Moving

Warning! Warning!

Jackie and I are moving tomorrow morning, so there may not be another post from me until we get our internet put in on September 5th. Do not worry: I have not died or forsaken you, my faithful readers (that means you, Mum - just kidding, I know there are more of you).

My super awesome roommate girl picked up the keys from our landlord today and informed me that while the place doesn't look too dirty, there is a toilet in the middle of our living room, as well as a fridge. Hopefully by tomorrow he will have installed said toilet and finished replacing the floor in the kitchen so the fridge can be put back. Otherwise we'll just stack the boxes around them and throw all our perishable food out. It can be managed! I'm remaining positive!

Some Things

Good news from my manager: I can take Thursday morning off from training to move.
Bad news from my manager: I have to make up the training during frosh week before I can have any shifts, meaning delaying of pay cheques and interruption of frosh week goodness.

That's actually pretty much today in a nutshell: the combination of good things with bad things.

I will say that it struck me today how incredibly lucky I am that I can talk to Mum about everything and anything. Not everybody, or, I would wager a guess, most people, have that with a parent. It truly is a fantastic thing.

Bad News

We're not moving until (insert large amounts of profanity here) THURSDAY. The stupid people that live there aren't out until tomorrow and he has to clean so we can't move in until THURSDAY.
This means we're on hold for another two days.
This means I have to unpack more clothes.
This means I have to buy groceries and then potentially pack them and move them.
This means I have to beg off of work training Thursday morning so that I can assist the move team, which I hope to high heaven that they'll let me do otherwise I can't help at all and then I'll be a big huge lame-o roommate and feel guilty.

Stupid people leaving our apartment in a disgustingly filthy state and not moving out when they say they will!!!!

Cookbook Happiness

In Mum's kitchen there is a cookbook that has been used so often that certain pages are stained and stick together. There are check marks on recipes that she's tried out for us, as well as comments on which ones we like ("yum") and which ones we don't ("yuck"). On the recipes we use more often, there are written instructions in the margins on how to increase or decrease the portions. This cookbook almost falls open at the page that contains my very favourite cookie recipe. In fact, this cookbook is so well loved that that I believe Mum may have blogged on it somewhere in the past. This is, of course, the More-with-Less cookbook.

Jackie and I were wondering in uptown, looking for feet on necklaces and journals, when we stopped into a store and there, sitting on the shelf, waiting for me, was my very own copy. I have been unable to find my own copy for some time now. I was so thrilled I picked it up and hugged it to my body, excitedly telling Jackie about the wonders that it contains, and the memories it's connected to. We looked around the store for a little more, and then as I came to the cash, the lady behind the counter smiles at me and says, "I see you're buying your own copy of More-with-Less." I smile back and explain that I've been looking for my own copy for some time. She enthusiastically tells me that the author was her sister-in-law! We shared some stories about the cookbook, and about our lives, and name some of our favourite recipes. Then Jackie and I leave, on our way to gelato and then home again.

What are the odds that on the same day as I finally find my own copy, I also meet the sister-in-law of the author? How cool is that?

Short Note

I love how whenever my Mum mentions me on her blog I get over 100 hits, when normally I'm down around 20-30. It makes me all kinds of happy, even if they don't comment.

Black Screen of Doom

Jackie's computer fell to darkness today. It succumbed to the Black Screen of Doom. "Haley?" she calls out. I don my computer fixit armor and stare the computer down.
(By which I mean I scratch my head and "hmm" while staring at the Black Screen of Doom.)

I deftly push the reboot button.
(By which I mean Jackie points it out and instructs as to its use.)

This does nothing. Okay, I vaguely remember that if you push some button while the computer is booting, it starts in safe mode. Safe Mode is one of those magical modes of being in which all computer bugs vanish and things run smoothly, albeit with strangely large icons. I have some security in the notion that if I manage to get it to run in safe mode, and no longer have to stare at the Black Screen of Doom, I may be able to identify which daemon possessed it.

After filtering through some various F buttons, and searching on google, I finally determine that it is F8 that one presses repeatedly throughout the boot sequence to start in safe mode. I do this. It comes to the windows log in screen, which is definite progress, and I then turn to Jackie to have her put in her password.

