Three more days ...

It is December 17 ... and I'm still teaching. The logic of this - I'm not begrudging my students their valuable time with moi - still escapes me. Last week - that is the penultimate week of term - I had a total of 9 students over two seminars. That's 9 out of a possible 40 listed on the roster. And in my 9am seminar, the two brave little students were two of my best. So we had a chat, discussed shoes and ships and ceiling wax, and then I sent them off home. I've prepared a lively seminar for today, tomorrow and Friday essentially giving them the keys to the kingdom as far as the exam goes. Of course, I'm sure if the 'last week' of term were two weeks earlier, the attendence would be the same.

First week of term, on the other hand, is a glorious 5 weeks away right now. Five weeks introduced by two weeks of Christmas hols with the library and universities CLOSED. I may accidentally lock my office keys in my office.

I'm kinda looking forward to Christmas this year. Albeit, it won't be the same so far away. But this year, we've made our own tree out of paper and stuck it to the wall (space saving! and recycleable!). Our Christmas box from Canada has arrived. Logan and Laila haven't yet ripped open the prezzies - they have a perverse fascinating with tearing paper. Office Christmas parties are done and dusted. A Christmas Carol is the book of the week on Radio 4. I found the music to Charlie Brown's Christmas special on Nasser's iPod. And we found a recipe for bagels so's to make Christmas morning extra special - since it will be extra emotional.

I was greivously dissapointed to learn that our German Christmas market is far from unique. My friend laughed when I explained my most recent disillusionment. But I really did think that Leeds was special somehow - that we got something original at Christmas. It's silly but it really did take the shine off the whole thing. Apparently, ours is just part of a chain. I guess I'm not as post-modern as I thought.

I'm feeling very blah today. I shouldn't as it is beautiful and sunny out. But then, I'll be spending the afternoon watching the sunshine recede from inside a seminar room. *sigh*

Three more days ...

Ignorance is British - but bad literature is for everyone

So the first part of this title is from an adventure Nasser had with one of the more agressive locals. Call it the credit crunch, or Christmas, or just the freakin' cold weather - any way I cut it, the guy was (and I wasn't actually there) just plain mean. In response to Nasser's suggestion that screaming obscenities and pushing at the crossing was 'ignorant', our friend responded (among other colourful comments) that it wasn't ignorance: it was British.

Oh well.

I've been reading - on wikipedia - the synopsis and such for Twilight, the spectacularly popular series of young adult novels by Stephanie Meyer - now film. My friend, who lectures in children's literature, had much criticism for it. Having read the wiki entry, found some reviews, and looked through the truly god-awful, teenage-angsty website of the film, I've decided that it is the worst thing I haven't seen or read in ages. It sounds absolutely bloody awful - the kind of awful that's intensified by the fact that I likely would have devoured them like candy when I was 13. And I don't mean awful from a high-brow, academic-white-tower viewpoint; I mean awful as in insulting, candy-coated nonsense that panders to kiddy-Gothic, celebrations of the undead as Byronic heroes. Honestly. Who falls for this crap?

She said, a Gothicist.

Yes, but there are few things more tiring than a teenager and few things more unimaginably horrible than an immortal teenager.

Not to mention the gender politics that apparently get played out in this book. I have no problem with abstinence; but vampires and marriage? Honestly. I feel that I must shake my head a lot in any discussion of this book. Is marriage still such an ideal that a relationship with a vampire can be okay'd provided marriage is on the table? Hmm...it's possible that I'm being a miserable git. Likely from reading too much of this fellow and enjoying too much this program.

Cos otherwise, what've I got to complain about? It's nearly the end of term, teaching finishes in two weeks (two weeks is a long long time...), I've got teaching lined up for next term, and a job application to finish - and Christmas is coming. None too shabby for the second week of December.

Things that make my day

Two good teaching sessions in a row - enough to send me through the roof with joy. I'm trying to explore more options for group work with my first years: today's exercise really worked. I hated group work in undergrad - mainly cos I ended up doing the bloody work. So I did pay careful attention to who was doing the work in each group and will break up the class differently next time. But they really did pull something off - and they were paying attention to the text.

THEN I got to pat the police horses as they stood majesterial guard outside the Uni. Max is beautiful and his person very cheery - the kind of police officer straight out of a children's book - I wonder if the horses make community work easier (for people unafraid of horses!). Animals always invite people closer. These are not the average pokey pony mind you, but massive great beasts. But lovely and soft with big dark eyes. It really did make my day - I was immediately cheered and grinning as I set off for an afternoon's work at the library.

To quote Calvin...

...the days are just packed. My constant disbelief at the passage of time seems to be a regular feature on this my blog. But - OCTOBER?! When did that happen?? As Nas commented this morning on our way to campus - 'I'm a doctor!'. That still hasn't worn off on me, even though I appeared on the pass list back in January and got my purdy degree in print in July.

Packed with what? Teaching has started - so that's five mornings a week - and the library still eats my time up every afternoon. Luckily, it's quite busy these days with the students back and such. At least the afternoons pass quickly enough. We had a totally successful surprise party at our flat last weekend - in addition to our first ever party in the UK, it was a double surprise party for two friends' birthdays. Facing down the clean-up the next morning, however ... nah - totally worth it. So sucessful indeed that we're already planning the sequel - '6 Degrees of the Doctor' - for Halloween!

And I saw a fox! I'm not sure where he lives - I don't know that it's a he either, but I've called him Mr Fox so 'he' it is for now - but we saw him the other night come into the parking lot of our flats and sniff about. He is beautiful: lovely white-tipped, bottle-brush tail. I hope he gets lots of rats and lives well. With all the students around ours, there should be loads of fine rubbish to be had!

We also saw Die Welle (spoilers on that link) at the local rep cinema - always excellent. They have a cat named Tibbs (whom Nas and I call, rather unimaginatively, Oscar) that lives there. Proper theatre cat. Anyway, the film - yes, Die Welle: interesting if very predictable. But interesting nonetheless - mostly for the very cool houseboat of the lead character, with its conceptual art on the walls, and pristine lake outside. I also just really really like listening to German. I must learn. Add that to my days!

All play and no work

My week off work is speeding by faster or at least as fast as when I'm at work for half the day. By 'work' I mean work - as in things I do not for fun but for financial remuneration. Then there is my work by which I mean my work, my research, my writing, my teaching, my studies - things that I do for which I am paid but gladly do and resent being pulled away from by the other kind of work.

We've learned the very nasty twist to potato blight - the taters don't keep. Oh they look good - all shiny and white when cleaned up, innocently sitting in their hessian sacks looking perfectly ready to hibernate like well-behaved little taters until needed. But turn your back and they melt into a stinking oozy mess. It's unpleasant. The tomatoes are, alack the day, affected as well. We saved a bunch of green ones to try our hand at chutney or pickle only to find that they too melted away overnight. It's like gardening in hell. I can kind of picture how devastating it would be to rely on these fickle veggies for life and breath - carefully stacking them away only to find a black puddle of yuck in the larder a few weeks later. Evil evil blight.

Well, back to the intellectually, spiritually, if not financially (yet) rewarding WORK.

fear and loathing

So Sarah Palin believes that 'smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a large power' should receive an immediate smackdown from the US military might. This from an interview that was supposed to refute her lack of foreign policy experience. What it shows instead is a staggering lack of self-awareness of the less-glorious history of American military intervention.

Oh wait - democratic countries. Right. Because countries that aren't democratic - or aren't toeing the American line of 21st century economically-driven democracy (that implicitly benefits US market forces) - don't particularly require assistance - or whatever illegal occupation that might go on needs no comment.

This woman scares me.

But in other news, I've finally finished and submitted an article - ripped mercilessly from my thesis. Now I just wait to get it back with editor's marks nearly obliterating my poor text ...

Not even a pop

So the world didn't end when the Cern excellerator was turned on. Not even a blip in my electricity at home. Not that I'm disappointed - though I've never read the studies by the fellows who attempted to launch a lawsuit on behalf of EVERYTHING, claiming that turning the machine on was putting all life in serious danger. I'm curious who would have benefitted from the payout - of course, if they are right, I suppose the point is moot.

Since the world didn't end - and I should go back to long-term planning - I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't take advantage of the hysteria generated far from Leeds (clearly). It might have been a good laugh to host a 'Final Bang' party or similar - or make up (if not actually complete) one of those completely sentimental 'Bucket Lists' so popular with the kids (or at least old men) these days. Instead, I spent what could have been my last days on earth in much my usual routine - which meant the usual great deal of work avoiding my usual routine ... Someday I'm sure I will emerge from my chrysallis woven of procrastination, foot-dragging, and general laziness into the super-organised, efficient, and professional academic that I know is inside.

If I can be bothered ...

Oh grin, dear reader, I was mostly kidding.

small print

I spend enough time wandering about the internet at work - and enough of that time rummaging through Wikipedia, following my own inclination through interminable links. But was it common knowledge that Wikipedia 'English' is written in 'simple English'?

As opposed to 'difficult English'? 'The Queen's English'? Jargon? Business-speak?

