The Otesha Project is a youth-led organization that mobilizes and equips Canadians to create local and global change through individual and collective choices.

I’ve taken a workshop with these guys, and seen their production. It’s really quite a cool experience/program/idea. I’m thinking about applying to be a part of one of their globally aware cycling acting troupes some time in the future. Doesn’t it sound like fun? Bringing together three things I love.

The Otesha Book is a wealth of information, I encourage you to get your hands on a copy.

I saved my favourite fact for last. Otesha is a Swahili word, which is the native language of Kenya, and means “reason to dream”

Reason to dream! Can you think of a better word meaning than that? It’s pretty tricky.

Letting go of things feels good. My feelings don’t change slowly very often, it’s usually lightening fast.

One of these days I need to write a poem about joy, or a description, because I haven’t found one that clicks with me yet.

I have a problem with keeping too many thoughts in my head that’s tied to not letting go of things. I write lists and journal entries and blog posts, I scan pictures and take lots of photographs. I go over moments in my head, tracing them to try and make them stick. I keep a dream journal and an agenda and never delete even the bad memories.

Maybe I’ll be ready forget some of these things that made me unhappy sometime in the future. But I’m still too scared to right now, because it’s never as slimple as letting go off the bed and keeping the good, they’re connected and I’m not sure I can afford to lose any happy memories just yet.

Or maybe I’m just a little bit crazy, but I’m okay with that.

It’s easy to say time fixes everything, but it’s not really that simple. Sure, it can help, but if you really cared about someone, trusted them, loved them, and they betray you, it hurts a lot for a long time. There was a guy I was friends with a long time ago. He lived in a different country, and I never met him, and so it might seem like it was an unimportant friendship on the surface. But he was important to me. We spent hours talking every day. We even considered buying plane tickets so we could go meet each other in person. I told him everything that happened in my life, everything, all the embarrassing stuff normal people right in a diary or hide away in the back of their mind. He told me his secrets too, and for a long time things went really well. We wrote back and forth constantly as well as IMing. I guess I was sort of in love with him. Maybe it sounds stupid, after all, I’d never met the guy, but it doesn’t really matter if it sounds stupid or not, because it was true. I thought we had a special friendship. You know, personalities come through keyboards too, and due to the amount of time I spent online during that part of my life I thought I was pretty good at picking them up, I still think that. He was straightedge and in to screamo music and goofy and charming, sweet and a bit awkward, and so nice to me. Then one day he got a girlfriend and he pretty much deleted me from his life. I cried a lot. A lot a lot. I thought I’d done something wrong. I couldn’t believe he could just forget about everything we’d shared. I mean, it wasn’t completely out of the blue, there was a while when I felt bad after every time we talked because I knew something was off. Still, I thought I was just overreacting. I know the girl broke up with him shortly after, we had kind of become friends. Or acquaintances. Sometimes I find old e-mails where he said something sweet or was reassuring or kind and I feel really sad still.

Steph: awe thats really sucks when a friend does that. but you have a lot of other friends who would never even think of doing that to you, so i think you should focus more on the ones that love you rather than the ones that dont care

Thank you so much <3 And I plan to take that advice!

The first time I remember eating a pomegranate was with my friend Eowyn. It was a special treat at Christmas and we each got half. I’d looked forward to it all day even though we had to eat it at the table so we didn’t make a mess. It was like a treasure hunt to find all the seeds. I’ve loved them ever since.

That aliens were taking over the world, it started slowly but we were weak and they were powerful. But then they turned life in to a game, and you had to be good to get points, and every one of us needed a certain number of points if we wanted to stay alive. There were little counters in our pockets that had our number of points and the projected number we were capable of getting. It was sink or swim together. They tore apart our universe so we would have to rebuild it, and they put in place rules to make us build it better. We built homes together, and communities were like families, everyone had to share and contribute. Greed was overpowered by fear.

A funny detail: I often dream that I’m a different person then I am, and in the beginning of this dream I was a guy, he discovered the invasion, he had the first counter etc. But he was not really me. I was myself later on though. Not just my feelings or my personality or one part of myself combined with a mish mash of other attributes, but my very wholest self. It was then that I discovered what we had to do, that life was like a game, a game focused on being good and team work, and effort and equality.

Dreams are my favourite part of sleep, and this is the best one I’ve had in a long time. I felt so good after sleepingi a bit longer, but often it is dreams that determine my mood of a day, so I just know today is going to be productive.