the ultimate geek

please go visit k's blog and see why canada is never going to be known as a country with any fashion sense whatsoever.

i've said it once and i'll say it again, our prime minister is the ultimate geek.

isn't it just supply and demand?

i just don't know how i feel about the baby seal hunt.

it is in the news even here and an animal rights group had an ice sculpture made of the hunt to put in front of canada house in trafalgar square.

i think it is totally unnecessary to kill an animal to use its fur to sell to some rich norwegian so they can prove their wealth with their clothing. and being hit with a blunt object with enough force to kill doesn't sound humane either.

but at the same time i feel a bit attacked as a canadian and i also respect the rights of those in newfoundland to continue hunting as they have done to provide an income for themselves and their families. aren't they just meeting the demands of the market? isn't that what huge oil companies do when they drill in northern alberta? i am sure a lot of natural vegetation and species are being killed or displaced that don't make it on to primetime news. red blood spilled on the pure white ice is a much more dramatic photo for the newsmakers.

i just wonder how upset these protesters would be if it were something less cute and cuddly like an eel that was being killed and skinned as a baby? i think it makes people upset to know that something so warm and fuzzy will meet such a gruesome fate and when mccartney goes and lies on the ice to be close to them it makes them seem more like pets than what they are - wild animals. and they were shocked it tried to bite them!

too old to just break free and run

saddest or most hopeful song ever? i think it depends on your own perspective. i've been listening to it a lot lately.

Lover, You Should Have Come Over - Jeff Buckley

Looking out the door
I see the rain fall upon the funeral mourners
Parading in a wake of sad relations
As their shoes fill up with water

Maybe I'm too young
To keep good love from going wrong
But tonight, you're on my mind so
You never know

Broken down and hungry for your love
With no way to feed it
Where are you tonight?
Child, you know how much I need it.
Too young to hold on
And too old to just break free and run

Sometimes a man gets carried away,
When he feels like he should be having his fun
Much too blind to see the damage he's done
Sometimes a man must awake to find that, really,
He has no-one...

So I'll wait for you...And I'll burn
Will I ever see your sweet return?
Oh, will I ever learn?
Oh, Lover, you should've come over
Cause it's not too late.

Lonely is the room the bed is made
The open window lets the rain in
Burning in the corner is the only one
Who dreams he had you with him
My body turns and yearns for a sleep
That won't ever come
It's never over,
My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
It's never over,
All my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her...
It's never over,
All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter...
It's never over,She's a tear that hangs inside my soul forever...

Well, but maybe I'm just too young to keep good love
From going wrong
Oh... lover you should've come over...

Yes, and I feel too young to hold on
I'm much too old to break free and run
Too deaf, dumb, and blind
To see the damage I've done
Sweet lover, you should've come over
Oh, love, well I'll wait for you
Lover, you should've come over
'Cause it's not too late.

hibernation over

i made some espresso with my stovetop espresso maker and it makes three shots of espresso. now instead of only drinking one shot, or even just half of what i made, i thought what the hell, i will drink all THREE shots and just add some frothy milk and make a really big capuccino. frothy, delicious, and HUGE. and enough caffeine to jump start a very groggy grizzly bear that has been hibernating for months!

ready to be done

today i am ready to leave lancaster, to live in the real world again and to be done with my program. too bad i am still only half way through.

i am getting restless. maybe it is the spring weather and the change in atmosphere that accompanies it or maybe i am just not used to being in the same place for more than 6 months.

in bloom

i keep marveling at the daffodils growing all over campus lately. admittedly, i first thought they were weeds and i was wondering to myself, wow those are really sturdy weeds, i wonder how they get rid of them. but then they started to bloom and now i quite enjoy walking by them on my way to park my butt in the library until 11:00pm on a thursday evening.



all this thinking about flowers (and distractions from other stresses and coursework) got me thinking that maybe i should go to see my favourite flower grown in the netherlands! i am not sure if it will work out, but i am looking into flights and dreaming about fields of tulips... errr.... avoiding reading countless articles and the 17 books i have out of the library right now.

and i would like to pose a question - if there exists a bathroom for people with physical disabilities and no one is using it, is it ok if you use it? what if you use it three times in one day because it is usually the cleanest? and what if you were to walk out and someone in a wheelchair was waiting to use it? now this didn't happen but i am always afraid it will, but should i be?

silly girl?

why oh why when i get angry and feel that something is unfair do i start crying?! it happened again yesterday and i understand that it is really hard to be taken seriously and treated like an adult when you have tears rolling down your face, but i don't have a clue how to stop it. this time i politely excused myself as i felt i was being disrespected and although i wanted to stay and express my opinion clearly, i knew that i should just walk away and deal with it later when i wasn't so worked up. i managed to keep the crying until i was in the hallway by myself.

and that is now what i have to deal with tomorrow along with write a dissertation proposal for a topic i am not even sure of, write two essay plans, start writing one essay, finish the research for another, and start the research for the third!

