Finally, after many years of debating the long and short of it, I have come to the conclusion that yes, I really do hate people. As the title of this blog indicates, this will be the illustration of the reasons that have led me to finally to come down on the "yes" side of this question.*
So, I'm gonna get all philosophical on yo' ass. Not with the bookish philosophy of Kant and Socrates and those fellows. I don't have the time or inclination to read all that. I'm gonna philosophize with Mike's Philosophy of Life(TM).
Today, while at the office** I had two run-ins that illustrated to me that people are by their nature self-centered and singular in thought. The first "incident" wasn't actually an incident, but just my being aurally assaulted by a woman's baby that kept emitting loud screeches that were distracting me from my work. Unfortunately, today I had left my iPod at home, thus was unable to drown out the piercing, banshee-like shrieks uttered by such a tiny child.
No. I don't necessarily hate children. In this case, the offender was the mom, who was oblivious to the effect that her screeching baby had on the people assembled in a public place. The mom was totally focused on herself, her baby and her friend. The constant irritation that her baby was causing actually made me get up and leave "the office" prematurely.
This fateful timing of my leaving led me to the next encounter with another self-centered human being. While coming up to the double doors exiting Starbucks (double doors that swing outward, yes, that does matter to this story), I noticed an elderly woman with a walker approaching the double doors with her caregiver/assistant. I waited, allowing the woman to enter, but when she did, she proceeded to insult my lack of manners.
Now, I understand the frustrations of the elderly. Living with my 92-year-old grandfather, I know about the feelings of isolation for a senior citizen when most of their friends and family have already passed away, or are no longer capable of visiting. I understand the feeling of helplessness when a once strong, independent, and healthy individual needs to rely on others for some of the most basic of needs.
I also understand how the desire to keep living and surviving can make one's focus entirely on their own self. We call this being "set-in-your-ways" to be polite, but it also closes one's mind off from how others may be thinking.
The old lady's comments made me realize not that she's a mean old bitch.*** It made me realize that she was incapable of interpreting my actions any differently than how she saw them. In my mind, stepping back and waiting for her to enter was the polite thing to do. Had I tried to open the doors for her (remember, they swing outwards), I would have hit her walker with the doors. Her caregiver was still behind her, leaving her no choice to open the door for herself.
Her response was one of knowing that she was right and I was just another rude youngster who is signalling the coming of the apocalypse or some shit like that. This showed me that the problem was not the lack of politeness in the world, but the lack of an ability to think beyond one's self and one's own state of mind.
By not seeing the effect that her child was having on the patrons of Starbucks, the woman with the baby was being self- (and baby-) centered. By not being able to see that (at least in my mind) I was acting in deference to her, the old lady was being self-centered.
The notion of being self-centered is as old as humanity. One must protect themselves, their kin, their village, their nation, etc., in that order.^ Even Jewish theology states that one may break the laws of the Torah to save their life. However, in day to day life, being able to see the world from others' points of view is a valuable aid.
As an umpire, I learned very quickly, that when a coach was arguing a play, it wasn't necessarily that he was arguing the FACTS. He was arguing the point of view. I learned that the way I saw a play wasn't necessarily right or wrong, but it was my point of view. As an official in sports, one must call their own point of view, rather than be influenced by that of either team. This is why officials are encouraged to not change calls, especially in response to questioning from either team. Officials are useless if they do not call the game with an independent point of view.
It is my experience in the "heat of battle" on the ball diamond getting yelled at and having to make a call on every play that allows me to see that there are other points of view that are equally valid to the people who experience them. In fact, they are so convinced of their point of view that they are compelled to vociferously defend them to their teams. Fundamentalists of all religions, political orientations and ethnicities are also particularly good examples of this.
Unfortunately, the world is the way it is because these people fail to see the validity of other points of view. World views that don't allow the points of view of others lead us down the wrong paths to war, injustice, discrimination, and just general rudeness.
As the world becomes more crowded, and in particular as we become more publicly introverted (with iphones, ipads, ipods, igenes, irates) our ability to consider the people around us continues to erode.
