Tuesday, June 15, 2010

uni rankings in my favour

although rating universities is wrought with contention, as anyone who has attended the university of calgary well knows, it is welcome news plucked from the guardian to hear that my grad school, lancaster, is ranked #6 in the uk.  behind oxford, cambridge, and st andrews, but ahead of lse, soas, and perhaps most importantly for lancashirians, york!

the times says it is 10th and the independent says it is 8th so they must be on to something, wouldn't you think?

although i did leave the school in 2006 so maybe their high ranking doesn't apply to when i was there, but at least it is getting publicity and better known across the pond, which can't hurt.

Monday, June 14, 2010

it started with a seed

over 4 years ago (and i remember this because it was just before the last world cup), i went to london with my bf at the time and my parents, who were visiting from canada.  we rented a sedan, took ourselves for a holiday of live theatre and sightseeing, and visited portobello market.  and in that lovely market, we bought some seedy bread.  and one of those seeds got stuck between my teeth.

like, really stuck.  stuck so badly that for a few days i had a constant dull ache on that side of my mouth.

eventually, with my mad skills in the flossing department, i got that seed out and there would always be a larger space between those two teeth than any of my others.

i adapted to this by carrying around my favourite kind of floss to make sure i thoroughly floss after eating anything that had a tendency to get stuck in there.  apples, beef, anything stringy.  gross, but i never got the 'floss more' lecture from the dentist because i became mildly obsessed.

and when my sis and bro-in-law and i were sitting down to a cold beer and a bite to eat in victoria last weekend before boarding our plane back to calgary, i noticed that i had a hole in my tooth.  a hole in my tooth!  i had my sister investigate it (yes, in the restaurant) and we agreed that it was most likely a cavity, which seemed inevitable.  i made sure to get in to the dentist the very next day and when they told me that my tooth was actually broken and that they suggested repairing it with a crown, i braced myself for the freezing, the drills, and the awfulness of the dentist in general and went for it.

but being frozen that evening really threw me for a loop and put me in a bit of a funk that lasted through the week.  the miserable weather and confusing text message dating certainly didn't help, but the invasion of having someone's hands in my mouth and not being able to feel half of my face for a number hours seems to have had quite a psychological impact.  and it wasn't nice.

i dug myself out of the funk that week and had a lovely weekend full of beers on patios, hikes in kananaskis, and a patio-hopping fundraising event full of food, wine, and good friends.

but that was not what was on my mind later in the evening after i was at the dentist, as i was on the phone with a call centre in india, half my face frozen, having an ugly cry because i didn't know the difference between a modem and a router.  but the nice, young fellow on the phone wasn't bothered and sorted my internets while i felt sorry for myself.  but i bet that if he were located in canada, working at midnight, and having to put up with a whiney mess like me, he would not have been nearly as patient!

Sunday, June 06, 2010

not in my backyard (yet)

i have said, on ocassion recently, that i feel a bit like i am sitting around waiting for the next humanitarian emergency and am crossing my fingers that it happens in an english or a spanish speaking country.

but maybe i should be looking a little closer to home and finding a job for myself in the oil and gas emergency industry?

check out this neato internetting thing where you can electronically transplant the extent of the oil coverage in the gulf of mexico to where ever you like and get a feel for how this would affect your own community.  here it is for calgary.