Meme tag

Tagged by Jimbo, who was right, I did need something mindless to do tonight... which is why I was on his site in the first place!

Four jobs I've had:

1. Photographer
2. Food Bank director
3. Windshield installer
4. Day home operator

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. The Princess Bride - inconceivable!
2. The Lord of the Rings (yes, I'm a geek)
3. The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
4. Dogma

Four places I've lived:

1. Sao Paulo, Brazil
2. Regina, Saskatchewan
3. Calgary, Alberta
4. Watertown, Massachusetts

Four TV shows I love:
(this one's hard 'cause I don't watch a lot of TV... movies, yes... TV, not so much)

1. The Daily Show
2. South Park
3. Family Guy
4. hmmm... actually, looks like pretty much anything on Comedy Central

Four places I've vacationed:

1. Hollywood, Florida
2. Puerta Vallarta, Mexico
3. Lima, Peru
4. Jasper Park, Alberta

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Pluma Wareneki
2. Monte Cristo
3. Cheeseburgers (my downfall!)
4. Nachos loaded with everything

Four sites I visit daily:

1. This is your Brain
2. Summer's Daydreams
3. Weather Underground
4. Yahoo webpage

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. anyplace where the sun's shining and the temps in the 20s (celsius)
2. tomorrow - yes, if I say it's a place, it's a place
3. Calgary
4. Vancouver

Four bloggers I am tagging: Beck, Al, Duncan, Alex

Nerves

I am working very hard right now to calm my nervousness. My (final) oral exam is set for two days time. The exam itself makes me nervous.
The fact I haven't heard whether I passed the last written also makes me nervous because I don't think I performed as well on it as I did on the previous two... and I suspect it's just enough that I'm having nightmares of getting to the oral only to turned away and told I'll have to retake the third exam first. I know good preparation is the best solution, but I find myself having difficulty articulating what I want to say and making connections between the exams I just wrote and where I want to go next. I'm sure everything will be fine... I'm just having problems convincing myself right now.

UPDATE: I got the results back - although the one question was a bare pass, the second was strong so I passed the whole thing! Wahoo! Now for the oral I just need to be "specific" and "smart" in the words of one of my examiners.

The response

Apparently, according to a right wing think tank, Canadians are too liberal and hedonistic. Okay, so the liberal I'm not surprised about, coming from the right wing, but hedonistic? I always have considered a little hedonism a good thing.

The thing that really seems to chap the writer's ass is that "Harper could do almost nothing to encourage the Country to adopt a more reasonable view of the United States and to correct some premises of Cultural Marxism, which Canadians have espoused, such as same-sex marriage and abortion-on-demand"

So now, I get my dictionary out, 'cause I'm thinking I don't know what some of these key words mean and I find:

hedonism: "The ethical doctrine holding that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good" Pleasant = Good. No argument there from me.

Cultural Marxism is a bit harder to pin down. It's connected to political correctness and seems to be a fairly recently coined phrase. After surfing a bit and reading what's out there, I come to the conclusion that the SPL center sums up best what it is and does: ""Cultural Marxism," described as a conspiratorial attempt to wreck American culture and morality, is the newest intellectual bugaboo on the radical right" and Pat Robertson claims it is being used to "de-Christianize" the right. So now I guess the reference makes more sense to me. Glad to know that I do really know the meaning of *some* words! But if I have to choose, I'll choose Cultural Marxism if it means that I provide others with the greatest possible range of choices without inflicting my own beliefs upon them... and maybe that will lead to pleasant consequences, so I guess that makes me hedonistic as well.

I'm surprised the original article didn't mention the possibility of legalizing polygamy along with same-sex marriage and abortion on demand. Now there's a bugbear!

Drained

I feel drained after finishing the last written exam yesterday.


Part of it I'm sure is because I have a chest cold. I dosed myself with vitamins echinacea etc since I felt it coming on last week, and got through the exam okay, but today I feel horrible. Maybe because my immune system was actually boosted while I was still worrying about it. I know a TA I had in undergrad was doing work like these guys about the effects of acute stress on illness. Chronic stress is bad for your immune system, but researchers hypothesize that acute stress actually preps the immune system in anticipation of injury that could follow a short term stressor.

Long & the short of it? I feel icky today. Good about finishing the exam, but icky.

Also a little disappointed but mostly not surprised by the election results Monday. My candidate lost, which I kinda expected, but I'm not a strategic voter and go with the person I think will do the best job for my riding. I'm sure there will be some interesting alliances come out of this configuration, though I also hope that the things I value about Canada and look forward to returning to are not eroded by this new government.

Best line in election night coverage? Peter Mansbridge coming back from an interview with Stephen Page saying with a deadpan straight face "we all like the bare naked ladies" (there's a possibility I just found it funny because of the Nyquil though)

Just don't eat it

Happy Election Day Canucks! Enjoy marking your ballot... I'll be trying to catch some coverage on CSPAN here (they say they're covering it) but I'm also cramming for that huge exam, so my attention will primarily be elsewhere. Enjoy your right.

