Experiental Social Experiments

Yeah yeah, I know the title is redundant, it just sounded cooler that's all.

I have a new goal in Katimavik, this goal is perfect, because this is the perfect place to accomplish it.

Social experiments.

What?

That could mean many different things.

What I'm talking about is creating, observing, applying the scientific method to "experiments" in this household and to the people within it.

No, not laboratories, no strange chemicals, you could call them mind games.

What exactly am I doing?

I am devising ways of understanding humans!

Now now, you may think I'm rather egotistical, oh what's the word, I don't know, but I mean, why do I think I can take on such a massive and bold task?

Well, it's not terribly serious, it's mostly for kicks and for amusement, to make myself feel smart, I don't know, I just enjoy it okay?!

Get to the point, Gabe.

Okay, so far, I've experimented with the following things:

• How a person feels guilt, how they deal with it, how they hide/show it
• How many times a person blinks in a minute depending on certain activities
• Jealousy. Why and how someone feels jealous of something, someone

The first task was only a partial success. I had two subjects - K and A. K escaped without feeling guilt because at the last minute she remembered something.
A, however, certainly had the stimulus to -feel- guilt. It's been hard to see his reaction though, he's quite the quiet one.

The third task is currently in progress. I hope to see results soon.
I might explain the experiments a bit better later on. Then again, I've promised so many things on this blog.

Evil, isn't it?

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless

Drug of choice

I am a stupid, stupid boy.

I don't drink coffee, and I try to avoid caffeine things.

But you know what I did today?

Four cups, I just had four cups.

You know why? I was scared.

This self-induced "tripping-out" that's happening to me is to take my mind off all the drama that's happening in this house right now.

I know it's stupid, it actually aggravates the problem usually, I still took the coffee.

I can't stop shaking now, I anticipate hyperventilating soon.

I always have caffeine on the worst nights.

I can't stop myself.

Caffeine's a hell of a drug.

Breakslow

Ah, Katimamornings.

I hate them.

I'm pretty normal though.

I think that a very normal thought to have in the morning when you're woken up by banging on your bedroom door is: "Oh god, let me throw something at them, let me find something blunt and heavy to THROW AT THEM".

I also hate it when D wakes up like five minutes before my personal alarm clock rings, and he's all like "Come on Gabe, time to get up. Slowpoke!".

I DESPISE it.

If he even lightly taps me to make me wake up one day, I swear, he is getting a Katimamorningpunch to the FACE.

Yeah, today's one of those mornings.

I haven't blogged very much in the mornings, and yes, I've just woken up, after being one of the last people to go to bed.

Ooh no I didn't sleep very well either, it was a -very- windy night, and I'm right beside the window in my room and it -whistles-. It was a bit scary, at about 4:30 am too.

Today is another day packed with stuff, we've been doing stuff every day for the past week since we don't work anymore.

A couple workshops today.

Our PL's birthday is today, and she's leaving for half of the day.

Ah, breakfast now, I hate breakfast, I never eat breakfast but since breakfast is a "group activity", I have to wake up and attend breakfast.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I almost got a CTI for being a few minutes late for breakfast once. Mad.

I think I'll blog about my little Katimachristmas sometime, maybe, I'm never good at promising certain types of blogs.

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless

You better not pout

I'm telling you why
Santa is coming, to town.

So today's activity with the Katimagroup was to go Christmas caroling in a senior's home. And beforehand, me, M, & J formed this club of people who weren't very much impressed by the idea of going caroling.

But you know what?

I disbanded the club afterward.

I had a genuinely good time, I really did. My job was to hold the papers with the notes and lyrics to the carols in front of D., the local guitar shop owner who is quite a singer and guitarist, and for A1 who didn't seem to play guitar nearly as much as he seemed to want to. Turns out B Flats are chords unheard of to him.

But anyway, we dazzled through the hallways of this massive centre, distributing hot apple cider (because really cold apple cider is just so untraditional, you know?) and singing our lungs out.

Ah, the looks on all the seniors' faces, it was simply heartwarming, it was.

Hitting the high notes was quite amusing for A2, because she was noticing how badly I could hit them. Silent Night was especially gruesome.

Yesterday was one of my Quiet Days again, it was a sort of a mourning day for me, even though there wasn't anything physical to mourn over. I spent most of my day in my bedroom, away from all the zombies of this house.

But I went to sleep happy, very happy indeed, so today I woke up feeling content, not as ecstatic as when I went to sleep, but enough to have a most pleasant day.

Ah, I really do have something concrete to look forward to after Katimavik, I'm so happy about it. It's just such an awesome idea, it fills me with joy.

What is it, what is it?

No, I can't reveal it, it might jinx it from ever happening.

This idea will give me things to think about when I have nothing else to think about except losing The Game.

I lost.

On that note, goodnight, sleep in time for me tomorrow, and work is done for another three weeks when I will find out what I'll be doing in Ste-Marie!

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless

I just had to say

Yes yes I know it's unconventional for me to blog one day after the next, let alone blog twice in a day, but I just had to say that I am listening to the corniest songs on the local radio station while covering front desk as receptionist.

I am terribly bored, but this office is pretty sweet so I'm not letting my Katimacoworker take over (:.

Listening on the messages left by people on the giant phone switchboard-thing is pretty interesting too.