Being self-centered isn't good or bad. It is how we are wired. This is why I hate people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The question being, "Do I really, truly, actually hate people?"
** For a PhD student, the "office" is actually Starbucks (or some facsmile thereof). In my case, it's one of the 2 Starbuckses within walk/cycle distance from home.
*** Although she may be. I don't know her well enough to make that judgement.
^ See Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities for notions of how the "nation" is an imagined construct.
5 October 2011
4 October 2011
Dinosaurs Rule! (but not on TV)
So last night, I played a "wallpaper" gig* with Jaro (the guitarist in KlezFactor) in the dinosaur section of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), which made me think of a new TV show out this fall, I think on the Fox network, called Terra Nova. Having been rewatching the awesomeness that is Battlestar Galactica (BSG), I would like to call some attention to why Terra Nova is mediocre television at best.
In case you care, SPOILER ALERT!
So the premise behind Terra Nova (TN) is that in the year 2149, Earth is becoming uninhabitable for us humans. Fortunately, scientists discovered a rift that opens up to Earth, but 85 million years ago. They decide to send colonists back on a one way trip to populate their new colony of "Terra Nova."
Interesting concept. Steven Spielberg is on board as one of the 15,000,000 executive producers (ok, there are only about 11). The series has endured production delays, cost overruns, and apparently, the special effects had to be redone after they looked bad the first time.
So what have I learned from watching the first 2 episodes?
1: This show will never be good.
2: That's probably about it.
Reasons "Terra Nova" will never be good:
1: Whoever is making the creative decisions has no balls. One of the amazing things about Battlestar Galactica was that Ronald D. Moore and David Eick (see.... only 2 executive producers) were fearless when it came to totally changing the paradigm of the show. Whether it was flash-forwarding 1 year later, or killing off significant characters, or dealing with controversial issues (always important for good sci-fi), Moore and Eick didn't shy away from potentially alienating viewers. Terra Nova seems to want to keep everyone happy, and thus, no one is.**
2: The characters are 1-dimensional peons who curry no empathy from viewers. In the 2 episodes I've seen, the storylines don't take the characters on any journeys of the emotional or spiritual kind. They're kind of action figures that are moved around to where they're needed. You go here and protect the people from the dinosaurs. You're the doctor, so you fix the wounds. BSG was almost entirely character driven. While it's too early to tell on TN, in BSG, the characters went on life changing journeys throughout the course of the show. When someone close to them died, they felt it and were haunted by it. When a character went through a traumatic experience, they were changed by it. Who the characters were at the end of the show was different than when they started.
3: The special effects still suck. The 2-hr pilot had dinosaurs that looked bad, and moved choppily. Jurassic Park was 17 years ago, and they got it right. WTF? In the 2nd episode. There were no dinosaurs. Instead they had little bird-like reptiles. Is that because someone said that their dinosaurs looked stupid? And while I acknowledge that spaceships (in BSG) are probably WAY easier to do effectively, the effects on Galactica were always amazing. From Ron Moore's podcasts, it appears that the effects team was actively invested in the show and contributing beginning in the pre-visualization phase. They would deliver extra shots (for no additional cost), and fill every frame with interesting material. From what I can tell on TN, there's a dinosaur (or bird-like reptile thing) but nothing like the level of interest or complexity that you got from BSG. I still haven't noticed everything the effects crew put into their shots after having watched each episode several times.
So yeah. That's pretty much all I care to write about that. I won't be watching the show again any time soon, and I miss Battlestar. Thank god for the DVDs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* A "wallpaper gig" is one in which the musicians are contracted to provide what is essentially "sonic wallpaper" or background music.
** At least no one intelligent is.
In case you care, SPOILER ALERT!
So the premise behind Terra Nova (TN) is that in the year 2149, Earth is becoming uninhabitable for us humans. Fortunately, scientists discovered a rift that opens up to Earth, but 85 million years ago. They decide to send colonists back on a one way trip to populate their new colony of "Terra Nova."