Not since 1913

has a bottle-nosed whale swum up the Thames. But there's one swimming in the river right now. You can also watch video footage of it at the site. Unfortunately, swimming in a river only 6-8 meters deep is not the most brilliant whale idea, so they're trying to coax it back out.

Minor adjustments

During the last few weeks, oldest daughter has been cleaning up her room. She's organizing her possessions under the overall category of 'what will I take with me to college?' (which strikes me as a bit early to worry about, but what the heck, at least she's cleaning up)

I get that she's planning to go to university next year, and I'm doing whatever she needs me to do to get her there, but it hasn't quite sunk in yet. I get that she's moving on to the next step in her life, becoming even more independent (it's highly unlikely given the schools she's looking at that she'll live at home) and starting to figure out what she wants her life to look like.

She'll be responsible for choosing her own meals, she'll need to get along with roomates instead of sisters, she'll be responsible for keeping a larger part of her living space clean, she'll have to make her own decisions about watching tv or doing homework without someone to remind her that homework's more important (yes, I'm baffled by it, but sometimes I still have to remind her), she won't be answerable to anyone for where she goes, how long she goes there or who she hangs out with, she'll need to figure out how to get around (possibly a new city) and how long it will take, she'll need to budget her money for things more important than just CDs and clothes, and the list goes on.

She'll do it. She'll make mistakes. She'll blow the grocery money on something trivial and eat Ramen noodles for a week. But she'll manage. I just have to keep telling myself that. She'll manage. We all did this at one time in one form or another. She's probably better prepared to care for herself than I was at the same age. Very soon it will be an awfully exciting/scary time for her.

The thing I don't think I've wrapped my head around is the idea that our family will look a little different next year. Of course she's always part of us, but if she's not living with us on a daily basis, then the day to day family interactions are going to look much different than they do now. Her mail won't come here anymore, I won't make dinner for 5 every day, each remaining sister only has one other person to yell at (yes, they get into three way 'arguments'), the chores list will need to change with fewer people here doing chores, I won't be able to talk to her everyday, I'll know less about what's up in her life. We've talked about how her life will change, but I haven't thought much about how our lives will change - those of us left behind. It's not empty-nest - there's two more at home who'll be here for a while, but it will require an adjustment that I just haven't thought out yet.

Maybe I'll wait to think it all through after we know where she'll be going (and where we're going to be as well!) Right now, I'm just going to enjoy the time we do have.

Feeling stretched thin

Not much new to report - pretty good weekend: great birthday party (as was last year's), good book club (though wish I'd been able to stay longer), good 'date' with hubby... well, some might think it weird for a date, but we went to see Hostel - nobody fainted so I was mildly disappointed, though I also couldn't see why people are fainting in this thing. There is a sequence where the camera moves with the character, rocking back & forth & I could see that making you queasy, but not fainting. Got lots of work done though, which was the point - all the social stuff was good motivation to get work done so I could reward myself.

Lots of work to be doing soon as I finish this. Furnace guys come to replace our old (and potentially leaky) furnace - thank god the temp is going up a bit more tomorrow, but I'm really hoping the house stays warm enough to work in. The department's in the middle of job talks for two positions - I like going to these - I went to the round last year - but timing might make it iffy that I make it for all of them this time round.

One week to go!

This Just In

January 25th - last written exam
February 1st - oral exam

Provided I don't mess up either of them, I'll be ABD by birthday time. Wish me (good) luck!

Florida

Traditionally (at least when there's been enough of the white stuff) I've made a snowman during the Christmas holidays. Not having any snow whatsoever this year, I resorted to making a Sand-man instead. Do you like him?

We enjoyed the sunshine (we were far enough west and south of where we live to gain an extra hour of daylight each day) and the sand of course. The water wasn't warm, but frankly, it was about the same temp as the ocean is up here in New England during the summer, so we went in anyway!

We also watched a dance group - Urban Dance - from New York, who performed on the beach on Friday night, which was a nice treat ('specially since it was free).


While we were in Florida, we attended a game of Jai Alai, which was very interesting to watch. The game originated in the Basque region of Spain and France and is a strange mixture of fast and slow paces. Watching it reminded me a bit of tennis, but also a bit of squash, though the intensity and speed at which the ball is played is much more intense, and the cesta ("basket") used to propel the ball is unlike any other sports equipment I've ever seen. Apparently in the US, Florida is the only state that still has frontons (the arenas in which it is played) thought the sport used to be much more popular.

We explored a mangrove forest by canoe, but suffered for a few days after from lots of bug bites. Of course we didn't have bug spray with us - I remembered the sunscreen, but really wasn't thinking bugs at Christmas time... I've had tropical Christmases before, but even then, we didn't have much for bugs (other than cockroaches, and they don't bite... or at least, I've never been bit by one...) so it never occurred to me we might need bug spray. The preserve's webpage never mentioned them either. But who am I to complain? We saw some interesting wildlife, and it was a nice way to spend the day.

