circularity

I am most assuredly on the wheel of Samsara, except that the changes are all happening within one lifetime, rather than in subsequent ones. The cycle of life has spun around yet again. I have a full time job, to start any day now, I am in the process of withdrawing from the PhD program, for both logistical and statistical purposes. Because I am have not done three consecutive semesters, I am unable to drop back to part-time status so my options are to either request a leave of absence, or to withdraw from the program. I will only be able to continue with the program if I can attend full-time for one more semester, and I will not acrue enough time in lieu etc - in order to take three months off within the period of time that a leave of absence would be viable, so the only option is to withdraw from the program, and hope to return to it at some point in the distant future.

I am of two minds with regards to this, though I have made my mind up and started the process. Part of me would like to stick with the program, though I have no want to be a prof. Mostly because I do not like to leave things undone. And I am a little sorry that I will not be using my brain in this capacity in the foreseeable future. I am also sorry that I will have to leave some of my new found friends. However, the prospect of having to finish just the one more paper and then not to have to think in those terms again for a very long time is very very attractive. I have to finish one more paper, or take an incomplete or a fail on the course, which would screw my transcipt for the possiblity of return. So I will write this paper over the next little while, and submit it and then be withdrawn from the program.

The new job carries with it the working hours of 7am to 3pm. Not my ideal shift. The site is far from my home (current home - there is a new one, one whichwe own, coming very soon - but that is even further from the new work location). It means that I will probably have to get a car, transit does run but the getting there in the middle of winter in the cold and dark will be an unhappy experience on the bus. If I can find the right used car I will jump at it - but we will ride out the fall without one to see how it goes.

So yes, a home - we bought a house, we take possession in late October. It is truly beautiful and I am very excited about living there. We had planned on buying somehting to flip in five or ten years, but this house is exactly the type of house we would have wanted as our second home - I figure this is 'the' home where we will be happy for 20 years.

The job I am moving into is the job I wanted to get 7 years ago. I tried to get in to the feds back then, when I finished my IT diplomas, but there was no luck - and I went back to school to find a way to survive. In so doing, I discovered I was pretty good at it. In fact, really good at it - up to a point. I do not have the same sort of drive that I see professional academics as carrying, I do not have the want to read academic works, often I find myself screaming at them - wondering what difference it really makes in the world. But on another level, I appreciate the arguements and the philosophy - yet I find it lacking in practical application - that is whyt he IT stuff feels so good to me after 6 years of theory - it is concrete - hands on - even though computer problems can be equally ethereal as any ivory tower gender theory - there is a practical component - and I can always flatten the dirve if it is necessary.

Ultimately I am really looking forward to a job that ends when the shift is over. Being able to come home and not have to spend hours reading or studying, and able to just hang out, play gmaes or just watch TV seems like a brilliant concept. Also, did I mention the thought of a regular, budgetable paycheck? A regular normal life - not too much to wish for, and now it is in my grasp...

luck in looking now!

So, I have a new job. I don't know when I start yet but I am in... DND... full time indeterminate... I will finally be putting those IT diplomas to use... what a funny thing life is =) More details as I know them. Now I just have to figure out what to do about school. but YAY ME!
p.s. I have a new big TV and surround system as my "treat" YAY Big TV! YAY ME!

no luck in looking

So, no job offers, I was nobody's first choice candidate.... now I get to wait another week to see if I was anybody's second choice candidate.... blech

anxiety

So I am hypothetically 36 hours away from knowing if I have a job or not. I say hypothetically because it is possible that this Friday will come and go and I still won't know. The first round of job matching happens this Friday. What that means is that the number one choices for all the positions are sent out letters of "intent to offer" - Those who receive offers will have 30 hours to respond either in the affirmative or negative, and then those answers will be gathered, sorted and the accepted positions will be removed from the list. Then the following Friday the offers for the number two matches for those positions, same process - this continues until the 18th of July, when all the positions will be filled. I really hope that I get at least one offer on this first Friday, I am not sure I can handle going through this every week for the next month. I am tense, I am frustrated, and I am not able to focus on getting the work done for school that I need to be doing. I am making myself work for 5 hours a day, on the school stuff, but I am not flowing... not even a little bit. All I can focus on is the wonder if there is going to be a job or not. The odds are good but I am leery of getting too excited about it. I have been down that road before. In some ways I would have been happier if there was only the one day of offers, and that way, if at the end of it, I didn't have a gig, I would at least know one way or the other. This way can lead to a month of uncertainty - followed by even longer, because if I don't end up with a job out of these offers, i sit in a pool for a year, where I could be hired from at a a later date. All of this plays havoc with planning, budgeting, organizing, etc. Too many uncertain variables, too many hopes to be dashed or realized. I admit to being a lot lost in terms of my own self and my own centre right now. I do not feel very grounded, and the weightlessness is not one of floating, but of drifting uncontrollably. Finding the centre would rock, if I was the sort to just be able to take each day as it comes, but that has never been my strong suit. I like to make plans, and back up contingencies if those plans do not come to fruition. But my plans right now are all contingent on something I have no control over. All I can do is try to keep my head in my books, and try to keep myself active for the next few days / weeks / months... *sigh* I suck at grey... I am really good at black and white....

