The holidays are here at last, and I have finally taken some time to relax, sleep in, visit with all of my family, and eat all my parents delicious home cooked meals. I would say my mothers, but you know it is amazing, my father did a lot of the cooking while I was home, and he is getting really good at it. He would benefit from having my mother go and retype all the recipies with the 'real' instructions, rather than the skeleton guidelines which my mother has used for years, and made many adjustments to in her head to suit the oven, the size of our family, etc etc. But really, it is great to see my Dad up to his elbows in chopped veggies and grated cheese, making lunch and dinner at the same time. Of course, Mom still makes the apple pie, and the Christmas cookies, which were also delicious.
So, after months of almost no movie watching, which is highly unusual for me, I have finally made it to see a movie in the theatres. And, just for good measure, I went to see it twice. Well, the second time we went to see it on an 'Imax' screen, with fancy 'THX' sound, but I think it was about the same all in all. But, I liked it well enough. I have not read the books, and so am not in a possition to judge from a purist adaptation point of view. But, from what I hear, the film makers have wisely dug into notes for the novels which were not used, and offered up more interesting roles for the already sparce female characters. If there is one thing that continues to bother me about these movies it is the complete absence, or near absence, of female characters. Even the trees are male! At least C. S. Lewis made some of the trees female, what was wrong with Tolkien? But, to his credit, I loved the environmental theme to the story. I really wish that trees could uproot and fight, and that the power of water and wind could be unleashed on those who would pent it up for exploitation by industry. I once heard a piece of an interview with Cate Blanchet about the film, in which she was talking about the ring as a symbol of the machine, and would humankind really have the strength to destroy something so powerful, but so destructive which it had created? I like to hope that it might still be possible, but only history will tell. In that battle at least, these stories certainly take their place.

Well, I made it!! Marking all done...hurray!! And before 3 am, by some miracle. Only two full days longer than I had expected, and a full 6 days longer than it took Wonder Woman to finish. I will just never be as cool as her. No matter how hard I try. But, I am done marking...no more of the same essay over and over and over and over for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours...Now, off to bed, so I can start on my own papers tomorrow. Yuppie!

I was listening to CBC, as usual, and they played a piece by one of my favourite contemporary composers, Michael Nyman. This prompted me to go and seek out what is available on disc. Well, I found a treasure trove. I am especailly intersting in all the cinema soundtracks, ie from Greenaway films and the like. However, I fear that most of these would have to be ordered. Perhaps if I have some left over scholarship money in the new year...that should keep me motivated. :)

Well, after adding my comment to Tom's Diner, I just had to come here and extole the virtues of winter a little more. Yes, I am one of those freaks who likes winter. I love being snuggled in bed under heaps of covers. Long winter nights to burn lots of candles, while sitting around cozily reading or better yet writing, in my journal, or personal letters. December and January are especially good because there are lots of home made Christmas cookies to eat. But best of all about winter is that I get to pull out all my wonderful handmade sweaters, and use them to full effect. I come from a family of knitters, and I love to knit also. So, along side my closets full of unfinished knitting projects, I also have a dresser full of hand knit wool sweaters. (I am also one of those freaks who can wear pure wool next to my bare skin. I should really become an ascetic. I think I missed my calling.) Anyway, yesterday I pulled out an Aaron Sweater that my Mom made for me. My sisters an I all have ones that are almost the same. I put it on over a t-shirt, and while I was walking to school, I was embraced by this fantastic feeling of cozy. It lasted pretty much the whole day. I was nice and warm. Then this morning I pulled out the first sweater I ever made myself, which I am still willing to wear. My only complaint is that I made it out of cheap yarn, rather than real wool, but the buttons came from a cool store in Banff Alberta, and I think it still looks cool. I wore it all the time in high school. My mother called it my 'uniform'. There was a cat hair caught in one of the sleeves, which I think must have belonged to my old cat Muffin, whom I am missing (but who will not come back, as Mischief did). Links to home, the past, beloveds in my life who are currently far away. My mother is giving me a big warm hug from far away, as I wear my nice warm sweater in the crisp cold winter weather. Yes, December is a great month after all.

I just went to pick up something from the floor, and out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a cat in the hall way. It was really just some cleaning things I had left there, but it made me think just how much I miss having a cat around. Recently, my Mom called to say that my older sister's cat, which is currently living at my parents, had disappeared. Now he is in the habit of doing this, and he has now returned, much to my delight, but I was really worried that there would be no cat when I went home for Christmas. I lived with that cat all last year, and for most of my life we have had a cat. They just make a home. They are fantastic company. And they have great personalities. Cats are great for all kinds of things. They keep your house mouse free. They curl up on your lap and keep you warm in the winter. They purr. Not to mention all the good emotional and physical health petting a cat can bring. They are also good lover tests. Set a cat in a prospective lovers lap, and see how well they pet it...you get the idea. Ah well. Hopefully, when all this work is done, I will be home with a cat waking me up in the morning, and curling up on my lap in the afternoon, and pouncing on me in the night. I miss the kitty.

Well, hell week is in full swing over here in Kingston. Papers, marking, you name it, all due this week. Hurry hurry while supplies last. :)

Well, here is yet another quiz, just for fun. This one stolen from M. I am glad that I got a cool chick like Kirsten Dunst, not that geek from X-Files. :)

You are 32% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Here are my test results...link thanks to S. I always knew that Quaker blood would catch up with me somehow. :)

According to the SelectSmart.com Belief System Selector, my #1 belief match is Liberal Quakers. What do you believe? Visit SelectSmart.com/RELIGION

Wow, the news is out. I think this might affect some of my essays...:)

I was listening to the CBC this morning, (it is my alarm, and a very pleasant one too I might add). After some moving Remembrance Day features, they played one of my favourite pieces, Unfolking Sky, from Postcards from the Sky, by Marjan Mozetich. And to my utter amazement, he teaches in the Music Department here at Queen's. I am torn between hunting him down in his office hours with CD in hand to be signed, to tell him how much I love his music, and how moved I am by it, or writing him a letter expressing much the same sentiment. Fan mail I suppose. I am sure he gets lots of it, so I wouldn't want to turn into a groupy, but I am so excited to think that he is here in Kingston, and that I might see him at a concert or just walking around.