No, the girls didn't go surfing. We spent New Year's Day at the Universal Studios theme parks. I woke in the morning not feeling well, which disappointed me because I was looking forward to the day, but luckily as the day went on, I felt better and was able to enjoy. We spent the whole day there, then drove a few hours before stopping for a hotel at the beginning of our trip back. The consensus was that the Spiderman, T2, Twister, and Hulk rides were the best, with the live Fear Factor show getting honorable mention.

The weirdest part of the trip? Apparently Hollywood, FL is some kind of huge francophone magnet because every third car in the parking lot had Quebec plates and you heard almost as much French being spoken on the beach as you did English. You could buy Quebec and Canadian newspapers, Canadian cigarettes and Quebecois cuisine all up and down the boardwalk. I had to wash my beach towel when I got home because I spilt poutine on in the last day there - poutine on the beach! - can you imagine?

Catching Up

So... lots of stuff's been happening & I haven't been blogging - mostly because I took a holiday from the computer, which frankly, was a really good idea for me. But now I'm back.

We bought a new car - finally! Well, it's not 'new' but 'new-to-us' so now we have a second car - wheee! - at least I won't feel so cooped up on days I'm at home, it'll be easier to motivate myself to the gym if I don't have to walk through snowbanks to get there, and we won't have those strangely-timed days trying to share one car. It has a standard transmission - which I generally prefer - though it's weird getting used to the odometer since it's in miles and I've been converting from kms the whole time I've been here.

Speaking of kms, we had some trouble puzzling out things like 83kms and 59kms chalked on the windows of some of the used cars we looked at until we figured out that it wasn't km for kilometer, but k for 1000 and m for miles! I'm sure Americans wouldn't think twice about it, but I had to puzzle it out the first time I saw it, cause when you write 'km' I don't think 'thousand miles' I think 'kilometers'!

My Dad is doing much better. I know I didn't blog this, but my Dad had a heart attack just before the holidays. He had some severe chest pain, and although his heart didn't stop (it actually stopped during the angioplasty procedure though), when they took him to the hospital to be checked out, tests showed that he had indeed had a heart attack. He came home just after Christmas and although says he feels weak (and doesn't like the restricted diet) he's getting better. It was a lesson is socialist medicine (of which Saskatchewan is one of the most socialist) that he waited about two weeks for the angioplasty, BUT he was kept in hospital the whole time so that if something did go wrong, help would be right there, which is good 'cause they live about forty minutes away from the nearest hospital.

We heard about his heart attack only a few days before we went on vacation, and although his condition was stable and there was no reason to postpone our plans, I did run around getting our visas updated and carried them and passports with us for the trip just in case. As much as I would've loved to see my family, I'm glad I didn't NEED to!

I was warned that driving in Florida might be annoying because Florida drivers are bad, but from what I could see, they still weren't as bad as Bostonians. We did run into some real idiots in the Carolinas though.

I gotta say, I love having teenagers when it comes to road trips. They now have the tolerance to sit in a car for three or four hours at a time without whining (like most adults are capable - note that I said "most") and they only need to blow off minimal amounts of stored up energy at the end of the day. Soooooo different from when they were younger! So the trip itself was pretty good - the only thing that would've made it better was if the two who are old enough to hold licenses had actually gotten off their keesters and gotten them, they could've taken a couple of hours a day and we could've driven less.

Since we were spending money on a vacation this year, we spent very little on gifts, but we did buy a Playstation2 as a family gift. I've never owned a gaming system before, in part because I'm not very good at video games (I never developed the hand-eye coordination when I was a teen because I was forbidden to go to arcades) and then when the kids were younger, I was concerned they'd spend too much time on it. So far, they've been pretty good about limiting their time on it - I think they've developed enough other interests that it won't take over their lives - but we've only bought two games for it, so it might just be that they don't like the two we have. I'm trying to avoid getting sucked into it as well, at least until my exams are done, but that might also depend on what games we get. So far, it seems to have been a good choice.

I read somewhere that the average American gains 7 lbs between Thanksgiving and New Years. I managed to actually lose 1 lb. which is good 'cause I put on some over this last year sitting on my butt doing all this reading. Maybe I avoided gaining weight 'cause I was in the sun & am solar-powered... yeah, I like that idea. If I'm really a solar-powered model, that would mean I would "need" to recharge in the sun every winter. I could go with that - a vacation in a warm place every winter would suit me just fine!

The warranty on the car ran out around Georgia

What a road trip! I haven't driven that far in I don't know how long... oh, wait,... I guess it was only four months ago... scratch that first statement. A summer's drive to Nebraska and a winter's drive to Florida are two different creatures, even if they do cover the same kind of ground.

But we're back. We've actually been back for a little more than a day, but coming back has felt way too overwhelming to sit down & blog. I decided to take an electronic holiday (except for a really quick peek at my email on the 23rd to check to see if I passed my exam - I did), which was really nice while it lasted. But now I'm sloggin through a huge pile of emails... 1100... and that's NOT including spam.

Too many listservs.

But they all have interesting discussions... at least some of the time.

Good news is that I've read everything up until yesterday, so I'm making headway. Now I need to go finish the rest & then blog the trip and a holiday report. Stay tuned.