To the Republic, Laddie!!

"Oh, Africa, that's the country that speaks with clicks?"

One of my greatest delights is hearing misinformed stereotypes. I think that they are funny because they are simply an example of someone voicing their lack of knowledge either of their audience or of a subject.

For instance if I met someone from Idaho, I might ask them if the rain was going to hurt their family's potato crop this year. Now, from what I know of Idaho, that might not be too wild of a guess, but it is still somewhat uninformed.

The other night, upon hearing that I was of distant Irish descent, my host at a Christmas party offered a toast to the Republic. He felt a bit sheepish when he found out that I am from County Antrim and that my family was Protestant--not likely Catholic Republicans.

Stereotypes are funny because they often voice ideas that we have about groups of people in their most extreme form.

If you ever get the chance to ask my roommate from Redeemer, Dave DeVries, about where I am from, he will instantly light up at the opportunity to fill the world at large in on Hastings for the next fifteen minutes or so. I will begin to loosely quote Dave here.

"Hastings is just so proud of Rosy. I hear that when he graduates from University they are going to throw a parade for him. That will be the second parade in the history of Hastings. The first one was when Dave graduated from high school and got accepted into university.

Yup, Hastings sure is proud of Dave. They are putting a plaque up for him in the town centre (between the Beer Store and the hockey arena). Hastings' very first literate person. Did you know that Dave is planning to start a program to get electricity run from Toronto into Hastings? It's true. They are even thinking of getting running water so that they can have a communal indoor heated bathroom instead of the traditional squatting igloo.

Once that gets underway Dave will be inaugurated as honorary mayor because of all the fame that he brought to Hastings.

I bet that you didn't know that when Dave drives home for the holidays Hastings is transformed from a one-horse town to a town with automobiles...well automobile.

When Dave goes home they blow the yearly welfare budget on a parade with fireworks, a marching band(one old guy with bagpipes and a kid with a drum) and icecream(only in the winter so that it stays cold).

When Dave goes home they have to snowplough the one road from Toronto to Hastings so that he can drive home. They normally don't otherwise, because the sleighs ride on top of the typical 6-8 feet of snow...although in the fall and winter they do have to send the horses out to pack it down some since it is higher.

Did I ever tell you about the time that Dave won the Noble award for overcoming childhood adversity in the form of growing up in the stone age?

Dave has to write home a month in advance before he plans to head out there. Two days for the mail to reach Toronto. Fourteenish days for the mail to get through the snow to Hastings. And two weeks for the hunters to shoot enough turkeys for the week long feast that will happen when he gets home. If it is winter he has to write home twice as early. That way the mail men can deal with the hazards of winter pony riding."

That is more or less a direct quote from numerous occasions when Dave has recited his knowledge of Hastings by memory. The interesting thing about it all is that Dave has never been to Hastings. The first time that Dave told this story in 2005, he said that not many people in Hastings were literate and that it probable started snowing in October. I would hate to take Dave fishing once and then have to hang out with him in fishing  crowds for years to come. Think of the snow sharks that he would claim to have pulled out of the Hastings river by the time he tells the story for the fifth time.

I do pity the person who tries to disillusion Dave about Hastings. They may die in the attempt. I guess that it is true what they say about the Dutch--Wooden Shoes, wooden head, wouldn't listen.

Tot Ziens.

Put a price tag on that...

Have you ever felt guilty when you woke up on Christmas morning and saw all the presents stacked under your Christmas tree?

I remember as a small child, with a strong Baptist influence, trying to suppress the feeling of greed on Christmas morning as I wondered what was under the tree for me. I think that even then, I was aware that things had somehow run amok in the two thousand years that people have likely been celebrating it for. I was fortunate that before the presents or stockings were opened my father would read the Christmas story in one of the gospels (Matthew or Luke-hopefully Luke so as to avoid the genealogies).

I think that it all came home to me one Christmas in a way that I will never forget. My father, while waiting for the growing line in front of the shower to get moving so that he could begin his traditionally bacon and egg/who-knows-what-else breakfast, had turned on the TV and was watching a World Vision ad in which they were handing out Christmas gifts to children in an impoverished area of Africa. As the camera moved through out the village, I realized that Dad was glancing from the TV screen to our mounds of gifts and treats that were stacked throughout the living room and spilling into the kitchen.

