Thinking like a Jonathan Toews

I have always envisioned uni-cycling as a far off skill, something across the oceans, miles away, which I would never get near. Maybe it’s because I was scared of failure. Maybe I didn’t have enough time. But somehow, it came across the oceans to greet me. It made time in my schedule.

Mr. Jackson kindly loaned me a unicycle which he used from his in-depth (many years ago when he was in a similar program). He also did juggling as part of his In-Depth. What a coincidence! This unicycle has posed a great challenge for me. I’ve tried, and tried, and learned a valuable lesson from uni-cycling.

It started with my first try at unicycling. I searched through Youtube, and found a beginner’s video on how to unicycle (I would highly recommend this video to anyone planning on learning the skill). After getting on the unicycle, the first way to learn is to use a fence. I was told (by this video) to ride along a fence with two hands on it, and slowly learn how to ride. So I went ahead and made precious space for my lessons. Very quickly, I narrowed the two hands on the fence to one. But there still was an obstacle.

Along the fence I use, there is a wide beam. It blocks my hand from running consistently along the fence. At one point during every ride along the fence, I must let go of my lifeline. At first it was terrifying – I thought I was going to fall and crack my head open. Slowly, I began to realize its importance. Every time I had to let go in order to pass this beam, I had to ride free-form, with nothing to hang on to. Each time I would immediately grab the fence again after the beam had passed. At one point I realized that I was doing fine without the fence for the .4 milliseconds I didn’t have something to hang on to. So each time I tried to see how far I could go without the fence (when passing the pole). Every time I passed this obstacle, I let go and saw how far I could go on my own. Essentially, it was pushing me beyond my boundaries, this pole. It made me let go of my safeties and be adventurous. Through this, I have been pushing myself to ride a unicycle without any support.

I feel that this event applies to a lot of concepts in our lives. We all need that one beam to force us to let go of being safe, and to push our boundaries a little bit. One beam is enough to start a catalyst in our lives to try something new, or to try something without being entirely “safe”. Poles like this push us to be greater beings, and perform beyond our preconceived capacities. I think that these poles are a gift and we need to cherish them. We can’t be afraid to just let go of our fence and experience what the world is like.

Brotips (a new Internet sensation) taught me not to believe everything I’m told:

And honestly, we all try not to. We’ve gotten to an age when we all are skeptical of what other’s tell us. We refuse to believe unlikely events, and we try not to believe events that we don’t want to come true. “What is the real truth?” is a question often pondered. Who should I believe? Often, the media today participates in this. In a previous post, I outlined how the media is always tricking us into false illusions.

When I was little, there was  trick that went around. You would go up to someone, and say “it says gullible on your forehead”. Many of us, not knowing what gullible meant, fell for it and rushed off to the bathroom to see. As we grew older, we used this as a bigger trick: we started taping little signs that said gullible to people’s shoes. You’d say “it says gullible on your shoe”. Instantly, knowing they had been tricked before, the other person would tell you that you’re trying to trick them. You’d say “No, no, it really says gullible on your foot!”. The person would then look down, and be beat. Sometimes you would place a gullible sign, sometimes you wouldn’t. It was a never ending bluffing game. You didn’t want to be “gullible” but at the same time you really wanted to look at your shoes to find out.

I feel that the Life of Pi is like this guessing game. You have to wonder, which story, of the two that he told the Japanese interrogators, is true? Instantly, I’m sure you just thought I know which one is true! It’s so obvious! Didn’t you read the book? And either way, the book is fictional. You’re crazy…. This book is a perfect example of believability issues. The fact that you read an entire story on this boy, in great detail makes story less crazy. It makes it more believable. Personally, I’m siding with the Japanese interrogators. I think that the story was more likely the one with the humans.

Often, a back-story, or more detail in a story is what helps you believe it. The fact that someone is able to recall a story in such detail must be a sign that it’s true. And often, it is true. But this example just goes to prove that just because something happens in so much detail, it does not mean it’s true. After all, the entire book is a fictional story. While I read it, I was sure that it must be true. Being immersed in such a vividly told story made me want to believe it’s true. It’s not.

Think about this. If you had never read Life of Pi before, would you believe this headline “Boy Survives 227 days on small lifeboat with Bengal Tiger, after eliminating a Hyena, an Orangutan, and a Zebra”. Without being silly, you would have to say no, you don’t believe it. If you were to hear this story “Boy survives 227 days on small lifeboat after a bloodbath between other passengers”. You would definitely be more likely to believe it. Now, after reading the whole story behind the first headline, you are likely going to believe it. The truth is, facts make stories believable.

I think the Life of Pi is a metaphor. That the story which occurs at the end between Pi and his interrogators is a metaphor for religion.

