a perfect sunday

i just had a perfect day:

i woke up early to play tennis with my roommate jesse. i won 2-0 (6-3; 6-2), but we had good time too. after tennis sidney made delicious pancakes with blueberries, strawberries and homemade whipped cream. in the afternoon i did some necessary readings and completed an assignment. after that i went grocery shopping and bought ingredients for today's dinner and tomorrow's lunch. then i was asked to mow our lawn (not law our mown!), which had been a jungle as compared to all the other frontyards in the neighbourhood. 2 hours in the drizzle, grass and dirt - i actually really enjoyed. in the future, i definetely want to have a garden. in the evening i cooked delicious rissotto... mmmm...

now i am listening to a polish radio (7am there) and i am attempting to study kinesiology. at the same table jesse and sidney are making pierogi.

despite all the drizzle, i still wish everyday was like today.

dialogue (4): roller-coaster

i am experiencing a wide range of emotions all at the same time while walking through the process of dialogue. i am happy, inspired, frustrated, angry, interested, tired, hopeless, optimistic, realistic, pessimistic, contemplative, pensive, thoughtful, creative, open-minded, narrow-minded, expressive etc. etc... this course truly is a roller-coaster - up and down, and to the sides. and in directions and dimensions i never thought existed.

university education offers only one possible lens we can look at the world's problems. i feel like i am being taken out of a carefully crafted box called "academia" and i am actually asked to look at the world as it is and as it should be. but it's so difficult to be aware of, let alone control our biases which shape our perception. one of the biggest ironies here is that academia has become so narrow-minded in its vision of the world and detached from the real world that all too often it solves problems that don't really exist or that are not so important all together.

through experiencing feedback on the pitch of my group's presentation, i discovered that people tend to problem-solve before problem-frame... shouldn't the order really be reversed? i mean, did i really understand the scope of the issue? do i know what and why am i undertaking? many "experts" deal with serious stuff, like the recent oil spill in the carribean, are not able to explain in simple language what are they actually doing and why. they don't really know the problem they're dealing with. in this example, the problem wouldn't be the spill - that's only the tip of the iceberg. the actual problem is dependency of our everyday lives on oil. and that may not even be deep enough, but you know what i am getting at here - the solution is not to fix the leaking pipe. wrong definition (or lack definition of the problem) leads to badly targeted and/or futile problem solving.

but when it comes to people (let's call them "experts") who do these jobs, they'd become all defensive of their ideas and what they're doing! and i felt that too when receiving totally valid feedback from the group and instructors during the pitch of our group presentation projects. that day i felt really frustrated, so i went to talk to one of the instructors. he said that this course is meant to destroy us in a way. in a good way. that's what we're paying for. but then, he assured, we will get rebuilt again with a fresh outlook on everything: the world, the people and possibilities to make the two work in symbiosis.

what a random stream of thoughts!! ^^

details

this is a picture of pavement on a corner of hastings and kamloops streets. it states "i am not only a sausage maker. i am a chef." and is signed "andrzej". not "andrew", "andrzej". i started to realize that these patches are all over hastings sunrise neighbourhood with quotes or saying from local businesses. andrzej is quoted here, because on the same block there is a polonia sausage house.

i have walked on this pavement thousands of times before i noticed this patch and other patches. i wonder, why are we (including myself) so often preoccupied with the broader picture and fail to notice the details in our lives?

here's a story from paulo coehlo's "alchemist" that comes to my mind when thinking about this. a wise man tells a boy to go enjoy looking around the palace and the garden. but he needs to carr around a spoon full of oil without spilling it. at first he is unable to enjoy the sights because he is too worried about the oil. in the second attempt he enjoys his walk, but comes back to the wise man with an empty spoon. then the wise man says, “the secret to happiness is to see all marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil in the spoon.”

how about: the secret of live is to notice both what is on and in the pavements? :-P

stawamus chief

on monday we had a holiday - victoria day. do you know a better thing to do on a holiday than going out of the town? yes you do! it's going out of town to climb stawamus chief!!