Today I made an amazing discovery. I finally found the independent grocery store near my house! An archeological find, almost. A family run grocery that has been going since the turn of the century, which hasn't been bought out by the biggies and moved so far from anyones' home that it is impossible to walk there. I think the place must survive on all the older residents in the area, of which there are many. I loved it. They even had these tiny tins of mints, which I think are so cute, on top of being cool because they are in a real tin. I will shop there as much as possible, to avoid the obnoxious big box grocery stores. I was so sad when I went home to Waterloo this weekend, and discovered that the downtown grocery store which I survived my undergraduate degree on has closed down. I was grateful, however, that they at least waited for me to graduate. I remember once I was there, looking at this strange kind of cheese, and asked the grocer who was there about it, and he promised to bring me a good Menonite recipe for a great cake his mother used to make with it, but I never met up with him again, sadly. That never happens in the huge stores, let me tell you. But I have even fonder memories of that place, when my gramma used to take me there when I was little and came to visit her. Ah well, time stops for no one. I will just have to patronize my new found little grocery store, and content myself with that. :)

I was home in Waterloo this weekend, and took in American Psycho. M has just finished reading the book, at S's suggestion, and (other) S also read it, and told me about her impressions of both the book and the movie, so I was well prepared. Perhaps a little too well prepared. I think someday, not any time soon mind you, I will have to read the book for myself. However, having now seen the movie, it was not as bad, (ie, scary) and not as good, (ie, well put together) as I had hoped. We also took in some regular old TV this weekend, something I almost never do. I hate ads, and TV is jammed with them, so I avoid it at all costs, most of the time. I was quite disturbed, however, by the ad for KitchenAid which looked far too similar to many aspects of American Psycho. Perhaps, taken with the book, the movie is a meaningful satire of the materialism not just of the 80's but capitalist North American culture in general. That is what makes it such a scary movie!

If I were to confess to you truly, what kept me in the church as long as I was, there were two things. The religious experience I got from some pieces of choral music, and the participation in a genuine interest to improve the lives of all persons, and each person, the mutual search and struggle for a better life, society, and world. Did I wander astray because those two things have disappeared, or weakend? Not at all. And I am still very much in danger of being drawn back by those very things. I have just gone off into the wider world to see if I could find them (better expressed?) elsewhere. That is yet to be determined.

But, as I sit listening to Arvo Part's Litany, I am drawn back to that feeling, that religious experience of music. It is religious music that has kept me sane, I think. The psalmist, and thus the choral composer, guiding me down to the depths of my woe, and then lifting me up to hope once again. Always, the darkest depths, and then, the redirection to hope renewed. Alegri's Miserere, for example, or any requiem. (I was especially fond of Faure, Brahms, to a certain extent Mozart, although that was just good intense study music, rather than comfort to my woes, and even Rutter). Then, you might ask me, "but what about the line which says, "In sin hath my mother concieved me"? Does this not rouse your indignation as a woman?" Yes, of course, (which is why I prefer it in latin), but then, in some ways, how different is that from "Man that is born of woman, has but a short time to live, and is full of misery", or "All life is suffering"? To me, they are trying to express the same sentiment, however poorly worded. And yes, all life is suffering. And so, I suffer, and weep, and bemoan my sad existence, and hope for a better one, in this life, if that is indeed all that there is to us, or in some perfection beyond this reality, if we poor humans may taste of such a thing.

It's been a week, and a short one at that. Perhaps that will be my excuse for not getting anything done. Wait, I've handed in my first paper...not that I am very proud of it. I worked hard on it, but I don't think that was reflected in the paper as well as it could have been. Not that any of you want to hear my bitching. So what did I really want to write about? The Muppets of course! Wow, it has been a long time since I got to watch the Muppets. S and I rented a DVD of three shows, and it was great. We only got to watch two episodes, however, but it is better to savour it...too much all at once and one might get intoxicated. I have been dancing around the house to the theme song, and not just because I was inspired by Jean Kelly's dancing lessons to Kermit. While in some ways it is dated, mostly by the guest stars, some parts of it seem ageless, or still funny at least, if there is a difference. Hey RGD, if you are listening out there, would you play for me Aligator Rock, or what ever the song is with Suzie by Elton John? That would be great!

I confess that while I have been reading today, I have also spent an inordinate amount of time in front of my monitor. S sent me a link, via M, to a photography page. There is a lot more here than I have time to properly peruse. However, I did see some interesting images. I find it an interesting contrast that he seems to divide his time between forts, studio nudes, and nudes in nature. Well, you can see for yourself what he qualifies as far as body types are concerned. I was somewhat startled by a picture in the couples portfolio of a man in the forground, a woman in the background, showing their lower torso from behind. After so many hairless women, and was glad to see a bit of variety. My curiosity drove me to look into his philosophy behind seeking models. (I can't link to the actual pages, but look in his 'About Modelling' section, and also at the 'Working with the Nude' link at the bottom of that page). While I applaud his ideas behind financial reimbursment vs. payment with results from the photoshoot, I still find aspects of his work decidedly problematic. I began to think of contrasts, or comparisons, and Mary Pratt, another Eastern Canadian artist came to mind. She also does work with female nudes. She usually works from photographs into paintings. Her portrayal of female nudes is very different. While some may say at time the differences are only subtle, I think, they are significant. On this page there is a portrait she did of Donna, and although it is not clear on the computer, the model's socklines are made visible in the painting, which could so easily have been left out. In another portrait, based on a photograph of a model her husband took, she painted in the imprint of the model's blue jeans, still visible in the painting. This makes them incredibly real. The photographs of Eric Boutilier-Brown I find a little too idealizing, for all that he claims his models are not professional, and would not qualify as such. Not only the women he choosed to photograph, but what about them he photographs, and avoids. (See again, his section on working with the nude). Anyway, that is my two cents for today. I would love to hear any responses in other blog entries, since you cannot leave them here. TTFN

