My last days

Well it's my last day at school today which means I probably won't be taking the bus again until next semester. Looking back on the year I can say I have had a lot of fun riding the bus and I'm glad I wrote this blog on it. With all of that said I can't forget that I have one last bus story.

I was riding the bus home on Wednesday after school. I was quite sleepy because after class I went to the Kings Head for a beer with some classmates. I sat in the back of the bus and closed my eyes. I was fading in and out as I tried to remember where I was so I didn't miss my bus stop. Eventually I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and I fell asleep.

A big bump in the road through my head off the window, then back into it. I woke up and rubbed my face where I had just hit the window. I took a quick look around and noticed that I was still a few blocks away from my stop. Then I took a look around the bus, there was maybe three people still on the bus. The I looked to my left, there was a large man sitting beside me.

I was a little upset that he was sitting beside me, like seriously buddy there's probably 30 empty seats on this bus and you sit beside me? I gave him a mean look and was almost ready to move, then he said something that changed the whole situation.

"Sorry man, I was gonna wake you up in a second to make sure you didn't miss your stop. I'll move now."

I was stunned, I didn't know what to say, I let out a weak thanks as he moved. My stop came so I pulled the yellow string. As I got off I looked at him and nodded, and then jumped off. As I walked home I thought about all the weird stuff I had seen since I started riding the bus. I've seen fights, homeless people with way to much garbage, and people only looking out for themselves. Those random acts of kindness that people do for one another just goes to show that I do live in a great city, and sure the transit system might suck but the people don't.

This will be my last post for a while so I hope you enjoyed reading my blog, and safe travels!

Soaked

With the weather finally starting to warm up here in Winnipeg, the snow is slowly melting. Which means that there are some pretty big puddles forming on the roads. These puddles seem to be unavoidable for the buses and they often splash people walking on the sidewalks.

I've seen it a few times where people get splashed and I imagine it sucks, just walking along minding your won business and then all of a sudden BAM! your soaked. Unfortunately after a few seconds I forget about it and I get on with my day. But the next time I saw someone get soaked I would not forget about it.

I was on the bus heading home, the bus was pretty packed so some people were standing. I was sitting at the back of the bus like I always try to do. It was a warm day and someone that was sitting closer to the front had their window open. The bus came to a stop and picked some people up. I looked out of my window and noticed that the bus had stopped right in the middle of giant puddle, but I didn't think any thing of it. Just then a giant truck flew by the bus and sprayed the bus, and the people that were sitting near the open window. A women yelped as the water hit her. A man jumped up and inspected his backpack. Sitting in the back of the bus was a young man who didn't get a drop on him giggling. I felt bad for the people in front obviously, but come on if you saw that you would laugh a little too right? No. I'm the only ass hole that would laugh at that. Okay fair enough.

Any way I learned a lesson from this, when it's wet out keep your window closed. And also keep an eye out for big trucks driving fast.    

I don't know how to get off!!!!

Last week I was riding the bus (what a surprise) and for once every thing seemed normal. No one was fighting, everyone had their music to an appropriate  level. I was honestly freaking out a bit, I was thinking to my self "What am I going to blog about? My fans need me! Ahhhhh" but just as I asked god how he could over look my blog material, he delivered.

A woman sitting one row in front of me put her hand on the yellow string and went to pull it. As she pulled it the yellow string fell and all tension on it was lost. The woman looked confused and turned around to see what was happening. Two young boys who were sitting in the back were laughing and when they saw us looking at them, they got off the bus.

I was sitting right near the end of the string so I picked it up to see what was wrong with it. When I looked at the end of it I noticed that it had been cut. The woman who was sitting in front of me looked even more confused now, and honestly she looked a little scared. I could see her asking her self "How am I going to get off now? How long will I be on this bus? Will I have to make a shelter in the back? When I run out of food who will I eat first? I'll eat that dumb kid behind me, I bet no one will miss him" But before she could eat me a man pulled the other string on the other side and the woman could now escape.

