‘so many miles and so long since i met you’

Hope in our Nations

Since the American elections took up so much of the collective conscience at the beginning of the academic year. And frankly, since the new administration continues to garner significant attention in the media (justifiably, in some cases) it’s easy to forget that other things are happening in the world outside of US politics, and outside of the ‘Change’ catchphrase.

While I believe that Obama is an enormously important figure for the world, I am starting to feel that his celebrity is impossible to maintain and also that his attributed persona is deflecting from all the instances where change isn’t happening in the first world. Earlier this week, Obama made his first international visit to Ottawa and, if you follow Canadian news at all you already know, people could not get enough of the new President. I know it’s not just us wacky Canuks falling over ourselves to fawn over the new guy WHO HAS A CANADIAN BROTHER-IN-LAW and totally likes us for our novelty pastries. I mean, hey, he’s even said he likes us!

While I’m as glad as anyone that the administration decided that Canada was the best choice for the first international trip, I worry that my country is to be among the first stops for G.W. Bush’s post-presidential speaking engagements. So while we laud our growing importance and re-emergence in North American political decision making, we’re also potential victims to growing Albertan conservatism (increasing polarity between the left and right in Western Canada makes me hesitant to highlight any other province – I’m a Manitoban and we’ve had a provincial NDP administration since 1999) and obviously continue to have enough citizens supportive of GWB to support a speaking engagement. Why hasn’t this been in the headlines? I do wonder if the Canadian press is working at counter purposes by sensationalizing the Obama visit and ignoring the Bush lecture – in ignoring conservatism and ignorant social policies do we allow their support to grow quietly? I’m not sure.

Obama & Harper in Ottawa this week

So while Obama is America’s number one hero, coming out ahead of Jesus, I wonder when these changes happen. It certainly couldn’t have been overnight that American’s abandoned In God We Trust for Yes We Can. Is change something transparent? Is change more than an attitude? Is change forced or earned?

In Canada, what does this mean to our government? Does it mean anything? Harper seemed to suggest that he and Obama, while perhaps not agreeing on many policy issues, have a lot in common. Because they’re both fathers of young families and both world leaders. Maybe that’s enough to have in common for Harper, but for me it’s certainly not moving. I certainly didn’t vote for the Conservatives in the past election, or in any election for which I’ve been eligible to cast ballot. So I can sit here, indignant and disappointed that Canadians don’t seem to have the same vigor for renewal and progressive approaches to public policy, because I didn’t vote in the party in charge, the party stagnating and spending. But someone did.

Just before Christmas there was a glimmer of hope. The FAIL federal budget as proposed by Harper’s Conservatives spurred talk of a so-called Progressive Coalition between the Liberal (under Ignatieff), NDP (Layton), and Bloc (Duceppe) which would have entirely flipped the balance of power and, in my opinion, better represented most Canadians. Of course Parliament was suspended and the Conservatives dodged a bullet of epic proportions because Canadians have a short memory, and there’s only so much excitement to be drummed up about a coalition involving separatists in non-Quebec provinces.

And now we’re back to the same old story. The budget survived. It was described as “recessionary, deficit-laden” and despite all this spending, still avoids adequately funding further education, health, and social services. Such a disappointment.

So while there’s all this talk about capital-C-Change in the world, I want to bring us back to our own countries and our own policies. There are similar stagnancies in the UK; David Cameron’s Conservative party has a real chance of besting Gordon Brown’s Labour party, which would be a (socially) significant step backwards toward right-wing social politics and would be the first Tory government in over a decade. In Canada we’re likely to suffer several more years of Harper’s ‘economics’ despite his proven inability to budget and his incredible unpopularity as a leader. Even in America, at this exciting time, proof of stasis exists: women in power are subject to unparalleled sexism, racism is alive and well (the Post cartoon, anyone?)…

So they say change is gonna come. I’m just asking when.