American Hardcore and other inappropriate labels

So I just finished watching an excellent documentary entitled American Hardcore about the hardcore scene in the US during the early 1980's. It was excellent until the last 5 mins, when you have several of these bitter old fucks who complain about the state of punk rock today. "Those kids in their tour buses on MTV... that ain't punk" Now, my question to them is, "Who the fuck cares what you consider to be authentic or not?" Heaven forbid that anyone be successful at their musical endeavor. I mean there are a lot of acts that will term themselves punks that are nowhere near close to that (hello Avril, yes I am talking about you and your husband's band too) But really, who cares? Listen to what you like, what you enjoy, and stop giving a crap about the label that you want to place on it. Me, I don't like Avril, I don't like A Simple Plan, and I really don;t like Good Charlotte, but it doesn't matter. I am never going to go to their concerts, I am never going to buy their albums, so they can call themselves whatever the fuck they want to. I like music... a lot of different styles and genres. I like punk, hardcore, new wave, emo, pop, classical, classic rock, metal, grunge, jazz, doowop, swing, musical theatre, and hell, even a little country. When I don't like it, I don't buy it, or download it, or listen to it on the radio. I generally become ambivalent about it (with the exception of those that are just pure evil, like Mariah or Paris, or Celine... and then I have to at least acknowledge the fact that they were spawned from the mouth of Hell).
Music is forever evolving. I know people who swear up and down saying that Iron Butterfly were the first punk band... yes Iron Butterfly... Some might say the Doors were actually the originators... others will point to the Sex Pistols, or the Clash, or the Ramones. It doesn't really matter. The music changes and grows and adapts over time, and thank fuck it does, or we would all still be listening to the banging of rocks. Is punk dead? Some will say it died with Sid Vicious. Others will say that when Black Flag ended their career it was over. These folks in the documentary think it ended when they stopped playing, not all of the mind you, but the folks from the Cro-Mags seem to think so... because they were "authentic" hardcore... which was a derivative of punk rock, which is a derivative of metal, which is a derivative of acid rock, which is a derivative of RocknRoll, which is a derivative of blues and jazz and so on and so on. Who is to say that something they do is any more "authentic" than anything anyone else does? If you make it, if you write it and perform it, then it is authentic, at least to you. Is it necessary to be authentic to some concept of a scene, or style, or genre? I don't think so. And just to throw a kink into the works for these folks who believe it is over and dead, Joey Shithead from DOA has continued to make punk and hardcore albums, and DOA are releasing a new album this summer. So it can't really be dead, if one of the "originators" of the whole genre is still out there performing, can it? I saw DOA a few weeks ago, and yes, they look old and haggard, and yes, Rock N Roll has not exactly been kind to them, but they are still cranking it out for whole new generations of fans.
What about the politics behind the music? Did that all end with Reagan and Thatcher leaving office? I don't fucking think so. Bush is as bad for, or worse for the planet as Reagan ever had been. The statements that have been made musically against Reagan, Thatcher, Mulrooney, etc are certainly being echoed today against Bush, Blair/Downey, and Harper. The straight-edge scene still thrives (though I find that one a little creepy sometimes). The music has evolved into a million different forms, and now people don't have to mail-order all their shit. Now they can communicate it through the web, or even achieve radio-play. This is a good thing, not a bad one. The whole concept of "you didn't suffer as much as me, therefore the music you play is shite" is a pretty frigging ridiculous one. Does it really matter if punk is alive or dead? Can't it just be that there is good and bad music of every genre and that some people get lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and get to actually eat and pay bills off of their talents? Do these bitter fucks only listen to music from 25 years ago? Have they not been able to listen to and explore some of the incredible ways in which music has evolved, or devolved, or whatever you want to call it?
I admit I have a penchant for the early punk stuff, I still love the early American hardcore, the early British punk and the great Canadian bands that made the circuit. This is the music of my youth after all, so I have a great tenderness for it, in the same way that the 80's nostalgia is big for so many people. I turned from prepubescent to an adolescent listening to this stuff, of course it resonates with me. It is a part of who I am, a part of where I came from, and a major part of the process of my very first self-aware identity creation. The music is the backdrop of my formative years. Do I think punk is dead? not really, no. There are great bands like Rise Against, Hifi Handgrenades and so on who are not mainstream but who are cranking out excellent albums. There are bands like the Foo Fighters and Green Day who are mainstream and who are making excellent music, music that I would still call punk. There are bands like Bad Religion, DOA and Strung Out who are still making music, still producing albums that are most definitely punk. So if punk is dead, what are they? Cheap imitators of those that came before them? I don't think so. They are making their music, their version of punk, and does it really matter worth a flying fuck if it is or isn't "authentic?"

