Time

Time really annoys me some days.

The worst part about it is that something that is so abstract can actually be so annoying. Rude drivers are annoying, pop cans that spray when opened are annoying, screaming children are annoying, junk mail is annoying. These are all very tangible things.

Time is not tangible. Yet we treat it as if it is. We talk about spending it, saving it, stealing it, "clocking" it, having it (whether good or bad), marking it; it can both fly and crawl, it heals all things, we designate particular segments of it to die, to live, to reap, to mourn, to sow, we divide it and multiply it, add and subtract it... we even average it. We try to match it, to beat it, and usually are unhappy with the amount we have - we either want more or less of it.

Right now, I have too much... so I blog.

It's gonna be a hot summer

Ack! We hit 31 c today but I can't find the storage bin with my shorts or summer tops. I'm gonna cook this summer if I can't find them soon!

Dilemmas

I know it's not really a dilemma, since my guilt-ridden-mother conscience would never allow me to stop doing it, but I am sorely tempted to quit driving my kids to stuff.

I've spent about ten hours in the last couple of days driving people places...and the weekend calls for even more. I'm sorely tempted to hand them each a bus pass and say 'go for it'.

But I of course won't do that. It is taking a huge chunk out of my week just spending time chauffering people around - it's going to become a problem if it continues. I can't keep up this chauffering pace and still do all the studying I need to do. But it feels selfish to tell the kids they can't go to stuff because I have to study.

In all fairness, they've done a pretty good job of getting rides etc. when necessary and it's probably just the out-of-the-ordinary nature of the things I have to drive them to that's got me freaked out. One has three soccer practices and the other has a bunch of activities all having to do with her trip to Colorado this summer, most of which take place in a part of boston that is far away from our end of the world. Yesterday, it was driving 45 minutes each way in rush hour traffic, only to find out the group we were supposed to meet weren't there.

I hope this is the last busy driving week... *sigh* though I suspect it won't be.

Still waiting

I'm still waiting to find out if I'll have permission to work this summer. Which isn't a positive thing since the longer I wait, the harder it will be to find a good job. I was expecting to hear back in the middle of April, which was late enough. [I had problems getting information from the Alberta government that I needed with my application, so I submitted it much later than I had planned.]

I heard from them, but it was a request for more information. They said it could be as little as two weeks and as long as two months before I hear back. I'm getting edgy. Summer jobs are hard enough to find around here, but if I can't even put myself in the running for another month, I'm gonna end up scooping ice cream for tourists for $5/hr.

Working for peanuts in an unchallenging job seems hardly worth it. In that case, it might be better to spend the summer studying and try to shorten up the time it will take me to finish this degree so I can find (hopefully) a real job!

Subliminal messaging?

I found this photo while conducting a search for 'genre theory', so I don't exactly recall the connection that got me there... not that it's important.

At first I had no idea what the image was supposed to be showing, probably because I was thinking lit theory, and the title didn't really make sense to me at first, but then I realized the French writing was longer than the English on the tag and also realized that it wasn't exactly washing instructions in the last few lines. My French isn't so good, but I think I got the gist of the message.

I am amused.

Good food & energetic kids

Went to the Summer Search spring event last night. What is Summer Search you ask? It's a scholarship program that sends eager, good students with leadership potential on wilderness expeditions that usually involve a human service component.

Sandy's going through them to Colorado this summer.

We're still waiting to hear which program she'll attend, so we don't know the dates or the sequence of activities, but she'll be in Colorado or surrounding areas in the backcountry for somewhere around a month.

Scarier sending her away for a month to someplace I've never been than sending her and her sisters back home for a visit last summer.

But last night was a potluck dinner for the students and their families. Some of the students have some amazing stories. One student who spoke after the dinner was the first in his family to graduate high school, let alone go to college (which he's doing on a full scholarship). Another student was a former gang member who now attends Harvard Business school. Amazing kids...and mine is one of them.