Hey this is a great site! I never thought of looking on the web for this stuff. I hope I can find a copy somewhere in this town of another one of these books. They are not available online, it would seem. Not that I would want to buy them that way anyway. Independent bookstores! That is the way to go! I have yet to check out the ones downtown Kingston. Perhaps that can be my outing this weekend. But then I will be tempted to buy something. But it is good to know what they have, of course. In some ways I don't want to look at books for pleasure. As if I haven't had enough of them already with school work. All I do is sit in various places in the house, (my only form of variety) and read books. Heavy books. Deep, hard to read, scholarly nonsense books. But, hey, who am I kidding? Part of me loves it, or I wouldn't be here, right? Or is it just better than facing the real world? Hmm. Well, it is better than pouring coffee. Although sometimes I wouldn't agree. Of course I used to read school books on my breaks at work. Many the day I was reading amid the tables of customers, the din of clinking coffee cups and spoons, and the chatter of old ladies and business men. Or better yet in the back on an evening shift, when the kitchen was empty, and blissfully ... ... silent . Sigh, the simpler days...but this is great, really, just more pressure, more reading. And more and more and more ... :)

Wow, who could imagine a better evening. Alone in the kitchen, baking, cooking, with nothing but CBC Radio for company. And what is even better, my faith, or rather hope, in the importance of my chosen field of study has been renewed. Even a lowly MA student of religion, much, I might fancy, like myself, was the guest of As It Happens. How exciting. Sadly, they don't have the listings for tonight yet, so I can't go research exactly who it was. The other exciting programme was on Ideas. Of course Ideas is always exciting, but again, a spiritual, ethical, compassionate theme to the material gave me hope that the things I am concerned with are of concern to others too, and of enough concern to merit the CBC's attention. It didn't hurt any that Jean Vanier sounded just like Ralph Fiennes, from the English Patient, over the radio. To hear such a voice, speaking to eloquently about spiritual matters, well, I am sure you can imagine. One woman at the conference even commented that when he spoke it had a prayer like quality to it. Here I would say that it would be worth the extra to buy the tape rather than the transcript. I really wonder, does any library out there buy copies of Ideas transcripts for the benefit of us academics? There is so much good material there. I hope someone is keeping it for posterity.
And here is something interesting, the adventures of Diesel, the baby black spruce, across Canada. I liked the scenary, very familiar. God but Canada can be beautiful. I have driven the entire highway also, though not in one long trip. A problem inherant in living in central Canada, one among many.
All this optimism about my field of study is highly necessary after the much more pessimistic converstation I had with one of my profs today. He suggested that there are not likely to be many jobs in the field, and that I should seriously (re)consider what I hoped to do with my MA. Sounds like the woman on AIH is working for the government now. I wonder how that works, or if she is just filling time and space now that her schooling is done. I hope not. I just hope.
Oh, and Martin, about your article of actual GOOD news... they talked about that tonight too. Apparently the shrinking size of the hole in the ozone is just a strange phenomenon of weather, entirely seasonal and not permanent, and really only of benefit to the penguins down in Antartica, who won't be exposed to quite so severe UV rays as a result. Good news for the penguins I guess.

Well, the day is shaping up to be more unpacking and moving in. My fourth and final roommate has just arrived and is doing the same thing, so I suppose I should get in the spirit too. Well, I should probably try to finish the last couple of chapters of The Shipping News before I am inundated with school reading again. This always happens to me. I try to read a novel over the summer, and if I pick one that is too long, like Anna Karenina, Mill on the Floss, or Les Miserables to name a few, I don't get to finish them before the manditory reading sets in again in the fall. Sigh. In some ways I feel like this is a chance at a fresh start. I have done a lot of purging and sorting, but there is always more to do. I can rearrange and reaorganize, and hopefully make a good space for myself here, for a year at least. I really have to make sure I hang pictures and posters this year. That was the big problem with my bedroom at Brookmill I think. No pics on the walls, and all institutional white. It is white here too, sadly. I had hoped to be able to paint before I moved in. The best room for that was my first university room. My mother came with me a couple of days before I moved in, and pulled of wall paper, washed every square cm, filled in all the nail holes, sanded, primed and painted my room with me. And at the end of it all, that tiny room was my space. And it was great. Ah well. Here I didn't even have time to sweep the floor or anything. And now, with the room so crowded, I don't imagine I will ever get it properly cleaned. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a broom around here yet either...hmmm.

