New Year, New Me

So here are my New Year's resolutions for last year:

1. Be competent

2. Listen carefully and absorb what you are being told

3. Sleep 7 hours nightly

4. Exercise at least twice weekly

5. Eat less junk

I have made what I feel to be sterling progress on three of these, but my love of oatmeal cookies abides, impeding progress on 5. Regarding 1, I have booked a big multi-country trip with assistance from parents and a travel agent, done business travel on my own, and found and (sort of) maintained my own apartment, all with no major disasters. My listening has never been great, but I think now that people are using Facebook and e-mail more for communication, my retention of stuff has improved. And I'm organized and attentive at work, even if those traits don't generally transfer over to my personal life. Number 3 was wishful thinking from the start; the amount of sleep I get is inversely related to the number of classes I am taking, and my family seems to have a genetic propensity to stay up as late as possible. Since coming home for Christmas I have stayed up past 1:00 with my parents several times. I have exercised at least twice weekly almost every week, just because of capoeira, and during the summer was walking about 6km on a daily basis. I am no slimmer than I was, but I'm in pretty good physical condition.

So that's not bad, overall. This year's resolutions will take some thought. Does anyone reading have any resolutions that have turned out well? Any that have gone down in flames? I am interested.

Bah Humbug Now With Added Wonderfulness

On Tuesday I wrote my last exam ever. Wednesday was my last day of work. Thursday is my last day in Ottawa until April. I am going to miss it here; over the last year Ottawa and I have gotten very close. It is truly a beautiful place in the summertime: the streets are full of happy people revelling in their ability to go sit on a patio (like, an outside one! You don't even get frostbite, it's the coolest thing, you guys!). Gardens overflow with flowers planted in a charmingly random fashion I like to think of as Civil Service Haphazard. The air is warm and humid, but usually not uncomfortable. I spent most of the summer (as I recall) tripping about idyllically, tending to my tarragon and cherry tomatoes, making salade nicoise, and wearing sundresses. You can only imagine how fondly I look back on such sunlit, potentially hallucinated memories now that we are in the season known as Awful, getting freezing rain layered over two feet of snow and experiencing mysterious and cruel temperature fluctuations. Compounding the misery is the OC Transpo strike. I cannot imagine how anyone who lives any distance at all from downtown has gotten anywhere in the past eight days; it is hard enough for me, and I'm about 3km from where I work: a pleasant jaunt in the morning and evening, no serious hassle apart from the weather. This morning it took one of the admin ladies three hours and twenty minutes to get to work. Neither the city nor the union seems particularly interested in helping people get mobile again, and to all of them I deliver a resounding Bronx cheer.

Anyway, some extremely nice things have happened this week. The choir's annual Sankta Lucia celebration went off pretty well, although I did manage to have a coughing fit in the middle of Stilla Natt (Silent Night, for any non-Swedes reading). Five of the guys get to carry wands with stars on them every year, and can be relied upon to make an amusing spectacle of themselves over who gets to have the wands, who is whose fairy godmother, and things of this nature. This year the boys who got wands were all very miffed because the small children who were part of the procession had wands with stars at least twice the size of theirs. Then we drank glog (umlaut not included here), which is a deadly Swedish concoction of spiced cider stuff and vodka. It tastes like mulled wine teleported through a stained glass window.

The second nice thing preceded the first: I entertained! I decided that instead of trying to get together with various batches of friends before I left, I'd just invite a whole crew over for drinks and cookies and such. It was quite a nice evening! People didn't mingle as much as I'd hoped: the room basically had choir people on the couch, capoeira people by the papasan chair, and B.PAPMers on the table'n'chairs and standing in the kitchen. Now that I write that down, it seems weirdly reminiscent of the collective dynamics and personalities of each of those groups. Hmm. Anyway, aside from that it was All Good, and really lovely to see everybody before I left. The choir gang (consisting this evening of Dannik, John, Steph, Brian, JP, Nicole, etc) threw on some impromptu four-part harmony (like we do, what what!). Steph brought her Matt, and Graham brought some homemade wine that I am very much looking forward to drinking if it is anything like as good as the stuff that comes out of his kitchen whenever we're over for dinner. Glinski drove up from Kingston to be there! It wasn't hard to put on, either, because I have an awesome former roommate. A few weeks ago Katherine and I got together and made vast quantities of baked stuff for this extravaganza, which was the ideal Christmas present from her and made life much easier for me - all I really had to do was buy some artichoke asiago dip and nice fresh pita, make a batch of hummus, and get the drinks together. Oh, and spend three hours making a snowflake mobile when I should have been studying. Oops.

Finally, Garrafa/Sebastien tried to kill me at capoeira on Tuesday by making me play the entire class. I assumed it was just a little goodbye game to celebrate the end of a good session, but then people kept tagging out the person I was playing rather than me. I think I was on my fourth game before I figured out what was going on, and by the end I was more into repeated flailing actions than actual playing. Ah, the combination farewell and hazing ritual.

That's about it for now. Watch out, Bubble, I touch down in 37 hours.

Ingrates!

Your daily schadenfreude: President Bush assaulted with shoes on surprise visit to Baghdad. Maybe it's just me, but I just can't understand what this gentleman could possibly be angry about.

Sorry - sarcasm doesn't look good on most people, but there are times when it is the only possible reaction to bury eight years of frustration.

UPDATE: someone else much funnier than I (on the Jezebel forums) has written that this is "one small shoe from man, one giant shoe from mankind."

Significant Digits

1: this is the number of hits that are actually me on the first page of results I receive when I Google my name. It is a page about my track awards in high school and doesn't even link to anything anymore. That's kind of sad.

454: the number of posts this blog has as of that last post - I have a pound of posts! In grams!

Viajo!

This is going to be a great spring! I will be living like a pauper in a variety of locations of varying sunniness, as follows:

February 3-13: St. George's, Grenada, for a visit and beachy good times with Katie

February 14-20: Havana, Cuba, for Kelly's wedding to the nice young man she met on exchange there (I haven't met Andres, but everything I have heard suggests that he is nice)

February 20-22: Horrible airplanes

February 22-March 25: Buenos Aires and other Argentine destinations, for cosmopolitanism, nomadism, and a potential intermission in nine years of mostly-vegetarianism

March 25-27: Horrible airplanes

March 27-April 1: Tucson, Arizona for Grandma's birthday (she is not a day over 46!).

It is to be an epic journey and a marvellous one.

From the Mouths of Babes

For no particular reason, I thought yesterday of something I did in fifth grade. At the time it was tremendously embarrassing, and I felt ashamed for being Wrong rather than Clever. This is a feeling that guarantees a memory will burrow into my brain and lodge itself there for all time. In retrospect, though, it's hilarious and I'm glad to have brought some merriment into my wonderful teacher's life. It happened during social studies. Mademoiselle Violet asked the class who the president of Russia was, and following this question there was a resounding silence lasting, in my recollection, about five minutes. Then, a bolt from the blue! I had an answer. I gasped! I raised my hand! "Newt Gingrich," I declared.

The Dream Dies

Today I learned that I can never be Betty Cooper, everyone's favourite all-American blonde, because it is extremely hard to sing and play the tambourine at the same time.

Flavour Of The Week

My favourite quote of the past two weeks is from my good election-night buddy Jacob, who made the following declaration regarding monies owed to the Canadian Revenue Agency,

"They never ask for documents, remember?"

Other notable recent events have included a showing of The Blue Planet, which features great numbers of jellyfish and similar freaky wondrous sea-blobs (some venomous!).

Probably the best thing, though, was hosting Boopsie for the weekend. She got to meet my hooligan choir friends on Halloween, so now she will not recognize them unless they are dressed as woodnymphs, mariachi bands, or alarmingly realistic pregnant ladies. We also went out for brunch at Von's with Tamara, her roommate Joey (real, awesome name: Giuseppe), Sandra, and Steve. They make a mean omelette at Von's and the portions are satisfying but not so much that you can't enjoy a rum ball at the Wild Oat afterwards. We drooled over everything in the display cases at Magpie Jewelry; my favourite was a rather expensive necklace in the shape of very delicate olive branches. It made me want to buy it and wear it with togas forever and ever.

Sadly, Boopsie and I both had schoolwork to do, so much of Sunday was spent bumming around the apartment, working. It was quite pleasant to have company, though, and I was very pleased when she remarked at the bus station that the trip had been easy and we should do this all the time. Both of those things are true!

Tomorrow I am going to see Spamalot with Kristen and Jen. RULAGE! Other upcoming fun includes a presentation I'm giving to our departmental sustainable development committee regarding the EU's Sustainable Consumption and Production/Sustainable Industrial Policy. There is a pretty fab summary posted here, but it is only up-to-date for July. Anyway, should be good times. I have started talking about policy again so clearly it is time for bed. Something raucous is going on outside my building, but I don't anticipate it will stop me sleeping. Arrivederci!