Funders also attend the event, and students were encouraged to go talk to them and thank them for attending. Sandy's response to this? "No problem, I learned how to talk to adults because of all the parties you've thrown". Hmmm...is that actually a good thing? *grin*

Had lots of great food and heard some neat stories. I'm looking forward to Sandy's stories when she gets back home.

Happy Mother's Day

Don't know what I'll be doing for the rest of today. I was sick yesterday, so I still feel a bit shaky and it's raining so the outdoor plans the girls had made are out, so we'll see what is new.

Got breakfast, which was nice. But they were fighting about how to make the pancakes, which was not nice.

I know it sounds so sappy (and perhaps is unrealistic, but hey, it's my day and I can engage in flights of fancy if I like) but I think I would be thrilled to get a day at home where everyone tries really hard to get along. That would be a great mother's day gift!

The blind leading the blind

There's an institute for the blind that I pass on my way to school most days. Today, I saw two people heading toward it, both sporting white canes.

You know the saying "the blind leading the blind"? There's always the implication that the people or situation it's applied to is rootless, uncoordinated, or otherwise a useless, or ill-advised venture.

After seeing this couple, I don't think that saying 'means what it thinks it means'. They had a system that worked fabulously from what I could see, and seemed to work better with two of them than singly. The man was leading, sweeping his cane from side to side, as usual. The woman, because she was grasping his elbow (as she might another other person guiding her), was a half a pace behind, and she swung her cane in a half-arc, from the middle to the outside, away from the side her guide was walking on.

This way, they increased the width of sidewalk they were able to gather information about, and ran less of a chance of running into stuff. And with her half arc, she kept him from underestimating how much room she had between herself and obstacles without constantly hitting him in the process.

Looked pretty efficient to me. That saying is going to mean something different to me now everytime I hear it.

Body needs

My body needs food and rest. I think I can manage the first one pretty quick, but the second one will be a long time coming. Summer classes have begun, and NU is hosting the Cultural Studies Association conference here starting today, so I'm pretty busy.

I am NOT a morning person - these 8 am classes feel really brutal... and yesterday's felt especially brutal since I stayed up till the early morning hours watching the Flames kick the Wings collective asses with that fabuous last minute goal in overtime play. Sweet!

You know, the best thing about hockey is being able to share it with other people. I tell someone around here about the game and they just look at me with puzzled looks on their faces. Maybe its just English geeks, maybe its because its not the Bruins, maybe hockey culture is just that much more pervasive in Canada. Who knows - the result though is that I had nobody to share the excitement of the game with.

Since I can't get sleep, and can't find someone to talk hockey with, I think I'll go get food...

While I mess around with pictures

I've been trying to find a place to put pictures so you can see them ('cause I'm cheap and don't want to pay for the FTP version).

While I mess around and get more frustrated, I thought you might as well be entertained. I was highly amused by this summary of The Simarillion. Boiled down to 1000 words, it still captures the essence of a very long and detailed book!

Language adjustment

I was searching through archives for an event that I was hoping I'd blogged about so I could figure out the date when I noticed that the language I use in my blog varies considerably from month to month and even from day to day.

Sometimes I avoid swearing either by choosing other words or inserting those annoying symbols, and other times I just let it rip.

I suppose it comes from trying to imagine who will read that particular entry. Some of the people who I know have access to the blog detest profanity, others probably wonder why my language is so sanitary, when it isn't in real life.

My language in general is far cleaner than it used to be. I don't know whether that's because a) I'm getting older; b) I have kids; or c) I'm entering a profession that frowns on swearing (especially in front of the students!). Perhaps it's all three. With the kids, you know, I've given up on trying to suppress all my swearing because I know its a lost cause.

Besides, they'll probably all experiment with swearing at one point or another. Growing up in a house that was squeakly clean, I remember clearly the thrill of how illicit it felt the first time I swore... and that's probably why I got to sounding like a sailor at one point (working in an all-male auto body shop probably had something to do with it as well). If I can teach my kids judicious swearing... as something that must be used sparingly for finely-timed emphasis, then maybe they'll be better off. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

So what does that have to do with my blog? Probably nothing. But I'll likely continue to waver between sanitary and gutter.