Now, before you get the idea that I was spoiled rotten at Christmas time, let me clarify. I have five brothers, and I think that at least one was married with a child at this point. With ten people in the house, even one or two gifts each amounted to a substantial stack under and around the tree.

I will never forget the look I saw on my father's face that Christmas morning.

As I left home and eased into my twenties, I would often catch myself doing things very much like my father. In fact so much so that I often cringe when I hear myself answering the phone, observe my social diplomatic policy and so on. I cannot go home for a reunion without someone commenting on my collared plaid or polo shirts that are just like Dave Sr. always wears. Needless to say, I have begun working very hard to revise my life to become more unique.

Right, Christmas. So as a result of nature and nurture, I can often guess fairly accurately what Dad is thinking, because I am having the same thoughts myself.

Having six sons, all of whom are hockey players was a source of great pride, exhaustion and, at times, chagrin for my dad. Every September we would have a great equipment sorting. Dad would open up hockey bags and boxes of gear and begin the tedious task of ensuring that everyone had equipment that fit and was in decent shape. The financial impact of outfitting us every year would have been enormous otherwise.

That's the way that my parents ensured that all six of us would have a wealth of experiences within the budget of our family. Road trips to Nova Scotia, weekend backpacking into Pine Lake for fishing and watching Bryce put fishing hooks through his appendages, family football games complete with cousins, uncles and numerous sprains and bruises. Volunteering in bottle drives, as Minor Hockey Treasurer, as coach, trainer, manager and in so many other aspects to ensure that his sons and other peoples children would always have a place to play were just some of the ways Dad would do this. Mom was often in the canteen serving food and organizing other fundraisers behind the scenes.

My mom once told me that my dad would have loved to give each of us brand new equipment every year and take us to Habs', Jays' and Patriots' games, but it just wasn't an option.

I think that is why I was so surprised to see the look on Dad's face that Christmas. He was embarrassed by how much we had. He felt almost guilty that we were blessed with so much when others had little or nothing. He was maybe wondering if his sons would feel the same excitement if, like the children in the village, we were only given a ball between the six of us.

My father never rushes anything except the puck up the ice and I can guarantee you that he definitely didn't skim read the Birth Story that Christmas morning.

They must have done a good job in some respect. My brothers and I now plan months in advance of an opportunity for some or all of us to get together. With eager anticipation we organize fishing trips, football games and family gatherings. Because we learned that, even if there are no presents under the tree, we all still get something at Christmas.

So don't feel too guilty about the gifts. Just don't let them distract you from the Birth of Jesus, from helping others and from spending time with family and friends.

Gingerbread and indigestion

It has been a quiet week in Peterborough.

Brad and Brielle came over to our place last night and we made the most ridiculous gingerbread house in the history of the world. Complete with a flower garden, lake, flagstone pathway, unfortunately shaped trees and strangely tinted snow, this stained glassed house was truly a work of art. Once our states were sufficiently altered from too much candy, eggnog and coke we settled in to watch A Muppet's Christmas Carol. For those of you who do not know me well, I am a very great fan of Charles Dickens and an even greater fan of Christmas. Therefore, starting Christmas festivities on the third day of December guarantees that this will be a joyous holiday season indeed.

Peter, who I always want to call Sven, in my masters program broke his foot two weeks ago in an attempt to minimize the wear and tear on fire escapes. As a result I was asked to lead his seminar on Wednesday night. In the process I found out that I really do enjoy teaching about history and I also get a great deal of enjoyment out of listening to the students' sweeping generalizations about history. As an example, a student told the class that it was common practice for Europeans to pass out smallpox-infested blankets to indigenous groups in North America as a form of biological warfare.

I can only conceal my facial expressions up to a point here, people.

The interesting part of my job in these discussions is often listening to such statements, trying to draw a grain of truth out and discount the myth, all without making anyone look bad. But at times there is only so much truth that they give you to work with. Brad, another TA, had a student tell the class that all kings in world history are direct descendants from King David in the Bible.

