Vagabond Queen

working

2012-01-30T19:24:00.002-07:00

Where have I been, you ask?

I've been working hard and with a fair amount of focus and direction. Hope I can keep that up. Some days I don’t even want to go to bed because I’m so involved in what I’m doing. I have a lot of reading this term and it’s all interesting.

The ancient lady prof continues to ramble and dodder her way around ancient Greece, but all my other classes are good. And even in that class I've decided to write my paper on Boudicca, so I’m doing some interesting reading on that too.

This week for my climate change class we have to do a group presentation. Why do profs even bother tormenting students with this type of thing? Lordy, lordy, I’ve ended up in a group with two other girls that are maybe the least informed pair I've ever met. One is a phys ed major so she has some excuse, but the other is a geog minor who appears to know not the smallest thing about geography, but who states airily that she loves it and is going to go on to do a masters in it. Our project is about the prairies.

Her: What do you have in Alberta? You have, like, mountains, right?

Me: What exactly do they teach you about geography in school?

I know, snippy. But I’d had more than enough of her by that point.

Really they just wanted to talk about how hard their lives were and how many classes they are taking and how hard they work. I left.

feminism ruins everything, part II: well pardon me

2012-01-16T15:24:00.002-07:00

Oh, oh, I have been informed that Semonides' poem "On Women" is just a joke. Oh don't worry, I wasn't informed of this directly to my face - it was just emphasized in passing in the 'last class review' portion of the class. Just jokes. You know I didn't get that because I'm one of those humourless feminists. Of course, slotting women into types by the most stereotyped bad characteristics of various animals is all in such lighthearted jest that normal people can't help but laugh along.

Another bulletin from the ancient world: Sappho liked women.

an over-long entry

2012-01-13T21:14:00.002-07:00

This is about the beginning of the end and how feminism ruins everything.

So it's the end of the first week of my last term. I find it hard to believe that I have gotten to this place. I have probably said before that it feels so strange when such a long term goal becomes an extremely short term goal. I don't feel as lost about it as I did because I have plans and alternative plans and alternative, alternative plans - so that's all right, O Best Beloved.

I think the term will be better than last - at least in terms of work load. I spent a good chunk of this afternoon though trying frantically (and fruitlessly) to find a class to transfer into because I already have a prof that I want to punch right in the face - which is never a good sign only a week into the term.

I am taking a class on Women in the Ancient World - a class a friend of mine took some years back and said was one of her favorites. The prof is ancient, doddering, and impossibly sweet. I was quite willing to settle back and enjoy this class, but I spent today staring down at my page and grinding my teeth in rage.

(Oh, dear, I can tell this is going to be hard to explain.)

First, on Wednesday, she mildly irritated me by talking about how Penelope in the Odyssey was such a powerful, positive image of women in ancient Greece because of how "utterly faithful" she was waiting for Odysseus for 20 years and deceiving all the suitors who wanted to marry her. Now, I'm not disputing the strong, interesting image of Penelope, but the whole holding up the "utterly faithful" thing as some ideal was a bit much for my stomach. Could we not, at least, entertain some thought that this was written by a man in a man's world and that of course they're going to think that a woman who preserves a man's estate for 20 years while he's off warring and whoring around with various goddesses and immortals is a womanly ideal? Could we not, at least, consider the idea that maybe Penelope liked being a widow and responsible for vast estates and that she didn't remarry because it didn't suit her? No, apparently we couldn't.

Then, today, she had to bring up that poem by Semonides "On Women" wherein he catalogs women as various animals. I'm not even going to dignify it by a link. My myth prof covered that poem with suitable flippancy and brevity, but this prof seemed to feel the need to read most of it aloud and make comments about 'don't we all know women that could fit into these categories' and 'I've always thought it would be fun if someone did the same thing for men.' No, no, NO, it wouldn't be fun. Haven't we all gotten over this yet? Do we have to answer woman-hating with a tit-for-tat-we-can-be-just-as-stereotyping-as-you-nyah-nyah-nyah? Why the f are we even still dignifying old misogynists with airtime? That poem should have been indecently buried two millenia ago not dragged out to be analysed as some sort of be-all and end-all of how the ancient Greeks viewed women. I was thinking that it is as if two thousand years from now one of the few things that remains of current civilization is some pieces of gangsta rap that are analysed endlessly as a window into how the ancients treated women.

Ugh.

And also - I hope she has only being doing this because it's the first week - but at the beginning of the lecture she backs up about three-quarters of the way into the last one and repeats it - almost verbatim. But, I think, like art, I will just have to suck it up, because I couldn't find anything on the right days and times to transfer into. I can only hope it gets better. At least, it shouldn't be taxing work-wise.

In better news, I feel quite positively about all my other classes. My native studies class, I think, is going to be a bit of a rabble-rouser. I was listening to people today and thinking that it's a bit how I imagine classes being in the 1960s - discussion, and controversy, and anger. To this point my classes have all been so sedate with dutiful writing of notes and taking of tests. The only thing similar was in modern Latin American history last year when she described the suppression of university students - lock-outs, and round-ups, and protests - and tried (in vain) to get people to imagine university where radical change was occurring. People dutifully took notes about what an interesting time that was in the past.

My writing class looks good and my class on climate change will be a lot, a lot of work, but also looks interesting. And this has been an over-long entry.

new year cleaning

2012-01-08T17:23:00.002-07:00

Q. Why are piles of paper one of the hardest things to clean up ever?

a) If you knew what to do with that piece of paper, it wouldn't have been in that pile in the first place.

b) There is the constant back and forth of 'should I keep it or should I throw it away?' and the consequent 'but I might want it someday' dilemma.

c) No filing system can possibly have categories to cover every important, interesting, useful, beautiful picture, factoid, article, instructions, or future project that one human being can accumulate.

d) all of the above

jettison some dead-weight

2012-01-05T19:01:00.002-07:00

Sometimes, for a moment, occasionally, just for a teensy tiny bit, I worry about my memory.

I got my last mark back today. It was for my economic geography class and it was an A+ which pleased and astonished me. I'd gotten an A+ on my final essay, but the rest of my marks in the class had been ordinary, so I deduced that I must have written a good final exam. I got to thinking about the exam and trying to remember what was on it.

Let's see, there were some short answer questions and an essay. I remember struggling a bit with the short answer questions, but the essay question had been given to us beforehand. What was the essay about? Don't know - the essay was an absolute blank in my mind. Then I thought how it was probably still posted on eclass and it was. But worse and worse - I still couldn't remember the essay at all even seeing what the question was. I wondered if I had actually even written the essay, but of course I must have because I'd obviously gotten a good mark.

I have only the vaguest memory of preparing that essay and almost no recollection of writing it. I don't remember one thing I said or any argument I advanced. I couldn't even guess at the examples I gave and if I had to write it again right now, I have no idea what I'd say. I only remember going way over my word count.

I know I went straight from that exam to preparing for my other 2 exams - and I do remember those, so I can only guess that my mind felt it needed to jettison some dead-weight and it felt no need to remember an exam that was in the past.

elated and dog tired

2011-12-14T17:48:00.002-07:00

I wrote my last two exams today - 5 essays / 5 hours. I feel like I probably did pretty well. I enjoyed studying yesterday. Wow, I am tired though. Elated and dog tired.

I took a few minutes to go and look at the sculptures again since they weren't all there on Monday when I went. I was, if anything, even more disappointed in them than I'd been before. I still don't think mine is very good, but now I think it was one of the better ones. Some were just slapped together and honestly looked like something from a grade school class - glued on macaroni and all. I bet the macaroni was supposed to be ironic or something. I still resent all the time that project took, but I am glad in a way that I did take the time.

Heigh ho - just one last little thing to do for school and then I really am free for a couple of weeks.

so what?

2011-12-12T13:04:00.003-07:00

If I thought my life was bad - and anyone reading this blog over the past few months will know I've been downright miserable and whiny - it is not as bad as the people all over the arts building this morning frantically trying to finish their projects before the 12 pm deadline. I was there at about 8:30 to drop off my sculpture and the classrooms were full and people were squatting in the hallways painting and gluing and drawing. I was a little surprised. But perhaps they are the true artists and their muse didn't move them until now.

I was going to take a picture of all the sculptures together, but, sadly, I just wasn't that impressed with them. Maybe because they were all jumbled together in a corner or, I don't know, they just seemed rather purposeless. Take an object, make it big didn't seem to really promote much creativity or something. I can understand the prof's idea - to take something ordinary, make it human-sized and then you interact with it differently, but there is still a dimension of 'so what' to it. So it's a large shoe or an eraser, so what? Maybe my problem was that most of them (all of them) weren't 'beautiful' - I love sculpture, but I don't just love it because it's big, I love it for the lines that are created for the eye. But, I long ago came to the conclusion that this prof loves 'ugly' far more than 'beauty,' so she'll probably be pleased. Ugly, doncha know is a higher art form.

Anyway, I went back and put a bunch more 'down' on my feather which improved it a bit. I took a picture of it hanging up and it had way more 'presence' as a mobile - which is how I'd envisioned it all along. The picture's a bit blurry.

Then I went and wrote what will probably be my hardest exam. I spent 12 hours yesterday studying and trying to study - i.e. sitting and staring at my books and papers because I was too tired to pick up my pen. But I think I will have done okay on that exam - not stellar, but okay. Then I got a paper back in the same economic geography class and I got an A+ on it which astounded me. I thought that paper was a) pretty boring and b) pretty well stated the obvious. But I guess sometimes it is only obvious to the person who did the research. She thought I should present it at an upcoming geog conference. I'll think about that.

I know this sounds like a humble-brag, but it kind of worries me when I hand in something that I really think is nowhere close to being great or cutting edge and it gets a really good mark. I don't know what I question more: my standards or theirs.

pushing through any sense of preciousness

2011-12-09T22:40:00.002-07:00

I am really too tired to be anything other than tired, but I'm done. I am Done With Art. I spent somewhere between 30 and 40 hours on this project. I understand a final project instead of a final exam, but I have never spent 40 hours studying for a final. And it's the time this class has taken away from my other classes and my life that I am most resentful of.

Anyway, before I get to the pictures, I thought I'd record the assignment for posterity.

30 drawings and collages of "The Object"

"While the first 17 explorations will begin as collaborative studies, (everyone in class drew everyone else's object for 2 minutes in various media on various paper - that was rather fun) you will push through any sense of preciousness to create bold and dynamic, multi-media explorations, each of which feels considered and engaged. A good number of these should be sustained studies, while the shorter explorations should be equally interesting in their simplicity. You may work during class while you build your sculpture. (Because building the sculpture wouldn't take enough of anyone's time and attention.)

Of these 30 "drawings". . . Create a minimum of two mixed process collages of the Object. On half sheets of double weight paper, use rice paper, brown paper, newspaper, gel, paint, ink, drawings and anything else to arrive at least two collages that communicate the following expressions:

1) excitement, aggressive, virile

2)repose, subtlety, simplicity, peacefulness"

Because, you know, just making a sculpture wouldn't be enough. Right?

What exactly does "pushing through any sense of preciousness" mean?

I'm not going to show you the first iteration of my sculpture. I worked on it all of last Sunday and it didn't work out at all, so I started over again from scratch. Oh, my object was a feather. A quite plain black and grey feather, a bit curvy, with smooth quills at the top and then breaking into a chaos of down for about half of it. Initially, I bought black and silver wire. The black wire was so awful. It covered my hands and everything in black, it smelled metallic, and in general was purgatory to work with. Then I covered it in paper mache, but that made it too heavy and it lost any grace and the paper feathers I was making just flopped.

So my final version is just silver wire and wool.

It is very hard to take a picture of it. I don't think it really looks like a feather. Though I am pleased with how I solved the down problem. To my sister - it might look pretty hung from a tree in the snow outside, at least for a little while.

Then my 30 drawings - all considered and engaged (wink, wink)

Some of them I do quite like. But, seriously, 30? WTF?

And the two collages: repose and virility - again, WTF?

I am just so glad to be done. So glad I will finally have time to study.

purpose

2011-12-08T13:37:00.001-07:00

If the purpose of art class was to make me hate art and hate my life, I can safely say it has achieved it's purpose far beyond what anyone would have predicted.

sad eyes

2011-12-05T19:46:00.001-07:00

at work today:

Me: the worst part is that when I tell the prof I am just going to throw away this sculpture because I don't have room for such a thing, she will make sad eyes at me.

Co-worker: punch her in the face - then she'll have something to make sad eyes about.

a reasonable goal

2011-12-04T15:54:00.002-07:00

I believe it is six weeks today that I cut out sugar. I was determined to try it for six weeks as I've heard that is how long it takes for a new behaviour to stick. Well, and "cut out" is an overstatement - I've still had the odd sweet thing here or there - but I'd say I've cut down by about 3/4.

I think I'll need far longer than six weeks to make this a permanent change. My goal is to become a person who only eats sugar occasionally and then only in limited quantities. I think that is a reasonable goal.

Mostly what I have been trying to do is disconnect the "I'm having a bad day/time/whatever = I should have something sweet to cheer myself up" equation. It wasn't until I started paying attention that I noticed how much that equation had started to operate in my life.

A lot of sugary stuff has started making an appearance at work though. I avert my eyes when I walk through the kitchen. And try very hard to remember what a sugar crash it will cause when my body has sort of adjusted to a limited supply.

Christmas is going to be interesting.

first rule

2011-12-04T13:57:00.001-07:00

First rule of sculpture: Do not attempt to make it out of a material you have an aversion to touching.

existing pretty well entirely on coffee

2011-12-01T17:00:00.003-07:00

I know you eagerly await these updates, so even though I have no time, I will make the time for an update on the progression of the great ugly still life.

Let's first take another look at the original ugly still life. One of my classmates said it made her think of an old man's garage and I thought, "yup, just another reason to dislike it."

Then the painting I made of it. Don't care much for the painting; I especially struggled with the background. It may never make it home with me even after I get it back.

Then the collages. The first one was about colour matching. In the crit today I said this first one has a name and it is: The Black Hole that Swallowed Time. I am not entirely sure she was amused with me. But seriously, I probably spent somewhere around 10 - 15 hours on it. And my place has shreds of paper everywhere.

On the other hand I do actually kind of like it. As much as I ever like collage. This photo is not doing it justice at all. But taking that artist I linked to as a model actually did make it easier for me.

Then the second collage could be anything we wanted but the idea was to get the positive and negative space right. It's not very successful at that, and again I'm not terribly fond of it. I find it very flat and design-y. I liked it better after I got the red ribbon in though. I guess red ribbons improve everything.

Funnily enough everyone seemed to like the second collage better - not sure why, except maybe it was very different than a lot of the random magazine stuff people did. I think I'm just too close to it and I still have the vision in my head that didn't really work out on paper.

I did learn a lot from the colour one though. I admit it.

