Paul Georges . Alterego Construction

I was looking for enlightenment… but nothing came and no one could help. No enlightenment… however, I do have light. You can’t even imagine how much these tiny aluminum cups filled with wax mean to me Greg… from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Walking down St-Jean I found myself. I found myself in every single person walking down that one way street. I could not help but be frightened. Everyone looked like me. Everyone was dressed like me. Same haircut. Same shoes. Do they think like me? Are they pleased with the way they are living? Do I wish I could be like them: out on a Saturday night stroll to a familiar place filled with boring familiar faces. Happy-go-lucky. Not a worry in the world. Ignorance is bliss.

“In joy and pain each one will grow
For wisdom is so much more than what we know
And every child will find their way
Of living the whole life story day by day”
The Cinematic Orchestra - Time and Space

Are both necessary? How far ahead is it? Which way? Is it truly whole?

Come next week, my brother and his girlfriend (who I now consider to be part of my close family) will no longer be living in Québec City. It’s a strange feeling to lose those that you love without really losing them. Their departure makes me want to leave as well. To discover something new. In my honest opinion, we, as humans, were not meant to be sedentary. If we were, then I must be terrible failure to society. Everyone seems to be moving, whether it be to discover or to return to that which is known and safe, tried and true.

You never know what you have until it’s gone. I can’t help but think retrospectively sometimes and wonder how life would have been if I would have been more present in the lives of those that I love. If I would have worked harder at school. If I would never have come back from Sweden.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve not really accomplished anything truly gratifying since I’ve come to Québec. I have not really accomplished anything special in quite a long time. I walked at eight months, I must have talked but a month or so later. I have an amazing family and the world’s best friends. I’ve gotten everything I could have ever possibly wanted handed to me on a fucking silver platter. All this, yet, I have not accomplished anything. Everything on my side, yet I still feel like a useless nobody with nothing to share, nothing to give and nothing to be proud of. I can’t believe how totally pathetic I sound… what a fucking disgrace.

Don’t leave me alone. It’s the cause of all this.

Just a short post to link up a review that was posted on 33Mag by a young lady I met at the show called Eva: she was shooting photographs at the show. Given that I had not brought my camera (stupid choice) I couldn’t help but ask her if she could somehow let me in on her little treasure. Not only did she take amazing photographs at the show, she wrote a wonderful review of the gig in perfect prose. Gênez vous surtout pas!

Thanks again Eva for the wonderful comment and for the review and accompanying photographs!

An Autumn breeze on a late night. A supper with friends. A heart-wrenching candle-lit performance. A swift passage of distant memories. I may be cursed to eternal dissatisfaction but at least I’m not one that is hard to please.

Great Lake Swimmers remind me of too many things: so many memories, some wonderful, others terrible and those that are wonderful but make me feel terrible (and vice-versa, if that’s even possible). One year ago, at this very time, I was waking up to breakfast in Sweden with roommates that couldn’t get over my obsession with peanut and jam. One year ago, at this very time, I was getting ready to leave for school on my bike, through the walkways of Ryd, through the Swedish morning dusk. One year ago, at this very time, I felt like nothing could possibly stop me or get in my way on my quest to uncover the meaning of life and the source of happiness. If only it was that simple…

I couldn’t help but cry through “A Song For The Angels”… and for some reason, I had to tell the singer how much the live interpretation of the song meant to me. It’s just one of those things that I had to do in order to feel and to be felt. One of those things that I obsess about. Why do I constantly feel this urge to be noticed, to be understood?

I wish Mathieu was around for the show. I wish I had more friends that listened to Great Lake Swimmers and music of the likes. I sometimes wish I was an indie scenster with indie friends that wear indie clothes and have an indie lifestyle… maybe then my life would make more sense. On the other hand, maybe it would be a total chaotic meaningless mess.

It’s getting cold in Québec. Fall’s definately here. I’m still trying to comprehend my whole love/hate relationship that I share with it. Walking on St-Jean with a cool breeze blowing through your hair is so wonderful and calming, yet terribly depressing.

Muted music played on the streets of a neighborhood which I now call home. A cold/warm/orange/grey sky. A sense of calm. A chill of fear. A harsh glimpse of what is to come. La virée des feuilles. The trendy artists, faggots and bums that crowd the sidewalks of the route I walk everyday. Autumn.

I remember writing an email to François, begging him to take pictures of the fallen leaves on Lockwell street just around this time of year, maybe just a bit later. I was homesick. I would have done anything to set foot on that street for just an hour or so… to sit in Parc Lockwell and just observe the busy passerbys. This year the tables have turned: how I wish I could lay down in the tall yellow grass off the bike trails of Ryd near the soccer field and listen to Sarah Harmer as the clouds above drove past me at unmeasurable speeds. Life is a funny thing… it seems that the grass is unfortunately always greener on the other side. So what’s the solution? How do we find happiness within our routine? How do we feel free and well without attempting to grasp what could be, what we don’t presently have and most importantly without hurting those we love.

It’s two in the morning. I can hear people screaming outside, making themselves heard. They are the smart ones.

An Autumn breeze on a late night.

Well folks, this blog is officially back in business! I’ve taken care of most of the problems mentioned in the previous post using good ol’ brute force. I unfortunately had to delete all your comments and disactivate all interesting plugins in order to clean things up but I didn’t have many choices available. Hopefully I’ll get Last.fm and Flickr reconnected on here soon enough!

Many blog posts to come… I have a feeling that I’ll be needing to get things out of my system this coming Autumn… à bientôt!

Another month, another post! So much for a promise solemnly kept…

I’ll get back into it, I swear (here we go again)! Presently, my blog is plagued with strange comments which contain links that undoubtedly lead to malicious viruses and spyware. In a week or so, this blog should be smelling all fresh and clean. Wordpress will be updated, the comments will be gone, my photo albums will be working again, my links refreshed and my last music played should be displayed properly.

The reason to why I don’t post as much as before is simple: my life has been quite boring and ordinary of late.  Not to mention that I have very little time on my hands. Lots of scheduling, lots of work, lots of studying, very little sleep. In other words, I’ve developped a routine…

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Seriously, my experience in Sweden clarified most of the questions that I had been asking myself for so long. Not only did I find myself abroad but I also discovered how I wanted to live the days to come after my return.

• One simple principle to reign them all: never a second wasted. Life is wonderful yet short… so live it out!
• The real world: the working world. I neither want to do slave work, nor easy work, nor non-gratifying work, nor unimportant work. I want to be my own boss. I want to work in order to make a change. I want to make lots of money. I don’t want to live for my week-ends. I don’t want to talk about the weather in the elevator every morning with the lady that works on the floor below me. I don’t want to work in order to pay for my car which I use to get to work in the first place.
• Relationships: don’t waste time on people you don’t enjoy. Keep your loved ones close, the new and interesting in sight and the unimportant at bay.
• Love: life is nothing without love. Find love at all costs.
• Something new everyday: routine is to be avoided.
• Sex, drugs and rock and roll.

See that list? That’s what I wanted life to be.  Guess what? My current life is perfectly described by the near opposite of what is noted! Well… not completely. I found love, which is absolutely wonderful! So I can scratch that one out.

Love: life is nothing without love. Find love at all costs. Mission accomplished!

As for the rest… well. I have no free time. I’m working for a wonderful company but as a lowly programmer with an ordinary salary. Just the fact of having a salary is a turn-off for me… dividends I say! I don’t get to see my friends enough. I definately don’t get to see my family enough but that can not be avoided unfortunately (800 km away). My big brother, the only family member that I can see on a weekly basis, has got some big changes coming up in his own life so I may not see him much anymore either. My days are already molded to a T before I wake in the morning. To top it all off, I don’t even have enough time for the last.

It’s time for a change. That change starts today. Well… next Monday. Maybe the Monday after… my dated goals tend to get pushed back a lot since I’ve gotten back from Sweden. Once I get my time off from work for the Summer, I’ll have more time to study, more time for me and more time to:

• bathe in the sun.
• read books.
• spend with my boo.
• shoot some photographs.
• see friends and family.
• eat out.
• plan a trip.
• catch a gig.
• river kayak.
• kitesurf.
• go mountain biking.
• learn spanish.
• learn to play guitar.
• think about higher education.
• discover Québec City.
• discover Montréal.
• enjoy Osheaga.
• enjoy the Festival d’été de Québec.
• enjoy life!

So there you have it. An incomprensive update of my slightly disfunctional story. Like I said, watch this blog closely. Should be much more active than it has been for the last four months or so.

You know that when you dig out your Bright Eyes albums, the big guns, that you’re going through a tough time. Bright Eyes is just the perfect stuff to put on when you’re feeling overwhelmed for any given reason. To make things worse, Conor’s new album Cassadaga has hit the Internet’s smuggling ring a few weeks ago and simply put, it is damn good. Different… very different, but definately good. “Good” is one of those strange universal words that we tend to overuse on a daily basis… Barry Wood said it best.

I don’t really know where to throw myself lately. I don’t have enough time for work and i don’t have enough time for school. I have even less time for the fun stuff. Not an easy task being a twenty something…

Everyone’s in my entourage is getting to travel lately. It’s been driving me a bit crazy.

This summer I will be taking part in my first ever summer study semester here at Université Laval. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will turn out. It’s a real pain in the ass that several of my lectures are being given on the south shore due to the fact that my faculty is fucking poor. What a fucking disgrace. At least I’ll get to study on les Plaines while getting a tan. Should be wonderful. Hopefully I’ll get back to running this Summer as well… after all, I have to make for last year.

I need to read more. Reading is good…

It’s officially been one year since my blog has been up. I remember having set it up to impress the firing squad at Ubisoft and to maybe help in getting me an internship there. I guess it couldn’t have done any harm because I got the internship. Feels like yesterday…

So there you have, all the personal nitty gritty that has been going on lately. Hopefully I’ll have something more interesting to talk about soon enough… once my classes are over and the Summer semester begun.

Friday night. It’s been over three months since my last post. I don’t know what has gotten into me tonight but it’s definately a good thing. Writing heals.

I don’t really know why I havn’t posted in such a long time. I imagine that no one is really interested in my ordinary life back here in Québec. On the other hand, I think my life is interesting as hell but I’m not yet convinced that the rest of the world agrees. Do keep in mind that it doesn’t take much for me be amazed by something ordinary… I hope that never changes.

So my life has been a game of snakes and ladders lately. Seems to me something extraordinary, yet unexpected, occurs every day and throws me in a different direction. Some would tend to think that there is no worse way to live but I’ve been enjoying every thrilling second since my return.

Québec rocks. It really does. It took me 5 months away from home to realize it. We are (generally speaking) liberal thinkers with open minds who have something to say. Obviously there are idiots, assholes, fuckers and whatnot no matter where you find yourself in this world of ours, but Québecers are pretty damn cool.

I’m working now. Who would have guessed, given the wonderful situation I was in this semester. I’ve never felt so not at school while being at school; 4 courses, 2 taken on the Internet, the two others not very important to my degree. You can’t even believe how easy-going I was at the beginning of this semester. I really didn’t feel like I was attending school! So… oh yes! Work! Frima Studio is a multimedia/video game startup from Québec City which belongs to my video game prof Steve Couture and a few of his friends. The company is simply amazing! Everyone at work is just so dynamic, open-minded and creative. I work three days a week, the two remaining I spend at school. It’s not always easy to deal with the scheduling and the stress involved but I’m having a blast.

I know that I just mentionned a few paragraphs ago that I absolutely love Québec, and trust me, I do, but I want to leave again soon. I’m going to have a month or so off after my summer semester which I could possibly use to travel and visit the world. I thought that teaching English in China after my degree was going to be my soonest possible departure but I was mistaken! The UK, around the Mediterranean, western Canada, western USA, Austrailia, back to Scandinavia? Who knows… I just want to discover some more of the global village, soon! The only difference is that I have some something holding me back this time around, someone keeping me grounded… I couldn’t possibly ask for anything better!

I want to keep writing. It purges me of my daily fears and haunting demons. It’s different now, given the fact that I’m back home and all but it’s still as interesting for me as it was back in Sweden. Hopefully I’ll have just as much to say as when I was 6000 km away from home.

À bientôt!

Sam the excellent photoblogger from Daily Dose Of Imagery posted a photograph lately that really made me smile. Why? Because it looks so similar to one I took while in London. Check out the comparison.

Sam’s shot (NOTE: the picture has been resized to fit blog) :

My shot:

You can tell that there are some huge differences. The tones in Sam’s photograph are absolutely magnificent and the picture is also much sharper. Sam answered me and mentionned that the tones were fixed with Photoshop’s mixer channel.

So I guess this is a good thing! Sam has gotten tonnes of comments on his blog for this shot… I guess I’m heading in the right direction. Funny that I only got one comment for mine! The title explains everything: it’s all about exposure baby!

Cooped up instead my little corridor room I try get some studying done while listening to the music that I will forever associate with this place. I’m great at procrastinating…

These last few days have been hectic beyond belief. Pre-parties, parties, suppers and after-parties have been the hot topics discussed by the many cliques of Erasmus students here in Linköping. However with exams just a few days away I can’t help but feel stressed. I woke up this morning with butterflies in my stomach and they were definately not the same kind that I’ve rudely woken up with on mornings greeted by a dry mouth and the feeling of having my head lodged half way up my ass.

My opinion about leaving this place changes everyday… sometimes even several times per day. I’m feeling totally bipolar when faced with the question of returning home, of leaving Sweden and especially of leaving Europe. Sometimes I like Sweden, sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I can’t wait to get home but then I realize that I’m leaving Europe and that I won’t be coming back for quite some time due to the fact of my next year and a half of studying is completely booked in order to finish school as soon as possible. The only fear that I’ve had since I’ve arrived that still remains is my reintegration at Université Laval. I just don’t want to go back there: it’s old-fashioned in a bad way, the students there are cold as ice, the campus is huge and dispersed due to endless parking space and the department that I’m studying at is slowly dying away, leaving behind but the douchebag computer science teachers which I’ve grown to loathe and hate. On top of all that, my peer students are social misfits who can’t help but get a hardon when the word “Unix” is muttered in the bowels of their wax soiled ears.

Now don’t get me wrong! The fact that I openly took a verbal dump on the achedemic institution where I will return to in January does not at all mean that I don’t enjoy Québec City. Quite contrariliy, I’m absolutely in love with Québec and I can’t wait to rediscover it upon my arrival in January after the holidays spent back home in Chandler.

I never thought I would say this but I can’t wait to feast my eyes on the tacky Gaspésien Christmas decorations that I, for some incomprehensive reason, presently long for. However, I’m not in lack of Christmas spirit here in Linköping. Swedish Christmas traditions are so abundant and overwhelming that all people really think about at this time of year is decorating their windows with electric candles that give off a soft white glow and eating traditional Swedish desserts. On top of decorations and food, Swedes love to celebrate Christmas by dressing up. Yup, Saint Lucia and her friends can be spotted all over the place here, from Christmas markets in old town all the way to twilight marches through the bike paths of Ryd. Last but not the least, Swedes love to binge consume for Christmas… just as much as we do back in North America! Now that is something that I definately did not expect when coming here.

Various tidbits of information that I may not have mentionned:

• Friends threw me a surprise birthday party! I had written all about it but I lost my post (which happened to be very long) because I rebooted my computer without saving it…
• It’s surprisingly warm in Sweden at this time of year: from 0-10 degrees most of the time.
• I should have gone to PlatÃ¥ way more often during the last 4 months…
• I passed Swedish! Mycket bra!
• I’m going to Göteborg with Nadia from the 16th to the 18th. That should be a blast.
• I’m leaving for Stockholm on the 22nd at noon. My plane takes of at 15h00 on the 23rd.
• Jonathan (you’re the best mate) is going to be waiting for me at Trudeau 2 hours after my departure. I regain the 6 hours I lost coming here…
• My room is a mess and my bathroom smells like poo (OBS only when the water runs into the sink… strange).
• I’m going to miss meatballs.
• I’m not going to miss Swedish beer.
• My bank account is almost dry, first time this has ever happened to me in a very long time (preuves à l’appui)!
• Happy Birthday to Nadia and Loïc, vous allez vraiment me manquer beaucoup…
• Swedish people should be held on leashes when they drink and they should loosten up a bit and get laid more often (real sex, not hugging).
• I’m proud to be Canadian et je suis surtout fier d’être Québécois!

