MacKenzie mentioned one of these in her latest post and while I’ve linked it there, I always like to promote it a bit more.

Firstly, though, another speech that I read before:

Steve Jobs’s Commencement Address at Stanford: Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish (text)
Video of this on Youtube

And finally, the best one of all:

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

(If that link doesn’t work, try this one.)

It’s 100 minutes long but well worth watching.

On Monday, I shamefacedly left an important Blog Squad meeting in order to get to the David Suzuki talk on time. Who knew that it would already be full by the time I got there? My friend and I gazed forlornly at the unfriendly building that refused to have more of us, and then decided to join the sweeping crowds of students who persisted in going in anyway. We all managed to squish inside the Wesbrook hall, mostly by sitting on the stairs. No doubt it was a fire hazard, but it was worth it.

Now, I only went to the David Suzuki talk because Stephen Lewis mentioned him with great respect, and I like Stephen Lewis. And David Suzuki seems to be famous. I didn’t really know who Stephen Lewis was before I went to the SLC either — I always feel like I’ve heard his name before that but don’t remember how — but he’s famous, and other people are excited about him, so curiosity gets the best of me and I go to listen to famous people.

David Suzuki talked about the internment of Japanese-Canadians during WWII, about the role of genetics and civil rights, and his views on the role of science and universities. It was interesting, and nowhere near as bad or as pretentious as I had feared it might be (having been warned by Genevieve beforehand). It was really quite good and I enjoyed it. (Though not as much as Stephen Lewis.)

Yesterday, the debate, “Does God Exist?”, was also overflowing by the time I could spare myself to go. I managed to get into a room with a screen where I ate my last-minute chicken sandwich dinner from Hubbards in peace.

The debate itself was alright. There were a couple of new points I hadn’t heard of on the theistic side, and I thought the theologian made a good showing. He argued most of his points very well. When talking about other religions, however, he wasn’t so strong. For example, he said the Qu’ran was filled with mostly wild inaccuracies and mythological exaggerations, or something like that (without ever providing any evidence to support the point). This triggered a collective “ohhh” of disapproval in my room; it didn’t seem right for someone who demands respect for his religion to speak in a less than respectful manner of another religion, even if he doesn’t agree with it.

To my disappointment, the atheist — who doesn’t seem to know if he’s an agnostic or an atheist, or if he does, didn’t bother coming up with a valid argument as to why we should not be arguing over terminology and instead settled for evading the attack — didn’t do nearly as well. He tried to use humour, but humour doesn’t sustain weak arguments. He never once presented a concrete argument for why God doesn’t exist, only that the arguments for God’s existence are too weak. But I could easily conclude that I don’t know and that God may or may not exist. He seemed to be taking a leap of faith in believing that God’s non-existence is the more reasonable option. There were some theistic points he could have jumped on and attacked more thoroughly — like the claim that historians (using rhetoric that implies the general community) agree that the Bible is a historically accurate document, far more so than the Qu’ran. I wish they’d got a better atheist to argue; it would have been a fairer debate.

I went to a training session for a children’s literacy programme last Saturday. One of the questions posed was: How did you learn to read?

TV, some people said. The alphabet. Bedtime stories. Music lessons. The list went on and on.

I didn’t add anything to the list because I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t able to read. I remember being three — and that’s as far back as I can go — and reading the alphabet. U is for Umbrella. I pronounced it “Umbwella” and couldn’t understand why my mother kept making me repeat it. But even then I was reading it on my own.

If we follow the family story, I learned to read when I was a baby. I’d copy my brother and hold books exactly the way he was holding them, and then throw them down later to play with a new one. I’d “read” them upside-down, sideways, and mutter gabbledy-gook. My baby language was fluent enough. But then at some point, random words made their way into my baby talk. “Aghoody ablooby kuu kuu and the oooas oochoo awroo. Gah gah goo doo.”

On one level, I think I would make a terrible English major, because I just don’t analyse most of my books. The first time I read any fictional book or poem is always for pleasure. The conscious analysis, if I do it, comes afterwards. You would think I would want to analyse more if I want to major in English…

The only reason I would ever want to be as famous as J.K. Rowling is because someone asked her what her favourite book as a child was, and then The Little White Horse came back into print. I would love to be able to bring a book back into print.

Sun Horse, Moon Horse by Rosemary Sutcliff made a huge impression on me when I was ten. After reading it, I wrote a story in class. They didn’t have anything to do with each other except for the feeling I had when I read the book and wrote my story. For the first time, teachers stopped telling me, “You don’t know what you want to say”, and said, “This is really good.” Did you ever have that experience of doing something — all on your own — and being told sincerely that it was good? It’s quite not the same as being praised for being able to regurgitate.

I probably read it again before I left my primary school. My secondary school turned out to not have the book at all, and it was out-of-print. I didn’t get my hands on it for another eight years — and yesterday, I found it in the Education library. That library is my newest joy; it’s where all the “juvenile” fiction is. I’ll happily categorise myself as juvenile if I can borrow from there. And I can.

The first time I finished the book, I was sitting on the edge of my bed before I slept, unable to not devour the whole thing in one go. Today I finished it again curled up in one of the comfy chairs in the Meekison Arts Students Space in Buchanan D. Despite the long gap in between, and despite my fear that my love for the book was based on something imaginary that I might not find again this time around, the last line gave me the same chill and unwarranted tears that it did when I encountered it the first time.

So even though I’ve been walking around looking miserable all day, according to other people, I’m not miserable because I’m sad. I’m looking miserable because I’m so happy. Doesn’t it sound ridiculous? But I feel like I’ve been walking on another plane.