Train Song – Feist & Ben Gibbard on Dark Was the Night {buy the comp here – proceeds to benefit Red Hot Organization}

GoGirl, the lame response to the (non-existent) female demand for upright urination (or something)

The GoGirl in all its glory

Today let me introduce you to the GoGirl [warning: their site has a series of lamely enthusiastic videos ending with the tagline: 'Don't take life sitting down!'].  It’s the answer to the prayers I didn’t even know I had!  A handy, funnel-like feminine urination device, (doesn’t that just roll off your tongue?) christened a FUD by the manufacturers, that just happens to come in BRIGHT PINK!

You know, for all those times you think, “JESUS H. CHRIST I could really go for a wee right now, but goodness if the loo isn’t vile!”

As someone who spent 36+ hours on a Bulgarian (death) train with facilities that are best poetically described as:  a large, jagged metal hole carved into the floor of a sleeper-cabin, complete with view of the speeding Bulgarian landscape.  And a lovely floor covering of OTHER PEOPLES FECES AND URINE from when they missed the hole because of 1) the dark (what, you think they put a light in these things?!), 2) a sudden jerking movement of the train, or 3) someone opened the door, because there were no locks…[longest run-on sentence ever]…I admit that sometimes I might have thought to myself, “I could really use a FUD”, but in general, I issue a WTF over there to the manufacturers of this totally unnecessary feminine product.

The marketing is reminiscent of the adlines used for birth control pills: cliched, overzealous, with just a smidgen of paternalistic, condescending misogyny.  I mean, WHO DOESN’T WANT TO PEE STANDING UP?  Don’t guys have it pretty sweet?  Really, why don’t we all just sign up for a catheter and a colostomy bag?  Why waste time making waste when we could be doing any of these! exciting! lady! activities!:

What kind of girl are you?!

Cause sometimes being a mom means you don’t have time to pee.  Literally.  And sometimes you just get tired of taking off your pantyhose every time you drink a Double Double on the way to your Stereotypical Creative Lady Job in “the City!”  It’s just so much hassle.

Seriously.  What the hell.  That’s all I have to say about that.

And for those who are curious, I peed all over myself in that train.  It was great.

like a boy pointing out all my stretch marks

Who are they to say this person’s work is an 86 and that person’s is 89? It is a terribly crushing and insecure system to start, the fact that students make it out alive with some usable skills is a credit to the human spirit. – A.K.

Admission time: I am suffering from crippling insecurity.

Insecurity about absolutely everything in my life. When I got a mark in my email this morning, I had to psych myself up for 30 minutes before clicking the message to open it – what if? You know? What if I was not good enough? What if my work made me look like a fool unqualified to be taking these classes? What if, somewhere in the comments, laid the equivalent of text-cyanide, a line reminiscent of one received in my 2nd year Major British Writers survey, “[Ms. E], your paper was crippled by its erroneous foundations…”

If only all F's could be so beautiful

What if they just write: You are a waste of fucking space?

My entire identity has been built upon the idea that I am not an idiot. I might not be thin, I might not be beautiful, I might not be nice, or kind or whatever, but I’ve always flattered myself that I could unpack the fuck out of a paragraph of Canadian Lit. At one time I could write a (verbose) essay about social theory. Now? Now whenever I hand something in, I worry that this will be the time they finally realize I’ve been faking it.

I do not deserve to be here.

I am unqualified.

So when I opened that email today, and saw what everyone wants to see, I was elated. But concerned, as always, because more marks have yet to be released and I could still fuck everything up. Sort of anti-satisfaction. Reminiscent of the nightmares I had over a year after graduating from U of T; stupid dreams about being caught out for plagiarism after the degree had been conferred, and then having the degree STRIPPED from me in some sort of highly public, humiliation ceremony. (Unlikely, yes?)

Right now, when I get an A, I am the A. I don’t think it’s healthy to live this way, and I don’t hold friends (or even enemies) to the same standards. When everyone else gets hard-earned B’s, I celebrate.  But at the same time there’s an aching awareness: I know if it was me, I’d be in my room, weeping about what I did wrong, wondering how I can improve, and asking myself WHAT SHOULD I HAVE DONE in the first place.

After a horribly embarrassing in-class admission that I feel, “unworthy of living if I don’t get an A”, it sort of struck me that THIS IS NO WAY TO LIVE. And I started to wonder and worry that all of us, graduate students, postdocs, and probably all those in the academic life, are weighing our self-worth on these results.