here's what wikipedia's got to say about the chief:

the stawamus chief (often referred to as simply the chief) is a granite dome located adjacent to the town of squamish, bc. it towers over 700 m (2,297 ft) above the waters of nearby howe sound. it is often claimed to be the "second largest granite monolith in the world. " the skwxwu7mesh, indigenous people from this area, consider the chief to be a place of spiritual significance. the mountain gets its name from their village near its foot, st'a7mes (stawamus).

it was a wonderful hike, but since i don't really have much time to fully describe it right now, i am just going to share some pictures. they're always worth a 1000 words more anyways. just don't get too scared of the cliffs (as i did).

tennis nostalgia

many of you may not know this, but when i was a kid i used to play tennis quite competetively. i went to some national tournaments and i was classified in a national rankings. each summer smelled of clay courts and training sweat. good times!

recently, i came back to playing again, which makes me excited. i mean, it is a wicked feeling to smell the court surface, hold a racket and get blinded by early summer sun. oh yes! i think all things we used to in childhood and we don't do anymore make us nostalgic.. i played in kraków last fall with a childhood friend of mine and now i play with my roommate and a friend of his. and you know what? it's like riding a bike.. once learnt you never forget it! it may feel wobbly at first, but once you get used to it again, you can probably ride tour de france... or play roland garros for that matter! :-)

but really i feel that with every shot i take part of my past skills come back. last weekend i won in 2 sets against mannan from china (6:4, 6:1), which made me immensly happy. not the fact that i won, but the fact that i won in style. :-) i am curious to see where this tennis adrenaline is going to take me again this semester.

diez vistas

diez vistas is a great one day trip if you have a car or belong to the hiking club. but belcarra, where the trails start, is also reachable by one of the small community shuttle supplied by translink. so no place for excuses like "but i can't get my ass there". there's always a way.

the trail was established by bc hydro and cuts pretty much in between the buntzen lake and the indian arm. the ten views are not that spectacular, but definetely scenic and enjoyable. i like looking at vancouver from far away (yes, you guessed it, i am speaking both literally and metaphorically). i must admit that when i do, it seems like a fairytale city. i know, i know, the credit doesn't and shouldn't really go to the city. this thought struck me when i was looking at it from far away, from one of the vistas. it is all the amazing nature surrounding that actually make it so attractive and liveable. the urban vancouver, stripped of its coast and mountains is left with not much more to offer than any other city. but hey, the location and the suroundings are part of the criteria used by forbes magazine, aren't they?? :-)

anyways, below, three snapshots from the hike last weekend that i haven't got a chance to publish yet. enjoy! :-)
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wordle.net

word clouds are freaking awesome!! now i know where to generate them, at wordle.net. try for yourself.

below is a word cloud i came up with when i plotted my blog in. :-)

click to enlarge.

dialogue (3): the question of the day

as a class we volunteered today for a dialogue event "walking the talk" which was put together at the wosk center for dialogue. it was on sustainable education and important, surrounding themes.

what has resonated within me throughout the event was the following: each and every one of us is intelligent in some way. but if we are smart individually, why are are we so dumb collectively?

this is not a very constructive question, though, because individual smartness may be, and i believe that it is, very significant in collective processes.

thus, let's phrase the food-for-thought question slightly differently, solution-oriented:


how can we transform our individual smartness into a collective one?

dialogue (2): workshop with vjeko sager

so monday classes are at emily carr university (yes, folks, it is on the granville island! what a fantastic place for a school..). local profs will be trying to squeeze the creativity out of us there. this monday was the first attempt. i thought it was pretty interesting to just let go and play with different ways of expression (drawing, music, sound). targeting different senses in a make over of a little red riding hood fairy tale was one of the coolest parts of the day. we have 5 (6?) awesome senses, but we are so dependent on vision! what if my thoughts get translated into sound, texture, smell or taste?

vjeko, the leader of the day and a teacher at emily carr, put us in the driver's seat (for most of the day anyways), something that most of the profs at sfu and many other universities would never even consider doing!! so this theme of us, students being both creators and receptors of knowledge is continuing which i really, really like. this is what education should be like! well, at least at this stage of earth's development when humans know almost nothing anyways. :-)

throughout the day vjeko was taking pictures and some videos. if you're interested to see them click here.

dialogue (1): roberts creek retreat

the summer semester started on wednesday, spinning my head around again, but for the last time at this university (hopefully, knock on wood).

