Stop by for a visit

As I was out rollerblading with my boyfriend today, I began to think about how people don't just 'stop by' anymore. When I was younger, we used to go around on our bikes or rollerblades and show up at people's houses just to say hi or stay for a short visit. These days, people don't do this much. I'm not sure if it's just something we do when we're young, or if the practice has stopped all together.

My best friend, Rachel, lives a few streets down from me. I used to show up at her house all the time completely unannounced. Today, I decided to do it again.

As I was rollerblading down her street, I felt guilty for just showing up without calling first. I don't understand why. She's my best friend, i've known her and her parents since I was 5 or 6 years old. It wouldn't be awkward at all, even if she wasn't at home. I ended up calling her before I got to her house. She wasn't home, but we decided to stop anyway to see her new dog.

It got me thinking of the idea of community. I live in south St.Vital, a pretty nice area and known to be very family friendly. I've lived in the same house for all my 21 years but have only ever known one of my neighbours. People on my street don't talk to each other. The kids don't play with each other. Street hockey games are never played anymore. I don't even know my neighbour's last name anymore. The only time we ever talk is when the sewer on the street is clogged with leaves and my dad and the next door neighbour go out with sticks and try to dislodge it.

I'd like to think I live in a community where my neighbours would call 9-1-1 if they saw something suspicious going on at my house. If my house caught on fire or someone was robbing it, they would have our backs. But I don't think if anyone would. We all just keep to ourselves.

Is everyone nowadays just too scared of the world? Or maybe just caught up in their own affairs, so they overlook the importance of knowing thy neighbour?

Everyday when I walk to school from my parking lot, I pass by a woman who is a crossing guard. She has a perma-frown. I always say hi to her and she smiles. I can tell she enjoys when I pass by. When you're walking in the city and someone smiles or says 'Hello', you might find it weird and maybe even become a little creeped out. Why is this?

Winnipegers fill up the Whiteshell, Falcon Lake, Lake of the Woods, Grand Beach, Winnipeg Beach, Gimli, Victoria Beach etc. during the weekends during the summer. When you go there, everyone waves to each other. Everyone says hi. Everyone seems so..friendly. It's like, when all these people leave this city atmosphere, they let their guard down. Maybe they just feel safer. It's the same people, just in a different atmosphere.

Maybe every community just needs a ring leader, someone to make the effort to connect everyone. Without it, everyone feels silly to step up and be the 'weird one'.

Maybe I'll step up and be that person. Ya, I think so.

Drive by shooting

Lately, I've been noticing a lot of signage that says positive things. On my way home from school, I see this sign from the Love Nest, Subway and Chiropractor and Harvest Bakery board:

"In life make your mark, but leave on stain"

I think about this quote a lot. I wrote a blog in October or so about making your mark. This quote is true in a lot of ways. It means that in your life you should do great things so that when you're gone, your memory lives on. People like Martin Luther King Jr. have left their mark. Hitler leaves a stain. Makes you wonder when you leave, if people think it's a mark or stain. That's why you should act in kindness with everything you do.

Here are some other billboards with positive messages:

IPPP's 2010

Instead of being at school this week, I attended the annual IPPPs (Independent Professional Project Presentations) put on by Rose Dominguez and Melanie Fatouros from Wednesday-Friday at the Park theatre.

An IPP is CreComm's version of a thesis paper. In March of your first year, you choose a project you'd like to do. After presenting to a panel of judges, your idea either gets rejected or passed. If it gets passed you have the go-ahead to start your project. If not, it's back to the drawing board.
The IPP goes on all throughout second year, on top of all your classes and assignments. Near the end of your second year, you present your project to the whole Creative Communications program and invited guests.

March 10,11 and 12 were the presentation dates this year and were held at the Park Theatre on Osborne.

Highlights:
Day 1
- SANDBOX magazine. This was so successful and looked so professional. You could tell Jeffrey Vallis is really passionate about the project and it was a smashing success! His marketing tactics were very planned out.
- Women's Chairty Soccer Tournament. I think i'm biased to this because I love soccer! Katie Hartle put on a soccer tournament for women over 35 and gave the money to osteoporosis research. I loved her idea of the 'just in case' suitcase.
- Pass it Forward. Pass it Forward was a program to give used hockey equipment to youth that could otherwise not afford it. Kalen Qually partnered up with Perth's to clean the equipment then distributed it. Great idea!
- Alice Mother. I don't know what it was about Kerilee Raven's novella, but it sounds really raw and interesting. She did a great presentation.

Day 2
- The World Would Be Better If.. Oh man. I will definitely buy this book. Anna Harrison compiled postcards from around the world from people aged 2 to 95 answering the questions ' The world would be better if..' She got some really interesting submissions, one of them being her Irish boyfriend proposing to her! Such a unique and fresh idea.
- Bear Your Heart. This was a fundraising event put on by Gina Nasuti and Karine Driedger in support of Children's Wish. They held the event at Earl's and it looked great! They got really interesting prizes for the auction. They raised about $10,000! Good job girls!
- The Travel Bug Diaries is a book by Emily Baron Cadloff about her travels across Canada. She went from Halifax to Victoria in 3 weeks and for under $1,000! She has some interesting stories about her adventures which includes a rapping priest and a terrifying experience in Vancouver. I will be buying this one too!
- Calamity Jane. These girls can definitely sing! And they are so funny! I really enjoyed their presentation which included a video with a Tina Fey look-a-like. Good job Chandra Rempel and Janna Paluk.

Day 3
- I Will Always Remember, an audio documentary by Laurie McDougall. I was privileged enough to go to high school with Laurie and remember her recounting her stories from her trip overseas to honour war veterans. Laurie is a great person to tell the story of two WWII vets.
- Taming The Wild, Wild West..In A Dress. David Turnbull raised about $27,000 in support of a centre that supports people living with HIV and AIDS doing dinner theatre shows. Holy!
- RRC's Basketball Broadcast organized by Dustin Stewart was really cool. He got Shaw on board and organized a crew of about 20 people to operate cameras, anchor and do ops. It looked really well done!

There was a lot of other really great ones, but those are my favorite. Next year, it'll be me presenting!

somebody

Everyone knows it's something that'll happen, sometime. Nobody is immune. But when it happens, it hits like a million bricks. Death and dying is something no one can fully prepare for.

Losing someone you love is definitely one of the worst things to have to go through in life. The tears, the 'what ifs' and the countless recollections of memories. Did you say you loved them enough? Did they know how much they meant to you? Could you have done anything differently so they'd still be here right now?

When you are reading the newspaper or watching the news, you hear of people dying all the time - but it doesn't hit home. Somewhere, people are grieving for that person. For some people, that person was their world and now they are gone. That person is always somebody's somebody.

Sometimes when we know someone who dies, we seem to get a new lease on life. We tell everyone we love them before we leave the house in the morning. We do things we never would do. Because who knows when it'll be our turn to go. But eventually, people move on and go back to their ways.

When you know your time is going to come very shortly, you find yourself making lists of things you want to do before you're gone. But why aren't we doing those things when we're not sick or overwhelmed with grief? Why aren't you pursuing the things you've always wanted to do, right now?

It's something no one likes to talk about. Death and dying. And people might call me pessimistic for saying that it'll happen one day to everyone. But instead of worrying about dying and death, you should be enjoying living and life. Don't waste any moments with someone you love. Don't waste your life holding resentment, hate or jealousy. Live the life you want to live, right now. You don't have to wait for anything.