Would anyone notice if it were in some other English?

What if it were poetry?

Thinking in a box

I am, unsurprisingly, bored at work again. So I've looked around the interwebs universe and found a site apparently dedicated entirely to 'top 10' lists. I'm intrigued and just bored enough to find thinking in list-form a pleasant distraction.

10 things I'd like to grow in my garden next year

1. more squash
2. golden beetroot
3. borlotti beans
4. strawberries
5. sweetcorn
6. crown prince pumpkins
7. carrots
8. plums
9. fennel
10. blight-free potatoes

10 things I would like to eat right now

1. blueberry pancakes with maple syrup
2. smoked salmon and cream cheese on a proper bagel
3. carrot sticks
4. home-made chocolate chip cooky
5. miso soup
6. beetroot marinated salmon sashimi
7. haloumi and roasted butternut squash on foccacia from Bakery 164
8. leftover stew
9. dosa with spinach and paneer with minted yoghurt and curry sauces
10. pretty much anything in Barcelona

10 reasons I like the library

1. generally it's pretty quiet
2. books
3. books
4. new books
5. old books
6. my colleagues and bosses are pretty great
7. internet access
8. feeling of having done research even when I just walk in and fall asleep on the desk
9. the reading room
10. it's a library

Good times.

Optimistic outlook, on having

The Observer food monthly magazine - my favourite monthly supplement, unsurprisingly - promised '101 picnic ideas' last Sunday. It's either a defiant fist-shaking at the weather, which promises 101 more days of distinctly un-picnickiness, or a sign that the writers are enjoying their holidays somewhere in the idyllic French countryside, or possibly Barbados. And I thought politicians were the ones separated from the people ...

We were hoping for a bit of sunshine - or at least just hoping for a dry, if cloudy, day! - this Sunday as we begin the season of exodus. I liked it better when September was for meeting people or welcoming people back, rather then seeing them off. But I suppose we can't all stay here, short of opening our own university - an expensive venture I gather. Or a self-sacrificing one that I think absolutely amazing but financially (and geographically) impossible at this point in my life! If I'm ever in Toronto as an academic, I'd love to be part of this.

The rain appears to have cleared up for my walk home - for which I am very grateful. Last night, after our The Wire reading group meeting, Nas and I walked home in a downpour so heavy we were forced to dash into the nearest pub and wait it out with a pint. The water rushing downhill out of the park was a virtual torrent - we were lucky the pub was so near...

An August August

Our taters got blight. Which is sad but luckily we think they've grown enough to be okay underground for a bit. Nonetheless, it was disappointing, if oddly satisfying, to tear out all that greenery, bag it up, and move it off the allotments. Apparently, the whole allotment got blighted. Fortunately, it only affects potato crops - and tomatoes, possibly - so everything else is okay. And there is a lot of everything else! The sweetcorn surpasses the best peaches'n'cream of my childhood; the beets are the very purple of beets; and the beans doth runneth our plates over. Even the peas, which I doubted would amount to anything, bounced back late in the game to deliver a not-so-bad crop. They were an experiment in saving seed from which we learned a valuable lesson or two. Firstly, use organic seed; secondly, F1 hybrid +1 generation seeds do strange and not altogether wonderful things. It's not that the peas aren't edible and sweet and lovely and all that but there are way less pods, they ripened and went tough quite quickly and there weren't nearly the number of peas in each pod. Lessons learned.

I miss the boat and the lake. Aside from my sister's wedding (which was splendid and they were splendid and it was all around a great day), the highlights of our vacation had to be sailing with everyone and swimming in Lake Erie. I'll get by many a rainy English afternoon on those memories!

Our new flat was so much nicer to come home to ... I've forgotten how I ever could have found our damp and dark little back-to-back acceptable. Of course, price did go a long way to reconciling us for 4 years! But I think the light and space in our new flat are worth the extra.

I really should put some pictures up on this 'blog but now that we don't have the internet hooked up at home, that really does require an effort. Words will have to suffice for now.

An Open Letter

to Stephen Harper, PM of Canada.

You are a disgrace. You are a dreadful leader and your policies on everything from the environment to Canadian detainees at Guantanamo Bay evince your self-centred, smug, arrogant worldview. You are a tireless sychophant, an opponent of women's rights, gay rights, and more interested in capitalistic expansion than in health care and humanitarian projects. Even when your complete insensitivity produces an almost-admirable effect, it is for the wrong reasons. I very nearly had to align myself with your apparent stand on the Beijing Olympics until I realised that your absence was blamed on scheduling conflicts. Some people might take a scheduling conflict and use it to make a stand; you've taken what could have been an admirable stand on human rights and the idiocy of the free-spending spree that is the Olympics and turned it once again into a petty, trite, and laughable day-planner malfunction.

The merest whiff of a media blackout in what was once a relatively shining example of democracy and liberty in the western world should have been enough to ensure your early political demise. Your continued presence as the national and international representative of my country makes me shudder at thoughts of returning to take up my career and live out my life under your reactionary, right-wing, short-sighted, militaristic, and archaic governance.

The world does not need another politician more interested in numbers than people, in the short-gain over the long-loss. We need leadership that demonstrates the best of the people being lead, not the worst - or even the lackluster mediocre. We worry that children lack respect, are more given to instant gratification, indifference, and apathy - yet we offer them examples of how these strategies seem to work at the highest level. You are the leader of what could be the brightest and best country in the world, gifted with wealth, health, beauty, and difference. You have squandered that opportunity.

I can only hope that the damage you do is minimal and repairable. And may you always itch in unreachable places.

'mad-crazy-blazing brilliant'

I hope one day something I write, wear, or do is described thusly. Though in my critical little heart, I know it sounds ridiculous. Nothing like superfluous adjectives and stacked superlatives to make a sincere appreciation/admiration tip over into possible parody of the same.

Anyway, I didn't like the first of this sequel series - or are they prequels? Or haven't they caught up to Burton's efforts anyway? Why are we still watching these? And what happened to Superman? Now there's a hero for the times. Batman. Honestly. If someone could read the psychology of the day from the heroes we regurgitate what would they think? Batman. Crushingly self-aware, paranoid, tortured, dark; - it's Dirty Harry with a gym-membership, a therapist, and a better gadget guy. Same vigilanteism - but for Brucey, it's a hobby; for Harry, it's a job (and therefore suspect - though I've always thought it rather funny that immense wealth is what puts Batman above suspicion).

Okay, so I haven't seen the film yet.

And that wasn't the point of sitting down to blog a bit...

Graduating from my PhD was by far the most rewarding. I think it was the hat. And it was the only graduation I've attended where I got to sit with a group of friends who were also graduating, go out for lunch with families in tow - all that fun stuff. Natually, since we had guests over, it rained for a week. But it was a really relaxing and nice, unrushed and calm visit with my parents.
*post silly picture here eventually*

moving and shifting

Our new flat feels like our first - well, maybe second but I'll get to that - real grown-up place to live. It is clean, bright, and furnished with some modicum of taste. I love it. Those visiting must, in the words of Po, might be 'blinded due to overexposure of pure awesomeness'. It is so great that I feel retroactively embarassed for having my brother and sister and parents over to our old, crappy, dark and dingey back-to-back terrace - a special kind of housing that I think pretty much explains the curmudgeonly-ness and occassionally downright miserable-ness of some Leodeans. The new place reminds me of our best place in Canada - the apartment in Windsor just a few blocks from the Ambassador Bridge. It was small but bright, with four massive windows, a kitchen with a table and a huge main room. So it's our second non-studenty home. I think we'll stay for awhile. Logan and Laila love it too - Laila discovered last night that she can travel much faster than Logan on the laminate floor, to the amusement of Nas and I. Logan routinely slides by doors and around corners. Getting Laila into her box at the old house - which, fair enough, had been her entire world - and to the new flat was very unpleasant. She hates her box and with the excitement of the move, all her familiar surroundings gone and two strangers blocking her escape routes, she was not a happy kitty. But we got her there in the end. Luckily, they both seem to have forgiven us the indignity and Logan was back sleeping on our bed last night.

The library is still unbelievably quiet.

Facebook has reached a level in my mind of too much information. I wonder how much of casual friendship (or whatever status is achieved by the action of 'friending') is based on deliberate or indifferent ignorance? Groups on FB are a source of interest to me: I don't know how much they actually accomplish (particularly the political interest groups) but they do reveal a lot about people. So I was kind of shocked to see friends who had joined (whatever level of affirmation that speaks to) a group demanding that Dr Morgantaler be stripped of his recent Order of Canada - particularly female friends. It is the same shock I feel when I discover female friends have changed their names upon getting married. Hey, to each her own and all that but seriously - it's like realising that someone actually thinks the world is flat, or the moon-landing was a government hoax, or the government invented AIDS -- or that feminism is a dinosaur; obsolete, slightly embarassing, and unnecessary. I especially love the defence that feminism is about the right to choose - a defence so brilliantly scripted - so apparently water-tight, so graciously 'pro-woman', that it deserves its own module in undergraduate law degrees - therefore, what a woman chooses is necessarily feminist. As though women spoke with one mind out of some homogenous common body. Anyway, sorry - this wasn't intended to be a discussion of feminism.

