Canadiana

The other day, I was reflecting on how very different Canada is now from the nation I grew up in. My family was staunchly (almost rabidly) pro-Canada to the fault of being anti-American. Canada was the best country in the world, and being Canadian filled your heart with all kinds of pride, warmth, and hope. The border was less than a 2hr drive away, but I didn't set foot in the US until a whirlwind conference trip when I was 23.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, when I spent an entire day trying to figure out how to emigrate to the US, wondering if Harper getting reelected might be passable grounds for a refugee application. Granted, there were myriad other (real) reasons I wanted to move, but nothing could sever my remaining shreds of patriotism quite like watching our own government cannibalize the body it inhabits.

(Turns out it's basically impossible for someone like me to live in the US, barring a complete upheaval of my life, which I'm not opposed to, but is full of complications.)

I'm not much interested in sports, but the thing that I find most infectious about them is the rivalry between fan groups. It's one of the arenas of our society where enthusiasm and energy seem to generate and perpetuate themselves. And when a team faces off against its biggest rival, there are only two possible outcomes, both of them extremes: crushing victory, or humiliating defeat.

Federal politics is rivalry at its most intense. Although there are a few teams at play, everybody won this round, because regardless of who actually won, the main thing is the rival—everybody's rival—lost. Gotta be honest, I seriously doubted Canada would come together successfully, but boy did we ever. There's nothing but hope right now, and relief. Congratulations to us all.

In other news, I've decided that my main goal for the present is to travel.

It's a shame traveling costs a lot, because I just returned from Las Vegas again a few weeks ago and was basically in need of a vacation from the moment I deplaned.

(For the record: traveling is more expensive if you can't get your shit together and end up fiddling with your flights multiple times. It's even more expensive if you spend 30 minutes suppressing your nausea in the taxi before you manage to croak out a request to turn around and take you home. Yep, it was the most ridiculous, needlessly complicated escape of my life. I'd do it every week if I could.)

October is Saskatchewan Month

Right on the heels of my last trip, October is Saskatchewan month. This was my 5th trip in under 11 months (3 of those being international) which is very atypical for me.

More accurately, October is Thanksgiving month, but I've wanted to get back to Saskatchewan during the fall for several years now. There's just nothing like the gold of aspens on the prairies in autumn, or the burnt orange of pea stubble after harvest. And there's nothing like family at Thanksgiving.

Plus there are cats:

Autumn has always been my favourite season, and it was glorious to spend some time in a place where it's so vividly showcased. It always takes me a while to find it, but my tree is still alive and well :)

September is Las Vegas Month

Well September has long passed, but I've been severely lacking in inertia and haven't gotten around to writing until now. But September needs writing about, for September is Las Vegas Month.

Gotta admit, I really enjoy going to Vegas. I love the spectacle, and the soundtrack that accompanies you down the Strip, and the shows and the round-the-clockedness. I love the power I feel at traveling by myself, and the genuine contentedness I take back home with me after a trip with no objectives other than leisure. I love becoming completely nocturnal, and eating gelato for breakfast at 7pm or cheesecake and coffee at 4am. I love mingling with friendly strangers, and chatting with the bartender (who kindly let me stay hours past closing), and strolling in the night air without having to wear a jacket. Most of all I love the chance to hang out with one of my very favourite people.



One of the few things I don't like is the slow moving, counter intuitive, frustratingly unpredictable pedestrian traffic. I walk at a pretty good clip and invariably found myself behind a daisy chain of waddling packs, more often than not teetering for miles down the strip on stilettos. I don't know if it was deliberate, but every single couple seemed to walk as far as humanly possible apart from each other while still holding hands—and had the uncanny habit of weaving to cut you off if you tried to skirt around them. Seriously, it was like they had all set their armspan to /range 10.

On the other hand, some guy actually ran out of his store in the Fashion Show Mall, chased me down, and said he thought I must be European from the way I walked and dressed. Shrug. Harmless accosting happened pretty frequently actually, which is what I get for wandering around alone.

I didn't end up seeing any Cirque du Soleil shows this trip, but did catch Blue Man again and had a pretty awesome seat for it.

I wore these boots 100% of the time I was there... and we're talking extensive striding from one end of the strip to the other in 40ºC desert heat. The boots were a pretty big gamble considering I bought them the day before I went, but my feet were resilient the whole trip so it was definitely a more successful gamble than anything I achieved in video poker.