Wow! Here I am in Kinston at last. Well, at last after all the effort it took to get me and all my stuff here. I still haven't unpacked everything yet. Some of it has yet to go home, so I can't really settle in until I have it down to what is staying and what is not. I wonder what my sister was thinking, and what I was thinking. Anyway. Today was busy and fun. I registered, and met the people in my department. Everyone seems really great. I am looking forward to the year here, but I also think it will be a lot of work. Frosh week here is something to see that is for sure. For anyone who has never witnessed Frosh week at Queen's let me give you a little taste. On my walk to campus today, there were several mobs of people all dressed in the same colour tee shirt. The first ones I could see were a large group of commerce students, in maroon shirts, all doing jumping jacks and shouting a chant. Then there was a large line of yellow shirted people holding signs marked with different years on them, as if it were for homecoming or something. The crowd mentality made me rather emotional, for some reason I can't explain, and I nearly started crying. The best by far, however, were the engineers. Many, though not all, dye themselves purple with medical dye. They walk around with their hair sculpted into wild shapes and metalic colours and their skin is entirely purple! But then it got even stranger. I was at the Grad Club and groups of these purple people walked by carrying large pieces of furniture. The front grill of an old truck, several couches and chairs, even a stove in a shopping cart. They were apparently getting ready for an obstical race. I had guessed some strange scavenger hunt. Someone suggested we ask one of the purple guys in kilts just how far the purple goes...

I am going through my clothes, getting ready to pack up my life and move to Kingston in a little more than a week now. So, as you can tell I am so absorbed in my work, I had to drag myself away and come over here to blog about it instead. ;) This leaving stuff is not my style at all. I hate going through and throwing things away, but really, I know I have to do it. I am a terrible pack rat, and not only do I accumulate my own stuff, I am great at accumulating other peoples stuff as well. Part of me thinks, as I go through my piles of clothing, that really I should have enough clothing to last me a lifetime. Yet, I must get rid of the unfashionable stuff, in favour of new more fashionable stuff. Or, as my sense of my own style is slowly honed to a finer point, I get rid of what is not an expression of me, and replace it with stuff that is more 'me'. That has been going on over the past several years, I must say. Then there is the issue of body changing shape. Lucky for me I am much the same shape and size I was in highschool, but what I feel good in has changed a lot...thus the out with the old unfashionable stuff all over again. Clothing is such a class thing too. And an age thing. I grow out of things not because my body has changed, but because my station in life has changed. Sigh. Well, I had best get back to my work. TTFN

This is a poll I stole off of M's webpage. I thought it would be fun to see how different our answers would be. :)

WHAT WAS THE FIRST CD YOU OWNED (BOUGHT FOR YOU)?:
I think it must have been Glenn Gould's recording of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier Book One. I got it for my 16th birthday from my parents.

WHAT WAS THE FIRST CD YOU EVER BOUGHT?:
This one must have been Glenn Gould's 1981 recording of the Bach Goldberg, (Gouldberg) Variations :)

IF YOU HAD SOMEONE OF THE OPPOSITE SEX COMING OVER AND YOU WANTED TO IMPRESS THEM, WHICH CDS WOULD YOU HIDE?:
I'm not the hiding sort. I would want them to realize that I have diverse tastes, and hope they can accept that. However, I would be perhaps concerned that my CD collection is not large enough to be a good reflection of my real musical tastes.

IS THERE A SONG THAT REMINDS YOU MOST OF YOUR CHILDHOOD?:
There are several records that I loved to listen to as a child. Anne Murray's "There is a Hippo in my Bathtub", a couple of Raffi albums, as well as "Peter and the Wolf", and Sharon, Lois and Bram's "Smorgasboard".

IF YOU COULD SPEND A NIGHT WITH ONE MUSICAL ARTIST WHO WOULD THEY BE?:
I am afraid I will have to give the pat answer here, Gould, but of those still living, I think I might be interested in meeting Marjan Mozetich, whose music I only recently discovered.

YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT SONG WOULD PLAY OVER THE FOLLOWING:
OPENING CREDITS-
Bridal Lullaby by Percy Granger, as used in Howard's End
LOVE SCENE -
Affairs of the Heart, Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra, Marjan Mozetich
DRIVING SCENE -
U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name
SPIRITUAL SOUL SEARCHING SCENE-
Healey Willan's "Who is She that Ascendeth"
CONFRONTATION WITH YOUR NEMESIS -
Toccata and Fugue in D by Bach
MOURNING SCENE-
Beethoven's 'Ghost' String Quartet
CLOSING CREDITS -
Bela Bartok Violin Concerto

IF APPLICABLE, NAME A SONG OR CONCERT THAT MOVED YOU TO TEARS:
Les Miserables soundtrack, routinely in highschool. I finally saw the play in Toronto after yearning to see it for what seemed to me then a long long time.
HAPPY?:
Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough -Michael Jackson
SAD?:
Faure's Requiem
ANGRY?:
Bizet's Chromatic Variations
MELLOW?:
Love's Illusion by Anonymous 4

NAME A SONG YOU WOULD RATHER HEAR NEVER AGAIN:
"You and Me Baby Ain't Nothing But Mammals"

NAME AN ALBUM THAT IS PERFECT ALL THE WAY THROUGH-NO FILLER, NO BAD STUFF:
Chopin Preludes Op.28 and Nocturnes pianist Tzimon Barto

MUSIC YOU LIKE THAT COULD BE CONSIDERED A GUILTY PLEASURE:
Joyous Light (Armenian Music)

IF YOUR MUSIC COLLECTION WAS ABOUT TO GO UP IN FLAMES, WHICH FIVE CDS WOULD YOU SAVE?:
Actually, all my CD's are replacable, but I have several tapes that I made, which I would want to save, of old records that I can no longer play, such as, my Annie record, and the old Snow White soundtrack, and my tape of my grade 8 class on the last day of school.