Right, too much information. Yes. It's a curious thing. I wonder often how I appear - what things about me might shock and how I might defend myself. I do think sometimes about my own contradictions and inconsistencies. I should probably be more generous with people.

Ski-DOOSH!

The weekend was really all that summer weekends can be: BBQ, matinee cinema, milkshakes, and just at the very last moment - sunshine!

Friday night we went into the city - a rare enough occurance any night let alone a Friday! - to enjoy some music and socialising at a friend's birthday. It rained, naturally enough! But the appearance of two friends who had disappeared into London this past year more than made up for it. Then Saturday we went to a BBQ - the rain held off - for more socialising (of the less raucous kind). I brough Pimm's and lemonade - instant BBQ success. We spent Sunday hungover... But dragged ourselves into the city to a matinee at the cinema - Kung Fu Panda: perfect rainy Sunday film-fodder. It was sticky sweet and cuddly but funny enough to keep us awake and entertained for the duration. I mean, A) panda (it is impossible to feel anything but gooey watching a panda - even a cartoon one) B) kung fu movie with feel-good message about knowing yourself etc etc etc C) PANDA! Then we came home and watched the penultimate Doctor Who ... no spoilers here - I have no idea what is going on. Though there is much speculation (and spoilers if you are sensitive to that kind of thing).

Then we woke up and decided to put everything we own in boxes. At least the hangover is gone! And tomorrow is Canada Day/Moving Day. And we have a shiny new flat. Bring on July - in which our heroic couple begin a new dawn in the magical land of 'Two Bedroomed Flat'...

That reminds me: I saw on telly the other night a new series of programs (I think it was for UK History channel?) called 'Real Heroes'. Which made me ponder. 'Real' heroes? Of course, everyone is a hero - I should apply for special status and funding for making it to work every afternoon in spite of an overwhelming natural inclination to sleep/find a beer garden/go to my allotment/take up possibly lucrative hobby (if only I had the time...!). I'm struggling against my nature here! This is the stuff of legend. I can spin it. So what, I ask, is a 'real' hero? Having done the standard opening volley into research (aka: google) I can safely say that in this case we are meant to be 'shocked' by the revelation that the 'real heroes' (in this case of WW2) aren't, in fact, the people we (apparently) think: nope, just yer average joe, unsung, unsought, unremarked. Given the fact that 'hero' is the watchword of post-9/11 media, I wonder if we would recognize Superman himself if he sprung from the pages of DC comics, in all his sincere, shiny, unreflective glory. Clark Kent - now he has a shot. But then, Superman is, well, super - kinda impaled by nominal determinism - by definition, he has to be heroic. So what to do with 'Real Heroes'?

It's a bit of a tired term is all. But it strikes me as odd, the use of that term everywhere - particularly because once applied, it becomes an act of agression to try to remove it. It sticks. Woe betide the cynic who dares suggest that someone isn't a hero - but by now, why bother - aren't we all heroes? Don't we all get to be special? Isn't everyone an individual, just like me?

5 is the number

Nasser and I have been married for five years today. In that time, we've moved across the ocean, started and finished our PhDs, lived in two different houses in one city, traveled, started growing our own veg, taken in two cats, found an amazing circle of people whom we count as friends and family - and kept every single one of our vows...oh, except the one about coffee cause now we drink tea!

My grandparents have been married 62 years this October. That makes our little time together lost in a vast sea of experience and living. My parents got married in 1972 - which means when they had me, they had been married for five years too.

At least once every 3/4 months someone asks me how I knew Nasser was 'the one'. Truth is, I didn't; I'm still not sure that I believe in 'one' person for everyone - cosmic pairs, yin-yang and all that rubbish. We both took a leap. The same leap someone takes in moving in with someone, in making that first gesture - a smile, a phone call, the first bridge across a chasm of pretended indifference. There are so many places to fall down and I am so lucky to have found Nasser - not 'someone like Nasser' - actually Nasser.

Five years - and I would live every moment again just to end here, in front of a screen 5,000 miles from where we started, Nasser snoozing on the sofa behind me, our small cat curled on the bookshelf; a moment and space of certainty.

Body, soul, and honest lies

Spent the weekend in our allotment - a reanimating and refreshing break for body and soul. Thanks to a combined effort - and the unflagging enthusiam and energy of one of our 'plot-mates' - our allotment is absolutely restorative; we should sell tickets - an afternoon of guaranteed relaxing, with the added bonus of nibbles straight from the plant. Very young broad bean leaves, still curled into bunches at the tops of the plants, are delicious. Nasturtium leaves taste of very very peppery rocket; pea shoots are wonderfully pea-like (possibly unsurprisingly!). Our salad bed doth overflow and, with a can of lager from the (very) nearby off-licence ... it's a little bit of heaven in Leeds.

Apparently, plagiarism isn't just a problem for university lecturers though I'm not sure that this case helps or hinders the effort to deter the practice. It amuses me that he falls back on the same excuse I've heard in the past - yes, it is plagiarism, but his actions weren't dishonest. Huh? Splitting hairs, methinks. It's always disappointing to see this kind of prevarication in established academics - let alone in my students.

Justice and generosity

Steve (formerly Marx) didn't make it. While I'm sad because he died, I know that he was a hurtin' little beastie and the vet likely did a kindness in putting him down. It's not fair - it's not fair that things have to hurt and suffer and I know I sound like 6-year-old but it is not fair and I won't have it. I get it - I know that life is tough all over and what is one cat in the balance of the universe - which never actually seemed a very fair argument to me as it just assumes (once again) a human-shaped universe - maybe one cat is precious - maybe one bunny or frog or spider or flea or protazoa. Life is unique and so we clap ourselves on the backs and say well aren't we even more special - aren't we worth that much more cause, well - I'll be - just look at me looking at myself! We've got consciousness and what that gives us first and foremost is the ability to look round and decide that we're the most important things here. All this potential to understand things; to demonstrate grace; to change things - which we do every bloody moment - and look what these people chose to do with it.

But I'm also happy - or satisfied - that Marx at least was happy and safe and even liked a little for a few weeks before he died. Not everything - or everyone - will get that; but that doesn't take away from the rightness and goodness when it does happen.

We'll be letting Marx's ignorant, stupid and lazy owners know what happened to him. It will mean nothing to them - but then, I don't care - the world is too small for them and they will stand on the wayside and we will move forward.

E-minder

Netto's doesn't take credit. Netto's doesn't take credit. Netto's doesn't take credit.

I've made this mistake at least once per year - and I just did it again today. And I didn't have my debit card with me. And I'd done a lovely nice shop and was quite looking forward to a cheese and Marmite sandwich for lunch. And the charming lady (whose response to my ever-so-polite 'I'll just put that on credit, please' was 'debit'. Which lead to the following conversation:

me: 'No - credit card, please'
her: 'debit'
me: 'No, this a credit card.'
her: 'debit'

Honestly, she sounded like a frog. A lesson in the use of complete sentences I think. How quickly might I have understood our problem if she had said - the first time - Netto's doesn't take credit, luv)

had already rung through my entire purchase. Cue the frustrated/embarrassed walk out of the store.

Summer and Sunshine ... and then a bit of a rant

At last! the weather has turned glorious sunshine all around - a mediocre Saturday turned into the kind of Sunday that belongs firmly in nostalgic reflections of childhood summers. I spent it at the garden, listening to the French Open on a portable radio, planting tomatoes, chatting to neighbours, and generally revelling in the goodness of outside.

I'm now inside, alas, while the sun continues to shine on outside. But it shows no sign of disappearing so I'm content to be here ... kinda ...

Marx - whose name is now Steve - is getting on and hopefully, getting better ... but very very slowly. He's less yellow - and you must understand when our wonderful neighbours took him in his skin was the colour of a Crayola yellow crayon - if still very slow and a bit confused. I backed myself into a corner - or, got backed into a corner - at a dinner last week defending, slightly drunkenly, my position on my own superiority over people that would evince that kind of cruelty to anyone or anything. The response was that my categories were too easily expanded without cause - or with only subjective cause - people who mistreat animals? the questioning went - what next? The problem is reducing any idea to a policy to be applied broadly and without familiarity. I do wonder what on earth I might have in common with these people that might make me comfortable sharing anything with them - particularly representation. How can one person, one system, represent all these individuals? All these standards of living and being? I still believe what I wrote in the previous post: I am better than someone who could/would starve and neglect to the point of death any creature dependent on them. How do we judge people if not by their actions? What reason might they offer to excuse such behaviour? That they didn't think - how can that be an excuse?

I am better than that. I am expected to be better than that. I'm not talking about moral absolutes. In this case, there was no reason for that kind of cruel neglect - nothing but unwillingness to take responsibility for a creature's life. I would apply that regardless of who it was enacting the cruelty. I suppose in some way cruelty might be a rather subjective term - 'meat is murder' is one of the most inane arguments I've come across but I'm willing to allow that most commercially mass-produced meat likely is unjustifiably cruel. But surely at some level cruelty is cruelty - when it is unnecessary, wasteful, unthinking; there are few arguments I would countenance as a justification for it. I don't deny that life is cruel, but we need not be. And particularly, as here, when it is just crude thoughtlessness, neglect - there is nothing so awful as ignorance, nothing so profoundly disgusting as cruelty born of ignorance without any excuse. These people cannot claim that they did not know; knowing, then, the only conclusion is that they did not care. And that is simply not acceptable.