I'll talk about the sculpture project another day - when I've managed to start it. I still have a paper to write before I can concentrate on it. I am so over this term. Like you wouldn't believe. I'm averaging about 5 hours of sleep a night and existing pretty well entirely on coffee.

And I don't even know when I will possibly be able to think about Christmas. I thought last Christmas was stressful; this is shaping up to be worse.

full to the brim with ideas

2011-11-25T18:22:00.004-07:00

So, you know how all I've done this term is bitch about art class? I bet you've noticed that. Yesterday, we were told what our final unit/project is and we had all been pretty nervous because we knew it was sculpture and we knew from her excitement that it would be a big, big project.

So, the assignment is:

1) choose a mundane object to transform somehow into a sculpture.

2) make 30 drawings of said object in all sorts of different media, 2 must be (large) collage pieces.

3) create a large sculpture - free-standing, human-sized out of whatever material we please as long as we're not injuring ourselves in the process, or doing something illegal that would jeopardize her job.

Ready, set, go.

I bet you're expecting me to be hating this, just from past recent history. Right?

Apparently not.

I am actually really looking forward to this one. What is up with that? Seriously? I think part of it is the absolute freedom to do whatever I want. What I've learnt from art class is that I do not appreciate being told what to do. Part of it is that I absolutely love sculpture. I've never tried to make one, but as a genre of art I love, love, love it. I was looking through random images on the computer today of modern sculpture and they often made my knees weak.

I'm seriously intimidated - but also full to the brim with ideas. I just need to write a couple of papers and get these collages done and then I'll be able to concentrate on it.

a way in

2011-11-21T19:27:00.004-07:00

So lucky - I googled 'good collage artists' today at lunch and found this dude's work http://www.derekgores.com/collage.php - which has finally, finally given me a way into this horrible collage project. I came home and got more done in an hour than I did in hours of staring at it and hating it this weekend. I do not like the subject matter any more than I did, but I think I can do something with it now.

everything in me is in revolt over it

2011-11-20T14:26:00.003-07:00

I went to the university to paint this morning. And took some pretty pictures on my way.

It was so lovely and ice-foggy. Really a perfect winter's morning.

That last one I'd like to do as a perspective study - if I ever have time.

You know, I think it's fair to say that I'm a person who can find beauty or interest in most things. I am also a person who tries hard not to hate things. So when I say that I hate trying to paint that ugly, ugly still life you know just about everything in me is in revolt over it. AND now, for homework, we have to do 2 (large) collages of exactly the same composition, with exactly the same ugly jarring colours. As if it wasn't bad enough to be subjected to having to work with that ugliness once, now we have to three times over.

I'm not fond of collage in general, but the artists they sent us to look at on the internets are quite interesting. The thing is I'm just not sure how to turn it into anything worth looking at within the very narrow parameters she has given us. One has to be about the colours and the other, if I understand her correctly, is to get the shapes right - positive and negative space - but we can't change the composition. I overheard her telling someone else that she'd like the colours built up from "hundreds of torn pieces of paper". Where exactly does she think people have the time for that?

I am so frustrated I am not sure how I am going to make it through the rest of this term.

Oh, did I mention the 3 large papers I need to also write in the next ten days?

bad driving

2011-11-19T18:56:00.002-07:00

I had a bad driving experience this morning. I love my little car, but I miss my ABS so much. 15 years of driving with ABS plus human instinct is not making the switch back to the old ways easy. I coach myself all the time, 'pump your brakes, pump your brakes,' but I don't think that is what I do when faced with an emergency.

On the block right next to my place, there is a side street coming in from the right with a stop sign. 98% of the traffic from that street turns right because that's the quickest way out of the neighbourhood. This morning, as I was leaving, a van barreled up to the stop sign, and I had time to note that he wasn't going to stop and had not so much as glanced in my direction to see if any traffic was coming and I was slowing down - not that I was going very fast anyway since I'd only just turned out of our driveway. And it would have been fine if he'd turned right, not great, but fine, but, no, he turns left right in front of me.

I think I locked my brakes, because the next thing I know I am going sideways down the street and the side of his van is awfully close. I thought we were going to hit broadside, but he swerved to the left and we managed to pass without hitting on opposite sides of the street to where we were supposed to be. Then I ended up almost on the sidewalk on the correct side of the street and he went merrily on his way - probably cursing crazy women drivers that don't know how to drive.

From his point of view he would have turned left and only then seen a car coming sideways towards him - which I'm pretty sure was a bit of an adrenalin rush. I wonder if it would occur to him that stopping at a stop sign and looking both ways might be a good idea in future?

hate art class so bad

2011-11-15T18:50:00.002-07:00

I hate art class so bad. So bad. I can't believe I looked forward all summer to this and then it turns out so awful. I come home so exhausted and demoralized that all I want to do is cry - heck while I'm there all I want to do is cry.

We started our next big project today, a sustained still life. Wait - I took a picture of it. You can see for yourself how unappealing it is. And the thing that gets me is there is so little actual teaching done in this class. This is very much an old-style learn by doing, sink or swim class. Which is great for the people who swim happily away having either natural talent or years of high school art under their belts. The rest of us are not finding it so much fun. I thought art could be taught, but I guess you either find your own way or you don't. I'm definitely a don't. She seemed surprised when I said that I didn't even know how to start - but I was not the only one.

Here's the still life:

We only have to do a part of it, and I am definitely trying to keep that god-awful stripey thing out of it. I do like the wheely thing though, but I can already tell it will be the bane of my existence.

In better news. The great Van Gogh project is done.

Sorry, I didn't realize how blurry the picture was - I was standing on a stool trying to take a picture of it. Here's the individual pieces.

I'm mostly all right with it. It's sure not great, but for someone with no experience of paints or colour mixing it is not terrible. And I have a much deeper appreciation of Van Gogh. I am so glad it's over though. Another girl in the class said, "angels will sing when I'm done." Pretty much how I feel.

one of the pleasant side effects

2011-11-14T20:42:00.003-07:00

One of the pleasant side effects of being immersed in copying Van Gogh for the last two weeks is now seeing the world through Van Goghian eyes (at least sometimes). All the splotches of colour that emphasize shapes; the colours and shapes of the reflected lights in the river; and all the swirls and lights around everything.

I think I'm finished that project. And when I'm sure and after I remove the masking tape I'll take a picture of it for you.

I think I might be sick with something, though - paradoxically - I feel really quite well. But I've had the strangest, most intense bouts of the chills all day today. Not just down my spine which is fairly common for me, but all over my body - down my legs and arms and around my neck and shoulders. I sat next to a girl with the flu for three hours in a small room last Wednesday. I wasn't too worried because I'd had the flu shot plus she seemed to be over the contagious stage, but maybe this is the flu after you've had the shot.

pretty things . . . and not so pretty things

2011-11-13T21:04:00.002-07:00

Four day break and I didn't get nearly enough done - story of my life. The great Van Gogh project continues to eat away at my time. I went to the U for 3 hours every morning except one and I'm still not entirely finished. I'll stop in after work tmr and hopefully another hour will do it. Except of course on Tuesday when they see it they will give me all sorts of helpful suggestions on how I can improve it before it's due on Thursday that will entail more hours of work that I don't have to give it.

I went to the antique mall today in my continuing quest to find a fairly specific item for a person on my Christmas list. Although I saw many specimens of said item none of them really were perfect. I might have to abandon this quest since I've been looking since the summer. I found lots of things for people I had already bought for though. Luckily a friend was with me and on occasion she ordered me to put things down, which was extremely helpful. I did, however, to no one's great surprise find a couple of presents for myself. These bowls just had to come home with me. They are the prettiest things and I have a weakness for bowls. I kind of regret only buying 2 - I might have to go back for the other two. After all, maybe I'll need a set of four sometime.

I don't think the colours in the picture really do it justice. I've never seen this pattern before and I just love it. I shall have to make lots of soup this winter to put in them.

I'm so tired. I haven't been sleeping well because I've been reading a horrible book that is giving me nightmares. It's about how basically the rise of psychiatric drugs has caused a tragic and (probably) irreversible rise in chronic mental illness. I have always been deeply, deeply suspicious of psychiatric drugs and rightly so apparently. One little statistic that I keep thinking about: before the drugs bi-polar disorder afflicted only about 1 / 10,000 now it is 1 / 40 and it was incredibly rare in children - literally only a handful of cases could be identified in all the literature before about 1955 - and we know how often it is diagnosed in children now. Granted, some of that increase comes from the widening of the diagnosis.

And most of the time these drugs work only a little better than a placebo, if that well. The whole 'righting a chemical imbalance' hypothesis has been dis-proven over and over, if anything they cause a chemical imbalance.

A friend of mine (who is a psychologist) called me this afternoon and I was telling her about the book. She said, 'did it talk about how anti-depressants cause bi-polar disorder?' Yup, sure did. 'Did it tell you how schizophrenics in less developed countries have much better outcomes because they are not on medication?' Yup, sure did. (Ritalin is also a precursor to bi-polar disease in some children. American children take 3x the amount of Ritalin that the rest of the children in the world put together take.)

Then in an example of synchronicity in the universe, I met my friend who immediately started telling me how her life is horrible because her husband started a new drug for migraines and it has made him "psychotic". (He has stopped it and hopefully is going to start feeling better soon.)

I'm just so sad and filled with rage from reading this book. I bet I could take a pill for that, but chances are it wouldn't do much good anyway, and the side effects can be horrendous.

art, supper, and feeling good

2011-11-06T20:45:00.002-07:00

I mostly had a very productive day. Went to the U first thing to put in a couple of hours on the great Van Gogh project - copying pieces of six of his paintings. It did go better than the other day in class - maybe because the TA wasn't looking over my shoulder every few minutes telling me what I was doing wrong. I shall stop in tomorrow after work and put in another hour or so if there isn't a class in the room and another hour before class on Tuesday and maybe it will feel like there is some hope of finishing it before it's due.

This afternoon I did not do as much reading as I hoped, but this evening I finished my other piece of art homework. At least I think it's finished. We had to draw something 'shiny'. Don't bother telling me what's wrong with it - that's what the profs are for. The tiles aren't really right, but before I put them in it was kind of hanging in midair.

That art board it's attached to is probably my favorite thing I've gotten out of art class so far.

This is what I made for supper. And if I wasn't so lazy I'd link to the recipe. It's an egg baked in a tomato with cheese and fresh basil . . . and my mum's potato cakes. I haven't made them in years and they were so good I couldn't stop putting them in my mouth. They were one of my absolutely favorite things when I was a kid. The birthday supper I always requested was pork chops, corn, and potato cakes.

Still very little sugar and still feeling good. . .

further musings on productivity

2011-11-02T09:01:00.003-06:00

I don't mean to be boring on about this sugar thing and I'm certainly not aiming to convert anyone - heck, I'm not a convert - so this is mostly for my own reference and you are completely free to check back some other day to see if I've moved onto other subjects.

I continue to feel better. Which in no way means that I feel great all the time. Yesterday, I had such a bad morning I was practically crying in the hallway outside the art classrooms because I was fighting with my locker combinations again. But I'm not feeling bad in the particular way I was feeling bad that Sunday. I might feel moody or sad or frustrated, but I'm not feeling dull and unable to think. Because of the bad day I went and got a coffee at Cookies by George and I wanted a cookie so much, but I reminded myself of how bad I had been feeling and managed to resist.

I am trying to quantify what is different to help continue to motivate me. I am still not entirely convinced that sugar is the enemy, but I think it is a strong possibility - mostly because I really was eating it more frequently.

I think the main thing is this feeling of focus and energy and an ability to see what needs to be done and then plan for doing it. You know what I mean. Think about those days you get up and you have energy and your mind easily catalogs and coordinates all you have to do. "I have to do this and this, and I'll fit this in here, and right now I'll start such and such so it will be ready for later when I need it." And you fit in more things because there is less dithering about what you should be doing.

I am pretty tired still today, but I am going to review some tobacco control stuff and then I will go and buy a coffee, go to class, come home, clean my bathroom and vacuum because a friend is coming for tea tomorrow night and then I'll make a start on a tonal map study of my bathroom sink faucet and handles for art class because they are a) shiny and b) pretty and elegant.

Midterm grade in art 'B'. Not great, but not terrible either. She said that the grade didn't reflect my skill level, but possibly rather a lack of time, that some of my drawings simply needed more work to pull them to the next level. I did get an 'A' on my history paper though, which pleased me no end - I couldn't get higher than a B+ out of her last year. I took all her comments on last year's papers very much to heart - also, I'm just learning to switch to a historical style more easily.

not entirely bereft of candy

2011-10-31T20:29:00.002-06:00

Here it is Halloween and not one piece of Halloween candy have I eaten. I have had a small amount of high quality dark chocolate so I am not entirely bereft of candy, but I have firmly resisted all temptations of the cheap mini-chocolate bar variety. Today, I am feeling more like I want to be feeling - even though I am functioning on about 5 hours of sleep and am dreadfully tired. I got up - unwillingly - at 5:30 for work, but almost immediately my brain started ticking over all the things I needed and wanted to do today. And that's pretty much how I've been all day, tired but still being able to think and plan and get on with things.

I should go and get on with a few more things.

unpleasant encounters and exciting emails

2011-10-29T14:26:00.003-06:00

I don't think it was on here that I ranted about going to the art supply store and being helped by the slimy older man? I won't recap it, but suffice to say it was one of those situations where he probably thought he was complimenting me and I just found it incredibly offensive and creepy. Anyway, I went back to the same store today - not without reservations because of my experience last time. But I talked myself into it by convincing myself that it was a different day of the week and would probably have different staff, or it would be busy, etc., etc.

Nope. Dead quiet. Same creepy old guy.

He came up to me and though I didn't look at him I imagine he was rubbing his hands together and in an overly genial, oily voice asked, "how may I help the lovely young lady today?"

Said lovely young lady stiffened alarmingly (what a lovely phrase that is, thank you, Georgette Heyer) and said coldly, "just looking thank you."

"So acrylics are your thing." he says, not taking the rather broad hint that I don't want help.

"No," says she even more coldly and still without even looking at him, "I am just looking." At which point he finally goes away.

You know, written out it doesn't seem that bad. What's the harm and all. He's just some dude without social skills that was probably raised in a world where this is how you talk to women and he's never caught on that it's not anymore.

I am 48 years old. I am hardly young and I am hardly lovely and even if I was those two things I don't need some dude in an art store to validate my right to existence by commenting on it. Granted I am probably a touch more sensitive about creepy old guys than your average woman . I will never go back to this store. I felt like I needed a shower after I left.

But I'm sure you are all wondering if I really have felt better this week from cutting out sugar. And the answer is yes, but not as much as I hoped. My brain has never felt as disconnected since and I haven't had any of those crashes where I basically fall over and go to sleep. But I also haven't gotten back to that happily involved, working with focus and interest zone I was in either. It also seemed like a small, incremental climb out of the place I was in, so I have hopes that I may feel even better this week. I am much more connected than I was at the beginning of the week. But it was also a really hard week of work on papers and studying for mid-terms, so being just plain tired factors into it as well.

