So, on my second day of trying to be more disciplined I almost failed. Well, technically, I am still half way to failing. After a very fun night out last night to our good friends B&D’s new house -- which, incidentally is ridiculously gorgeous -- I was a little slow getting up this morning. And since Grandma and I are going on a little camping trip for the weekend, there was a mad rush to pack up the gear and get to class in time. So, Dear Readers, today I write this brief entry from geography 112 having not done any push-ups or sit-ups. weak.
School is going well (though math still leaves my head spinning a little bit). Work starts up again next week and I have to say that I’m pretty pumped about getting back. There was some upsetting news this week when I found out that a friend and colleague of mine from Ontario has just had sexual assault (harassment?) charges brought forward against him. This is now the second person that I have worked with who apparently cant keep his hands to himself. geez.
Well, that’s all for now. I have to get back to learning about the earth. I have become that annoying guy (and I’m the only one in my class of 40 doing it) that takes notes on his laptop. It lets me keep my notes neat and tidy, keeps them in the same spot (Grandma is patient with me, but she does not like it when my papers get all over the house), and I can write to you.
If you want to play a fun game, go here
Well, Dear Readers, it is true; Gramps is officially returning to school this September. In the interests of long-term-planning I have decided that a career change is in order. It is not that I do not like being a tennis coach -- in fact, I like it just fine, thank you -- but as I move further into grandpahood I realize the limitations of my current profession (i.e. the demands on one’s body, the lack of job security, no health or dental benefits, pensions, union, relatively low wages in BC., etc.). This move is also the result of my realizing that for me it is not the tennis that attracts me to coaching, but the opportunity to use tennis as a venue for the thing I really enjoy -- teaching.
I have some colleagues who love the game so much that they get involved in coaching as a way of staying connected to tennis; these are the people who play tennis when they are not working, watch tennis on a regular basis, and lookup results from the previous day of international competition. I have great respect for a lot of these people; to be so devoted to and interested in something is admirable. But, alas, I am not that person. I do not play tennis in my off time (I’d rather go skiing, fishing, to the beach, for a bike ride, cooking, reading, etc.) and I certainly don’t follow the results of tournaments I didn’t even know existed. But, I do love teaching people how to play tennis. That’s where the good stuff is.
So, Reader, I have decided to follow in the footsteps of my parents and grandmother. Earlier this year I asked UBC what it would take to apply to Teacher’s College; I sent my transcripts and everything. Apparently, I overspecialized in university and need to complete a lab science, Canadian history, Canadian studies and, my personal fave, a math course before I can even apply to the program. I’ll be doing two of these courses online (history of BC has begun in earnest, almost) and two in person in September.
Anyway, I’m back in school this September so that I can go to school next September, so that I can go to school as a career. Funny how things work.
The existential moment has arrived; you look at the fish, the fish looks at you. Both are very present to one another (or at least feel it feels this way to me) but not equally. I, human, have the responsibility for what happens next. With the help of a few tools, I have forced this live creature out of its home and into what must be a horribly frightening and painful reality. If there is any doubt of this it is erased as the fish flips and flops and spins desperately on your dangling line. It is trying to survive, trying not to drown in the air into which you dragged it. Nearly every time I hold a fish like this, dangling, twisting, gasping, I imagine the t-shirt I once saw (or heard bout and remember to have seen) that said “what if fish could scream”. If fish could scream, I’m not sure I could do this. The silence somehow makes it easier for me to endure -- and I mean it when I say endure, I hate this part. I start to sweat, my hands start to shake, I start to feel nauseous. There is something very real about this experience, the intensity of it I suppose, that makes my reactions a strongly visceral one. Even writing about catching a fish makes me feel a little sick to my stomach.
As you hold the dangling fish, his slimy skin glistening various shades of colour and his prickly scales and fins exposed, you soon realize that whether you like it or not, you have to do something. You are compelled not to think or to wish or to imagine but to act, and as much as you desire that this was not the case, that you could just abandon your responsibility, you know, deep down, that even the inaction to which you are inclined is an act that perpetuates suffering and that the time you take to think about such things is time that he, your fish that you are hurting is struggling more and more. You must proceed.