Did I forget that the sun is shining? Nope. Just wanted to get that out. The sun shines on; my garden will provide dinner tonight!

An Open Letter of Thanks

I name all the cats on the streets where I live - I have since living in Kingston during my undergrad. Here, we have LaFonda and The Black Cat (TBC) and lovely, lonely little Marx. He got his name cause he has a funny black patch on his head that looks like a Groucho Marx wig and a little black spot on his nose - a moustache. Anyway, I've never been fond of Marx's people - Yes, I do judge people by how they treat animals - I also judge people who are irrationally scared of animals and really, if you 'don't like' animals, we're likely not friends. Nor do I likely have a high opinion of you. Back on track - Marx pretty much lived outside. He's just a young cat but lately I noticed that he just sat, rather sadly, on the steps outside his people's house - through sun and rain, wind and, well, more wind. The other day I went past on the other side of the road and he cried out at seeing me - so I walked over to give him a pat. He was skin and bone; his skin was yellow and he was weak. The door opened and some tarted up, bleach-blond, trakkie bottom wearing bint stands there staring. 'Is this your cat?' I ask. 'Yeh. But ee's been sick inside so I threw him out.' 'Oh...um...' - door shuts. Ever the cool one in these situations, I go back home and have a cry. Nas has better plans. He goes down to our neighbourhood friend who lives across from The Assholes. She's been feeding Marx for awhile and had thought he'd been looking worse but wasn't sure. Confirmed in her view by our reports, she acts.

So this is a letter to thank her. She called PDSA and got Marx an appointment; when the first vet said he had liver failure and would have to be put down, she got a second opinion. She had him tested for FIV and feline leukemia and has him at home, grateful for a little warmth and a diet of chicken and fish to get him back up to scratch. He was always a friendly little thing.

See the world needs more people who act - something I've got to do. And I'm also going to focus on her actions because focusing on The Assholes and what they suggest about the whole democratic system makes me see red. But I learned through her about PDSA so next time I'll know what to do.

Apparently The Assholes came over to her house to see 'if they were angry' - our friend and her partner had actually asked them if they could take Marx away. They had 'never really liked cats' and said their little boy used to just pull Marx's tail and hit him. They had apparently never stopped him from doing this. The lesson they had chosen to teach their children, apparently, was that responsibility can be given up - I've raged about this before - and I said I wasn't going to get angry anymore. They are not worth my time or my energy. They are less than nothing. They aren't my peers or my neighbours - I am, in fact, better than them in every possible way. Perhaps, when they get tired of their children (screaming fat brats from what I can see), they'll also end up outside.

But let me end and calm myself by remembering that, at least in this case, all it takes is someone with sense and compassion. Marx is safely in a home, purring on a radiator, enjoying chicken and fish. Thank you neighbour!

Normal parameters

I'm participating in a study for Health Psychology at the university here. Nothing is actually required of me except going in for a health check three times a year and answering some questionaires. I figured I'd get some feedback and get those all important stats on my fitness level generally. I was still nervous going in this morning, worried, as usual (for no reason in the world) that they would tell me that I was a mess physically (able, with doctor-vision to see that I had popcorn for tea followed by biscuits for breakfast and still prefer full-fat milk...).

But I'm normal. I met a work colleague outside the Psych department and managed to put down and forget the paper with my results. Luckily I remember them:

Blood pressure: 115/74
resting heart rate: 78
peak heart rate (I had to do a step exercise - 3 minutes x 3): 120
recovery rate (after 3 minutes): 105
VO2: 97%

Generally I say that numbers don't matter blah blah blah but hey, with numbers like those I don't mind if they do! I get to go back 1 year from now and repeat the test. So running and gardening seems to have paid off - who'd've thunk?

A brief respite for the eyes

My photography skills are very bad, but I thought for the benefit of my family far away I should post some pics from Amsterdam. Also, this blog has been rather text-heavy so here's a break...!
The one below is the lovely flat we rented with our friends - I wish I'd gotten a picture of our little garden patio. The cat was resident in an amazing bakery. The other cat resided like a king in the 'kattenkabinet' - a bizarre museum begun by an eccentric rich guy in memory of his ginger tomcat - very strange and full of mostly very bad art featuring cats... Everyone was a great sport in going with me!! The rest just things around the caught my eye...

Spring breaks

Amsterdam was fantastic. Exactly what was needed to get through the exam period - both at the library and in terms of the growing stack of marking ... I always find it strange to be in a city purely as a tourist. Firstly cause I'm so very much a home-body; not that I prefer to be in my actual home (especially now as we're still in the dingy terrace anticipating the move to our new digs at the end of the month) but because I like to be comfortable and familiar. We got a self-catering place in Jordaan between the Rosengracht and a side-canal. It does go a long way to feeling at home to have a 'home' to go to at night rather than a hotel. If we'd rented bicycles, we'd have fit right in!

The city is so quiet compared to Leeds - and so clean. Take everything with a block of salt, but it felt friendlier and more relaxed. I do think that the fact that there are just less cars on the road makes a huge difference. And the cafe culture! On the corner of our little street there was a little bar/cafe - straight out of some 'olde worlde' black-and-white film - where old men sat playing chess and smoking cigars, drinking innumerable cups of coffee and measures of Belgian beer (La Chouffe). We spent our last night there, playing 4-person chess and drinking beer. It was perfect. Our little flat had a wee garden at the back for a quiet glass of wine in the evenings as well.

Based on that - I could live there. Provided, as I mentioned to my friend over coffee this morning, that I was on permanent vacation. Is it too much to ask??

So now we're back in Leeds. The library is getting gradually quieter as the exam period winds down. Marking, on the other hand, is piling up! But at least it has a very firm deadline for finishing.

Exam Watch

Trends that mystify me in equal measure:

1. January - polo shirt with scarf, no coat, no hat, sunglasses.
2. June - t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops ... woolen cap worn like a limp smurf/dwarf hat.

Things that especially are irritating today:

1. students blithely coming IN the EXIT at the library and then arguing that they are 'already in' when I ask them to go back and go through the barrier.
2. students.

Things that I like:

1. I have finally found a pilates class that I can attend starting next week. Very excited about this as pilates is amazing and really does improve my posture and go a long way to easing the tension I carry around in my shoulders and neck. I think it will go miles in improving my mood at work these next few weeks - during Exam Watch.

2. And our perfectly timed weekend away will also help: Amsterdam in the spring. What could be more perfect? My gran has already warned me that it is a city of drugs and criminals, and fore-warned is fore-armed. We've gotten a self-catering flat in Jordaan with our friends and travelling-mates. It looks divine - it's likely just liveable (I have little faith in the reality depicted in online advertising photos...). But its away from work, away from the city with its binmen on strike, away from the stressed out, rude students, away away away!

reflecting on the right

Weather: still amazing.
Library: still packed.

Went running for the first time this year without layers - my beautiful MEC top stayed home. And it was still hotter-than-comfortable in the direct sunshine. Beautiful.

Then spent the morning making granola and flipping through my thesis in preparation for writing a conference paper (or cut-and-pasting a conference paper!) tonight for Saturday. Now, I'm gazing longingly outside from my prison/place of employment ... afternoons are the best part of the day. I wish I worked mornings!

In other news, or at least from other news sources, this is pretty terrifying. This country is leaning so far right we may actually tip over and crash into France - who are, in turn, going to fall over into Europe and so forth. Domino effect? Hmm... I don't understand how an educated, privileged person can actually advocate violence to fight violence. This is the world we live in - and people still ask why I don't want children.

I'm being flippant.

And this is a serious topic - our home secretary actually wants to give police the power to 'harrass' people who are perceived to be acting against 'normal' conventions, offending 'normal', law abiding citizens, defrauding the system that 'normal', decent, quiet people have set up to continue their normal, decent, quiet lives. The level of stereotyping going on here is astonishing: ASBOs are only ever a problem of class which is only ever a problem of 'stuff', cars and tellys (the things the government taxes) - indeed, part of the problem here seems to be people getting their hands on material goods that they then cannot afford (in taxes). No one who does pay their car tax or television licence fee gets and ASBO - ever. ASBOs are always given for well-thought-out reasons after careful consideration of the particular circumstances, including the source of the complaint. People who get handed an ASBO are merely rebels against quietness, goodness, decency, the British spirit, a good cuppa - they probably hate Eurovision and think that Marmite tastes of rancid dust. Unsavoury types, y'know?