All I can say is that, if that were to happen in my class, my usual barely distinguishable "Ahe-idiot-em" would become a whole lot more audible.

This does raise an interesting point about the world. I've often found that you do not have to travel very far from your safe little bed in the morning before you encounter someone else's poorly founded belief systems, which they are perfectly allowed to accept for themselves, being shoved down your throat.

I don't know about you, but at that hour in the ante-meridian, I am more interested in cheerios and coffee, with a touch of milk and sugar in both, than I am in being invited to an ambiguously themed "festive holiday party".

All of the Scrooges out there can "humbug" all they like, but I am definitely going to follow Nephew Fred's example and toss a "merry Christmas to you too, Uncle Scrooge!" in their direction.

That being said, outside of my classroom, I will smile politely as you tell me about the time that Santa Clause instructed King David to hand out Smallpox blankets to the indigenous people in

the North Pole in order to clear space for his toy building elf empire as it heralded in the capitalist, consumerism driven, market economy. I could rant for a little longer about the market economy but, for the sake of the season, I'll end it here.

God Bless Us, every one.

Oh the humanity!!!

My students have finally become human.

I am currently a tutorial instructor for a first year history course that deals with colonialism, revolution and the various repercussions and impacts of these two factors on different cultures throughout history.

The first two and a half months have gone roughly the same way as I enter the class seven minutes before it starts.  The students are sitting quietly around the room, separated from one another by a buffer of at least one empty chair and all of them have their heads quietly bowed either on a last-minute reading of their text or praying that I will not make eye-contact with them during the seminar. Once the class begins they will quietly raise their hands, regurgitate one idea from the readings and return to a passive vegetative state. I have used a great deal of my best material to at least get them to crack a smile. When this occurs they glance shyly around them and then return to normal. For those of you who are unaware, these are not 5-6 year olds at their first day of kindergarten.  These are 17-18-19 year old children who, for most of them are living away from their parents, siblings and friends for the first time. They are shocked that I do not call if they miss a class, it appalls them that I do not care what the date was that the Bastille was stormed and they cannot comprehend that nothing bad will happen if they play tetris throughout the whole lecture. The tetris does not happen in my tutorial, we simply observed a first year who needed more practice attempting to impress the several rows sitting behind him by constructing a Swiss-cheese wall on his laptop, in the middle of the lecture. One of the other T.A.'s commented, loud enough that the instructor must have heard, that if you are that bad at tetris you should stay home and practice instead of demonstrating your complete lack of prowess in front of a whole row filled with teaching assistants. Strangely, the student did not return after the mid-lecture break.

This week I walked into class and I could sense that there had been an almost imperceptible change in some of my students.  They replied to my query on their well being instead of staring blankly at their books.  This week their heads came up, they smiled and we had small talk for the entire seven minutes before class began. They shared opinions about the flu shot, dorm life, pop-culture and the weather in Peterborough. When it came time to discuss they talked about different aspects of the reading and we were able to draw parallels and contradictions between the 1970s' bombing of Cambodia and the Battle of Britain in WWII. When I walked into the lecture the next day, some of my students were even sitting near each other and talking.

I think the change all began when I met one of my students on the way to class and we were chatting about non-class material as we entered the room. The students may have heard laughter and made the connection that I am just as human as most of the other people that they will meet in this world. Who knows. I am still unsure of when I made the connection that my teachers and prof's were human. It may have been the day that a friend and I taught Miss Winslow how to flick a bottle cap across the room in grade 11 English. It may have been the day that I saw Mark Bowald and Jim Vanderwoerd in the bleachers at Redeemer hockey games.

I guess that is the strange thing about humanity; once you see it in someone else, you will never look at them the same way again.

tot ziens

If I only knew then...

Hindsight is a funny thing.  They say that its vision is rated twenty-twenty. Scott Kirkhof has better than twenty-twenty vision. Which means that having Scott around is better than having 20-20 vision.  At least that is what he will likely tell you if you ask him about it.

