16 March, 2007

This week was a bit short with two days at workshops and conferences and an onset of sickness today. It was nice to get a break from the classroom but workshops usually ramp me up with things to try out so I usually do too much at once and get burned out. I might actually learn that lesson one day.

Over the last two days I have had the displeasure of driving a car more often than I have in the last six months. Things have changed a bit and too be honest with the speeding, swerving and general dangerous and angry driving I can’t understand why we are so surprised that people are getting seriously hurt. It’s kind of a no brainer I would’ve thought. I’d love to know why we feel the need to drive so dangerously because it’s happening on all fronts and with all kinds of people. I frustrated someone yesterday by driving 50km/h in a 50km/h zone (which is most of the city actually). I could see them getting all wound up behind me before they roared passed at what I’d estimate was 70. What was odd is that a stream of traffic then went passed at the same speed. I felt the odd one out for driving at the speed limit. I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again, we have decided it is okay to be dangerous and as such we should accept that a certain number of people (and, yes that includes kids) will be killed. “My right to speed means you give up your right to live” seems perfectly okay these days. I guess the turning point will be when we start to decide that there is now intent and it becomes murder instead of manslaughter…and yes, to all those lovely, “law abiding” white middle class folks you are a major part ofthe problem. At least I can see (and hear) the boys coming. They tend to have a loud muffler and even louder sound system blaring out Britney Spears (way cool by the way boys…not at all weak or insecure). Those angry white suburbanites fire off repressed violence in their car without warning and are much harder to dodge. Freaks.

That said, I now have a weekend to enjoy and an electric scooter and bike to use with no need to drive anywhere for a while yet. I’ve even managed to top up my metro card so will give the bus another go now that we’re on a decent route.

We have lots of peaches starting to ripen up. ’tis a marvelous thing.