I imagine it's a pain that transit has to deal with these vandalism problems. I think most people think it's only one bus so it can't cost that much. But this is happening to buses all around the city, and I'm not just talking about strings being cut. Graffiti, waste, I once saw dog poop on the bus, and to answer your question yes it was disgusting. I like to joke around about taking the bus, but maybe we should all make an effort to leave the bus in the best condition we can. Because after all we're the ones who need to ride them.

Crazy bus

Last Saturday I was riding the bus quite late, I think it was 1am. This bus was very loud, and there was only one pole..... Thats beacuse it was a party bus!

My good friend Zack had his birthday on saturday and he decided to get a party bus, this was the first time I had ever been on a party bus so I was pretty excited. I jumped on this colourful bus and headed right to the striper pole (At this point I had a few drinks in me) the girls quickly kicked me off, and the guys didn't complain. The bus took us to our first stop Limelight.

Limelight is a karaoke bar, and I'm not much of a karaoke guy my self. But after I had a few more drinks in me I was convinced to sing Bye Bye Bye by NSync (Who am I kiding it was my idea to sing that) any way so me and a few other guys ran up and started singing, it was really fun. But this blog isn't about karaoke bars, it's about buses, so lets go back to the bus.

It was about 10:30 at this point and we jumped back onto the bus. The bus driver was handing out prizes, he had 5 prizes for 15 people and of course I didn't win. Well I might have won, at this point I didn't really care, I was just trying to master mind a way to get me back on the striper pole. Our next stop was at Republic night club. Republic was crazy, but like I said this is about the bus, not the club.

At about 2am the bus picked us all up and drove us right to our friends house. I'll say it was a fun way to get around the city, but I do have a few complaints. One, the driver was very jerky with his driving. He knows that there are people in the back standing up, and some of them are girls with ridiculously high heels on. There were a few occasions when people fell down. My second complaint........... hmmm guess I don't have one, any way it was a really fun night and a really fun bus to ride on!

Ride for free

Today I took a ride on the free shuttle for the first time, and the experience was interesting to say the least. I was riding the bus after the Creative Communications IPP Presentations (Which were really good by the way) which were at the Winnipeg Convention Centre. The bus was taking me back to school to do this blog post (Oh that's cool) and other homework.

The first thing I noticed was that it was one of the short buses that Winnipeg Transit has. The one door meant that the front door was a busy place. As I stepped on the bus driver clicked his counter above the change machine, I guess transit keeps count of all the people that ride for free. As me and my friend Matt made our way through the busy bus we found two seats in the back.

There were definitely some characters back there. Right across from us was an old lady who was talking to everyone around her, beside her was a couple who were very cuddly, and too the right of us was a homeless guy who didn't say a word.

The old lady and the couple were talking about something I couldn't understand, but they were talking very fast. Another homeless guy came and sat beside the old lady, from what I could tell they hadn't known each other. The man sat between the couple and the old lady, so immediately after he sat down the old lady leaned over the homeless guy to talk to them. The old lady started to move her hand onto the homeless guys lap and rested it on his upper thigh. The homeless guy looked across at us and made an extremely hilarious face.

The old lady asked the couple were they lived, then asked the address, the asked them to write it down. Without hesitation the woman wrote down her address. The homeless guy looked at us again, and again made an extremely hilarious face. Finally our stop came and we got off the bus. After getting off me and Matt looked at each other and laughed.

"That was the weirdest bus ride in my whole life," said Matt.

Well Matt, welcome to the life of a bus blogger.   

 

A Thousand Farewells

 

 

For a journalism assignment I read the book A Thousand Farewells by Nahlah Ayed's. The book is about Nahlah's life, from moving to a refugee camp as a young girl, to being a reporter for CBC.

Nahlah grew up in Winnipeg Canada. From what she describes in her book, her childhood was quite normal. Out of her parent’s sight, she lived a seemingly normal Canadian life. She went to school, made friends, and would play with those friends. But when she was with her family life was a bit different. Nahlah grew up in an Arabic home.

"In those years, life for us kids was about being well behaved. It was about sitting up straight, legs together, hands on lap. It was about keeping clothes clean, about speaking only when spoken to and playing only when given permission.”