Interesting concept. Steven Spielberg is on board as one of the 15,000,000 executive producers (ok, there are only about 11). The series has endured production delays, cost overruns, and apparently, the special effects had to be redone after they looked bad the first time.
So what have I learned from watching the first 2 episodes?
1: This show will never be good.
2: That's probably about it.
Reasons "Terra Nova" will never be good:
1: Whoever is making the creative decisions has no balls. One of the amazing things about Battlestar Galactica was that Ronald D. Moore and David Eick (see.... only 2 executive producers) were fearless when it came to totally changing the paradigm of the show. Whether it was flash-forwarding 1 year later, or killing off significant characters, or dealing with controversial issues (always important for good sci-fi), Moore and Eick didn't shy away from potentially alienating viewers. Terra Nova seems to want to keep everyone happy, and thus, no one is.**
2: The characters are 1-dimensional peons who curry no empathy from viewers. In the 2 episodes I've seen, the storylines don't take the characters on any journeys of the emotional or spiritual kind. They're kind of action figures that are moved around to where they're needed. You go here and protect the people from the dinosaurs. You're the doctor, so you fix the wounds. BSG was almost entirely character driven. While it's too early to tell on TN, in BSG, the characters went on life changing journeys throughout the course of the show. When someone close to them died, they felt it and were haunted by it. When a character went through a traumatic experience, they were changed by it. Who the characters were at the end of the show was different than when they started.
3: The special effects still suck. The 2-hr pilot had dinosaurs that looked bad, and moved choppily. Jurassic Park was 17 years ago, and they got it right. WTF? In the 2nd episode. There were no dinosaurs. Instead they had little bird-like reptiles. Is that because someone said that their dinosaurs looked stupid? And while I acknowledge that spaceships (in BSG) are probably WAY easier to do effectively, the effects on Galactica were always amazing. From Ron Moore's podcasts, it appears that the effects team was actively invested in the show and contributing beginning in the pre-visualization phase. They would deliver extra shots (for no additional cost), and fill every frame with interesting material. From what I can tell on TN, there's a dinosaur (or bird-like reptile thing) but nothing like the level of interest or complexity that you got from BSG. I still haven't noticed everything the effects crew put into their shots after having watched each episode several times.
So yeah. That's pretty much all I care to write about that. I won't be watching the show again any time soon, and I miss Battlestar. Thank god for the DVDs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* A "wallpaper gig" is one in which the musicians are contracted to provide what is essentially "sonic wallpaper" or background music.
** At least no one intelligent is.
29 September 2011
On Mediocrity
If you've read my previous post, you'll know that I'm a big baseball fan. Baseball, particularly the Toronto Blue Jays, my hometown team, has prompted this post.
The Blue Jays finished the season having won as many games as they lost. 81 wins, 81 losses, which begs the question, "Was this just a mediocre season for the Jays?"
Well, if you look at the numbers, you would probably have to say yes. Their record is exactly even. In major league baseball this year, 14 out of 30 teams finished with an even record or better, placing the Jays almost exactly in the middle of the pack. The team gave up 19 more runs than they scored (which meant that their actual outcome in games was slightly better than could be expected).
So, were the Blue Jays mediocre this year? For me, mediocre is not just "average." For me, mediocre is what happens when a person, or team is happy with being just "average." In my mind, this Blue Jays team is not mediocre. They strove for excellence. They weren't happy losing a close game to a good team. They want more. This team wasn't mediocre. They were inconsistent.
Anyone who follows baseball will tell you that it is a game of failure. The best hitters in the game fail 7 out of every 10 times they come to bat. A pitcher fails every time a hitter jacks a hanging breaking ball out of the park. A fielder fails every time he gets handcuffed by short-hopped ground ball. But they try. Again and again. We get better by trying and failing.*
In the world, there is too much mediocrity. I hear it every day when I hear the songs coming out of the radio. This music isn't bad because the artists involved aren't talented or creative. In fact, some of it isn't bad at all.** But these musicians are being asked to operate inside a small box because the people who control the money behind the music industry are afraid to fail. They have too much money invested to take risks.