The keyboard no longer types. "Ah ha!" I say, "the keyboard is frozen." The solution is to unplug the keyboard, plug it back in again, reboot while frantically tapping on the F8 key and pray to the Computer Gods above that it will again bring us to the log in screen in safe mode, and not again inflict the Black Screen of Doom. All that progresses flawlessly.
(By which I mean Jackie crawls behind the computer desk and I wiggle the wire so that she can unplug and replug in the correct wire.)

Same thing. All right, I'm stumped. While Jackie hunts for her windows cds, I call tech support.
(By which I mean I phone my out of town friend who is a computer genius man.)

He gives me directions as to how to run the check disk thingy combined with some foreign backslash-R that I only distantly remember from the days when I used to be competent with computers. Moments later we have progressed to the computer making happy click-click-click noises while it scans the drive for errors. Twenty minutes later, it reports that it "scanned the drive and repaired one or more errors."

And now, the computer boots up! Sans Black Screen of Doom! Hurrah! What an adventure.

People and Boxes

Today there were adventures with friends to exotic places like Value Village where you can find yellow fuzzy sweatpants-gone-capris for $7, the perfect costuming for frosh week and that 80s retro night at the campus club. Also visited were the dollar store for blue and yellow pom-poms, and Dairy Queen for the much needed ice cream.

Of course, better than the shopping and the ice cream was seeing people that I hadn't seen since...well, okay, yesterday, but before that all summer!!! I missed people. It's so easy to lose contact over the summer months, but then once you see them again in the fall, it's just like before, only with wonderful tales of summer disasters and miracles.

Now, after an exciting trip to the Tim Hortons they're building a couple of blocks away to root through a dumpster for boxes - many, many boxes - I am now sitting here watching Jackie pack things and feeling almost useless. Yay! Hopefully the landlord will let us move in on the 29th (Tuesday) because I start training on the 30th for work. He said to call on Monday and see how he was doing with the cleanup/repairs, so cross your fingers folks! Otherwise it means awkward moving while I train and complicated unpacking while we do boot camp for frosh volunteers and then frosh week! Please, let us have the one day before the madness begins to settle in!

Random Conversation

And then, when you think all is lost, you find out that you're number 11, after some kid in Zimbabwe, and the world seems right. Thank God for friends.

Half Day

This was a half day. Am I the only one that has those? Half days where you wake up still half asleep, and struggle through a morning shower only really feeling half clean, and get half dressed to have half a breakfast because you're really only half hungry.

Where you're half productive and half the day goes by before you have a chance to half blink. A day where you only finish half the things you set out to do, and even those are only half-assed. Where you read half a chapter and give up, since you're only half enthused. In fact, all your emotions are halfs. You're half sad and half angry. You're half passion and half despondency.

One of those days where you make half a supper, because you realize that on your trip to the store you only got half the things you meant to, and even your cooking, which you normally love, is half hearted. Where you put off bed because you're only half tired, and half still afraid of the monsters that climb out (half from under the bed, and half from the shadows in the closet) as soon as you lie down with half-shut eyelids.

I whole-heartedly hate half days.

A Morning

This morning I was awoken by a rude telemarketing recording trying to sell me a home security system. I hung up on it, which is uncharacteristic. Normally I can't bring myself to be rude to telemarketers, because I know that it must be a terrible job, and I feel pity for them. That pity, of course, never stops me from turning them down. This morning, however, when the phone rang at 8:22 and it was a recording, I was just plain annoyed.

I then spent the next hour staring at the ceiling, petting the two cats who were being increasingly affectionate in order to get me to feed them, and listening to the sounds of traffic, sirens, and someone's radio in the distance. Wait, radio in the distance? Now that's odd. It would have to be the immediate neighbours, and they'd have to have it up really loudly for me to be hearing it so clearly. Where on earth was it coming from? I went to the window, and the sound was farther away. Ah ha. One of the cats had stepped on the radio next to the bed, which is turned down low enough that I can only just hear it.