Obviously, I don't answer the phone, with regards to my very slight phobia of them, especially strangers on them.

Oh man it's ringing right now.

NO I WILL NOT ANSWER, LEAVE A MESSAGE THANKS.

"1, 2, 3, 4 tell me that you love me more la la la!"

Okay so that's not as corny anymore, but most of the time it is, okay?

MY FM?

More like...

YOUR FM.

...

Final presentation in three hours, we're gonna rock the Senior's Centre.

Good day folks.

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless

Let's touch base on flow charts, okay?

Courtesy of XKCD. Thank you for making my second last day of volunteer work at Search comprehendable.

Sha la la la la la, Strathroy

Ohhhh don't I feel like a bad boy for taking time to blog while I'm at work.
I'm technically supposed to be calculating all the hours that I've done here, and writing down everything that I've done.

That has proven harder than I thought.

I also had a hard time yesterday putting down a job title for what it is I actually do here (for this resume writing workshop). Err.
They make me do everything, sometimes I'm with the counselling team, sometimes the administrative, usually the Community Support team, and a lot of time is spent in the activity section of the building.

I got destroyed when I tried to play pool with a client yesterday...

After this work week is over, there are big plans for the christmas break.

We're going christmas caroling on Saturday.
Yes, and I'll just sit at the back of the group (under the excuse that I'm the tallest, therefore I should be at the back) and "sing".

The entire cluster is coming over for christmas eve, aw yeah!
But you know, they want us to wear our "ugly sweaters" for ugly sweater night.
I'm not going out to buy an ugly sweater.
I'm going to wear my nice purple sweater that my grandma knitted for me a while back, thank you.

In case you didn't know, my next rotation is in Ste-Marie, QC, and I've looked it up, and it looks -so- much better than Strathroy.

They actually have a usable gymnasium, and there's a badminton league!

I am definitely going to go play there, hopefully every week, hopefully for free!

`-`-`-`-`

According to Katimavik, there are four "stages" of group living:
Introducing
Norming
Storming
Performing

Which is supposed to be some sort of cycle. We're definitely past the introduction stage, and we've already been normed, so it's a cycle between storming and performing.

There's no massive storming, where everyone just loathes each other, it's mostly tidbits with certain people sometime, at least for me.

One thing which gets to me in Katimavik is the need to share everything.

If you're feeling down, you're totally supposed to go out there and explain why you're feeling down and blah blah blah, and I'm really not like that at all, so I don't do it. People tell me I'm not supposed to do that, but I don't care, I don't like sharing like that, especially with all these people around.

Even right now, I feel I'm sharing a little too much, but obviously, blogs are a rather different form of information sharing, yes?

The other thing that gets to me in Katimavik is the whole "we do everything as a group" thing.
For example, on Tuesdays, we have this free tai chi class that this guy has been giving us for the past few weeks. Everyone seems to enjoy it.

Personally, I'm not feeling it.

But I can't not go, so I show up, do the tai chi, and leave.

I just don't like it, that's all, I don't feel the "chi", nor do I feel the need to "feel" it. Others' experiences will vary.

So that's that.

I'm having a good time in Katimavik though, don't get me wrong, and I certainly don't see myself quitting.

No one has left in my group yet, which is a bit surprising, considering some of the circumstances that I shan't describe here (at least not for now). And I've been googling katimavik, and a lot of groups seem to lose members within the first months, so we're doing alright!

That is all, back to work, zug zug.

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless

One of my wishes

One of my sincere wishes is to one night have a war movie marathon with a big bowl of chicken/rice curry. Maybe even with Jezebelle for the pure irony of it all, and the hatred of such an event.

I love curry.
War movies are intense.

Together, they make something wonderful.
I actually have a growing list of things that I want to do when I come back to Toronto, this is definitely on it.

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast
Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless

White freezies suck

"When I was a kid, I had a rice box, instead of a sand box."

The best trip of your life, the best trip of your life is when your white freezie is poisoned.

Spontaneity is the life essence of any blog, according to Kaylie and I.

She's feeling bored, so I asked her to talk at me you see.

I went back to the centre of the universe a few days ago - I saw fireworks you know. And the Katimacrew started a dance party in the very middle of Nathan Phillips Square.

I feel a bit pressured to write this blog, I hate that.

But at the same time I hate leaving a blog for too long, like I have now.


Oh how indecisive I am! Screw it, I want to write this blog, otherwise I wouldn't be writing it.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

Your task for today, reader, is to repeat that mantra as many times as you'd like. If you wouldn't like to read it, well then, obviously, don't, but after repeating that mantra for about an hour and a half, I can tell you, it's got some magic.

You know what? Even better. Gather a bunch of your wily friends and together, you repeat that mantra. Together. I dare you. Or actually, go to Toronto Sprouts on Sundays from 6-8, it's worth it. The whole Katimacrew enjoyed it, and you will too!

Mantras mantras mantras.

What else, well, this is my second last week of work.

I'm already done a third of my Katimavik experience you know! The time is flying.

Psst, I'm supposed to be working right now. I think I have to go cook Lasagna for some clients soon. Raaah!

Oh, our water at the Katimahouse has been brown for the past couple days, and yesterday it turned milky white. Yay!

More writings, more details to come, most definitely.

BFN

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast
Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless