I want a tattoo.
Unfortunately, I am not the girly-girl type that can just go out and demand something with no significance, just "pretty". How does one justify to themselves the permanent branding upon oneself of something that means nothing? I could be getting a Celtic knot, or a Japanese character, or a flower, but they wouldn't mean anything, and I certainly cannot imagine myself being pleased with it in the future.
And thus my inner dialogue begins. I have two tattoos in mind; one a concrete design based on a multi-year obsession, and one a fluid, intangible want to represent who I am at this time. I of course have the understanding that I will not remain of the same mind throughout my life, but rather would like to capture who I am now to remind myself as to who I have been. That is the whole point of getting this tattoo.
Getting inked was inspired by my ever-constant recognition of the human mind and its changing definition of the world around it. As we age, things like dementia and Alzheimers can take hold, leaving a person altered. A tattoo, in the future, would provide me with something to hold on to, a sort of recognition of the person I once was.
A problem I foresee in the pinning down of my person into one image is my ever-changing maturity level. I've been thinking on this for two years, but with no image in mind save the want to utilize something Northern. Ovayok, a mountain in this area, is the most iconic image we have. Yet it is a flat glacial scraping, barely picturesque enough to be transformed into a piece of permanent artwork.
Another thing I had considered was taking a piece of Japanese art. I have a passion for East Asian culture, and have shown that interest quite a bit. However, Hokusai, a popular artist and a favourite of mine, has only one usable piece, and it is a popular mainstay of lovers of Japanese art. Call me hipster, but I'd prefer to at least try to be different.
Lyrics, favourite book quotes, and many other trivial things have crossed my mind. I could get "DON'T PANIC" somewhere, but that would greatly upset my brother; he is much more attached to the Douglas Adams culture than I am. I considered something by Jane Austen, but in seeking out a suitable quote I realized just how anti-feminist she can across. I could get lyrics tattooed on me from a variety of favoured bands, but my tastes in music are constantly changing and I would prefer to not act like a billboard for a band.
My sister is lucky. At 15, she has already decided what her one important piece of ink will be: the cross my mother got tattooed on herself. A little unfair, as it acts as a tribute to my mother in a way that I will not be able to copy.
My brother and I spent some time talking about what we would like to get done, but in the end he has a more concrete idea than I do.
The last idea I have, the concrete and perhaps the most cliched, is to get the Galactic Empire sign tattooed on the back of my neck. I am a Star Wars nerd, and the concept appeals to me. Perhaps this little thing, a love I have held since I was 12, is good enough to at least start with.
Hopefully I'll have this figured out by the end of the summer: my mother will be coming to settle my brother in for University, and she is planning on getting the Lord's Prayed in Spanish, or at least a line of it. I'd like to have company when I pick my tattoo.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Starting over or just being wishful?
This is the seventh blog I have ever started. Each one has had a minimum life span of a little over three months or more, trending towards shorter posts and longer periods between internet-broadcasted thoughts.
I'd like to believe that this is my way of starting over, admitting to myself that things in my life need to change. But acceptance of this daily fact is proving to be harder than I would like.
For instance, my boyfriend of nearly three years has decided that now is the time to put his foot down and banish from his life all things lactose. While it poses no problem in the summertime, with my father doing all of the cooking and my boyfriend fully capable of vanishing off to one or another family members house to seek safer fare, it does mean that come fall semester I will have to trash my entire weekly meal routine in favour of foods that cater to his sensitive disposition. It makes me grumpy, and not just because I dearly love cheese.
Another ongoing saga in my life is my propensity for chocolate. It is neverending, and with a lesser distance to travel on foot each day than I had back at University, I am starting to see the results of my poor snack of choice. This means changing my eating habits now, as opposed to simply waiting until I return to school. My sister is also feeling the pinch of bad eating habits: the upside? We've decided to try exercising together three times a week, something I haven't been able to commit to in ages because of my inability to be my only driving force.
The final change that is looming on the horizon is my third year of University. While this change is regimented, it feels very different from the first two years for one reason: there is no going back on my major now without severe financial reprocussions. How, exactly, does one go about telling their parents that despite having pleasantly slogged through two years of psychology, their interests are no more cemented than they were that fateful day in grade 12 when the applications were sent off? In the past two years the professors in my chosen major have been less than interesting (with only two exceptions out of eight, they presented a dry and unsavory view on my "chosen" field), while every elective I took presented a new and widely different take on the world that I have been aching to experience.
Over the last two years, my interests have guided me towards wanting to work with youth; more specifically, the youth in my hometown who are troubled and in need of guidance. Coming from a small Inuit community in Nunavut, I have seen the effects of a young man's suicide to the neverending dramas left behind by the residential school system, and the scars (both psychological and physical) these problems have inflicted on an otherwise strong population of people.
Unfortunately, if psychology is the way to helping them, I am not seeing it. At least, not for another six years (if I'm lucky). Working with Nunavut's mental health providers would require me to have a PhD, and I'm not even interested in perscribing pills. Another way would be through an Educational Psychology degree, which would equip me with the skills to become a school counsellor.
Except, the only school counsellors I ever saw in my worst years was a career counsellor, and she hadn't a clue how to handle the tears of a recently scorned girl. Here, a career counsellor should be secondary to one that is capable to handle emotions, but I haven't seen anyone even begin the work of hiring one. Perhaps it's because anyone they would find would be white, and nobody trusts a kablunat. Generations of doing what they thought was "the right thing to do", those people who came before me, has left many people unable to take me seriously as anything but yet another white person looking to do my two years, earn the big bucks, and get outta here. Going away for the winter months doesn't help me there, either, becoming educated or not.
Unfortunately, my race is not something on the agenda to experience change. The only thing I can do in this situation is continue to be open to the people I speak to, and try not to come across as anything less than respectful.
How I'm going to cope with the other issues in my life seems to be less trivial in comparison. In time, I will figure out how to cook for my boyfriend again, I will either conquer or succumb once more to my chocolate addiction, and I will learn what it is exactly I want to do with my life. But learning how to become an accepted member of my home community is something more complex. Tukisivunga? Do I understand? Will I ever?
Not likely, but I hope to have an adventure in trying.
I'd like to believe that this is my way of starting over, admitting to myself that things in my life need to change. But acceptance of this daily fact is proving to be harder than I would like.
For instance, my boyfriend of nearly three years has decided that now is the time to put his foot down and banish from his life all things lactose. While it poses no problem in the summertime, with my father doing all of the cooking and my boyfriend fully capable of vanishing off to one or another family members house to seek safer fare, it does mean that come fall semester I will have to trash my entire weekly meal routine in favour of foods that cater to his sensitive disposition. It makes me grumpy, and not just because I dearly love cheese.
Another ongoing saga in my life is my propensity for chocolate. It is neverending, and with a lesser distance to travel on foot each day than I had back at University, I am starting to see the results of my poor snack of choice. This means changing my eating habits now, as opposed to simply waiting until I return to school. My sister is also feeling the pinch of bad eating habits: the upside? We've decided to try exercising together three times a week, something I haven't been able to commit to in ages because of my inability to be my only driving force.
The final change that is looming on the horizon is my third year of University. While this change is regimented, it feels very different from the first two years for one reason: there is no going back on my major now without severe financial reprocussions. How, exactly, does one go about telling their parents that despite having pleasantly slogged through two years of psychology, their interests are no more cemented than they were that fateful day in grade 12 when the applications were sent off? In the past two years the professors in my chosen major have been less than interesting (with only two exceptions out of eight, they presented a dry and unsavory view on my "chosen" field), while every elective I took presented a new and widely different take on the world that I have been aching to experience.
Over the last two years, my interests have guided me towards wanting to work with youth; more specifically, the youth in my hometown who are troubled and in need of guidance. Coming from a small Inuit community in Nunavut, I have seen the effects of a young man's suicide to the neverending dramas left behind by the residential school system, and the scars (both psychological and physical) these problems have inflicted on an otherwise strong population of people.
Unfortunately, if psychology is the way to helping them, I am not seeing it. At least, not for another six years (if I'm lucky). Working with Nunavut's mental health providers would require me to have a PhD, and I'm not even interested in perscribing pills. Another way would be through an Educational Psychology degree, which would equip me with the skills to become a school counsellor.
Except, the only school counsellors I ever saw in my worst years was a career counsellor, and she hadn't a clue how to handle the tears of a recently scorned girl. Here, a career counsellor should be secondary to one that is capable to handle emotions, but I haven't seen anyone even begin the work of hiring one. Perhaps it's because anyone they would find would be white, and nobody trusts a kablunat. Generations of doing what they thought was "the right thing to do", those people who came before me, has left many people unable to take me seriously as anything but yet another white person looking to do my two years, earn the big bucks, and get outta here. Going away for the winter months doesn't help me there, either, becoming educated or not.
Unfortunately, my race is not something on the agenda to experience change. The only thing I can do in this situation is continue to be open to the people I speak to, and try not to come across as anything less than respectful.
How I'm going to cope with the other issues in my life seems to be less trivial in comparison. In time, I will figure out how to cook for my boyfriend again, I will either conquer or succumb once more to my chocolate addiction, and I will learn what it is exactly I want to do with my life. But learning how to become an accepted member of my home community is something more complex. Tukisivunga? Do I understand? Will I ever?
Not likely, but I hope to have an adventure in trying.
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