Imaginary homeland

In the text "Imaginary Homelands” that author Salman Rushdie discusses being a migrant, an Indian writer outside of India. He writes that he has an image of his homeland, an imagination of India that exists partially in reality and partially in his own mind. The only memories he retain of home are in the black-and-white of old photographs. His introduction begins with him discussing the black-and-white photo of his Bombay house, hanging on the wall of his office, how this image seems more real to him than the actual memories.

I myself particularly identify with this sentiment. On my desktop there is an image of a house in autumn, slate stone walls contrasting with the fiery brightness of Canadian maples in fall. This is how I've come to picture my house, as the image I first see when I open my laptop, a contrast of dull grey and flaming reds. I know that the seasons have changed, that all the leaves have died and fallen and been swept away in the winter wind, but the image on my desktop remains the fixed image of "home".

Rushdie also writes about the “fragmented vision” in which one deals when one has left home. One’s views have been mixed with international perspectives and the ideas and ideals of several groups, people, and situations. Rushdie’s experience of living in England will have certainly influenced his perspectives on the British as a whole, not just from the Indian point of view. To some, this may seem a broken image, tarnished by the influence of foreign ideals. However, the globalization of perspectives is once which is becoming rampant in modern society. We look upon supposedly “untainted” views, views which have never explored beyond the borders of one’s country, as ignorant, uneducated. “The broken mirror may be as valuable as the one which is supposedly unflawed”. The globalized perspective is in truth more valuable than the homegrown.

The metaphor of the mirror also applies to one’s reminiscing. Bits and pieces of Canada come back as fragments when I strain to recall. Walking to the bus stop on a Monday morning in harsh January sleet, standing in line at Tim Horton’s for a chance to win at Roll Up The Rim coffee, sweltering by the splash pad in downtown Guelph, racking up huge piles of fallen leaves in the backyard and then swinging headlong into it from the tire swing suspended from the branches above. Fragments return just as Rushdie recalls random fragments of India: school scenes, neon jeep signs on marine drive, bits of Bombay dialogue and clothing that people wore. The past surprises us endlessly with its random bursts of recollection and the precision of little details, making the imagined scene of our homelands that much more real.

As Woodstockers, especially international students, this text as a whole is particularly significant in terms of how we identify home. We live at school live in the hill station on Mussoorie. None of us really identify Woodstock as our home: home is always somewhere else, and we always look back on home through the lens of reminiscence.

When we do return home things will never be quite the same as when we left. As the author Terry Prachett once wrote, "Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” When we return to the starting line it’s not the same as never having run the race

Living in the past, a country from which we have all migrated, serves little purpose in the lifelong race that is life. No matter how much we wish we could return, we will always have grown up and moved away. In that shared loss we find each other, as adults seeking to reunite with what was once untarnished and joyful, untouched by the stresses and concerns of modern life. But in that fragmented mess we become whole. The pieces of India will influence my experiences of Canada for years to come, perhaps the rest of my life. Canada may have stayed the same, but I will not be the same person that left. I will have been changed by my separation, the Canada that was my homeland is now but a memory, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

What went wrong?

4) Lisa Fischer-Luckenbach writes a scathing letter about Krakauer’s piece for
Outside magazine (see p. 285). Respond to her criticisms by agreeing with her,
disagreeing with her, or qualifying her argument.

Lisa Fischer-Luckenbach wrote a very critical and demeaning letter to Krakauer
shortly after the magazine article was published. She lashed out at him,
stating that he had the "uncanny ability to know precisely what was going
on in the hearts and minds of everyone in the expedition". This accusation
is not entirely true. While Krakauer did several times put his own
interpretation of events into the novel (and presumably the Outside article),
he has been meticulous in his efforts to verify his information with interviews
and recorded details. Krakauer has in fact stated several times that he was
quite inebriated during the time of the disaster, and was completely exhausted
and hypoxic during the time of the disaster, when he “scrambled back into his
own tent for safety and survival”.

Ms Fischer-Luckenbach did make an astute point when she says, “You have commented
about what SHOULD have been done by the leaders, the Sherpas, the clients…” She
is correct in her statements, but she neglected to mention the amount of“should-have’s” Krakauer administered to himself. Krakauer wrote “[She was] amere 350 yards away” (speaking of Yasuko Namba) and he was in his tent, unaware of her plight for survival, something he has written will haunt him for years
to come.

When Ms Fischer-Luckenbach addresses the issue of Krakauer’s “analyzing,
criticizing, judging, or hypothesizing”, one must recall that it is Krakauer’s
duty, his job to write in a manner that does not simply gloss over the tragedy,
that does not simply recall details and events. As a journalist it is his job
to report, with a degree of analysis and criticism, the events that transpired
on the summit of Everest during the spring of 1996.

I find myself disagreeing with Ms Fischer-Luckenbach in terms of this letter. It
seems to be a catharsis, unleashing her pent-up anger and grief on the first
target to present itself, John Krakauer through his Outside magazine piece. She
made several accurate and touchy points in her letter, about Krakauer’s blame
spreading and resulting consequences for the involved parties, but this has
done little good to ease the pain of Krakauer’s “ego” and her grief over losing
her brother.

While it was probably quite healthy for Ms Fischer-Luckenbach to vent herself in this manner, perhaps it would have been best for all involved if this letter had never been sent.