Politics Nerd Time: Yeah We Did!

Hell of a week! The phrase "President-elect Barack Obama" sort of rolls off the tongue, non? I have spent so many hours this week e-mailing particularly good editorials and interviews to other interested persons, and every so often being submerged in these tremendous waves of sentimentality. I hope that this is the start of good things. I think he is a capable, intelligent, and decent man, and I am confident he will stand the tests well. The simple act of electing him has done so much for the image of the United States, but the real work is on its way. There are a lot of things I'd like to see in the first hundred days, so here's a little wish list for you.

Maybe with the legislative and executive branches Democratic-controlled we will (despite Obama's vote on FISA) get some kind of due process back for accused terrorists. That is a relatively cheap step to take, and it might not be complete within 100 days but it could be started. It would also cement international goodwill if America started acting like the land of the free again.

I would also like defence accounting and contracting procedures tightened up, to avoid excess spending on contractors, because there have been some magnificently stupid things done in that arena in the past few years.

The climate change file is about to get even more interesting in the US, so I'll be watching that attentively. Personally, I don't expect the Canadian offer of a bilateral agreement aimed at carbon markets to get much of an airing in Washington. It wouldn't hurt to harmonize the carbon markets, because more reduction projects in the markets would make the markets more competitive, making carbon reductions cheaper, which is a Good Thing. That could be done at the same time as a domestic cap-and-trade system, so long as the accounting procedures were compatible between the two systems so that reductions created in Canada could be applied for US companies and vice versa. The Albertan fear that the fuel carbon standards idea will spread from California may be well-founded, and that could put a serious kink in bilateral relations. It will be interesting to see whether Obama honours trade agreements or tries to follow California's lead and get around them by arguing that the environmental exceptions in GATT apply (there's a decent case that they do, because I wouldn't expect any American-produced oil to have as heavy a carbon footprint as Canadian oil).

As far as the economy goes, I honestly have no idea what should be done. I oscillate daily between the "string the bastards up!" and "bail the bastards out" schools of thought. A more progressive tax plan, such as Obama's proposal from the campaign, would be a good strategy for the slightly longer term. It amused me that some people invoked (gasp!) Sweden as an example of what happens when you have progressive taxes. Yes, it must really suck to have a high life expectancy and raise your children in an environment of equal opportunity for all. Beyond that, well, we'll see. I have some sympathy with Sarkozy and Lula's calls for an overhaul of global capitalism, but I am unsure what, exactly, would replace it. The same goes for health care; I am by no means a health policy expert, so I won't give big strident opinions on that.

Lord, all I ever talk about is policy. And you, gentle reader, have more of that to look forward to, because once I have finished my term paper on the Iraqi security forces, it will probably be turned into a post for this blog.

Remembrance Day Concert

Ottawa area readers, I have something for you to do if you would like to spend this coming Friday night remembering the people who have died because their country asked them to. Faure's Requiem is a great piece, so hopefully you will be able to join us! Please contact me for tickets if you are interested.

\O/

It is snowing! Wet, disgusting slush-snow, admittedly, but still: it is snowing!

Soon I will snowboard. Soon.

Top Speed, For It Is A High-Performance Vehicle

Since I have half an hour before I have to run out again, it seems like an opportune time to update and explain the lack of posting around here. Here is my explanation: I have no explanation, just excuses about how busy I am. What have I been doing? Well, here are a few things.

I went to my first Grown-Up Business Travel Conference in possibly-scenic Rochester, NY (a shout out to the Rust Belt, here). It was a good time and everyone was gracious enough to live up to their national stereotypes. For my part, I did not cause any international incidents by, for instance, abducting attractive Scandinavians as gifts for my girlfriends.

I went home for Thanksgiving, where I attended Jeanne-Marie's wonderful backyard wedding and hung out with my grandma, my aunt, and my uncle from Arizona. We had some truly delicious meals and a very educational afternoon at Body Worlds (my uncle Dick, a retired cardiothoracic surgeon, was particularly informative at the case of horrible obstructed arteries).

After I returned from the Birda, I spent some time in Ottawa with my vater. He was in town on business, so we were both busy - actually, that was kind of nice because I didn't feel I had to host all the time on top of school and work. On top of that, Ottawa (although a lovely city) does not necessarily have a full week's worth of stuff to do any given week in October. We trucked out to Montreal to visit Boopsie at the weekend. We took her out for a pre-birthday brunch and a trip to the Chinese lantern exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. It was a great trip but ended inconveniently with a four-hour drive back to Ottawa, because Quebec construction firms are sadists.

A few weeks ago I participated in a seriously marvellous capoeira workshop. I was just in a good mood or something, because the movements we learned were much harder than what I usually do but I loved every moment, and the game we played at the end seemed to go really well, just lots of good vibes going on.

Not much else to report, really. There is some travel planning in the works for January; lots of stuff needs to get sorted out for scheduling and applications and whatever else. But I have to get going, actually, if I'm going to be on time for my class. Au revoir, tout le monde!

Awkward Photo Opportunity!

That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, "health." But, look, Cindy and I are adoptive parents. We know what a treasure and joy it is to have an adopted child in our lives. We'll do everything we can to improve adoption in this country.

All able-wombed women are cordially invited to send Senator McCain their unwanted babies.

Check It Out: Kiva

I added a link in the sidebar to kiva.org, a sort of microfinance aggregator/interface that puts small lending organizations in developing countries in contact with the people who have a bit of money to lend. Lots of you have probably heard of it before, and it's pretty cool. So far I've lent to a clothing vendor in Ghana and a small farmer in Peru. You don't get a tax receipt apart from the recommended 10% donation to Kiva's own operations (obviously, since you are getting the money back once the loan is repaid). But I think the idea of pumping a little capital into the economy of a country, while keeping it out of the potentially corrupt hands of the domestic governments, is much more valuable than a tax break on a straight donation. Loaning like this lets people exercise the agency to help themselves, which will probably have better long-term results for communities than aid alone.

So there you go. A brief weekend update: this weekend is kind of sucking hardcore. At about noon on Friday, I got a cold, and so now I am thoroughly disgusting and all of my fun plans for coffee and parties and such have been scuppered. My respiratory system is such a piece of junk sometimes. Friggin' Achilles lung.

Unintentionally Humourous Geomorphology Terms, Ed. 1

Dyke swarms.

Rocks Rock

Classes started this week for me (and for Boopsie!). The two I've had so far look pretty good. Saille and I have both of our geography classes together, which was a nice surprise, and other than that it's just international affairs for me. International affairs is going to be a depressing one, methinks: I haven't had the lecture yet, but the readings are all about sexual violence in conflict, terrorism, etc etc etc. It should be interesting, though. My geomorphology class looks somewhat terrifying; in the first class the prof blew through a whole bunch of terminology, seemingly assured that most of us knew all of it already. It was hyperventilation-worthy. Doing the readings so far, I do basically understand what's going on, but I'm going to have to be pretty careful to keep good notes.

It was a bit of a shock to come back to work and school after my Blissful Five-Day Weekend, during which I did as little as humanly possible. I cleaned the apartment, played a lot of capoeira in the park, and went to the movies. I went out to the Barley Mow on Friday night to see Jaime, back from England temporarily. Kristen and I helped Lauren move into her first apartment, which is adorable and in the fabulous Elgin Street area. Her parents very kindly took me and Kristen out for Vietnamese to thank us. Most importantly, I slept a lot (going to bed late and waking up even later is one of my favourite pastimes).

Friday night I went out with Saille and Rosina to Rooke's place - the Red Light Saints are in the Big Money Shot again (and won $5000 in the wild-card competition, which means they now get to go on to play for $40 000, which is intense). I didn't go to the show, though. Instead, I went out with a gang of assorted B.PAPMers to Pier 21 and danced the night away to the sounds of some good recorded music and a medium-bad band. Then I woke up to read about landforms.

One of the highlights of the weekend has been a good exchange I'm having with Emily. She's supporting McCain in the election, and said so in her Facebook status, so I e-mailed her to ask why she connects to his candidacy. On an emotional level as well as a policy level, McCain '08 doesn't work for me in the way it does for her. So now we're basically writing small essays back and forth on why we support one or the other. It's good to have exchanges like that; for me, it prevents me from just drawing a hideous cartoon of People Who Disagree With Me and yelling at it until I feel righteous. Writing also highlights to me the more paranoid and contradictory elements of my leftism (I may triage these into "for exorcism" and "for substantiation" at some later point).

A further highlight was talking with Katie and Boopsie on Skype. They were both online in the early evening on Saturday, so I basically ate dinner with them. It was pretty nice to catch up, and they both seem to be enjoying themselves at school. Boopsie and I discussed, among other things, the soon-to-be-completed epic Harry Potter fanfiction we are reading. Shut up it is awesome OMG.