This is why the really great music exists in the undercurrents of a music scene. Without millions of dollars involved, musicians take risks. Some of what they do is dreck***, but some of it is truly great and adventurous and amazing. But these musicians fund their own CDs with the money they make teaching music lessons, or working a day job, or these days, through independent fundraising websites like Kickstarter. They are free of the boxes that the music industry places around artists.
Mediocrity sucks. Step out of the box.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Trying and failing with a bit of rational situational analysis to figure out why you've failed. Duh.
** This stuff usually goes into my "guilty pleasures" playlist.
*** My attempt to add some Yiddishness in this "Adventures in Klezmer" blog. Dreck is Yiddish for shit.
The Blue Jays finished the season having won as many games as they lost. 81 wins, 81 losses, which begs the question, "Was this just a mediocre season for the Jays?"
Well, if you look at the numbers, you would probably have to say yes. Their record is exactly even. In major league baseball this year, 14 out of 30 teams finished with an even record or better, placing the Jays almost exactly in the middle of the pack. The team gave up 19 more runs than they scored (which meant that their actual outcome in games was slightly better than could be expected).
So, were the Blue Jays mediocre this year? For me, mediocre is not just "average." For me, mediocre is what happens when a person, or team is happy with being just "average." In my mind, this Blue Jays team is not mediocre. They strove for excellence. They weren't happy losing a close game to a good team. They want more. This team wasn't mediocre. They were inconsistent.
Anyone who follows baseball will tell you that it is a game of failure. The best hitters in the game fail 7 out of every 10 times they come to bat. A pitcher fails every time a hitter jacks a hanging breaking ball out of the park. A fielder fails every time he gets handcuffed by short-hopped ground ball. But they try. Again and again. We get better by trying and failing.*
In the world, there is too much mediocrity. I hear it every day when I hear the songs coming out of the radio. This music isn't bad because the artists involved aren't talented or creative. In fact, some of it isn't bad at all.** But these musicians are being asked to operate inside a small box because the people who control the money behind the music industry are afraid to fail. They have too much money invested to take risks.
This is why the really great music exists in the undercurrents of a music scene. Without millions of dollars involved, musicians take risks. Some of what they do is dreck***, but some of it is truly great and adventurous and amazing. But these musicians fund their own CDs with the money they make teaching music lessons, or working a day job, or these days, through independent fundraising websites like Kickstarter. They are free of the boxes that the music industry places around artists.
Mediocrity sucks. Step out of the box.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Trying and failing with a bit of rational situational analysis to figure out why you've failed. Duh.
** This stuff usually goes into my "guilty pleasures" playlist.
*** My attempt to add some Yiddishness in this "Adventures in Klezmer" blog. Dreck is Yiddish for shit.
28 September 2011
On Baseball
No sport causes one to stop and wax poetic like baseball does. You don't see an ode to a hockey fight, or read epic poetry about a fast-break. Baseball has the ability to be mythologized unlike any other sport.
Baseball makes for the best movies. I mean, really. How many good basketball movies are there? No. White Men Can't Jump doesn't count. How many good soccer movies are there? No. Bend it Like Beckham isn't really about soccer.*
So what is it about baseball? Those of you who know me know that the summers of my entire life have been taken up with baseball. Whether it was as a player up until my late high school years, or as an umpire in the years since I was 17, few summers went by that weren't touched by this game.
For me, baseball just feels like home. The smell of the leather of the glove. The feel of a ball smacking into the glove. The crunch of the dirt under your cleats. The way the seams of the ball feel under your fingers. The feel of hitting a ball just right is something that can't be duplicated in any other way.**
In many ways, striving for a perfect throw, or hitting the ball perfectly is pretty much what us musicians do with music. We search for the musical space where there is only a perfect feeling, where we don't even feel our instruments in our hands, and when we metaphorically "hit it out of the park."