the trap of materiality

I am falling into the trap of materiality. I mean, I have always had a little of it, but I am always willing to give up my possessions, because, they are after all, just things. But lately I am obsessed with the want for a grown-up job, a grown-up life, a house, a car, a place to do wood-shoppy kind of things. The real estate thing is the biggest albatross of this want for material goods. I want a house that K and I can call our own. I want to be making payments into something that is our own, rather than continually paying off someone else's mortgage. It isn't that we couldn't afford to have a house, we could afford the upkeep, and the mortgage, and the insurance and everything else, it would work out to a little more than we are paying now. It is that we don't have a down-payment, and saving when you are busy paying off someone else's house is never an easy thing. Of course, saving when you are living two people off of one person's salary is not easy either. Combine that with the fact that we are both impulse shoppers, and that means that we are not anywhere near ready to be able to buy the house that we both so desperately want.
I had resigned myself to the fact that I might not ever actually own my own place. I had made myself comfortable with the idea of renting on a permanent basis as I never believed I would be able to afford a place of my own. I was completely ok with that possibility. And then something changed. I guess it is the starting of K and I building our lives together, and wanting to have that something that is owned by the both of us.

I still have my childhood lusts too. I want comic books and video games and a big screen TV and a stereo etc etc. But the reality is, I don't NEED any of these things. They are, after all, just things. I have lived without them before, and I no doubt will again. All I need is some source of income (which is remaining a challenging endeavor), a roof over my head, the love of my family, my wife and my friends, and groceries. Everything else above and beyond that is a bonus and I should be content with these truly wonderous gifts that I do already possessed. And yet I am restless. I am getting caught up in the Joneses race. Most of my friends are in their own properties, both my younger siblings have their own houses. So I taunt myself by looking at real estate listings, looking at the sale fliers for the HD TV's, and drooling over sound systems that I am nowhere close to being able to afford. And I beat myself up because I do not have a job, and in not having a job, I am preventing Krista from having the things that she wants as well. Not that she would ever phrase it that way, or even express that sort of thought. But I know that she, like me, wants to make that start at something to call our own.

I want to be middle class. I want the typically American dream of a house with a picket fence, a garage and a deck. I want to be able to donate money to charities, and buy toys for my nephew, for Krista, and yes, for me. I want to be able to travel, without it being a hugely worrying deal. I want to be debt free, or least have my debts rolled into the house instead of into the education that I have already received and my credit cards. I covet what my neighbours have, and I don't believe that this is really a sin. The only sin would lie in not recognizing the blessings that I already have... I have to relearn that stuff is just stuff, and that patience will be my friend

character building

I am just going to say this once.... I don't need any more life lessons, and if you think that when we ask for help, you can tell us that you are not going and it is for our own good, you can go fuck yourself... sideways.

Mysterious life

Life is a never-ending series of plot devices, coincidences, joy and pain. There is no guarantee, no warranty, no rebate and seldom, if ever, very few second chances. I have been blessed with a plethora of second chances, I have also been cursed by the need for second chances. I am approaching a situation for which there will not be any second chance. Recently my parents visited here in the big O. They have become very frail, more so than I have ever seen them. They have also seemingly started a process of Leaving Las Vegas. For my Dad, it may already be too late. For my Mom, there could still be a chance to break the pattern, but I am not so sure she has the will to fight it. They both have not just aged, but have become old. Dad, I think has largely given up. He has stopped wearing his hearing aids, so he rarely is able to fully partake in a conversation. His teeth hurt him, so he often does not bother to wear them. He has given up on physical activity almost completely, and seems content to do his running around in the morning and crack a bottle by noon. For my Mom, she is good when she is tasked with responsibility but as soon as that responsibility is alleviated, she too starts to drink. Recently, she has come under a great deal of physical pain, and it, in turn, has left her feeling far older than she actually is.

I am not sure how one stages an intervention on their own parents. They both have earned the right to live however they see fit, they are grown adults and then know what they are doing, or at least I think they know what they are doing. They, like me, have always been part-time alcoholics, but it never interfered with their ability to do anything. Boozing did not begin until the chance of all responsibility for the day was done. These days, that chance of responsibility ends earlier and earlier for them, so their immediate reaction is to start on the one thing that seems to give them comfort from their physical ailments. The problem with this is that they do not then end their days any earlier. They stay up until the same time, and they continue the process, which means the time of every day spent under the influence continues to grow.