I guess I want to believe that one day, one glorious and peaceful day, I’ll stop being my work and start owning its content.   Until then, every single solicited thesis criticism is like a boy pointing out all my stretch marks.

Fire & Rain – James Taylor{official site}

Ms. E Goes To Washington

Here We Are [REMIX]
- Bloc Party {band’s site}

Well, it’s finally official so I can blog about it:

Starting March 30th, I’ll be living in Washington, DC as an intern at Library of Congress!

My feelings on this are best summed up by the word “awesome”.  It’s been a long time in the planning, since late 2007, really, and it’s been wonderful to see everything finally come to fruition.  I’ve never been to DC before so that alone is pretty exciting.  Add to that a weird concert with the Obamas in attendance (just a rumour I will continue to believe until I’m there, listening to bigband sans World Leader) and the whole deal is pretty legen-freaking-dary.  And frankly, it’s gonna fucking rock on my resume and will be handy to brag about in a Canadian job interview (keep your fingers crossed, please) I have next week.

On the other hand, it means I have less than 50 days left in Scotland and in Europe before I make the big move back to North America.  It’s a surreal thing to type out. I wish there was a way to stretch everything out and see and do all the things that were on the list, but it’s not.  There are books to read, papers to write, and a thesis to drink draft.

Real life awaits, friends, and I’m a little bit terrified.

Hold On To Your Friends – Morrisey {band’s site}

PS Thank you so much for all the emails and the comments welcoming me back:)

post-apocolyptic hiatus update

There’s really no justification for why I’ve been AWOL since October (OF TWO THOUSAND FUCKING EIGHT), but I’m back so the stragglers holding their collective breath for my return can take a big breath of air and move forward into ’09. Yes. Yes you can.

[And yes, I did steal that from Obama who probably stole it from a 1950-era feminine hygiene ad.]

I spent the last two months backpacking, inebriated, thinking and alternately not thinking, loving, hating, and fighting in eastern Europe.* For the past week I’ve been fighting with myself, thinking about what I felt about traveling alone, traveling as a woman, and traveling in places with Cyrillic alphabets and, social customs that were unexpectedly opposing what I’ve generally accepted as what I can only refer to (as a pretentious, newly self-christened World Traveler) as Western Ways. But really, the truth is, there’s very little to write.

The reality is that the world is bigger than I ever really thought it was and still we as people are so very much the same.

The east is incredibly near the west, yet we almost exclusively ignore relevant and important news happening in ‘The Balkans’ or ‘The Islamic World’. Whatever that is, as if it’s a world exclusive from our own. And honestly, even last month I would have skimmed over news of Russia cutting off the gas to Ukraine as something crap, but pretty irrelevant to my life or the lives of people I care or even know about. It would have been one of those distant things that elicits a sigh and a very Bridget Jones, “have you heard about Chechnya” type throw-away comments in my generally informed but not KNOWLEDGEABLE hipster G-chats.

And maybe I’ll always be a bit of a middle-class, over-indulged PK who survived thanks to the food bank and welfare and no thanks to a deadbeat father, but who overcame adversity (oh woe is me, amirite?) to live in suburban sprawl in a house with more bedrooms than people and 700 channels on tv. And maybe I’ll always think about all the shitty things that happened to me between then and now.

But I’ll also be the girl who arrived in Sarajevo, after 5 days without a shower due to really poor planning (overnight buses followed by overnight trains is a terrible idea when traveling by land from east of Ankara, fyi) to find out that the Balkans (and a ton of mainland Europe) had no heat. No hot water. When I got upset because I couldn’t have a hot shower and would be COLD and UNCOMFORTABLE, the hostel owner reminded me that it was COLD and UNCOMFORTABLE in Sarajevo from 1992-1995.

Bosnia & Herzegovina National Library, collection destroyed during the 1992-1995 war

I have never felt more stupid.

Really, this isn’t mean to be a treatise on being enlightened about miserable living conditions or a complaint about what was, at that point, my incredibly greasy hair. This is about living a life that means something more than status and the suburbs and good hair and prosperity.

