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Tuesday, January 16, 2007 A pretty cool, creative and icing filled birthday cake to me! Celebrating my 19th birthday online here with the almost sureally accurate horoscope I got. This is from Birthday Alarm site I use to organize and keep track of the world of birthdays I need to remember! It's an awesome way filled with many features to create an electronic database that emails reminders to you. It also gives you access to a wide selection of e-cards! Their present to me from them today was this: Free Sample Personal Astrology Profile for Teague Birth Date and Time..... January 16, 1988 4:30 PM Birth Location............. Toronto, Canada Sun Sign.................... Capricorn �Section 1: How You Approach Life and How You Appear To Others You appear gentle and soft, and you act rather reserved with others until you know them well and feel it is safe to be open with them. You have a strong need for emotional security and a sense of belonging, and are deeply attached to the past: your heritage, roots, family, cherished friends, familiar places, etc. Making radical changes or moves away from what is known and safe can be very painful and difficult for you. You tend to cling and hold on to people, memories, possessions of personal or sentimental significance. Having a home, a safe haven, is very important to you. Section 2: The Inner You: Your Real Motivation Serious, disciplined, and quietly ambitious, you are driven to prove yourself and to achieve material accomplishments and success. Your work, your position in the world, and your contributions to society are very important to you. You will persevere through enormous hardship and frustration in order to reach a goal you have set for yourself, and you often sacrifice much in the area of personal relationships and home life in order to do so. Teague Neal blogged on 2:03 AM
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Saturday, January 13, 2007In our ever changing global world where borders and boundaries mean less and less we have entered a almost complete global network of communications. Not only of communications but of friendship, love and relationships. The fact that for example the United Kingdom is seperated by the thousands of miles of the Atlantic means little now. For example my good friend in Wales who means so much typing in his instant messaging window perhaps 3,000 or 5,000 km away depending where I am in Canada means nothing. I get his message delivered instantaneously. If we want to exchange pictures of each other it is exchanged instantly. We can email and chat however much we want as long as we want at absolutely no charge. To be able to do this is exceptional, men has come so far, we have created what was once a massive globe that meant communication could not happen between borders at all to this. To where we stand now where you can email anyone on the planet with a Internet access and a email address. ' I have long been intensely interested in foreign affairs and international travel and tourism. I would pick up atlases, books and read and study countries, cities and far flung locales. To learn all about a nation, whether it had 1 billion or less than 1 million people it mattered not. Size doesn't matter in essence with countries, it's all about culture and their environment. The way people grow up is affected by their environment, their customs and beliefs. All of this is a direct result of their country, city, village where they grew up. Esentially the interpretation of our wide world is open to interpretation, it is a blank canvass that needs to be perceived by us, its citizens. When I travel which has now included 7 countries in Asia, North America and Europe I have not only climbed the Eiffel Tower, seen the ancient Japanese temples, gazed upon the Mexican rainforests I have experienced the people.  Experiencing people is one of the largest and most poignant messages that both international travel and foriegn friendship affects. Taken alone they each have an affect, taken together and you have someone who can truly look at and understand the world. The way the French, Japanese and Mexicans act and present themselves is as much as a treasure as it is to experience their country. You don't just remember the resort, the quaint shopping streets, the monuments you visited. You remember the people, we are now approximately 6.5 billion inhabitaing our earth, this is immense and grows every second. For us to be together, to understand accept one another we must have that mutual understanding. Through the award winning teen newspaper The Tattoo that is based in Connecticut I have spoken to those in 19 nations in Asia,North America including the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Oceania. What does this mean? It means more than I know how the Welsh accent sounds, what the typical weather is in western Australia is or what festivals are celebrated and when in Calcutta, India. I have learned a treasure chest about their culture and countries. Most of all however I have learned their attitudes are affected by these events, places and celebrations. There is the barrier of not being face to face but we do have web cameras, email, instant messaging and much lower long distance calling rates than ever seen previously in the past.  To receive emails from USA, Singapore, Pakistan, India, Wales and Japan has broadned by mental reach imesurabely. If you just know your town, your corner of the world and do not reach out you are missing out on opportunities the size of the planet. The beauty, the absolute sheer magic of it all never ends. I have met some of the closest people who play a unbelievable role in my life not here, but from here with them from afar. I have met many and will be meeting more upcoming in the United Kingdom as well as a German girl in her native land for real. To finally give my Welsh friend, my American friends, my global friends that hug that bear hug is a thing of true beauty, it's a piece of my soul. I am not friends with Canadians, I am friends with the whole wide world! God bless you all!Teague Neal blogged on 5:56 PM