I am not amused that the writ is going to be dropped so soon up here in Canadia, because the files I am working on all need to start going up the ladder pretty soon and nobody Important is going to be paying attention to them. SIGH.

Pregnant Pause

What, can they not afford Photoshop in Alaska? For shame. Anyway, this should be hilarious for everyone but Governor Palin's teenage daughter.

Sweet!

This is pretty great news, even if it's only a temporary situation given the election speculation. (Hat tip to Calgary Grit.)

Politics Nerd Time: Sarah Palin

Nerd time! A Sarah Palin bio packet for interested parties as surprised as I was by the selection:

1. She has threatened that Alaska will sue over the addition of polar bears to the endangered species list.

2. She has come out in support of the teaching of creationism in schools: ('The Republican Party of Alaska platform says, in its section on education: "We support giving Creation Science equal representation with other theories of the origin of life. If evolution is taught, it should be presented as only a theory."' Commence wailing, gnashing of teeth.)

3. Palin supports drilling in ANWR. Also, this cached Google page demonstrates that she issued a press release supporting Obama's energy plan before being nominated for VP, so it will be interesting to see how they get around that one.

4. She is staunchly pro-life, and has put her money where her mouth is by electing to keep and raise her fifth child, born with Down's syndrome (just for interest, her kids' names are kind of hilarious: Track, Bristol, Piper, Willow, and Trig).

5. Like McCain, she has a son serving in Iraq.

6. She resigned from Alaska's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission due to a "lack of ethics" on the part of Republican members; she also exposed the party's state chair for corruption.

7. She has only been governor for two years; all of the criticisms about "lack of experience" that have been directed at Obama also apply to Palin. The Detroit Free Press has a stunningly snarky editorial on that matter.

According to a senior Clinton advisor, the idea is that Palin will energize independent and Republican women who weren't enthused about McCain and would have stayed home from the polls. All in all, I think she's an interesting choice. She has solid conservative credentials, and certainly seems to have the upstanding character that matters in American politics (note: she speaks openly about having done marijuana in her youth. I think that's becoming a non-issue now that the baby boomers are holding public office, because everybody and their roommate has done ganja). Even her one scandal is sort of badass, honestly: she tried to fire a state official who refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law from his state trooper job, ostensibly as revenge for having left her sister. Hell hath no fury! She also doesn't have the same plutocracy problem as McCain - I'd bet this lady knows how many houses she owns.

However, she's even more inexperienced than "new kid" Obama. At three years younger than Obama, Palin's youth will make McCain look even older in comparison. He's more than old enough to be her father. It's also a blatant pander. If McCain thinks moderate and liberal women are going to overlook the threat this ticket poses to their rights, I certainly hope he's mistaken. In any case, it makes the race more interesting - this election could get fun again!

DNCC

I thought Obama's speech killed - a good balance between the necessary nuts-and-bolts policy stuff and the broader ideological or post-ideological themes that give his candidacy such appeal. But was I the only one having a moderate internal freak-out after it was all done? Once his speech was over, every minute he was standing around on-stage with his family watching the fireworks made me a little more nervous, because I'm paranoid about assassination attempts. It was probably just the super-dramatic music they chose to employ as a backdrop for the loud banging noises of the fireworks. Fortunately the security was as good as it ought to have been. Jezebel's on-site liveblogger said she had to go through three metal detectors just to get inside.

One other thing that caught my attention was the "American Voices" series on Day 4. They had several military or ex-military personnel up to speak briefly on why they are supporting Obama. One was Capt. Nathaniel Fick, one of the subjects of an extremely interesting book I read recently. Generation Kill has an embedded reporter following a platoon of Reconnaissance Marines into Iraq in Spring 2003. If you have talked to me lately, I've probably yammered at you about the unmitigated fantasticness of the miniseries HBO made out of the book, though it is uncomfortably postmodern (a TV show of a book put together from magazine articles about real events?). The Reconnaissance Marines were not sent to Iraq to do their usual job, which is usually to act in small, dispersed, highly mobile units travelling under the radar to gather intelligence in hostile environments. Instead, they roared around in Humvees being ambush-bait for the fedayeen and the last of the Republican Guard. It was, one Marine says, like putting a Ferrari in a demolition derby. Reading it has really made me think about the nature of the armed forces. It has given me greater respect for the people who sign up for these extremely difficult jobs.

Most of the Marines didn't particularly care whether the rationale for the war in Iraq was just - you can't care, can you, when your job is to do go where you are sent? - but they all had obvious interest in seeing the invasion executed well. Nobody had the troops' back on that one. Instead, their command structure in Iraq told the higher-ups what they wanted to hear. Nearly everyone back home was so concerned about showing Patriotism(tm) that the basic questions about how to deal with the invasion were never asked until the situation had escaped control. Everyone with power ignored the early indications on the ground that foreign fighters were coming in to fight the Americans and that initial unrest would become explosive. Not only did Iraqis deserve better, but the soldiers deserved better. I don't know how a human being can process that: the country you signed up to defend is making seriously questionable decisions, then carrying out those decisions in a manner that will endanger you and those serving with you. Suppose someone gave you an order that you thought would make things worse, and that was likely to get you killed. Would you follow it? If so, would you call it honour? I would imagine you'd have to shut down the part of your brain that asks questions like that in order to avoid going absolutely insane.

Fick told the crowd that at 18 he registered Republican and voted for McCain in the 2000 primaries. He said,

It took seven years of hard experience to get me on this stage. But we cannot afford more of the same. That’s why we need Barack Obama and Joe Biden to lead us beyond the tired divisions of the past. They have the judgment to make the right decisions, leading our military, and uphold our highest ideals.

I'm looking forward to an America with good judgment and high ideals.

If you missed out on being there in person, but still want to catch one of the acceptance speeches, fear not! Apparently there are still 10 000 tickets left to John McCain's. This is in a 12 000 seat venue. Ha ha ha.

Handed In: One Mini-Thesis

The Madness Continues: Phelps!

What the heck?! The guys on my local Stupid Classic Rock station (I love it, really) are talking about an experiment they conducted on their intern. They made him eat a Michael Phelps breakfast and then run 200m. What madness has overtaken the human race that people keep wanting to do that? Eating five pancakes, three slices of French toast, a five-egg omelette, a bowl of oatmeal/grits, and a heifer and then jumping around being vigourous does not sound like a good time to me. But then, I'm not in charge of getting radio station ratings.

T-Dot Trip

The traffic on the 401 was pretty horrendous today. You’d think by the time you got to Oshawa things would have cleared up a little, but you would be mistaken. We’d been on the road for an hour and fifteen minutes of stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper fun by the time the bus pulled past the Oshawa exit. But since I was working on my thesis I didn’t mind so much – anything that gave me a little time to sit and think was just fine.

The reason I was on the bus was that I was paying Miss Colleen a visit in Toronto. Monday after work I trucked out on the Greyhound. It was a very soggy trip, because the rain gods hate me and punished me with a torrential downpour the instant I stuck my head out to go to the bus station. Anyway, the weather was better in Toronto and very good indeed on Tuesday. Good weather was important because we were outside all day at Canada’s Wonderland, punishing our adrenal glands on the roller coasters and other such suicidal attractions. The Behemoth, the Bat, the Vortex twice, the Stand Up, the Wild Beast, the Sledgehammer… and a final spin on the teacup ride at the end of the day. We also stopped to watch an acrobat show set up on a platform in the middle of a pond. The acrobats used trampolines to leap up and alight on a wall before tumbling gracefully back down. At the same time, divers were clambering up the other tower and plunging into the water. The music was just right for the act, definitely better than the questionably choreographed ice show we had seen before the acrobats.

The amusement park trip and ensuing barbeque had the corollary benefit of letting me meet a bunch of Colleen’s friends and/or roommates who I hadn’t met before. They are a wacky and wonderful bunch! It was kind of a nice change of pace to hang out with people who don’t have the 9-to-5 thing going like most of my friends do now. Additionally, they are totally devoted to singing in public, which makes the world a much better place.

The next two weeks of my life are looking very good indeed. I get to see Boopsie and Mom, and I have a to-do list of pleasantly mind-numbing little chores, as well as some free time (finally!). My biggest worry, essentially, is that I’ll get so zoned out with walks in the park and trips to buy vegetables in the Market and generalized relaxation that I’ll forget to go to work.

The Amazing Fish-Man, Destroyer of Worlds

Although Michael Phelps' Olympic accomplishments are jaw-dropping in and of themselves, I can't help but be amused by the multitude of articles devoted to his equally staggering caloric intake. Granted, I could live on what he eats in one day for an entire week so that's legitimately terrifying, but this little media trend is nevertheless totally cracking me up. A little swarm of articles with breathless exclamations about "Twelve thousand calories! Whole jars of mayonnaise and containers of eggs! Normal men would gain 3 lbs daily from eating this insane quantity of food!" All of the articles mention in a sort of surprised tone that if you eat like this, your body will probably not start to look like Phelps', i.e. "6ft 4in and 192 lbs of pure joy. From a female perspective, obviously. Though I probably shouldn't say that." That quote is from a Guardian feature where one of their more expendable reporters attempted to ingest the Kilimanjaro of victuals this guy gets through in a day. The video of the events is pretty hilarious.

