I was so stressed from writing today that I put an out of office response on my email. Now, when you email me I have “Away from email until further notice. Thanks, Chrysalids”.

“Until further notice”? Who writes that? But I seriously don’t know when the writing stress will be over with.

And I can apply it to many facets of life:

Until further notice, I am into Jeff Buckley.

I will minimize the meat until further notice.

I am restricted from travel, until further notice.

Until further notice, please do not mention climate change as a moral imperative in my presence.

Yeah.

I am getting ready for the comprehensive exam this Fall, the one point of the PhD where they can get rid of you. There are different formats, but mine consists of getting a question, and having three weeks to answer it in 10,000 words (plus appendices), and then I will have an oral component a few weeks later.

My preparation consists of writing a series of three papers to critically examine the topic I’ve chosen. I wrote one paper, but it was something I really didn’t know, and felt like I was pulling teeth (actually, I *did* get my wisdom tooth removed while writing it). Now that I’m writing the second paper, I realized I need to restructure the first one. So I am simultaneously writing two papers, and trying to get them off my plate before my planned deadline, and then move onto some more research (two projects on the go) and then on to the third paper and so on until I hit the comprehensive exam, which I’d like to have over with by the end of December. So, I am *craving* routine. Routine, routine, routine.

I am figuring out how to set up to have food on demand while I’m writing. I’m avoiding going away for long periods of time (now that I did my two 10+day trips!). I’m trying to run in the mornings and do some living room exercise. I’m not being good about responding to emails and phone calls (I just got a new phone and haven’t even set up voicemail!). I’m downplaying the excitement which is not on the page.

The local outfitters store, Adventure Guide, is promoting FiveFingers footware. Apparently you can “Discover a level of performance and a connection to your environment that is positively without peer.”

But when I checked the FAQ section on the FiveFinger website, “Unfortunately the design of FiveFingers does not accommodate webbed toes”. So no FiveFingers for me (but I am shocked they even addressed the webbed toe issue on the website anyways showing wider recognition for my condition!)

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

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.

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!

• 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

Inter Pares is a great organization working with southern partners. I have followed their work for about five years or so, a good friend is on staff, and a professor I admire greatly is on the board of directors. You can learn more why I admire their work so much from their mission and mandate. I appreciate that they are tackling some really important issues in the places that matter–for instance (I’ve mentioned this before) they have been working across Canada on a biofuels campaign, linking biofuel policies to food security and environmental impacts. If you want to donate to a development organization, but are not sure which one, Inter Pares is a worthy recipient.

Here’s their video for their “Give Big” campaign.

I haven’t done much writing lately, but I wanted to give props to this post on Jill Murray’s blog. I really like this song, the video, and Jill’s comments.

I’ve got a lot of opinions on African politics, and a lot of interest in keeping up. Ever since I got back from living in Sierra Leone in 2003-2004, I’ve continued my reading on African, West African and Sierra Leonean politics. This weekend, I went to visit a friend in Montreal and started reading What is the What; The Autobiography Of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers, and got immediately sucked into it, enough to go out and buy my own copy before heading home. I’m at page 105, and it’s reminding me why I like some african literature more than others. Here are my picks:

The Devil That Danced on the Water by Aminatta Forna. This is an amazing memoir about the daughter of a Sierra Leonean politician. It explains in depth what happened in post-colonial Sierra Leone, and how Siaka Stevens turned Sierra Leone into a single party state (with himself as the leader). When I visited the UN in New York City, I remember the part of the tour which turned to the success of decolonization, and I wasn’t so sure I could appreciate their sentiment unequivocally.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I read this Nigerian novel as a high school student for my independent study in grade 12. I am glad I did, since Achebe is a prominent African literary figure it is required reading for students in Sierra Leone in high school, and I got to talk about it with my friends there. This novel takes a look at how social structures were broken down through colonialism through the story of a traditional Ibo man.

My grade 12 independent studies also let me to read The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta. Another Nigerian novel, set later than Achebe’s, but about the same culture (Ibo).

Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie, (there are 3 in the series) is a comic book! It’s about a teenage girl in Ivory Coast, when the country was going through economic growth in the 1970s. I love this book because it’s colourful, depicts the scenery of a West African city (it’s only missing the smells and the heat…) and tells funny stories about teenage girls while painting accurate portrayals of male-female relationships in West Africa. I really love these books.

a long way gone; memoirs of a boy soldier, by Ishmael Beah. A dear friend of mine gave this book to me due to my connection to Sierra Leone. I really enjoy how articulate Beah is in his writing, and I think one of the best revelations in this book is the power of music for Sierra Leoneans. Beah writes about his love of hip hop as a child, and how music helped him through the rehabilitation process. When he came to Toronto for a book reading I asked a question from the audience on what he thought about the prospects for music to help rebuild Sierra Leone. He lit up and talked about his favourite bands and their messages–Sierra Leoneans love their homegrown music more than anything else, and many of the artists challenge the politicians to really serve the people. However, I think that this book misses the opportunity to have this articulate person (with a BA in political science to boot) describe the politics of this war more deeply, which is unfortunate, and probably has more to do with the publisher than the writer. I understand that as a vehicle to promote more understanding of how child soldiers are really victimized children underneath it all, and to support UNICEF’s work, it’s a little too focused on the conflict than on insights into how it all happened and what it all means. I really hope that Beah decides to work with his success and write a book giving more insight into the politics of Sierra Leone and the war, which I think is still lacking in current literature.

BBC Focus on Africa. This magazine has a real knack for tapping into politics, elections, and pop culture across the continent. I remember opening up an issue on Sierra Leonean hip hop (see above) and seeing the picture of my friend’s uncle! It was so startling and fun to have that connection from the other side of the world.

Not my faves:

How de body? by Toen Voeten. Maybe he had good intentions, I dunno. It’s a horrible, sensational novel. I’m glad he found a noble cause in the end to give the proceeds of the book to, but why was he there in the first place? It reminds me of many other westerners I met there (and worked for) on ego trips, who went there to be able to depict themselves as heroes. This book promotes so many negative stereotypes of Africans, and African bureaucrats, which are all countered in most of the above books or by the above mentioned authors, it really annoys me. Actually, I think this is the only not my favourite right now. It probably is useful if you are planning to go work there in an international aid/development context, because it definitely describes accurately all the characters you will meet. And I don’t mean the Africans.