Where does Mother’s Day come from?

Check out Inter Pares’ Take Back the Day campaign, and

Into the Wild

Guess who is going to Alaska right after the solstice? 11 days, people!

In preparation I watched Into the Wild. It was a really good movie, with an amazing soundtrack by Eddie Vedder (I didn’t like the heavy sound of Pearl Jam, but this accoustic set is really nice). You should be warned that it is a sad movie in the end. You should also be warned that even though the poster has some chick on the cover it is NOT a love story. It’s really a movie about having a broader set of relationships than with family, and since it’s based on a true story, I think they made the girl up. Anyways, curl up with your kleenex for the end and watch the movie! And then get the soundtrack.

In other wild news, I have decided that as an act of charity I will become a DJ in the KW. After my faculty had a party which cost 35 bucks but they refused to hire a DJ, and then attending another graduate student formal event where the DJ played songs from Dance Mix ‘96 (Mr. Vain–I kid you not), I realized that my worst has GOT to be better than the next guy’s.  So, I am currently getting music from friends, and trying to figure out how to call the musical genres I will blend. Then, I will come up with a name. I have been accused of being all talk and no action, but frankly, it takes a while to build up the (very minimal) infrastructure and marketing strategy.

That’s all the wild news.

Back From Hiatus

It has been brought to my attention that it’s been a while since I posted. Frankly, I think you can tell from my previous post that I really didn’t have many words of wisdom to share. And, there have been some new developments in life. But now I do have some new words of wisdom to share, so I will post.

1. Do not expect any degree of organization from student driven initiatives. This could be conferences, or funding proposals. In particular, do not expect funding from funds controlled by undergraduates if you are a graduate, even if you pay into that fund. In any dealing with student led initiatives, expect about 6 emails back and forth just to figure out when/where to meet to discuss how to clarify the “issues” you/they have. Then expect several awkward face to face meetings reestablishing basic criteria which should already have been established. Expect to get your way so that they can save face in front of professors/staff in the end, despite countless lost hours of useless exchange.
2. While you can attempt to write a review paper on a topic that hardly anyone has researched, expect *it* to take a long time, *you* to feel disorganized, and that *no one* will understand you. Feelings of isolation will keep you down.
3. Do not expect a linear relationship to work. Instead, think like systems thinking. A whole lotta nothing can get done, and then *WHOOOMPH*! Emergent properties lead you to have a brilliant paper on your hands.
4. Sometimes when you are having a down period, you can hit the “reset” button. As in, stop exercising, go to bed early, do what you need to do to feel good. This helps previous emergent properties emerge.
5. Do volunteer for small, radical events. You will make the cooler friends.
6. Avoid the killers. As in, people who repeatedly *insist* on bringing severe (as in death causing) allergens to parties after being told not to bring said allergen to a party. These same people have a tendency to try to overwater plants. Overwatering kills, people.
7. Do fall in love, but not with undergrads. Because a) they will be smart (hey, you’re both in grad school!) and b) no one notices if you are late for school in grad school. It’s your own damn schedule If they are an undergrad, and not mature (as in, not older), everyone will look down on you, but sort of quietly without you knowing.
8. Have friends/significant others with cars. I have essentially only taken public transit once a week for the past 6 weeks. HA! This way, you can feel morally superior about helping others reduce their emissions while being lazy. Muah ha ha.
9. It is important to have a back up bar, in case your first choice is closed or full. This is *very* important in KW.
10. Don’t expect the waitresses to know what “stout” is. Yes, I am embarrassed for them, and I am planning a social marketing program to educate the waitresses here.
11. Do go to the local churchical second hand shop in search of a love seat. Because you might find an amazing, vintage, irregularly shaped turquoise love seat for your office, and since they are churchical it only costs 25 bucks, plus 25 bucks delivery, plus tax. Yes people, 54 bucks for said loveseat.

Now that you have my words of wisdom, please go forth and prosper!

Best V-day Ever

I started Valentine’s day as neutral towards the event, but when I opened my Facebook, I saw that codejill’s status was “will walk V-day to the end of the pier and force it to jump, and when she gets back, we will dance!” and I decided it fit in with my current agenda of declaring war on virtuous things. So I joined that team.

Instead of dancing, MY V-day turned out to be a hot date with a married man and a gay man. We went to a movie (The Visitor–see it!) and ate chocolate, and then had drinks at my favourite bar. It was kind of exciting to watch all of the awkward dates going on around us and cringe while the fun, but still V-day music which was all slow dance love themed played. Another (gay boy) friend joined us, and I tried to convince him to slow dance with me, but he was having none of it.

