun! Tomorrow's my first day. Wish me luck!

Photoshoots, Planes and Good-Byes Oh My!

So this could have easily been two posts, but I figured I'd stick to my two posts a week thing and combine the two. So here goes. Light stuff first.

Last Saturday I went out with a great friend of mine, Hannah, and did a bit of a photoshoot in downtown Calgary! It was so that I could have some more professional-looking images of myself to put on things like MY BLOG, the back cover of my future book, book proposals, etc...

What I didn't expect was for it to be such a fun and hilarious time of just goofing around and taking pictures in random areas that you'd never expect would turn out.

So here's a few of my favourites from that day. Calgarians, can you spot where they were taken? :P

One thing I loved about the whole thing was that there were some places that I really honestly did not think were going to be good settings for photos. But they turned out really great! They were some of the most obscure spots ever, but they were awesome, and I'm so glad we did them.

It's funny how often we skip over random places in our everyday life never stopping to see the beauty of it all. We never bother to look beyond the mundane to see the extraordinary because we've convinced ourselves already that it's not there. We subconsciously "know" that something as normal as a mirrored wall isn't worth our time.

This trip has definitely made me more aware of my surroundings, and I actually find myself thinking about other possible venues for photoshoots. I think more than half the fun was just doing wacky shots and running all over the place together. Thanks Hannah for an awesome time! It wasn't even close to being as awkward as I'd feared it might be! (People only stared at us a couple times. I almost felt like an actual celebrity! :P)





Now to Planes and Good-byes.

*Sigh*

This is honestly so sad for me to say, but this is my last blog post from Calgary for quite some time. I won't be back here till September.

I KNOW. September.

I'll try to keep posting lots, but I can't make any guarantees at this point. I'll definitely be taking at least a week hiatus while in Mexico, but after that who knows. Hopefully by the time I'm settled in Quebec I'll be able to get re-established into my routine of blogging.

I'm really not looking forward to being gone for so long though. It feels like I'm some kind of toffee being stretched between hungry children. I have people I want to be with on both sides of the country and in the middle, but never before has the division between them seemed so significant.

I really think what a friend of mine told me tonight is true. When you go into a new situation where you don't know anyone, you become super attached to the people you do latch on to. You feel so lonely at first that anyone you can get along with you stick to like glue and hold on for dear life. It's as if you don't have any life-lines, so you anchor down as soon as you can, and the friends that you make are all really important to you really quickly.

Having said that, I grew up in Nova Scotia, I love the place, and I love the people too. The simple fact of the matter is I don't live there anymore, I live in Calgary. That's really hard for some people to hear, but you have to understand that this is not some kind of 'us vs. them' thing of who can get Seth to themselves, it's just about where God's putting me right now. I feel like I'm meant to be in Calgary, so that's where I'm gonna be. This summer I'm gonna be in Quebec working with my sister whom I love dearly and want to hang out with lots before she goes and gets married.

I'm trying to think of ways to relate all of this back to writing, but to be perfectly honest I just don't feel like I want to right now. It's all so close to home, and all so real that it's hard for me to step back and just say "That makes me consider how this relates to my dreams of getting published..."

 Saying good-bye has never been easy for me. Villa du Carmel, Encounters with Canada, Park View Education Centre, Saint-Prosper, Bridgewater, and now Calgary. The one huge thing that's been super helpful in learning to cope this time 'round is the fact that I'll be coming back for sure. So many times I've had to explain to little kids that I wouldn't be there for them next time. It killed me to say good-bye to my Terrain du Jeux in Saint-Prosper. It killed me to say good-bye to all my Encounters buddies. (I still stay in touch with a few, here's to Sue and Jess! :D)

All that to say, I'm gonna miss all of you guys, and I wish there could be some way for everyone I know to just all live in the same place so that I could be with everyone. It's not fair that cloning hasn't been approved for use by the general public. One of these days...


Feel free to comment on any photos you like, and if you want to see more I'll see if I can make a page on here with a wider selection of the good ones I got. Do you have anything to add on the subject of goodbyes? Leave a comment below. See ya in September Calgary! It's been a blast!