On a somewhat more serious note, having the opportunity to turn and review events of our lives from the vantage point of time that has passed is an opportunity to comprehend circumstances that we were unaware of at the time that those events transpired. This perspective gives us the opportunity to, minutes, days, weeks or even years down the road, look back on our actions and blush at the memory of our foolishness. 

I was recently playing pick-up soccer with a friend of mine who I had not really hung around with since I was sixteen and we worked at summer camp together.  We were joking about how much we used to like working at camp and about all of the great experiences that we had. Just like clockwork, the old nostalgic feelings surfaced.  Fortunately for the people who we were playing soccer with, we just left it a a few comments about the old camp life and moved back to kicking field goals.

On Friday night I had the opportunity to listen to a man speak who was responsible for developing the interdisciplinary and history departments at Trent as we know them today.  This gentleman, Alan Wilson, was in his mid-eighties, and still had a strong public speaking voice.  He was also one of the best public speakers I have ever heard in that his choice of words was incredible in their precision. Without the use of lengthy or complex sentences he painted vivid mental pictures in the minds of each person in the room. He also mentioned Frenchy's, which, to an east coaster is to Value Village, what Sobeys is to Value Mart. I found him incredibly interesting to listen to, but, as his speech edged into the 35-40 minute mark, I realized that people around me were tiring of his reminiscing about people who they had never heard of, who lived in this strange place called Peterbra way back during the birth of Trent in the 1960's.

Gavin, just came on Facebook chat to see how I am doing. I like talking to Gavin and I found out why that is recently.  W. Prevenier and M. Howell, explain that a generation is formed when a group of individuals experience such significant events in a period of their life, that for the rest of their lives, they will continue to be identified by those events.  They will therefore identify with others who experienced it with them.  For this reason, two veterans of the military can chat for hours comparing people and places. Gavin and I were both tree planters on the same crew in northern Ontario for a couple of years. Now, inevitably, when tree planters meet they begin to tell stories of planting several thousand trees a day in frozen ground, through walls of black flies, in hail storms and without food or water. If you ever meet a group of tree planters at a dinner party and you hear the words kife, j-root, ghost-line, sphagnum, cream, or cattle-plant, run. They are not swearing at you, but you do need to leave.  You are about to be regaled with hours upon hours of stories that mean nothing to a non-tree planter, but can bring tears to the eyes of high and low- ballers alike. A generation defined by an experience.

If I ever meet a person wearing a Hope Valley Day Camp hoodie, I will ask them when they worked there (if they do not plead that they got it at Value Village, or Frenchy's), I will compare people and names. This is similar to Dutch-Bingo, played by many people who either immigrated from the Netherlands or are children of immigrants.  Those people were defined by an exodus out of one land and into another where they had to work hard to build communities and lives in a nation with another language and different customs.

Unfortunately for the speaker of Friday night's graduate dinner, many of the people at that dinner were not from "Peterbra" and were not alive when the events in his tales occurred. However, I am sure that his speech did have a role in shaping a new generation of graduate students at Trent and hopefully gave us an appreciation for the foundation that our colleges at Trent are built upon.

So the next time that you get caught amid the reminiscing of a generation lacking reticence, jut smile politely and run. It's not that they are trying to bore you.  The truth is that they are simply feeling a bit nostalgic for the good old days when pop was a nickle, when you could plant j-roots, wear klompen, design a history department from scratch, order fifteen children to line-up "heel-to-toe" or throw pancakes out the window at passers-by and blame it on Scott, who clearly has better vision and therefore, could see far enough to have thrown the thing in the first place.

In hindsight, if I had known that our dorm was going to run out of money  mid-year, I would have retrieved the pancake to freeze for future use. Starvation is much more palatable when you have a pancake to throw at passers-by.

Oh well, I guess that's why they say...

Remember, Remember...

November is my favourite time of year.  I know you probably do not believe that this is possible, but it really is. 

There are a lot of things that make many people dislike November.  High suicide rates, break-ups, depression, the end of baseball season (for Jays fans this is much earlier),  trees that are no longer full of colourful foliage, and in the words of G 'n' R there is also the "cold November rain". The cold November rain takes on a new meaning if you live in Peterborough.  A walk through the Trent campus, which is grey and dreary to begin with, becomes even more of a grey and dreary walk when the cold and raininess of November are added to the mix.