I believe that this story has been used to explain to us how often we don’t believe a far fetched story, even if it is entirely plausible. I think that Yann Martel was trying to send us the exact same message about religion; just because you have little evidence, it doesn’t mean that it’s not possible.

In the book, Pi tells the Japanese interrogators (Mr. Chiba and Mr. Okamoto) everything that happened to him aboard the boat and the life raft. The entire book outlines this story, and all of the unlikely events that occurred, which kept Pi alive. Absurd events happened throughout his 227 day journey, all far-fetched, but true at the same time. Immediately, the interrogators do not believe him. Even though he knows (and we know, from reading the book) that all of these events are true, they refuse to believe what a small, Indian boy is trying to tell them. In order to help them believe, Pi tells a story similar to the last one, but more realistic in terms of the known and unknown. He replaces unlikely animal patterns with human actions. And so on.

Now, lets say that the first story, about the tiger, the orangutan, the acidic tree island, is true. This story represents religion. Impossibilities happen. Out of the ordinary relationships occur. Yet, no matter how far-fetched, they still happen. I believe that Yann Martel is telling us that religion is not often believed by people, no matter the power it has to impress us. People don’t see large amounts of concrete evidence that religion occurred, so they want an easier story to follow. One that follows the known, not the unknown. Such as the big bang theory. It’s considered to be possible, because it’s events follow our knowledge on particles. And so we believe unlikely events that we know about, rather than unlikely events that we don’t know about.

Flocci­nauci­nihili­pili­fication. A very, very long way of saying nothing. Literally, it means nothing!

Sometimes, that’s how I feel about all the practice I do with my juggling. It meant nothing. It was worth nothing. It didn’t count for anything. A lot of the time, it feels like I’m going nowhere. That is, until this week.

This week I finally realized all of the progress I’ve made throughout my in-depth. After weeks and weeks of juggling, I can juggle 3 balls with ease. I can juggle 4 balls for long periods of time. And I am even starting to get the hang of a new item I got in the mail on Friday – juggling clubs.

After this entire in-depth, I decided that I wanted to move on to something more challenging than balls, so I have begun a journey of juggling clubs. They’re quite exciting, actually. My mentor always talked about how she enjoyed them, way way more than balls. And I agree with her. Clubs seem to have this unique quality to them, that when you juggle you feel like you are making art. It gives you this impression that you are highly skilled. And when I manage to string together several throws, it feels like I am a juggler. Not someone learning juggling as an in-depth, but an actual juggler. Also, it seems a lot easier to learn clubs than it was to learn balls. Supposedly, part of that was the fact that I’ve taught my brain how to learn this type of activity. But I don’t know. I just know I love to juggle clubs.

I’m also going to begin unicycling this week. Mr. Jackson has kindly offered me his unicycle to try out, and I’m really really excited for that. It would be something brand new to learn, though it would certainly take out a chunk of my time. But I can make space in my schedule for something that fascinating. And maybe, if I get really good, I can juggle WHILE riding a unicycle. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

“When self preservation is at odds with one’s moral obligations, which one should we choose?”

Mr. Jackson asks this thought provoking question in response to Lexi‘s post “Kill or be Killed“. In a situation which presents us with two options, die, or live a life which does not parallel with our moral standards, which one should we choose? Which one do we choose? Which one do we wish we could choose?

Firstly, morals are mainly based on your beliefs (often a religion or higher being). They are the clothes for a body which is what you believe. The clothes reflect the opinion of the body – the body is the one who chooses clothes.

The base of this question comes down to your central beliefs, how strongly you believe in these beliefs, and how committed to them you are. Your beliefs in how the world works, in why you are here on earth, and what your purpose is. Simply, your religion and what role it plays in your life.

What you believe is the greater purpose for your life on earth, and it dictates whether you are willing to sacrifice your life, for a greater cause. Some people and religions believe that in order to serve “God”, they must sacrifice themselves. They are choosing to follow their moral obligations. Other people may believe that the purpose of humans on earth is to make ourselves happy. In that case, the obvious answer would be to go against their moral standards, because in a conflict the core of someone’s belief system will most often trump their loose moral standards. In each circumstance, every religious or non-religious person will approach it differently. And to the best of my knowledge, the core belief system will always largely influence a life or death decision (though it may depend on how much the person relies on these core beliefs).

Sometimes a sacrifice of moral obligations must be committed in order to fulfill stronger moral obligations. For example, an initial moral obligation for a person may be to follow the laws of a land. Let’s say that the laws of the land prohibit Christians from talking about their faith. If this person is Christian, their greater moral obligation is to tell people about Jesus and what he has done for us, which is in line with their core beliefs. Their core beliefs in this circumstance are valued higher than moral obligations limited to humans on earth. They may even become martyrs in order to stay true to their core beliefs.

