Week 5: Awful/Awesome

Awful (left: Mary)

My friend, Myles often made me ponder the words awesome and awful. Shouldn’t awful be about something that is full of awe and awesome be descriptive of something that has less? Yes, it totally should and as much as I wanted to use Myles’ version of the word awful this week, I thought I’d stick to the awful that we're all familiar with. You know, the one that represents the atrocious, the exceptionally bad or unpleasant, the one where the very idea of doing something, like let’s say getting onto a packed bus or minivan, fills you with worry and perhaps even rage. Yep, that’s the one I’m taking about!

Ben and I have had our fair share of awful bus rides thus far on the trip. Let’s take today as a case in point. Twelve people crammed into a minivan, most stinking of very different, very potent and sometimes disgusting body odours. The three old French guys in the back moaned “ewwwwwwahhhh” or “oweeeeeeee” when we hit a pot hole and their fragile heads either smashed off the roof or window and their hips slipped in and out of joint.

Then you’ve got the man beside me (who had ‘burger pits’ as Ben would say) who kept falling asleep and letting his sweaty leg go limp against mine forcing me to contort myself into the most uncomfortable positions, alas, in vain, since I was unable to escape his slimy limb (the van was THAT tiny). There was no escaping. Add to this the dude upfront who was puking. Yeah, really. He sprayed the outside of the car and painted the window with his orangey bile while winding along the mountain road. It also splashed back on his shirt and face. It was awesome, I mean awful.

The temperature outside was approximately 35 degrees, the air con in our van did not work because we were driving along windy mountain roads and it would have sucked up too much power, so it was hot, really f*&^ing hot. And we can't forget the driver, back and forth, up and down, throttle, break, horn, throttle break horn.

All of this makes for a wicked headache, a lump of something in your throat and a stomach that is full of knots and pains (and puke, but it just hasn’t made its way up yet). So yeah, I guess you could say that minivan ride today was awful, not so great, not particularly fun….in any way, shape, or form.

Do you have any awful stories you'd like to share?

Awesome (right: Sarah)

Okay, so, three things come to mind when I hear the word awesome:

1. The fact that I squeezed a child out of my nether region.

2. My favourite high school teacher Dr. Porter, who could easily be sent into a fit of rage with what he deemed, and I quote, "ABUSE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!!!!!"

Example:

Student one: "Dude, can I borrow your pencil?"

Student two: "Ya, sure!"

Student one: "AWESOME! Thanks!"

How can a word as big as AWESOME be used for something as trivial as borrowing a pencil? I get his point.

3. And, I think the last time I was totally blown away by something I saw was the Planet Earth series. If you haven't seen it, YOU SHOULD! What a wild and wondrous place we live... the way the world keeps spinning, seasons continue to change, gravity gravitizes, birds spit nests into existence. It boggles my mind.

Anyway, here I sit soaking in the tender beginnings of spring, my favourite season. Flowers are blooming and the air all a buzz with awakenings. What could be more awesome than life - the way it begins and the way it evolves - the places we explore, and the things we discover???

When was the last time you thought, "this is awesome!" ?