When it comes to much despised months of the year, November tops the list alongside of February.  In fact if you think of songs that are about November and February, I would guess that with the exception of Emerson Drive, most artists hold them up as examples of months when nothing good happens.  The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald sung by Gordon Lightfoot comes to mind with his imagery of the November storms on Superior as the "witch of November come stealing".  In poetry we are warned by English folklore to "remember, remember the fifth of November" in honour of the terrorist plot of Guy Fauks.  

The winter months, especially for northern nations such as Canada are harsh and bitter. October is saved from this association by Thanksgiving cheer(if you are Canadian) and the thrill of Hallowe'en. December is redeemed by Christmas with its cheer and goodwill. January is often spared ill-will because of the new beginnings associated with New Years and the fresh opportunities for resolutions that come with it.  March has Dr. Seuss, Alexander Bell, spring training and, last but not least, for those of us who are of Irish descent and many others who believe that they are, we have Saint Patrick's Day. April usually receives Easter as its monthly holiday and when it does not, it is usually clear that winter is on its way out, the same way it came in, with rain.

That said, I like November. November holds promise and anticipation. Many people increase their physical activity in November as a result of the looming months when they will no longer be able to go for a walk in just a sweater or jog in the outdoors free of the risk of slipping on ice or being hit by a snowplow. November also has a phenomenon that has been referred to by its politically incorrect name as an "Indian Summer".  This is when temperatures that have threatened frost for weeks, forcing a rush on the fall harvest, suddenly climb into the high teens and compel many people who should be writing essays and doing readings to spend their day at the zoo or hiking.

November also holds Remembrance Day for Canadians.  A time when people of all ages gather to celebrate the sacrifices of those who have gone before us, for the freedoms that we still enjoy today.  Sacrifices of time, energy, and in so many cases, sacrifice of life. Not only is it good to remember those sacrifices, but it is good to remember the freedoms that they brought. The freedom to shape and mold our nation from the inside, by choice. November 11th is the one day when Canadians hold their head up high and refuse to be embarrassed by the age of the battleships in our navy, by the colour of our military camouflage, by our comparison to other nations on the world stage or by any other factor that would often cause Canadians to poke fun at themselves before someone else does it for them.

However, our rich heritage gives us something to hold our heads, and standards, high about. We should pin on our poppy, stand as straight as we can, sing our anthem and then with a tear in our eye we should all say a thank you to the dwindling number of aging men and women who have protected our nation from the waves of militant ideologies that have threatened our freedoms since the days even before this nation's inception.

Remembrance aside, the anticipation that November builds is also a reason that I love November.  The promise of the first snow, frozen ponds, walking in from the cold to get a steaming mug of hot chocolate are all good reasons.  I also love the expectation of Christmas.  Family, friends, Christmas baking and a moment to remember another Sacrifice that was freely provided for us.

With the rise of commercialism, I find myself wondering, like Charlie Brown and Cindy Lou Who, doesn't anyone know what Christmas is really all about?

It would appear that there will be a lot to mull over in the coming months. Don't dwell on Shakespeare's killing frost or the atmosphere in Walmart. 

Count your blessings and remember.

I just heard that somewhere else...

