School Days: Terror Of The C's

This year I am a B+ student. I will do better. In hopes of beginning this process, I went to a Hallowe'en party (but was home before 1 a.m., which is the new midnight) and then went to see CATS on Sunday night with Jen and Kristen. It was quite good if you are open to spending two hours on plotless, leotarded extravagance. Which I am, obviously. It was great!

But I am doomed schoolwise, oh my brothers. Skip this section if you are easily bored by people talking to themselves about term papers. Don't worry, I'll tell you when to start reading again. This political science paper is going to be the easiest thing to write, because anybody who has laid in a sufficient supply of acid and 'ludes can write international relations theory. Anyway I have a funny feeling it's going to wind up being about the dangers of yucky squishy moral relativism compared with uncritical fundamentalist certainty. For those interested in my future academic career, I will reveal only that my current draft includes the phrase "bomb some of these motherf*ckers". This will be excised before submission. Probably.

My thesis has gone nowhere so far. I've been doing some reading which will be quite useful for public affairs class, as we're talking about environmental matters in Canadian foreign policy this week, but as to what I'm actually thesisising about, no progress has been made. This clever use of passive voice was engineered to avoid saying that I have made no progress. At least I have some ideas of theoretical works that could be useful, so that's good, I just have no idea what I'm applying them to.

Geopolitics remains terrifying. My paper needs at the least a lot more research, at most a complete topic change, and frankly I'm leaning toward the second option because, frankly, the topic I was working on is a media studies topic and nothing to do with environmental geopolitics as she is studied.

But! There is a ray of light in all this badness: public affairs is actually going non-disastrously. Even the group project is going well so far. My individual presentation is next week and not only have I done a decent amount of research, I've also found a cool PowerPoint template to use. Hooray. And Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang have helpfully published The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar, which contains almost exactly the kind of background information I need.

Now there will be no more term paper talk, gentle readers. Matt just called from his Outpost o'Isolation in northern BC. Being a junior guy at an engineering firm sucks because you get sent off to the middle of nowhere all the time. And once you're there you only get fifteen minutes on the phone to call a girl, thousands of kilometers away, who is all cranky due to a sinus headache and academic pressures. So basically it's a penal colony with good pay, I guess? And one where they let you do core samples? It is probably much more fun than that. I hope.

This all sounds like I'm in a terrible mood, but aside from an occasional stab of "Oh holy mother of God" terror, things are actually going pretty well. For instance, I made forty-eight cupcakes yesterday, and all of them were adorable. Not coincidentally, yesterday was Katherine's birthday, so happy birthday to her. And Colleen's coming this weekend, so I am very excited about that. And on that cheery note, I'm going to go become unconscious.

Employments

Hello, possums. It is a good pre-Hallowe'en type of weekend and soon I am going out to a party, dressed in safari style. It should be pretty exciting. Last night I stayed home until it was time to go out and see the Red Light Saints again, because they were competing in a Battle of the Bands type of thing. They didn't win, but they did pretty well methinks. There is a chance they'll get a "wild card" slot in the next round of the competition based on popularity.

This post is partly an experiment to see whether, when one has started a post and not posted it until days later, the date stamp shows as being the date of publication or the date the draft has begun. I will report back.

Girl Power!

Didn't get Spice Girls tickets twenty minutes ago. Now they are up on eBay at $953 for two floor seats. Noooooooo.

UPDATE: YAY. Emily told us they have added another date. We are going to relive our childhoods, but this time we can stay out past 11. And our mommies don't have to come pick us up.

This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened, ever.

Just To Remind Myself

It looks like maybe (maybe!) I can graduate at the end of December 2008. That would be ultra-fantastic. All I need after this year is: GEOG 2000, GEOG 2005, a third-year geography class of my choice, an international affairs class, and one poli sci. Oh wait, my language requirement is going to ruin everything unless I can get two courses' worth of stuff taken during the summer... which I so can. It will be fine.

Oh, No.

I think... maybe I am still writing my public affairs paper on something not sufficiently related to the themes we are supposed to cover. But I have 15 whole hours to fix it! It's fine! And at the same time I can write my weekly commentary for gepolitics, attend that awesome One Voice rally downtown, file my passport application, get somebody from the super's office to fix the #%@^ leaky tap, research my thesis, study for my econ midterm, and get my public affairs group project in order. Why didn't I think of any of this this morning when I was thinking how awesome life was? And why did I waste 180 of my non-renewable life minutes in an international relations seminar arguing with the Hate German? I call him the Hate German because I hate him. And he's Austrian. Jokes!

Isn't there something you can do to lab rats where you expose them to so much stress that they forget to perform basic life functions and their systems completely shut down?

Go Team Iveson!

My mother's colleague's son and someone I've known for a very long time has just run an extremely well-organized, Internet-friendly, and idea-tastic campaign for city council and won! This is great - from what I've seen of Don's campaign literature he has good, sound ideas and can bring a lot of vitality and social awareness to the council. Well done to everyone who worked hard on the campaign and to Ward 5 voters for making an excellent decision.

Sometimes good things do happen. That's something I need to work on remembering some days, but sometimes they do!