Truth be told, I don't really know where the time went this morning. I've been in some strange sort of trance, wandering around, listening to the sounds of life going on, and having thoughts about whether anyone out there making all that noise in the world, is actually living. What's the difference between simply being alive, and living?

Maybe that book Jackie had me read got to me. I think likely it did.

Textbooks

Today I bought some textbooks. Not all of my textbooks, mind, but some. Not all of them are in stock yet, or on the shelves at any rate. The bookstore is always in a bit of a mad scramble to get everything on the shelves by September 1st, and then the line ups are terrible. I always try to get the majority of mine at the end of August to avoid that chaos. Plus, it gives me a chance to look them over. I thought I would share what I bought with you, because I am just so excited, and, as Jackie says, a big dork. That's fine. I revel in my dorkiness. So here are the books I bought today, complete with the blurb from the back of them, and links to where you can find your very own copy!

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: the experience of modernity, by Marshall Berman.

The political and social revolutions of the nineteenth centry, the pivotal writings of Geothe, Marx, Dostoevsky, and others, and the creation of new environments to replace the old--all have thrust us into a modern world of contradictions and ambiguities. In this fascinating book, Marshall Berman examines the clash of classes, histories, and cultures, and ponders our prospects for coming to terms with the relationship between a liberating social and philosophical idealism and a comples, bureaucratic materialism.

From a reinterpretation of Karl Marx to an incisive consideration of the impact of Robert Moses on modern urban living, Berman charts the progress of the twentieth-century experience. He concludes that adaptation to continual flux is possible and that theirin lies our hope for achieving a truly modern society.

Tricksters & Trancers: Bushman religion and society, by Mathias Guenther

The trickster and trance dancer are the guides through Bushman (or San) religion, a world of ambiguity and contradiction, and of enchantment. The two figures, who in Bushman belief are symbolically equivalent and mystically linked, embody these antistructural traits. The trickster, who in Bushman belief is both protagonist and divinity, elicits feelings of profound ambivalence, exacerbating the figure's ambiguous state. Both the trickster and trancer are ontologically fluid, ever ready to transfer who, what, and where they are.

In hunting and gathering societies such as the Bushmen, these characteristics pervade all the other cultural domains. An experience-rooted analysis of Bushman society and religion is contrasted with other anthropological approaches to ambiguity wich are biased toward a rational structure and, as a result, fail to grasp a culture's antistructural tendencies. This study presents information on Bushman groups from all over southern Africa, derived from both recent ethnographic studies and early missionary writings.


Life is Hard, by Roger N. Lancaster

This one has no blurb on the back, but is about "machismo, danger, and the intimacy of power in Nicaragua", according to the front cover. Sounds good to me!







The Festive State: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism as Cultural Performance, by David M. Guss

If, as David Guss argues, culture is a contested terrain with constantly changing contours, then festivals are its battlegrounds. Festive behavior, long seen by anthropologists and folklorists as the "uniform expression of a collective consciouness," is contentious and often subversive, and The Festive State is an eye-opening guide to its workings. Guss investigates "the ideology of tradition," combining four case studies in a radical multi-site ethnography, to demonstrate how in each instance concepts of race, ethnicity, history, gender, and nationhood are challenged and redefined.

In a narrative as colorful as the events themselves, Guss presents to Afro-Venezuelan celebration of San Juan, the "neo-Indian" Day of the Monkey, the mestizo ritual of the Tamunangue, and the cultural policies and products of a British multinational tobacco corporation. Although the focus of this study is Venezuela, the process of appropriating religious and local celebrations to serve new secular and national meanings is relevant to emerging nations the world over.


Laughter Out of Place: race, class, violence, and sexuality in a Rio shantytown, by Donna M. Goldstein

Donna M. Godstein challenges much of what we think we know about the "culture of poverty." Drawing on more than a decade of experience in Brazil, Goldstein provides an intimate portrait of everyday life among the women of the favelas, or urban shantytowns. These women have created absudist and black-humor storytelling practices in the face of trauma and tragedy. Goldstein helps us understand that such joking and laughter is part of an emotional aesthetic that defines the sense of frustration and anomie endemic to the political and economic desperation of the shantytown.



