broken mirror

J1 will visit me shortly. J1 always visits me sooner or later. In fact, we seem to mirror each other quite nicely, about 3 or 4 years, and 200 km off. Halifax was followed by Sackville , and Daegu by Busan. So we can expect J1 to move to Kamloops in 2010 or thereabouts. Anwyay, J1 will be here soon, and I'll pull out all the stops in the hospitality train. Hopefully Busan hasn't gentrified too much in my absence. I think Busan was the first place I visited that really qualified as culturally shocking for me. That was the place that different families quarelled as they taught us the correct method to eat galbi, and we were quite overwhelmed by its quantity and the overall experience of grilling at the table. That and the fish market blew me away, when we visited only days after I arrived in Korea. No doubt J will have something similar in store, even if I pass on my collected wisdom. Read about it here in her new blog. Good luck J1!!!

Otherwise, the office has subsided from panic in the days following Big R's departure for medical leave. A new routine has settled in. I have made significant progress on my thesis, though prospects for its completion are still poor, faint, and distant. I predict that I will fail to conduct an adequate defence before the April 10th deadline. However, as I am being retained by the institute until July, the idea is not dire. Particularly since I am quite enjoying reading about Danish and Nordic political cutlure, anti-elitism, and monetary policy, strange as some may find it. I have also applied for a variety of positions at reputable institutions around the world. Unfortunately our very own DFAIT, has turned up its nose at me, due to my low test scores on the math test. Mathematics continue to be the bane of my existence, years after I thought I'd left it behind in grade 12. But I'm not good at anything with firm rules. That's true of everything in life. The only things in life that I'm actually good at are situations where you can BS, waffle, stall, prevericate, charm, canoodle, bend the rules, change the goals, lie, mislead, fly under the radar, and talk your way through without taking a stand until the last minute and then surprising everyone. Games with hard and fast rules and decisions, without opt-outs, I'm not naturally good at. And that is why I'm not good at math, chess, or first person shooters.

I retract nothing.

I flew back west yesterday, after once again winning the winter travel sweepstakes. Remember how I flew in during the blizzard of the year? Well, I flew out in a relatively rare pea soup fog (the pic here is from before it really thickened), which forced the cancellation of every single flight out of Ottawa, except for my flight and two others! My original flight was delayed, but that meant that I got to spend an extra few hours in Ottawa, and switch to the direct flight. A good deal by my reckoning.

The airport was completely deserted, but still managed to be in an uproar because the computer system had crashed, and they were checking us in manually. Because I had been switched flights, I also got the back seat in the plane, right by the bathroom. But I was happy with that, because I got my row to myself, extra leg room, a window, and easy access to said bathroom. I got a bit of company when we hit a patch of really rough turbulence, and the service personnel had to shelter in empty seats. That was good because they filled me in on all the airline gossip about the delays and so on. Undoubtedly the most annoying part of the flight was the yappy dog that had somhow been allowed aboard. It yapped for about the first hour, and then through the tubulence. If I'd been sitting next to it, I don't think I'd have been happy. We also experienced a medical emergency when they paged a doctor to come and care for the sick. In the end I arrived all of an hour late. So, I don't go back on what I said before leaving: winter travel is much more dynamic!

Spin-Off

I'm creating a spin-off blog. Since my main focus lately is on photos, I've created a "photoblog" at aminus3. I'll keep updating this one from time to time, but I'll set up the photo blog to publish every day, with a mix of new and old photos. Check it out!

Hogtown

I've left Toronto. Toronto is a city in the fine tradition of cities with crazy contradictions. It seems so dynamic, and yet stultifyingly conformist and up-tight at the same time. Some areas have a real street presence, rare in Canada, with music, and food, and art and lots and lots of people from every corner of the Earth, all doing different things. But then there's the whole suburban mass, the signs warning of grave consequences for playing hockey in the street, the Eaton Centre, and the boring financial centre. Well, it could be a lot worse. lucky since half the people I know seem to move there at some point. I think I could actually enjoy Toronto quite a bit, especially if I got to know it.

Toronto!

I'm in Toronto, visiting long lost friends and conducting interviews. So far it's been a good trip. Why do I always seem to visit Toronto in winter? It'll be a shock to my system if I ever go in summer.

Winter in Canada

Remember how I said I like travelling in winter? Well I stand by it. Despite all the hoopla surrounding the cross-Canada storms I arrived in Ottawa on time to the minute. But the process was much more interesting than it would otherwise have been. And by more interesting, I simply mean slightly unusual, and therefore more than the droning bore it could be. The ferry ride from Vic was far choppier than usual, and they kept on giving announcements about how we should all sit down as much possible and be good. But I mostly wandered around on deck, watching the waves and acquiring an interesting new hairstyle. They wouldn't even let us go down to the buses before the ferry docked because of the rocking.

Westjet was cheery as usual, and operated exactly as expected. Other than the psychological shock, all that the blizzard meant was that I had to carry my suitcase a couple of blocks from the main road to my house through snow drifts. In fact everything was so punctual, my bags were first off the belt, minutes after arriving, that it really put some of my mid-summer-fair-weather flights to shame. (Remember those made up baggage efficiency stats at Brussels? ~85% on target... and that guy who told us about how they'd made up the targets?!) I'm continuing my record of bringing extreme weather events with me: apparently this was record for snowfall in Ottawa in December.

On the Island

I'm on the island now... a fabled, promised island, beyond the edge of the clouds. Let me tell you Vancouver: It's magical.