The biggest hope is that my brother and his wife are going to lay down the law about the amount of contact they can have with the grandchild while they are under the influence. It may be enough to snap them out of the funk they have slid into. It has been a rough road for them since the house fell apart on them in Sin City. All of their retirement hopes and plans were tied to the sale of that house. When the oil tank ripped open underground, they saw the value of that house plummet by over fifty-thousand dollars, their nest egg was reduced to nothing, and their plans and dreams were put on indefinite hold. From that point they have been on a gradual but steady downward spiral, and I am not sure if the ship can be righted. I am extremely worried for them, but I don't know how to try to sort it out. I am hoping the geographic shift of them moving up here in October will help correct the issue, though geographics seldom actually work. In this case, however, to be close to two of their three children, and to be close to the grandchildren on a regular basis might just be enough of a trigger to get them to snap back into a modicum of sobriety.

As all of this is happening, K and I have started looking for our own house. We have gone to a viewing or two and a couple of open houses and have found a place that we are really quite happy with, and hope to be dealing with some of the logistics in this next week or so. A few more site visits, a few bits of legal wrangling and some financial MacGyvering, and we should be able to make it happen. This is a strong surge of hope for me, I am really looking forward to that kind of settling down, knowing that I am making an investment into our own future, and not paying the mortgage for someone else. I still don't have a full time gig, but that is in the works and I am hopeful, although trying not to be too hopeful, for a job with the feds in their CS departments. I have made it into the hiring pool, and have been invited to the job fair in June. I think I stand a reasonable chance at a hire... but if not, I can continue to ride out the academic gig.

A close relative of K's died the other day, just shy of her 98th birthday. I don't think there is much of a chance that my folks will make it that far, though I really hope I am wrong. Another good friend of mine lost her mother this week, and I hurt inside for her and I hope she is OK. I am trying to balance my want for a real job with the love for academia that I am finding still runs in my veins and I hope I will be able to make both of those fields work to my benefit. I do not like to start and not finish something, so if only for personal edification, I would like to finish the PhD, but I have no idea how probable that is if I start work in the real world again. I just finished two weeks of telephone tech training for Elections Canada and in some aspects I am over-qualified for it, though I did learn a lot about our electorial process, and it is really fascinating to see how it all unfolds. I would love to work for EC in some aspect, though not necessarily doing telephone tech support. Call centre work, no matter where or for whom, is a soul-sucking venture. It is always shift-work, so your days off rotate, your shifts do just that, shift about the time schedule, and your work always seems to be menial. I really don't want to have to do that sort of work again, even for internal clients. But if it comes up, I HAVE to take it. I have to get my foot into the door on a semi-permanent basis.
At the same time, I love the way my brain operates in grad school, though admittedly, it took a longer time to get it into the program this term, but I did manage it, and managed to pull off an A+ in each of the courses I did this term. It proves that I have some modicum of talent for this world. I have an interesting thesis, and I think I should be able to get funding next year, but it means another year of making only 11K, and I have been poor for so very very long. At least K makes good money, but I really need to be kicking in my fair share. I want to be able to take her places, buy her nice things, build a nice home together, and living on a salary less than what I made in theatre is making that all a little difficult. I have been in school now for nine years. there are at least three more to go if I continue to follow this path. Without extra external funding, I remain flat broke. K keeps a roof over my head, and keeps me well fed, so I am a leg up on many of my compatriots. But I am not able to contribute in the way I really should be contributing.

I need a night of hanging with Pat, and convincing him to ride the Tequila clock with me. And a night with the boys, playing cards, or a game or some such. Good thing I will be back on the rock for a little while - just two months from now! I also am jonzing seriously for some new ink, and I am really looking forward to getting into Troublebound and having Dave scar me some more! come on July!

Assundy tales of Ottawa living

It is amazing how quickly a buzz word becomes mainstream here in the big O. Last Week Dalton McGuinty said that Ontario was on the verge of becoming a "have-not" province, and wants the federal government to re-examine the way transfer payments are working. He accuses the rest of the country, with particular reference to the Federal government, of taking advantage of Ontario in a time that Ontario cannot afford to support itself. He says that the Province pays into the transfer payments far more than it can afford to do, and wants it to be renegotiated.

First of all, no province pays into transfer payments. Transfer payments are a pool of federal money that is assigned based on tax generated income. This tax generated income comes from all tax-paying people in Canada. It just so happens that the larger population base happens to fall into Ontario, so more taxes come from the people here than elsewhere - this does not mean, however, that individual Ontarians pay more than any other individual tax-paying Canadians. Yet this is how he presents it. Secondly, Ontario is not anywhere near a "have-not" province. As long as the federal seat of government resides within its borders, Ontario will not be a "have-not" province. It is true that the manufacturing sector of the province has been hard hit, and yes, workers will leave the province to find other employment, but we are not talking about the kind of out-migration that Newfoundland had previously experienced before its recent oil boom. Anyone who has lived in a "have-not" province in a "have-not" time will quickly tell you that Ontario is nowhere near that kind of poverty, and will never actually achieve it unless we are suddenly thrust into a global depression the likes of which we have not seen in almost 80 years. yes, the car plant closures are of major significance to sectors of the Ontarian economy. Yes, there will be 5000 more workers out there looking for employment, and yes many of those may trundle off to Fort MacMurray or Calgary or something of the like, but Ontario will continue to employ, hire, and essentially prosper in the face of this action.

