Rebecca Flann – The Voice https://www.voicemagazine.org By AU Students, For AU Students Wed, 05 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.voicemagazine.org/app/uploads/cropped-voicemark-large-32x32.png Rebecca Flann – The Voice https://www.voicemagazine.org 32 32 137402384 A safe hiding place? https://www.voicemagazine.org/2003/11/05/a-safe-hiding-place/ Wed, 05 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.voicemagazine.org/?p=2233 Read more »]]> Perhaps I am having a slight panic attack – overreacting just a little bit. Last week, as I realized I should graduate with my English degree within a year, I became overwhelmed with the thought of looking for a job. I hadn’t anticipated graduation sneaking up on me, as it is something I have been working towards for so long. All the same, there I sat slightly startled by this nearing milestone and slightly angry at the thought that the work was not even half over. In fact, I decided the work was only just beginning. Instead of essays and exams, I’ll be dealing with interviews and promotions. That’s when the idea struck me – school is a safe hiding place. Is it possible that I don’t want to graduate?

After all, when you say you are a student you often get more respect than if you had said you are a waiter or waitress or even a stay-at-home parent. If you are low on funds, as a student, it is somehow okay. You have a good excuse – tuition is so costly. If you aren’t working, but you are going to school, you still earn a certain amount of society’s approval. If you are working, but not exactly in the job you wanted, it is again more acceptable if you are a student than if you are not.

For the most part, school is seen as a transitional phase in life. It’s understandable if you are not where you want to be, because you are still making your way there. Essentially, as students, we are granted certain leniencies that others are not. Perhaps we are given these leniencies because students represent some sort of potential. Being in school suggests that maybe you are on your way to somewhere better than you are now. As long as you are a student you have a safety net to fall back on and your indecision is understood. Like rookies on a sports team, the expectations aren’t quite so high.

Of course, while you are a student life feels anything but easy and safe. I am one of the many students who doesn’t know what exactly I want to do when I graduate. This fact often taunts from the sidelines like a child sticking its tongue out at me. I’ve read many articles on what you can do with an arts degree (a good one by Stacey Steele is in The Voice vol 11 issue 35 (http://www.ausu.org/voice/archives/articledisplay.php?ART=1856&issuesearch=1135)) I’ve taken quizzes and aptitude tests. I’ve focused on resume writing and tried researching various career choices. I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but I’m still stuck. The only way I think I can decide is to get out there and try different jobs, and what’s wrong with that?

Graduation is intimidating because it really represents testing your skills and challenging your education. You’re forced to ask yourself, now that you’ve done all the work to complete your degree, was it really worth it? The answer of course, is inconclusive and at times very frustrating – it is worth what you make of it.

I think I will graduate and pound the pavement with the countless others who have just graduated. Rejection is better than cowering beneath my pile of books. Besides, maybe the safety net actually did help me, and hiding out for the six years it will have taken me to get my degree will enable me to rise to the challenge. If not, there’s always serving tables and my masters degree.

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Cooking, Moving And Intimidation https://www.voicemagazine.org/2003/10/08/cooking-moving-and-intimidation/ Wed, 08 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.voicemagazine.org/?p=2117 Read more »]]> I moved this fall into a new house – new to me at least. As you likely know, one of the many perks of being an Athabasca University student is the ability to move cities without changing schools. I have moved several times, twice to different cities, traveled Europe and done classes in at least four different times zones. Moving, or traveling of any kind, epitomizes possibility at its greatest. It presents to us a chance for experiencing new things– a chance for fresh starts and broadened perspectives.

My new house, along with experiences and perspectives, has new appliances. Gratitude overwhelms me, honestly. Here I am, with a new home and great appliances, so I won’t complain. The problem is, that I think the appliances are better than me, especially the oven. I don’t deserve it.

I actually just learned how to cook and I spend time hoping people will forget that I ever did. I would rather be known for other attributes. I’m sure this is a modern feeling. Generations past cooked whether they wanted to or not. There were no easy prepared pre-packaged dinners or fast food alternatives to choose from. Indeed, cooking was and still is a life skill, as well as an economic asset (Eating out is expensive!). There is a certain pressure to be able to cook good meals. I fear my new appliances have made alliances with this growing pressure and if I don’t learn how to cook better, my oven will make me look like fraud.

I see the value in cooking, I really do. I see the value in someone taking time to prepare a meal in which your family sits down to and spends time with one another. I almost believe that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I am secretly flattered by someone complimenting my cooking and am impressed by other’s gourmet meals.

The bottom line, however, resides in the fact, that cooking never interested me.

The first time I cooked a meal for my family was for a junior high Home Economics assignment. It seemed to take so long to get everything washed and chopped and prepared that I skipped a few steps. My mother diplomatically reminds me that my family only ate the meal to encourage me to try again. I didn’t try cooking again for a few years. I started with something easy– homemade pizza. When it caught fire in the bottom of my oven due to neglect, I called a friend to ask her if it was baking soda or powder that put out fires and made myself a sandwich.

Ergo, it became part of my reputation, part of what was expected out of me, that I didn’t cook. I did other household chores pretty well and it’s not as if I am incapable of cooking, I just get distracted.

And isn’t that the tune of today’s world? Opportunities are relentless. It’s hard to narrow down what we will be good at, when we want to be good at everything and have more opportunities than ever to try things. The trick with cooking is that when practicing one cannot do these ‘everythings’ all at once. This is how things burn.