IS THERE A SONG THAT DESCRIBES YOU OR A SITUATION YOU'VE BEEN IN SO WELL THAT YOU COULD HAVE WRITTEN IT?:
Well, most of what I listen to is instrumental, or sacred music. Hmmm,

WHICH UNDERRATED ARTIST DESERVES MORE ATTENTION?:
Local choirs and mucical groups. The free concerts at WLU on Tuesdays at noon are great! More people should take them in.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SOUNDTRACK?:
Howard's End

BEST MUSIC-RELATED MOVIE:
32 Short Films About Glenn Gould

WHAT WOULD YOUR DREAM BAND BE?:
It wouldn't be a band... Well, perhaps I would like to be able to go back and play with my grade 8 band. We were great and had so much fun together.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ALL-TIME VIDEO?:
The series Yo-Yo Ma put out called Inspired by Bach of the Suites for Solo Cello

CURRENT FAVOURITE RADIO HIT:
Since I really only listen to the CBC, they don't really have 'hits' per se. (But you should really take a listen anyway). :)

I think that about rounds it up for now. If anyone is reading this, and has a good idea of the pieces I am talking about most of the time... I would love to hear from you! Leave a comment on M's page under his entry of similar questions. You know the coolest thing about a blog entry like this is that I look up and find all kinds of cool web pages about stuff that I like. :)

Wow! I am up and running again. I also have to mess around with colours again to get some that I like. This will have to do for now. I am officially off to Nova Scotia in a few weeks time, which should be fun. I have no idea what I will end up doing there, besides taking part in BBQ's and perhaps a cross Halifax game of croquet. It will be great to see the city from a less touristy point of view, i.e., not going to all the things mentioned in the tourist guide.
Otherwise I am supposed to be in the process of packing up my life, in preparation of shoehorning myself into a much smaller space than that to which I have recently, (over the past two or more years) been accustomed. I am a horrible pack rat. I don't want to throw things away, I just want to store them for a year until I have room again. Ha, ha. But really, it is a good excuse to go through stuff, if only I had more time to do it. (Time which I am currently wasting on this, ah well).
TTFN

Here is my third attempt to post an entry in about a month. I'll keep it short to see if it works. (*shrug*)

Well, my last entry refuses to be posted, so here goes on another, just for kicks, to see if it will work. Off to Kingston tomorrow, house hunting AGAIN. This will be my third, and hopefully final trip for this purpose. Kingston is a nice place to visit, especially in summer. (My first impression of it in winter was none too promising...heavy sleet and lots of slushy puddles, very wet and cold.) I suppose my first impression of it in summer wasn't all that great either, but not because of the weather. My aunt took my sister and I camping there when I was very young, perhaps six. We went to see Fort Henry, which was a rather traumatic experience to my highly sensitive wee self. Then, after being forced to finish my breakfast, I promptly lost it again all over the back of my aunts old red Maveric, and my polyester pants just before we were going to go on the local boat cruise. Needless to say, we never went on the cruise, and I was never forced to finish my breakfast again.

Haven't written here much lately because I have been away for the past week. I was up north, (ha, ha, really just as far as Huntsville), looking after my young charge on the beach and at the swimming pool at the Holiday Inn Resort, working on my tan. I got a little free time in, and went for a great canoe ride which took me three hours, and around most of the perimeter of the lake next to the resort. We took in a couple of the local restaurants also, which were great. I especially like 3 Guys and a Stove. I also stopped at Weber's on the way home. For those of you who don't know what Webers is, it is a great place to stop for burgers, and fantastic chocolate shakes on Hiway 11 near Orillia. Better than any burger joint around here, except perhaps Stanley's. :) Well, so much for now, I must be off to do my Pornography readings for my Philosophy class, more on that later...

Well, the weather is nice, and I have decided that this summer I can get a tan. The last couple of summers I have remained pale from slaving away in a hot coffee house for all those crazy addicted people who still want to drink HOT coffee on stinking HOT summer days. Now that I have escaped the Timmy's summer hell I have a job where I can enjoy the summer sun and fresh air as it was meant to be enjoyed. I go for long walks every morning, then play in the sand box, or at the park, (with my young charge of course). In the afternoon, after nap time, there is the community pool down the street. This is shaping up to be a great summer. The last summer I actually got a tan was the summer between highschool and university. I was working as a wilderness counsellor for a camp in Ayr. We went on canoe trips every week, and boy did I get a lot of sun. Even with all my hat and sunscreen, you could see the triangle from my teva sandals very clearly. The next summer I was treeplanting, then working in an office. (For those of you who are wondering, you must treeplant in long sleeves, or else you will be covered in bug bites, not a tan). Part of me really doesn't like tan lines, or the modern obsession with tanning. I would never want to be really brown, especially not from a tanning salon, or something like that. Just as much natural sun as I get is fine with me. I always wear my hat to keep the sun off my face at least, and usually pants, or a long skirt, because I am too lazy to keep my legs shaved, even when it gets really hot. (No one really notices swimming, I think, and if they do, tough). Working at the Tim's was partly a good excuse for me to take up my old fashioned ideals of pale as beauty, and tanned as working class...how tastes have changed. Now a tan signifies either that you can afford to sit in a tanning salon, or to take a trip somewhere south with lots of sun. No one wants to be pale anymore. But I still think tan lines look dumb. :P