So why have I been moved to wax poetic myself? Today the baseball season ended for the Blue Jays. They're the team I grew up with, and were my companions throughout my springs, summers and into the autumns. I've always felt a special bond with the Blue Jays, having been born in the same year that they began playing. I never felt even tempted, living for 2 years in Boston, one of the real Meccas of baseball, to switch my allegiance.
All sport can be seen as a metaphor for life, and it goes beyond the mere "ya win some, ya lose some" sloganeering. Baseball's long season (162 games is a lot of baseball) is not for the action junkie. Baseball makes you take the long view. Baseball makes you focus on one pitch at a time, but also teaches you not to dwell on the result of a bad one, because you've got the take the ball back and throw it again. If you have a bad game, there will be another one tomorrow. If you had a good day, you can't get too excited because the baseball gods might not smile on you tomorrow.
As Jimmy Fallon's character in Fever Pitch*** says (to paraphrase), "Life may kick you in the nuts, but baseball will always be there for you." Baseball was there during two World Wars. It was there through good and bad economies. It was there after 9/11 to show America and the world that life goes on.
And so, with another baseball season over (at least for the Blue Jays), we will wait for the first news from Spring Training, when pitchers and catchers report in the middle of February. For me, it's what gets me through those cold, short February days. Nothing says spring is coming more than Spring Training.
The weather will get cold. The snow will come. But baseball will be back next year. It always is.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Good movie, but not really about soccer. It's about a young British girl of Indian parentage trying to find a middle ground between her dueling identities. Seriously. How dramatic is kicking a ball without that subtext.
** In my playing career, I hit one home run (over the fence) in a game situation. I didn't even feel the contact of the ball on the bat. It just felt . . . . perfect.
*** Yes, I know that Fever Pitch was based on a book about soccer, which was made into a movie about soccer. The American version about baseball is better.
Baseball makes for the best movies. I mean, really. How many good basketball movies are there? No. White Men Can't Jump doesn't count. How many good soccer movies are there? No. Bend it Like Beckham isn't really about soccer.*
So what is it about baseball? Those of you who know me know that the summers of my entire life have been taken up with baseball. Whether it was as a player up until my late high school years, or as an umpire in the years since I was 17, few summers went by that weren't touched by this game.
For me, baseball just feels like home. The smell of the leather of the glove. The feel of a ball smacking into the glove. The crunch of the dirt under your cleats. The way the seams of the ball feel under your fingers. The feel of hitting a ball just right is something that can't be duplicated in any other way.**
In many ways, striving for a perfect throw, or hitting the ball perfectly is pretty much what us musicians do with music. We search for the musical space where there is only a perfect feeling, where we don't even feel our instruments in our hands, and when we metaphorically "hit it out of the park."
So why have I been moved to wax poetic myself? Today the baseball season ended for the Blue Jays. They're the team I grew up with, and were my companions throughout my springs, summers and into the autumns. I've always felt a special bond with the Blue Jays, having been born in the same year that they began playing. I never felt even tempted, living for 2 years in Boston, one of the real Meccas of baseball, to switch my allegiance.
All sport can be seen as a metaphor for life, and it goes beyond the mere "ya win some, ya lose some" sloganeering. Baseball's long season (162 games is a lot of baseball) is not for the action junkie. Baseball makes you take the long view. Baseball makes you focus on one pitch at a time, but also teaches you not to dwell on the result of a bad one, because you've got the take the ball back and throw it again. If you have a bad game, there will be another one tomorrow. If you had a good day, you can't get too excited because the baseball gods might not smile on you tomorrow.
As Jimmy Fallon's character in Fever Pitch*** says (to paraphrase), "Life may kick you in the nuts, but baseball will always be there for you." Baseball was there during two World Wars. It was there through good and bad economies. It was there after 9/11 to show America and the world that life goes on.
And so, with another baseball season over (at least for the Blue Jays), we will wait for the first news from Spring Training, when pitchers and catchers report in the middle of February. For me, it's what gets me through those cold, short February days. Nothing says spring is coming more than Spring Training.