Life Lived Like a Story, by Julie Cruikshank

Again, no blurb on the back, just comments from editors. I hate that! Tell me what the book is about, dang it! All I can tell you is that it's the life stories of three Yukon native elders.








Modernity and the Holocaust, by Zygmunt Bauman

A new afterword to this edition, "The Duty to Remember--But What?," tackles difficult issues of guilt and innocence on the individual and societal levels. Bauman explore the silences fround in debates about the Holocaust, and asks what the historical facts of the Holocaust tel us about the hidden capacities of present-day life. He finds great danger in such phenomena as the seductiveness of martyrdom; going to extremes in the name of safety; the insidious effects of tragic memory; and efficient, "scientific" implementation of the death penalty. Bauman writes, "Once the problem of the guilt of the Holocaust perpetrators has been by and large settled and with the passing of time ost a good deal of its urgency and practical edge, the one big remaining question is the innocence of all the rest--not the least the innocence of ourselves."




Critically Modern: Alternatives, Alterities, Anthropologies, edited by Bruce M. Hnauft

Are there multiple ways of being "modern" in the world today? Does the current focus on modernity in the human sciences resurrect older dichotomies that social theorists are trying to move beyond--modern vs. traditional, West vs. non-West, developed vs. underdeveloped? Or do inflections of modernity capture key features of ideology and influence in the contemporary world? The essays in this collection address these questions and their relation to our understanding of wider issues of culture, power and representation. Combining rich ethnographic analysis with incisive theoretical critiques, the contributors recast assumptions that underlie current debates about alternative modernities. Ethnographic case studies consider the meaning of money, consumer goods, and Christianity in Papua New Guinea; development schemes in Kenya; radio broadcasting in Zambia; slave identity in the colonial Caribbean; Evangelicalism, Marxism, and the Ethiopian revolution; and Bakhtin and American power in the post-WWII world. The timely volume is certain to make an important mark in anthropology and in all related fields in which modernity is a central problem.

Lessons in Life

You know how whenever you started a new grade in the fall, your teacher would have you write something about your summer? I used to dread those assignments. You just wrote the same thing, every year, and heard the same stories, every year, from different people. It was boring, and for someone who genuinely missed school during those summer months, frustrating and unsatisfying. Yet today I felt that I had to write something about my summer, as a way of putting it behind me, and getting ready to move on into the new school year, and into the rest of my life. I can't help but wonder if that's why the teachers always had us write those things: for closure, and not as a "get-to-know-you" at all. So here it is, my summer submission, even though it hasn't been requested by a teacher, and my closure to a truly awful summer.
---------------------------------------

I find it somewhat ironic that despite my physical appearance of looking young, I have never felt young. From the first days that I can remember, I've felt as though I was older, somehow.

This summer I was forced to face several things about me, and my life, that left me, for the first time, feeling far, far too young to handle, and yet completely drained of life and terribly old, all at the same time.

I've always believed that everyone deserves a second chance, and that forgiveness was an ability to be mastered, and cherished. I've given so many people second chances, and third chances, and twenty-eighth chances, hoping that it would somehow make me a better person. Somehow I managed to convince myself, when they let me down yet again, that it was because I didn't deserve any better. I took on the responsibility for their actions, which made forgiving them easy. It just meant that I could never truly forgive myself.

I think that I finally reached my breaking point only a few weeks ago. I looked someone I loved in the eye, and I realized that I could never be enough for them, and, more importantly, I didn't want to be. I realized that if being enough for them to love me meant believing that I didn't deserve that love, then it wasn't something I wanted at all. I took the first step to becoming someone I want to be, and found that I had been that someone all along, I just hadn't known it. It was hard, and it hurt, but I made a choice, and I feel solid within myself because I did.

I had my trust shattered by more than one person this summer, and it taught me that it doesn't matter how young I look, or how old I feel, I will always have something to learn. This summer I learned.

Treats

Mum went out with Adam to take the new kitten to the vet where he'll be poked, proded, given shots, microchiped, and medicated against fleas, ticks, and intestinal parisites. Lucky kitten, eh?