Well, the end of wedding season has arrived and I can for the first time in months look forward to a weekend that has not been blocked off on the calendar for months in advance.
Have you ever had it happen that you are introduced to a new word or phrase or place or concept and for the next few weeks it seems to pop up everywhere that you go?
I was chatting with Laura's mom on the weekend and she mentioned that she had seen a picture of Madoc, Ontario on the weather channel and she was commenting how she would never have known where Madoc was if it were not for having met my brother Brian and his family who happen to live there. We thought it very interesting that someone can go their whole life without hearing of something and then it can come up in conversation two days in a row in two very different settings.
I read an article a couple of years ago titled "Oh Captain my Captain"--a reference to "The Dead Poets Society" which I did not understand at the time. This year a friend, Brad, forced me to sit through the movie in order to develop my philosophy of teaching and I discovered that the phrase is a reference to a poem by Walt Whitman. And once again the rule held true. I was watching How I Met Your Mother the following week and of course Barney Stinson stepped up onto his desk and quoted Robin Williams who had quoted Walt Whitman.
In proper nerd form I googled it to gather some context and see if this is something that people other than Laura's Mom and I experience. As it turns out they do and it has its own name. It's called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon and it is apparently caused by the human brain in it's endless search for patterns in life.
This is why when you meet someone new you ask where they are from, what they do and who they are related to. That way you can place them in your memory with the appropriate tags so that they can be recalled at a moments notice. It would appear that our mind knows that without context and mental links everything we know would be an inaccessible blob of useless material.
Don't be surprised if in conversation tomorrow someone tries to tell you about the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. And you will think of Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, the revolving pistol, West Point, Tom Cruise, Maverick, Barney Stinson, Canucks, Madoc, gold mining, Paul Bunyan, Paul Revere, the New England Patriots, posh finishing schools in Massachusetts, Robin Williams and in turn Mrs. Doubtfire. Seriously, I'm not making this stuff up. I'm just following mental triggers.

Well, I am off to seize the day.

Tot Ziens

Writer's block

The longer that I have lived, the more I have come to understand the old proverb that states "change is inevitable". I will never again be eighteen years old playing Sunday afternoon football with my brothers and friends in one of their backyards. However that does not mean that with the approach of fall each year, with the changing of the leaves on the maple trees and the first morning when I step out the door and see my own breath, that I will not be mentally transported to that huddle where eight or so young men in old high school jerseys debate the virtues of the "hail Mary" play. After living in Hamilton for four years I am much more aware of the difference in air quality between the steel city and Peterborough. In Hamilton the smell often forced me to brace myself as I stepped out the door in the morning and thus gave me an ample distraction from the nostalgic remembrance of the brittle feel that the first tackle of a football game brings in October.

However. this escape was not permanent, and on the way to school this week I passed a pickup football game in Nicholl's Oval. The shouts carried through the air, the first aromas of Northern Ontario fall and the motley coloured uniforms of the game all seemed to reach out and give a tug at the string attached to the section of my heart that still belongs to the thrill of only slightly organized sport.

This theme of change was carried from the street on the way to school right into the school building itself. My own classes are now filled with people who are interested in their courses and all of whom fully intend to be achieving A's on a regular basis. Quite the change from my first year Redeemer courses where attendance felt optional and homework was done on a need-to-hand-in basis.

This morning at ten minutes to nine I stepped into the lecture for a first year class that I will be leading tutorials for and sat with a few other TA's at the back of the lecture theatre in Ottonabee College. The contrast was immediately humorous as, for the next forty minutes, I observed the children of 1991-92 step into one of their first university courses ever. Some of them had laptops for msn and games, some had notebooks for doodling and a few showed up with nothing other than a friend to chat with in the event that the class was too slow for their liking. Very few of them appeared to be interested in the A's that had been so coveted in my class from the day before.

The nice thing about change is that regardless of how things are in life, you can always count on them changing in some way. This provides a vast array of opportunities for people to change themselves without upsetting the status quo of the world around them. As Brad said, going to a new school is a great time to grow a beard, because then everyone that you meet will know of you as a guy who "has always had a beard". Interesting thought. I think I will settle for a moustache. Needless to say, Laura said that I had better change my mind on the moustache or we will be having a change of living arrangements.
So I think that aesthetic change will be shelved for a while and get back to laundry. The need for change never ends.

tot ziens

Now we know in part...

I don't know about the rest of you, but the last few days feel like a blur.

The weekend was spent entertaining Laura's little sister Kathleen who came to visit us from Hamilton. It was quite a whirlwind of visiting the zoo, shopping at Winners, walking up George Street and window shopping, watching ducks and picnicking at Del Crary Park. We sent Kathleen off at five a.m. Monday morning so that she could make it back to Redeemer for registration. Meanwhile Laura and I had registration of our own to deal with.

