www.simoncollier.ca

Samantha was a beautiful, cheerful, bright and caring young girl. While I worked at the youth group, she was one of the highlights of my job. She was a teen member, sixteen years old, and a joy to be around.

She was very pretty, and I suppose popularity comes with that easily. But she was special. She was sweet and thoughful and sometimes wise beyond her years. I understand that her life had been tougher than most – tougher than mine, certainly. She always had a glow about her though, an energy that was infectious and could always change your day for the better. Even after a long day trip or an overnight camp with puking boys and homesick girls, when I came back and she was there – smiling and laughing as she would – my energy was renewed.

I remember on one paticularly busy day I found her with a small child from the club. I can’t remember what was wrong with the child, maybe she was hurt or hungry or missing her mum, but I do remember Sam had taken her under her wing, and was acting as a surrogate mother. I stopped and watched for a while, in awe of Sam, who was caring for this child without requirement or prompt. And the child was responding so well. I remember being filled with hope.

There are so many young people that have difficult childhoods, and so often that destroys their chance at adulthood. Here, though, was a girl who was fighting that destiny every step she took.

Samantha wasn’t her real name, that’s the name I gave her. Early on she asked me why, and I explained that I thought she looked far more like a Sam to me. And that’s what I called her, for over two years. Samantha.

When I heard about the crash, I was crushed. I was so hopeful and excited about Samantha, I desperately wanted to see her be successful in life. She had the energy and love to change the world, and had already started. She made my life better, and I was on the outer diameter of her life.

Maybe I had put too much stock in Sam. When she died, I really lost my momentum – my care, in fact. When someone so obviously special, so beautiful, so caring will die so suddenly and unfairly, why bother? Why put energy and hope into someone or something when the world is so cruel as to kill her? It’s just not fair.

I don’t know why I can’t get over her death. It’s not like I was her bother, or lover, or father. I was just her youth leader. I suppose it just serves as an illustration to me of how unjust life is, how suddenly it can change, and how any kind of attachment can hurt you later.

God, it’s unfair.

One of my favourite shows BBC’s Top Gear.

Thanks to the magic of Google Video, I can provide a link to a comparison of driving a lap of an American Grand Prix course on a Playstation to that of driving it in real life, in the same car.

Here is the link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5587010895482106872

My favourite advert of all time is for the Peugeot 406 and was made over 10 years ago. It’s a collage of thoughts and daydreams that we all have had at some point, backed by M-People’s “Search for the Hero”. The visuals are fantasies of defining moments of humanity and bravery and suggest hope for the human spirit.

Despite it being more than likely copyright, I have made the video available for download here. I suspect Peugeot won’t object to me making their commercial available to a new audience.

I have no strong opinion of Peugeot: their cars seem to be reasonably decent, safe and reliable. I do think the presentation would be “nicer” if the agenda was not to sell a product, but stood instead as art. As far as commercials go, though, this is impressive. If they were all this good, I would actually watch TV.