You know what raised my spirits yesterday though? An email from the university suggesting that I should fill out an 'application for degree' if I am going to graduate at the Spring Convocation. It was seriously so thrilling.

update

2011-10-23T22:40:00.003-06:00

Seriously, just in the last hour my brain has come back. Two hours ago I was just sitting staring at my computer and couldn't care about anything. Now, I'm all, "oh, transportation-activity system interactions! Interesting!".

Just when I really need to get to bed . . .

What a waste of a day.

just a thought

2011-10-23T21:53:00.002-06:00

When I was sitting and feeling so dull and stupid I was trying to remember what might have been different in my life last week to make me feel so good. I started wondering if overdoses of sugar were to blame for my current state. Friday at work there were, of course, buckets of Halloween candy and much though I tried not to I ate a bunch. Though I felt pretty great Friday night so maybe there is no connection. Then yesterday I bought candy for my neighbours' girls for Halloween and had some. . . and the down hit me later that day. Today, same thing, I felt mostly okay in the morning - though not motivated the way I had been - and then crashed in the afternoon. The week before I had been making a real effort to eat better.

This evening I was feeling quite awful, but then it slowly wore off as if a fog was clearing. I won't say I'm motivated and energetic, but I don't feel dull and as if none of my brain synapses are connecting anymore.

I shall cut out sugar again and see how I feel next week. I don't need to eat cheap candy bars. Seriously, I don't.

if I could have only bottled myself

2011-10-23T19:40:00.002-06:00

On Thursday and Friday I had so much focus and interest in my work that I didn't want to go to school or work and waste all that time I could be working. It was a delicious feeling. I practically had to force myself to go to bed at night, and then I'd be full of ideas again first thing in the morning.

You just know this story is about to end badly, don't you?

Yup, it lasted all the way through most of yesterday. I had energy all through getting my house cleaned and all my errands and groceries and laundry done, and then I crashed. All day today I've been glum and dull and blah, without much thought of anything in my head. Which, I suppose, would be okay if I didn't also have a paper to write. A paper that I couldn't wait to get at on Thursday and Friday. Oh, how I wish I could recapture how I felt last week. If I could have only bottled myself then for times like this.

In other news, I haven't quite dropped Design for next term yet, just in case I get a resurgence of interest, but I've added a survey class on contemporary aboriginal issues to replace it with. The new class actually fits my schedule much better and I'll have two full afternoons a week to do school work.

strange allergy tales

2011-10-22T16:04:00.002-06:00

I keep meaning to write about this and keep forgetting. Back during the first week of school there was a fire alarm and I found myself standing outside with three of my geography classmates and - I don't know how the topic even came up but - it turned out the three of the four of us all suffered from oral allergy syndrome. Now in all the years since I developed this I've never met anyone else who had it and usually utter mystification is what greets me when I mention it, so to suddenly find myself in a group was really strange. I wonder if there is more now and it is starting younger? These two girls had both started it as children. One in particular recounted how her mother didn't believe her and thought it was just a dodge to get out of eating vegetables - "but, Mommy, the peas make my mouth hurt!"

And they had a different range of foods that did it - peas, carrots, celery, different nuts than me. But we were agreed that cherries and peaches are some of the worst. I'm glad that (so far, knock on wood) vegetables are not a problem for me.

I guess the moral of this story is that if your kid says her mouth hurts after eating raw fruits or vegetables, you should maybe believe her.

kinda hating art class

2011-10-18T23:19:00.005-06:00

I feel disloyal somehow to say this, but I am kinda hating art class - for a whole host of reasons. I hate the classroom we are in. It is windowless with horrible fluorescent lights and I hate spending 6 hours of my week in it. The classroom is overcrowded with battered tables with metal trays and corners sticking out everywhere and metal edges waiting to catch on the edge of your clothes as you try desperately to squeeze by. I don't like to be in too-small spaces with corners everywhere. It makes acutely uncomfortable. Let's not even mention the metal everywhere: I've mostly adjusted to that.

For an organized person, it is the most tortuously unorganized class. I literally will go a half hour early and still not be ready by the time we're supposed to start. The instructor changes her mind constantly about what we need to have with us which necessitates multiple trips to get stuff from different lockers. I like her, but she's flaky and interrupts us constantly every time a new thought enters her head (approximately every 5 minutes). She'll also give us constant updates about how much longer we have, which makes me very tense.

I don't enjoy working with huge sheets of paper and lugging all this stuff around all the time. And most of all today, and for the past few classes, I detest working with charcoal. I like charcoal and how it looks and how it goes on the page, but the actual process of getting it there? No. I'm too prissy to enjoy having my hands coated with black and worst of all it is drying out the tips of my fingers so they are beginning to crack and bleed no matter how much lotion I put on them. I wonder if drawing class was the start of my sister's problems with her fingers? We are working with an arbitrary ground and then erasing to create the picture so the charcoal is in everything - including my lungs.

On the bright side, my classmates are a good bunch and the conditions of the class cause us to bond a good bit. Some of the projects have been very interesting, some not. I am learning stuff, but on the whole the conditions of how the class is arranged and organized are really unpleasant. Oh, and the homework is killing me.

I do believe - if I can find another class - I will drop Design for next term and give myself a break. I've been seeing the projects the other class is working on (crouched on the floors in the hallway) and I can't say that I am finding the prospect very appealing.

I'm pretty whiny tonight. You may have noticed. And I shouldn't be writing, because I have SO much to do, but whatever. I'm totally cross about this art class and its homework and the homework in another class. Tonight I read and summarized 53 pages about harm reduction in tobacco control. I maybe wouldn't be so cross about it if half the class didn't have a chapter that was only 24 pages to summarize. This tobacco control class is going to make me turn to drink, I tell you.

there is a dude

2011-10-11T19:54:00.002-06:00

Tuesdays and Thursdays my first class is colonial Latin American history - muchas notetaking, prof doesn't believe in posting slides, and to pass her exams you need to study and understand and remember all the various Spanish terms she gives you - and there are a lot, obviously. Second class is local/global economic geography. Again, much note-taking and just generally needing to have your wits about you. In both these classes there is a dude - not the same dude, a different dude - who puzzles me. Said dude(s) scorn such petty pastimes such as notetaking. I don't believe said dude(s) carry so much as a pen and paper with them. Said dude(s) sit with their phone in their hand throughout class observing it closely.

Now it would be easy to dismiss said dudes as the type of student who will be mysteriously missing after midterms, but I think not. In the history class the dude voluntarily answers questions like, "why was Portugal uninterested in colonizing Brazil." and the dude in economic geography is, as far as I can tell, very well versed in economics. The prof momentarily forgets something - say, who Greenspan is - and economic dude says, "Chairman of the Federal Reserve" in a bored voice never once taking his eyes off his phone. And he easily answers every question she asks the class - in fact, I suspect (as does she) that he knows more than the prof.

What puzzles me is why they are there at all? The university is full of interesting classes. Why take one where you already know the material? Easy A? But both these dudes seem quite naturally brilliant. Though I suppose it is easy to seem brilliant when you know all the answers. Wouldn't it be more fun to take something you know nothing about and where you have to put in some effort?

go off the page with conviction

2011-10-02T14:39:00.003-06:00

This term has already gotten away from me. I don't know what I've got myself into. I have two classes that are just time-suckers: art is one, in a reasonably pleasant way, and the second is spatial perspective of tobacco control, in a thoroughly boring way. I've barely had time to look at the other two classes (for which I have papers due here right shortly) because of what is due every week in these two classes.

But I thought I'd show you the end result of my last art project. The assignment was to convey an emotion in black and white shapes wherein the composition also has "simultaneous reading" - i.e. the black and white shapes have equal weight. Like those pictures that are two profiles when you look at it one way and a vase when looked at another. I really struggled with the simultaneous reading part - it sort of turned my brain inside out. However, her take on it was more about each part being "activated" rather than just shapes on a background.

We had six emotions from which to choose three: Anger, Joy, Hope, Sadness, Fear, Serenity.

This one is hope.

This one is serenity.

This one is joy.

I felt neither hopeful, joyful, nor serene while doing this project. Hope is definitely the most successful, though I find it more representational than it should be. Nobody but me was getting serenity from my first iteration of that one. I suspect they won't from this one either because of the line going downward on the top right corner. It reminds me of the light reflections in a lake and is definitely my fave whatever anyone else might think.

I spent way too much time on this project. But, I'm sure it was good for me. Right?

one continuous line

2011-09-13T17:29:00.001-06:00

This was the still life that greeted us when we walked into art class today.

We had about 2.5 hours to draw it . . . with one continuous line.

It was, uh, challenging and interesting.

I couldn't remain cynical and detached

2011-08-27T20:12:00.006-06:00

Coffee, donuts, and Tylenol seemed like appropriate funeral food to me today. I gave Jack a one and a half donut salute, followed by a Tylenol chaser for the headache I had from alternatively crying and trying not to cry. Do I feel better after watching the funeral? Yes, I think a bit. I do feel some sense of closure. It was a beautiful send off. The composure of his family was truly remarkable. Especially his daughter. Wow, so calm and clear.

My sister said that everything has been said other places and said better. That is probably true.

There is one photo that I have seen a lot of a message on the wall in Toronto that said, "Jack, I started voting because of you." I bet most people assume it was written by a young person who voted for the first time in this last election. And it could well be, but it might equally have been written by someone who started voting in the past 5 or 6 years since Jack Layton started showing himself a force to be reckoned with. I looked back through my diaryland diaries because I knew I'd written about him before. Back in 2004 (whichever election that was) I wrote that I'd been determined to remain cynical and detached about the election, but that I'd been sucked into it against my will. Jack was the reason I couldn't remain cynical and detached. He cared so deeply; he was so much fun, and finally, finally, the NDP had a leader to be proud of. A leader who could lead and who had the courage of his convictions.

It also warmed the cockles of my heart that he'd written a book on homelessness.

And it wasn't just that he was a great leader of the NDP - his charisma and deep fidelity to what he believed in made the leaders of the other parties look like character-less lumps who would change whatever they believed at a moment's notice if it would get them further in politics. You could imagine that he could be a great prime minister. I mean, I suppose if you were a Conservative that idea would have scared the pants off you, but you know what I mean.

I don't think I ever expected him to survive after seeing him at that final news conference, but I deeply regret that he couldn't at least have had a few years to mentor that young and raw caucus of his into a bunch of well-rounded, savvy, experienced politicians. No party should be dependent for its success on the strength and charisma of its leader. And this is one of the (many) failings right now of Canadian politics - there aren't enough future leaders learning and growing in the background of ANY of the political parties. This was (hopefully still is) one of the best opportunities the NDP has ever had to build the party into a true political force. Jack Layton was the best person to provide that mentorship and guidance, because he believed in it.

I hope that one of the lasting legacies of his death is that people, whatever their politics, have been inspired to care and believe that politics can be better than it has been in the past and that it can be a path not to hand-outs and scandals and power for the sake of power, but to a way to make things better.

I am deeply saddened with so many others that someone who worked so tirelessly and cared so deeply for Canada couldn't have mentored all of us for several more decades.

and Jack Layton died, and everything is wrong

2011-08-26T17:10:00.004-06:00

I am in a Mood. Hopefully, I will get over it soon.

I am officially on holidays now, but I honestly couldn't care less. That's how tired and strung out I am. Work has been alternatively horrible and boring all week. (And horribly boring at regular intervals.)

Wednesday, you know what I did? I provoked the wrath of 2/3 of the Evil Troika. I left an hour early without sending an email. Really. It's hard to believe I have gotten by in the work world all these years, isn't it? You may be wondering if I left without permission? Uh, no. I'd made the time up beforehand by working through a half or most of a couple of lunches (I always overcompensate), and my direct supervisor had said it was okay. No, the sin was the lack of email. The fact that I went up and down the hallway and stopped and said goodbye to people and said I was leaving early - except to the people who were on a call at the time is irrelevant.

What a shitstorm. What a shitstorm over nothing. The women in this office are the most controlling people it has ever been my misfortune to meet.

Then today, I was working through part of my lunch again - because I overcompensate - and one of the Evil Troika was across the hall talking to the new hire about office stuff and the new hire asked about working through lunch. Then ET 2 (Evil Troika 2) proceeded to tell me off indirectly by talking loudly about how I wasn't supposed to work through lunch and it wasn't encouraged and delineating all the steps and procedures and flaming hoops a person needs to go through if they want to so much as scratch their nose around there.

Sigh.

And to top off my lovely week I sat through an hour and a half, boring staff meeting in a small closed-in room with bad air circulation next to someone who kept coughing. She informed me later that she has a cold/flu and has felt progressively worse all day. I told her that if I got sick on my holidays because of her that I would hunt her down and hurt her.

Honestly, I just don't get it. Stay home. Nobody wants to share your germs. Nobody. You are not so indispensable that you can't take a sick day or 2 or 4. I know I am probably over-reacting because I've had a bad week, and Jack Layton died, and everything is wrong, but it just makes me so mad. I spend so much energy keeping myself well, because when I get sick, I get so sick, and it frustrates me. Also, this is one of the times of year that it seems I am particularly vulnerable, plus going on holidays, so it just seems an extra unfairness.

What a whiner. It's not like I'm not exposed to germs all the time - I'm bombarded by sick people at school and I'm mostly fine.

I just need to unwind a little and get some things done and I'll be set for holidays. Right?

And when I've regained my equilibrium I do intend to write about Jack.

too pretty?

2011-08-23T21:06:00.002-06:00

Here's my cushion covers. I thought they might be too pretty to nap on, but I was wrong.

good to know

2011-08-21T20:25:00.002-06:00

I've been intending to write all weekend, but I've just been so busy. I've been making a list of all the things I accomplished this summer, so I can look at it when I start castigating myself for all the things I didn't do. The thing is that while I've finished things, I've also probably thought up another twenty or so projects.

I have not finished my Christmas shopping. I really, really wanted to do that while I felt I had some money. Except I never really felt that way this summer. And it's hard to do Christmas shopping in July. I hope I can find the time and money to do it before the last minute this year.

I have done some big things though: my will is in the process of being made (and that's been on my to do list for at least 10 years); I did all that painting and it looks so good I can't even remember how bad it used to look; the cushion covers are almost done - just have to sew on some buttons. I had some buttonhole trauma today that I don't even want to talk about; the drawing classes and writing class have been well worth it; I attended that geography conference and got that poster done. Oh, and you know, went to work every day.