From this we can conclude that Michael Phelps is responsible for the depletion of world grain reserves and the untimely death from cardiovascular disease of foolhardy journalists. He must be stopped.

Update: TWO of these idiots have tried it! The Times had to get in on the action. What is wrong with these dudes?

A Four-Year Life Index

For the past little while, I've been doing some accounting for the past four years. I am on a study break now, so it seems like a good time for some navel-gazing distraction. Here's what I've come up with: a little silly, and a little serious. I'd tell you to enjoy it, but really it's for my own thinky-thinking.

Academic and Professional

Majors: +1

Minors: +1

Pages of readings: eleventy billion

Depressing thoughts about human species as result of course work: eleventy billion

Hours spent wishing that guy/that girl in my lecture would shut up already: seemingly limitless

GPA: Half-decent!

Jobs: +4, -3

Socialization

Prospective lifelong friends: +10 (minimum)

Quality acquaintances: ~150

Appreciation of family: ~+60%

Persons of the boyfriend type: +5, -5

Economic

I am now poor with more money than I had ever owned before.

Political

Major parties supported: -1

Candidates sincerely supported: +2

Fringe ideas held: + many, but - a few as well

Moments of schadenfreude as result of bizarre GOP sex scandals: many

Favourite political blogs: +6

Health and Athletics

Pounds: ~+15, but I don't actually care all that much due to a healthier attitude about myself than in days of yore

Mental health: ~+50%

Time devoted to self-loathing/self-recrimination: -90% (from May 2004 baseline)

Incidences of persistent colds/pneumonia: +4

Sporting pursuits attempted/pursued: +5.5 (capoeira, half marathon & 5-km road races, cross-country ski, climbing, sort-of wakeboarding)

Snowboarding trips: +10

Snowboarding tricks: +0.5

Sports injuries: +1 (also many bruises and scrapes)

Arts, Entertainment, and Other Life Experiences

Choirs: +2, -1

Hours wasted on YouTube and similar digital media: Oh jeez

Hours spent dancing: Approx +300

Live showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show: +2

Dwelling-places experienced: +3

New countries visited: 0

Hours in airport lounges: +37

Favourite bands: +15 (approx)

Favourite TV shows: +7, plus Dr. Horrible

Rock/pop/country concerts: +13 (approx.), plus Folkfest and Bluesfest

Rock/country stars forced into taking photographs with self or friends: +9

It's been pretty good, all things considered. Lots of learning and growth, when I think about who and how I was four years ago, I hardly recognize myself. Many of the changes have been positive, and I think that's about the best anyone can say for herself.

One more thing: if the fire alarm in this building goes off one more g-ddamn time tonight, somebody's gonna get capped. I have an exam in the morning.

Long Weekend

This weekend, Emily and Nate got married. I give the event four stars - the ceremony reflected their personalities and relationship perfectly, and the reception was a blast. The speeches weren't too long, and Emily's dress was absolutely stunning. This summer people my age started to get married; the next few years are going to be extremely weddingy. Free cake and booze for all!

For two nights before the wedding, I stayed with Colleen. She's doing the T-dot thing, waitressing and having a pretty cool time. Her house rocks - it's in a location convenient for downtown but not right in the thick of it, and her roommates are nice. Even better, there is no longer a cat there so I did not have to load up on allergy meds. Sadly, Colleen had to work on Saturday so we hung out Friday night for a bit, watching Deja Vu (not bad, really), then grabbed a nice breakfast at the charming morning glory cafe. I met Diane at Union Station and we were off to the Harbourfront for a little Caribana parade-watching. The crazy afternoon thundershower didn't dampen our spirits too much, thanks to Diane's umbrella - although they did give D-rock occasion to turn to me and say dejectedly, "it is literally raining on our parade." Too sad! Eventually the skies cleared, but by this point we'd seen enough glitter and feathers. We left the parade to do some dress shopping, clean out the Blue Jays store with Diane's gift certificates, eat and drink at the brilliantly named Overdraught Irish Pub, and report punctually to Evil Dead: The Musical. It is just an unbelievably awesome show. It is devoid of any subtlety whatsoever, and that is what makes it great, although I am sort of glad we did not sit in the Splatter Zone to get sprayed with fake demon blood. The ladies' room afterwards was a mob scene of women washing fake blood out of their clothes and off their arms and faces.

Monday I hitched a ride back to Ottawa with Katherine and Jordan. We had a pleasant drive back with Janet and Wulfric. The guys regaled us with tales of a former roommate, and we laughed our faces off. It was a good weekend.

Wordle

Wordle is everything the construction outside my window is not: fun and quiet. This is the word cloud it generated from an e-mail exchange I had with Boopsie (click the image for a legible size):

As a bonus, here is a song. You will not impress me by guessing what it is.

OK So I Lied: Hyperlink-Sassy Comment Ahead

Man, Reagan is so hot this year. There he is again at 0:25, averting his eyes from John McCain. Can we talk about the number of other ways in which this ad is super-awkward? How about the HORRENDOUSLY AWKWARD segue in the second sentence of the voiceover: "Half a world away, another kind of love... of country." How Lifetime of you, Senator. "He believes our world is dangerous, our economy in shambles." Inspiring stuff indeed. "Beautiful words cannot make our lives better." Oh, holy hell:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...." "?

Fish in a barrel, maybe, and it is the summer silly season. But this ad could be a look at how the McCain campaign is going to try to work around Obama's mad rhetorical skills and turn having the more cantankerous candidate into an advantage of a kind.

Blogging About Blogging

One of the things I have noticed about Mike's blog is that he doesn't just blog about personal "what I had for breakfast" material. He writes posts about technology, defence, fuel efficiency, all kinds of content that could, in fact, be interesting to people who know nothing about him and may not care to. He also does more "essay-style" posts where he takes on a subject at a bit of length rather than the time-honoured hyperlink-sassy comment combination. This is pretty cool, methinks. Of course, our blogs aren't the same animal at all; much of the purpose of Capital, Capital is to help keep in touch with people I love who are far away - in conversations with my aunts and uncles and with my friends from home, the stuff I write about here gets brought up a lot. But it's also an exercise for me, the unexamined life not being worth living and all. Right now I get access to a great variety of things to talk and think about just through my classes, but once I graduate in December, it will be important for me to make an effort to maintain varied interests in hopes of continuing to be (I flatter myself) an interesting person. So from here on out I'm going to try to do an increased amount of editorializing and wee research bits about current events and developments other than my breakfast choices. That could cover anything from gardening and cooking to music to the latest grindings of the political machine. We'll see how it turns out, but I'm looking forward to challenging myself a bit. Though if I've had a particularly good breakfast, I will obviously write about that!

To that end, gardening: I've recently invested in some cherry tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum), basil (ocimum basilum), and tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus). Ottawa gardening is much different than Edmonton gardening because we get actual heat and sun in the summer - Ottawa is in Hardiness Zone 5a rather than Edmonton's 3a (the harshest zone is 0, the mildest is 8, and NRCan's Atlas of Canada has a cool map up here). So I am looking forward to having fresh, delicious cherry tomatoes, possibly sliced up with some basil and bocconcini and drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Highly recommended. The plants already have a bunch of little green tomatoes on them, so with continued hot weather we should be rolling. Becca's dad tells me that Tumbler cherry tomatoes are great, but I've heard good things about the yield of Tiny Tims. It would have been nice to have the "draping" effect of a Tumbler tomato, but that's not what they had in the Market. We'll see how they go; I tend to get impatient and neglectful with plants, and Katherine and I managed to kill several rounds of basil when we lived together. However, basil is a bit finicky and trying to keep it going indoors through the winter didn't do it any favours. If anyone has fertiliser recommendations, though, I'd love to hear 'em. I'd like to go for something organic if possible, and would love to do a bit of balcony composting if my balcony were not slightly too small to allow for that - although really, one person's waste stream isn't going to amount to much useful compost anyway.

Back to the personal for a moment: Jesus, my street is noisy sometimes. All the windows are constantly thrown wide open now that it's summer, and the buses that go past are of the special Old-School Awoogah Vroom Vroom variety that make crazy amounts of noise as they decelerate to go round the corner. Alex and Becca told me that last week in the early mornings they amused themselves by playing "Garbage Truck Or Bus?" until I woke up.

Hola, Internet

It has been a busy, busy month. My project for Environment finished up with what I think was a fairly well-received presentation, covering my many hours of research. On the whole, good times.