Of course, as I moved out and tired of sandwiches, there came a point one day when I looked down at the meal I was serving with surprise. I had learned how to cook. I didn’t even mean to. Emeril, Martha or that Naked guy would not be impressed, but nothing caught fire and my meal was, if I may say so, delightfully edible.

The new appliances, however, put things on a whole new level. Now, when someone walks into my kitchen, instead of commenting on the paint color or family pictures, they eye up my oven with interest. The oven raises the standards. The oven sets certain expectations. One who uses the oven must be able to cook well. It has settings I need definitions for. In short, I am intimidated.

The first few times that I have used it have gone smoothly, but it took twice as long to roast my potatoes so I’m sure I don’t have it on the right setting. Every ounce of my common sense tells me to read the manual. I am a University Student, surely I can understand some appliance jargon– a little harmless oven banter. That’s when I remind myself, that as long as I don’t know how to work the oven properly, I have a temporarily valid excuse not to.

Of course, it is only a temporary excuse. You could say that the oven has broadened my perspective. Last week, I experimented with twice baked potatoes and tonight I will serve sea bass in a honey-lime glaze. In spite of myself, I admit this cooking thing isn’t so bad. Like moving and traveling, with cooking you benefit the most by trying new things and having fresh starts.

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BC On Fire https://www.voicemagazine.org/2003/09/10/bc-on-fire/ Wed, 10 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.voicemagazine.org/?p=1997 Read more »]]> We awoke to the valley filled with smoke again. Above this haze is a bright and beckoning blue sky. You can see it above the haze today, the smoke is hanging low. Other days you see it through holes in the smoke. On bad days, you don’t know what the weather would really be like, if the smoke wasn’t there. It’s hard to be happy about great weather anyway, when we all know that what we really need is a week of rain — and not just a little bit of rain or sun showers, but soaking, pelting, pouring rain.

My experience of this summer’s forest fires has been limited. I am not an evacuee. My house is actually well away from any imminent danger, but we are certainly not unaware of the many fires that surround us. Everyone is talking about it. The radio reported fire press conferences hourly. The news and newspapers update us with the latest statistics and measurements. For most of us, however, reading about the fire and seeing it are two different things. It was certainly that way for me. I live on a hill and from my house, I can see down the valleys that make up Kamloops, B.C. Often these valleys have been filled with smoke. We have been able to see certain fires on the mountains across the valley from us. During the day, they looked like tufts of smoke and at night, they reminded me of camp fires scattered across the mountain, although I am quite sure I have never had a camp fire that big. When the town of Barrier was evacuated, because of the McLure fire, we could see the huge pillow of smoke that amounted to that town on fire. These sights were not horrendous, certainly the papers showed worse images, but they served as simple reminders that hundreds of people’s homes, pets, and lives are threatened. So far, no one I know has been affected by evacuations, but with hundreds evacuated within the province you know they are out there, many still waiting to see if they have homes left and some already aware their homes are gone.

My closest experience with the fires happened last week, when I went with friends to a lake, west of the city. Around noon we drove away from town, east on Highway 1, and we could see a cloud of smoke above the hilltops, further on down the road. We knew this was the McGillivray Lake fire. As we drove closer, the fire became visible from the highway. The highway follows the South Thompson River and the fire was on the hills of the opposite riverbanks. It seemed the river was basically the only thing that separated the highways from the fire. I had no idea it was so close to the road. It was startling. Helicopters dipped down, filled buckets, which we estimated to be the size of small cars, with river water and rose back up to douse out the flames. Only days before I had driven this same stretch of road. My parents had rented a cabin only minutes down the water. Many of the trees that sprinkled the hillside were now charred and the area was punctuated with black smoke. Where my parents had vacationed would now be very smoky. We counted six helicopters fighting the flames as we passed. It was an astounding and powerful sight.

We passed the fires and got on with our day. It was a good day for us. Between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m. we passed the McGillivray Lake fire again, on our way home. Miles before we approached we could see a red orange glow in the sky above the hillside. As we approached we saw the lights of police cars, swirling around in the darkness. Police officers barricaded roads leading off the highway to houses. No one was allowed in. People driving on those roads were only allowed out. They were evacuating the area. The flames from the fire were visible in the dark. Trees stood out, flaming orange in embers. There appeared to be nothing more than patches of flame scattered across the mountainsides as far as we could see down the road. They looked nothing like camp fires.

We began to notice there was more traffic on the road and we quickly realized we were traveling with the evacuees. We immediately felt guilty. First of all, they certainly don’t need any extra traffic, or “gawkers” at times like these. Secondly, we were traveling home, to our safe houses, from our day of fun, while these people had been forced to leave their homes, uncertain that they would have homes to return to. Mini-vans loaded with personal possessions marched down the highway. Cars pulling tent trailers, that you assumed were also loaded with things people couldn’t stand to lose, drove slowly with their hazard lights on all the way into town.

We drove the rest of the way surrounded by the evacuees. It was almost 11:00 by the time I was home and ready for bed. I imagined that many of the evacuees were still checking into the fire shelter, paying for hotels, or settling into friend’s houses. Many were likely answering numerous questions from their children and trying to get a proper night’s sleep. And these are the good worries. I was grateful to have my own bed to sleep in.

Since that day, the news on the fires surrounding Kamloops have improved. The town of Kelowna faced the next wild fire situation. Still, today, smoke lingers in the air at my house. I do not pretend to know what evacuating my home is like and to the friends and family that you know or to anyone who has, I respect your courage and wish you, your home to return to.

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