The media has taken up this phrase, as have every union in the province, this threat of becoming a "have-not" province. It is all over the news, and it is a pure scare tactic being used to throw barbs at the federal government. Not that I am against such a thing, barbs should be directed at the Harper government as often as is possible, but to make such blatantly false claims should not go without some sort of commentary, and hence, here I am writing. I graduated high school in 1987 in St. John's Newfoundland when the unemployment rate was 26%. I followed many of my brothers and sisters to the big bad city in Ontario, though I did not last at that attempt. I do not believe that Ontario is heading for a 26% unemployment rate, even if the entire manufacturing sector crumbles. Those who have not lived under the "have-not" situation cannot begin to understand what it means to have lived under it, certainly not the premier of Ontario. The entire economy of Ontario is not tied to the manufacturing sector as Newfoundland's was tied to natural resources. There are many other avenues that will step up to contribute to the economy here. The population base continues to grow, not subside. There is nothing really "have-not" about Ontario except its lack of sea air.

verging on completion

So I have fought and battled my way through this paper.... it feels like it has been a tremendous struggle, but the truth is it is happening easier than it ever has before. I am almost done, a few hours tomorrow and this paper will be history, then I can take the rest of the day off and enjoy my 39th birthday, and start my next paper, which should be even easier, on Wednesday. The next one, as well, is directly related to my PhD dissertation topic. So it should hold my interest in a way that this current paper has not been able to. It is also just a literature review of the works of a specific theorist, and the list of works is really not so large, two books, two edited compilations and a few journal articles. I have read one of the works halfway through, and I have two of the edited volumes on hand. I am awaiting the other book, which with any luck will be here any day, and I think I should be able to track down the journal articles online, so three weeks to complete for this term, in the most basic sense... what that means then, is that I am officially 1/4 of the way through my course work for this programme. this time next year I will be writing my comps... and then I will be face and eyes into my dissertation, if all goes along the time lines that currently exist.
This does not change the hope, the big hope, of getting myself a government gig. If that were to happen, I could drop back to a part time gig with school, actually earn money and contribute to the cost of my household, and still look at being finished in 3 - 4 years.
I dreamt last night, or perhaps the night before, that i was offered a gig with the computer side of the fed programme, because I had a rudimentary knowledge of Mandarin.... upon waking, it occurred to me that my rudimentary knowledge of Mandarin is not actually rudimentary anymore... it is much more basic than that... it is true what my prof told me, the characters slip out your ears as you sleep... the thoughts of trying to relearn Mandarin at this point make the dream belief seem almost inconceivable... thankfully, it was just a dream... I do hope that they call tomorrow, however, like they did in the dream, to offer me a job as my birthday present.

thinking in a ramble

There are two writers that, for whatever reason, anytime I read them, I feel the need to create, to write, to just sit at the keyboard and let my fingers tap out a story - a dream - a hope.... anything. They are Neil Gaimen and Stephen King. I am in the middle (interestingly enough I typed middlfe, which is close to mid-life, perhaps I have a crisis brewing) of Duma Key right now and I feel compelled to create... except I can't. Because it is late, and the writing I need to be doing is on my paper for school, and that type of writing does not involve the same type of creativity that is itching inside me to get out. And after I finish this first paper, I have another to crank out, and then I get to grade and grade and grade.... I am going to fit the creative part in somehow, and I have no idea how or when to make it happen... but I know that I need to... I think I need to start carrying around the little spiral notebook, and for once use it for the intentions that I had when I bought it... at least I know where I can turn to for inspiration when I need to get the juices flowing again. Now if there were only an academic author that spurred me on so....

Decision made

So I reviewed the program at Carleton. To maintain a full time status, I would need to be enrolled in three course a semester. In addition, because I have no economics background, I would have to do the entry level economics courses, one in the fall and one in the winter. So that makes four courses a week. Then there is the TA work, so a class there, with grading, and probable tutorials to run, etc. AND they are not offering me complete funding, I would have to pay tuition. All of a sudden the PhD at U of O is not sounding so bad at all. One seminar, one reading course in the fall, and then I only have reading courses left until I do my comps. I think I can safely say I have made my choice. I have even started to sort of get excited about the career path, though I am still busily applying to government jobs in hopes of landing something that will actually pay me some moneys...
I have entered some essay contests, I have submitted an article to an academic journal, albeit it outside of my current area of study, but hell, why not? And I am starting to research funding options for the summer. All I have to do is make it through this semester, and it is almost done, though it has felt like forever... probably due to the lingering winter conditions. There are only two weeks left really... one paper due then, one due two weeks after that... and then comes a mountain of grading... I can make it... I think I can I think I can I think I can....