Airport Reflections

On Thursday I flew back to Saskatchewan. I don't enjoy flying; I get nervous beforehand and motion sick en route, and occasionally (this trip included) there's the additional hassle of delayed baggage.

Oddly enough, I like airports. I'm not an adventurous person, and I like the fact that no matter where I am, the airport will be much the same as it is anywhere. Nobody is any more out of place than anybody else in an airport, so it's one of the few places where I don't feel self-conscious or overcome by my social anxieties. There's always some quiet, temporarily unused place to retreat to. There's everything you could need to while away an hour or two or thirteen. I guess I feel somewhat at home in airports after half a decade of several round trips per year.

Since I didn't get back last summer, this is my first snowless trip here in two years. The weather is gorgeous, the landscape beautiful, and the wide open space a wonderful reprieve from the city.

Tales from Cuba

I spent the last two weeks of January in Cuba, on a continuing education tour with the University of Saskatchewan. The group (16 of us in all) was primarily birders, and despite the fact that I am not a birder (or wasn't, previously)—and that I was approximately 30 years younger than everyone else except my sister—it was unequivocally the best experience of my life yet (far surpassing National Youth Choir, which had until now been the best—I guess great things come in two-week chunks).

As always, my first concern was migraines. I had been weaning off my daily medication so that by the time the trip came around, I would be finished with it. I worried that the withdrawal would trigger headaches while I was away, but I packed a lot of Maxalt along with regular tylenol and advil. If there was one thing I was prepared for, it was headaches!

I didn't actually get any headaches the whole trip until the second last day. Instead, somehow a fair number of us got sick about a week into the trip (not pointing any fingers, but perhaps next time *someone* might consider not traveling with untreated viral pneumonia). This I was not prepared for. Going through my scrawled notes, a particular theme becomes apparent: "Things to bring next time: cough syrup, lozenges, cold medicine ..." During a lunch stop in Cienfuegos City, I went into a pharmacy but they said they had nothing resembling an antihistamine.

In addition to the virus, I reacted unexpectedly strongly to the mold (and every single place we stayed—except the military resort at Topes de Collantes, which was immaculate—was so saturated with mold that it seeped from the curtains and out of the air conditioner). I only have allergy problems during the spring cherry blossom season here at home, so I didn't take along any allergy medication at all. Amy miraculously didn't have a mold-reaction, and kindly shared her medication wealth with me. We referred to the whole rotten virus-mold deal as "plague."

Eventually, my coughing became worse than the time a couple winters ago when the doctor gave me narcotics in an effort to spare my lungs. Using every single antihistamine-type pill that my entire family had brought along (very good thing that none of them needed the pills), I was able to ration it out so as to last until the departure day. There wasn't enough to be comfortable or allow for a proper night's sleep, but it was far better than nothing.

That last week was more miserable and unpleasant than I can really explain. One evening I skipped supper and stayed in my hut coughing, until a terribly sharp pain started in my abdomen. For the rest of the night, it felt like something might burst with every cough, but that was about the worst. We went on a 6-hour catamaran ride while at Cayo Las Brujas, which I mostly spent in a fit of unstoppable coughing; since I couldn't even breathe above water, I didn't dare try snorkeling, though the corals and fish were reportedly spectacular. I did enjoy the delightful dolphins on that catamaran trip, though; one of them wouldn't stop kissing me.

The last couple nights were in Havana, in Hotel Ambos Mundas ("where Ernest Hemingway stayed" is its claim to fame). Piano music drifted up through the lacy wooden shutters from the lobby below at most hours of the day/night, but the mold was worse there than anywhere previously. Between that and too much sun during a city stroll, my head gave in and I had to spend an afternoon/evening writhing in bed. Maxalt to the rescue! By the time we had to leave for the airport the next morning, I was able to stand without throwing up. Anyway, I think that just about satisfies my need to wallow about the plague aspect of the trip.