You've been warned.

More books

See? Titles... so you can decide whether you want to read the rest of the post. But I should warn you that just because I've felt the need to add titles does not mean I feel the need to strictly adhere to them and not wander off into talking about other things.

Having said that, I haven't written about books for a long time - over a month, so here's what I've been reading:

Finished:

The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
Walking on Glass - Iain Banks
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
How the Dead Live - Will Self
The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - R. L. Stevenson
Five Children and It - E. Nesbit

Reading:

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle

On Deck:

[Ha! This is actually a very long list, but I think I'll start with the following:]

Dracula - Bram Stoker
Narrative/theory - David Richter
Lullaby - Chuck Palanhiuk

So, The DaVinci Code was interesting, but it's definitely plane-material. It's got some cool ideas, but doesn't make you think to hard about them. And even though it's long, it's also a really quick read. That some of the far out stuff mentioned in the book actually takes place outside literature (i.e. the real world) is slightly disturbing in a fascinating kind of way.

Walking on Glass was cool in a alternate-world-intersects-with-thought-process-of-insane-person kind of way. A neat premise and also a fun read. Quick too because it's short. Only problem is that I think I had to special order this one if I remember right because it's out of print. Maybe I could do a documentary about it in a kind of Stones of Summer (which is also on that summer list, but I'll read it later when the pool opens) way and get it back in print!

The Victorian stuff, Dorian Gray, Jekyll & Hyde, Tess, are actually not very Victorian (i.e. they weigh in at less than the usual 800 pages) and I have a newfound respect for Hardy that I had lost reading Jude the Obscure. I actually found myself empathisizing with Tess and really getting involved in her problems, feeling the injustice of her position and such, something that I rarely lose myself to in Victorian lit, so I was duly impressed by the book.

I did not feel that How the Dead Live or Day of the Triffids wasted my time, but unless you want to read a lot of obscure sf, don't bother. If you are into obscure sf and you like old sf film, then you definitely need to read Triffids and then see the movie adaptation.

I'm looking forward to rereading Dracula, since its been a very long time and too many film adaptation screenings since I read it to really remember it well. Hopefully I'll get it done before next weekend when Van Helsing opens, since I'm DEFINITELY going to see that.

I can't believe my week is almost over. I had so many things that I wanted to get done. Not that I didn't get them done, I actually scratched a lot of stuff off the to do list, but most of it was the boring stuff. And I go back to teaching on Tuesday with assignments still waiting to be written. UGH!

I'm also feeling really sleepy - I think I got too much sun yesterday... yes, the weather's gorgeous here this week. I spent most of the early afternoon cleaning the weeds out of the garden at the back door. It's not very big, about 10x12, and there are some shrubs and the A/C ground unit that I can't move or replace, but it will do for growing some veggies, herbs and maybe even some nice flowers. I like digging in the dirt - I haven't had a garden for about four years, so I had great fun cleaning it out and dreaming about what I'll put in there. Now I just need to go get the plants - maybe we'll do that this weekend.

I also got lots of sun while playing basketball. In playing with my friends, I've come to the conclusion that it was probably a really good thing that I wasn't into sports as a kid. I'm clumsy enough as an adult, but as a kid, I would've just been one big messed up body of injuries. Only yesterdays scrapes and bruises weren't my fault... no, honestly. We played next to the track field here in Watertown since Sandy & Steph were both there at a meet (Steph) and practice (Sandy). I even managed to surreptitiously watch Steph's high jump without messing up my own game, but then as I went for the ball, Sandy called to me and I got distracted. I rolled. But basketball courts are pretty hard. At first I thought the scraped up knee was the worst part of it, but then a couple hours later I saw the bruise, and now that leg from knee to ankle aches. Dammit. I don't like injuring myself, but I do like the games. Sucker for punishment I guess.

Oh, and before all this, before the distraction and my lovely rolling, when we first got there, I said hi to Sandy as she walked past. She looked a bit puzzled because I don't think she'd expected to see me and then looked over my shoulder toward the basketball court and said, "Oh! It's the old people!"