I do appreciate that there are nasty people out there. Show me an avenue at dusk full of adolescents and I'll take the long way home. They are rude, irritating, disrespectul, ignorant, and possess a sense of entitlement nourished at the teats of the same government that now wants to 'harrass' them. But then, I live and breathe in the hallowed halls of academia and there are nasty, ignorant, priggish, arogant, rude, and horrid people here too. Fewer of them get ASBOs perhaps; most of them would duck out of taxes if they could - indeed, some of them likely make enough money to hire an accountant clever enough to do just that.

So where does that leave us? Cowering in our houses, clinging to 'decency', living quiet lives, and hoping that no one takes offence at us. Thanks but I'll be sitting outside on my stoop, enjoying a cuppa and the weather, griping about the neighbourhood kids, and generally trying to understand.

Sunshine and taxes

The library is in a state of high panic today - it's giving me a splitting headache. Which is too bad as I was in an elated mood all morning - well, nearly all morning. It is the first perfectly beautiful day of the spring. At least, I hope it is the first - rather than the only - perfect day of the spring. I walked into the city bright and early, clutching my carefully collected tax forms and ID. Naturally, I had to make the walk twice because the only paper they needed was one that I hadn't brought. But I managed to maintain my good mood all the way home and all the way back. With luck - actually no, I'm sure I'm due a refund! - I'll get some money back at some point...

For reasons unbeknownst to me, the powers-that-be of the library have decided that all of our security staff/facility assistants needed to attend training TODAY. It is the first day of revision week, the library is heaving, there are books stacked all over the place ... Thankfully, I'm only here til 6pm.

We had a really lovely time on Sunday at the festival - though the weather did its best to ruin it. It rained all day... in the end though it was quite fun as it felt like the blue-rinse crowd's answer to Glastonbury: expensive, organic food, really really good beer, and a brass band playing away all afternoon... Our shoes were muddy, our bellys full, and it looked like some kind of school trip as all 11 of us filed off the bus in Northallerton. We got some really amazing cheese, a mustard (can't leave a market without at least one condiment!), and some white chocolate with chilli - amazing. Pork sandwiches, sausages, and burgers, some really lovely ales and stouts made up our picnic/all-day-grazing. There's another one in York at the end of the month ... My mouth is watering already...

May Days

There are 2 bank holidays in May - this weekend and at the end of the month. Then, of course, in true British fashion, there isn't another one until the end of August. Why do I identify this as a national curiousity? Well, national curiosities are on my mind today (yes, I've been reading The Guardian), such as: why have two bank holidays in a single month followed by a veritable drought of free time during the loveliest months of the year (hopefully...)? Or why worry about binge-drinking students when the same anxious government cuts funding, cuts employment opportunities, and royally screws the economy, thus ensuring that when they graduate, students immediately resort to drink?

Or, how does this become the Lord Mayor of London?

The positive spin has this tow-haired, ignorant relic of the private school system and patriarchal privilege making such a hash of the next four years that the Conservative party will sink out of sight for the national elections. The reality of it is likely closer to a functioning democracy voting for the person they actually believe represents their views. Which is to say, secure the crockery, we're shifting to the right.

***
Tomorrow is our annual pilgrimage out to Leyburn for the real beginning of the summer: the Dales' Festival of Food and Drink. This year it's perfectly timed to mark the end of teaching - and thus, sadly, the end of one source of income! Ah, the life of the over-educated and woefully underemployed...

warning: wavering possible

It is possible that this blog is a more transparent window to my moods than an accurate reflection of my opinions. In the world of things that are possible, that is one of them. I'm not going to come down either way.

But having spent the morning waiting for our new refridgerator (more on which later) and playing around on the site I posted about yesterday, I found myself giggling a little bit. Okay, so it might be a bit funny after all. I maintain that it isn't parody - of any kind really. But I'll retract a bit from my intractable stance of yesterday and say, it is pretty funny. Perhaps I had momentarily lost my sense of humour after all... I blame encroaching exam period at the library - the stress is tangible - and it's starting to smell on the upper floors where they congregate in the greatest density...

Yes, new fridge - very exciting. Of course, we're moving in two months and we've been complaining (nicely) about the fridge for the last year so, typically for our landbarons, too little too late. The seal around the fridge door has been gone since we moved in, which means it has cost us more than it should to run at all. Luckily, the new flat has a lovely new fridge as well - tho Nas was, for a second, concerned that the old fridge would turn up, poltergeist-like in the new flat to terrorize us... (insert Psycho soundbite here). Unlikely.

So there, another chapter in which our heroine pondered much, said too much, and retracted a little with grace.

limits, on pushing

I've tried and failed to find this site funny. I had a momentary crisis of doubting my own redoubtable sense of humour. Then, I realised that it wasn't in fact, as The Guardian described it, 'a sizzling parody of middle-class liberal values'. That description is simply a product of middle-class liberal white guilt - something The Guardian has far too much of and desperately needs to pass some off to The Times in some kind of moral 'cap and share' scheme. But before I digress...

It seems to me that the catch-all excuse - it's only a laugh - is allowed far too much play. And I'm a fan of play - I'm all over that Derridean play of language and totally against the Orwellian shut-down of meaning blah blah blah. The thing is, that site isn't playful. I would draw your attention particularly to this entry, in which, surprise surprise, women get to be the brunt of the joke - how original! how cutting! how risque! My what sizzling parody!

The problem with such rapier wits is that they make themselves proof from criticism. There is no attempt to engage alternate viewpoints, no dialogue; merely juvenile sarcasm in place of 'parody'. I'm not sure who the reviewer for The Guardian is, but I can recommend some excellent texts that might begin to advance his/her understanding of parody beyond: 'it's funny cause it is (not) me' (the high-water mark of liberal white guilt and the consolatory recompensation: we laugh at ourselves - hey, it's not racist if the target's white, right?!

Oh wait, is that parody?

Or just sarcasm?

And which one is the lowest form of wit?

Foundations

Yesterday saw the most glorious spring weather - the kind of afternoon that makes up for nearly a month of grey skies and rain. Everything burst into bloom - audibly. A perfect late April read-outdoors-with-a-cuppa kind of day. Crowned in every way by Nasser's successful viva. A house of two doctors we are!

It's funny - I've always explained that we're moved here to do our PhDs and now we're finished and that's not the most interesting, most compelling, or most important thing keeping us here. We live here - we've lived here longer than anywhere else. This is, in so many ways, our home. I've been thinking that I always understood 'home' as singular and felt guilty about using it to describe anywhere but Canada. But I don't think that it is a singular thing anymore - Canada will always be my home but Britain is my home too. The only thing that I continue to miss - strongly enough to return to - is my family. It's strange that we all live so far apart now. And I do feel guilty about staying here sometimes - worried that they don't know how much I miss them, or that we'll drift apart and be strangers. But I'm also not ready to leave here - I love it: our garden, our (new!) flat, our little community of ex-pats and Brits... I guess I feel like I have to say that - we aren't here anymore 'for school' - we're here by choice because this is where - for now and I don't know for how long - we live. I'm home.

***

I really must express this or it will come out in some horrible repressed and displaced fashion: I really really intensely dislike the use of ultrasounds as avatars on Facebook. Please stop. It's horrible.

Free Education

Among the stranger things I've seen while stationed at the Reception desk of the library - a student protest for free education just passed by the steps. I'm not sure if they are intending to take their protest elsewhere - they're on their way now. There were about 50 of them - hopefully they will collect stronger numbers before appearing in front of the administration.

Free education. I'd be more interested (in a selfish way) if they could work in a grandfather clause so's I could get back my tuition...

But in a universal scheme - yes, free education would be nice. Even dropping tuition fees would be a gesture in the right direction. I don't know which is worse: students who demand grades reflecting the financial investment rather than any intellectual investment in their work, or students who don't care cause it was all free. But I've just had a dreadful two hours trying to get my students to ask questions and discuss the material we've supposedly been learning for 10 weeks... So I'm possibly not in a very positive frame of mind!

Which also makes me too tired to ponder for long.

Excessive laziness

I stole this meme from my friend's Facebook page...yes, that is just how lazy I am today. But I like answering questions about myself - hell, I think that might be a species-wide quality.

1. What is your natural hair colour? Brown

2. Where was your profile picture taken? This one doesn't make sense away from Facebook - What's your favourite picture of yourself? One of Nas and I taken on our wedding day - it's a candid snap and we're both laughing.

3. What's your middle name? Andrea

4. Your current relationship status? Married

5. Honestly, does your crush like you back? Um...unlikely...but I'll hold out hope on the basis that Mr Tennant's filming schedule keeps him pretty busy and we haven't actually met yet...

6. What is your current mood? Lazy

7. What color underwear are you wearing? Y'know, I wonder why all memes have something completely ridiculous in them? Let's change this one: What can you hear right now? The washing machine, the telly, and one of my cats chirping at her toys.

8. What is one thing that makes you happy? My cats.

9. Whats The Last Thing You Bought? Must be important, as all the words get a capital letter...12 tomatoes, 4 bananas, 6 eggs, 2 pints of milk...oh and some chocolate digestives.

10. If you could go back in time, and change something what would it be? Hmm...I'm too lazy to think of anything that might mean I'm not exactly where I am right now...