The weather will get cold. The snow will come. But baseball will be back next year. It always is.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Good movie, but not really about soccer. It's about a young British girl of Indian parentage trying to find a middle ground between her dueling identities. Seriously. How dramatic is kicking a ball without that subtext.
** In my playing career, I hit one home run (over the fence) in a game situation. I didn't even feel the contact of the ball on the bat. It just felt . . . . perfect.
*** Yes, I know that Fever Pitch was based on a book about soccer, which was made into a movie about soccer. The American version about baseball is better.
7 September 2011
LOUD NOISES!
I live in a (theoretically) quiet residential neighbourhood in North York. Lots of Orthodox Jews and Filipino people here. Yet, my (admittedly delicate) acoustical sensibilities are frequently assaulted by the hordes of gardeners, landscapers, and construction workers who spend their daytime conducting their business. Note: I am all for a ban on gas-powered lawnmowers, and not only because of their harmful emissions.
At my grandfather's house (where I currently reside), things have not been different this summer. So far, a new home two doors down was constructed, the driveway, walkways and sundry other problems at our place have been fixed, and my brother-in-law uses the garage (directly beneath my room) for his workshop. Yes. Every time he hammers, saws, bangs, crashes, etc., it reverberates into my being. Note to Brother-in-law: Sound moves more effectively through solid objects than through air! On the bright side, the screamo band that used to rehearse across the street is no longer around.
I've been finding that the people who inhabit this earth are not particularly sensitive to their aural environment, something that Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer has written about - I believe he coined the term "acoustic ecology." I've noticed this more and more.... (you want examples, you got 'em!)
A couple of weeks ago, at one of the branches of my gym, when I asked the staff member at the front desk to turn the music down so that I could drown it out with my iPod, I was told two things that raised my ire. 1: Everyone else asks to turn up the music, and 2: I should get noise cancelling headphones.
While I was somewhat polite in the moment, my response to those comments in blog form go something like this: 1: Fuck everyone else. I shouldn't need to destroy my own hearing just to keep myself from hearing the SHITTY FUCKING MUSIC that you pump into your gym! and 2: The fact that you suggest I purchase NOISE cancelling headphones is an admission of guilt to polluting the air of this gym with NOISE!
This experience aside, I'm also continually frustrated with Cineplex Odeon's latest bumper reels that tell us that what is "coming soon," or that we've finally arrived at our "feature presentation." It appears that they've spent a lot of money on the CGI effects and animation for us to look at, but went all cheap-ass on us when it came to the music/sound. To my (albeit trained ears), it sounds like the composer didn't have the budget to actually pay real people to perform the music, and they have a shitty-sounding synthesizer that sounds all muddled and borderline distorted. This just proves to be one more example of our society becoming more and more visually stimulated at the expense of the aural world.
Finally, I have one message to all out there who might like to share their music with the rest of us. DO NOT SING ON THE SUBWAY. Yes. That means YOU, GIRL WITH THE PURPLE HAIR. Keep it the fuck to yourself! I don't care how nice your voice is. I don't care how important it is that you sing along. Or maybe you're writing a song. I DON'T CARE. DO NOT SING ON THE SUBWAY!!!*
Thank you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* I'll allow one exception to this rule: Flash Mob.
At my grandfather's house (where I currently reside), things have not been different this summer. So far, a new home two doors down was constructed, the driveway, walkways and sundry other problems at our place have been fixed, and my brother-in-law uses the garage (directly beneath my room) for his workshop. Yes. Every time he hammers, saws, bangs, crashes, etc., it reverberates into my being. Note to Brother-in-law: Sound moves more effectively through solid objects than through air! On the bright side, the screamo band that used to rehearse across the street is no longer around.
I've been finding that the people who inhabit this earth are not particularly sensitive to their aural environment, something that Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer has written about - I believe he coined the term "acoustic ecology." I've noticed this more and more.... (you want examples, you got 'em!)
A couple of weeks ago, at one of the branches of my gym, when I asked the staff member at the front desk to turn the music down so that I could drown it out with my iPod, I was told two things that raised my ire. 1: Everyone else asks to turn up the music, and 2: I should get noise cancelling headphones.