and eat chocolate today because it is chocolate eating day! yay, 40 days is over and i can enjoy mini eggs like most of the rest of the easter-celebrating world. i will tell you if the canadian or the english mini eggs are more suitable to my tastes after i eat them later today.

as promised...

please note that i won the piggy back competition in heels and a skirt

my hockey mom

i drank my first full pint of guinness last night and now i am hung over. i tried tea, a shower, water, and now i am on coffee and toast trying to alleviate the symptoms brought on either from the beer, the wine, the mad dancing, the piggy back competition (which thanks to all that piggy back practice i got on the streets of calgary during the playoff run, i clearly won), the late night chips and vinegar, the dirty kebab, the slice of pizza, or the 4am bed time.

when i retrieve my camera from a friend, i will post some pictures, i am sure there are some doozys of me on there in my finest irish form.

these pink sticks the nhl players are going to use is fantastic, i think that canada is held together by hockey moms. they keep t ho's in business (it's roll-up-the-rim-to-win season, isn't it?!) and they keep buying giant suvs to lug all that equipment around in, clearly stimulating the economy at every turn. but more importantly, they raise the future gretzkys and iginlas, phenonmenal players and people, and it is a damn hard job.

if my hockey mom were here, she's be saying 'mod-er-ation' over and over, but she might make me some soup too.

ain't nothing like a thursday

as i felt that my last post was so successful in list-form and because some friends have been engaging in a blog-conversation (blogversation??) about what makes good days good, here is a list of why today was good:

• my pen finally started gushing ink and now i can smell it when i write
• i went for an ass kicking run this morning and i think it was so great because i brought sven, my ipod, along and his tunes really motivated me to keep on running forrest gump style
• i made lunch and had 2 lunch guests and our salads and tuna melts were colourful and delicious
• a friend called to see if i got an essay back and said he got a good mark and told me that i probably did that well if not better on mine
• another friend came over and made me dinner tonight and it was so simple, but delicious
• i had a great political conversation today about quebec separatism and the future of the liberal and conservative parties, and the legacy of trudeau
• i have embraced my political geekiness!
• i wore a skirt, bare legs, and flip flops (but i didn't leave the house in that, i was just pretending it was summer outside)
• i shaved my legs
• i wrote a letter to a friend, and not the email kind of letter either
• i had one of those conversations where when you have to pee you don't want to get up to leave it so you sit there and fidget and fidget until you have no other option but to excuse yourself, only to return to the same great conversation

i (heart) lists

some things i have been thinking or wondering lately, in list form...

• i love lists
• lloyd axworth is a cool canadian, i wish i had of known how cool he was when he was an mp
• i have always wondered why canada and other countries aren't doing anything in darfur in the sudan and after reading axworthy's book and some other articles i am really wondering why the hell the world isn't doing anything
• lent is going well, i have had chocolate chips in home baked muffins, but i decided that was ok, only 7 more days to go
• why is it so difficult for people to call the inuit 'inuit'? why do people insist on using the word eskimo immediately after it was just explained to them why inuit is more appropriate?
• why do people feed you chicken the very day after you've said you don't eat it? oh well, it was in chicken-finger form which is more handleable and less chicken-like
• this surprise afghanistan visit by harper is too bush-like for me
• i am still struggling with this make poverty history thing - did it just take attention away from the real protesters and the real alternatives to the g8 or did it actually bring awareness to the masses of the relics of colonialism and the effects of the policies of the international monetary institutions that plague the african continent? i am doubtful that there were many people who attended those concerts that have done anything since to combat world poverty, as if the problem was solved with a white wrist band and bob geldof
• i own a white wrist band, but am hesitant to wear it
• does it seem to anyone else that itunes always has a new version to download?
• i have been reading a lot about canadian identity and it has got me thinking that although i love politics and international relations, my favourite courses in my undergrad were those in women's studies, sociology, anthropology, and the liberal arts and if i ever go back to school after this, i think i will study one of those. not for a job, not for any type of world-saving or improving, but just cause i like it
• i keep dreaming that i have eaten chocolate and am disappointed in myself for not lasting the entire lent period, but i am determined to even though my mom sent me mini eggs in the mail!
• instead of deciding on essay topics, i am preoccupied with thoughts of what i will do come september, i am anxious and nervous and incredibly excited even though i am still so up in the air about what it is i want to do first. i have lots of things i want to do, just not sure the order of them all
• i am having a 'breakfast-off' with some friends to settle whether or not canadians make better breakfasts than the british and i think team canada will take it, any suggestions on what to serve at a 'traditional' canadian breakfast? i do think we do breakfast better than any other country i have visited. something about sitting around, drinking cup after cup of coffee and eating something sweet, salty, and spicy all in the same meal. normally not my style, but for breakfast i make an exception
• i've been thinking a lot about my grandpa, he is a cool canadian too, i think anyone who met him would find it hard to disagree with that

international women's day

today i was...