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Sunday, January 07, 2007I have just returned from a highly sucessful and stunning trip to Connecticut, New York and New Jersey with my older brother. I did the coach bus journey again from Toronto via New York into Hartford, Connecticut. To see this quaint and quieter state of mind than I'm used to again brought back many memories over the past few years. Connecticut has developedinto more than a travel destination, it's a second home now.As soon as I step foot on Connecticut soil I feel like I have entered a third home (we have a farm) and not just a new destination.Connecticut praticularly Central Connecticutfeels just like a comfy third region to me. I have southern Ontario, northern Alberta in Canada and also Connecticut, USA. The trip was very sucessful which was meaningful to me since my still sucessful but not as smooth summer sojurn down there this past July. Drove along the familiar road of Farmington Avenue in West Hartford/ Hartford where I have spent many weeks of my life now, seeing the old Victorian and Colonial style mansions back, the old restaurants I used to frequent and so much more. To be in the arms of my good friends, the editors of my newspaper. To be able to catch up in person on what has happened over the past few months and at our traditional Christmas party even past years with certain people. Their house holds so much and to be sitting there with so many great people just meant so much. The party had a large attendance this time around. Many old faces appeared for which I had not laid eyes on in seemingly eons. All the familiar faces that I yearn to see were there too. My charades choice this time was absolutely insane with the one I had to act out with hands only being "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court". I looked at the slip of paper and thought to myself "holy lord the Yankees have done me in this time". I tried my very best to act out it sylable by sylable, people started guessing. People continued guessing. Frustration started to fly, people started getting antsy. I started getting even more antsy. People started really wondering what was going on, some casually questioning my lack of skill in the charades game. I will admit it's not my stronghold of talent you currently are reading one of those my writing. However these people know that as this is a newspaper that I contributed 22 articles too, several of them award winning. After a painful half hour those on my team in the living room that night got it. I felt a sudden sigh of relief. My lucky older brother on the other hand new to the Connecticut scene had Brokeback Mountain. Put two fingers up meaning two words. Pointed to his back and hunched over. His team called out the anwser, now only if it could be as easy as that! Had a gourmet Italian dinner with one of my very good writer friends in Hartford. Enjoyed or at least tried to enjoy the food, they certainly had the Americana sized portions there! Yet tasty and a beautiful time to spend with him and have my brother meet him. My brother one on of the Connecticut days posed the question "Can we go to Yale". I responded "Why not". We went down to the station and bought tickets to New Haven, the home of the world famous university. The next day we went to New Haven down in southern Connecticut. I had previously been for a visit this past summer, however such a magical place doesn't lose its appeal. We took an hour or so coach bus drive to New Haven. Upon reaching saw the glitzy buildings that make up the British style downtown as you get towards Yale. Saw the New Haven Green, greens being a large expansive park in the middle of town. This is traditional with many New England towns, the majority of them all once having a green. A common gathering point for the town. Unfortunately Yale University was on its official "recess period" that has the Visitor Center closed, clearly closed with a week's worth of newspapers piled up on their porch. However not to be saddened we continued onto the world famous campus. Having taken the official tour from a student who came from California I recalled many of her words, jokes and more. We made our way through the campus seeing the heart of Yale, the Old Campus. The Oxford like ivy covered stone and brick walls looming over us. The centre court park area in the middle, seeing the statue of the founder and simply gazing at the beauty of the buildings. My brother was especially interested to see that the oldest building in Connecticut-Connecticut Hall was the home of their physchcology department, snapping many shots in front of it. We saw Harkness Tower the massive sprialling tower. The covered courtyards with their heavy iron gates closing them in. We then continued down High Street, a street with all the atmosphere of a high class old university. Checked into the Yale University Art Gallery and took the full tour with a gallery guide. His knowledge of the art brought it all to life. Many works of art Yale almunus have amassed over the years. Manet, Matisse, Degas and many others. A highly creative gallery we really enjoyed was the student sculptures. They created many different pieces of sculpture using almost everything. My favourite was one sitting on a refrigerator rack. Completely made of Vaseleine, this sculpture of a dumbell weight astounded me. We enjoyed New Haven pizza, a deep dish style with many toppings. A truly enjoyable time in my comfy Connecticut. We then boarded a coach bus to take us to New York City for New Years Eve! -A post will soon follow about New Years in New York, check back- Teague Neal blogged on 10:30 AM
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