Less than a month remaining. But a month left. A month. Just one. I’m having a hard time visualizing this glass, the transparent container that we call life, as half full at the moment. I’ve honestly never been so confused in my entire life as I have been during these last few weeks. I’ve learned so much since August… about people, about the world, about culture, about history, about myself, about life. I keep learning every day that passes here in Sverige… with every new person I meet, with every new place I visit, with every discussion I take part in. Being abroad is a constant learning experience and I simply am not ready to let all this knowledge slip through my hands like the cold sand that awaits me at home. I try being optimistic by attempting to convince myself that 28 days is enough to gracefully end this experience in Sweden as an exchange student… to do everything that I have left to do before I am content with myself. Fact of the matter is, there is never enough time available to travel the entire globe, to meet everyone that is worth meeting, to live out our life as it was meant to be lived.

“Si jamais on te demande
Où je suis passé
C’est facile, invente
Dis tout sans rien dire
Ou mens sans mentir

Ne dis surtout pas
Combien j’ai peur
De ces voix dans ma tête
Qui me racontent
Des histoires bizarres
Et très étranges
Je finis par les croire
Et elles me hantent
Du matin au soir
Dis tout sans rien dire
Ou mens sans mentir

Je fais un rêve
Chaque nuit le même
Et dans ce rêve
Tout est plus réel et plus terrestre
Où je me vois tout en contrôle
Aimer la vie, m’aimer aussi

Si jamais
Tu fais un voeu
Sous une étoile filante
Ferme les paupières
Pense à moi ton frère
Vois comme je suis pauvre
Face à toi, l’âme saine et sauve
Si je suis fou comme je le pense
Reste là à mes cotés
En silence, sans rien dire”

- Daniel Bélanger, “Dit tout sans rien dire”

Sitting in the bath, I pondered on all the things I’ve accomplished here in Linköping. Yes, I’ve done a lot and I’m proud of the way I’ve spent the little time that has been allocated to me but I can’t help but feel that I could have done more (to a certain extent). I sometimes tell myself that I could have visited a few more countries, I could have been out several more times, I could have gotten to know more people (there are 700 of us afterall). However, ultimately I’ve accomplished the goal that I had set for myself from day I stepped on to that very British Airways airplane at Trudeau Airport: I’ve grown wiser and I’ve learned so much more about myself and how I want to spend my life.

The hardest part of travelling is choosing what we want to see, what we want to experience. Yes, Marshall McLuhan said it best: the world is a global village. This so called global village is, unfortunately, much larger than one could expect it to be… it would take several lifetimes to blindly wander its roads like I do the mapped streets of my hometown by the coast. Will I ever be content with what I gain abroad… will it ever be enough?

I should simply appreciate the fact that I’ve had the chance to travel during my studies and be grateful for everything that has been handed to me on a silver platter. I spent the night just thinking and balling my eyes out, searching for answers to my neverending flux of stupid questions. Hopefully I have some great friends to lend an ear and to simply let me know that everything is going to turn out fine if I profit from the time I have left. Let the coming month be one of monumental value: grandiose and memorable.

I leave you with a letter from the past, written on a long bus ride home.

“To my loving family, best friends, favourite couple and wonderful surprise,

I’m watching the bridges fly by my passenger seat window. My departure is real, it has officially begun. I can feel it in my gut. This is what I leave behind.

You can’t even imagine the intense melange of emotions being brewed in my psyche at this moment. I’m scared shitless, however I’m overcome with excitement. I’m leaving my life as I know it behind, yet I am convinced that I will be able to pursue a happier one once I have experienced what is ahead. I’ve always acknowledged that my life was a constant paradox but, ironically, the contradictions have never been this clear.

5 months of excursion in uncharted waters is what awaits me in Sweden; home of the legendary meatball. What I’ve realized about travel without even having to go anywhere is that, no matter how much one reads, researches and digs for the truth, one can never truly anticipate what the road to be travelled has in store. Yes, you can plan an itinerary. You can even pack your bags months ahead of time to ensure that the slightest detail is not overlooked. What you can not foretell however is how you will adapt to change, to a new environment and especially to new people. If the things that I experience overseas are anywhere close to the moments I’ve spent with you all, my voyage will have had a purpose, will have been fruitful. You are what I leave behind.

I promise to make you all proud. À très bientôt mes chers amis et êtres aimés, je vous souhaite tous un excellent voyage.”

-Paul Georges, August 5th 2006