Another factor that must be included in this equation is a person’s will. It is a gauge, telling us how strong the moral obligations of a person are. If that exceeds a person’s will for self preservation, then it has the ability to overtake it, and a person will hold moral obligations over top of the chance at living a longer life.

Overall, it comes down to the central beliefs of a person, and what those beliefs consist of. It also comes down to how strongly you believe in these beliefs, and how this strength of belief translates into the will to support it. It is the conflict between your innate desire to live and your conscience telling you to stay true to your morals.  Either way, the decision is left up to the strength of the person’s will, which comes primarily from their core belief system.

When self preservation is at odds with one’s moral obligations, the choice is made based on beliefs, and how strong they are in your life.

No. Life of Pi has nothing to do with math. Or pie.

That was probably one of the first revelations I experienced when selecting a book to read for my novel study. I decided that I wanted a true understanding on each book, instead of judging a book by its cover (see what I did there?). Last year, I had just the slightest understanding on each book, and went ahead and chose Little Brother. I was lucky to find out that I would have picked that book if I had known more about each one.

This year, I researched. And researched. And chose Life of Pi.

I think I chose it mostly because of the plot. The main aspect I look for in main books is a simple plot. Or a simple book to understand what’s going on. And to me, it seemed pretty simple. It sounds like it’s chronological order, which is nice. Books that go forward and backward in time are very challenging, because you don’t read a book all in one sitting. Therefore if it moves in time, it becomes hard to understand where you are. Anyways, I read the Wikipedia article on Life of Pi, and it does seem like it’s straightforward. It looks like most of the book is a boy and a tiger. Exciting.

Overall, it just seems like the book is a gem. It covers a wide variety of topics, such as religion, isolation, racial interactions and human desperation. Deep stuff, eh? Anyways, I’m really excited to go ahead a read this book. Unfortunately, I’m reading a couple of other books right now (yeah, I’m a bookworm) so I’m planning to finish those books right away, and head onto life of Pi.

As I said. It’s not about math. Or pie.

Juggling is finally becoming natural to me. Almost second nature, at some points. I found this out when I was going back through my beginner’s juggling book, which I used when I first learned to juggle. The last trick in the book was “Juggle with your eyes closed!”, which seemed extreme at the time. Now, it seems doable.

I can sometimes juggle with a blind-fold on for about 2-3 seconds, though it is extremely challenging. The problem is that I can’t really practice with my eyes closed, because then I don’t know what I need to adjust. Anyhow, I try anyways, just for the fun of it, when I juggle. Apparently, I look really stupid when I do. And who knows, maybe I do! Either way, it’s a fun exercise.

Another objective I’ve been working towards is a unique trick. I have been trying to come up with my own simple three-ball trick, or at least find an obscure, unknown trick on the Internet.  People don’t seem to be impressed with the well-known tricks which they have all seen before. That is why I’m trying to find something new. But it’s hard. Nick said at the very beginning of his in-depth on computer programming that it is very challenging, and that people don’t necessarily realize how hard it is to write the program for a game. Juggling is similar. People watch and say “Hey, he’s only juggling 3 balls. And he can only do a few tricks!”. People seem to judge jugglers harshly because they are so used to only seeing the greatest juggling acts; the one when the guy juggles 7 chainsaws standing on top of a ball that is balanced on top of 6 stacked chairs – blindfolded. It would be like telling a player in the NHL: “You suck – Sidney Crosby is way better!” You still have to give props to the guy who made it all the way to the NHL. I feel that I’ve made it all the way to the AHL, which is still pretty good. I can juggle up to 4 balls, and with 3 balls, I can do more than 20 different tricks. I’m proud of my progress.

In other news, I’ve been stocking up on even more hacky sacks. Almost too many. I have many spread out throughout the house. These are the ones that I managed to keep together:

The image is kinda bad quality, but I guess it was on an iPod camera, with almost no lighting.

Along with building a collection of juggling balls, I’ve also ordered a set of juggling clubs. When I meet with my mentor, I usually spend a small portion of my time trying out the juggling clubs, but I don’t think that I’ll ever really learn unless I get my own. So I have ordered my own. Hopefully, those will be coming in soon.

That’s all for this week. Progress has been made, though at 3 months I’m not quite as far as I like to. I guess it’s all about the effort and time you put in, right?

If you are the kind of impatient person who just skims for the big ideas, or you’re tired of long, information filled posts, just read the red in this post.

In our recent Social Studies questions, we have been researching “questions of inquiry”. This is an opportunity to satisfy any questions which we have been curious about, but have no time to pursue.

My curiosity has the Canada/US border. What happens to all of the people living on it, as it moves up and down?

To be honest, there were no towns or cities or “regular people” living on the border. I spent countless hours of research working hard to discover my question was not valid. But I did learn a lot in the process. Here are three major points which I learned while I was researching.