11. If you MUST be an animal for ONE day- what would you be? A house cat - specifically MY house cat...I don't know what they were in past lives but that is some powerful-good karma.

12. Ever had a near death experience? Likely, but you never hear the one that hits you.

13. Something you do a lot? Talk

14. What's the name of the song stuck in your head right now? honestly...damn; the Kingsmill bread jingle from telly...

15. Who did you copy and paste this from? An old friend from uni in Canada.

16. Name someone with the same birthday as you? Boring. I do know that the Diet of Worms ended with the Edict of Worms on my birthday in 1521; and that John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching evolution 52 years before I was born (1925); the Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup for the first time on my birthday in 1989. And just to satisfy the question, I share my birthday with Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Beverley Sills. It's also the holy day of Saint Urban, Saint Bede, and Saint Augustine of Canterbury.

17. When was the last time you cried? I did get a bit choked up in last night's episode of Pushing Daisies.

18. Have you ever sung in front of a large audience? Yes.

19. If you could have one super power what would it be? I always go for flying here...yea - yea I'll stick with flying.

20. What's the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Depends why I'm looking at them.

21. What do you usually order from Starbucks? I don't.

22. What’s your biggest secret? Idiotic. Who makes up these things? Change it again: How do you feel about secrets? Not a big fan really. They bore me.

23. What's your favorite color? I don't have one - but I like a warm palette

24. When was the last time you lied? Last seminar I taught - I always say that I'm really excited and interested in whatever text we're studying, regardless of my actual loathing... Funny thing though, by the end of the seminar, my students' interest gets to me and I come away actually being pretty into it...

25. Do you still watch kiddy movies or TV shows? ALL THE TIME - repeatedly. I plan to watch Powerpuff Girls later this afternoon.

26. WHAT HAPPENED TO 26? Got married, moved to England, started PhD.

27. What are you eating or drinking at the moment? See above - Tetley's tea and a hobnob.

28. Do you speak any other language? I speak Academic as well as Teacher. I can understand Lancashire and Yorkshire - and depending on who I'm talking to, apparently I do speak another language. And yes, I speak enough Quebecois to order a beer, ask for the bathroom, and get back to my hotel in Montreal.

29. What's your favorite smell? Too many - a sampling: mown grass, the garden, roasting veg, coffee, the house I grew up in, my grandparent's house, fresh sawdust, Algonquin park...

30. If you could describe life in one word what would it be? If I could describe life in one word, I would be very sad indeed.

31. When was the last time you gave/received a hug? I just aggressively cuddled Logan...

32. Have you ever been kissed in the rain? I suppose.

33. What are you thinking about right now? How trivial it is whether or not I've ever been kissed in the rain! And now how long that has occupied my mind...

34. What should you be doing? Re-reading the novel I have to teach this week; working on my conference paper, working on my job applications.

35. What was the last thing that made you upset? 'Upset' like hysterical? I don't get upset - I was mildly annoyed on Saturday night because we had a lovely time out with friends, disrupted only by the presence of one of the rudest and most tactless cocks I've ever met.

37. Do you like working in the yard? Yes and wish the weather would improve so as to spend more time there.

38. If you could have any last name in the world, what would you want? Something Dickensian... or Peakean (from Mervyn Peake).

39. Name 5 things in your closet: No closets in our current place - in my wardrobe: shoes, handbags, clothes, gardening jeans, coats.

40. Do you act different around your crush? I do occasionally get a bit over-excited during Doctor Who...and was willing to forgive his less than stellar performance in Bright Young Things.

exorcising fear

So I saw The Exorcist on the weekend.

Perhaps it was the sheer amount of food - mostly meat - that I consumed before watching; or perhaps the company while watching; or maybe I'm just mature enough to handle it - but it wasn't very scary. Perhaps it would have been more frightening if I had been expecting something less terrifying than more - or something completely different (as when I watched Dogville, expecting a rather silly gangster flick...). Okay, some of the images are disturbing - mostly cause Linda Blair is just so angelic looking in the opening scenes. Maybe its the fairly horrendous 70s fashion Ellen Burnstyn sports - or the questionable 'attractiveness' of the men - or just the truly surreal opening scenes set in Iraq.

It's just that the extreme campiness and over-determined sequences are a bit hard to take - at least from the perspective of this weary and desensitised viewer and critic of Gothic horrors. I only stayed awake and jumping at shadows for ONE night. Ha! Se7en kept me up for weeks. Is it just the sheer novelty of the film for its time that made it so terrifying? It is, after all, one of the most popular and highly-grossing horror movies of all time - its earnings, according to Wikipedia (take as you will), $400 million worldwide. It was up for 10 Academy Awards (take that as you will as well) and won 2 (Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay) and lost the Best Picture award to The Sting. Apparently, Jon Landau of Rolling Stone called it 'nothing more than a religious porn film'.

It does rather feel empty of plot - just a voyeuristic journey into the weirdness of Catholic rituals and rites (which even the learned Father Karras distances from the modern operation of the Catholic Church) - there is no reason why Regan MacNeil is possessed and the devil doesn't really seem to have a plan. The horrific medical tests are more disturbing than the exorcism - though the priests do rather casually burn Regan-as-the-devil with holy water and the like. It's kinda like the final lines of Judas's show-stopping number in Jesus Christ Superstar: 'If you'd [Jesus] have come today, you would have reached a whole nation/Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication'. If it is the DEVIL - why appear in the body of a 12-year old girl? Shock value alone? Darryl Jones suggests that The Exorcist be understood as part of a trilogy of 'Satan' films, appearing between Rosemary's Baby and The Omen. As a question of adaptability, Satan clearly comes to grips quickly with the details of privilege in 1970s America: by The Omen, Damien (the Antichrist) ends up as no less than the president's (surrogate) son. I suppose I'd also agree with his reading of the film as a discussion of the corruption of the flesh discourse in Catholicism - the devil really goes to town for that one soul, threatening to stay until Regan's body rots (which it clearly begins to do throughout her possession) in the ground. And little wonder that the body contested is a young woman. I like the (albeit) overdetermined scene in which Regan writes 'help me' on her own body from the inside. It's tortured but certainly evocative of life in a teenaged body.

Maybe I'm dismissing the things that are actually quite important if I twist them around and look at them awry.

So Regan is 12-going-on-13 - from Chris's (her mother's) perspective, she is a potentially terrifying little bundle of possibility. The picture Regan is looking at in bed is herself with her mother - which her mother dismisses as not a very good picture, saying that Regan looks 'so mature'. The lack of plot? Well, it is the DEVIL - maybe he doesn't really go by this self-justification rationale for showing up. Maybe a 12 year old girl is a really good place to be - perhaps, given the potentials unleashed by the popular uprisings of 1968, a young girl (particularly, notice, without a father) raised by a stong single woman was something to be feared: she might grow up to be a feminist. (gasp!) The ending, with the self-sacrifice of Father Karras, is interesting - Angelheart makes it more explicit, with the flash of green energy in the beautiful baby's eyes - but Regan's innocent unknowing is more interesting. Has she really forgotten? And how then, exactly, did mommydearest explain the abrasions and lacerations on her body (bruises still visible in the last shot as they drive away).

I also do have to wonder how Burnstyn's character managed to stay in the house with Regan-as-the-devil... I mean, wow, ovaries of steel, that one has!

The long and short of it, it isn't scary - its actually pretty funny. But I can see how it is such an iconic film. And I'm glad I saw it.

Next, The Car. With steaks. Really rare steaks.

Migration

Maybe it's the flocks of birds returning with the spring but immigration has been in the news (read: The Guardian) quite a bit these days. I thought this was an interesting article - in that kind of snapshot way of reporting that purports to make no judgements on the information. But nonetheless, it is intriguing. I guess I am an immigrant right now. Huh. But I've never been referred to - or had cause to refer to myself as - an immigrant in this country. And I noticed that the people interviewed mostly fit the traditional, narrow construction of immigrant - though I'm interested in the comments from the Irish and Australian women. Whenever I think of immigration or even the university's apparent understanding of 'international' I remember a strange fellow I encountered while working at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor. He was American, but without identification of any sort, so we directed him to Canadian immigration. Outraged, he pointed at the substantial queue outside the immigration office - made up that particular day of an extended family immigrating from India and another from Mexico - and insisted that he wasn't from 'another country'. Upon our patient explanation that the United States was, in fact, 'another country', he became more hysterical (wearing I should add a powder-blue leisure suit) and with the air of speaking to a very young child, said that 'well, he wasn't from another country like they (pointing at the queue) were from another country'.

Huh.

The sunshine has returned - albeit only in brief moments that ensure I am perpetually grateful for it. Running has returned as a firm part of my schedule. Teaching is nearly back for the final three weeks of term. May is very nearly upon us and I will then have cause to reflect on another year. Things keep moving and shifting and changing and I don't feel that I'm 'on top' of everything - nor to I feel dragged under; I just feel like going with the flow.

new things

We've had a 'new' week - new shoes, new flat, new bed-linens ... it's nice on the soul, if a bit painful on the paycheque! But at least I can say that nothing was an impulse buy and everything was needed - and kinda overdue. I still have buyer's remorse though - which is ridiculous. It's clearly the result of conflict between my excessively practical side and my fluttery spending side.