My drawing class this week was awesome. We were working on portraits and I barely even noticed time passing. It's good to know that with a little practice I can settle down into drawing.

summer is drawing in on me

2011-08-13T17:49:00.002-06:00

I hope the person who visited my blog for 40 page views yesterday enjoyed themselves. Some people's blogs are kinda depressing places to hang out. I hope mine isn't. I also notice that my reader from Russia has been back. So cool.

The theme in the last couple of days has been having to pay way more for things than the price quoted to me. This trend had better stop right now. I got my computer serviced and he "forgot" to tell me that it would cost $25 to install $40 worth of RAM. I bet my niece could've/would've done it for free. Today, I had my hair done and it cost $50 more than I was told it would. The good news is that my computer is working at a normal speed again and I think my hair looks okay even if my hair dresser did run away to Mexico.

My second drawing class was also fantastic. I wanted to go to class. I was glad to be there while I was there. And I produced two passable landscapes and learnt about atmospheric perspective.

Tonight, I hope to get some time to sew. I feel the summer drawing in on me and too many projects left to complete before school.

Oh, also, my favorite thing today: a friend telling me that something I'd written had changed her opinion 180 degrees. I thought that was pretty cool.

a bit astonished

2011-08-07T19:28:00.004-06:00

"Well, that's going to look quite astoundingly gorgeous," said I to myself viewing the cushion cover I've been sewing. Not having inherited the sewing gene that every other female member of my family seems to have inherited, I'm always quite astonished when something I've attempted to sew turns out: a) at all, b) anything like I imagined, or c) beautiful.

I'm also a bit astonished at all the things my sewing machine can do. I always thought my sewing machine was pretty basic - and it is by today's standards, just not as basic as I thought it was. Maybe if I really learnt to sew I'd be able to use some of its tricks.

I have been quite vilely fatigued this weekend. My brain has felt blearly and spacey and like I need to force it to think about things. In the middle of a conversation with a friend this aft I suddenly felt so tired it was all I could do not to put my head down and go to sleep. This is so unlike me. I don't usually find other people tiring. But I felt this way in the spring and I notice the mold counts are really high again. A connection? Seems possible.

drawing class

2011-08-05T20:27:00.002-06:00

sooooo tired. I was going to clean my house tonight, but here I am instead. I am not very good at just relaxing anymore. I was trying to talk myself into it being okay that I was tired, that I didn't really need to do anything, but I wasn't really buying it. I did a few things, but I think I'm done being productive now; I'm just going to write this, watch the news, and go to bed.

Did I tell you about the art classes I'm taking this summer? I can't remember. I think I did. Let's pretend I did. I had the first class of my beginner drawing class last night. The reason I signed up for some classes this summer is because I enrolled in 100 level art and design classes next year at university and I suddenly got really worried that I'd end up in classes with people who are fresh out of years of art classes in school and that everyone would be far, far in advance of me. Anyway, the class last night was good, maybe the best I've ever been to. I've been to beginner drawing classes before, but they never seem to stick with me. I never seem to get to a next level.

The instructor was super encouraging to everyone. The woman next to me was acting out what was in my brain - drawing a line, making impatient noises at herself, turning the page over, drawing a line, sighing - and she said to the instructor, "this is why I'm here. I can't do this." And the instructor was so helpful and encouraging to her and by midway through she'd settled down and managed to connect with what she was doing. And the instructor spent a lot of really useful individual time with everyone, pointing out what was good, but suggesting techniques to improve whatever the student said they weren't happy with.

And a funny thing happened in my brain. I thought, "what if art classes were genuinely about helping people learn to draw and not about making people feel bad about themselves?" That was a very odd thought to have, but I realized that my experiences with art have often been about making me feel bad about myself. Art classes in high school (which I flunked out of) were about (I think) separating out people who had talent, and hoping the others would go away. I even remember at that time wondering why we didn't learn anything. You could either do art or you couldn't. I obliged my teacher by dropping out.

And through my life I've had many experiences where people would not say anything positive about drawings I showed them, but only focus on whatever I had done wrong and make sure to point it out to me. I knew I'd had some unpleasant experiences in my life with art, but I hadn't quite realized how they had accrued over my lifetime. But what if the university classes have a really wonderful instructor too? What if I love it? How great would that be?

so many elegant and amazing descriptions

2011-07-30T17:10:00.003-06:00

I'm reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and I've been reading it for quite a while. This is because the writing is so delicious that I am reading it very slowly and tasting every sentence. It is also a book that makes me want to stab myself in the heart with an HB pencil because I will never write this well. Lordy, lordy, but there are so many elegant and amazing descriptions of things. At one point the Greek grandmother is having a typical histrionic Greek grandmother type of meltdown and his description of it is so unaccountably lovely.

"My grandfather watched in astonishment as his modest wife shredded her clothing before his eyes, the skirt of the dress, the waist, the bosom, the neckline. With a final rip, the dress split in two and Desdemona lay on the linoleum, exposing to the world the misery of her underwear, her overburdened underwire brassiere, her gloomy underpants, and the frantic girdle whose stays she was even now popping as she approached the summit of her dishevelment."

"the misery of her underwear", "her gloomy underpants" isn't that so perfect?

Or this:

"I'd never seen a creature with so many freckles before. A Big Bang had occurred, originating at the bridge of her nose, and the force of this explosion had sent galaxies of freckles hurtling and drifting to every end of her curved, warm-blooded universe. There were clusters of freckles on her forearms and wrists, an entire Milky Way spreading across her forehead, even a few sputtering quasars flung into the wormholes of her ears."

The other thing he does that I am utterly envious of, but can't give you an example of, is his descriptions of cities as living, breathing, vibrant creatures with their own personalities. Because I took that Writing Fiction from History course I am also noticing and in awe of the small things he weaves into his narrative that places the story absolutely in Detroit of the 1930s or the 1960s.

I caught the last five minutes of when he was on Oprah and he was talking about how he wrote the book, then essentially scrapped the whole thing and started over. It took him seven years to write it. Totally worth it.

only one of the whole parade

2011-07-29T16:56:00.002-06:00

Ugh. I don't know what to do about this painting thing. I've now painted all the trim around the bathroom and bedroom doors and around the storage area space, and the storage room doors (at least the outside). And it all looks soooo much better. It's still terrible cheap trim, but at least it's all "crisp linen" white now. And I still have some paint left over, and I could buy another little can. And now I am eyeing the front door and the broom closet door, but the trim next to those leads inevitably into the kitchen and the living room.

Am I really capable of only doing part of it? And the kitchen cupboards are the same colour too. If I do the trim next to the cupboards won't I have to do the cupboards? And frankly, the cupboards I really wouldn't paint this colour - there are so many other wonderful colours they could be. Though I have been considering the ugly brown knobs and thinking they'd be pretty in a gray-blue.

And the trim in this part of the apartment is in even worse shape - in one place ripped and broken and in another terribly rough. Something in me rebels against slapping new paint on top of such cruddy stuff. But it would look so much better if I did, rough or not, and I am going to live here at least another year.

Oh, oh, I think I'm talking myself into it. Nooooo. Not the cupboards. I think I can get away without doing the cupboards. And I know I'm doing this bass ackwards. That most people would paint the walls first and the trim after. I didn't set out to do this. The whole apartment needs work, but I have neither the time or the energy. Or, frankly, the know how.

I have so many projects in my head. This is only one of the whole parade.

daydreaming while I was painting

2011-07-24T20:27:00.002-06:00

The trouble with painting one thing is it leads to painting the thing right next to it and the thing next to that and so on and so on.

I set out this weekend to paint my bathroom door. I've lived in this apartment for 3 years and have been embarrassed and unhappy about my bathroom door that entire time. For a large area around the door knob the paint was worn down to the wood and no matter how hard I scrubbed it it always just looked grimy and gross and as if I was too lazy to wash it. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I could just paint the door. I know - I'm a bit slow, but I'm used to living in rentals where you can't really do anything to them.

So I painted the door and the register which was also looking chipped and worn. But as soon as I'd done that I realized how awful all the trim was around the door . . . and the baseboards . . . and the frame around my bedroom door . . . and the baseboards around my little open space outside the storage room. So I've done all of those, and though some need a second coat, I still have plenty of paint left.

I have frequently been annoyed by the person who last painted/renovated this apartment - such a mickey mouse job as he did - paint splatters all over, light switches in crooked, one coat of paint badly applied and the cheapest trim and baseboards I've ever seen. So I spent a lot of time daydreaming while I was painting of what I'd do to this apartment if it was mine (and I had even a little bit of money).

First of all, I would not have painted the door and all the trim 'crisp linen'. Not that it's a terrible colour or anything, but it's pretty boring. This is such a lovely little apartment and one of its strengths is how each room opens out of one another and how they all flow together. I'd paint it in colours that did the same thing and complemented each other as you look through. I'd love to paint the dim, shadowy bedroom in a light mossy green with splatters of gold and faint tree and plant shadows over one wall. And I would rip out all the horrible trim throughout and put in something nice and tasteful. Also, the bath and tile work really needs to be replaced. I could go on and on - the whole apartment really needs some loving renovation.

But the bathroom door and the trim looks really good now.

random illness

2011-07-18T17:11:00.002-06:00

Remember when I got sick the night of my sister's wedding and it just seemed so random because no one else got sick? Oh, yes, it's easy to make jokes about me having overindulged, but we all know that's not true because I've never overindulged in my life. Besides I wasn't throwing up. And besides I had a total of two drinks. Well, maybe one was a double.

Anyway, I was sick in exactly the same way on Saturday night. It was similar enough that I said to myself, "this seems familiar; when have I done this before?" Then I started wondering what else was similar. On Saturday evening I drank a beer. I know! How shocking! A whole beer. And I started wondering if it was something about the alcohol separate from overindulging that was the connection. And it seems as if that is possible. Some people on the internet report that alcohol can have nasty interactions for people with IBS.

The thing is though how random it is. I mean, I have had a beer before. I've probably had 2 or 3 in the past year. I drink wine and liqueurs now and then, without any ill effects (pun intended). And the ironic thing is that I bought the beer because sometimes it settles my stomach.

I'm pretty reluctant to test this new theory out. Two days later I'm still not fully recovered. Yesterday I felt as white and flat as a piece of paper.

In related news my doctor gave me some medication for IBS that I've been rather interested to try out. Except I don't get sick that often with it. And it never crossed my mind Saturday night that IBS might be the problem.

coffee war catch-up

2011-07-16T19:04:00.002-06:00

As I mentioned before we've moved spaces at work up to a space on the top floor that has offices for nearly everyone. That "nearly" is the problem. The offices are nice too - either exterior wall or overlooking the atrium. But two people don't have offices and two more will have to share. I won't even go into all the problems, but several people are very unhappy and several more are very much affronted that some people have their own office while others have to share. There is no way to make this space so everyone is happy.

I (at least temporarily) have my own office looking out into the atrium. I'm supposed to be sharing with another planner, but the office we're supposed to be in has no furniture and no computer hook-ups. I wasn't sure I would like being in an office by myself, but I find I do like having my own space. The guys keep wandering in to say hi because we are all finding it pretty strange to be separated. I'm sure we'll adjust though. I'm sure not counting on staying in my own space though and that's all right - as long as I don't get put out in the open with the loud-mouthed admin assistant that dislikes me.

And the coffee war seems to have reached a stalemate. The new place doesn't have a coffee maker yet and the cafe downstairs is closed for the summer. You would think that this would be the perfect opportunity to resume hostilities, but we just continued to walk right out without asking if anyone wanted anything. And lo and behold the person that in four summers I have never seen get up off her ass and walk to get a coffee has discovered that she has legs and can use them. Possibly not happy about it, but capable of walking a block to get her own coffee. And I'm sure the fresh air and exercise will do her good. It's amazing how that makes my work experience more pleasant.

I have a bunch more to say, but on an entirely different topic, so maybe later.

random pictures

2011-07-13T21:01:00.002-06:00

When I came in from my walk my place smelled deliciously of oranges. I had a sudden yen for pancakes for supper so I made my oatmeal pancakes with orange sauce.

That's my new tablecloth from my niece in case you didn't get to see it. And a ray of sunshine that peeked out for a few minutes. I haven't seen the sun for weeks.

Here's the Edmonton skyline looking south disappearing in mist this morning.

That picture was taken at work. We've moved up to the fourth floor and have an even better view of the city. That big, bulky building is the new Epcor tower - we've been watching it go up for the last year or so. I admit I kind of like it. Here's a better picture of it - dwarfing the CN Tower beside it. I am hoping they will have an open house when it's finished. I really want to see the city from the top.

Enough of this: I really have nothing scintillating to say.

a bit of an interesting mind shift

2011-07-02T20:23:00.003-06:00

Random older, black dude in a tea shop today said to me very sweetly and sincerely, "you have beautiful hair."

What is it about my hair these days that attracts this attention from random strangers? And will it continue now my hairdresser has run off to Mexico to do hair on the beach? Sigh - at least she gave me a recommendation to someone else before she left. My hairdresser is almost exactly my age and she was on her approximately 4th husband - the most recent one was the reason for the running off to Mexico. I truly hope she's about to live happily ever after. Hopefully, the other husbands were just practice for this one.

I first went for lunch today with one friend, straight to coffee with another. Considering that I also have two social engagements tomorrow, this is far more social than I am apt to be these days. It's funny the different effects different people have on a person. My lunch date was with a guy I am casual friends with and it was good, but also a bit of a downer. Not his fault: his relationship is breaking up and his 16 year old daughter is a wild child that no matter what he does he can't seem to get her feet on a good path. I have a great admiration for how absolutely patient and steady he has been with her.

My coffee friend was in the human geog program with me and she and I have great conversations because we are so interested in everything. I leave coffee with her energized and optimistic and determined to get on and do some stuff and I know I have the same effect on her. We've decided we should have once a month "support" meetings about goals and plans.

In related news I'm still musing about what being committed to writing would be like. This is a form of procrastination. Why is it so hard to do the things we want to do?

I saw a little news piece a week or so back about a woman who had lost an ungodly amount of weight in the old-fashioned way: eating well and exercising. What stuck with me about the story was she said that what had changed for her was that now she finds reasons to exercise rather than reasons not to. It's a bit of an interesting mind shift. I wonder if it could be applied to other things.

In other related news I am starting an architectural sketching class this week.

time to make a commitment

2011-06-18T19:56:00.003-06:00

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger. I don't know why it is so - just not much to say, I guess. Or lots to say and no will to say it. Or just tired of writing for school and tired of looking at a computer all day at work now. Anyway, here I am.

I went to the antique mall today to start looking for Christmas presents. To no one's great surprise I found presents for me! I bought this plate because I just loved it even though it goes with nothing I own except a gold depression glass platter I got from my father's house. My sisters always point out a particular pattern to me as "mum's plate" - is this it? I'm puzzled if it is because I've never particularly cared for the pattern. Maybe I've now seen it often enough that I like it? Or is this similar, but not quite the same?

