Kryptonite

When he first moved into our house, our new room-mate gave me a bag of gummy sweets and declared that they were 'girl's kryptonite'. Well they don't rob this woman of her superpowers or threaten her life but I do find gummies irresistable. Aren't they pretty?

I especially love the sour ones. Many's the time I've supressed guilt while plowing through a bag of Haribo Star Mix or Sours and now, as new roomie discovered, the little grocery shop on our corner has started selling small bags of mixed gummies. My will-power is nervous.
Anyway, speaking of my addictions, I picked up the new issue of Bust yesterday. I love love love reading magazines and I especially love Bust because I can actually relate to the writing and the features inside. My only complaint is that it only comes out once every two months but I can live with that. I just have to try to curb the impulse to buy other mags during the waiting period. Every once in a while I'll give in and pick up a Cosmo or similar and inevitably end up frustrated and angry. I used to buy Cosmo in my early twenties and I liked it, has it disimproved in content? Have I just changed? I know that I have changed a lot in the past few years but surely I was never taken in by monthy repetitions of 'twenty ways to please your man in bed'/'twenty ways to look thinner'/'twenty ways to shop smarter at the mall'.... Of course I'm exaggerating here but perhaps not that much. And the advertising...pages and pages of skinny white women pushing overpriced designer gear that I wouldn't even want even if I could afford it. So, given that I find most 'women's magazines' completely unsatisfying and irritating, I get pretty excited around new-Bust time. Yesterday I skipped into the magazine and newspaper store by our house and over to the spot where Bust and Bitch and their sisters hang out. There she was!


I appreciated my good fortune all the more when, as I was leaving the store, a slightly distressed woman approached the counter and in a voice tinged with desperation asked the clerk 'Um, don't you have the new copy of Fibrarts yet?' Clutching my mag in my hot little hands I felt a pang of sympathy and wanted to urge her just to be patient, not to buy another recklessly just to fill the void. But I didn't, I left and hoped that there was a new Fibrarts for her behind the counter, just waiting to be shelved or the like. And scurried home. I have to say, my evening went rather nicely with those gummy treats, great reading, a pint across the road, and the results show of So You Think You Can Dance at which I only cried twice (Mary Murphy's wonderful use of leopard print cheered me up so no harm done). LJ was out being active and playing hockey. I have promised myself to do some crunches today. Just after I finish the book reviews.

A History of Knowledge

I picked this up at the same used book store (treasure trove) that gave me Dolly's autobiography. I was hooked on both texts right away. I'm really enjoying filling in a lot of blanks in my knowledge of Western (though it's called A History of Knowledge, Van Doren really concentrates on Western knowldge) history and knowledge production. It's especially interesting for me to get an overview of how knowledge production and scholarship have worked since ancient times. I'm still only fifty pages or so in and have just finished the chapter on the the ancient Greeks. This quote from Euripides' Suppliant Woman struck me as being particularly poignant given the current state of affairs in many parts of the world:

When the people vote on war, nobody reckons
On his own death, it is too soon; he thinks
Some other man will meet that wretched fate.
But if death faced him when he cast his vote,
Hellas would never perish from battle-maddness.
And yet we men all know which of two words
Is better, and can weigh the good and bad
They bring: how much better is peace than war!
First and foremost, the Muses love her best;
And the goddess of vengeance hates her. She delights
In healthy children, and she glories in wealth.
But wickedly we throw all this away
To start our wars and make the losers slaves-
Man binding man and city chaining city.

Visitor no more

I am no longer a mere visitor on Canadian soil, I now have a fancy piece of paper in my passport that says I am a student here until September 2010! This means that I can register for my classes, get my bank account sorted out, and move on with my life. I'm pretty darn happy about this change in status. We did the border run on Saturday and it was a lot easier than I had anticipated. The drive took about three hours each way and the processing only about forty five minutes in total.
Now I just have to get on with the rest of it. Must. get. organised.

sidles back into room

I do feel as though I'm slinking back through the blog door after somewhat too-lengthy of an absence. I also feel as though I've been gently set back to earth after being picked up and tossed about by a particularly vigorous tornado. It's been hectic here at our place in Calgary and last night LJ and I finally slept in our own bed again after a month of matressing it in the office. His brother and sister have both been visiting, there was the Stampede, my birthday, I went to Vancouver for a few days, some friends from Taiwan were in Calgary...We did a lot of drinking and carousing and running around and it was lots of fun to see friends and family again but we are not as young as we once were and somewhere around last weekend LJ and I both hit burn-out. Anyway, all that partying didn't leave much time for blogging though there were several moments when I thought 'hmm, I should write about that'. Rather than write extensively on anything today, I'll just mention a few of those things that have lodged in my
mind and will try to recall those that slipped away at a later date.

First, I finally found the Dolly Parton autobiography that I'd been looking for in all of the used books stores around Calgary. And, joy of joys, I wangled a hardback copy for a mere $5! It's a quick, fun and (I thought) inspiring read. I know I've waxed lyrical about the joys of Dolly on other occassions and I'll do so briefly here again. Dolly Parton is one of the most unjudgemental, positive public figures I've ever had the pleasure to read about and listen to. I'll post some of my favourite quotes from the book when I get it back from the friend I've lent it to. Her music always raises my spirits and I had the same feeling of lightness when reading her life-story. It really was like sitting down and listening to the most lovely friend talking about herself, yet in a completely unselfobsessed way. Read it!

Sticking with the country music theme, we headed out to see our favourite local country singer again at the Bar Named Sue last week. I had just picked up a copy of Tim Hus's album Alberta Crude when I was in Vancouver (see I have been away for a long time!) the other week, and we've been singing 'One More Oil Boom Before I Die' ever since. It was the third time LJ and I had seen him perform at our favourite honky tonk bar and he (along with the Rocky Mountain Two) rocked the joint yet again. We also got to see the Smokin' 45's at The Castle pub the following night. Although they were in fine fettle, LJ and I were experiencing shut-down at that point and not even a vodka-red bull would rouse us. We went home early *hangs head*.
Finally, we have had some great parties and outings over the past few weeks but LJ and I are now getting down to business and getting on with getting on. Tomorrow we break for the border to sort out my student visa and hopefully next week I will be able to register for Uni. I can't wait. I can't wait to sign up to classes and find out what I'm going to be studying for my first year. Most PhD programs in North America seem to involve more of a taught element than they do in the UK and Ireland and while I'm a little nervous, I'm mostly really excited about experiencing a different education style. I'm actually looking forward to enjoying some classes and doing the paper-writing and exam taking thing before I get stuck into my thesis. It looks like it'll be a busy year (I'm going to be TAing a class aswell, and hopefully getting another part-time job of some description) but a really exciting and hopefully very productive one.
Anyway, I know there were a million (perhaps slight exaggeration) other things I wanted to write about but those thoughts appear to have snuck off somewhere right now. I'll content myself with saying - read Dolly's autobiography, listen to some Tim Hus, and yee-haw I'll be getting out of the house soon!