When I got home, codejill and I instant messaged comparing our respective V-days, and somehow ended up watching these videos, in this order. The first was just randomly posted by a friend, and completely hilarious.

Which turned into watching this one:

Where you might want to note the following:

Bon Jovi flies at 0:53 to about 1:20 (yes, flies)

Guitar solo at about 3:00

More flying at about 3:23

Not that I’m into the music or ever owned an album, but I’ve always imagined a Bon Jovi concert to be the most amazing thing ever. I think codejill and I have resolved to try it if the opportunity arises.

Between going on a date with the least opportunity ever, and therefore the most fun, and cataloguing a Bon Jovi video for exciting things, I think the most exciting V-day ever.

Good Title Award

Some of you may have noticed how much I make fun of big “G” Geography titles. They usually rely on alliteration, and sometimes don’t even make sense (at least not to me). Here is an example of a title that jumped out of the boring titles containing the words “energy”, “productivity” and “growth”. It definitely gets a prize for cheekiness, at least in my books, especially since economists are NOT known for clever titles. Ever.

Blackorby, C. and R. R. Russell (1989). “Will the real elasticity of substitution please stand up? (A comparison of the Allen/Uzawa and Morishima elasticities).” American Economic Review 79: 882-888.

See? So funny and lame at the same time.

what The heLL? Word

Well. Despite my complaints of how bad season 3 was, characterized by bad sex, bad drama, and a depressing story line, I think The L Word has sunk to new lows in season 6. I can’t believe how bad it is. It’s like they hired writers who had never seen the show before, and the actors all forgot their characters. The season started with such a promising premise: Jenny finally gets killed off (sooooo exciting), and Lucy Lawless is the cop (excellent). But that amazing scene encompassed about five minutes, and the rest is downhill. I am wondering if they drew their inspiration from invasion of the body snatchers. For instance, there is NO WAY Phyllis, the chancellor at UC, could be in love with Bette, the dean of fine arts. The fact that the only sex is Shane and Jenny is just scary. So scary. And uncomfortable. And wrong. And gross. Shane has completely lost any attractiveness factor.

The worst part is that Jenny is still a total crackpot, and has become even *more* central to the storyline than before. Is that possible? Ugh. I am deriving very little psychic flux of enjoyment from this.

Given the past month being full of a cold, a wisdom tooth removal, yet addressing all of the issues that came up for me here by being a hard working academic, I was looking forward to the escapism The L Word offers and feeling justified in watching total crap. Not anymore. It really is worse than season 3. And, while in the past I have claimed that the quality of The L Word follows a V shaped pattern (1st and 5th seasons best, 2nd and 4th OK, and 3rd the pitts), I am revising that claim. If you are going to watch, the new L Word quality order is: season 1, 2/4 (tied), 5, 3, 6.  If Jenny actually dies, seasons 3 and 6 could tie too.

Slightly painful relief

I think that Kitchener Waterloo is finally totally agreeing with me. Loads of social time, skiing, the bar I like is growing on me (probably because of the extra large glasses of wine the bartender was feeding me), and homemade international food keeps showing up at my house.

The jigsaw puzzle of academia finally fits. I spent a few weeks just *concentrating* trying to pull together the comprehensive exam proposal, pick a dataset to work with on a publication, and pull together abstracts for conferences. I had to get this all done before the wisdom tooth got removed (yesterday).

Luckily, my profs liked my proposal, and gloated that I am going with energy, equity and environment themes. I told them not to gloat so much, reminding them that my proposed topics are much broader than their research. Two good outcomes came from that meeting. First, they accepted my first comprehensive topic, which will become a preparatory paper (although they said my other two topics will likely collapse into a giant topic, and I’ll have to choose a third). The other good news is that I don’t have to set my committee until after paper 1, since they can’t see anyone objecting to it. Therefore, I have lots of time to spy on professors, and think of reasons to reject or accept suggested committee members. Yahoo!!

I also took one of the datasets to publish with under consideration, and wrote my prof a long email explaining how his research design could be changed to something better. I think he sort of liked it and ran with the themes I presented in the email in the comprehensive meeting. So, I’m almost set on that, and finding a good intellectual space to debate how to cut the issues.