One reason I went was to buy a glass canning jar. I'd never even noticed these jars until my niece asked for some. I want a bunch to store different things in. I was going to put buttons in it, but then I remembered the marbles I have from my childhood. Don't they look lovely in it? That's my mum's button tin behind it. I've seen jars of buttons in antique stores and they look really nice - especially when they are sorted by colours.

The thing I've been musing most about these days is whether it is time to make a commitment to being a writer rather than someone who wants to, but never does write. And if it is time, what exactly would a commitment be like?

kind of enjoying the empty space

2011-05-08T20:17:00.004-06:00

It took a week, but I finally got so frustrated with Explorer 9 that I downloaded Google Chrome as my browser instead. Amongst the many things that annoyed me, Explorer 9 wouldn't let me publish to Blogger. I know, right? Also the interface was just plain annoying. I'd had all these sites across the top of my toolbar that I used ALL THE TIME - wikipedia, a dictionary, the tv times, etc, and it just erased them. Chrome put them all back.

I had a friend over last week for her birthday brunch - I wrote a whole entry about it and though it is saved somewhere it seems like old news now. Anyway, I rearranged my kitchen and then I liked the new arrangement (with the table under the window rather than in the corner) so much that I left it that way. And then I went and bought a cheap Ikea shelf for the corner. Hey presto! More space! Look at that - there are empty shelves there. I am kind of enjoying the empty space: it won't last long.

I wish I hadn't left my voter card on the table when I took the picture. It's just going to remind me of that damn election every time I see this picture. I asked a friend if I was just going to be grumpy now until October of 2015. I hope not, but on the other hand, if I'm ever grumpy and need an excuse I have one.

exam boredom

2011-04-19T19:57:00.003-06:00

I am maybe in a minority, but I really don't care for exams where I am given the essay questions beforehand. This is mostly because I get so utterly bored with those questions during the preparation that by the time I get to the exam, I couldn't care less. My exam today was three essays in three hours (plus 30 short answer questions). By an hour in I wanted to stick pencils in my eyes. I had read those questions over and over, dissected them, thought about them, written the essays out, re-written them, thought some more, etc., etc. Spending three hours regurgitating that material was just plain tedious. I try not to over-prepare for these types of exams, but these questions did require a deal of thought.

I prefer the prof to give examples of the types of essay questions that could be asked or copies of previous exams. Then you study and study and when you get the exam there is that little frisson of excitement and adrenaline as you read over the questions. Then your brain starts to work and put things together and it's interesting. Writing exam essays should be interesting - I frequently write things under pressure that I might not otherwise write. In those types of exams to a large extent you have to trust what you are writing and not over think. Just trust what your unconscious mind has put together and trust what is coming out the end of your pen.

for my sister

2011-04-18T13:58:00.001-06:00

I really took that reflection picture yesterday for you. How do you like this one?

reflections

2011-04-17T19:30:00.000-06:00

Ah. There it is! That was waaaaay faster than uploading from my computer. I take a lot of reflection pictures. That's because there are so many good ones in my home.

hmmm

2011-04-17T19:24:00.005-06:00

hmmmmm, thought I to myself, if when I got my phone it automatically downloaded all the photos in my Picasa albums to the phone, should it not also as easily send photos I've taken since to Picasa? And from there should I not then be able to put them into the blog? Exactly.

So where is the picture I just took? And why does this screen look different.

Publish post. Let's see what happens.

Nope, that didn't work. Back to the drawing board.

one exam and one year to go

2011-04-13T19:15:00.002-06:00

I have one exam and one year to go. Can you believe it? Me neither.

I also had a rather wonderful juxtaposition of experiences in the past few weeks. Downtown, where I wait for the bus in the mornings on my way to work, a temporary staffing agency has moved in and I was idly perusing the ads they have posted in the window. I realized that they were all the type of positions I might have applied for when I was in my 20s - shipper/receivers, office help, that kind of thing. I also realized that I'm not even qualified for that type of thing now or rather I'm over-qualified. That was the first rather enjoyable thing.

The second was that I was looking at the City's job postings and there were three different planning positions all of which I am qualified for, all paying very decent wages. I've no plans on applying for any of them as they were full-time, and as I think I have it pretty sweet and flexible where I am now, but it bodes well for the future.

It's funny how having my early working years be in Saskatchewan during a recession has shaped and continues to shape my reactions to work. I never, never take good work for granted. But by the same token I never expect enough either. I don't, in general, think feeling entitled is a good thing, but I think never feeling entitled to anything does me some huge disservices in this life. And not just about work.

I need to do some very serious thinking in the next month or so about what I am planning to do after April of 2012. Do I want to go on and get a Master's degree? There are some huge pros and cons to that. If I decide not to go on, what sort of work do I want? Where do I want to be in my working life in five years? Ten?

The other day there was a huge announcement here about a new museum - or rather moving the current museum downtown and expanding it immensely. And I just thought about how much I love this city and how I can't wait to get working at something that contributes to it.

as good as it was fast

2011-04-12T21:51:00.002-06:00

"I thought the paper was going to catch fire you were writing so fast." prof to me as I handed in my exam.

I hope the essay was as good as it was fast.

feeling crappy and exhausted again

2011-04-05T15:32:00.002-06:00

I was going to get on here yesterday and say that the allergy pills had cleared up my sinus infection - or unplugged it at least. Apparently, my joy was premature: it's as bad as ever today. I feel crappy and exhausted again.

Yesterday, I was the unwilling eavesdropper on a conversation between two teenage boys at the LRT station. Well, eavesdropper is probably the wrong term - it was one of those conversations where they spoke very loudly because they wanted to be overheard. I first pegged them at about grade 7, but maybe they were as old as grade 9s. They were definitely from the junior high next door to the stop, not university students. They were that skinny, weedy, underfed type with lots of piercings. And one had such bad BO that I made sure I didn't get in the same train car with him. I can't remember the conversation verbatim, but here's the gist.

Boy 1 (actually, I realize, he did most of the talking, his friend mostly made sounds of agreement or disbelief throughout.) Anyway:

Boy 1: I'm so proud of myself that I didn't cheat on her. She's the first one I've never cheated on.

Boy 2: how long did you two go out?

Boy 1: oh, I did her for four days then I dumped her. But I didn't cheat on her. I've cheated on every other one of my girlfriends.

Boy 2: mumble, mumble, something or other

Boy 1: Rose was a slut. man, that girl was such a slut. She did everyone she could get. That's why I cheat on girls. I figure I'll get them first 'cause they're going to cheat anyway. Then if they don't cheat on me, oh, well. I've cheated on every one of my girlfriends.

Nice, huh?

a pre-emptive strike against allergies

2011-04-02T16:31:00.006-06:00

I am taking a pre-emptive strike against allergies this year. I think I've mentioned before that I have a new hypothesis that the spring and fall intense respiratory sicknesses I get are actually allergies. I never thought about it before because so often I get such a bad cough and I didn't associate coughs with allergies. But I guess they can be. Yesterday, I had something suspiciously like an allergy attack and I promptly took an allergy pill. Today, 23 hours later I had another one - I've noticed before that 24-hour allergy pills only last 23 with me. I'm going to just continue taking the pills now for at least the rest of this month. Usually I wait until I'm really sick and then I start.

My theory is that if I take the pills before I get really sick maybe I won't get really sick. We will see how that pans out. Except, the fly in the ointment (so to speak) in all of this is, I am already sick. I have been fighting off a cold (so I thought) for about 10 days now. I think I have a sinus infection, which is mostly making me dozy, headachy, fatigued, and very out of it.

For example, this afternoon when I was cleaning my bathroom, I washed and dried my china soap dish and set it down still half wrapped in the tea towel I'd dried it with. I had a fleeting thought that maybe that wasn't such a good idea because I might forget it was there and pick up the towel, but then I assured myself that I'd remember it was there. Not thirty seconds later I grabbed the towel tipping the china dish onto the tile floor and smashing it.

You know, I still like tile, but, man, I've had so much breakage since I moved into this apartment. On linoleum stuff stands half a chance, not so with tile.

But what am I allergic to this early in the year? I wouldn't think there was any pollen yet. Snow mold? I've always thought that was something people made up. Who even knows. Maybe all I have is a cold.

(What the heck is up with blogger? Spellcheck worked today, but I had to put in my own html code to make paragraphs.)

the proverbial wall

2011-03-31T13:48:00.003-06:00

I handed in the worst essay of my university career today . . . and I feel horrible about it. I so wish I was one of those people who just doesn't care about stuff, but I'm not. To make matters worse it was a geography paper to one of my favorite profs. I included a note so he wouldn't think I had just completely blown it off. I just honestly couldn't seem to do it. I knew what I had to do, but just couldn't see a way to actually formulate it on paper. The whole middle of the paper - the analysis - is missing. What I did write is decent, but without a whole lot of point without the analysis. I think I hit the proverbial wall that I have heard people talking about. I would just sit in front of my computer and not be able to form one coherent thought. It doesn't help that I've been fighting off a cold and my head either aches or feels like it has been stuffed with feathers. Or that I'm exhausted in general. I stayed up until 2 am, but I just couldn't pull it together; I got up at 6 thinking maybe after a few hours of sleep inspiration would strike, but I just stared at it and felt bad. So I just handed it in as it was - I couldn't cope with the idea of taking a late penalty and wrestling with it even one more second. Luckily, I'm sitting at 90% for the 45% of that class I've completed. Last week I managed to pull stuff together - working half the night, getting up at 5:30 for work and then going straight from work to the U to give a presentation that I nailed (95%). But my ability to pull it together deserted me last night. I know I will feel better after I've had some sleep and some distance from this, but right now I'm just so disappointed with myself. Uh? Why won't blogger format this correctly? Or spellcheck? I don't even care.

a very slightly asymmetrical arch

2011-03-25T19:10:00.003-06:00

Hey! Look at the new bridge Edmonton is probably going to get! I, for one, am super impressed with it. While I feel a certain nostalgia for the old Waterdale with it's peeling turquoise paint, rusted metal struts, and creepy feeling bridge deck that feels slip-slidey under your tires no matter the time of year, I think this new one is beautiful. I do love me arch bridges. And I love the very slightly asymmetrical arch of this one.

I think it will look amazing in the river valley for the rest of this century, and probably part of the next.

like a ragbag

2011-03-22T14:07:00.002-06:00

Oh, man, I don't know if it's because I have a bunch of boring essays to write in the next week, but ever since I got up this morning my brain has been firing off ideas for writing projects faster than I can even write them down. It's like some fertile, spring burgeoning of creativity.

I think it is partly that we had (or rather I had) such a good writing class last night. (I say "I" because the rest of the class were uncommunicative in the extreme.) We did this exercise where we each wrote down a list of things we'd like to write about, then wrote a paragraph or so that contained as many of those words (nouns mostly) that we could. We then passed the list to the next person along and wrote something from the list of the person next to us. And then we read them aloud: first the list then the two pieces that came from that list. It was like a word game along the lines of picture consequences. As an aside, does anyone but my family even know what picture consequences are? I think next time my family is all together we should have a round or two of this game. I bet it would be uproarious. Also more fun if you can write fiction as well.

I think that was partly what got my brain going. Also analysing Virginia Woolf in depth was wonderful. Oh, and then we took part of Street Haunting that we'd deconstructed in detail and tried to write our own piece along the same lines.

And to think I almost dropped this class. It just goes to prove that I, at least, suck at judging from first impressions.

One thing I was thinking about this morning is that this blog is like a ragbag. All these leftover or half-finished thoughts get stored here like pieces for a quilt until I pull them out to make something of them. And I frequently do pull them out. I find I go back constantly to things I wrote even 7 or 8 years ago.

Notice how I said I had so much to do that I wouldn't be writing, but then suddenly I have so much to say?

pretty thoughts and brilliant ideas

2011-03-20T16:58:00.003-06:00

Someone said to me within the past few months (maybe a family member?), that people that go to university seem to come out loving Virginia Woolf - but they are the only ones. I don't know if this is true, but I can say that I never read Ms. Woolf before, but now I love her. Or at least I love the couple of essays of hers that I've read and it makes me want to read other things she's written. I highly recommend Street Haunting and The Death of a Moth. I just read Street Haunting for class tomorrow - so luscious and delicious. I thought the essay I'd finished writing a few hours ago was Rather Good, but now I am undeceived.

"Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack."

'Tis true.

I have been realizing with this last essay how until I start writing something down, until I start doing the work with it on the page, it's only a pretty thought or a brilliant idea. Pretty thoughts and brilliant ideas are ephemeral things - they have no reality and depth.

I know this might seem to be a bit in the realm of, 'thank you, Captain Obvious', but it is something that is obvious only in the thought not in the doing - the same way the pretty thought or the brilliant idea isn't really real. It is the doing of this thought that gives it the depth. Did that make any sense at all?

I, and possibly a few other people I know, have some teensy-tiny problems with perfectionism. If you can't do something brilliantly the first time, just don't do it at all. As Annie Lamott says, perfectionism truly is the voice of the oppressor. But I am learning - slowly, slowly - to just do the work, and to enjoy doing the work, and to understand that the work itself is what makes the final product worthwhile. Perfectionism says you should just be so all-surpassingly brilliant that perfectly lovely things will just flow easily from you. I think Natalie Goldberg had a story in Writing Down the Bones about a friend of hers reading one of her first drafts and saying solemnly, 'wow, this really is awful.'

I got up yesterday morning and started writing an essay just for the fun of it. That was new.

Do you think if I take Art and Design classes next year it will have as positive an effect on me as the writing classes have had?

good unexpected things

2011-03-16T20:52:00.002-06:00

Good, unexpected things happened today.

Boss to me: (literally as a forkful of food was between dish and mouth) Can I see you in my office?
Me: looking from him to food, back to him. Sigh.
Boss: five seconds, I promise.
Me: okay
Boss: here sign this contract until the end of the year.
Me: uh, uh, uh.
Boss: Do you want a job?
Me: yeahhhhh.
Boss: we're not messing with that until September thing this year.

So not expecting that. Usually I have to nudge and ask about work and until when. Also, the organization I work for didn't get the funding they wanted from the province and all the extra they got has to go to legislated raises. And there has been lots of talk of layoffs. And I was worried. Why would little ol' me at the bottom of the totem pole still have a job when they are talking about laying off professional staff.

And seriously, even though I bitch about this job sometimes, this job has been a life saver. It keeps my financial head above water.

whine, whine, whine

2011-03-13T19:04:00.004-06:00

Oh, lordy, I have an unbelievable amount of work to do. You won't be hearing from me for a while.

unconscious processes

2011-03-03T19:26:00.002-07:00

I had a really good day today and, trust me, really good days for me have been few and far between this winter. I don't even know what caused it: maybe the right confluence of hormones, winter light, work accomplished, good exam results, and coffee.