Well, I was going to post this on Tom's Diner, but I still don't know how to make an entry there, so I'll write it here. I have been humming over Eyes Wide Shut, and whether or not I really liked it. I really liked the dillema it presented, i.e. infidelity and jealousy in a marriage relationship. (Really, any long term 'monogomous' relationship). However, as I commented in my previous entry on this movie, a lot of it could be construed as soft porn. Why is it that in Hollywood films it is perfectly acceptable to make women parade around naked next to the fully clothed men? Not only do we get to see much more of Nicole Kidman than we do of Tom Cruise, the entire sequence with Dr. Bill wandering around in the secret sex society was horribly sexist. I think there was one male 'prostitute' visiblly naked, and he was only dancing with, not being fucked by his companion. The women walked around completely naked except for a mask, while the men were fully dressed, caped, and masked, unveiling only as much as 'necessary'. Perhaps I am unusual in my typical choice of movies, but I seemed to run into more films, unintentionally, that were biased the other way. However, male nudity in most of the films I am thinking of was not used in the same voyeuristic, sexual way that the female nudity is so often used. Films like Room With a View, and Mrs. Brown each have scenes of men going for a swim in the nude. The women in each movie remain completely dressed and dignified. One film that is a bit more balanced in its' exposure of both male and female bodies is Angels and Insects. The only real exception to this trend, as far as I have discovered, are the films of Peter Greenaway, or Penis Greenaway, as I have heard him called. I only discovered this director in university, and lucky for me that I did. I would have had a lot of explaining to do should my mother have interupted me watching any of those. (I had enough trouble explaining Angels and Insects). I have yet to see a Greenaway film that didn't have a penis in it. The men are exposed as much or more than the women. Belly of an Architect was remarkable to me in its' representation of a pregnant woman as highly sexy and desirable. Still, films like 8 1/2 Women are at best ambiguous in their representation of women's power in comparison to men's. (Yes, I would really like to see many more rah rah hairy armpit women movies, with lots of naked objectified men, and fully dressed, fantasizing women. At least until the balance is corrected. Then we can better deal with whether or not this is a good idea at all.) But, my roommates, (and I) were happy to finaly have a chance to watch our favourite Hollywood men take it all off, for a change. Sumaarsita signing off until next time...

O.K., more movie comments. What can I say? I watch far too many movies. This time another Tom Cruise movie, but better than that it was a Kubrick film, if you haven't already guessed, Eyes Wide Shut. This was not what I had been expecting, but then this was afterall the first Kubrick film I have watched all the way through. I can easily see how this movie could have been a catalyst to the Kidman/Cruise divorce. Soft porn, yes, but also a movie about infidelity in marriage, real and fantasized. Here is a telling question. Who, if anyone, commited an act of infidelity in the marriage? To me, they both did, in different degrees. While I think that in some ways Kidman's character's infidelity is worse, Cruise's character's apparently jealous reaction to what was really just an idea seems excessive.
On a different note, M showed me a really cool page with Winamp stuff on it. I liked the Poison Tree and Blue Violin.
TTFN

I just watched Vanilla Sky, despite several warnings that it was a bad movie. Is it just me, or is Hollywood on this strange plot twist kick lately. It seems to me that films like Vanilla Sky, Matrix, The Others, and Fight Club, to name a few, are all films with narrators trying to come to grips with a changed reality around them. It is portrayed as a journey of self-awareness, in the end. The main character comes to grips with who they really are, what they really have done, etc, and once they do that, they can acknowledge the true nature of the world around them. I remember reading an article in the Globe once about how movies were moving from the Freudian/Jungian ideas of psychoanalysis and the Subconscious to a more medical take your pills oriented idea of human psychology. (The article was comparing Good Will Hunting with As Good As it Gets). I beg to disagree. The only pills int these movies are the ones that send "Alice down the rabbit hole",and begin the psychological journey. These movies seem obsessed with our ability to fabricate our own illusions, dreams, and understanding of reality. They play on our fears of the mysteries of the subconscious, and the unconscious workings of our minds. How much could our desire for pleasure, or 'happiness' drive us to accept a reality created or facilitated for us by someone else. I also find it interesting the medium they have chosen to portray this. Film. So far still the best and most widely available form of escape from 'reality' into a world of someone else's creation for the purpose of our pleasure and 'happiness' at least for a couple of hours at a time. Anyone care to offer a comment?

Hey all! The weekend is finally winding down. Unfortunately I have to be at work an half hour early tomorrow. Arrg. Ah well. I am looking forward to Friday, my graduation. Somehow I just have this feeling that I have forgotten to do something vital, and I will get there and they won't let me up on stage or something. I went looking for something to wear today. I would really rather just wear one of the outfits I already have than spend another hundred dollars on something I will only be allowed to wear once. I love fancy clothes, don't get me wrong. And it was very nice of my mother to offer to buy whatever I picked out, but I would really rather have the money to indulge my extravagent tastes in Victorian dress, rather than a typical prom dress from Fairweather. It isn't that big a day anyway. Yah, five years of work, and I did do very well and all of that, but I am not getting any special awards for all of that, and really, almost everyone I went to school with has already graduated. Kind of sad really. I wish this had been a bit more like highschool, the same people to get to know and graduate with, but I had to work to pay for it, so I had to go part time after the first year or two, and so, I became more and more removed from university life and social events. I always envied my business roomies. They always seemed to have a tight knit class group, and lots of social events to go to that I did not. Ah well. I would have been a terrible business student. I never could understand how they did all those group projects. Give me my essays, and the odd presentation in partners, but no more. Well, I will be off to another school come September. Hopefully, the programme being so small, I will find a stronger sense of academic community there. Also, I will have the added advantage of no longer having to work low paying jobs to pay for my schooling. I will TA, and live on the fat of my scholarships. Hurray! I will still be a poor student, no doubt about that, but at least I will be a dedicated student, rather than student/coffee girl or student/nanny as I am now. TTFN

