Oldies, But Goodies

I was reading through my old Xanga Blog 'Sweet Manda Panda' and decided to post a couple of my favorite entries from those early days of my blogging addiction.

Some of you may remember them.

The Five People You Meet In Heaven

This story tells us that when we die we go to our own personal Heaven, where five people are waiting in line for us.

These five people affected our lives profoundly, whether we knew it or not, and they died before we did. Once we hear all their stories, we will understand the meaning of our lives.

So, when I finished the book I naturally started to wonder...who will be the five people I meet in Heaven?

But then, it occurred to me. There is a much more important question I should ask myself...

Who's Heaven will I be in?


Unique Conformity

I used to look around at my fellow Calgary Transit users, and I would take special notice of the ones with earphones connected permanently to their head, and I would secretly judge them. "They must be introverted, antisocial misfits", I would think. They must be. Everyday, the same thing. Sitting on the bus, earphones with the cord tucked neatly in their jacket, shoulders slumped forward, foot tapping, eyes glazed over, oblivious to the elderly woman who deserved the seat more than them.

And then, this past Christmas, I opened an oddly shaped gift from Warren, to discover a glorious silver iPod nano cupped perfectly in my palm. And I understood.

This tiny little gadget was going to save me. Save me from the sounds of roaring bus engines, obnoxious cell phone conversations, overweight men breathing heavily beside me, and bitter bus drivers hollering "Move to the back!".

But the weeks following Christmas creeped me out. There seemed to be a large increase in iPod users on my bus route. It seemed that every 3rd or 4th person to get on the bus had earphones and an iPod . I felt dirty. I felt like a total conformist, with no unique qualities. Just following the trends. Just trying to fit in. I felt like a poser, a try-hard, a fake. Like I was trying to be cooler than I was. And I thought everyone around me could tell. I'm sure they all had 'cool' music on their iPod...Justin Timberlake or Fray or Nelly Furtado or something so cool I didn't even know what it was called.

And there I was, miss wanna-be, playing Leonard Cohen tunes on my iPod. Suddenly, I didn't feel so dirty.