I think today was the quintessential northern prairie's winter day. It was about minus 20, give or take five degrees depending on the time of day, little wind. This morning when I went to school we were having a huge snowstorm with huge fluffy snowflakes. By the time I left school in the early afternoon, it had cleared off to brilliant sunshine sparkling on all the new snow, with wispy mare's tails sweeping across the blue, blue prairie sky. Lovely.

My mind is a skittering mess of modern Latin American history in general, and violence in Columbia in particular; church architecture and sacred spaces and my general non-belief in higher powers; school locations and what the 1960s were like; ideologies of power, and added to the mix today landscapes of fear in urban spaces, which is what I'm going to write my next essay on in social geography. And that will be good because the two main theories we are using to structure the class are feminism and Marxism - both of which will fit very nicely into an essay about scary cities.

It's like school is a big jigsaw puzzle that my mind is constantly working on putting together. I turn the pieces this way and that all day trying to put them together. How do I structure this essay or that essay. Should I write about the culture of violence in Columbia or kidnappings or do those two things fit together and if so, how? I write paragraphs of different things in my head. Hopefully, I won't get some of those things mixed up. Violence in urban churches in Columbia in the 1960s, for instance.

It's like my unconscious processes are visible to me right now for some reason. I am rather enjoying it.

the transvaluation of values

2011-02-28T21:58:00.003-07:00

I finally finished that Alien essay. Man, I swear my essays get harder every term. What is up with that? Shouldn't they be getting easier?

I read a few very interesting journal articles for that essay though. One I sent to my niece about how hidden colonialist beliefs turn up in the geographies of fantasy worlds - so interesting. I've had my concerns about how fantasy worlds never seem that much, well, different, but this article took it to a whole new level.

Another one about the movie itself won my respect by the number of words he used that I didn't know. Some I had some passing familiarity with, others were completely new. I admire people with better vocabularies than me. It's not that I have such a fantastic vocabulary, it's just above average. Also, I'm the first to admit that I don't take in new words as easily as I used to. For instance, I can't seem to get my mind around 'heuristic' no matter how many times I read it.

If I had the energy I'd make up index cards for all those words. Instead I'll put them here to remind me to do so.

Mise en Scene; in medias res; hieratic; locutions; tenebrous; oneiric; lubricious; dehisced; claustrum; talion; polemic; agitprop.

Oh, and my vote for least understandable phrase this week: the transvaluation of values. What? Seriously?

keywords: that flower thing; post-colonial; cultural geography

2011-02-17T15:24:00.003-07:00

That flower smell thing happened to me again today. I have talked about it before here and here and also here. I didn't realize I'd written about it so much until I went looking through my archives. I don't think it has happened for a long while though, but there it was again today. I was driving and suddenly it was as if I had walked into the cooler in a flower shop. It wasn't one flower today, but a mixture of scents. It's quite a lovely phenomenon - even if I haven't a clue where it comes from.

In other news, I wrote my last midterm today. It was pretty hard - cultural geography is inconvenient to pin down, I find. I thought I'd post the questions so you can see what I mean. The second half of the exam we had to pick three of the following five questions and not just answer them, but weave in 4 or 5 other concepts from the class:

1) Crang describes "ludic space" as space where fantasies can be acted out, or conventions broken. Consider the grocery store as a ludic space in a society which is removed from its ecosystem roots.
2) How do concepts of "othering" and "colonisation" relate to Pollan's (The Omnivore's Dilemma) recounting of the industrialisation of corn? Consider both how Pollan challenges the othering of the "Corn People", and how he might inadvertently reinforce it.
3) How does Pollan's writing demonstrate the practice of reflexivity promoted by critical theory (also described as "self-reflexivity" by Crang)?
4) What is meant by genius loci? Consider the application of this term to Mayan corn and to the grocery store.
5) Science clearly re-created corn in modern Western society. How can this view of corn be described as situated knowledge, rather than objective or complete knowledge of corn?

See what I mean? It is sort of gobbleygook for the mind. For all that, I have enjoyed this unit on culture - slippery topic though it be. I think it has given me a lot to think about.

Now I need to watch Alien, and write an essay "to study imaginary landscapes in the context of post-colonial theory critical thought for the purpose of identifying both the acknowledged criticisms of colonialism and unacknowledged remaining colonial beliefs and assumptions of their creator(s)."

In other, other news, I'm pretty sure, though I'll never know for sure, that I got 100% on my Latin American history quiz. Pity it was only worth 10%. For a quiz, it would have been amazingly hard if a person hadn't studied. Which this person did, of course.

so lovely

2011-02-12T16:32:00.021-07:00

I went to an open house this aft for the new seminary. I know this probably seems like an odd choice, but the pictures on the news were so beautiful I had to go see for myself. First we got the new art gallery for amazing architecture, now this - it's not like this a public space though, hence the open house. I met up with a fellow from work (and his wife) who is interested in architecture. This is the chapel.

I know, right? So lovely. The seminary had to move, because (I think) it was in the way of one of the new LRT lines. They carefully removed the original stained glass and incorporated them into the new building high on a bend of the river, overlooking downtown.

The chapel is very spare, all sweeping lines and just two unassuming statues - Mary and baby Jesus to one side and this lone figure of Jesus to the other.

I love these doors.

And I want the floor - limestone from Owen Sound.

This next is my favorite picture - though I wish I hadn't cut off the cross.

This is the rear wall of the chapel.

The wooden statue of Mary. Carved by nuns somewhere. I wasn't really paying attention.

But she is beautiful.

The bell tower.

Looking up the inside of the bell tower.

After the chapel, we got to look around the living quarters for the seminarians. There was beautiful artwork everywhere. I really, really wanted this tapestry that was casually hung in a hallway.

This one, while a lovely picture, has to be the whitest Mary and Jesus I have ever seen.

And the coffee and nanaimo bars were scrumptious.

write as far as you can see

2011-02-08T19:01:00.003-07:00

On the bulletin board, right in front of my nose as I write, is a note to myself that says:

'Write as far as you can see and when you get there you will be able to see further.'

This is my own advice revised from some other quote somewhere. And it is good advice when I remember to follow it. What I've been noticing the past while though is that when I don't write down 'as far as I can see' I never do get around to seeing any further. I'm sure it's different for different people - I know some draft everything out in their heads first, but for me, it seems, that the bit I haven't written down somehow blocks the rest.

Since Christmas I've been considering my final essay for writing class. I think it might be something about why a non-christian (me) loves church architecture. And I can imagine the beginning and a few bits, but nothing else since Christmas. I dare swear though that if I wrote it down, more would appear.

I've been thinking today how lucky it is that I moved back to Edmonton where I could take writing. I've always wanted to take writing classes and just never felt justified in spending the money.

One of the writers we've looked at in class is Fred Wah - in particular, a book called Diamond Grill which I then got out of the library to read. He's a poet and he inserts poems in his prose and the poetry sort of drips into the prose and sometimes the prose flows into poetry. Quite, quite lovely. In this book he is writing about his "hyphenated identity" as a Chinese Canadian. Here's a section that I love (pg 6-7):

Yet the oceans of women migrant-tongued words in a double-bind of bossy love and wary double-talk forced to ride the waves of rebellion and obedience through a silence that shutters numb the traffic between eye and mouth and slaps across the face of family, yet these women forced to spit, out of bound-up feet and torsoed hips made-up yarns and foreign scripts unlucky colours zippered lips - yet, to spit, when possible, in the face of the father the son the holy ticket safety-pinned to his lapel - the pileup of twisted curtains intimate ink pious pages partial pronouns translated letters shore-to-shore Pacific jetsam pretending love forgotten history braided gender half-breed loneliness naive voices degraded miscourse racist myths talking gods fact and fiction remembered faces different brothers sisters misery tucked margins whisper zero crisscross noisy mothers absent fathers high muckamuck husbands competing wives bilingual I's their unheard sighs, their yet still-floating lives.

Read it out loud to get the full effect. I thought (think) of going back and revising my list of things I love into something approaching the poetry of this.

And here's another passage that I meant to write on here a while back. It's from Zenna Henderson's Pilgrimage. I re-read that again after Christmas. Her writing is so amazing and I was thinking about how reading her again and again through childhood and adulthood has probably influenced me more that I realize.

We were all alone in the big dining room. The early-morning sun skidded across the polished hardwood floor, stumbled against the battered kitchen chairs, careened into the huge ornate mirror above the buffet and sprayed brightly from it over the cracked oilcloth table covering on the enormous oak table. (pg 130)

Wow. Look how she shows us that room by describing sunlight in those amazing verbs that most people would never use for sunlight: skidded, stumbled, careened, sprayed. Can't you just see it? And those verbs so wonderfully reflect the wrong-footed, out-of-placeness of her two protagonists.

I better go do something more constructive than this.

really quite pretty

2011-02-05T14:05:00.003-07:00

Oh, look - it's snowing! Isn't that great? You know why it's great? Because with all the warm weather and rain we'd lost some of the snow we had and the city had just finished plowing down to the pavement across the city. It's good we're getting topped up.

It's really quite pretty. It's that wet snow that is clinging to everything.

I want one of those

2011-02-02T21:54:00.002-07:00

Here is a link to Hiromi Goto's blog. I've been reading her since that workshop I took last summer. (Best ever!) She doesn't write that often - which, strangely enough, is something I appreciate in a blogger, especially when said blogger says deep and thoughtful things. I really liked some of the stuff she says in this one though. Especially about having a robust and adaptable ego. I think I need one of those. I really need one of those.

I wrote an abstract this evening for this research that I haven't even done yet to present it at a conference in June in Calgary. Not to do a presentation - I just don't have what it takes for that yet, but as a poster. You make a pretty conference-quality fancy-pants poster and stand beside it for an hour or so while people look at it and ask questions. I prophesy an hour or so of acute discomfort for myself - which is why I put off deciding to do it until the last possible minute. Does this paragraph have anything to do with the need for a robust and adaptable ego mentioned above? I think it does.

Amusing work exchange from today.
Me: under my breath very quietly in the face of extreme computer annoyance,"f**k."
Co-worker: (who hasn't even been at work for six weeks) "you're getting worse."
Me: "I don't know what you're f**king talking about."

if you like things extra gingery

2011-01-28T19:04:00.003-07:00

I made ginger-carrot soup today. It was soooo good - especially if you like things extra gingery. I made it with this recipe. I think the orange juice makes it. And it's good if you have any stray vegans coming over.

I put it in the little brown bowl that is all dappled like animal fur that was in my Christmas stocking. This isn't a great photo, but I thought it looked good next to my knitting.

I wonder what it's like to come home on a Friday afternoon after work, make a nice supper, and then relax all evening. Maybe watch a movie or favorite tv or hang out with people you love. The memory of that kind of lifestyle slips further and further away from me.

I am getting better about focusing on my work though. Both the essays I'm writing right now are hard. But I just keep chipping away at them night after night. Most nights this week I've been a bit reluctant to go to bed because I was making progress on one or the other. I'd love it if the first draft of both was done by bedtime tonight, but I think I'm dreaming.

unnatural

2011-01-26T16:43:00.002-07:00

Okay, I know you're probably tired of me being bitter and resentful about the weather. But, seriously, it's January 26th and this morning I had to go back into the house to get my freakin' umbrella. It was raining that hard. There is just no call for rain in January. It is unnatural.

And you cannot even imagine the mess it's made of the already horrid streets. Imagine 18 inches of soft, slushy snow and then imagine big vehicles trying to drive on it. I think if you get stuck CAA will get to you in about March. There was another roof collapse today - we've had about one a day for the past week. And it's supposed to get colder and we're due for more snow. Oh, yay. Let's freeze all those ruts in place!

I just think that if I'm like this (and I'm not nearly as bad as I'm making myself out to be) how is it for people that seriously hate winter.

little gem of an essay

2011-01-25T15:23:00.005-07:00

I should be writing my history essay (about the process of 'whitening' the Puerto Rican population in the late 19th century), but instead here I am to give you a link to a little gem of an essay. We studied it in class this week. You'll love it - a two minute read for hours of inspiration.

winter walks in the woods

2011-01-20T19:17:00.007-07:00

My sister (who I can't be bothered to link to) posted a picture of a winter Saskatoon street. I don't know if it was recent or not, but it looked so bare, so nekkid, so snow free that it was startling. I thought I'd post a picture of one of my streets. I've been intending to go out and take some pictures anyway. This picture is along the riverbank - it sure doesn't look very urban does it?

This gives a bit more of an idea of the snow. Every night on the news there is a new story about how the city is trying and trying to get it clear and just not getting along as well as people want. Most residential streets are still only one lane, even after plowing, because of the sheer amount of snow piled up.

It's warmed up now - it's going to be a nasty, sloppy mess here on the weekend. I went for a walk in the river valley this afternoon. I felt like I'd taken all the pictures before in various times and places - and done it better since the sky today wasn't living up to all a prairie winter sky can be. These are a couple of my favorites though.

Especially this one.

I find little woods' paths so alluring.

minus 23 and fresh snow

2011-01-17T19:33:00.006-07:00

"minus 23 and fresh snow"

That was the first thing I heard this morning - pretty well guaranteed to make my day.

These pictures don't make the snow look that impressive.

Except for the fact that I had that car cleared off and a good three feet cleared down all around my vehicle last night.
The first day of snow it was thigh deep between my vehicle and the one next. I've been keeping it tamed since.

Here's the other side of that vehicle. I like the little aerial peeking out of the snow.

And then there's this chick. Too funny. Yup, it's colder than a midget in a refrigerator.

the streets are horrendous

2011-01-16T17:21:00.003-07:00

I know I promised pictures of the snow, but there is really no point: it is still snowing. I don't even bother trying to brush my car off with the car brush - I just take a broom out. I've been going out every day and shoveling my baby out or she would be buried like the car next to her is.

It's pretty. It is. And I like snow, but even I am finding this a bit much. We're not quite at our record, but we're closing in on it.

I must say that I am glad most of my life is done with my feet and public transport. Even though the trains are often delayed, it is so much less stressful than trying to drive - the streets are horrendous.

a cautionary tale

2011-01-13T21:28:00.003-07:00

I don't think I mentioned that I financed my car? I got (almost) the deal I wanted because I financed it. The finance guy told me I only had to make one payment then I could pay it off without penalty and the interest on that one month would probably be about $25. (Don't get me started on what a racket it is that they get a kick back from the banks for getting people to get loans.)

All well and good, I made my one payment, and my next is due Monday, so I got everything arranged to pay it off and gave the bank financing services a call as requested to tell them I was paying out the loan. The very nice girl on the line does her little paper work bits and tells me that I have until Jan 25 to make the payment and quotes me a total payout that is almost a hundred dollars more than the remaining amount listed on my statement.

I asked why the difference and she nicely explained that it was the 12 days of interest between now and Jan 25. Ummm. a) why would I pay days of interest that I don't need and b) how the heck can 12 days of interest be a hundred dollars?

