After class ended at noon today, I met my boyfriend downtown for a coffee, where we ran into our friend Ashley. It was nice to see her, even briefly. After coffee, I met up with a girlfriend and we spent over two hours chatting over pizza.
I want to say it was nice, but... I think it's not just this friend. It's how I'm feeling overall. While school is going well (I am so caught up in school work, it's incredible!), I just don't want to be a student. I want to have a job where I do the hours and when I come home, that's it, the rest of the night is mine. So that's the first thing in my life right now; I don't want to be in school. The second thing is that I feel conscious about my weight and it's bothering me. It's partly, (A lot), my boyfriend's fault. He doesn't comment directly, but he used to be a super athlete and he feels out of shape these days (due to an injury which prevents him from excercising). As a result, he projects his own self-image onto me and I feel aware of the 5 lbs. I've put on since the start of school. That's the second issue right now for me.
The third is that as much as I'm happy generally, I really want to return to India, even just for a short while. It's not that I want a vacation and sun, I just want to be in a culture that is more real and less about appearance. That sounds cliche, but it's true. Vancouver is very much about surface appearances and it can become very tiring. I feel like I have a lot of empty conversations. I miss interacting with people who looked me right in the eye and were honest about their emotions. It's not exactly like that here.
The girlfriend I met for pizza is kind of a problem lately. I'm just feeling the difference between us lately. At one point today, she mentioned how offended she was when a Brazilian friend of ours said to her that "Canadian culture is so cold". She was truly offended by him saying that. I told her I agree. I don't think Canadians are bad people, but we are certainly not known for warmth. Polite and "friendly", sure, but warmth... no. Americans may think we're warm, but compared to the vast majority of the world's cultures, no... we are not heralded for warmth and openess. (Canadians do not invite foreigners to join their families for dinner... we don't even invite our extended families to join for dinner!)
Sometimes this girlfriend seems so utterly unaware, it shocks me. And she is the FIRST person to discuss how "ignorant people can be". I give her an A for trying, but she is definitely not my most socially aware friend.
She made a bizarre point that "American's are cold! The British are cold! Canadians aren't cold!" The obvious response being, the Americans are our closest neighbour (geographically and culturally), and we are an offshoot of the British empire. If they're cold, how the hell did we escape that designation???
She thinks we're not a cold culture because she's never travelled outside of western Europe. (Therefore, she is an expert.)
Last week, I had a little freak out in bed with my boyfriend. I was talking about the fact that I am working toward a job so I can save to travel. But WHEN am I going to travel when I only get 2 weeks vacation per year? That's a very, very scary thought for someone like me. I pointed out to him that North Americans, on average, work the most hours. We have less holidays, more hours, and the work week is only getting longer. He brought it up again this week saying, "I'd never thought about it before, but it's true. We work a lot here. You take it for granted because everyone does it, but it's true, that's not necessarily normal." I'm glad he got that.
Anyway, that's it. I'm going to read some diaries.
