Halloween

There was a vampire standing on the corner waiting for the light as I went to work this morning. Not the usual downtown scenery of drunken bums and rushing nine-to-fivers. Later, rumours went around the office of the witches and ghouls arriving. I managed to stay in my cubicle and avoid them. In the evening, I’ll go home, drop the curtains, and ignore the doorbell if it rings.

It’s Halloween again.

I’ve never gone trick-or-treating or carved a pumpkin. The only time I dressed up for Halloween was in kindergarten. My brother and I went as clowns, in baggy, bright-coloured costumes. Most of the girls in my class were witches and most of the boys were wizards or ghosts. That was when my parents decided they didn’t like Halloween, and we stopped celebrating it.

Most people take Halloween as an excuse to get lots of candy and dress up like whatever you want to be. For me, it has always been something darker, something that I don’t like.

Halloween originated with the Celts and Anglo-Saxons as the festival of Samhain. This was the eve of the New Year and the end of the harvest. It was a night of supernatural happenings, when evil spirits, ghosts, witches, black cats, fairies, and everything else supernatural roamed the earth. People believed souls of the dead returned to their homes to be entertained with food (“treated), or else they would create havoc (“tricks”). Druids performed ceremonies to the lord of the dead and offered sacrifices to the spirits of the dead. Samhain was thought to be a good time for divination because the spirit world was closer to the human word.

When the Romans conquered the Celts and Anglo-Saxons, the practices of Samhain spread into the Roman empire and were combined with Roman feasts. The Emperor Constantine later made Christianity the state religion and forced widespread conversion. Church festivals replaced pagan festivals. November 1 was All Saint’s Day, making October 31 All Hallow’s Eve. The name was shortened to Halloween, giving us the modern name. Many of the pagan practices survived and continue to be celebrated.

Jack-o-lanterns come from the legend of a man named Jack who made a deal with the devil. When Jack died, he was turned back from Heaven because of his deal. He also wasn’t allowed into Hell, but was left to roam the earth. He used a hollowed-out turnip with a candle inside as a lantern. The jack-o-lantern came to be the symbol of a damned soul. In North America, people used pumpkins to make Jack’s lantern because pumpkins were more common.

The colors orange and black used for Halloween are also significant. Orange was the color of the harvest and the candles used for commemorative masses for the dead. Black was the color of the supernatural and the cloths used to drape caskets. Masks and costumes were based on two beliefs. One was that, dressed up as a strange or scary form, people could ward off evil spirits. The other was the Celtic idea of wearing animal forms to acquire the strength of the animal they portrayed.

This pagan and satanic background to the holiday are what make me cringe every year when Halloween rolls around. Many people today no longer believe that evil is real, just as they don’t believe God is real. To them, it is a funny holiday, and they have no idea of the darkness they are playing with. To me, the evil lurks behind their costumes and games. I don’t want any part of it.

Halloween raises concerns for some people for other reasons as well. Think about what Halloween means: terror, darkness, death, ghosts, demons, witches, horror, skeletons. Anything nice in there? In one fourth-grade classroom, 80% of the children said they would like to celebrate Halloween by killing somebody. Animal shelters will not adopt out black cats during the Halloween season, because cruelties to black cats increases during this time. Vandalism, arson fires, and dangerous pranks increase at Halloween. This is one dark holiday.

So tonight, I’ll curl up on the couch with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate, and ignore the ghosts and witches roaming outside.

Figuring out what I want to do

I remember being asked in about Grade 9 what I wanted to be when I grew up. It was important then because it determined how I was going to finish high school and what courses I needed to take. At the time, however, I had no idea what I wanted to do after high school. I didn’t figure it out until the last half of grade 12. Then I finally decided, after much debate about colleges and programs, to take an English degree at Concordia. The question was answered.

Or so I thought. For the next few years, when people asked, “What are you doing?” I could say, “My B.A. in English,” and that answered the question. Then I hit my third year of university, and all of a sudden the question changed. Now I was supposed to know what I wanted to do after I graduated. I had no clue, but once again, I had to know, as it determined what courses I was going to take for my last year. I managed to check out a few graduate programs and figure out my course registration.

Graduation hit in May and I had no job for the summer, no application to grad school, and everyone asking me what I was doing after I graduated. I started a summer job on the excuse that it would give me the summer to look for a better job. I put off the job searching until the end of July, when the question started coming up again. Then I did some looking, threw out a few resumes, and got fed up when I couldn’t find the job I wanted.

I envied my friends who had education degrees because, despite the problem that there weren’t many teaching jobs available, at least they knew what they were looking for. Their degrees were so specific it was hard for them to find a job, and my degree was so general it was hard for me to find a job. I had done an English degree so that I could write. I had told my family and friends for the last several years that I wanted to be a writer and an editor. And now I was done school and supposed to be working, and the job that I wanted didn’t seem to exist.

Then I got a call for an interview and a job offer. A few weeks later I found myself sitting in my office realizing that, shock of all shocks, I like my job. I’m doing what I want to be doing: working as an editor. My experience and skills have finally paid off.

Not that my journey is over. Being in the workforce now, I have had a chance to look around and see what job opportunities are there. I’ve asked my co-workers how they got where they are. Hearing their stories, working, and seeing what is done, has given me a clearer idea of what I want to do with my life.

So finally, I think can answer that question that I got asked back in Grade 9. At least, until the next life or career change comes along…

Note: this article was published in the October 23 issue of the Blue & White.

Mechanically Minded

My twin brother must have gotten all the mechanical genes, as I certainly didn’t end up with any. Oh, I know a little bit about vehicles – like how to check the oil and the antifreeze, where the fuses are (luckily they are all labeled), how to add windshield washer fluid, where the jack and spare tire are stashed. I can also explain problems in my truck quite well to the mechanically-minded men around me (“there's a rattle under the hood”).

Hypothetically, I know a little bit more than that, like how to change a tire or the oil. However, as I discovered the first time that I tried to actually do either of those, hypothetically isn’t always good enough.

It took a few miles of a funny thumpity sound to get me to pull over and find out I had a flat tire. Then I got out my jack (on the assumption that I could figure out how it worked) and discovered that I had no idea how to get the spare tire out. All the other vehicles I had driven just had the tire sitting in the back. My truck had the tire securely attached under the box, and from there it refused to budge. After a few minutes of futile efforts, I started walking, until a good Samaritan came along who knew the trick of sticking the tire iron through the bumper to lever down the spare time. He also changed it for me before he left.

A few months ago I hopped into my truck and noticed that it was pulling a bit to the right. I thought it odd and made a mental note to mention it to someone in the know about such things. Later that evening, my fiancé and I drove to a nearby park, and as we were walking I mentioned the problem. He asked if I’d checked the air pressure in my tires lately. That hadn't occured to me, but sure enough, when we walked back to my truck, the right front tire was half out of air. He changed it and sent me on my way.

Then my truck started sounding funny and blowing white smoke. I finally caught up with my brother (the mechanically-minded one) on the weekend and described the problem to him. He immediately said, “Your head gasket is gone so you better stop driving your truck or you’ll blow your engine.” Really? I stopped driving it. Dad took a few weeks to fix it, and now it sounds as good as new again.

Next problem to solve – the brakes. My dad thinks we should look at the brake cylinder, my fiance thinks we should check the brake pads first. I guess I don’t need to be mechanically-minded – I just need to be able to explain what’s wrong to the right person. :)

It's Snowing

It’s snowing. Nothing heavy, just tiny, light flakes drifting down from the sky and making it look foggy out when I stare at the office buildings across the street. It leaves wet streaks on the windows, drips down from ledges above onto this window ledge. Far below on the street, it melts as it hits the ground, turning into puddles on the pavement.

It’s making me happy. Perhaps because right now I’m sitting in my office, warm and dry. Later when I have to tramp a few blocks to my truck through the wet and cold, I might think differently about it. But I doubt it. I like the snow.

A few brave souls are still biking to work, hats and gloves on, heads bent against the weather, dashing between the street lights and dodging the cars. I wonder how soaking wet they are by the time they get home. Umbrellas and zipped-up coats have appeared on the pedestrians, who don't look happy about the weather. Most of them are probably echoing the sentiments of my colleagues, that winter could have waited longer and perhaps the weather will still turn warm. Snowflakes settle on their heads and shoulders, winking there for a minute before disappearing to be replaced by others floating down from the sky.

Smile. It’s snowing. :)

Book Review: The Moonstone

Wilkie Collins was a nineteenth-century writer, a contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens. The Moonstone is a detective novel about a jewel, looted from a shrine in India, which disappears after being given to Rachel for her birthday. One reviewer called The Moonstone the “precursor” of the English detective novel, complete with a smart, analytical detective in the person of Sergeant Cuff, and lots of suspense as suspicion falls on nearly everyone involved and the story takes several twists and turns before finally revealing what happened.

What I found most intriguing about the novel was Collins’ use of several first person narrators. The story is told directly from the perspective of the people involved in the mystery, complete with their unique opinions, viewpoints, and ideas regarding everything going on. Collins' characterization and psychological insight are brilliant.

The first narrator is Betteredge, the household steward, who holds that we should be “superior to reason” and that a pipe and Robinson Crusoe are good for whatever bothers you. We then pass into the hands of Miss Crabb, a pious spinster who belongs to the Mothers-Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society (see the novel) and hands out tracts and religious books to everyone and anyone.

Franklin Blake is narrating the story when the suspicion of stealing the diamond falls on him, causing greater confusion over the “whodunit” since, being inside Franklin’s head, we are included to believe his professions of innocence and are as confused as he is about the theft. Other people involved in the story provide long or short passages relating to the diamond, each in their own style, from lawyer Bruff's matter-of-fact report to doctor Ezra's opium-influenced ramblings.

