Moving through the City

How do I move through the city...?

Obliviously, yet confidently, I suppose. I'm a creature of habit, so I travel routes I know - I could do them in my sleep. Yet, at the same time, because of that, I don't pay attention to them. There's many a time where I'm like "Why did that happen?"

Likewise, though I like my little adventures that I go on on occasion, I think it would be hard for me to "drift" - I would be practically frozen in terror as to how I'll get home. When I adventure, I know exactly how to get there, how to get home... that's the only way I can manage to do go outside my comfort bubble. Meticulously planned.

Catching Up

When I was a kid, and I came home from school, my mum would always ask me what I'd learned. I would always answer "nothing", half because I didn't want to have to talk about math anymore than humanly possible, but also because I'd have trouble defining what I'd learned in some classes.

But I suppose I can't get away with saying "nothing" now.

So, if I had to say, I would say I've learned:

That the queer/drag community exists in Edmonton to an extent I never dreamed of,

That there are novels that are actually entertaining that take place in Edmonton outside of Tom Clancy's Endwar. Which I haven't actually read, but hey, Tom Clancy.

That despite Blogger's user-friendly-ness, which is certainly better for large groups of people, I'd still take Livejournal over it any day, myself,

And hopefully, that my fellow students and professor are kind and generous people who'll forgive me for being the mildest bit late with this post.




And probably some other things that I've forgotten at the moment.

Minority Edmonton

I, myself, am about as far from a minority as one can get. Caucasian, middle/upper-middle class, British/Canadian descent. And as I've said before, I like to stick to myself as best I'm able. So, I'm not really one to make a judgment on how minorities are treated in Edmonton.

I like to think they're treated okay - like, there's never been anything in my line of sight, so to speak, to prove otherwise. Obviously, I'm not naive enough to think that this city would be a haven for minorities, but... However, it's also worth noting that I don't really keep an eye on the news, so I really mean it when I say I have no idea.

That said, I do remember one occasion, at work. It was closing time - and I don't mean "five minutes to close" or anything, I mean 9:00 - where a fellow, waiting for his wife (who a co-worker was helping find a book for... something. I vaguely remember it being a really weird book to buy your adult child or something) and this fellow just vehemently rants at me for five, ten minutes about how immigrants are coming and stealing jobs from "hard-working Canadians" and whatnot. Keeping in mind it's closing time, and so I have less patience than usual for this kind of thing.

And I was just like "Wow. These people actually exist?"


But then there was that lady who almost bit my head off for not having a large enough selection of Native American kids books. So.

Mapping the City

From Swing-Along Blog

(Click on it to see it fully; I was too lazy to couldn't resize it to fit the blog width)

Behold! When viewing those Hypercity maps today, it got me pondering.

So, I took the Assassin's Creed II game map (Circa ~1491) and overlaid it on the modern Rome map.

It made me giggle with how well it matched up. Oh, Assassin's Creed. You and your historical accuracy~

Such a nerd.

Anyways! On that note, I will say that maps, to me, are really only something I ever use in video games. When it comes to real life, I'm usually pretty good so long as I have the address for where I'm going and know which way the numbers go up in. (Suffice to say, anywhere the streets aren't numbered, I'll be totally lost. I'M LOOKING AT YOU, EUROPE.)

So having maps that "explore" the city for you, or show you the city in an entirely different manner other than simply North and South, was a rather entertaining experience.

As for the maps in class, I would have to say that the Hypercity maps were my favorite. ♪ Seeing not only how the cities have changed, but how the people's view of them have changed (COLOSSEUM HERE. THAT IS ALL.) was tremendously interesting.

And as for mapping "My Edmonton"? Easily done, as I consider myself quite the rebel when I take a slightly different route to work. Other than than, I'm pretty much like clockwork with where and when I go places.

My Edmonton

Every time the question of what "My Edmonton" is comes up, I flashback to an occasion on a forum, where I was asked "How are things going in Canada anyway? What's it like there? I've always wanted to go there." And I was at a loss for what to say. I went with "It's... cold? Well, even then, not really. Winter's pretty late this year. So it's... fine, I guess. It's home. *shrugs*" For that's exactly what Edmonton is to me  - home. I have no real frame of reference, since I've never really lived anywhere else.

For the where I go in Edmonton, it's a fairly regular thing. I work usually four times a week, down at the big Chapters on 170th, so I bus from the university to the mall, and then walk from there (an unpleasant walk at best in the winter, but rather nice once the weather warms up). On Fridays, I'm done classes at noon, so I go down to City Centre to see a movie - sometimes meandering about, depending on my mood - before going grocery shopping. On pay day Fridays, however, I also go down to a pub on Jasper and meet with some girls from work, and then we go comic book shopping down on Whyte.
I've been known to visit Mill Woods Town Center and Kingsway on occasion, in a search for fabric, but I'm usually not willing to make the trip unless there's a convention coming up, I have a costume to finish, and I can't bum a ride off someone.
Once a year I also go to Grant MacEwan for the annual anime convention - and I only bring this up that I actually know my way around there better than some of the students because of it, a fact I find rather humorous.

Where do I not go... Well, anywhere I have no reason to be. Anywhere I can't get by bus/walking/LRT. I never go anywhere for the sake of being there, and I never explore "just because" (I have a friend who used to do that, drove me nuts), but if I have somewhere I need to go, I'll manage to get there somehow, no matter how long or difficult a trek it might be.
As for how I inhabit it... hm... Well, let's just say, if I could, I'd be a hermit when I grow up.  I stick to myself for the most part, and more often then not I stay home if given the option, but that's the way I like it.