There was a little time, also, for fun. Jamie threw a solstice party (only one day late!), which was very entertaining. I have been for some good runs with Katie, both around the neighbourhood and through the river valley. The family attended kd lang's concert, and we were all very impressed by her voice and the absolute ease she has onstage - she just looks so happy to be there that you can't help but be happy as well.

I also climbed Grizzly Peak in Kananaskis with Mike, Keith, and our high school classmate Jenna. Some big-horned sheep stared at us in a vaguely threatening manner. The climb was pretty exhausting, but it was very gratifying to make it to the top and peer over the cliff back down to our car parked on the lonely shoulder of Highway 40. The views of the Kananaskis Lakes were unclouded and the temperature was just right for hauling yourself up a mid-sized mountain. A shortcut on the way down led us into a fairly challenging jumble of scree and rock outcrops, but we scrambled down in good order. The next day I was just about as sore as I had been the day after the Calgary half-marathon three years ago, but it was absolutely worth it on both occasions.

The other highlight of the trip was Boopsie's graduation. She is a Yunk Ladee now and looked beautiful with her blonde curls and her pale blue cocktail dress. I also applaud her for having chosen a grad dress that she can actually, like, wear to other stuff later in life. This is in contrast to my own choice of a floor-length lavender gown slashed on one side to reveal a white underlay. Anyway, the ceremony was expedient yet entertaining, and the banquet had an Under The Sea theme that turned out to be pretty cool.

This week I am doing a few things: back to work for the gummint, back to school, and Becca and Alex's visit. The first has been a bit "aaah!" so far, because people had the temerity to do work during my absence and so now I have a lot of catchup to do. The second has yet to start, but both of my classes that both look pretty cool. The third is pretty awesome. Diane came up for a night, too, and it was great to see her, though she had to go back to Toronto after only a day here. So now it is just we three. After Mass this afternoon we went to the beach out in Ottawa's west end in hopes of evading death by broiling. Of course, this ensured that big old thunderclouds rolled in about an hour after we arrived at the beach, so we went home a little early for lemon-pepper salmon with herbed pasta and a green salad. Currently we are all bumming around with books and computers, thinking of watching Rocky Horror. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday evening. I think I'll get back to it.

Lazy Sunday

Persistent cloud cover for the past few days has made my get-up-and-go, well, get up and go. I'll welcome it back whenever it chooses to return. In the meantime, I will continue in my utter bewilderment at the Conservative insistence on raising the Chuck Cadman affair again with all of the doctored-tape business. To my eye, it is a weak move, since they cannot seem to point to an alternate interpretation of the PM's words on the Zytaruk tape. Sure, maybe the tape has been doctored, but if it did not materially change what PM Harper said, then what is the point of raising it again? The way the onus is working here may not be what the courts traditionally demand, but in politics it makes no sense to make this type of accusation unless you can present your edition of the story. Shouting ten times that the tape is doctored don't make it important.

And with that, I'm off to laze around some more under thundery skies - some reading, and then off to kd lang tonight. Hooray!

Everyone Does

Methinks my thesis advisor knows something I don't know (well, who doesn't). When I called him today to shoot the breeze and figure out an actual plan of some kind for my summer work, I told him I would be taking two summer classes. He seems to think this is going to be a lot of work to be doing all simultaneously. But I think it will be okay. This is likely because I am, on occasion and most especially when it is necessary to schedule things, an idiot.

This has been a busy week and I have been feeling like a Young Professional. The provincial environment department has hired me on for a month to do a quick, almost consultant-like project on environmental governance. If one could find two people in the universe who believe the same things about what governance even entails, and put them in a room together to discuss governance, they would swiftly come to blows over how it should be done. This is because governance, like much of the policy literature, is made-up, making it fun and easy to disagree about. But I suppose something being made-up doesn't stop it from being real once it's been made up, if you follow me.

On a more personal note, my Wee Sister, the Boopsita-In-Chief, will be graduating from high school this weekend and it is making me feel old. But I am excited for her, because she has a great first year of university coming up and she shall be closer to my neck of the woods. Grandma is up visiting for the occasion, and we took advantage of her visit to have a nice weekend in Banff. The weather took advantage of our visit to be horrible; I have never seen it rain so much in the mountains as it did those few days. Yech. It had better be nice for the ceremony on Saturday.

Breaking News!

Of course, the real reason Ian Brodie may be leaving his post is that he cannot stomach the thought of another summer month in Ottawa without me - leaving town tomorrow for the high, dry prairies, so ciao bella citta and I will see you at the end of June!

Spannercat

A few hours ago I made a temporary addition to my household of one. A little black cat was tucked up outside the door to my building when I got back from capoeira today. To prevent anybody creepy from scooping him up, I've taken him in until his owners call me back. His name is Levi. So far he has been a real charmer; he has engaged in a little minimal clawing of my possessions but was appropriately amused by the old "ball of tinfoil on a string" toy. He has been very cuddly with me, as cats unfailingly are with people who are allergic to them.

My only concern is this: what kind of cat doesn't like tinned salmon? He is a skinny wee thing already and won't touch it. He also doesn't like rice or All-Bran. Anybody who is familiar with the way cats' tiny minds work is invited to call me and tell me what's up with that. Wikipedia is unhelpful except to tell me that I have taken a tiny anorexic into my home:

Unlike most mammals, cats can voluntarily starve themselves indefinitely despite being presented with palatable food, even a food which they had previously readily consumed.

Awesome. This lady is going to get back home after the long weekend to find that I've starved her cat.

Score One For The Patriarchy

Fine, I admit it: the Swiffer WetJet is kind of fun to use. This does not mean it is OK to pay me 70.5 cents per dollar of male earnings, though.

Aujourd'hui

Today I spent two hours adding material to my mini-thesis and to my consternation it seems to have got shorter. This is not how the world is supposed to work, is it?

Work was divine today because I had actual work to do. Being busy makes life much more fun. This is one of my main problems, actually; I rush to sign up for things because I so enjoy being busy and then discover that you are expected to to, like, do all of the things you have said you would do. Uh oh.

Last night at capoeira I learned the actual refrain to a song, so now I can sing along properly instead of playing the ultra-fun and ever-changing Syllable Guessing Game. I think I figured something else out too: it appears to me, if you will tolerate for a moment an SAT analogy, that Spanish vowels: Portuguese vowels as French: Quebecois. With that mystery resolved, all that remains is to work out why my right leg armada sucks so bad when there is someone at whom to aim it. Pacifist limb syndrome is all that comes to mind at the moment, which certainly seems no weirder than phantom limb syndrome.

I have nothing else interesting to say, except WAIT! Edwards endorses Obama! And then Obama makes a gender oopsie - not cool, but America just can't stay mad at you, Barry.

RRRRR

Thought du jour: I want my nose to stop running. Please just stop. There is an Everest-sized heap of used tissues in every garbage pail in my apartment. STOP IT.

Now It Is Later

It has been a long time since I wrote, and I have been running around a lot. There've been some changes so now it's time to turn and face the strange. Some of the strange is the new view out my window; this new apartment is treating me pretty well even though it is just as easy to procrastinate here as it was in the old one. My kitchen is tiny and three of the buttons on the microwave don't work. My lamp is broken. None of that really matters, though. I like it here anyway.

Work is okay. It has been really really quiet this week, and I can't decide whether that's because there is stuff I should be doing and haven't done, or whether there is actually nothing to do. Nevertheless, it is totally fine that it's quiet because I am still sick and having serious trouble focusing and working. At least I can sleep again since the asthma meds kicked in a few days ago; that's been really helpful. Few experiences are more frustrating than lying in bed for hours, exhausted, and being repeatedly forced into wakefulness by coughing.

Yesterday I had a meltdown over the mini-thesis, no doubt the first of many. It is not going to be fun, but then if it were supposed to be fun they would call it a "funwrite" or something. Anyway, I have help from various quarters, including my fabulous and sensible Mom. Psychological/academic help is just one of the reasons she deserves a very happy Mothers' Day and a daughter who sends her extravagant presents and sends them on time instead of laming out and bringing them in her carry-on luggage two weeks late.

In fairness, I have been busy singing to bring joy to the masses etc. The choir had a spring concert that went off much better than we were afraid it would. Our new conductor has some seriously interesting taste in music; there were at least three songs that I super-hated the first time we sang them, but grew to enjoy performing. He has also, unprecedentedly, accompanied us down the pub after rehearsal! To think that anyone would want to see us more after dealing with our shenanigans for two hours of rehearsal...

The capoeira people, whom I have seen four days this past week, are awesome too. It is very nice, because they are fun and have similar interests to mine (well, one similar interest at least). You can never have too many friends really. Yesterday we played in public, right next to Oregano's in the Market, which was a big first for me. I don't think I bore up very well under the pressure, frankly. But we beginners reassured ourselves by saying that people doing their Saturday shopping don't know what capoeira is supposed to look like so the vast gulf in skills in between us and the advanced students probably doesn't look quite so huge.