Two Pounds Of Awesome In A One-Pound Bag

There's really something to be said for a good breakfast. Might I suggest coffee with milk, an apple with cheddar, and a buttered slice of toasted light rye?

I have a paper due tomorrow and I am soooo not worried. My capacity to crank out writings has increased exponentially every year. Writing to deadline is not really a concern, especially because I've already done a bunch of research.

However, my thesis is a worry. I'm seriously starting to get a little cagey about the amount of reading I haven't been doing on it. But it will get done! It will!

Finally, just to make this a complete hash of a post with no coherence whatsoever, I'm in the market for Hallowe'en costumes. I'm thinking either Sonic the Hedgehog (lots of work) or Julie Andrews from Victor/Victoria. The latter would probably be less work. Or I could do something else entirely, I'm open to suggestions, easier is mo' better. What do you guys think?

Rediscoverye of Oulde Favourits

Just a week or so ago I went back to reading Geoffrey Chaucer's blog, which is most delightful and is now linked on the right. Highly recommended, and not just for the very lovely scrollwork at the sides of the page.

Whirligig

I could use this post to do some serious angsting about distance and family and stuff, but I'm not going to. Instead, I'm going to retrospectively enjoy a nice weekend and look forward to doing some good work and having some fun over the remainder of the semester.

Katherine and Jordan went home for Thanksgiving, too. Jordan threw up on the train both ways on their trip to Chatham, poor guy. Katherine and Jordan puke more than any other couple I know, what with the food poisoning and the motion-sickness-slash-early-morning-sickness.

Anyway. Last weekend was pretty good. My flights were smooth. Thanks to a mad sprint down the terminal and across the tarmac I even got the earlier flight and arrived an hour early on Friday rather than waiting around in Calgary. Friday I picked Boopsie up from school, which wasn't technically a surprise but sort of was because I succeeded in sneaking up on her and Kylen as they came out of school.

Friday night I dropped in on Lo-man's birthday party for a bit. D-Prins tried to pressure me into staying and going to the bar but I begged off because I was going to the same place the following night anyway, and had been up since 3 a.m. Mountain time.

Saturday was pretty chill. Katie and her mum came over for breakfast before trooping off to Calgary. Boopsie and I watched the season premiere of Supernatural and had one million conniptions which will make no sense to anyone who doesn't watch the show. I had dinner with Jeanne-Marie and her new boy, Corey, after going to their new house and meeting their new hedgehog, Maurice. Hopefully I got those names in the right order. Both Corey and Maurice are good value, although Maurice is much cuter when he tries to put his whole body through a toilet paper tube and fails miserably.

Saturday night was the third installment of Respect The Ave, a traditional festival of song, drink, and dance presented by many of the crazy people I know. We all crashed at Becca's house, it was quite fun. Dave now has the distinction of having been the most plastered guy in Marco's Donair on a Saturday night; no easy feat. Don't try this at home. Or in Marco's Donair, either. Matt and I did get him back to Becca's eventually, though. It was a bonding experience, though not really necessary given that we already like each other very much.

Saturday morning I stumbled home, dropping off Matt and Dave in Mill Hoods on the way, and had a pretty quiet day with dinner at home. The fam played Trivial Pursuit on Saturday night and we realized afresh how smart and funny we are. It's a quality gene pool, I can't help the way I've turned out.

Additionally, we realized that the answer for every single question involving Canadian prime ministers in our edition of Trivial Pursuit is either Mackenzie King, Dief the Chief, or Trudeau. Hint: if the question is about seances, the answer is "Mackenzie King".

Monday was Thankstravaganza. Danica, who I had not seen in forever, came over for a cup of tea and a chinwag, which was lovely. A few of Mum's colleagues came over for dinner, Simone popped by for a bit, and Becca slept over. We fell asleep after insightful discussions, and I feel we have solved a great many global and personal problems. Take that, world!

Since I got back everything has been speedy speedy speedy. Lots of work, and I have to go do more now.

However, I have taken the Sabbath day as an opportunity to go out to lac Philippe in the Gatineaus for a hike with a couple of the people from the Carleton University Students for the Environment. The Lusk caves were a highlight. Fortunately Paul and Gregory had lights with them so our group of five hikers went quite far underground and climb around on the rough marble walls, squeeze through chimneys, . We re-emerged into vaults of red and golden leaves, clear skies, and brisk pleasant air. The Gats are so close and so beautiful, and we are lucky to have them. They make my economics homework bearable.

I Hate You, Erik Prince

I have a few words for this man. Brazen and offensive are just a few of them. "Oh, it's fine, no Americans died. Support the troops, OK? Tell 'em to have fun dealing with the enraged relatives of those dead Iraqis! I'll be busy swimming in a vat of money like Scrooge McDuck."

Panke & Risse: I Hate You Too

Today I spent four hours in the library, because I am diligent. I learned that academia's way of saying "go away" is just to use obnoxious phrases like "structurationist ontology" while you are innocently trying to understand your readings.

Oh, and then to cause you to remember that you have a five-page critical review to write for the following afternoon. Yay.

Andy Samberg makes everything better by being hilarious. "You're in New York now, baby!"