I thought about that a lot while I was sitting on trains and buses and in hostels when people were snoring and fucking and loving and hating. I thought about what it means to me to be a humanist, to be someone who says she wants to do something important in the world, to be someone who makes other people happier. To me, I think it means making sure I take advantage of the freedom I was born into, my Canadian citizenship, my financial freedom, my (relative) intelligence, my curiosity, and most importantly, the underlying desire to help.

I do want the world to be a better place. I do want my research to have a real and positive impact on people. I do want people to be happier because they’re with me, not because I’m leaving.

And I will try to never forget that my place in life was a gift and that so many others haven’t been and are not so lucky. Those others aren’t that far away.

Birkenau

The Rake’s Song – The Decemberists {band’s site}

*Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Bosnia, Croatia, Germany & Holland

Canadians for a Progressive Coalition OR “Yes we can” Part Two

Globe & Mail Poll (ongoing)

In 2008 the majority of Canadians voted for a prosperous, fair, and green Canada. Over 60% of voters cast their ballots for parties with progressive platforms. With 37% of the vote the Conservatives effectively hold 100% of the power.

The Conservatives received 170,000 fewer votes than the last election, yet they won more seats. The Greens, who received 940,747 votes, are not represented at all.

Politics as usual is not working: the progressive majority in Canada is now ruled by a right-wing minority. If Canadians do not act we are going to watch Canada become more unequal, more irresponsible, and more out of step with a changing world.

We can change this. The Conservatives only secured 143 seats in Parliament while the NDP, Liberals, and Bloc Quebecois secured a combined 163 seats. These seats give the NDP, Liberals, and Bloc Quebecois the ability to form a coalition government. You don’t have to give up your vision of Canada. The parties can work together to find common ground.

Canadians for a Progressive Coalition are asking the NDP and Liberals to form a coalition government with support of the Bloc Quebecois and counsel from the Greens.

We are going to build momentum until we get a government that reflects the values that we voted for. In the last election we saw vote splitting on a massive scale. Today, we start stitching those votes back together.

Sign the Petition Here

love/hate/love/love

Last night I had a long and disturbing dream involving a random gay friend and The Ex-Boyfriend (the one who I refer to when I say “my ex-boyfriends” even though there have been many after him) and a considerable amount of plague-level sweat.  I attribute the sweat to 1) the Ken Follett novel World Without End (OT: much better than The Pillars of the Earth and certainly worth a read); and 2) the plastic sheet that came with my bed that seems to trap all my body’s heat and makes a sort of bio-dome out of my duvet-mattress system.

Incredibly long and uncompelling story short, dude fucked with my life.  I assure you I fucked right back with his, but for real, I will never be the same and am most certainly damaged goods because of the mind-fuckery.

Today I was perusing Jezebel and read about how researchers at University College London (I totally got in there!) have determined that love and hate reactions are found in the same part of the brain. This makes so much sense!  I sort of want to pat myself on the back for going back and forth with Ex-Boyfriend for those 5 years.  WHY NOT?  So what if part of me wants him to get hit by a bus which then explodes, shooting fragments of bus-metal into the remains of his corpse?  The other part of me inexplicably wants him in very blog-inappropriate positions.  It’s a conundrum.

(Most of me longs for the bus situation at this point, perhaps hate is winning the brain battle, God knows I’ve wasted my share of seratonin while participating in psychopharmacoloigal extravagance.)

Anyway.  So love and hate are chemically similar in our brains.  I guess this is also how great marriages fall apart, passion and love filled relationships suddenly explode, and friendly roommates become serious archenemies of the James Bond-evildoer archetype.  I’d always wondered we (humanity, people, whatever) can fall so deeply and completely in love with one another and then, one day, wake up and really hate the person lying next to us.  We can ignore their dirty socks and lack of sharing the chores for years and then suddenly it’s a scab that MUST. BE. PICKED.

It also makes me wonder if all the hate-based relationships in my life (this makes up an unfortunate proportion of my relationships in general) are one sexy night away from being true love forever.  Maybe?

A Euphemism
I have died
a Million Little Deaths
in the bright electric light
that hides in shadows
beneath the stocking cap
you wear to hide your blue hair.