The girl was very nice, but to every question I asked all she could do was bleat, "the computer says so." Then she asked if I wanted to talk to her supervisor to explain it to me. Um, yes.

Supervisor, also very nice, explained that the 12 days was a holdover from the days when people sent payments by mail - it gave things time to be processed. This still doesn't really answer my questions.

"I don't understand even if I should pay this 12 days of interest how it is almost $100?"

"It's a per diem amount of $2.49."

"That wouldn't add up to $100."

"Oh, you're right - it should only be $69."

"I may not be any good at math, but even I can see that $2.49 times 12 isn't $69."

Loooong silence.

"The computer is wrong. I don't know how it can be, but it is not giving the right numbers. I have to call my supervisor. Please hold." minutes pass "All the computers are wrong. My supervisor's computer is giving the same total. I will figure it out manually for you."

Me: "now I know how the banks are making all that money."

Upshot - I'm paying 3 days of interest (to my original payment date) not 12 days to allow a non-existent letter to pass through the post office. $7.47 versus $99.75.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

the jubilee gospel hour

2011-01-12T19:45:00.003-07:00

Today at work, for some mad reason, we decided we should listen to a radio station out of Edmonton, Kentucky (population 1,586 according to wikipedia) rather than Edmonton, Alberta. Betcha didn't even know there was an Edmonton, Kentucky. We lasted through a few songs on the Jubilee Gospel Hour - we wanted to get to the weather reports since they've been having uncommon winter weather in that part of the continent - but my co-worker couldn't hack the god-talk between songs. Personally, I rather liked the gospel music and the small town / old-timey atmosphere of the whole thing.

But the very best part? I decided to look it up on google maps to see how big a place it was (that was before I wikipediaed it) and found that one of the main roads around there is named . . . wait for it . . . Knob Lick Road. I am not making this up. How utterly great is that?

I took some pictures to try to convey how much snow we have but I don't think they do the situation justice. We're due for another 15 cm in the next few days; maybe I'll get out and take some better pictures after that.

Oh, honestly

2011-01-10T19:20:00.003-07:00

Oh, honestly. The girl I can't escape is living up to her nickname. She finishes this year and I hoped to see her nevermore. I knew she was applying to masters programs, but she was talking about public health, but now she's applied to the geography program under the same prof that I would want. Sheesh. I tell you this girl will probably dog my heels the rest of my life now. We'll probably end up working at the same place in the future.

I know you're asking would I really consider giving up doing a masters just because I would end up having to work so closely with her? The thought does stray across my mind. It certainly does weigh in the balance. But who knows if the masters program here would even be the one I want anyway. I may really like this prof, but I'm not that keen on her research interests and I'd rather find a prof to fit my interests than the other way around. I think 2 years of researching something you're not that interested in would be rather hellish.

In other news it was an "A" sort of term for me. I got the full collection: A+, A, and A-. Good thing for someone thinking about grad school.

My motto for January is: be frugal, be very, very frugal. I only get half a paycheque this month. I've even given up my one $1.39 coffee a day - well probably not on work days, but that's only 2 days a week. I've arranged my classes so I shouldn't have to eat on campus or even buy coffees there. Next year in my Christmas budgeting I need to take into account losing pay over Christmas. It's a bit painful.

snow and classes

2011-01-09T20:01:00.002-07:00

I have shovelled a lot of snow in the past few days. I keep going out and shovelling my car out on the assumption that it's better to do it every day than let it go until it's buried. I still don't know if it's going anywhere tomorrow. It's good in the snow, but the snow is deeeep.

So, I did better in that comp lit class than I expected: A- rather than the B I was expecting. So either my calculations of what marks merit what letter grade are off (they rarely tell you) or I did very well in the final. I did liberally sprinkle my essays on the final with remarks about the patriarchy so that may have been it. I will not be taking another comp lit class.

But I did sign up for the modern Latin-American history class. I couldn't decide so I went on that website that I will leave unnamed that allows students to give their profs grades. Both profs had absolutely glowing reviews, so that didn't help much. The prof for this class had the following review which really won me over though:

"ABSOLUTELY FAB! Really passionate teacher. knows her stuff. I would take any class she taught, really, Paint Drying 101 you say? sign me up!"

I can always take the other one next year. Yikes! Still so many good classes to take and only a year to take them in!

limiting consumption

2011-01-07T16:39:00.003-07:00

Remember how I told you before Christmas about how our office had been deluged with chocolate? So. much. chocolate. Anyway, my first day back at work on Wednesday there was still tonnes of candy and chocolates and cookies around - usually it's gone by now, but I think we got way more than usual. And they told me that they'd put two boxes of chocolates in the freezer, because we had so much. Craziness.

Anyway, I have been trying really, really hard to limit my consumption, but it's so hard when I have so much at home and then there is so much at the office. I know I'm not the only one that is finding it difficult.

Today, I go into work and on the table where the treats are kept is not only the bounty of chocolate and cookies, but a giant (and I mean GIANT - at least a foot high and 8 inches around) tub (TUB!) of fun size bags of fruit sours, and fuzzy peaches, etc. Because we didn't have enough someone went to costco and bought us more. One particular women in the department is obese, lives to eat, and eats junk absolutely non-stop. She is always bringing in mountains of candy for the department. I have suspected for a while that she buys this stuff, not only for her, but to sabotage anyone in the department who is still thin. This kind of confirmed it for me. Who would bring more candy into a place where there has been so much already? Who would do that? Seriously? Seriously?

I did not go there and it took every ounce of willpower I have. I still ate more chocolate than I intended at the beginning of the day, but only a little bit more, but I did not get started on the gummy things. One of the guys did and he just couldn't quit. It's made me realize that I am going to need to be really conscious and clear about what I am doing and what my goals are about eating healthfully - especially at work. When people are around that want others to be unhealthy too the battle needs to be waged on a whole other level.

murky, confused, and wandering

2011-01-06T21:26:00.004-07:00

I went to school today to meet with my prof about the directed studies project that I'm doing this term. It was a bit intense. When she got up and started diagramming things on the whiteboard and firing questions at me I realized that the great thing about a class - no matter how small - is that there are other people to answer questions when you don't know the answer. I felt very alone and exposed.

I think it will be fine though. This is a prof that loves to teach. She genuinely enjoys leading students through the learning process. She said that at this stage in research it feels murky and confusing and as if you are wandering around in circles. Then she explained cheerfully that she was going to leave me murky, confused, and wandering for a few more weeks.

I also realized today that I accidentally arranged my first class on Tuesdays and Thursdays to start at 11:00. That's crazy late. I hated having my first class at 10:00 this past term. I don't think I can cope with 11:00. So I started looking for a class that started at 9:30 and was something I was vaguely interested in and wasn't full. I found a couple of history courses. One is Latin American history after 1810 and one of the textbooks looks really interesting and one looks boring. And the other is history of Canadian native peoples after 1867, which looks mostly interesting and useful, but maybe a bit dry and depressing. I feel like I probably should take that one, but I'm leaning towards Latin America. Any one want to weigh in with some advice?

conversation

2011-01-04T16:25:00.003-07:00

Me: Sigh, maybe when I have millions I will have a lavender farm. That would be nice.

Friend: (screwing up face) That would be a lot of work.

Me: But if I have millions can't I have underlings and just sit in my kitchen window with my tea and watch them work?

Fr: No, there will be no sitting around, because you'll have to be busy with the giftshop and making sure you have enough kitschy stuff to make sure people come back.

Me: Um, have you met me? I would never have a gift shop full of kitschy stuff and I don't want people who would buy kitschy stuff to ever come back.

ravings and excitements

2010-12-16T17:18:00.002-07:00

I had such a disgusting lunch today that I had to come and tell the internet about it.

It was a work potluck today. And instead of people bringing dishes they had made, it was decided that everyone had to buy something PC from Superstore. (No, that doesn't stand for politically correct, but I'm not going to write it out because I don't want any hits because of it. You know what I mean - that faux-elite store brand they hype to death.) At first I thought this was a rather fun idea - until I realized that it was going to cost me about 10 times more than making a batch of cookies or butter tarts. Strike number one.

The office was a-buzz all morning with preparations and backing and forthing and orders and counter-orders about this and that, and mini-fights and threatenings of stabbings, etc. Toaster ovens and such like had to be brought in so stuff could be cooked or warmed up so there was a tremendous amount of coordination involved. Then at lunch we all sit down to puff pastry thingamys, meat balls, mini-hamburgers, wings, etc, etc. It all tasted alike as far as I could tell - salty and that sort of non-descript taste that frozen reheated stuff has. The vegetarian lasagna was the only thing that tasted different at all. And except for that there wasn't a salad or a vegetable in sight. And the MSG in all of it? Whoa boy. Strike two.

But everyone LOVED it. There were ravings and excitements from end to end of the tables and exclamations of joy and 'this is so good' and 'leftovers for lunch tomorrow!' and 'oh, what a great idea'.

I know. I know. I'm a terrible person. How can I not like this stuff? How can I not love pre-packaged, pre-cooked fake-food that some dude on TV tells me is fabulous?

Then dessert was brought out - and trust me any office that has been as deluged with every form of chocolate as ours has, has no need for dessert. Red velvet cheesecake. One of the older women took one bite, threw back her head, closed her eyes in rapture, and groaned aloud in pleasure. I thought she was about to re-enact the deli scene from When Harry met Sally.

I really believe that most people now don't really have taste buds. As long as something looks good and is advertised as being good, well, it must taste good then. Everyone felt awful all afternoon (strike three) from overindulgence and MSG, so it must have been worthwhile, right?

It makes me look forward to Christmas with my family even more. We know how to cook and bake and we do it well. I think I'm going to make myself a salad of pomegranate, mandarin orange, and banana for supper. That might make me feel better.

update

2010-12-01T16:21:00.002-07:00

Just an update from today and let me quote directly from sour-puss girl. "I have lived in hundreds of different places." [italics hers]

You know - after I wrote "at least a hundred different places" the other day, I wondered if I'd somehow inflated the figure. I was thinking that the first time she said something about how many places she'd lived it was only 50 some, but then I was pretty sure she'd said hundred later. So I was glad to note today that I hadn't exaggerated the figure for effect.

I wonder if by next term it will be in the thousands. It seems to increase exponentially every time she speaks of it. Which is often.

even the sarcastic italics haven't mitigated the disgust

2010-11-29T19:00:00.003-07:00

Uh oh, I feel a rant coming on.

Today, before writing class began there were three of us that were there early. Me, the sour-puss girl that I have written of before, and another girl. The other girl was asking us what we were doing for Christmas. Sour-puss girl announces that she's just decided to take the test for her project-management certificate over the Christmas break.

Well, of course, that's exactly what she should do. I mean, at 21, with 3 and a half years of university under her belt, and, oh, don't forget that she worked in the bakery at Superstore last summer, she is obviously eminently qualified to be a project manager. Would that I could be so lucky as to have someone with such high qualifications managing me.

Oh, wait. I forgot. She's lived in at least a hundred different places in her 21 years, which, as she informed me one day, makes her far more experienced than people twice her age.

I have a friend who has spent the past year doing intensive weekend courses once a month to qualify for his project management certificate. How foolish he must be to have spent all that time and money when he could have just written the test in his spare time and been off and running.

tea with lavender and bergamot

2010-11-28T19:15:00.003-07:00

I heard the absolute best story today.

I went for tea with a friend because I had finished one paper and gotten an extension on the other one - and it's a whole post unto itself as to why I feel like I have to justify any small moment of fun and relaxation in my life to the world in general. Anyway, we went to the Duchess - and I had the most amazing tea, it was their special blend. It was a black tea with lavender and bergamot - so, so good.

My friend told me about a friend of hers whose mother is 94 and living independently in a condo complex. Quite happily living independently, thank you very much, without any desire to move which is what her daughters would like her to do. The elderly woman enjoys living in a place that isn't just old people, but there is one thing. She doesn't like homosexuals. Then one day a young man (all of 40-something) moves in upstairs and he's clearly you-know-what. So this 94 year old woman decides that she needs to change . . .wait for it . . . her ATTITUDE. So she bakes a batch of cookies and trots upstairs and befriends him, because she's heard him say that he finds BC lonely after Nova Scotia.

Isn't that the bestest story you've heard all day? There is hope in this world after all and it doesn't all reside with young people.

introducing Clementine

2010-11-18T20:26:00.004-07:00

So, I bought a new (to me) car!

Isn't she pretty? She's a 2007 Nissan Versa.

Through a no-fault-of-mine, random accident my van was damaged beyond being worth repairing and I was forced into getting a new car several years before I intended to. I could look at it as karma bitch-slapping me upside the head, but I've decided that maybe it was karma manifesting in more positive ways. Maybe I just really needed a new car now and didn't know it.

This is the first car I've had that is truly what I picked out. It wasn't some ratty old thing a co-worker was selling, it wasn't the first thing on offer that my impatient roommate wanted me to buy (that turned out to be a horrible lemon), it wasn't foisted on me by a paternalistic company saying 'thou shalt drive this vehicle' (that I then kept because it was such a deal). This car is about 95% of what I wanted in a vehicle. It doesn't have cruise or ABS, but it has everything else. And I ended up buying the extended warranty, so it is covered for another 3 years.

I just can't get over how cute she is. Her name is Clementine. I've never had a car before that I named. But I was lying in bed the night I bought her thinking about my best friend when I was in my late teens and how she drove a little black Ford Falcon named Valentine and what fun we had with that car. And it suddenly came to me that Clementine was perfect - as in 'my darlin' Clementine'. Also, it's a bit Christmasy as in clementine oranges. And you know how important Christmas is to my family.

Here's Clementine's Christmas list:
- CDs - ack! I'm losing all my great music on cassette - this is a serious loss - all those amazing mix-tapes my niece made me.
- pretty Christmasy things to hang from my rearview mirror, little Christmas lights, maybe a string of silver snowflakes, if such a thing exists.

like to do something else

2010-11-13T19:39:00.004-07:00

I just don't want to work. I've had a four day weekend and I just haven't wanted to work through any of it. I almost wish someone would stand over me with a whip. Why are some people so internally motivated and some of us just not? Partly, I'm just plain tired still. That comp lit essay took it out of me and really brought up a lot of my insecurities about never finishing stuff until the last minute - which is ridiculous because I pretty well had that problem whipped years ago.

And none of it is stuff I don't want to write. I have (the first draft of) an interview essay for my writing class (about oil) which will be just fine when it's done, because I've conceived an interesting way to fold stuff together. Then I have my history essay on the move towards the institutionalization of the mentally challenged in the mid-nineteenth century. Also interesting. And, finally, a research essay on creativity and aging. See? All interesting stuff - even the oil piece because it's going to be about native peoples and the forest and history and what they want to see done. So why can't I make myself write any of it? Is it that just for once I'd like to do something else without feeling guilty?