There was so much so see and experience in Cuba, but I don't feel that I could do it justice. The unique warbly call of the Cuban crow. The 60-km causeway to the cayos that looks like an endless highway stretching into the sea with no particular destination. The young boys who want to sell you their pesos (which have Che Guevara's face on them) for your more valuable convertible pesos (which don't). Scattered flamingos wading through the swamp as far as the eye can see. Fossilized corals all along the path to a series of caves. Narrow cobblestone city streets filled with people and a few carts drawn by a thin horse. People napping inside their old-fashioned automobiles at the seaside resorts (automobiles which are always bright and completely rust-free, despite the salty humidity). A man with a chicken tethered to his straw hat, as a means to make money off photo-taking tourists. Throngs of Cubans milling around at highway junctions, holding pesos in the air and trying to hitch a ride to work (days in advance). The ceremonial parade of colonial-attired soldiers performing the nightly cannon shoot in La Cabana castle. Beachcombing Cubans trying to sell you conch shells (which we were advised were illegal to bring back to Canada), and striking up conversations in broken English ("Which province you from? Quebec? Saskatchewan? Winnipeg?"). The fading sunset over Zapata swamp, and the lengthy bus wait inside its closed iron gate as our guide walked to the gatekeeper's home so we could escape. Weather-worn apartment buildings streaked with black from the humidity, always with clothing hanging on the balconies in an attempt to dry. Seashores of sharp limestone pocked by centuries of erosion. Warm salty waves lapping around your ankles as the clear blue sea crawls up the limitless white sand beach (and not a single person is suntanning). Palm trees growing on sheer cliff faces. Lone, tethered livestock grazing by the roadsides. The flash of bat wings as they silently flit in and out of lamplight as dusk sets in, drawn by the mosquitos hovering around a table of tourists (drawn by the mojitos). Hotel towels and blankets folded each morning to resemble animals, complete with flower petal facial features. Cubans standing in the meridian of the highway (or right in one of the lanes) holding up blocks of cheese for sale, miles and miles away from anywhere. The unapologetic bump of a Soviet truck's bare metal seats up a windy mountain trail. The sinus-clearing sting of jincila, a concoction made of ginger, honey, water, lemon, rum (mine without), and pure fire. Guava jam and cheese.

Blue-headed quail dove, Cuban trogon, parakeet, Cuban parrot, Cuban crow, bee hummingbird, flamingo, Cuban pygmy owl, strigid owl, screech owl, roseate spoonbill, wood stork, cattle egret, great blue heron, Cuban tody, ovenbird, Zenaida dove, great lizard cuckoo, brown pelican, Cuban bullfinch, Cuban green woodpecker, pied-billed grebe, stripe-headed tanager, American coot, yellow-headed warbler, nutcatcher, caracara, emerald hummingbird, turkey vulture, black hawk, ibis, reddish egret, frigatebird, kingfisher, peregrine falcon, cormorant.

What impressed me most about Cuba was the complete lack of Americanization. And although Cubans would undoubtedly like to do things like use the internet, have more than the bare minimum of amenities, or listen to non-80s pop music (or maybe that's me)—still, there's a purity to Cuba now that I'm very glad I got to experience. I have no doubt that all that will change, and Starbucks will drop down its spreading roots into that beautiful country (much like its native mangroves). I realize that it's easy for a tourist to say that it's a shame Cuba will have to succumb to capitalism, since at the end of the day I got to go home to simple luxuries like ballpoint pens and flushable toilet paper, but there you have it.

Things I will remember most from Cuba:

• the unspoiled natural beauty: being a nature-oriented tour, we got to see a lot of it. Nobody documents Cuba's nature better than Juan Carlos—his photos are amazing.
• the food: they served us the most fantastic soups imaginable. We were warned that we would find the food bland and repetitive; I didn't find it at all bland, but it was basically always the same meal (vegetables, an unreasonable amount of rice, and your choice of fish/chicken/pork/beef).
• the dogs: there were stray dogs everywhere, really dainty little things that quietly and hungrily watched you eat, or lay baking in the sun in the city squares. Sometimes they're wearing clothes.
• the music: every day a new group of musicians would set up in whatever restaurant we were eating at, play music, and gather tips. There were at least a couple particular songs that every group played.

Victoria. Saskatoon. Varadero. Havana. Vinales Valley. Zapata Swamp; Playa Larga, Las Salinas, Bermejas. Guajimico. Cienfuegos City. Trinidad. Topes de Collantes. Hanabanilla dam; Rio Negro. Cayo Las Brujas. Jardines del Rey Archipelago. Havana. Varadero. Saskatoon. Victoria.