1. Why Average People Didn’t Live There:

Back in the 1700′s and early 1800′s, the British supported Canada, in opposition to the United States. The two nations (Canada and U.S.) were fighting for more land. The two countries pushed up against each other, and the border often moved up and down. In those times, the border wasn’t dictated by civil trading. It was controlled by strength in armies. Right along the border in several spots of Eastern (and sometimes western) Canada and United States, there were and still are many forts. These forts were how the two countries fought to control their territory, and even increase it. In one scenario, the Americans incidentally created a fort 3/4 of a mile inside the Canadian border. After realizing the mistake, they named it “Fort Blunder“. Canada, with posts all around it, easily overtook it and it became one of the largest forts along the border in eastern Canada.

In short: The border was battle zone. It was for armies to continually push for more space. “Regular” citizens weren’t foolish enough to build anywhere near the border.

2. How Defined Was The Border?

An analogy for the Canada/US Border is a risk board. When you play risk, you stockpile lots and lots of your army men where other people have lots of army men. And you try to protect the important parts of your board. The further you get into places like Asia, you start to care less. This is because it’s a vast place, where you have few armies. Every turn, you take some of the enemies’ territories, and every turn they take some of yours, in this uncontrolled territory.

In the case of the Canadian/US border, it got weaker the farther west it went. Liam states in his post that the further west people went, the less defined the border was. Of course, the main cities and trading areas were in the far eastern areas of Canada and United States, as they were easy access to Europe.

In short: The East had a very defined border with lots of troops, and the border in the West was continually changing, with little force on either side to control or conquer territory.

3. How Did The Border Get Defined

The border was continually changing at different points. Each time a war was fought, the Americans and Canadians would create a treaty, such as the Webster-Ashburton Treaty or the Jay Treaty, which would decide the border in a certain area, or at least work towards a solid agreement. Sometimes, a treaty would largely affect the interactions between these two countries (though Canada wasn’t established as an independent country yet, it was still Canada, at least in my mind). The Paris Treaty of 1783 practically restarted all laws previously established about the border, and any work to create a solid border was no longer in place. The reasons that these treaties had a large affect on all of this was because each treaty took place after a large war, in which conditions between nations was drastically changed.

In short: As time went on, borders became more and more “defined” and each treaty was a step towards a clear cut border.

Today? A few fun facts:

The Canada/U.S. Border is currently the largest border in the world, ranging 8,891 kilometres.

The International Boundary Commission spends approximately 1.4 million dollars a year keeping a 6 meter wide path clean to clearly separate Canada and the U.S.

There are hidden sensors all over Canada on highways near the border, to detect irregular car trips and/or stops.

Juggling. That’s it. That’s all I’ve been doing, in order to progress on my in-depth project.

About two weeks ago, I hit that point in in-depth. It happened last year, too. And I suspect it happens to everyone during in-depth. I’m talking about that time when you are busy with life, and you just push your in-depth off to the side. When you have better things to do with your life, and in-depth is just a hassle.

This doesn’t just happen with in-depth. It happens with a lot of activities. It’s the hobby wall. We tell ourselves that we don’t have time to get into a fitness routine. Or we tell ourselves that we don’t have time to go join a sport. Or read a book. It can be anything. But I found a solution to this kerfuffle. This never ending conundrum.

I found when I started juggling, I pushed other activities out of the way, to try out different juggling tricks. I couldn’t stop – it was too exciting to push off. Instead, juggling made room in my schedule. Then, just a few weeks later, I had a really exciting English project to work on – the This I Believe editing. I made room in my schedule for that project, because it was really exciting. I realized, that in order for something to become a priority, it must be enjoyable.

That is why I try learning something completely out of the ordinary every time I juggle. Even if I know I can’t complete it, or even get close, I still try, because I know it will captivate me. You see, I have been trying to juggle 4 balls for months. Every time I juggle, I try this for about 5 or 10 minutes, then get bored. I can juggle 4 balls kind-of, not perfectly, but not bad either. But I need to throw in extra little incentives, to make me want to get out the juggling balls.

One of these incentives was a shopping trip for new juggling balls. The challenge with this idea, is that juggling balls are very expensive. They cost lots of money. So I went to the dollar store. And bought every hacky-sack I could find. Every bouncy ball made its way into my hands. For 10 dollars, I acquired 16 new juggling balls.

Now, these balls aren’t good quality whatsoever. But they’re enough to grab my attention. To bring something new to my juggling world. Now, I make time for juggling. Because I am eager to try out my new balls, I am eager to try out new tricks with new balls.

That is how I beat the hobby-wall. I made juggling enjoyable. I made it so enjoyable that it’s irresistible.