The issues and returns/enquiries office that I work in is all rich wood and bespoke shelving and I love it. Especially compared to the concrete and carpet of the Edward Boyle Library - which, I'm sure has its own charm to which I am not partial. In the sunshine, the reading room is glorious: sounds are sharp on the wood floors and desk but the air is rich and dusty. It is exactly the kind of space I thought I would have as a post-graduate student. And I'll miss my weekend team cause it was all so very casual and lovely. And I'll miss all the chocolate biscuits ...
In other news, I've done my first online shopping - for clothes (I'm an old hand at online bookshops!). I'm very excited. My friend recommended a UK company, Howies, which was having a sale, after I was complaining about the lack of options in the city centre: H&M (yuk and the shop is a tip), M&S (disappointing in that department store way), Primark (no, nay, never), Principles (Hah!) ... There is a Arkadash shop in Headingley, which is fantastic. I'm trying out another resolution - buying fewer clothes but of better quality (and therefore, I appreciate, more expensive). I was inspired by a woman I heard on CBC radio while I was home over Christmas who resolved for a year to buy nothing 'made in China'. I have problems with this seemingly arbitrary restriction, it is true that in Canada (or at least the Golden Horseshoe bit of it) it is increasingly difficult to find anything NOT 'made in China'.
It's strange because as much as I object to the gung-ho push to globalisation, particularly in the soft-sell, sentimental rhetoric that cloaks the deepest, darkest, most horrifying economic bottom line, I also would not advocate isolationism in any sense really. It's a thinker. But that being said I do find it easier simply to stick to clothing, food, and other products that I can at least stand behind in terms of my own ethics - which as I pointed out in an earlier blog are alright really.
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