Finally, the tooth has been removed. Not much good has come of that. It just hurts, and I’m hungry and groggy. But my small friends downstairs decided to come visit me in my recovery space with some valentine’s cards (woo hoo!). So I know I have at least two suitors this year. One of them saw how bad I was feeling, so he went out of his way to make two more pictures for me, and he made sure to tape them to the wall next to my bed at eye level, so that I can roll over in bed and see them. So nice!

Jigsaw puzzle

I can’t write anymore. I just make lists. And then I edit them, then I make some tables, present them to people, get feedback, draw up more lists of questions, make meetings, get them answered, read some stuff I don’t understand, write questions, ask them in seminar…etc. etc. etc.

The Good

• running, cross country skiing, yoga
• good produce
• $3.75/pint of stout (how did I not notice this earlier?)
• feeding people at my house
• getting serenaded by fed people
• small neighbours offering peach jam and bagels, and letting me use their stick-grabby-claw thingamajig and hanging out in pajamas
• small neighbours helping me decorate by drawing pictures for my kitchen, and NOT ON THE WALLS (explicit instructions from the mommy), and making sure the whoopee cushion still works
• finally decorating my office at school. and using it
• discovering art talks, like shirin neshat
• new contact lenses
• plug in oil radiator thing for my cold office (finally not frigid)
• mail containing music, post cards, cards, excerpts from comic books

The Bad

• below minus 20
• sickness
• sickness causing getting addicted to the L word. again.
• office for persons with disabilities
• the wisdom tooth removal (forthcoming)
• no car is becoming a bad, i must admit

The Unknown, i.e. The Jigsaw Puzzle

• drawing up a 8 to 10 month plan to incorporate

1. a publication
2. comprehensive themes
3. 4 conference abstracts (and posters/presentations)
4. which add to my CV, and relate to my proposed research (what is that again?)
5. and incorporate a data set within one of my professors possession

• luckily, the themes don’t have to relate to “big G” geography, just “little g” geography. phew.

and i don’t know where this lies, but i’m starting to see a trend in that people over fourty all think i’m 25. but at least i haven’t been carded lately.

New Years Resolution? Race Horse Diet

I came back to KW a bit nervous on Sunday, but by Monday was totally feeling ready to get back to it. I was emailing,  setting meetings, following up, and generally getting everything in order to make some decisions regarding how I’m going to spend my time over the next 8 months (comprehensives, publications, coursework, conferences). I had some new years resolutions somewhere in there too.

I promptly got sick. I made it to a few classes and meetings, and then slept 16 hour days for a few days. I watched Season 6 Episode 1 of The L Word (this has been a serious addiction in the past, and now they have Lucy Lawless of Xena fame) and this episode of South Park, which kills me. Some academic I am.

New years resolutions

Maybe actually old years resolutions. I have managed to not have a bout of chronic pain in my hands in about 18 months, and my fingers are looking pretty good these days (amazing) so my resolution is to keep pushing myself in the outdoors. I’ll be cross country skiing this winter, I will keep running, and to fuel this, I will keep up with what Madamoiselle M calls my ‘racehorse diet’ of oatmeal, bananas, lots of salad, nuts and seeds, whole grain everything, miso, little dairy or sugar. I dunno how it happened, but my acupuncturist is impressed with the results.

I came home to lots of love filled cards and packages through mail. I have so far written two cards to be mailed, but a new years resolution is to send mail to my dearest friends.

I was scared to come back to a place where beats and a beer is the one thing I can’t find on any given night, like I can in Toronto (or Montreal for that matter). I will pay attention to my own music needs. Keep up the music exchanges in the mail and harrassment of the good DJ’s I know.

I also bought two comic books with my gift certificate at the Beguiling. I got Exit Wounds and Blue Pills, both unconventional love stories. Not a bad place to start the new year.

Elements of vacation

• Catherine Opie–portraits
• Archie comics headquarters
• Alexander Calder–wire sculpture
• Smoove B’s love for Michelle Obama train ride read
• The Kite Runner–backseat reading
• homemade pasta and ricotta lasagna, california zinfandel, real salad
• house music l’academie, salon daome
• coriander chutney
• Lynda Barry–What It Is (can I compare a PhD to tasks and conquering mythical beasts to save a kingdom?)
• le cagibi
• jardin du cari (*with* pumpkin)
• Boite Noir
• Fugitive Pieces–the movie
• The Entity (search “episode 511“)–South Park climate change solution? (300 mpg, 200 mph–picture Al Gore and David Suzuki on one)
• Functionable, fashionable belt, where are you?
• unplanned designer skirt purchase
• musee des beaux arts, andy warhol?
• tha goods nye