While I was somewhat polite in the moment, my response to those comments in blog form go something like this: 1: Fuck everyone else. I shouldn't need to destroy my own hearing just to keep myself from hearing the SHITTY FUCKING MUSIC that you pump into your gym! and 2: The fact that you suggest I purchase NOISE cancelling headphones is an admission of guilt to polluting the air of this gym with NOISE!
This experience aside, I'm also continually frustrated with Cineplex Odeon's latest bumper reels that tell us that what is "coming soon," or that we've finally arrived at our "feature presentation." It appears that they've spent a lot of money on the CGI effects and animation for us to look at, but went all cheap-ass on us when it came to the music/sound. To my (albeit trained ears), it sounds like the composer didn't have the budget to actually pay real people to perform the music, and they have a shitty-sounding synthesizer that sounds all muddled and borderline distorted. This just proves to be one more example of our society becoming more and more visually stimulated at the expense of the aural world.
Finally, I have one message to all out there who might like to share their music with the rest of us. DO NOT SING ON THE SUBWAY. Yes. That means YOU, GIRL WITH THE PURPLE HAIR. Keep it the fuck to yourself! I don't care how nice your voice is. I don't care how important it is that you sing along. Or maybe you're writing a song. I DON'T CARE. DO NOT SING ON THE SUBWAY!!!*
Thank you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* I'll allow one exception to this rule: Flash Mob.
6 September 2011
Visa (not the credit card)
Tomorrow, I'll be heading down to Germany's consulate in Toronto to submit my application for a 1-year work visa.
Fortunately, as a Canadian under 35, I qualify for this FREE visa under the Youth Mobility Agreement that Canada and Germany has. Clearly, Canada and Germany are all buddy-buddy and want young people from their countries to get out and see the world (or at least some of it), and have made it very easy for their citizens to spend a year abroad in the other country.
There are 4 categories of the visa under the Youth Mobility Agreement (YMA . . . not to be confused with YMCA):
Fortunately, as a Canadian under 35, I qualify for this FREE visa under the Youth Mobility Agreement that Canada and Germany has. Clearly, Canada and Germany are all buddy-buddy and want young people from their countries to get out and see the world (or at least some of it), and have made it very easy for their citizens to spend a year abroad in the other country.
There are 4 categories of the visa under the Youth Mobility Agreement (YMA . . . not to be confused with YMCA):
a: Work and Travel
b: Young Professionals - who have employment lined up
c: Post Secondary Students - who want to work on an academic break
d: Internship - for people who want to do an internship as part of their studies or training
I'm applying under the "work and travel" section, which basically gives me carte blanche (or Weisse Karte, for those wanting to keep it German) to work wherever and in whatever capacity I can. It also means that I would be free to legally tour and gig in Germany, or work in at a cafe, or whatever comes up.
What is necessary for this? Not a heck of a lot, to be honest. Basically, there are 3 "declarations." The first is that all the information I'm giving is truthful. The second is that I have enough money to live off of, and I'm using the "work" part of the work and travel visa to supplement my savings, and the third is a declaration that I will be covered by "Personal Liability Insurance" for the extent of my stay in Germany. This last one was a bit confusing, but I was assured that this insurance will cover me if I cause damage or destroy stuff while in Germany.
Of course, you also need to fill out the application form, which is 4 pages (not too onerous). Then you need to have a valid passport for the entire length of the stay in Germany, a passport photo for them to have on file, you need to have a booked plane ticket into Germany, and a booked place to stay (or a letter saying that you'll stay where you're staying).
You also need health insurance for your entire stay. This was not all that easy to find, as most travel health insurance plans only cover you for up to 6 months. However, going through some "ex-patriat" plans, I was able to find one that offered decent coverage for what I needed, but also wasn't too expensive! You also need to describe your intentions within Germany (I intend to ROCK!) and prove your "bonds" to Canada (names of family members).
And that's it! Not a whole lot in the long run!
And so, tomorrow, I begin the process.
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