Suuuuuure.

Anyway, that's all I have for now. I have to get back to my reading here. It's been a packed couple of weeks, and hopefully my body will stop punishing me for that pretty soon. It is still pretty revolting being me just now, though - I have just bought a six-pack of tissue boxes in case the next two weeks are anything like the last three. Gross.

And The Living Is Easy

I feel rather like Virginia Woolf today; an apartment of one’s own. Katherine moved out on Thursday, and cut off the phone and Internet access that day as well. So I will be periodically door-crashing her/Jordan’s/Wulfric’s/Graham’s apartment to post this and get a few other things done on the interwebs. Apart from that inconvenience, I’m sort of enjoying the simultaneous onset of summer and of Jessica’s Solo Life. I think both of these will go well. Summer is bearing down on us with extreme alacrity. It has broken 20 and 25 Celsius in the last few days, and the city is breathing a collective sigh of relief after our snowy, horrible winter. Not that the snow is all gone; it is still hanging around like a spare numpty at a wedding or whatever that expression is, coated in dirt and cackling quietly to itself. I see it from the bus window and curse it under my breath. Not that the change of seasons is all good; I have my traditional Spring Cold, and have been spending a lot of time this week lying on the couch using my disgusting mucous membranes to make noises like “mnuuuuh”.

This Wednesday at lunch I participated in some civil disobedience, because the CBC is changing all of its programming in September to include more of the light jazz and pop music that we so desperately need to hear. The security guards did not kick us out of the building lobby, though they clearly wanted to.

Eye of the Tiger

Today was officially the first run of spring, after a winter spent cheating on running with capoeira, and hot damn did I have fun. My route took me to the canal via the Experimental Farm, where I ran through various disgusting melting snowdrifts. It was prime dog-walking time, so I greeted a variety of our canine friends. Running dogs! Sauntering dogs! Hyper dogs! Fetching dogs and strolling dogs! Big and small! Hairy and sleek! Everywhere dogs! It was very exciting. I was probably really slow, but I had a great time and managed to push myself a little for the last 2km without running out of juice.

One note, though: if you are running, you probably want to avoid having your music player shuffle to Simon and Garfunkel's Patterns: "Like a rat in a maze, the path before me lies/And the pattern never alters until the rat dies". Eerie!

Good Times Bad Times

It is starting to feel like spring, and to celebrate I have bought myself two Led Zeppelin albums. For some reason, Zep always sounds like spring to me, even when they are trying to be all dark and Celtic-like.

Feeling Good

This has been a half-decent weekend. I went to the Last PAPM Formal Ever, as someone has ominously titled their Facebook album documenting the event. It was pretty good, but I left early, because I just didn't have the energy.

Saturday I only left my apartment to do groceries. There is homemade soda bread and a bunch of reading done as a result of my efforts. Soda bread is great, great, great because you don't have to let it rise - just mix the dough, score a cross in the top, and bung it in the oven. So much less work and waiting than making actual leavened-with-yeast bread. Perhaps next I will see whether my pizza dough recipe can be converted to foccacia.

Elise and Mum are in Toronto, and I wish I could be there but the trip was just too long for such a short time. I needed a weekend to chill out, and it would have been very easy to chill out with them but I was not up for the ten hours on the bus. This does mean we won't see each other until May, most likely, but we will just have to deal with that. Nearly five months is quite a long time.

While waiting for a family reunion, I will bolster my already-reasonable Cheer Levels by perusing the following reinterpretations of classic cartoon strips:

Nietzsche Family Circus

Garfield Minus Garfield

And speaking of family reunions, here is my Unofficial Cowboy Husband singing about them: enjoy.

Electoral Funsies

This coming American election was important from the start; the past eight years have left many people demoralized, no matter their ideological outlooks. There is a litany of disasters I could run through: the erosion of rights and freedoms; tax cuts for those who need them least; the poor and insensitive response to Hurricane Katrina; zero national action on climate change; wiretaps; the flourishing of an unsustainable mortgage system; detention and torture; two wars, one unnecessary by any reasonable measure and both expensive in treasure, lives, and stability. I realize this is more or less the same rant I posted after the 2004 elections, but so little has changed in this administration's approach to the world. America's reputation and resources have taken a beating, and this worries me. For all the foibles of the Excited States of America, and for all my compatriots' tendency to hate on them, as a Canadian I would most definitely rather have the U.S. in charge of world order than the People's Republic of China.

And no matter how much the rest of the world may hate Americans, Americans are doing a pretty good job hating each other. The relational dysfunction that has consumed America has Americans speaking of each other not as fellows in debate, with whom we may disagree, but as libtards, Paultards, Rethuglicans and Dim-o-crats, Christo-fascists, fascists, homofascists, corporate pigs, feminazi bonerkillers, fundies, neo-Condi rice-and-beaners, guilty white secularist liberals and on and on and on until the purported differences are so big that we can't even speak to each other like human beings anymore. Noise and name-calling have consumed the political debate. It seems there is less and less space for reasonable people to disagree, and fewer and fewer people to occupy that space. I have been part of this; I have un-secretly cackled when the hubris of a Vitter, a Foley, a Libby comes crashing down around him. I hope that people are tired of this; that all of these divisions are yielding a real desire for honesty, freshness, and a change in the way politics is conducted. I think there could be a figure who could rally a movement for reconciliation.

Last week, Barack Obama gave a politically difficult and intellectually spot-on address about race, one of American history's great festering sores. He said things that both whites and blacks might not have wanted to hear, but did it without incriminating anyone.Anyone who believes that speech counts for nothing in politics is clearly missing the point -- the way we speak of others shows how we think of them. Yes, he is ranked as being very (gasp!) liberal. Yes, it is wrenching to me, as a self-identified feminist, to find myself not supporting the first woman with a serious chance at the presidency. But even though their platforms are fairly similar, I really do feel that Clinton has a different understanding of politics than Obama does. His campaign is drawing in people who have traditionally felt cut off from their country's political life, and so far has not been as enthusiastic in its use of politics-as-usual tactics as the other campaigns. So in November 2008, I plan to support someone who speaks to Americans with respect. Usually I am cynical about this kind of idealist populist blah-blah, but just this once, let the healing begin.

Visitors

The Easter Bunny brought me a Colleen! We didn't really do much while she was visiting, just chilled out and went to dinner and the movies. Sunday night (yes, Easter Sunday) we went to a comedy club with Notl and Rooke, because Notl kindly hooked us up with free tickets. We did some walking around the Glebe, worked out on Monday, and some chilling out. It was all very nice.

I also slept, much and happily. There is nothing like a few nights of really good sleep to make you feel better about life.

Green Is The New Black

Green Week has been a resounding success so far! CUSE did a pretty fantastic job organizing it, I've gotta say.

Hopefully Not Homeless!

I think I have found an apartment! I love it. It is practically perfect in every way. There is just one other option that I am going to look at, and then I am sold for certain. It will be such a relief to finally be able to stop looking. I feel like I have spent the past two months on Craigslist and Kijiji, looking up places that are never quite satisfactory, so to have something nice fall into my hands like this is really quite a treat. But then, I should hold off on the present-tense until I have actually signed papers and such.

Architects Take Note

OK, all but one of the bachelor apartments I have looked at are square rooms. Why would I want to live in a square room, where it is nigh-impossible to separate things off so that I am not staring at my unwashed dishes and unfinished reading while trying to sleep, or confronting my guests with my unmade bed? There is no discernible advantage to this layout, and you cannot tell me it would be that much harder to organize the plumbing and such with a longer, narrower room. Tut tut, architects of whatever decade all these complexes were built.

The only place I really liked for its physical attributes (lovely cabinets, pleasing shape of room, ample storage, high ceilings) was both out of my price range and out of my target neighbourhood. It was also inhabited by smokers. Natch!

A promising new lead has come up; an old school chum from home has offered me his place starting in May. Tomorrow I will go to meet it and see if we will be friends.

Wherefore Spring?

Ottawa is a snow-blighted hellscape and it is impossible to get anywhere. I have just turned around from what should be a 15-minute walk to the library because there was snow up to my knees. Winter, you may stay if you stop trying to bury us alive. But if you carry on, then I am afraid we are going to have to ask you to leave.

Sisterhood

Happy International Women's Day, everyone! Now let's get to work on the other 364 days of the year.

Lester, Now, Lester, Now, Keep It Together

Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans: awesome, handsome and talented.

Certain members of the Corb Lund audience: shouty, plastered, and irritating.

Mum, you will be pleased to know that Corb has gotten a haircut, the better to accentuate the good bone structure you always knew he had.