I think it was Alex said I should ground her for the comment. I'm seriously considering it.

I guess after all that, I can't complain about not getting fun stuff on my to do list done, since I had a really good day yesterday, but that leaves me with mostly boring stuff to do today. Which I of course am procrastinating about.

I've had coffee on my mind for a while I guess. Must be the Tim Horton's I got! I like coffee a lot. I often get energetic and make my own capuccino at home, or Irish coffee *mmmm*, which is especially good with a quality whiskey (or scotch, though then I suppose it's scottish, not irish coffee) and lots of whip cream. Just writing about it makes me want to got get one. Anyway, took one of those ubiquitous quizzes that tell you what kind of all sorts of things you might be.

Turns out that I'm Plain.

You Are a Plain Ole Cup of Joe But don't think plain - instead think, uncomplicated You're a low maintenance kind of girl... who can hang with the guys Down to earth, easy going, and fun! Yup, that's you: the friend everyone invites. And your dependable too. Both for a laugh and a sympathetic ear. What Kind Of Coffee Are You? Take This Quiz :-)

Ever wonder about the word "plain"? Say it three or four times. It starts to lose its meaning doesn't it? Odd how you can take a word for granted and then when you really focus on it, repeat it over and over, you sort of unhook it from its usual meaning and it seems alien and strange. Plain. It kinda is a weird word.... and its a homonym (which is another weird word). So, today's weird word of the day is plain.

I had such an odd weekend.

On Friday night I came home from school, did the dinner thing, read some of my book, The Iceman Cometh (okay, its actually a play) for the Book club last night, cleaned up some stuff, watched some tv.

On Saturday, I helped friends move, went to see The Punisher, and had dinner at the Elephant Walk (mmm, very good) with another friend to celebrate her birthday. On Sunday, I finished reading the play, cleaned up some more (since the book club was meeting at my place this month), met with them and then read the last couple of weeks of The New Yorker, which I'd put aside because I didn't have time.

What was so odd about that, you ask?

It was so bloody lovely ordinary! That's what was odd. I cannot remember the last time I had such a wonderfully mundane weekend.

I have to do this more often!

I had such yummy coffee this morning! It was Tim Horton's coffee and it was absolutely fabulous!

A friend who was in Maine last week had heard (from me, of course) that there was a Tim Horton's there and she bought me a tin of coffee. Ah! Tim Horton's coffee. Beats Dunkin Donuts hands down any day of the week. What a great way to start a Sunday!

I feel a little lost.

I have no deadlines hanging over me... well, other than having to read the book for the Book club (which I'm also hosting this week, so I can't just bag it). It's a weird feeling - I haven't not had some kind of deadline looming for a couple of years now.

And since it looks like I'll have July & August off, I'll not have anything to do then either.

Good news is that the pool opens Memorial day! Yeah!

So since I have nothing pressing, I was surfing - since I'm always looking for film adaptations, well, okay, in this case, a condensation, I just had to share. The possessed bunnies are quite amusing.

Done the papers! Yeah!
Now I have to mark student papers to submit final marks before tomorrow. Boo!

It really is a small world you know. One of my students wrote a paper on home schooling and quoted an article from a couple of weeks ago in the Calgary Herald. Cool! Mixed feelings. Happy memories & homesickness.

Speaking of which, I had a dream the other night that I came home and all my very bestest friends were there. I woke up happy.

Since my brain is dead right now, I was doing a little mindless searching when I came across this on Book TV from one of my favorite authors. I knew there was a reason he was one of my favorite authors!

I'd put in a profanity warning on this, but its no worse that what you might get reading this blog, so fuck it.

Halfway through the last papers I will ever have to write... yeah, yeah, I know I have to write the dissertation and I have to write the proposals for my exam areas and I have to write the prospectus, but leave me my fantasy that these are the last papers I'll ever have to write.

One down, one to go. Man! Will it be nice to finish this!