I decided to spoil the three kids here, Zach, George, and Nigel, just a little bit. After feeding them some nutritious nectarine slices, and pulled out a box from the cupboard.

"Look guys," I say, "I have a special treat for you."
"Ooooh," says George, thrilled with the idea, "what is it?"
"Ice ceeem samwiches!" Zach's face is triumphant. He has solved the great question of the day. He just glows with pride. His smile spreads from ear to ear. His eyes sparkle. He practically quivers with the knowledge that he is about to enjoy ice cream sandwiches!!!

"Um, sorry to dissapoint you, Zach, but they're oreos."

GROWL

Seven Days!!!

This is it folks: T-minus 7 days and counting until I move back to University Town! Seven days. Seven days and I'm already packed. Seven days and I'm already planning the things I have to do when I get there. Seven days and I'm getting butterflies at the thought of seeing people there again. Seven days, seven days, seven days!!!

I'm not excited. Nope, not me.

Sleep Talk

George is lying on the couch, dozing. Mary is serving snack (honeydew melon chunks) at the table.

"Hey George," I say softly, "are you awake?"
"NO."
"Oh. Well if you were awake I would tell you that Mary is serving snack at the table if you want it."

...

"If you decide to be awake, you can have some melon."

...

"No thanks, I think I'll stay sleeping."

For a Friend.

I have a friend who is Just Amazing.
One whom I Could never dream to replace.
The Kindest soul that you ever could meet.
Interesting and hilarious girl.
Her worth this poem could never Express.

(Hope you like my silly poem and it's vague attempts at iambic pentameter)

Song Quiz

Here it is my last morning at Fitzy's. I'm about to get some kind of breakfast thing, but I had to come out to the deck to feed and play with Moses. He's now madly chasing Grasshoppers, and I'm writing this short entry.

The song stuck in my head now goes like this...

In my mind's eye
we're kissing madly
watching "All In The Family"
Taking it easy
Getting drunk on torch songs
and fast food
and me and you now

Name it? Also, what the heck is a torch song?

Moses

Here's the darling. Isn't he cute???

Acts of Fate

I write this from a back deck facing a large yard and beyond that a field full of goldenrod, queen ann's lace, and innumerous other wildflowers that I've never been able to remember the names to. Beyond that is a row of trees that extends in either direction, and to the left in the distance is an old greying barn and a herd of cows.

Can you tell I'm not in Ottawa?

The deck is Fitzy's, as is the laptop since mine won't connect to the internet from here, oh well. Fitzy and his parents are at work, and I have just spent the last hour or so lazing about in the grass reading the Da Vinci Code (I will finish it yet!) and letting the sun soak into my (unsunblocked) skin. Gasp! I'm expecting at least one comment from Mum warning me about sun burns and skin cancer, wink wink.

I thought I would tell you all about the adventure that Fitzy and I had last evening, and I feel safe writing it here since certain parties don't read my blog. Emma, if by some weird chance you are reading this, stop right now and turn off the computer or I won't give you the present I have saved.

...

Now. I mean it.

...

In all seriousness, I don't think she even knows the URL, so we are safe. Let me then begin! Last evening Fitzy and I set of for a walk down the road and we weren't more than a yard or two from the house when we started hearing the most pitiful of sounds. Fitzy thought it might be a baby, since the crying was definite, but I knew better. I knew the sound: it was a kitten in distress. As we walked its cries became louder and more desperate. It was calling to us. Distressed, we scanned the edge of the road where the cries seemed to be coming from, and that's when Fitzy spotted him, a tiny orange tabby cat sitting on a rock, surrounded by weeds on the other side of a culvert. At this point the mewing was incessant, and Fitzy waded across to rescue the little thing.