Well, the pussy cat and I are hanging out here until I have to leave for a Medieval dinner and Crown Tournament over in Elora. My friend is taking me. She made me a dress and everything. How nice of her. If I am lucky we might get some pics. Speaking of pics, my web cam now works, so for those of you who are curious, you can find me on this page. I hope to start to learn to do some of my OWN coding, not this cheating stuff were all the hard parts are done for me. Still, this was an easy way for me to get started, and learn to play with colour schemes. I have no intention of abandoning this format any time soon. Well, it is pouring rain, and since my old car has a nasty leak right over the drivers seat, I am sure to be dripped on by the time I get to Welesly. TTFN

Boy, it's been a while since I made an entry here. I've been meaning to blog a link one of my friends linked to in her blog a few days ago. As a nanny, I have certainly read "Love You Forever" many, many times, and I must admit, I had never really looked at it quite THAT way before. However I'm not sure the author of this page is being entirely fair. This is Robert Munch after all. If anyone has read many Robert Munch, as I certainly have, you know that he is famous for stretching the truth, using hyperbole if you will, to make the point of the story. These are not intended as realistic children's stories, so if you take them too seriously, yah, they become a little creepy and strange. To me, the strangest thing about "Love You Forever" is not the story itself, but the illustrations, and their relation to the story. Did you ever wonder when the story takes place? The story should span the course of about 30 years, yet it is nearly impossible to place the time period based on dress and objects in the illustrations. And isn't the problem of the single bed and the sudden appearance of a baby girl with apparently no mother really only a problem of the illustrations and not the story? If you want to have some fun reading a Robert Munch book from a grown-up perspective, I recommend "The Fire Station". My favourite line is "...you're too dirty."
I also noticed Selene's entry on being 'well read'. I found the list of 100 best works of fiction in the Globe, and went through the list to see what I recognized/had read. I was surprised by some of them, hadn't heard of several of course. A friend of mine in classics had of course read all the ancient Greek and Latin stuff. Being an English minor I was more likely to have read many of English classics. But there are many, many classics there that I simply haven't gotten around to reading. I used to go through phases with different authors over the course of my life. First there was Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House books, I never watched the T.V. show), then L.M. Montgomery (Emily series, I avoided the Anne books for a while, but finaly succommed), C.S. Lewis (Narnia series, I read some theological stuff in highschool), Agatha Christie (mystery woman extraordinaire), and Margaret Mitchell. (I know she only wrote one novel, but I read Gone With the Wind twice, and a thick book like that for a grade 7 student was a heavy read for me then. I also read Scarlett, but only once. It paled in comparison to it's predicessor.) In high school I discovered E.M. Forster (and the Merchant Ivory movies to go with them), and then Jane Austen (and the many movies of those which were made at the time), as well as the Brontes. I didn't actually finish Wuthering Heights until university. Recently, I have been on a Margaret Atwood kick.
In some ways I have done that with movies as well. My favourite movie store, Gen X, used to stack all their movies by director, which was very intelligent I think. I have been working my way through movies by Greenaway, and his inspiration Felini. A friend and I have watched Throis Coleurs, and the Decalogue by Krzysztof Kieslowski. I really like his films. All interesting takes on the theme of love between human beings, to my thinking, especially Trois Coleurs, (Bleu, Blanc, and Rouge). Well, I think that is enough for now. Perhaps I will go into more detail on some of these movies later.

Wow! Since my email won't send, and I couldn't readjust my mouse, or get my computer to play a CD for me, I decided to do some web surfing. (By the way, the only other thing that did work for me today was making a stand for my web cam out of lego! That was fun.) So, what do I surf for when I am frustrated and in need of some self indulgent dreaming...period clothing of course. My favourite places to go and dream of having lots of money to buy what ever I wanted are Starkers and Atrocities, but today I found a few others. When I was in Stratford on the weekend, I found a great store. Then there is a site from Australia, which I remember surfing when I was looking for corsets about a year ago. I did finally buy a corset from Starkers, which I love, by the way. It was an 18th century, in case you are looking, and should go under a dress like this, if I were going to hide it, heaven forbid! If you want to see a picture of me in my corset, go here. The skirt was also custom made for me by a store here in Waterloo, which I am fond of frequenting in person. So, until I can save up more money, I will simply have to dress up in the stuff I already have and love, and dream of the next thing I can afford to add to my collection. :)

Well, the new 'puter is all hooked up. By far the most exciting part for me is not all the extra memory, or RAM, or the portability or any of that stuff, but the fact that I now have speakers! Imagine, I can hear all the music and other fun extras on those sophisticated web sites. (Go to 04.12.2002 for the music part.) However, just this morning I was surfing on CBC again, and discovered that my speakers offered me a whole new world of information and fun not available in my former silent web surfing universe. I listened to several famous Canadians recommend their favourite Canadian fiction, which was really cool. One that caught my attention was the Nobel Prize winning chemist at the bottom of the page. He mentioned a paper on Canadian foreign affairs which I think should be on this site, but which I couldn't find. If any one else can find it, (the paper is apparently called "Responsibility to Protect") let me know. Well, my young charge should be arriving any minute, so this is Sumaarsita signing off until next time. Ta ta!

