Dreams, Fasting, and Other Things

Today is day 7 and we've finally agreed to break our fast. I have to say I'm ready for it. I know we agreed to go 10 days but really, that just sounds unnecessary at this point. I'm really glad we did this. It was an very educational experience and I know many things I'll do differently next time. But right now I think it's time to start working towards eating real foods again.

Last night/this morning I had an interesting dream. I've never mentioned it before but I have an obsession with moving to and having my final home be somewhere in one of four places. They are: New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, and Norway. Many people ask why.

Well, New Zealand is beautiful and has beautiful blond women with accents in it. Xena AND Hercules were filmed there as well as the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. If you've seen any of those you know how beautiful the land is. Also "The Price of Milk" is another good movie for seeing beautiful NZ as well as "The Whale Rider". Beautiful.

Australia is huge and arid (which is one of my favorite types of land). It is almost the size of the United States while only being home to 22 million people. When I say that many people are quick to say "But Will, that's because the entire middle is uninhabitable!" Well duh. But even still, only taking the coast and some of the interior to house 22 million people is pretty freakin sparse. 22 million is like the total populations of Los Angeles, NYC, and Chicago. Three of our cities can make up the entire population of a country of almost the same land mass. Anyways, Australia is also home to beautiful blond women and cool exotic animals that can kill you. It was also home to Steve Irwin R.I.P.

Norway has fjords. I had a guest lecturer once who was from Norway and she briefly mentioned fjords when she was first introducing herself. Afterward I asked her about them and she showed me some pictures on her laptop. I became instantly fascinated with them. If you've never seen one go to images.google.com and check them out. They are amazing. Soooo freakin beautiful. Also, beautiful blond women (are we starting to see a trend?). Oh I should also mention that Norway is one of the most green countries in the world. They have some amazing energy policies that make use of all kinds of alternative energy.

Sweden is also progressive in its energy policies as well as many of its social policies. They have laws, yes actual national laws, protecting endangered languages. Holy crap. If you are a child who speaks an endangered or little used language as your FIRST language then you are entitled by law to have access to an education in that language. Wow what a concept. Lets teach children in the language they know. While it is still obviously a priority of the Swedish government to teach these children Swedish, they respect the fact that more than one language is native to that part of the world and work to keep them alive. If only we did so much to preserve the variety of languages spoken here. Sweden is also home to Stockholm. One of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen pictures of. Again I implore you to go to images.google.com and look at some pictures if you never have before. People I've talked to who have actually been to Stockholm have confirmed that it is indeed just as beautiful as the pictures show. I should also mention that Sweden along with Norway is a socialized democracy. I know "socialism" is a 4-letter word here in the good ol' US of A but if you saw what it did in these places you might rethink it. Poverty is almost non-existent in both places as is crime. They actually rehabilitate their prisoners. It's amazing. They have programs to teach criminals to be healthy, capable, contributing members of society. They don't put them all in a cage and tell them that they are animals and unfit for society. Seriously, I don't like Michael Moore but watch the special features of Sicko, he has some good footage of their penal system there.

Well that was longer than I was expecting. But what I wanted to talk about was this dream I had. In my dream I was watching TV here in the states and a documentary about New Zealand came on. In the background was a 7-11 and on it I could see the address. I mentally jotted down the address and went to my computer to look it up on google maps and sure enough there it was along with a street view. There was something exhilarating about seeing this location in two ways. On tv and on my laptop. Anyways, in the documentary they began to interview this girl who worked there. She was this cute blond girl but what was interesting about her was that like me she knew sign language (albeit NZSL as opposed to ASL but whatever) but wasn't deaf herself. She had gone to university there and taken some classes in sign. Anyways, I became really interested in this girl. Like more so than I normally do with girls I see on tv and think are cute. So here's this girl she lives in a place that I want to move to and shares an interest in something that I went to college to learn and I know where to find her (look that may sound creepy but it was a dream give me a break). Anyways, so next thing I know I'm on my way to merry ol' New Zealand. The rest of the dream was kinda ho-hum. Me arriving to New Zealand but in the wrong time, 1991 instead of 2008. But at any rate the important part was that I really do think I'm supposed to be there. And in a year that's where I'll be headed.

But I'm getting anxious here. I don't want to wait a year. But I don't see how I can go any sooner. I have so much research to do. I want to sail there or travel there by freighter so I need to find out what time of year is the best time to travel by sea. I need to find out about visas and hostels. So much to learn. I just hope our country can keep from going insane that long. I just hope this doesn't happen: 2009: A True Story.

Balls.