I Wanna Be In The Cavalry

CORB LUND IS TONIGHT WOOOOOOOOO! He is the best Canadian country artist, methinks. Or at least the one I like best.

This week has been exciting; Matt dumped me for some good reasons and for some reasons I hadn't considered problematic, viz."values". At the moment I am a person comfortable with her values. After all, not being a committed Catholic does leave me more time for my sideline job selling meth outside the elementary school.* I am also rather enjoying the inferno of righteous indignation consuming my various internal organs, and the extension of my emotional repertoire to include such favourites as "embitterment" and "shrewishness". This is odd because I thought that if he left me I would be extremely sad instead of extremely pissed-off and judgmental. Work has been good this week, though I will confess I spent a certain amount of time spent trading messages with the Uppity Wimmins Solidarity Network regarding the foregoing events.

This latest in my series of breakups was preceded by a thoroughly awesome weekend at Mont-Tremblant, shredding the slopes with fifty per cent of the interns. There was some ice but it was not as bad as all the horror stories Mum has told me of rocks and trees bursting forth from the snow to smite the base of one's board into splinters. Nevertheless, the helmetless among the group were dubbed Team Concussion. Though we had planned on rocking it Saturday night, we settled for a soak in the hot tub, a few glasses of wine, and bed by 12:30. It's a long way to the top if you're too tired to rock'n'roll. In other intern activities, Khallad and his roommate Bahe revealed themselves as total pool sharks on Thursday, to the amazement of all.

Roda de capoeira this weekend! Let the destruction of my knees, feet, and pride begin. My blisters-on-blisters are looking forward to acquiring their own blisters. Grandblisters, if you will. If you are all very good to me I will refrain from posting photos of these horrors of podiatry.

*Note to law enforcement officials: I have never sold controlled substances outside any educational institution.

March Is The Angriest Month

Already it does not like me. I'm lucky this weekend was so awesome, with all the snowboarding, because the rest of the week is going to be a doozy. And by "a doozy" I mean "terrible and depressing in various ways". It's great going in with a positive attitude, isn't it?

Aaaaaagh

This week I am dealing with so many, many things, and work just got a little nuts today on top of everything else. I had been relying on having a little time to relax at work, but that is totally not going to happen now. It is nice to be busy, but this is pushing it a little. If we assume I am working ten hours a week on my thesis, spending three hours on capoeira, three hours on choir, and three hours on CUSE, then that is like having a part-time job alongside my full-time job. I am America.

At least I am not planning a wedding, unlike Katherine who has all that stuff to contend with as well as school and work and various other things.

Now off to pay my obscene hydro bill.

J'essaie

Here I go on my exciting week of organizing panel discussions, writing my thesis (by magic? Maybe the magic thesis-fairies will descend from the sky?), and deciding What To Do With My Life. Tragically, personal care must once again take a back-seat as I am cancelling my hair appointment to go to the environmental politics discussion group tomorrow.

As compensation for myself I'm going to Mont-Tremblant this weekend. Maybe I will do as I always promise myself I will do and actually learn a proper 180 instead of my usual tragic half-jumps. They do not say "I am a cool and competent snow-athlete-type person" so much as they say "I am going to die. Ground, please take me back and don't hit me anymore".

My weekend: Kristen's awesome birthday, my thesis, Doctor Who, the Oscars.

60 Minutes Is On The Case

I am watching a hilarious 60 Minutes expose about Denmark and how everyone there is so happy and we don't quite know why. They mention the abundant social benefits and the fact that university students get paid to go to school. Oddly, they do not mention that everyone in the entire country could be a GQ model. Ah, GQ, that gayest of straight magazines.

Clutching Forks and Knives, to Eat Their Bacon

The United States is having a bit of a shock about its din-dins at the moment. Through their own bad behaviour, a few workers at a Westland/Hallmark plant in Chino, California have accidentally brought some attention to the kind of thing that the food industry does not want you to think about. The planet is graced with few things more irritating than self-righteous hippies, so I am not usually aggressive or militant about my mostly vegetarian diet (I do still eat eggs, dairy, and the occasional piece of fish). I figure it's your own business if you want to eat the muscles of animals that have been pumped full of drugs, fed unnatural foods that upset their digestive systems, trucked ridiculously long distances, and potentially been rolled in feces before slaughter. But aside from using far more water and calories to bring to market than other foods do, meat is associated with some pretty terrible practices. When I take all that into consideration, I will take my $1.29 bag of lentils, thanks very much.

Playtime for Katherines

Sometimes she does stuff to my computer. Hey, it's better than hacking into the Pentagon site and storing missile codes in a Word document. I think I'm going to let it stay, actually, because it amuses me.

This is my 400th post, incidentally. Happy 400th birthday, Quebec City!

Very Exciting Stuff in My Life

I am a loser. Bloggity blog blog blog. Pants.

Things I Have Done To Avoid My Thesis

Watched old Mariah Carey music videos.

We Are Go!

We are go on bean-and-lentil loaf! It did not suck! It is good with ketchup! What joys.

La Grande Jatte

Where to begin? The last two weeks have been pretty crazy. Work has been fine, but the real fun is that I've been criss-crossing Eastern Canada (it is so "Eastern", just give up on the "Central" thing already) in search of fun and adventure. I have successfully located both of these things in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Thus, I present a tale of three weekends.

Mom visited me the first weekend. She got in on Friday night, and we watched some movies and bought some maps. We explored Westboro, which I had not visited in years, and had adventures on public transit. We talked about all kinds of stuff. We also ate delicious calzones with Katherine. Atonement is wonderful and I recommend you all see it. It was a nice quiet weekend, actually - Mom has seen most of the touristy Ottawa stuff, so we didn't do Parliament or anything.

I visited Colleen on the second weekend; a convoy of three cars set out from Ottawa, and we mustered up in the rest stop past Brockville and had a chatty lunch. It had been a long time since I had clapped eyes on Emily, and she and Graham had a rather entertaining conversation about the impending U.S. elections. A few hours later, I was at Colleen's. We spent a lot of time wandering around - we failed utterly to find Kensington Market, but spent a good hour and a half searching around only a few blocks away from it. Nevertheless, we ate at a very sweet little brunch place and had some good talks. Colleen has a pretty ideal situation in Toronto - three nice roommates and an adorable house in a good location.

Monday was the "real" reason we went down: the Spice Girls were in town. Colleen and I showed up at the Air Canada Centre and met Leslie, Emily, Becky, and Katherine for a satisfying and rockin' evening of Girl Power. I can recommend it wholeheartedly, although the recommendation is irrelevant for anyone who doesn't have tickets already, because the Girls are cancelling the last leg of their tour. Sad. Anyway, it was everything we'd hoped it would be: the singing sounded great, and the costumes and dancing were fantastic. Even their solo bits were good. I was most pleased.

Matt visited me on the third weekend, although actually that weekend began on Wednesday. We had a thoroughly great time. Wednesday was a bit of a slow start, featuring laundry, groceries, and a nap. Things picked up after that, though - a night out at Quinn's with Jacob, Mike, and Claude. The latter two talked about SCUBA diving with Matt, while Jacob and I looked on in a confused manner. Then Jacob explained the U.S. electoral system, and we got even more confused.

Thursday we walked around various landmarks downtown and watched Question Period (the highlight of which, for me, was a Conservative member demanding that the Liberals deliver leadership - like, I thought that's what you didn't want them to do anymore?). We went out for a nice Italian dinner before proceeding to campus. Once at school, we invaded Rosina's privacy; she had fallen asleep on her computer but we barged in and woke her up, because we are cruel like that. She told us more stories of elderly people offering her inappropriate sums of money during her work in the geriatrics ward. Eventually we left her alone in order to go dancing at Oliver's with some B.PAPMers, at Tamara's invitation. Ollie's started out unpromisingly empty, but filled up and turned out to be pretty good fun! Matt brought the Alberta: he two-stepped.

Friday we took the Greyhound to Montreal, and Montreal was good to us, delivering a darling creperie, a pretty walk through McGill and up Mont-Royal, and a historical sound-and-light show at the Basilique Notre-Dame. This was not as weird as it sounds, and was followed by dinner at a cosy brew-pub called Les 3 Brasseurs and a quick march for the 10 p.m. bus. It was a pretty busy eight hours, since we only stepped off the bus at 2:30. Understandably, we both spent much of the bus ride back fast asleep. In related news, did you know that if you slump over excessively in a bus seat to go to sleep, your stomach can go numb? Well, it can.

Saturday was similarly full of adventure. The choir had a gig at Rideau Hall, so we trucked on down. Afterwards, all of the altos were like, "there was some guy in the front row who kept kind of... looking at us." And I was like, "yeah, that one's mine." And then I told Matt and then I laughed at him a little. Further enjoyment at Matt's expense was had when the Habs lost their game in a tragic way. 6-1: just sad. It was still fun to go watch the Good Ol' Hockey Game, though!