as i have written before (see here), to finish up my undergraduate degree i am taking a very intensive intersession course - undegradaduate semester in dialogue and three distance education science breadth credit.

the semester in dialogue is a very exciting course already, only after 3 days of classes.. the course lasts till the end of june and i will be wanting to share as many impressions with blog readers (and future dialoguers) as possible.

on the first day of class we did the usual - introducing ourselves, telling in each other what brings us to the course etc. one thing that made the biggest impression of me was one of the two leading professors, saying that he was teaching this course because he "wants to destroy the university as we know it". damn, how right he is! i very much share his views: there is something wrong about the way university education is done. it's a one stream communication, usually in a form of a lecture, without an in-depth regard for the student audience. professors give us tools to question them, but many hate to be questioned! such a paradox, isn't it?

the next days we spent on a retreat on an organic farm called "rolling earth" (look here for their website). it is located on the famous sunshine coast in roberts creek, bc north of vancouver. it was a fantastic idea to organize such an integration retreat because it offered a great opportunity to bond with my classmates. it also made the introduction to the course much smoother and it was done in a very interesting setting.

"rolling earth" was founded couple of years ago by joah and brett who are still living there together with their kids, a dog taro and a bunch of volunteers. they grow their own food, farm their chickens, organize educational retreats for schools and generally live a happy and seemingly peacful live in a wonderful scenery of a pine-smelling forest and chuckling creek. seriously: idylla. i wish we had more time to spend with them and chat about their drives and motives to be there and do what they do, but unfortunately we had a pretty busy dialogue schedule too.

the major thing we did in roberts creek was creating experimental group project themes. the instructors got us involved in a very profound process, without which (after jerzy grotowski) i believe, we wouldn't come to the outcome. first, we set out for a half-an-hour long walk in the forest, attempting to answer to ourselves the question: what matters most? then we collected twigs and branches to create permaculture for joah's garden and only after dinner we talked about our ideas. my big three things that went up onto the wall were: movement of body throughout the space (whether through physical activity, roaming around or traveling), experience (yes, i would spend those 100$ on a ticket anywhere rather than on expensive jeans) and life (because this is what our culture seems to be valuing most anyways). once all 70 or so ideas were on the wall it was time to have some fun around the bonfire. :-) next morning we returned to them. the instructor numbered them up and we were supposed to choose our top 5 through a blind voting. out of those 12 themes emerged. they got renumbered again and then we were supposed to choose top 3, and finally the one that really mattered most. that's how we created the themes for the group projects and the groups themselves. i ended up being in a group which originally was under a label of "healthy body - healthy mind", but once we met up with my group we changed the name to "sustainable quality of life". because of my interests in nutrition, exercise and psychological health, i am super-excited about working on setting an experiment within this theme.

what added to my experience of the roberts creek retreat was the means of transportation i got there with. since the weather forecast was supposed to be epic, a group of us decided to bike from downtown vancouver to horseshoe bay (ferry terminal), then grab a ferry to langdale and bike further along the coast to roberts creek. in total approximately 60 kilometers of biking from my house one way. yes, yes, almost 120 km in my legs.. a decent trip for the quads! :-) on the way back i got my tire flat twice, but we fixed the problem and i was able to enjoy the sunshine from the seat of my bike rolling down the hills of west vancouver, towards home..
*pictures taken by janet moore

bowen island

i love not having classes (at least for a while), because i can say "yes" to everything without feeling guilty that i should be studying instead. this is what happened today when jesse and i played tennis. this what happened last saturday when i got an email from the hiking club, calling people for a bowen island trip.

what do you mean, "bowen island"? never heard of it?

according to wikipedia, bowen island is an island municipality in howe sound, and within metro vancouver. approximately 6 km wide by 12 km long. there is regular ferry service from horseshoe bay, as well as three water taxi services (sweet, innit?). there were 3,551 permanent residents, a number that is supplemented in the summer by roughly 1,500 visitors, as bowen island is a popular vacation home location for british columbians. about 500 workers and over 200 students commute to offices and schools on the mainland each day (crazy!). the island has a land area of 49.94 km².

now you know.

in the middle of the island there is mt. gardiner at approx. 750 meters over the sea level. the two peaks of that elevated land were the obvious destination points for us, the hikers. don't be mislead! it is a 750 meters elevation change, since we started right at the sea level..