Nahlah’s parents tried to teach their children as much Arabic culture as they could. They had to learn the Arabic language, and all the rules that came with being Arabic. Even after all that their parents taught them, they still felt it wasn’t enough. So at the end of 1975 Nahlah’s family packed up and moved to Jordan

Nahlah remembers the refugee camp that they lived in quite well. She describes thing about the camp in such great detail, a lot of the times when I was reading I thought I could smell the things she was describing. Sometimes people think journalists don’t have an imagination, no creativity; they only put fact to paper. Nahlah proves those people wrong, the way she wrote this book with the vivid details really kept me interested.

“The basta was an ideal spot from which to watch the refugees walk by and sample every foul smell the market had to offer. The souk was a place where underwear, live chickens, and bell-bottom jeans coexisted, where stall-keepers advertised their wares at the top of their lungs.”

Like a lot of my classmates, I felt it was hard to keep up with all the names, and places Nahlah mentions. Maybe it’s because they are mostly foreign names like Abasah and Abdullah, but I felt like Nahlah added too many of her relatives in this story. I understand that Arab families are usually large, but I felt she could have not mentioned a couple people.

I think what journalists should take from this book is that you can’t take any experience for granted. Nahlah had a pretty terrible experience when she moved to the refugee camp. But looking back on what she had learned from that experience helped her with her work as a foreign correspondent. When other reporters flocked to the Middle East after 9-11 they had problems finding people to talk to because they didn’t know the Arab culture. Nahla on the other hand knew all of the rules that went with being in an Arab country and she used that knowledge to her advantage.

One of my all-time favourite memoirs is Russell Brand’s “Booky Wook” mainly because it’s about sex drugs and comedy (Hey I like all three of those things!) Now to be fair the two books are about two very different things, but there is one comparison I can’t overlook, both Nahlah and Russell had difficult upbringings. Nahlah grew up in a refugee camp; Russell had a crazy mother and a playboy for a father. Now I know this comparison is a stretch but the way I grew up wasn’t nearly as hard as the ways those two had to grow up. Is the secret to writing a good memoir having a hard childhood? Either way I enjoyed both memoirs. I guess I like reading about other people, I always think “What would I have done in their shoes”

Being a journalism student I learned a lot from this book, but the one thing I hope I’ll always remember is the quote from the back cover of the book.

"People are not quotes or clips, used to illustrate stories about war and conflict. People are the story, always."



Love bus

Yesterday was Valentines day so love way in the air, and in the bus. I got on the bus a little later than usual because I was guest hosting a radio show on Red River Radio. (You should listen to Red River Radio if you don't. I'm always on it, and I'm hilarious) I stood in front of the MTS centre waiting for my bus. The only other people waiting for the bus were an older couple who were in the middle of a hard core mac sesh. (It was kind of gross) My bus finally came and of course the couple got on with me. I went to the back of the bus and put my head phones on.

As I listened to my music I looked around the bus. There were maybe only 10 or 12 other people on the bus, and they were all in couples. I was the only one on the bus who wasn't with a significant other,  and it was kind of awkward.

Every one gave me that look that said "Awwee poor guy, he's all alone" which made things more... well.. kind of awkward.

I'm not the kind of person that hates on Valentines day, I think it's actually a really nice day. Every where you go people are holding hands, women walk around with flowers in their arms, and men do every thing they can so that they stay out of the dog house. Its a lovely day. And I'm also not the kind of guy that complains about Valentines day because I'm single. I love being single.

The thing I hate about Valentines day is that look you get from couples that say "Awwweee poor guy he's single" Seriously? For 364 days I can walk around and do what ever I want, but this one day I'm suppose to walk with my head down because of how I choose to live. Plus I'm 19, I thought I was at that age where I'm suppose to go out and be single.

So instead of holding my head down like the rest of the couples on the bus wanted me to, I held my head high and I was proud that I was single. As I got off the bus I pulled my phone out and did the only logical thing a single 19 year old boy would do. I called a very good friend of mine named Rachel, and I invited her to my place to have our own Valentines date. I didn't have to buy her flowers, I didn't take her to dinner, we just "hung out" and it was awesome