Happy Thanksgiving

The sun tried valiantly to shine through the crowds as my mom, my fiance and I hefted our 30-pound packs onto our backs and started across the causeway between the upper and lower lakes. The trail was broad and smooth, though my fiancé complained that it wasn’t flat – it rolled gently over the hills and rises in the land as it circled around the upper lake before snaking off into the valley. We caught glimpses of the lake to our left, with snow-covered mountains and glaciers reflecting in the calm water. Rockslides slid down across the trail from the sheer rock walls on our right. Then the trail plunged into evergreen forest, where the only sound was the thumping of our boots on the hard dirt trail.

We sat beside an icy cold stream and watched the sunlight sparkling off the water droplets melting from the trees. A light skiff of snow sat on the ground, just enough to make everything wet. Then we marched on down the trail to our campground some 8 km from the trailhead. There we found everything still so wet from the snow that we couldn’t get a fire started. After sharing our pot of soup and doing dishes, we crawled into our sleeping bags and shivered ourselves to sleep.

I spent the night trying to get warm and comfortable, neither of which worked. I rolled over every hour or so, listened to my mom snoring in the tent beside me and my fiancé snoring in the bivy sack a few feet away from our tent, and drifted off to sleep again. In the morning, Mom went off to start breakfast while I woke my fiancé. She was soon back with the news that the stove wasn’t working.

The pump was gone on the stove, so it would not start. We went for more wood while discussing our options of cooking over the fire or hiking out that day. With some effort and a bit of luck, we managed to start a fire and boiled water for our oatmeal. Three other campers, university students from Calgary, joined us for breakfast and sympathized about the stove. After banking our fire for the evening, we got a late start on our dayhike to the pass.

We had the trail to ourselves for most of the day. It meandered upward through the evergreen forest and then into willow scrub before climbing up a steep, rocky headwall. The trail guidebook had described this section as “250 m of steep scree.” It was the reason we stopped at the lower campground, instead of pushing on to the next, and now we were glad not to have our packs. As we climbed, we could pause to look over our shoulders at the view appearing below us. Each step further up the trail gave us a better view of the valley below us and the mountains across from us. That view made every step of the climb worth the effort.

Like any good mountain, this one proved deceptive, and what we had thought was the “top” was not. We clambered over the next ridge and then the trail dropped down again towards Three Isle Lake – leaving us contemplating the fact that we’d have to go up that on the way back out. We ate lunch at the edge of the lake, enjoying the sunshine and admiring the scenery. Rings in the shale banks surrounding the lake showed where the water levels had been in the past – perhaps with the spring runoff from the glaciers on the mountains above. The water was so low now that the two isles in the middle of the lake were connected to the shore by a land bridge – the third isle was absent.

The trail from there on was covered with an inch of snow, and we followed a weasel’s bounding tracks for most of the way to the pass. In the pass, we stopped for a break and some snacks, and watched the path that meandered on down the other side, into further valleys and meadows. A huge cairn stood in the pass, marking the border between BC and Alberta, and signs proclaimed the boundaries of the parks on either side of the pass. We discussed future explorations into that unknown region, and then hiked back to camp.

We cooked supper over the open fire again that night, with my fiancé manipulating the temperature (“turn the fire down now please, the soup needs to simmer”). Once the simmering was done, we sat around a roaring fire, then did dishes and had dessert. Darkness fell and my mom went to bed, and my fiancé and I watched the full moon rise behind the mountain and the fire burn down to shimmering red coals.

We woke up the next morning to a thermometer reading -10*C. Mom and I left my fiancé in charge of the fire (it did better under his care than ours) while we packed up the tent and sleeping bags. After gulping down our hot oatmeal and some coffee, we packed up the rest of our gear and hit the trail to the car. In a couple hours we were heading back across the causeway, where my fiancé decided to prove that his pack wasn’t all that heavy. He put his pack on his front and took me piggy-back (with my pack still on) and marched over the causeway.

We finished off the weekend by showing up at my fiancé’s parents’ farm for Thanksgiving dinner, smelling of sweat and woodsmoke. Thus ends the 2006 hiking season – but for next year, we’ve discovered more trails to explore.

Reflections on One Month

Today marks one month at my new job. I had to start a job log the other day to keep track of all the projects I work on. It took some thinking to remember all the documents that I’ve edited already – there’s been a few.

So far I’ve garnered two comments from my co-workers:
1. I type extremely fast (they usually say that while I’m typing and haven’t noticed that they are listening or watching!).
2. My office is extremely neat (okay, so I like having lots of desk space).

The only downfall to the job… I’m doing the same thing at work that I do volunteer. So I spend all day editing documents and searching for errors and verifying information, and then I get to go home in the evening to edit documents, search for errors, and verify information on the quarterly writer’s newsletter that I edit.

I wanted a job where I would have to think and use my skills, and I’ve found that. It just means that I’m usually brain-dead around 3:30 from thinking so much. :) Who decided that we should have eight hour work days? I think six would be much better. At least, however, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I am tired from thinking too hard, and not tired because I’ve done no thinking at all.