the wheather was beautiful and the people who came along interesting to talk to. when the uphill started a group of us broke out and approached the peak a little faster than the rest, aiming to get back to the snug cove before 6 o'clock to catch a ferry. we managed to do it, but there were parts when we were literally running down the hill. partly because we really wanted to catch the earlier ferry and partly because it was so steap that working against the gravity was not an option.. :-) overall i had a fantastic time..!

later that evening i also went out to celebrate ana's birthday and warm her house. but that's another story...on the ferry to snug cove.
the peak group picture. (un)fortunately we are covering the view.
here's the stunning view from the north peak of mt. gardiner!
end of the road.. and up!
snug cove. the ferry "terminal" at the bowen island.

depleted but not defeated

i just made one of my deepest dreams come true. today, i made it pass the finish line of vancouver marathon in 3 hours 52 minutes and 28 seconds, thereby also accomplishing my goal of going below 4 hours... :-) there is no words to describe my feelings of joy and accomplishment, but still i will try to share some impressions from the race course.

i woke up early today - around 5.00 am - to make sure i will not stress through the morning preparation. i made myself banana milkshake and some strong green tea, drew a "one inch at a time" tattoo on my left forearm (to know where it comes from click here), packed up and went down to commercial drive to catch the bus number 20 (nothing else was running at that time!).

when i arrived at the expo village near the gm place the 6h+ marathoners were already on the course and the half marathoners were gearing up. the atmosphere in the event village was very exciting and somewhat elevated. i think that the runners sensed they were about to experience something unforgettable. i certainly sensed that. i was simply happy to be there, but i felt no butterflies in the stomach until the starting gunshot.

i checked my gear in, grabbed a free coffee (provided by mcdonalds.. :-/) and wandered around. despite the cold and rainy day i decided to run only in short-sleeve t-shirt and shorts, which was a good choice. it was cool, but not too cool for that.

for the start i decided to move up as close to the starting line as possible to minimize the gunshot and net time mismatch (the gunshot is the official time, the net time is the actual time...). i moved up close enough to get it down to 40 seconds which was good enough.

when the race started at 7.30 my heart was pounding really fast. i was cheering with everybody else the start of my very first marathon. still, i couldn't believe the way i have walked (run, actually)in order to be in that place, in that moment. to stand there at the starting line of the marathon with my chin up, strong and confident...

the race started strong for me, i was full of energy, determined to give away every gram of glycogen stored in my muscles to achieve the best time possible. for the first 5K i was in between two "pace bunnies" (runners employed by the running room, who were supposed to run a certain pace to give people a reference point), one aiming to finish at 3:40, another one at 3:45. then the bunnies started walking, but i kept going steadily and overtook the 3:40 bunny. at 10k i was at 52:26, which was giving me a projected finish time of 3:36 had i kept up that pace. i felt good, i chatted to some other runners briefly, still amazed at what i was doing (i was running a marathon!!)

at around 12th kilometer, when we were exiting chinatown and running onto the expo boulvard, my energy was boosted again, cause my roommates where standing at the corner of pender and beatty, cheering for me. i was still ahead of 3:40 bunny and i wanted to keep it this way.

when we were running through gastown, the rain was literally washing us away, but an enthusiastically cheering crowd made me keep up the pace. 14th km was around there, which is roughly 1/3 of the way. i still felt strong, but already felt little soreness in my hamstrings. needless to say, i kept going though.

right before we enetered the stanley park, a huge group of runners led by the 3:40 bunny catched up with me. i stuck with them for a little while marking a half-way point with 1 hour and 51 minutes. they were too fast for me on the uphill after the turnover in the park and this is when i gave up the 3:40 pace and never really got back to it again. running in between the 3:40 and 3:45 bunny was in my mind now - it was much more pleasant and less crowdy.

at around 26th km i had a first mental breakdown, thinking it starts hurting, i don't think i will make it below 4. then i came up with two mantras i kept repeating in my head; one was written on my arm - one inch at a time, a quote from "any given sunday". another one was what i used during the karate tournaments - "you're strong, you're light, you're having fun". and i kept going.