But I did need new shoes - my good old black boots haven't quite given up the ghost but they can't be my daily wear anymore. The seam broke on the leather so I've taken them to be restitched - again. The woman at the counter recognized me and my poor old boots. But they are comfy and otherwise okay, so I'll give them one more life: resoled, re-stitched, and cleaned up. And I bought a pair of shoes; I usually (always) wear boots but it's summer (well, will be someday) and they have rainbow stitching so I was hooked.

AND we found a new flat for July - which is so exciting that neither of us really want to stay in this place anymore... we always do that though: when we moved from our old place to here it was the same. But this new place is far far nicer. It's a lovely 2 bedroom flat with no carpets and closets - no stupid, space-wasting wardrobes - closets. And it is on an upper floor, has windows on two sides, has no smell of mold or damp, no spots on the walls... it is perfect. And has the added comedy value of the cats skidding around on the floors when they play!

Just to finish off the week as well we finally bought some new duvet covers - the cheapest we could find (yea...Ikea...which means that our bedroom now looks like everyone else's) but they are bright and colourful. They feel spring-y. And our last sheets were ready for the rubbish bin.

And still a week off of teaching - Easter break is four weeks - which works well in this instance as I still haven't finished marking...

March weekends

I'll withhold judgement on whether March is going out lion- or lamb-like. The 'earliest Easter since 1913' kinda threw me - I always use Easter as a first weekend of spring kind of date. Not so this year. On the Saturday of the long (yea!) weekend, we went up to the allotment to dig and were blown home by snow, sleet, and a bitterly cold wind. It being Yorkshire, of course, by the time we got five minutes from the allotment, the weather had changed to sunshine that was very nearly warm, so we sat outside and had a pint or two instead.

The library is dead these days - Easter break for my students is four weeks long. I've got next week off, which will be so lovely and undoubtedly entirely productive. That's the plan anyway. Plans plans plans - such a spring thing.

erratum

My mistake - the 'article' is actually an excerpt from a book about organized crime worldwide - McMafia, I believe is the trendy title...

heart-breakers and life-takers

At least it isn't the perenially adorable and always vulnerable harp seal pups this time - no Sir this-an-that to wax on about the barbaric disruption to nature by a bunch of barely civilized, provincial hacks - but my homeland 'strong-and-free' is in the Guardian again. And I kinda like how it's still stuck on some time-honoured phraseology of Canada - 'The Dope Rush'; all we need is a modern day Robert Service and a memorable poem or two about 'The Cremation of Dan the Dope-head' or the 'Ballad of the Border Guard' and were right back in those halycon days of yore.

Ah - "nice, peaceful, dull Canada" - excuse me while I get my true north rage on.

On second thought, never mind. I'm tired, at work, and there is too much pap in this article to be particularly bothered about it. In passing, I'm particularly interested in the depiction of British Columbia as populated entirely by loggers - I'm assuming that, for this reporter, these are the 'ordinary folk of western Canada'. Apparently, they talk little, are good with their hands, and fall naturally from felling trees to organized crime.

I've got to find another daily...

Sci-Fi Chic(k)

Is there a badge or possibly t-shirt out there with the text 'Original Nerd' on it? Cause I want one - just to establish my cred in this new world of 'geek is the new black' [on a side note, I'm intrigued by the seeming interchangeability of 'nerd', 'geek', 'dork' - given their original denotative functions - I don't really see that many Babylon 5 fans biting the heads off of chickens for example...]. I remember when John Wyndham's The Chrysalids was standard reading for the grade 10 curriculum (is it still?) - not to mention short stories by Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury - and they weren't taught as 'genre fiction', but in the same breath as 'quality' writing by Margaret Atwood, Sinclair Ross, and Hugh MacLennan. So it seemed natural to me to follow my interests and, being the inquisitive mind I am, I went ahead and read not only Fahrenheit 451 but also Something Wicked This Way Comes and Dandelion Wine; 'The Electric Ant' was followed quite naturally in my world with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and 'Through a Scanner Darkly'. I liked Greek myths, and Ojibway Nanabush stories, and watched The Last Unicorn until I knew every line - and that didn't go away with adolescence or even adulthood. Maybe my preference for playing alone and fairly uncontrolled imagination (which still leaves me often at the mercy of electric light and sound in the wee dark hours after watching, say, The X-Files or Watcher in the Woods...) made me comfortable with looking awry at the world and quite sure that it was looking awry at me in return.

Of course, sci-fi isn't only the new black, it's the new green: we just saw the premiere of the new Bionic Woman - which is hot on the heels of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Heroes. Star Trek and its increasingly nauseating spin-offs have always been there; Battlestar Gallactica, Buck Rogers, Knight Rider, Quantum Leap, The Six-Million Dollar Man, Lost in Space, Stargate, Life on Mars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, The Hulk, Lois and Clark, Smallville, Roswell, Kyle XY, Jericho, Xena, Hercules, Doctor Who, Torchwood, The X-Files... However critics cut it, dissect it, rip it to pieces for being 'escapist', 'ephemeral', 'popular' - it appeals and it sells and it' s just damn slick and cool while doing so. It is reductive and, indeed, escapist in itself to maintain the critical perspective that genre writing (and I know I'm discussing television pretty much exclusively here) somehow doesn't matter - that it is junk, cultural trash; pointless at best, actually harmful at worst. It's popularity and disposability (though DVD culture has interferred significantly with television as an ephemeral experience) do not impact on its truthiness (I've always wanted to use that word) - to paraphrase Foucault, just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's not true; I would trust a genre that calls attention to its illusion and disjunction more than one which pretends to 'realism' without ever admitting to a fascistic agenda. Which is not to say that sci-fi or fantasy cannot be put to nefarious use - it's still (and perhaps poetry is ahead of it in this sense - though I use ahead cautiously) written by us and we are still nefarious critters - or at least, unknown and unknowable in a way that I sometimes think is glossed over by transparent cinema and writing.

['Nefarious', in passing, is a beautiful word for a negative (?) quality - like malevolent - I always liked Mellificent just on her name alone.]

I'm also currently fascinated by the gender debates in which shows like (at the moment, tho there are older examples) The Bionic Woman and The Sarah Connor Chronicles are participating. Nas pointed out that the 'evolution' of the terminator for example seems to be from the Mr. Universe-buff Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator to the apparently diminutive, slight, but leathally capable Summer Glau in The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I still have to read Donna Haraway, I confess, but I'm intrigued by the invigorated femininity of the cyborg in current media - in a world of either machines or magic, strength, to paraphrase Morpheus, has nothing to do with size - do we still think that's air we're breathing?

So this is my badge: this ain't no bandwagon I'm jumping on here - I've got the cherry seat by the window in the back. I am the one you have to pass to use the loo, I know more than you do, and I've been here longer. So entertain me - don't make the mistake of underestimating me.

weather maps

I'm not sure where Leeds is in a whole mystical cartography - but it must be blessed somehow with being just beyond the reach of earthquakes, storms, floods, high winds ... perhaps that is why it never shows up on the BBC telly weather maps, which always seem to take perverse pleasure in showing York, Sheffield, Wakefield, Huddersfield but not Leeds, forcing us Leodeans to approximate the weather (not difficult - it'll likely be wet, best take a cardy and carry a brolly). We don't have any stone circles near us - that I'm aware of - indeed, if there is a candidate for a more prosaic, earth-bound spot in the whole of the UK, I'd like to see it.

lockdown

So Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, claims that the great benefit of ID cards is that people's identities would be 'locked to them'. Is that the ideal? People 'locked' into their identity? And it does beg the question - in my mind at least - what exactly is the identity that Smith feels people are so vulnerable in that need - nay, desire - to be 'locked' into? It is an interesting formulatio nof idenity as as bounded, limited space; something that can be locked: a closet, a box, a room - something, first and foremost, that can belong to one person and must be guarded from invasive fraudsters that would steal it (the 'lock' metaphor does connote the idea of value and thus the desireability of the thing to theives - the curious crime referred to glibbly as 'identity theft').

I've been discussing the concept of the sublime with two of my seminar groups this morning - and I, at least, have a ponderous headache (that is, caused by pondering). They tackled Shelley's Mont Blanc very well and I hope that I didn't add chaos to confusion. I was let down in my pedagogy today by the perverse machines - my friend who studies J.G. Ballard complimented me on the phrase - in the PG common room which refused to open the lovely and genius handout I had made for my seminars summarising the key points and terms of Longinus, Burke, Kant and Wordsworth. They were generous enough to look sincerely hopeful and interested when I promised to email it to them instead - bless ... I'm the doddering old prof already.

Completely lateral references today in seminar: BtVS (1), Star Trek (1), Minority Report (1) - to be fair, the last one came from a student first, I just ran with it...