Hey everyone! I have a new toy with which to make my blog entries. A laptop! They tell me it is really good, not that I can really tell the difference. :) I would rather it was a Mac, but the deal was very sweet. I may even have a web cam up and running soon...if I decide to be that much on display. Tomorrow I am off to (hopefully) sunny Stratford to go shopping. Recognize the music anyone? I used to sing that while my mother played the piano, when I was just a wee lass. sigh :)

Playing with colours can be a lot of fun, but there are other things I should be doing I am sure. Like taking a hot bath in some of my favourtive bubble bath. Whether or not I believe that I can really make a difference by indulging my consumeristic self pampering whims by choosing more carefully where I shop, I can pretend I am making a difference at least. I am sure it makes for great marketing if not great politics. Well, all my highschool friends and I used to love to hang out in Body Shops and sample everything, and I worked up quite a collection of lip balm and bubble bath. One of my friends even overdoesed on lip balm, as it were. Her doctor told her not to use it any more as her lips were no longer producing their own moisture. That was our drug of choice I guess. :) TTFN

My Atanarjuat link didn't work in the previous entry, so here it is again.
S

I went to see Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner tonight. It was a great movie, as no doubt one would expect from a movie that got four stars from the Globe. It was a lot longer than I had expected, more than three hours, but all worth seeing. There were some very funny moments, like when Oki unknowingly pisses on Atanarjuat who is hiding in a pile of seaweed. There were also some very poignant moments, such as the humiliation of Atuat, Atanarjuat's wife, while Atanarjuat is in exile.
What I found facinating, beyond the great story, was to see how they lived, dressed, ate, prepared their houses and dog sleds, and so on. All that day to day stuff in full colour and action, not in some museum behind glass. It was incredibly vivid to watch.
One thing which I found particularly interesting was the way in which they lived completely from the local environment, no imports or globalization here. All their clothes, food, heat, light, shelter, from the forbidding Arctic ecosystem. Also, while they are clearly 'envirionmentally friendly' and all that, they are complete carnivores, living primarily on meat and eggs. In one scene Atuat picks some very tiny flowers and eats them, but that was about the only vegetable matter I saw anyone eat. It made me think that vegetarianism isn't required to be eco-friendly. I was also amazed at how nothing was wasted. No comsumerism mentality here. However, there was definitely a certain amount of classism. Atanarjuat's father, in the beginning of the film, was having bad luck hunting and had to live off the charity meat, (the rear end) of the kills of his relatives. Likewise, the quality of fur and decoration on the parkas indicated the wearer's relative possition in the family group. Well, I didn't expect an idealized world. I definitely loved the women's hair though...perhaps I will try out a couple of new things with my hair. And aren't those sunglasses cool? I think everyone should get a pair. :)
Sumaarsita signing off...

I just tried another one of those many so called 'personality tests' which seem to be all the rage bloggs these days. They are mostly just an excuse for navel gazing, but heh, we are all rather obsessed with searching for a reflection of our true identity right? I am still waiting for one that will tell me which Gone With the Wind character I am. Anyone volunteer to make a test for me? :)
While I do lots of these tests, linked off other pages, I don't think I will make it a habit to post my results here, but just this once, for those who might be curious.
Which Trainspotting Character Are You?
Take the test here.
I remember the first time I saw Trainspotting was in residence my first year of university. I was most definitely a very sheltered young person discovering formerly hidden aspects of the world as revealed by the co-inhabitants of my rez. Needless to say, I was shocked and horrified by the movie. Disturbed so much, in fact, that I had to resort to one of my favourite Linus security blanket movies to feel that everything could still be alright in the world. However, I later came to admire its challenge to middle class materialism and lethargy. My favourite quote was from inside the soundtrack cover.
My own first experience with 'drug culture' of a sort came in the summer after my first year of university. I went tree planting, up near Thunder Bay, in Nipigon and Jellico to be more specific. Needless to say, out there in the bush, far from the rule of law, most of the planters had 'fun'. I was too straight laced to try any myself of course. Can't say I was much impressed by any of it anyway, but it wasn't nearly as dramatic as on film as far as I could see. (Mostly soft suff up there anyway I am sure). I don't even drink coffee, so it is all hard stuff to me. :) The amusing part was that, being so far from town for long periods of time, cigarettes practically became money by the end of some weeks. Boy am I glad I don't have any of those kind of addictions. I have my own of course, but I'm not telling. ;)

Amazingly, I made it through an entire weekend and only watched one movie. I have been doing a lot more reading instead. Aside from my listed Handmaid's Tale, I have also been reading a comic book novel, called V for Vendetta. This is certainly a departure for me, as I have never picked up a comic book to read before, with one exception, the Legend of Batman. It is a fantastic read, with many of the effects of watching a movie, I have found. The author has used dialogue and illustrations together to excellent effect.
I have also been reading Fugative Pieces, by Anne Michaels. Beautifully written, I am quite enjoying it. I found an interesting page for my fellow Can Lit lovers. The CBC seems to be hosting a dialogue about which Canadian novel every Canadian should read. I was happy to see that I had read many of the books on the list, with a few notable exceptions which I hope to remedy in the near future.
Well, I may soon be heading up north, no really up north to Thunder Bay. I have relatives living and dead up there, so I will be paying a visit. I may not be adding to this until I return, but until then, this is Sumaarsita signing off saying, Canada is Really Big!

Just went to see Monster's Ball. It was a great movie. Halle Barry definitively deserved her Oscar for that one. I think it will take a bit for all of it to sink in. Rather shocking scene at the beginning, to me anyway. I found it very interesting how the cinematography made me, (the audience) much more self concious of myself, (ourselves) as voyeurs during the first intimate scene between Letitia and Hank. Cleverly done. It was even good from the very front row at the Princess. By I hate the front row of theatres, but luckily it was not the kind of movie to make one motion sick. Ever had that happen at an Imax? The only other movie I have seen from the front row I hated, (Nine Months), and now I know it wasn't just from seeing it from the front row of the theatre. It was just a bad movie. But no surprise, considering the star. TTFN

Hey! This is my first attempt at posting on the web. Lots of my friends have blogs, and I was curious to try one of my own. It is fun to read my friend's bitching on the web, and I thought I would add my two cents worth too for anyone who is interested in reading. The two blogs I read most often are this one and this one. More to follow when I have more time to write, muse, bitch, etc. :)