...referred to as 'blondie'
...made to wait to start a meeting that i had arranged with my professor until my male classmate arrived late
...laughed at for saying i would have burnt my bra if i were around during the beginning of the women's rights movement
...told i was being an 'idiot' for stating my concerns
...called 'cute' when i was angry with the quality of the teaching in my programme
...assumed to be an irrational and overreacting girl rather than be heard
...told i should stop being a feminist if i ever want to work for the un

makes you realise why we still have to have an international day just for women. and i am one of the lucky ones who has access to education and opportunity.

back to fish and bicycles

it would be an understatement to say that south dakota's attempt to overturn roe v wade is unsettling to me. they are using the collective defense of the unborn child as a way to undermine the choice of the mother.

The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.
~ Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Roe v. Wade, 22 January 1973

Seventy-seven percent of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant.
~ Planned Parenthood advertisement

A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.
~ Gloria Steinem

a home

i have spent a weekend away, eating. whenever you stay at someone's house they always insist on feeding you! and i am feeling really quite unhealthy at the moment, so that doesn't help. and then i couldn't get myself out of bed this morning to go for a run so i am going to try and fit it in later today or tomorrow. i gotta get a schedule!

leeds for the weekend was fantastic. i had my first starbucks chai latte in the uk and it only cost me about $6, what a deal. it is so nice to wander around shops, stop and have a coffee at a coffeeshop, and spend the evening on a couch watching a movie. sounds a bit strange, unless you've ever lived without a cozy spot to curl up or in university residence. and a home-cooked roast beef dinner is pretty great too.

yesterday we walked around a Very Old abbey in the yorkshire dales, and it was nice to be outside even with all the mud and near-falls down slippery hills. there was snow on the ground that crunched when you walked and i could hear all the newly born lambs baa-ing in the farmer's fields and it was a perfect way to spend a sunday.

i feel refreshed and ready to finish this semestre. speaking of which... i have three more papers awaiting my attention. should really get to those this week. but i have to do some more baking for my weekend visit with my auntie. at least i can say this whole grad school experience was multi-dimensional even if i don't always get as much reading done as i'd like.

snowflakes - no two are alike

it snowed today. and it has managed to stay on the ground for at least an hour now, which is creating quite the atmosphere around campus. there are snowmen being built, snowball fights along the walkways, and my lecturer even stopped the class today to throw a snowball at a student. what was funnier was when the student threw it back and we saw the quick reflexes of our lecturer. a classmate was deciding if she should leave because it was staying on the ground and she didn't want to drive home in it. and this is how snowy it is now, an hour later...

it reminds me of last year when we went toboganning with the south african and mozambicans we were living with in lacombe, what a great memory of feeling just like a kid again. this past week has been a hard one for me and i really wouldn't mind feeling like a kid again.

i accidently misheard 'lancaster' as 'lung cancer' yesterday and it is becoming to feel a bit like that - suffocating. so i am happy that i am leaving for a weekend, this evening i am off to leeds which will hopefully be rejuvenating and relaxing. i suppose any contained area gets stuffy every now and again.

but i should count myself lucky because yesterday i was able to go to the lake district and have breakfast and a rather frigid boat trip around the lake. quite a beautiful area. but the 'vegetarian breakfast' didn't have anything on anything nellie's could whip up with a nice refillable coffee.

so what are the thoughts on harper having to stand up to klein publicly? i hope that he prevents privatised health care, the thought just scares me. but that might be a trade off for cooperation with bush on this missile defense thing, which i am also not particularly crazy about. not sure which would be worse just yet. but i am following it on my morning viewings of the national, which i watch just to get my peter mansbridge fix.

i am all about compromise these days. we've been talking a lot about it in my conflict resolution courses and i have to say that compromise is something i am trying to get better at it but sometimes it is still quite difficult. i have to pretend to be a tamil tiger for an upcoming lecture where we will have to negotiate in a role play situation (oh my, even the words 'role play' give me shivers) and today we sat and listened to a sri lankan in our course tell us more about the finer details of a rather complicated conflict, but i am learning how evasive the concept of compromise can be so i am trying to my best to realise it in my own life.

well the sun has returned and soon there will be no snow left for a spontaneous snow angel, but it was nice while it lasted.

march 1st - best friends day

a good friend of mine has declared march 1st best friend's day, http://www.canadianinalaska.blogspot.com/ and i just wanted to send out a happy best friends day to all the people who have been a good friend to me who might just be reading this right now. i've needed you all at some point and i hope that i have been there for you in much the same way. the best part is knowing that you are here with me in all of the wonderful lessons you've helped me learn, all the memories we have made together, and all the inspiration that you given to me and others. you are all pretty fantastic and i hope you know how important you are to me. you rock! and thank you for that.