Posthumous Friday Five
Here is a very late Friday Five. I wasn't going to do one this week until I saw the topic. Since I like talking about my heritage I decided to do it.
1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from?
My father side is Belgian (which explains my last name) and my mothers side is a mishmash of probably English, Irish, Scottish and who knows what else. Mostly they are just Canadian.
2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit?
I've been to Belgium but I only went to Brussels. I'd really like to take my time and travel around Belgium. Maybe do some family tree work. I don't know much about my family tree beyond my great-grandparents and even that I don't know all that well.
3. Which would you least like to visit? Why?
I want to visit all of Europe so I would have to say none of the above.
4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage?
Not really. Europeans and North Americans tend to celebrate a lot of the same holidays. We do have shish-ka-bobs at Christmas time with my dad's side of the family. I don't know why we do that. I don't think it's a Belgian thing. Who knows.
5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents, grandparents, etc)?
On my dad's side it was my dad. He came over in 1951 with my grandparents when he was 1. That means I am truly one half Belgian. As for my mom's side. I don't know. I think they've been in Canada for a long long time. I don't know anything about my ancestry on that side.
Book Defeat
A book has finally defeated me and made me put it down. I picked up a bunch of books over the weekend. One of these books was Dr. Sax by Jack Kerouac, the original beatnik author. I decided to give Kerouac a try since a friend of mine has read several of his books and enjoyed it. I started reading it and it made little if no sense. I decided I would persevere and continue reading, hell I finished Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift and that was a struggle. After reading 12 pages of this 200+ page book I set it down and picked up another. It's just a bad book. Very incoherent and nonsensical. Sure the narrative is very poetic but if I wanted to read poetry I would pick up a book of the stuff. In this case I wasn't expecting it and I wasn't enjoying it. So Dr. Sax beat me. I put it down and I don't plan on picking it up. I will give Kerouac another chance sometime in the future. I'll read some of his later workers. I was searching for a review on Dr. Sax and I found one that summarizes my thoughts on the book even better than I did.
Done for a While
I met my deadline and I now have three sections of my five section thesis done in rough copy ready for my supervisor to look over, rip up and return to me so I can make the changes. Actually two of the sections aren't completely done but one will require a couple more paragraphs and the other will require another page of writing. No big deal.
So how was everyones weekend? Last weekend was a long weekend for Canadians everywhere. The reason for the long weekend? I don't really know. It's called a Civic Holiday. I guess someone at some point said "Hey a long weekend at the beginning of August would be really nice" and some lawmaker said "That sounds great. Just let me make it so!" and it was done.
I ended up going up to my cottage with my parents, brother and an aunt and uncle. The weekend was alright but my mother annoyed me to no end and that put me in a grumpy mood. That combined with being woken up at 8:30 to 9:00 every morning. I like to sleep in when I am on holidays. I don't like getting up. I won't get into the specifics about my mother. I love her dearly but extended doses of her is dangerous for my health.
We didn't really do much at the cottage. My brother and I left Thursday afternoon (so my weekend was a super long weekend since Monday was the holiday) and got up there around 6 pm. From there we just hung out and sat around on the porch looking out at the lake. Friday my brother, father and I did some work around the cottage. The boathouse took a little structural damage over the winter so we ended up fixing that up. That took most of the afternoon. The rest of the day was spent hanging around and boating. We rented Training Day for later that night. Interesting movie, not sure if it was Academy material.
Saturday was a little more fun. We got up early and went to garage sales. It's kind of a tradition. At the cottage on Saturday we go to garage sales. I only ended up buying records and books. I think the find of the day for me was a copy of the Superfly soundtrack by Curtis Mayfield which is unopened. I've never seen the movie but the soundtrack is funktacular! My aunt and uncle showed up Saturday morning. The rest of the weekend was just spent attempting to relax. Sitting on the porch, sitting by the fire, reading, boating, swimming etc. I finished The Diary of Anne Frank while up there and started reading the Sword in the Stone by T.H. White. It's the book the Disney movie is based on.
When I came home on Monday I went with my aunt and uncle since they live in Kitchener, which is about 15 minutes from where I live in Waterloo. My uncle was itching to lose some money so we stopped at a slots casino on the way home. I really don't like casinos. I walked in and was instantly overpowered with cigarette smoke. My uncle showed me the quarter slot machines and I sat down with twenty bucks and started playing. It took me about 15 to 20 minutes to lose it all (which was actually quite good, timewise). After that I went found my uncle and aunt. My uncle ended up losing between 60 to 80 dollars in the 50 minutes we were in the casino. I had no urge to waste anymore money so I has happy with the 20 I lost. He offered to give me some money to play but I just turned it down. I'm really not a gambler. I don't have a gambling personality. I would feel guilty if I lost more than 20 dollars since I know people who could use my money more than the casino. I really doubt I will ever go back to a casino on my own. I might go if I went with friends but even then I don't know if I would enjoy it.
Thus ends the story of my weekend. Kind of boring, a little melancholy, a lot stupid. Indeed :)