Laura dropped me off at Brad's apartment and Brad and I shouldered past intimidating kindergartners as we walked to Catherine Parr Traill College, Trent's graduate campus. We felt very similar to kindergartners ourselves as we walked with a great deal of uncertainty into our first day of grad school. The motto that Trent uses is taken from a text in 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul states that now he knows in part what he will one day know in full even as Christ knows us in full. How appropriate. It seemed that the longer I sat in that cramped, non-air-conditioned room, and the more explaining that was done about our role as teaching assistants, the more confused I became about how exactly I had managed to slip through the net and manage to get myself accepted to this position.

I have just begun to grasp the meaning of the impostor complex which apparently plagues the world of academia. My paranoia began to grow that, at every break time and as every new presenter began to speak, I would hear my name called and someone would tell me that there had been an unfortunate mistake and that I had actually not been accepted into this program and that I was barely qualified to enroll in a compulsory grade ten Canadian History class. After re-reading that last sentence seven times I am sure that they would be right.

Fortunately, various speakers, past TA's, teachers, prof's and others all confessed to these same symptoms and fears that are barely hidden under the surface of any academic speakers' professional exterior.

On the whole, Trent seems to be an alright place. Like all institutions that are well known for their scholarly reflection, Trent is situated along a gorgeous river, has a mouthwatering library of resources and a variety of good trees under which one might sit and contemplate the hospitality Trent has shown in providing three free luncheons, nachos and beer.

I have never been one to push my luck, but I think that this requires that I smooth my disheveled countenance, pick up my mask and resume the facade that I am, in fact qualified to be pursuing my M.A.

Tot ziens

Back in my day...

Today Laura and I went grocery shopping for our second week of groceries in Peterborough. Grocery shopping can be fun and it can also try our self control as we attempt to maintain our body weight while living on the paltry sum of fifty dollars a week. Thats right--five, zero. Today we both got a good laugh. After we had scoped the online sales ads, planned an attack strategy and escape route, we set off to buy a weeks worth of groceries. As we walked into No Frills, a man(considerably overweight) with his wife was lamenting to his daughter that, and I quote, "Twenty years ago we used to be able to live off of fifty dollars worth of groceries for a week..." Needlessly to say we barely made it past this gent before Laura burst into laughter. Now don't get me wrong, we would love to spend a hundred and fifty dollars a week on groceries but that is out of the budget... and ridiculous since we can make delicious meals while staying within our budget.

In the afternoon we put our apartment through what Laura has come to refer to as our "weekly cleaning". We are also cleaning because tomorrow Laura's sister Kathleen is coming to stay with us for the weekend. Not only are we trying to impress her with our great housekeeping, but we also have to entertain her for the weekend. This guarantees a trip to the zoo, maybe a walk down George Street and a visit to the Canoe Museum or Quaker Oats. I can only imagine that she will need a break after all of the excitement that Peterborough has to offer.

Just thinking of all that work has me ready for a nap.

tot ziens

Fresh Paint

It is slowly beginning to sink in that in a week I will not be rejoining my friends and fellow students in the familiar halls of Redeemer University College as I have done for the past four years. I will not be forced to give 400-fifteen-word summaries of my summer to old acquaintances as hugs, handshakes and vacation experiences are swapped at the back-to-school BBQ.

Life will be quite different this year. New school, new town, new profs and strangest of all-new roommate.

Living with a girl is quite different from living with the boys at dorm 14, dorm 25 or Bridgeport. Laura has not invited me to go pranking, play pick-up hockey or get out of bed and watch the news at the ungodly hour of seven am. My apartment does not smell bad, there is no pile of dirty dishes covering most available surfaces and and I am not welcome to leave my contact case/toothpaste/razor out in the open on the bathroom counter. Additionally I have not eaten Kraft Dinner, Hamburger Helper or Pizza Pops yet and do not foresee any of those in the upcoming menu.

Moving into our new apartment was also strange. Unlike many other places I have lived, we cleaned everything, floor-to-ceiling, before we put things away. We also spent three days painting, three days organizing and countless hours re-cleaning. Laura still thinks that our house is dirty, messy and the pantry is grossly under-stocked. This makes me laugh. The apartment is already cleaner, homier, tidier, more organized and better stocked with food, than any place I have lived since leaving home for university.

That's as far as my coffee will get me this morning.

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