1) Block break
2) I’m in a class called “Phenomenology.”
So, the title seems fitting.
Block break was amazing. Actually, there are no words to explain how spectacular it was. So Friday morning, everyone has breakfast together. The day’s looking pretty gloomy, but we’re still stoked. We head out to Live to Surf to pick up surf boards and suits, but apparently the waves were pretty big, so there was a chance that we wouldn’t have been able to surf because of liability junk. Luckily, everything turned out okay. 
So we surf the morning away in the dreariness and even some rain, which was epic. The sun tried to poke out, but to no avail. We then break for lunch, and some kids return to the ocean for an afternoon sesh, but a few girls and I decided to call it quits for the day and relax. Around this time, the clouds finally broke, and it started to get sunny. It was still pretty gustyl, but the day was just gorgeous.
Later on in the day, a few friends and I went to go visit a man named Mike. Mike is… well peculiar, but beautifully peculiar. He bought a big plot of land in Tofino and has been making this communal place ever since. Homes are made out of old RVs and school buses, but also there’s plenty of space to camp. Everything is built around and into the forest, so it’s just a breathtaking place to be. Think childhood fantasy of a forest playground + Ewok village. That is this place. People come and go as they like, but no matter who is staying there at the time, the community holds together pretty strong, trading skills and food and other things to keep the cash flow down. There’s like miles of boardwalk and all sorts of different boardwalk trails. We came across some crazy “architecture” built into trees. We even had a near-death experience when one of our friends slammed into a tree and fell 15 feet while on a rope swing. (She popped right back up, totally unharmed…but we were all scared to death). The idea of the community was really inspiring. Having a place to live that’s off the grid is really cool. But the fact that everyone operates as a unit was a reminder that it is possible. A lot of problems in the world can be (coarsely) reduced to apathy and not having a strong sense of community or duty in the community. Which is why seeing this big family work the way it did was really inspiring.
Our friend led us to this look-out area, with the most breath-taking view I have ever seen. Pictures won’t do it justice, and neither will words, but if you can imagine… a sea of dark green trees that seem to go on forever, bright blue sky at the top, then yellow, then orange, then pink as you look further down, then ocean. And even though the sun hasn’t quite set, the moon is out, a nice crescent, and it is bright and brilliant. Okay, no, the words really don’t do it justice, but there was some serious beauty going on there. More awesome, hilarious, crazy, etc. events transpired as the night progressed, all adding to what was the GREATEST day of my life.
The rest of the Tofino trip was solid. It was sunny for the rest of our time there. And Saturday was 350 day, so we brought out a banner that some of my friends made, and showed our support for fighting against climate change! We got back Saturday night, chilled on Sunday. My bestie Magdalena returned from her experiential learning block in Columbia, so it was also amazing seeing her again, and hearing all about what she learned about Columbia… about Columbian society, how capitalism affects the people so differently than how it affects us in North America, etc.
Then I walk into Phenomenology class on Monday, and the first thing that Brian- our tutor- says is “This will be the hardest book you will ever read, probably.” I’m stoked. Actually though, I’m really excited to have my butt kicked by this class. Phenomenology is the science of perception and consciousness and the perception of consciousness as events occur. It’s pretty crazy, but I’m very excited to have “absolute knowledge” by the end of this course. (That’s what we were promised). Last night, I had 8 pages of reading from Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. I read for two hours, and still haven’t finished. Um, allow me to give an example of what I’m losing sleep over.
“Although the activity that has finished with existence is itself only the movement of the particular Spirit, the Spirit that does not comprehend itself, [genuine] knowing, on the other hand, is directed against the representation thus formed, against this [mere] familiarity; knowing is the activity of the universal self, the concern of thinking.”
LOVE HEGEL.
Guess I’ll go finish the densest material since uranium.
Nice looking guy, hey?