My stand on creationism vs. evolution

2) Take a stand and post your opinion on a controversial subject. Your goal should be to persuade those who would disagree with you to at least consider your position and points.

Creationism vs. evolution. Why is there such a debate about the two of them, as though the two of the cannot co-exist? 

Creationists insist that the world was created in 7 days, with everything falling into place exactly as it is today, with no changes other than those of the divine plan. The bible is literally translated, taken word for word as truth.  Because if this, some schools are forbidden from teaching the concept of continental drift, the idea of Pangaea. Because of this, evolution is seen as lies, denial of divine truth, sinful.

In fact, the creation story can be taken simply as an allegory. Every civilization, every group of humans ever has their own interpretation of how we came to exist. With modern resources and scientific evidence, we are able to theorize about our creation not just as a story, not just a metaphor for something incomprehensible. I ask you, do you think it possible that the civilizations of millennia ago could have even begun to understand the concept of space/time being created in a cosmic explosion of unfathomable magnitude? That our planet is a lump of rock whizzing around a fiery ball of hydrogen and helium millions of kilometers away? Of course not. To paraphrase Terry Prachett, "Humans create little stories for themselves to explain away the unexplainable. Then once they feel they understand the story, they feel that they understand the huge, incomprehensible thing". Does this mean the creation story is false? No, it means that it is an interpretation of what could be true, what could be comprehended at that point in history.

I am a Christian who believes in evolution. Does this make me any less Christian? I don't believe it does. I think that evolution is part of the divine plan, that the history as interpreted in the bible is a metaphor for the ancients to understand the utterly incomprehensible. I believe that science is a way of seeking to understand God's magnificent creation instead of just accepting what I am told in the bible. I want to go beyond the ages-old text and discover something more about this universe in which I live.

Once, I saw a boy wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with cartoon characters of Jesus and Darwin. Jesus was in the midst of shooting Darwin in the head with a shotgun, and the image was captioned "Evolve THIS!" I was deeply saddened by this perversion of Christian ideology. Jesus was a man that preached, "love your enemies", "turn the other cheek". Above all else he taught peace and love, for every one. This seemingly deliberate contradiction of what is taught in Christian scripture is what gives Christians their cultural stereotype of non-acceptance and ignorance.

That form of Christian identity is not one which I identify with, one by which many Christians are horrified. But the most vocal of groups is the one that gets noticed, and the stereotype catches us all in its net.

Day-to-day jobs

There is a certain peace that comes from performing menial tasks, like washing dishes, cooking, cleaning your room, and most recently, packing your bags. The peace of mind that comes from accomplishing something productive that needs to be done, while not the most thrilling of passtimes, is ceratinly welcome in the busy, hectic schedule that is a high-schooler's life. 

I have always enjoyed the simple act of washing dishes. I like things to be meticulously clean when I eat off of them. Since I was 7 years old, my job has been washing dishes whilst my brother takes care of drying and my stepbrother outs them away. I enjoy the community and the fun of spending time with my family. We get to share a lot of stories and jokes with one another, and take some time out of our day to spend time being together, which rarely happens in a split household. 

I also enjoy towel-whipping my brother when I'm on drying duty, but that's beisdes the point

Cooking is a day-to-day activity that requires a basic amount of creativity and ingenuity to perform.

As dorm students, we seem to find great joy in the simple act of preparing our own meals. We get to reclaim a bit of authority in the day-to-day function of our lives, instead of eating what is provided for us by the cafeteria. We get to make whatever we want (within the realms of our modest budgets). Spending time at Woodstock has really awakened my desire to cook for myself. I am excited by the prospect of going home and having the resources to create an extravaganza of food from several global locations.

I believe this is why the Masterchef competition of the French 5 class was such a sucess. We were given the opportunity to be creative, make something delicious within a certain budget, and enjoy it altogether as a group. The fact that it was a competition came second to the fun of creating our own meals.

Unlike many teenagers, I atually find pleasure in cleaning my room. I'll put on my heavy metal playlist and power through the piles of laundry and dust bunnies, straightening surfaces and organizing my cupboard. I am always unable to concentrate in a messy environment, which is probably why our room always has perfect room check scores and I get little homework finished before 7 pm. Cleaning gives me time to think, reflect, and then move on with my day. Tacking the seemingly-impossible task of cleaning out my cupboard lets me think about everything else that's happening in my life, and I can happily concentrate on schoolwork when the time comes.

The offshoot of cleaning up is it's larger form of packing everything you own into suitcases and tin trunks. Packing always feels like the beginning of a new adventure to me. Wenever I need to pack, I'm going to do something crazy a cross-US roadtrip in an RV, going on a choir tour to Whistler, British Columbia, or, heck, going to live in India for a year! Packing to go home, on the other hand, promises time with my family and friends, sleeping in my own bed, and seeing my cat. A different form of adventure, but it's the alternative adventure of venturing home.

Packing is a simple activity that promises a lot of excitement to come, which is probablywhy I've already finished my packing for this winter break...

(credit to Allie Brosh of http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/ for this meme. If you've never read that blog go read it. I guarantee you'll almost pee your pants laughing)

Best of luck to everyone cramming for exams and writing their butts off getting all these posts done!

Emily