confusions and dilemmas

So here's the deal. I have been accepted at another university with almost full funding for a MPA - Masters in Public Administration. I am also in the middle of a fully funded PhD, which may not turn out to be as useful as the MPA. I think I can manage to do both of the programs, depending on how the classes line up. For the PhD, I only have one more seminar course to do and the rest can be directed reading courses. The MPA would involve an unknown quantity of courses over the two year program. 8.5 credits, whatever that works out to be... If I am able I could do my theory and methods course for the PhD this fall, along with the courses for the MPA, and then I would only have the directed reading courses to do, which involve, as you might have guessed, a whole bunch of readings and a paper based on those readings. It would mean what I forsee as a crazy busy but manageable couple of years. I don't know that technically I am allowed to be full time in both programs at the same time, but what they don't know can't hurt them right?

In the middle of all this I am still trying to get a job with the feds, which would make the MPA unnecessary. Tomorrow morning I go in for second language testing which should be a little humourous if nothing else... Saturday I write an exam for an administrative support position. Monday I interview for the computer secondary recruitment and a network support adviser for Elections Canada. I have an impending interview with Heritage and Culture, and I am still waiting to hear on the HRSDC, after what I felt was a series of good interviews.

My health is still not great, I have been on the cane since the chest pain began, and while the daily monstrous dose of aspirin is keeping the pain to a manageable level I do not actually seem to be getting any better... and it has been 3 1/2 months now. If it is pericarditis, there is only half a month left before I am exceeding the normal time periods for the disease. I am tired of being sick.

My wallet turned up, by the way, some very nice person turned it in to the Transpo, and nothing was missing. However, I had already canceled my credit and bank cards to be on the safe side, so I am awaiting the last of the credit cards now.

Patrick was here for an amazing visit. I miss him terribly already, and it has made me miss LA, JJ David, Rod and Jan etc. a great deal. it is a good thing I am traveling back to the rock for a couple of weeks in July - we should actually have the tickets bought in the next week or so.

Now I just have to find some sort of employment for the summer months as there is no TA money for that time... somewhere that will let me take two weeks off at the height of summer!

feeling lost and inadequate

Today, I lost my wallet. In it was my driver's license, my health card, my SIN, my credit cards, my bank card, two photo-copy cards and a check from the insurance company for medical reimbursement. I have already canceled my credit cards, and have sent a message on the bank card. Tomorrow morning I start the process of getting new identifications. This is not so easy, replacement cards for anything require that you have ID, except all my ID, with the exception of my bus pass, is gone. I am hoping that my student card will be the easiest to replace, and then I will have my student card and my bus pass to use in the process of getting other ID's.

I am cut off from my money and my credit for at least a week, and two weeks in some cases. Anything that is set up to use my bank card, my credit cards etc has to be set up. It is going to cost about 100 bucks at a minimum to replace the lost IDs, I have to let the department know I have lost a photocopy card that belongs to them.

I feel dumb. I feel like a non-entity. I feel angry at myself for being irresponsible and losing the wallet in the first place. I feel weary at the process that is yet to come. I do not feel like a responsible adult, which I am supposed to be, by this point in my life.

patience

I am not very good at patience. I never have been, and I am trying hard to learn how to be patient, but I am not very good at it at all. I am a creature of impulse. Most of my purchases are made that way, most of my decisions get made on a snap, and I live with whatever consequences may occur from those decisions. I like the information age. I like being able to watch TV series on DVD, so I don't have to wait for the next weekly installment. I prefer to buy books in sets for that self same reason. So it goes without saying that I struggle with waiting. What am I waiting for, you may ask? I am waiting for the government to let me know whether or not I have a job. I have been involved in the process now for almost two years. I still do not have a job. I have had a couple of successful interviews (though the total amount of that success is yet to be seen) but I still have no idea if I am going to have a job or not. Apparently they have asked all the right questions, requested all the right information, and I should be on a short list for hiring. Yet, there is still no word forthcoming. The last of the interviews was over a month ago, at this point. I wrote another exam last week, for which I should hear about an interview sometime in the immediate future, though the word immediate, in conjunction with government is somewhat of a misnomer.