The first thing is to figure out whether he -- and somehow in my mind it is always a he -- is a keeper. I don’t fish for fun. It is not in the category of fun for me. I fish so I can catch dinner. And I have to figure out whether this guy is large enough to warrant his murder. After his suitability is assessed, the next question is where and how deeply your catch has been hooked? It is always a relief to me when I can see the hook in his lip. This means a (relatively) straightforward hook removal since dislodging requires that you make the hook exit the fish through the same path it entered it. When the fish has swallowed your hook and the worm/minnow/fish that you used for bait, that causes real anxiety. When you see that the fish is “gut hooked” you know that you will literally have to dig around in the fish’s mouth/stomach to get it out. The deeper the hook, the greater the chance for damaging its organs and the lesser the chance for survival.
Now comes a really tough moment for me -- one that I, before midway though this summer -- had previously in life refused to take part in; touching the fish with your bare hand.
For the last two years that I’ve come up to Kellerman’s I’ve tried to better myself and to leave having developed a new skill. Last year, for example, I learned how to boat. I took my boating safety course, I mastered the route to and from the marina and I figured out how to drive the thing. I ended the summer feeling that I not only helped other people to learn, but that I improved myself as well. This year my project also concerns the water and is motivated by my own efforts to, in the words of The Offspring, “tie my own rope”. In the summer of 2009 I’m aiming to become competent at catching and cleaning my own fish.
To some of you, dear readers, this may seem like a simple task. Go out, throw the hook in the water until le poisson (le poisson, he he he, haw, haw, haw) bites, reel it in, wait for it to die and then cook it. Well, my friends, let me tell you that it is not that easy -- at least not for me.
My first hurdle doesn’t even concern the fish. The worm. It’s all squigly and wrigly and slimy and, well, I feel bad for putting it on a hook. I have to mentally prepare just to pull it our of the styrofoam container in which he/she/it resides. Once I do get him/her/it out and into my hand, getting it fastened on the hook proves to be a special challenge. For some unknown reason, as soon as I pierce it with my “chemically sharpened” Japanese hook it writhes and twists and becomes a ball of worm meat. It’s like somehow the worm doesn’t like what I’m doing to it. This resistance makes it hard for me to initiate the second (and vital) piercing, partly because it is scrunched up but mostly because I’m squealing like the proverbial little girl (note: most of the little girls I know don’t scream as much as I do). After apologizing to the worm for the discomfort I’m causing: “don’t worry. relax. this will all be over soon” and re-focussing myself, I’m usually able to secure monsieur/madame worm. Having done so and with a quick cast (which is remarkably easy if you can hit a forehand or backhand decently) into the water he/she/it goes.
At this point, I can see why so many people like to fish. Standing there on the dock by yourself, staring meditatively into the dark water and watching -- rather feeling -- for any taps on the pole. I like this part of it very much and it is here that fishing and I are quite agreeable. It is also a time when there really is nothing else to do. You stand (or sit), you listen and you watch. I don’t think that I even think. The complexity of this moment -- the paradox between doing nothing yet having great focus and anticipation -- is something that I only realize after the fact. It is being ‘in the zone’ in exactly the same way that I have felt it in sport: heightened sensitivity, effortless focus, un-self-conscious action. It is only in writing about it that I start to notice it. Weird.
Well, eventually this serenity comes to an end. When you feel the tap-tap-tap, it is time to spring into action and to set the hook. Apparently I am weak. My first dozen or so ‘sets’ were terrible and I spent more time feeding the fish than catching them. It’s remarkable how hard to need to flick the rod into the air in order to lodge that razor sharp piece of steel into the roof of the fish’s mouth. It is here that you realize how violent an act fishing really is. You are, with real force, impaling bone and cartilage with metal.
When you do manage to hook a fish it is quite fun bringing it in. You reel, it pulls, you reel some more, you win. Your prize comes up and out of the water and onto the dock beside you. It is here that the horror truly begins...