Good Afternoon Good Evening and Good Night!

One of my all-time favourite movies (as in, in my top ten) is The Truman Show. If you haven't seen it, you really should. It's one of those movies that just blows your mind. For me, it was like the Matrix, or Inception... for others, not so much. What can I say? One man's junk is another man's treasure.

Those of you who haven't seen this movie, I will briefly describe what it was about. Basically, this guy Truman was adopted as an infant by a corporation to be the star of a reality TV show in which he would star. But he has absolutely no idea this is happening. He seemingly goes through life normally, unaware that every person he's ever met is an actor, and everything he's ever done has been seen by millions. The story follows his journey to discovering the truth, all the while questioning what 'real' really means.

I love this movie for so many reasons. One of the things I like is how it jabs at the way our culture is so transfixed with reality TV, and what that's doing to our outlook on life. The audience seems completely unconcerned with the fact that this man is being manipulated and controlled for his entire life without consent for their entertainment. Sure they might be distressed when Truman is being battered near death in his sailboat in the storm the producers made for him, but they show only as much concern as they would any other character from a movie or TV show. They don't stand up demanding the producers to put a stop to it, they don't cry out in outrage. They just watch. Glued to their screen, wondering "Is he gonna make it?"

Another reason I like it, is because the idea that everyone you've ever met is an actor is a profound idea. What if your entire life was a lie? How would you possibly know? I think the producer put it best when he said (forgive me if it's not exact) "We accept the world with which we've been presented." So what kind of world have you been presented with? Is there a possibility that it's all been a lie?!?

Like I said. Mind blowing.

One other interesting tidbit, is that this movie doesn't really fit snugly into a genre. At least not to me. It's kind of a love story, kind of a drama, kind of a comedy, but not a rom-com, and not a fluff piece...

It's just a story. And a darn good one at that.

Through the majority of the film, Truman is driven only by his own determination that something is not right with his world. Everyone is against him, and yet he cannot discern a single antagonist to act against. He's not really working to overcome some great evil, or right some terrible wrong, he's just searching for the truth. With everything he has in him. To me, that's really inspiring.

One could also argue that he's driven by his desire to see Sylvia again, and I would be okay with that interpretation. However, personally I think the search for truth is just as important to him as his potential relationship with the woman he loves.

So what am I trying to say with all this? That sometimes, a book is just a book. I think we do a disservice to many books when we slap a label on them. Now, I understand that we can't just not label books, because then, where would we put them in the bookstore? General? That would get crowded pretty fast. No. What I'm saying is, I don't think we should get so hung up on genre when it comes to what books we'll read.

I'll be the first to say that I write sci-fi, but I'm really not a hard-core sci-fi fan. Before you crucify me, let me say one thing in my defense. I have read many sci-fi books, and what I've found, is that the ones I like,  I really like. And it's because they have really cool ideas, or great characters, or plots that drive you to read on forever. What I don't like, is when either A. The book is so focused on the setting that it neglects to develop anything else, or B. When a book gets boring, or complicating beyond belief. What is my point in saying all that? Simply this.

I like good books.

I will not say I like sci-fi but not romance, or I like thrillers but not spy books. I'm just a fan of well written books. It really doesn't matter to me what kind of book it is. I just want a good story. So, bringing it full circle, I like the Truman Show because it's a great story. And on top of that, it proves that you don't have to be a stereotypical genre piece to be good at what you do. If you just tell your story the way it's supposed to be told without giving in to the gimmicks of the genre, you'll do far better in the long run in making a great piece of art.

Having said that, not many people know what The Truman Show is. Is that because I'm alone in saying it's great, or because it didn't fit into a nice little box that people could understand and gravitate towards? But I digress.

I'm gonna leave you with that. What do you think of genre? Do you think it's a necessity to fit a label, if only for convenience's sake? Should we embrace a new way in which we don't have to label everything? Or is this topic only relevant to the few books that actually have trouble fitting into specific categories?


PS. I didn't get to say goodbye to everyone here in Calgary yet, and I know my time is short. So in case I don't see you, good afternoon good evening and good night! :D