i mean, i know from reading studies on positive self-talk, that talking to oneself during an event has showed very beneficial. but i never really experienced it on my own but to that extent. positive words said to myself worked, even if i knew they were not true (i.e., i was getting weaker, my legs were getting heavier and passed 28 km mark it certainly wasn't as much fun any more). same with other people screaming at me and other runners: "looking good!!", when in fact i was sure it was not true. depleted of much eneregy, i was struggling for life. i couldn't look any good! but it helped. it helped a lot - me talking to myself, and people screaming at me.

on the burrard bridge i passed a runner whose t-shirt said; "my name is benoit. today is my 60th birthday. this is my 49th marathon". i said: "happy birthday benoit. and respect!" and went on.

passing the 31st km mark was the toughest, cause i had never covered more distance in one go before. it's like crossing into the unknown. i think i was starting to hit a wall. the 3:45 bunny group caught up. i tried to keep up with them for a while, but i just couldn't. i let them go and from that point, instead of following any bunny, i was running away from the 4:00 bunny. that also kept me motivated. afterall, when running away more energy is mobilized, no?

"you're strong, you're fast, you're having fun" - i kept lying to myself. at each water station i would chunk a gatorade, some water and throw water all over my head, to imitate a feeling of freshness. passed 33rd km it was just really painful, but inch after inch, step after step i went on, regardless of the pain. i was amazed at my capacity to endure. i ate some gumibears handed out by the volunteers, high-fived a huge blue bmo bear-like mascot and had a little bit more of energy for another kilometer or so.

at 35th kilometer i knew i was going to make it, only to change my mind at 36th. i think this is when i had the most serious doubts. my body was strained.. but then, amid all the pain and stuggle, a banner held by one of the fans made me laugh inside so hard that i suddenly got some more enregy to cover the distance. it said: "in my mind you're all kenyans". :-)

i told myself (see how much internal dialogue was involved during the race!?): "make it back to the burrard bridge and you'll be fine". on the bridge there was the 40th km mark. then my legs said: "no, we don't think we can go a step further". then, completely pissed off i replied: "oh yes, you can". and i made it to thr burrard bridge, full of crowds and photographers. being under social pressure i just needed to keep going and it was only 2 kilometers and 195 meters to go and with each second less and less.

at one of the intersections, i think it was davie at pacific boulvard, the lights turned red right before i was to run through. the traffic was directed by a policeman. i shouted at him: "sorry, but i am not intending to stop!!" he smiled at me and couple of people in the crowd bursted out laughing. i was convinced i was going to make it.

with one mile to go (1.6 km), i increased the pace. when i finally saw the finish line i was so extatic.. suddenly very strong emotions came up to my chest and tears came down my cheeks. it was more and more intense.. when i crossed the finish line and heard the "beep!" of my timing chip and became fully aware that i made it, i just bursted out crying. i got my medal, some water and a piece of plastic to cover up. i tried to control my tears for the picture time (btw, taken by a polish photographer from poznań, who recognized i was polish by reading into my name), but i am not sure how well did i do. when the show was over i sat on the kerb and cried for a good couple of minutes. i have never cried so genuinly in my entire life. i was panting and the tears just kept coming. now, i don't know what kind of tears were they - tears of joy or tears of pain. i suspect it's a mix of the two. in any event, at that very intense moment, it struck me that nothing else was impossible. perhaps i was crying for that realization too?

what a day it was, what a race!! i am so proud of myself. it was the most important exam of this semester. now, i can say with full confidence that i passed it and passed it well.

thank you everybody for your support and crossed fingers. believe it or not, but i could really feel it on the course!!

vancouver marathon

tomorrow is the d-day - vancouver marathon. this is going to be a very first marathon for me. i have never covered this much distance in one go. obviously, i am nervous, but i am not shitting my pants! i am going to go out there and strain myself of every bit of energy that still sits in me. the ultimate goal is to bring the time below 4 hours, which is ambitious, but i believe attainable.

i have trained hard for past four months, following a deadly training regime. i have ran 332.6 mi (which converts into 535.2 km). given my average pace of 5 minutes 20 seconds per each kilometer, i calculated that this semester i spent approximately 47,5 hours running (that's almost two days!!).

keep your fingers crossed for each step i take. after all, life, like marathons, is gained in small steps - one at a time.