He purred loudly, meowed even louder, and rubbed his petite six week old frame against us, passionately demanding our attention. There were no other cats in sight, and no houses in the near vicinity that he might belong to, so not knowing what else to do, we carried him back to the house with us. We found out from Fitzy's parents that he's been out there crying for about a week, and that he doesn't seem to belong to anyone at all. Being such the softly that I am, I knew I couldn't leave him out there to become the prey of some coyote or feral cat, so with the aid of Fitzy's dad we fished down an old rabbit carrier, and made the kitten a home. After feeding him some tuna and paying him some attention, the kitten decided that we were absolutely wonderful people and couldn't bear to be out of direct contact with us (awww). We left him in the cage overnight, safe in the garage, and this morning I telelphoned Mum.

After telling her the rescue story, she's agreed to run it by Q, and quite possibly/likely allow Emma to keep him. I had planned on getting Emma a kitten for her birthday, but with the recent change in living arrangements, it didn't look like that could happen anymore. Emma had, although oblivious to my plans, told me that what she'd really, really like was an orange tabby. What do I have here but an orange tabby kitten, with no signs of fleas or earmites, soft, shiny fur, clear eyes, and every other sign of kitten healthiness? This, my friends, is fate. Mum said so as well.

Moses, as I have taken to calling him, due to the fact that we found him among the bullrushes, is currently asleep on my lap, curled into the tiniest kitten ball possible. He purred himself to sleep after a hard morning of chasing butterflies, running through the grass, eating my hair, and flopping down repeatedly onto the pages of the book as I read. It's an exhausting life, being a kitten. As soon as I get new batteries for my camera, I will post some pictures of the little sweetheart for you.

Already anticipating the positive response from Q, I'm eagerly looking forward to presenting the little ball of fur to Emma when they come to pick me up on Tuesday.

Bonkers

RAWRGH!

I sent in my distence education assignment that's due tonight by 11:59pm, and the server is supposed to send me an auto-reply saying they got it. And nothing!!

So I sent it again from a different email account. Still nothing!!

I'm going bonkers!

Just send me my stupid auto-reply!!

But you're a grownup!

Apparently I don't quite fit into George's view of how the world works. How do I know this? Because of a conversation he and I had while we were swinging in the hammock this morning, watching the other kids play with balls, cars, and twigs. The conversation began with a simple question, as most ground-breaking conversations do. George turned his face towards me and asked...

"What do you do when you're not at Mary's house?"
"Well," I say, "I live in a different city where I go to school."
"Where you work."
"Yes, I do work, but mostly I go to school."

At this, George looked confused. I could see the wheels turning in his mind. Finally he said...

"You're big."
"Yes, I am. I'm bigger than you."
"And you go to work."
"I go to school."
"No, big kids don't go to school. They go to work."

Ooooh, I see. The penny drops. I'm an adult. They teach school; they go to mysterious places called work; they drive cars; they look after little kids. Adults don't go to school. Hmm, how do I explain the need for higher education in this society that's driven by meaningless pieces of paper declaring supposed abilities that still don't let you skip on-the-job training?

"Even adults go to school sometimes, George."
"No they don't. When I went to go look at my school there were no grownups in the school, only teachers and big kids like me."
"Grownups go to special schools called universities."
"Why?"
"So that we can learn about the things that will let us have jobs."
"And then you go to work."
"Right."

He thought about this for a little longer, carefully watching me, and twisting his hands in his shirt, bringing it up occasionally to bite the edge of the fabric.

"Well," he finally said, "I think that's a little bit silly."

Wishing Wings

The thing about distance is that it sucks. It just plain stinks. There's no way around it, distance has got to be working for the devil. Distance, and time-zones, both minor daemons. If there's someone you want to reach, it's like raging against a stone wall. No matter how I shake my fists and yell at the miles, they don't shrink.

I wish I had wings, so I could fly to you.

Just out of curiosity...

...I've noticed that I have a repeat visitor from Aylmer. I know exactly one person in Aylmer, I think. So tell me, do I know you? Either way, you are welcome. I'm just inquisitive.

Days Like These...

...I seriously consider moving further north. Say, to Nunavut, or Iceland.

It's 36 degrees out there, but with the humidity it feels like 48. That's 118 degrees F, for all you American folk out there. Do you realize what this means? It means that I could actually cook things on the sidewalk. Heck, you could bake bread just by sitting it on the porch.

Global warming, people: we're killing off the future human race.