Going home, and going to school

In mid-July I took a 2-week trip back to Saskatchewan. It was wonderful. Something about the landscape there is just easier on the eyes, and I felt a strange sort of relaxation washing over me even as we drove away from the airport. I didn't get a hint of headache during the whole two weeks. (Of course, the second day back on the island I was bedridden with nausea and pain >< ) I saw my neurologist again and I've started back on the medication I had weaned off of. Hopefully it will work. Hopefully I won't get so drowsy this time around. I got to do some great family bonding while at home, and play with all my nephews and nieces—up to 3 of each, now, one of which I had not seen in person before. It's tough being so far away from everyone, but every time I go back it's like I haven't been away. The cabby who drove me to the airport gave me the ol' Victoria-is-awesome-I-bet-Sask-is-crappy speech (alongside a speech on how I should help him find new boarders). I'm so sick of hearing that. It now makes me form an insta-grudge against the person.

This summer I reawakened the notion of going into Pharmacy. I had thought about it when I finished up my B.A. (and even applied to U of S, who took my application fee but otherwise didn't acknowledge me) but then the SSHRC kind of decided my route. I'm tired of being poor and unsuccessful and having no real career expectations, so Pharmacy is very alluring (other than the prospect of 5 more years of school). But just when I figured I'd apply as an undergrad to do some pre-pharm classes, I finally got my supervisory committee for my M.A. (almost) sorted out. At least, I have my supervisor and department reader lined up. The rest will hopefully sort itself out come September when things get back underway. In the fall I'll be taking on my second-last grad class (then the last will come in the spring). As always, I worry that my health will get in the way of everything else. I very rarely feel truly well, but maybe nobody does (I wouldn't know).

• Can it be?? A new drawing!

Updation

My song cycle was indeed performed during Canada Music Week (way back in November) and they did a great job. I finally finished a choral setting of an Anglo-Saxon poem, but am told that although there's much to admire in it, it just doesn't work. Recently I've been thinking more about Tintinnabulation (because Arvo Part is my compositional hero, hands down), but figure that anything I try will probably be a repeat of the Anglo-Saxon thing. It's pretty disheartening, but maybe I'll wise up someday and learn how to write 'properly' or something. In December, we went to see Nine Inch Nails again (non-festival this time), which was superlative. It was neat to see how the show had changed over the months since we saw that very first one. You know it will be awesome when there's a marimba on stage. I still marvel at Year Zero every few months when I remember to give it a listen. Year Zero also makes me feverishly want to continue working on my conference paper. Speaking of which: I can't say I had an overwhelmingly great grad experience last year (despite a couple awesome classes) so I withdrew for the fall term to think things over. Ideally, I'd like to develop the paper I did for the UCLA conference into a Masters-Essay-worthy piece, but that doesn't look too promising. This past spring, though, I took a fantastic zoo-texts (generally multidisciplinary) class and could envision my final paper as my Masters project... if only I wasn't forbidden to elaborate on it when anybody asks ):< At Christmas I flew back home, and I had fully intended to recount the horrors of the trip. I ended up stuck in Calgary airport for some 13 hours with nothing but Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son and a blank notebook. Charles Dickens. For thirteen hours. I halfheartedly started doing some Drawings from the Airport, but have let drawings slip as well. I have the best intentions of doing the Aphex Twin transcriptions that people keep asking about, maybe over the summer. Who can say.

Swiss Rendezvous

I've just returned from spending a spectacular week in Switzerland, visiting Ryan.




I got to stay in the beautiful Swiss countryside, explore Geneva, wander around Meyrin. I got to tour ATLAS (and eat rabbits at CERN). We went to the Roman capital of Helvetica (now Nyon). We went to Montreux, and then up into the mountains. And we ate all sorts of tasty things. I had run-ins with the bus police ("The Swiss Bus Police: Never Around When There's a Riot, But Always There to Give You a Fine ☺"), and with customs. It was one of those surreal experiences in which I saw the world happening and myself happening in it, living in it. My god, it was a fantastic trip. Some of my pictures are on Facebook.

I recommend that everyone able to go to the English Idol at U of R definitely check it out (Thursday, Feb. 28). I went in 2006, and gushed about it as soon as I got home.