What this lack of patience has meant is that ultimately I am stalling. I keep hoping everyday for word to come, and this word would lift me out of the PhD program that I am not yet settled into, but as each day passes and I do not hear from my prospective employers, it means I actually have to get my ass in gear and do the school-work I have been so deftly avoiding. It is much more difficult because my heart is nowhere near as involved in this process as it should be. I am without drive and spark... and that makes getting motivated extremely difficult. It also means that I am much less creative than I should be. Perhaps, though, this is a good thing when it comes to academia. I have to write a paper, for which I have two weeks to get a proposal together, with an annotated bibliography. I have no idea what to write on, as this course is somewhat outside of my area of expertise. In that same two weeks, I have to finish grading the mountain of exams I have in front of me, research and present my part of a 3 hour group presentation, and get the house ready for a very special guest! Add to that a fairly full social calendar between now and then, and the sickness that has not yet gone away, but is being at least manageable with the right medications.

I know that all I really have to do is be patient. To just wait it out, and eventually my file will land on some managers desk, and I should receive that phone call that I have been ever so anxiously awaiting. And I know that all I really have to do is sit down and start doing all this work that lies in front of me, and yet I find it harder and harder every day to make it happen. I have spurts of activity,where I get what I need to get accomplished done, but the very next day, when I am supposed to pick up where I left off, I find I am almost physically unable to make it happen... it takes supreme effort... why isn't patience like the card game? I am good at that.

Hillary, Gender, and Other Assundry Tales

Do you remember what it was that brought Hilary back into the race when she first started to falter? It was because she performed as a "woman." She showed her emotions, on whatever show she was on, she let the weariness of the road show, she let her voice break and she showed emotion. These are traits that we most often identify as feminine. So by performing as people expect her gender to be, she was able to lift herself back into the limelight. Do you remember, four years ago, when Howard Dean lost his front-runner position? It happened for a variety of reasons, but the one that is most commonly pointed to is when he broke with his gender role and performed with emotion, letting out that uncharacteristic and "unmanly" yelp at a rally. It is an interesting contrast. Hillary gains momentum (that she has since lost) because she showed herself to be more feminine than she had previously portrayed, and Dean lost momentum because he showed himself as less masculine than people expected him to be.

The relegation of emotions to the feminine, and stoicism to the masculine has a long and strong history that dates back as far as our histories go but it really came to the forefront with the division of spheres into public and private during the Enlightenment era. Anything that was seen as illogical was relegated to the feminine and therefore, private sphere. Emotions were something women not only felt, but allowed to show. Religion was not rational, not scientific, so it too was pushed into the realm of the private (and later became an odd form of empowerment for many Western women - the Social Gospel, the Suffragette movement, etc). Men were supposed to put forth a rational, logical position, that of government, and head of business (not to mention the household), while women were not expected to behave in a logical and rational manner.

Why is it, that these social norms still exist? Some would argue and say that things have changed, that they are better now... yet in that very statement is a qualifier... things are better now. This does not say that things are fixed, that there is equality of position, understanding, gender, expectations, etc; it only says that things are ultimately different than what they were. (I am speaking specifically from a Western perspective here, there are many places where, indeed, things are not better now). So why is it, that people are more comfortable relating to a woman who performs her gender in accordance with these Enlightenment philosophies? Why is it that people malign a man who performs outside of his "acceptable" gender role?

Hillary's strongest support, after her allowing her emotions to show, came from female voters. Before that, it was said that women could not relate to Hillary, they felt alienated because she was not typically feminine. Now, to be a woman, that high in political life, means playing the male game. It means taking away sexuality and emotions and becoming, in essence... manly. In becoming this disengendered female, other females stop being able to relate, and a woman like Hillary becomes seen as unfeeling, mechanical, and unfeminine. So, once a break in that veneer comes through, women suddenly see Hillary as human, and men see her as typical, and have an easier time voting for her.

On the flip side, Howard Dean let out what was seen as a "girlish" yelp, and was ostracized by both male and female voters because he acted outside of acceptable patterns for what masculine is supposed to be. Suddenly, a masculine male slips form being the stoic person, whose only emotion allowed is anger, to being a man who is too feminine, and therefore not a good representative in terms of power.

That is the ultimate key here. Power. Men are supposed to be powerful, after all, we have carefully constructed our societies around this concept. Women are supposed to be weak, and men powerful. This comes from more than physiology, it comes from knowledge, and Foucault was right, knowledge is, in and of itself, power. Who has the knowledge, often holds the power, and who has the power often holds the knowledge. This discourse of power has been carefully woven around conceptual normative ideals, ones in which the male is in the privileged position. That is, he holds the position of power only as long as he is performing within the acceptable constraints of what is deemed to be appropriately masculine. When he steps outside of that performance, he is no longer deemed worthy.

Don't believe me? Why then is the word fag considered an insult? Or pansy? or any other derogatory phrase you can think of for people who act outside of conventional ways? How about women who strive for power? Ruthless, or heartless, or bitches, or mechanical, or unfeeling; why are these the words that get used? Why did Hillary suddenly surge back in those early primaries
while Dean lost out so spectacularly in their own respective campaigns? I know there are other factors, but these are certainly worth considering.