I did spend the morning with a used car salesman. What is it with used car salesman anyway? If you met this one at a fancy charity dinner, you'd still know he was a slick-talkin', oily, used car salesman. Does an evil fairy poke them with a hoary fingertip in their cradle and pronounce, "thou shalt be slimy"? I consider myself fairly immune to fast-talking sales techniques, having been a salesperson myself, but it doesn't mean I enjoy spending time with the breed.

vignette

2010-11-12T15:49:00.003-07:00

A few weeks ago in writing class the prof was talking about revision and boring sentence structures.

"I came there, then you came. He came the next day. They came later. This is just not interesting."

Pause, long considering glance upward.

"Unless you're writing pornography."

straight from the murky depths and out my fingertips

2010-11-10T17:26:00.002-07:00

Ah, feeling a bit more human now.

What I forgot to say earlier was that at 1:30 in the morning when I'd written everything except the conclusion, I was so tired I couldn't think. But it had to have a conclusion (and I didn't really have a conclusion) and I didn't dare leave it until the morning. I wrote:

"I hate this essay. Please make it stop."

Then I erased that. Then I wrote a couple of sentences of the boring, "This essay demonstrates blah, blah, blah." variety. Then I erased that and sat there.

Then I wrote a conclusion which came right from my unconscious mind. It didn't even bother stopping to check in with my conscious mind on the way. It went straight from the murky depths and out my fingertips. I don't think I've ever quite had that happen before. I've had moments of inspiration where everything comes together, but not this sort of "get out of the way, we're coming through" experience. I think the conclusion was good. But I was so tired by that point that I probably was no longer a judge. Though it still seemed good this morning.

literature, writing, and magic

2010-11-10T14:37:00.002-07:00

I finished the essay at about two in the morning and swore I will never take a comparative literature class again. (Well, except for that one on fairytales and folklore I want to take next year.) I am so thankful that I am not an English or Comp Lit major. I have never been a fan of analysing literature until it squeals for mercy. Even when I was in high school I hated it and I haven't learned to like it in the years since. It makes me hate the book(s) by the end. Which makes me mad because one of the books I was working with was one of the best books I've read this year. I won't tell you what it is, because it is going to end up in one of y'all's Christmas stocking.

I was thinking (at 2 in the morning) that it is a bit like Meredith's incubate and bond thing. You spend this intense time figuring everything out about a person/book and then you're so sick of that person/book that you never want to see them again. Sure, if you run into them a few years later you remember that once you loved them, but the magic is mostly gone for good.

But, funnily, analysing the way a book is written doesn't have the same effect on me. Granted, I've never tried to write a 10 page essay analysing how something is written, so maybe I'm being unfair. For instance, on Monday in writing class we spent a good span of time analysing the writing of this gentleman. I'm sending you to the amazon page because you can read the part I'm talking about if you want (and you should because it is so amazing). I know you'll be all, "oh, Vermeer! I like him." But then you'll be, "oh, Bosnia. oh, war crimes. I'd rather not read about that." But, really, it's one of the most amazing pieces of writing I've seen in a while. Just read the in lieu of a prelude, the prelude, and the first piece and you'll see what I mean. I need to read the rest of the book now.

It is the kind of writing I aspire to. He pulls so many things in. First, he seduced me with geography, then how he talks about Vermeer just made me swoon, because I love Vermeer, then the the stuff about Bosnia was fascinating. A-ma-zing.

Oh, I'd meant to show you this. This is the email my writing prof sent me a week or so back.

"I hope you have plans for a future that includes lots of writing. You're very good at it . . ."

Nice, huh? How is it that never in my life before did it occur to me that writing non-fiction might be the best thing ever? I read a lot of non-fiction, but I just never made that leap in my thoughts. I got a new Canadian non-fiction book out of the library this afternoon and I barely managed to read the first few pages because I was so busy exclaiming in my head, "oh, great sentence! oh, he's setting the mood of mystery and gothic secrets so well. oh, look at the cultural history he's weaving in."

I have a lot more to say, but I really need to go take a nap and attempt to find my lost sleep.

essay angst

2010-11-09T20:02:00.003-07:00

I have come to hate this essay an unbelievable amount. I don't think I've had such a bad one for a couple of years. It was easier to write about oil and that's saying something.

It is going to be a long night. But here's a pretty picture of Edmonton for you to look at. I took it for my oil image/text assignment. It's taken from the riverbank over where I used to live.

the power to astonish

2010-11-08T19:20:00.003-07:00

You would think that after 3 and a half years in university I'd be immune to surprise at the attitudes of the entitled, deservist generation that I go to school with, but nope, they still have the power to astonish.

In my writing class, one of the assignments was to read a Canadian non-fiction book and do a "book report" of it to the class. The book report was nothing too onerous - analyse the writing and the various techniques used by the author, photocopy a few pages or a chapter for us to analyse as a group, about 15 - 20 minutes altogether. Several people, in fact a large chunk of the class, did feel that this assignment was a bit onerous. I'm not denying that it was a bit time-intensive, but onerous, no.

The first week of presentations, one girl copied 2 pages from the book and spoke for a very brief few minutes about the book, and then we analysed it as a group. I remember being astonished that (it seemed to me) she'd completely blown off the assignment. The other girl was rather more thorough, but still fairly lackadaisical about the whole thing.

The next week, I was presenting and the other girl who was also presenting had (literally) prepared nothing and had barely finished the book before class. She was coaching us in the break about things we could bring up to discuss to help her out. One girl from the week before announced airily that she "had only read about 10% of her book." I was looking at her and thinking, "seriously? Do you think we couldn't tell?"

I got an "A" for my presentation - which was about right. It was thorough, interesting, and engaging and it covered all the aspects that the prof had wanted. Tonight after class one of the girls that I know from last year told me that the other girls were saying the prof was a "hard marker" and how had I found her?

Sheeeesh. Seriously? Okay, I mean, they have a perfect right to decide an assignment is stupid and not do it. It's a free world. But do they also expect to get a good mark after they've blown it off? Apparently they do.

trying for some perspective

2010-11-07T22:02:00.005-07:00

I've been wrestling since Friday with a recalcitrant essay that simply won't gel no matter what I do. I'd planned on having an almost final draft finished by tonight, but all I have is a morass of half-finished sentences, paragraphs that go nowhere, and about seven different theses (thesi?) that won't work together or settle down into something coherent.

I am not a happy person tonight.

And I have other essays and writings stacked up behind this one like planes that can't take off because someone ahead of them in the pattern is having engine trouble. Furthermore, the three essays I have due are all in different styles: one is MLA, one is Chicago, and one is APA. That will teach me to take a variety of classes.

But. I did go for a walk today to try to think through my troubles and I sat in the little park near me and took some pictures.

I don't know what it is about trees like this against a sky like this, but I love it. I sat and looked at it forever. It's like it gets right inside me to some spot that can't be touched in any ordinary way. It provokes some sweet remembrance of something I can't even remember while I'm remembering it.

Oh, and at four-o'clock-in-the-morning I woke up out of the happiest dream I've had in a while. I was looking out a tall window to a distant view of a sunset shining on the twisting curve of a river. That was all and it was wonderful.

coffee bitch

2010-10-28T18:59:00.002-06:00

There is a coffee war brewing at my place of employment. I think I've mentioned the gender divide in my workplace: all the admin staff is female and unionized, and all the planning and management staff is male and exempt. Except me. I have crossed the gender divide. I should mention that the gender thing is not something set in stone. Several managers have been female and some planners as well.

Anyway, at around 9:30 every morning the guys and I walk over to Timmies a block away for some fresh air and coffee. Then we return and go back to work. I was going to try to write this in a non-biased kind of way, but I don't think I can. The admin staff think it is very convenient that we like Tims and like to place orders with us to bring back coffees for them. Frequently they wait for their own coffee break until their coffees have been delivered to them.

The longer one is part of the coffee delivery service the more tired of it one becomes. If you don't ask, or if you forget to ask someone, or don't wait to ask someone until they are off the phone, it is seen as highly offensive and rude. Two of the guys hit their limit long ago. I hit mine about a year ago when one of the admin staff was incredibly rude to me when she delivered her order. I cut them off cold turkey at that point. One of the other guys has been rather dutiful about it because he is a seriously nice person, but he has gotten fed up too.

A person would either be handed a handful of small change because they "need to get rid of it" or would end up with various bills and different orders to go with each until we'd have to keep a physical list. The nice guy hit his limit the day one of them decided that she needed to have half coffee, half hot chocolate.

Because we have an inside office we have to walk through the admin area to get out. And every day now we just walk out without asking if anyone needs anything. At first it was just a few of us that would just walk past, but now it is all of us.

The admin staff is seething with resentment over this. Absolutely seething. They meet in little groups and whisper. They apparently met with the nice fellow (who is senior to us) because they thought he would be able to "bring us into line". The planning staff while not exactly seething feels a sufficient level of annoyance about the whole thing.

I was thinking about it last night. I might even have been enraged. I was thinking that there are two roles available to me: coffee slave or coffee bitch (and not in the new subservient meaning of the word). Well, you know what I'm choosing.

I just don't even understand the level of entitlement they feel. They want a Timmies coffee, but they don't want it enough to walk a block to get it. Seems like a simple equation to me. You want a coffee, well go over and get one, if you don't want it that much, deal with it.

So much more I could say, but I have to go study.

chirk a girl up

2010-10-25T21:15:00.003-06:00

I have to say that getting a "A+ Wow! Outstanding! Let's chat sometime, maybe about grad school." first thing on a Monday morning tends to chirk a girl up somewhat. Amusingly it was on my history exam . . . not only am I not a history major, but this is the first history class I've taken. I do love me that class though.

a worthwhile task

2010-10-17T15:14:00.002-06:00

I do not like blogger's indexing. It is not at all easy to find things. Several times in the past few days I've wanted to go back to some entry I've written and had to stop because I just don't have time to go through everything - even when I have a general idea of when I wrote it. I suppose that's what tags are for? Oh, well, too late now. Diaryland was way easier. I still frequently go back to my diaryland to find entries. It may be page after page of titles but at least you can skim them quickly.

Maybe one of these days when I either have time (haha) or I feel a fierce need to procrastinate, I will do my own blogger index. That would be a worthwhile task. In the meantime I must get back to writing about oil. Still not enjoying it, just in case you were wondering. But I hope if I can just get through this assignment that I'll be okay.

postsecret review

2010-10-09T21:45:00.003-06:00

PostSecret was kind of awesome. It felt too short though - only an hour and a half. I thought there could have been more audience secrets. But when you think that he will probably be there for hours signing books, I guess it makes sense. He said he'd stay until every book was signed - which is a pretty big promise.

My favorite secret from the audience was a woman who said: "I don't mind when you ask me about my headscarf, but when you ask me what religion I am, I think you're kinda stupid. I mean, don't you watch the news?"

And the first two audience secrets were pretty funny. The first one: "when I got divorced three years ago my family stopped talking to my ex. They don't know he lives in my basement." And the second: "I drove here with (can't remember the name), and I wanted to say I'm sorry I let one go in the car."

Frank said those two were the yin and yang of secrets and already worth getting up at 5 am and taking two planes to get here.

Then on the way home I stumbled onto a secret in the train station involving two of my former co-workers. I think if you are secretly seeing each other, having someone catch you at it coming out of a postsecret event is rather appropriate. Though to be fair that is only speculation on my part. But I'm pretty sure my speculation is correct. They seemed extremely uncomfortable to be seen together. I felt for them, but there was not much I could do at that point. Besides they're single consenting adults: they can do what they want. It's more that there is a certain, ah, mismatch in not only age, but in every conceivable way. Oh, well, what's that old saying? Every kettle has its lid.

stopping and starting over and over

2010-10-03T20:14:00.003-06:00

This is not really in response to the Empress's treatise about commitment, more just my own thoughts that have continued on about the subject. And most certainly not about relationships. God knows, I'm the last person to have an opinion on those. No, about commitment to exercise.

I've probably written about this before - I don't remember, but maybe I keep writing about it to remind myself of my own goals.

I think there are people who are just natural at exercise. It makes them feel good. I have friends that would prefer to go out running or biking or playing sports anytime rather than stay at home and do something more sedentary. Then I know people who hate and detest any form of physical exertion. For the latter group exercise is hard. Just plain hard. It doesn't get any better and it never feels like something they want to do. I have a friend who is a bit prone to gaining weight and she goes to the gym because it is a painful duty if she wants to fit into her clothes. It's never gotten any better for her in all the years she's gone, but she does it. She is not in the least athletic - not even in the way of taking different types of classes and so do something she likes better. There is nothing she likes better. If she didn't force herself to exercise no exercise would happen.

I think I am half way in the middle of these two extremes. I don't think I am naturally athletic, but I also think I am a way more active and energetic person than the circumstances of my life taught me to be. I've been working at this being more active and fit thing for what, five years now? I still have a long way to go. I still stop over and over again. But I also start over and over again. I've also realized recently that my stopping over and over again (albeit only for brief times now) allow me to always be a beginner. I never have to take it to the next level. I didn't enjoy that realization much.

A few years ago, on the last Survivor I watched, the winner was an older, plump, black woman. One of her relatives in the audience said, "I'm so proud of her! My (mother / grandmother / aunt / whoever) has always been the kind of person that didn't like to be too hot or too cold or whatever. I can't believe she did this." (And won!) And it struck me: I'm that person. The person that doesn't like to be too hot or too cold or too whatever. That not wanting to be those things stops me from doing things. I made up my mind that I would strive to be a person who could be uncomfortable and still do things. I have to remind myself about this all the time.

Tonight, I said to myself, "my legs hurt. I don't want to run." But I changed it to, "my legs hurt, and I will still run." And I did. And my legs hurt worse now. But that will pass.

This entry isn't really going to arrive anywhere particular.

I might sign up for a tai chi class. I've always heard such good things about it. First, I need to persuade myself that I can fit it into my week.

tin foil

2010-10-03T18:21:00.003-06:00

I hope no one I know needs this information, but just in case.

If your child (grown-up-teenager-type child) calls you from the grocery store and says, "can you come pick me up."
And you ask, "why are you at the grocery store?"
And they reply airily, "oh, I noticed we were out of tin foil at home, so I stopped to get some."

This child is probably on drugs. Oxycontin to be precise.

I know I am absolutely going to hell for laughing about this. Especially since said child is currently in jail awaiting a bail hearing for armed robbery of oxy from a drugstore. But I can't help it. You would have to be on drugs to think that this sounds innocent. "Oh, I just happened to notice we were out of tin foil. Oh, no reason I just happened to notice that and thought I'd help out by picking some up."

I only know said child through the grapevine, but everything I've heard makes me think that jail might actually be a good thing.

I have more to say on other subjects. Maybe later.