Calling

I get it - or at least, I get it right now and I'll try to hang on to it for awhile - or I'll re-read this post occasionally: I get why I like teaching. I wrote a reference for a student back in January applying to law school. He was a very good student - quick to respond, willing to engage, and a nice cynicism and critical edge. How true is it that teachers respond best to students that remind them of themselves? Or at least, students that remind them of how they wished they could remember themselves. The point being, he just came up to me at work and told me he got two place offers!

I know I have little to nothing to do with his success - my reference certainly didn't make or break his application - but I'm so strangely proud! Not 'strangely' because I think I shouldn't be proud - but 'strangely' because I usually don't see my students after the last seminar. The way that teaching tends to work here I get them for one semester and might see them in the library thereafter. But I rarely notice when they graduate, and don't know them much beyond the faces they present in my classroom/consultation hour. This was the first reference I've written - the first student who has really sought my assistance after leaving my seminar behind. Maybe it's also cause the sun is shining and it was just a nice thing to hear - a bonus on an already alright day.

And I suppose it makes me aware - fleetingly - of how generous students can be - which is really a positive spin on how draining they can also be. It should be a privilege to teach and it is discouraging and depressing how rarely that is seen as the case. Equally, of course, it should be a privilege to learn - but that's not often in evidence either.

In short, I am really proud of my student who got into law school and I definitely plan on saying, when he is a famous lawyer (human rights or environmental preferably!), that I used to teach him back in the day ...

Lions and lambs

So I can't access my Facebook account right now - site maintenance - and ... um ... it's actually making me kinda anxious -- which in turn is making me kinda anxious about my mental stability. I'm mostly joking - mostly. It reminds me of being back at Queen's and using that ancient email system - I think it was run from the DOS shell - it regularly crashed and I couldn't check my emails which were rapidly becoming the only way to communicate - it was free and most everything else, as my tender young self was beginning to realise, was not.

I've just had a kind of memory flash: I am walking beside the Stauffer library towards the entrance (Stauffer's tomb), and the JDUC is on my left. It must be early spring - later than now - because the sun is shining and I can smell lunch from the Skylight cafeteria. I can picture perfectly the entrance foyer at Stauffer - granite and rich, red wood and steel - there are six email PCs to the right and always a queue for them. It's funny but I've never considered that there was no 'PC suite' in the library - and only about 6 catalogue/email PCs per floor. I loved spring in Kingston.

As I do here - English springs come early - there is an apple tree on the grounds of the mosque next to us already in bloom; crocuses and daffodils are up in Hyde Park. I can't tell if March came in like a lion or a lamb though - last night was a most terrific storm with lashing rain and gusts so strong that walking was like swimming against the current of a river in full spate. The sound of the wind in the trees in Hyde Park was almost deafening - I love that sound. This morning, however, the sun was shining, the air is mild - and I'm waiting for the change. This is Yorkshire; if you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes - if you do like the weather, don't get comfy - and always pack yer brolly.

Luckily we spent the evening listening to the rain and wind while snug and warm, discussing garden plans with our fellow allotment-holders - nothing better for waiting out a storm.

work in progress

I know - another Guardian-inspired blog ... but I just couldn't help it! This is one of the greatest headlines I've ever seen:
The world is still organised to meet the wishes of men.

Um ... really? This does fit up there with 'binge drinking causes hangovers' and 'London not centre of universe as previously imagined'. No - seriously - REALLY? Huh. Gee, Guardian, just because you don't have a page 3 girl, did you think that balanced the scales?

I remain, world, as ever, your bewildered and adoring child.

how not to get in shape

1. Live in Leeds in February.

2. Look out window every morning and see: a) rain b) frozen fog c) regular fog d) have your eyes frozen shut and be frozen into the bed.

Okay, I can only come up with two things that don't point immediately to just being a lazy cow. But we did get back out there this morning and I already feel morally and physically superior to everyone who didn't. Especially the students we passed while running still clearly wearing their tribal gear from the night before - and/or clutching that last beer smuggled - ever the very crust of class - from the pub at closing time. Is this how Conservatives start? Is running a gate-way drug to right-leaning sanctimoniousness?

Hmm...well, possible feelings of moral and ethical superiority aside, it's more about not being the fat one at the wedding this summer! Ah it all comes down to fashion ... how shallow. Hey, the unexamined life isn't worth living, but the over-examined life -- well, that's just not living. It's all in the balance. And balance, as I just remarked this morning, is not my forte.

Tottenham is in the Carling Cup tomorrow. We're playing Chelsea but hey, "any given Sunday", right?

the white stuff

Woke up this morning to a snow-covered, rather urban idyll outside. It's mostly gone now but when I left for campus, the ground and the air were the same white. I like mornings like that - it's like pathetic fallacy: I feel like the whole outside world is coforming to the sticky, gauzy inside world of me before noon. Maybe it's the other way round - but it's Tuesday so I'll go with monomania. It's less stressful early in the week to believe I am the centre of everything. Doubt can seep in by Wednesday afternoon and by Thursday evening I'm awash with anxiety. But Tuesdays I shall keep holy for feeling on top of things - if only my little mole-hill.

It was another weekend of foodie-heaven: two meals, both unbelievably delicious and bringing together food, philosophy, laughter and the very best company. We had always heard longing, whispered tales of our friend's fried chicken - they didn't half do it justice. The trouble (or screaming bonus) with good food - good from living to killing to dressing to eating - is that it makes me keenly aware of the complete and utter scam played on diners by 95% of the food service industry. And, btw, that goes for vegetarian options as well - indeed, vegetarian 'alternatives' are generally the worst value-for-money on a menu. Luckily, Nas and I are surrounded by friends who are just as interested in (slightly manic about?) good food as we are - and, even better, are wonderful hosts of particularly discerning tables. I think often of Joseph Johnson's table in the 1790s, presided over by Fuseli's 'The Nightmare' hanging over the fire, and attended by the likes of John Thelwall, William Godwin, and Mary Wolstonecraft. We're that kind of smart. And pretty.


Does the world need my thoughts on eating meat? Not likely. I'm intrigued by the general discussions on the topic that I see and hear around me. Mostly I'm annoyed at the general assumption that someone who eats meat has done so without thought. I get stuck round this one - I agree in principle that the unexamined life is not worth living but gosh, what a pompous statement that is in some respects. And I'm justly (I think) irritated when anyone assumes that a choice that I make is not a choice but a habit. This is not to suggest that discussion cannot follow - I should be willing to defend my choices and to change my mind. That is, live a life constantly under examination.

That got away from me.

I've just bumped into a friend passing through the library who told me the most interesting thing of my day: the 'snow' this morning was not, indeed, the white stuff, but frozen fog. How bloody cool is that??

putting things in order

I have just finished clearing out old paperwork. There is nothing so depressing a old forms, notices, slips, receipts, letters, cards ... they create such a lot of MESS. Last year I had the bright idea of buying a hanging file-folder - as with most objects we buy to put what we already own in, it rapidly filled up and, by hiding what we already had, allowed us to accumulate more. Dastardly. It is those moments when - to paraphrase a childhood heroine - I am convinced of the depravity of inanimate objects. Our bank here insists on sending us a veritable novel each month - not just one, but one for each bloody account. Regardless of the fact that usually there is absolutely minimal movement from the accounts, each is detailed over a minimum of three pages. Over a year, that amounts to -- well, a whole bag of paper that has to be dragged to the office to go into the incinerator cause they've thoughtfully put my account number, sort code, and name on each piece. Then I remind myself that this is the same bank that sends out activated debit and credit cards - as our good friend discovered to her disadvantage. Honestly.

But the point is - it's all gone. Or at least displaced. Or deferred. Anyway, the box feels like a sanctified, organized space. Why on earth does clearing rubbish and achieving some small measure of order provide such psychological balm?

We're going for dinner at our good friends' place tonight - it occurs to me that I tend to refer to everyone I blog about as a 'good' friend. It's either a redundant phrase or a pleonasm. Anyone I think of as a friend is 'good' by definition. I mean, I can't really see my self describing someone a a 'so-so' friend. But then describing someone as an acquaintance sounds odd and 'colleague' sounds ridiculous outside of a professional context. But then, I don't consider the people I work with at the library 'colleagues' - likely, cause it's not my profession. And qualifying friends as 'work friends' just fragments my life too much. Then I have to start keeping columns and worrying about boundaries. I remember a friend back home saying jokingly, the first or second time I called to arrange to have a drink, that we were now 'phone buddies'. But were I to go out to the pub with the whole gang, there would be acquaintances and friends there - but I would relate the evening as a night out with friends, and include people I didn't know as well in that. I suppose because of shared space in both a physical and psychological/emotional space. I've just been reading about Judith Butler on kinship/family and remembering my own research into 18th century constructions of the term (via Naomi Tadmor and Ruth Perry and Jane Spencer) - and considering all that in terms of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which is to say, sorry for the digression....!

Dinner yes - to celebrate strange vegetables and our shared passion for cookbooks and food. I have a lovely collection of veg: squash, beetroot, rocket - and damn, just realised I'm out of cornmeal for the polenta I had invisaged. Back to shop.

Oh yes, and I have the OFFICIAL LETTER - I'm officially now Dr Kaley Kramer (PhD - Leeds). Damn ham. That sounds nice.