Writing

There is a philosopher/academic/commentary writer by the name of Slavoj Žižek who drives me absolutely crazy because he seems to write in stream of consciousness, though I have been told that this is not the case. However, I believe it is true. I believe this because he seems to make leaps within paragraphs, that don't have any apparent connection. And yet, in his writing (which is brilliant and ridiculous at the same time) he manages to build and build and build until he reaches an apex of thought, and then he simply moves on. This often leaves the reader hanging with a wtf? expression on their face, but it always leaves you wanting more, even if you find his manner objectionable (which it certainly is). If I could find the text, I would give you an example on how he articulates, but it is buried in the closet with many other binders and skeletons right now. The point, however, is not to examine Žižek, but that I will probably be emulating him often here on this page, or rather attempting to emulate him, because of the breaks I have had in my ability to write. So, in order to make effective use of this here blogger, I am going to just write. I may jump around a fair bit, I may be focused and articulate, I may be babbling and incoherent, though I will endeavor not to do the latter but at the very least, I will be writing.

I once read a Stephen King book entitled On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft, which was surprisingly good. The first half of the book was an autobiography, explaining his own trials and tribulations with writing, and the second was a blue-collar writing guide. In it, though I have no idea in which half of the book, he stated that the best way to write was to simply do it. To try and write a minimum of 1000 words a day. I have no idea if I will manage to do that here, as I have writing to do for school, and life is busier now than I can ever remember it being - though I am sure that is simply a misremembering on my part - but I will do what I can to make sure I write something every day, or nearly every day.

There is a trend in advertising these days, to make an add seem like its creators had just dropped five or six hits of acid. I am sure you know the ads I mean - take the Wendy's ads with the men wearing the gender-bending Wendy's pigtail wigs as an example. Ads that you are left wondering just who in the hell thought this campaign was a good idea. (They don't air on CBC however, so I don't see them often during the day - the demographic for CBC Newsworld means that ads are for the Sleep Comfort Bed, Tax Lawyers, the no-slip sit-down tubs hocked by Ed McMann, and various other "old people" ads) At night, however, these ads permeate the airspace in between the dramas that I so love to watch. These ads are insidious in my opinion, they seep into our sub-consciousness and stick there, taking up valuable brain space. This makes them obviously a good ad campaign in some ways, and yet, in others it makes them poor, because even though I remember the ad, I have no inclination in that memory to avail myself of the goods being marketed. This would make it a bad ad campaign. These ads make me a little crazy, because I know how much they cost to make, they make me a little crazy because they suck, they make me a little crazy because they attach themselves to my brain in ways that are not immediately evident, and they make me a little crazy because they are not effective in their marketing schemes, making them completely useless in their purpose. Now, I suppose, as the old adage goes, there is no such thing as bad publicity, and I suppose the marketing experts are seeing enough of a turn around on their investments to keep making these horrendous ads , but it is a pollution of the airwaves.

Another ad campaign that is making me crazy is the Swiffer "I am breaking up with my mop and broom" campaign. Even worse is the courtroom scene where the accused is the defendant's old cleaning utensils - where they end the commercial with a statement that says "justice is served." What justice? How is there any justice in this situation? They are talking about an old broom. How can there be any sort of justice for or towards an inanimate object? This leads to a questioning of the nature of justice itself, as an abstract. Is there actually any such thing as justice to begin with? Beyond a judicial order, ruling or law, what is justice? It is a category of thought that has many roots, but today's concept is based on an enlightenment value, a universal concept of there being some sort of equal footing for all, where no one is above the law.... except we all know this is not true. Take a look at Paris Hilton's jail times if you don't believe me. It is interesting that so lofty a concept has been reduced to being nothing more than a commercial to endorse a cleaning product. Perhaps this is actually a very valuable social commentary. Justice actually means nothing more than a Swiffer ad in today's collective mentality.

Perhaps, I too am just as insidious. I have provided links for information, in a way, supporting the very ads I am critiquing.

Reincarnation

Another new beginning, a place for my thoughts and rants and and bits and pieces of me that I am having trouble expressing currently. Within these pages you will find some school work, some political debate, some outright emotional rants, some anger, some love, some pain, some happiness, some fiction, some poetry, some darkness, and with any luck, a whole lotta light. The title comes from my studies, my history and from my person.

What you need to know... rapidly approaching 40, happily married, straight male who appreciates all genders and sexualities and locations of desire, as long as it is consensual. Student and hopeful federal employee. Transplanted from a seriously addictive homeland to a colder and warmer atmosphere.

Political Leanings involve a majorly small L liberal approach, and some big L policies tied to some NDP ideals, which leave me with no one to vote for, in many cases. My religious affiliation falls into the realms of possible pagan, possible agnostic, possible Daoist, possibly United.

I feel, I hurt, I love, I live, I breathe, I exist and I am more than the sum of my parts...