The Domestic LIfe

I've been living a rather more domesticated life lately, buying plants, eating healthy, studying for exams, trying to drink less.

I've been frantically trying to pass the Big Test that would allow me to be considered for a job by the European Commission. They tell me the odds are better this year, but then they tell me that this is the difference between competing against 12,000 motivated go getters, and 30,000 for a couple of hundred positions, so I've been having trouble motivating myself to study. Especially since the EC seems to be constantly disgracing itself lately with its inept running of the economy and willful ignorance of that ineptitude. *sigh*

Greece

Travelling alone. I think this was the first time that I've travelled alone and truly enjoyed it. I mean not just, it was nice enough, but really something that I'd seek out and do again. I've enjoyed it in patches before, especially on short trips. But this foray to the Greek islands I really enjoyed the experience of being on my own. I had a few moments of doubt, and boredom, but overall I liked it. I liked making my own decisions, eccentric as they might be. I liked listening to podcasts and sitting on beaches. Spending as I wished. Two reasons I think. First of all, I actually stayed in a nice hostel (Perissa, Santorini) with cool people. Really got to know them, got drunk with them. Even if some of them were kind of douchers, it's still fun to hang out with completely new people for once. There's always some real characters out there, who can be fun for a while - the gay hair dresser, the saucy Ozzy, the witty British med students, the friendly but clueless American, the naive Canadian Uni grad, the somewhat bewildered Korean, etc... Secondly, I think I'm allowing myself to enjoy my own company more than I have in the recent past. Introversion is such a part of my character that I try to fight it. I try to convince myself that I'm better off with other people. But the reality is that sometimes I'm just better off, and happier on my own. In fact hostel travel is pretty much ideal for me. I can do my own thing, but then go and hang out with people, get some drinks, have some fun, when I get bored. Plus I love the sun, and greek food. I wish I could have stayed longer but money was getting tight. There's nothing quite like travelling with friends, but there's definitely real advantages to doing it this way.

Most expensive paint advertising ever created

maybe a bit cutesy, but still cool!

Game Day

Today's the gold medal game, and I'm sad that I can't be in Vancouver for it. I remember the last time we played for gold in 2002 and I was on the train from Montreal to Halifax, and I arrived back at King's just in time for the end of the game. Everyone on the train was so excited, and it seemed like one of the most Canadian moments of my life, driving through rural Nova Scotia with a load of uni students itching to watch the game, and following it on the radio.

I'm sure Vancouver (and all of Canada) will be crazy today, and it's something that probably won't come again, at least not until I'm an old man. But at least they're holding it at a reasonable time for Europeans for a change. We are heading out to a sports bar tonight, and hopefully there'll be a few Americans and Canadians there. It could be fun.

nasty brutish and short?

I'm a sucker for these articles, so here it goes. I think they appeal to my overdeveloped northern sense of rationality.

"Nobody was considered "old" at 30 in prehistory, just as 30 year-olds aren't considered "old" among modern day hunter-gatherers, or in the Old Testament, where humans were allotted 70 years (three score and ten). People who lived beyond childhood often–even typically–lived into their 60s and 70s in prehistory. The evidence for this is overwhelming, and well known to specialists in anthropology, primatology, and archaeology."

The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

I think it's a bit more original than the average pic a day videos... plus it's pretty crazy that he walked that far in rural China. And in winter too...

The internet, writing, and the future of the world

Here's an interesting piece from Clive Thompson. It'll be interesting to see how this phenomenon plays itself out over time.

It's almost hard to remember how big a paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment. Unless they got a job that required producing text (like in law, advertising, or media), they'd leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.

The fact that students today almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing. In interviews, they defined good prose as something that had an effect on the world. For them, writing is about persuading and organizing and debating, even if it's over something as quotidian as what movie to go see.