Sunday is... today! Matt went back to Edmonton, which pretty much sucks. I've been making meatloaf-esque lentil loaves to console myself. So far this strategy is ineffective, mostly because I low-balled the breadcrumbs and suspect that I have made two pans of hot lentil mush with cheese on top. Tasty?

Dear readers, I congratulate you on reaching the end of yet another Marathon Post of Life Events. I hope you are not bored; I certainly haven't been. A la prochaine!

Sartorial Statement

Have arrived home for a Matt Chatt (Skype is so, so great). On the way home I experienced a revelation: Filodoro pantyhose, while expensive, has already saved me money because I just caught mine in the zipper of my backpack. And unlike any other pantyhose ever created, they did not run. Go out and buy ten pairs, I don't care if you're a girl or a boy.

Plunging In!

Another happy Thursday in the library! I am trying to make a policy of just going blah blah blah and editing later, because if I pussyfoot around and try to get my thoughts in order before I write anything, I will never write anything. Ever.

I've just come (well, an hour ago) from Omar/Capitao's capoeira class. He gave us some time to play at the end, and much to my disappointment I was the only girl who would enter the roda (circle). Seriously, ladies, I know it is scary and you will probably look like a tool,* but so do the boys and they seem to be having fun, don't they?

Dems debate tonight! Do you think Barry's going to bring his fangs, or be classy and Kennedy-esque? Is Hillary going to do something that causes debate about her Identity As A Woman? (Don't be silly, of course she is! Heaven forbid we judge her on her merits, rather than devoting ourselves to dissecting her gender presentation.)

*Full disclosure: I looked like a tool.

Ssssssssss.

Thesis is picking up steam! I went to see my advisor today and it was alright, actually, even though I had been dreading it to the point of declaring it a dies illae, calamitatis et miseriae in an e-mail to Matt. My advisor is very absent-minded and professorial but he's also quite pleasant and helpful, and he made me feel that I have actually made some progress. One of my goals for the rest of the semester is to have him remember my mini-thesis topic from one meeting to another.

At capoeira this week, we practiced various basic esquivas (dodges). My partners kept asking me for input, despite my total lack of skill. Perhaps I gave the appearance of living up to one of my New Year's resolutions: be competent. The others were listen carefully and absorb what you are being told and eat less junk, sleep 7 hours nightly, and exercise at least twice weekly. So far all three are going relatively well, I guess. Robert Fisk is keeping me from accomplishing the sleep-related one; I spent an hour and a half last week reading about the Armenian Genocide rather than sleeping.

At the same time as I was sleeping this Tuesday night, having surreal, horrible dreams (I had accidentally bought and remodeled the Monizes' house; I was landing a plane and my throat was numb like I'd just sucked back a glass of Anbesol), there were three Carleton students dying just a few blocks from my apartment. The photos from the crash look horrific; I didn't know any of them but I feel for their families and all their friends. One of the B.PAPMers knew one of the girls. I guess it is things like this that make us thankful we're on the right side of the dirt (as a friend of a friend would put it). I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

Finally, dear Intertubes, I am going to ask you something. As I will need to entertain visitors for two weekends this term, I would like suggestions for stuff to do in Ottawa. Because I've already done almost everything. Is there a restaurant you love like fat kids love cake? What about live music? Cool stores? Pretty walks? Base jumping? Then click the comments thing and tell me all about it.

The Saddest Thing on the Internet

OK, is this satire? Sometimes it's so hard to tell:

OH MAH GAAAAAD!

My roomies went to Quebec and got engaged! This is very exciting. I'm going to post this without asking either of them because the news has already hit the Intarwubs so I feel it is non-embargoed. Anyway, it's my blog. This also increases the count of "girlfriends and acquaintances of mine who have gotten engaged since Summer 2007 began" to seven, which is pretty insane.

Naming Names on Papers, Quebec, and Roommates

Long time, no see. It turns out that working full-time and trying to write a thesis takes up a lot of one's time. Oh, and CUSE, a new semester of capoeira classes, and a busy choir schedule.

So what has been going on lately that is noteworthy? My mini-thesis continues to be terrifying, although the people at work have been pretty helpful and are interested in my research, such as it is. They provided some rather useful constructive criticism, as well. Please note that I have elected to refer to it from here on in as a "mini-thesis" so as to minimize my own fears of it.

This Friday the choir played a gig at the big swanky casino in Hull. Hey, I can still call it Hull, it's OK - technically the casino is in the Secteur Hull de Gatineau. Oh, la caprice des noms de place. So there. Anyway, I arrived home at midnight to find a deserted apartment, since Katherine and Jordan (one refers to them as a unit now: they are my roommate-unit) had gone to rural Quebec to spend a weekend at a friend's cabin. With the apartment to myself, I am pleased to report that I spent yesterday until 6 p.m. in my pajamas and cleared the living room of furniture to vacuum and demonstrate my ridiculously clumsy capoeira stylings. I also ate huevos rancheros, though sadly without refried beans. Such excitement.

All this banality does not concern me, though, since I'm looking forward to several visits on the horizon. Mom is coming out to Ottawa next weekend and will bring with her several pairs of pants that I forgot when I came back from Christmas break. Bless her. Two weeks after Mom's visit, Matt will spend a long weekend with me. I'm pretty psyched for both of these things. To celebrate, the weather has suddenly (finally!) gotten really wintry again. My face almost fell off from cold on the way to the library today.

Happiness

I found a 10m long puddle! I ran through it! Four times!

Life does not get any better.

Hark The Herald Festive Things

This Christmas was a good one. What follows is a massive regurgitation of events and meetings because I have been running around like mad seeing friends. I finally got to attend Ingrid and Les' carol singing party, after three years' absence because of bad exam schedules. My nuclear family went to The Nutcracker and I fell in love all over again with the music from the Arabian dance. A very nice boy I'm getting to know crocheted me a scarf - this elicits different reactions in Easterners and Westerners, weirdly enough.

It was a very big trip for sportiness; I was entirely justified in lugging my massive chock-full bag of gear across the country, because I used every last item. Waking up at 3:00 a.m. to catch the Magic Bus gave me a chance to put in a great day of snowboarding with Matt at Lake Louise. One of my fondest memories of this day is the fall I took in an area just below an avalanche zone, and my subsequent decision to shout "FUCK" at the top of my lungs from underneath the snow. Fortunately there were no casualties. Katie took an afternoon to give me and Keith the ski instructor treatment; I am now semi-competent on snowblades. I also went skating twice, once with Matt (again, nobody died despite our decision to use the roped-off pond) and once with Becca, Diane, and Becca's newly-arrived Kiwi, whose name is Alex. Laura looked on and watched the New Canadian Moments as Diane and I taught a Caribbean man to tie his skates properly while his two kids dangled happily from other skaters' arms. Becca coached Alex through his third-ever skating expedition. Fun fact: in New Zealand, ski hills are called "ski fields", despite the unpromising horizontality that term implies.

Further athletic pursuits were undertaken when Katie's family let us look after their puppy over their three-day ski holiday. Gromit is a two-year-old Labradoodle and a ball of energy. He was in extremely good spirits the whole time and reminded us how much fun it is to have a dog. However, they're also a lot of work and impossible to tire out, so I don't know whether a new puppy is in the cards for the Alberta gang this year!

There were less health-oriented festivities as well. Earlyish in December, Mike had a joint birthday party with a few of our high school classmates. Attending that was actually a little weird for me because it was full of people I hadn't seen in years, to most of whom I had never been particularly close. Becca, Laura, Diane, Matt, and the gang went out dancing one night to celebrate Epic: Respect The Ave IV. Super-good times, though bittersweet for me because Matt was going to Mexico on a family vacation the next day. In related news, Mexico is totes boring and not nearly as much fun as I am. Right? Oh, and I hung out at Tom and Paul's a bit too - the New Year's party I dropped in on at their friend Lindsay's place held a high concentration of nice, funny people I hadn't met before, so hopefully our paths will cross again. Tom introduced me to the film Monkey Shines. Watch it if you wish to be instilled with an abiding fear of capuchins and genetic modification.

Colleen and I got to see each other too, hooray. She, Katie, and Keith went out with my family for an early birthday dinner for me. Katie and Colleen also rolled around on my last day in town to have mahumbah. And I met Tawnie for lunch, which was super because I hadn't seen her in a while.

Retail therapy was high on the list of things to do, so now I have some excellent additions to my wardrobe for starting work tomorrow. Scary but exciting.

Finally, it seems that everyone in the universe is getting engaged, which is really freaky but also kind of heartwarming. I hope you have enjoyed this crazed melange of half-digested thoughts. If not, suck it up.

News Snippet

Before I do a post about My Special Christmas Vacation, here's a thought about security: you know things are bad in your country when people are fleeing into Afghanistan.

Also, I'm excited for New Hampshire.