Year in Review

2012 was a surprisingly eventful year, and December the most eventful month. I don't blog nearly as often as I used to, but it seems appropriate to take a moment for some newer updates and reminisce about some older ones before they fade into the waves of the past. First for the recent...

• For the week or so of Christmas, I was back in sunny Saskatchewan, where the frost was the most gorgeous I've ever seen it. Shockingly, there was not a single deer to be seen (compared with the hundreds-strong herds of yesteryears), and there was no midnight coyote-yipping session while I was there. Much visiting and feasting with family, much laughter, much too much Christmas baking.  

• Closer to the beginning of December, I went on a 5-day trip to Las Vegas to see the sights, catch some shows, and hang out with someone I had never met before. This was only my second trip ever to the U.S. (the first being that conference in Los Angeles—and how is it possible that this is all I wrote about that trip?!); like that first trip, I traveled alone this time. Anyone who knows me probably remembers me as an antisocial introvert who bails on just about everything.
  
  
  
  But there are moments in life when the perfect opportunity arises. When these moments come up, I usually feign unconsciousness until they move along, and then become terribly angry at myself and add it to my (hella long) list of regrets. Luckily for me, the planets aligned and—more importantly—I've spent the entire year working towards becoming a raging self-confident beast (alright, I just wanted to refer to myself as a raging beast). It was a daring moment for me.
  
  Vegas itself was fantastic and full of its own great moments. I didn't have much of an agenda other than wanting to see a Cirque du Soleil show and Blue Man Group (saw them both!) so it was probably the most relaxed vacation I've ever had.  

• As aforementioned, I've been focusing on myself this year, especially after some particularly low moments in the summer (thank you Piano Academy) and autumn. In November I got into yoga, which has been a huge energy boost. At first my neck was doing its muscle spasm thing for a couple days after each class, which in turn made me do my migraine thing. But after a couple weeks the neck problem went away, and I've been feeling a lot healthier.

And finally a recap of the rest of the year:

• January 7: Passed the 10,000-day-old mark. Unremarkabler than I had hoped.
• Early January: Patellofemoral pain sydrome hell. Fortunately better by late January.
• Early June: Saskatrip; never has a vacation been more sorely needed.
• Late June/early July: Piano Academy SCHEDULE ALL THE THINGS ERMAGERD I'M GOING TO COMBUST
• July: New positionish/tasks at work.
• August: New piano!
• Mid October: Combusted. We all saw this coming.
• Late November: Recovery process initiated.
• November 26: Finally saw the Vinyl Cafe Christmas show when it came to Victoria. Fantastic!
• December: Vegas & Christmas!

From my first post of 2012: "But this feels like it could be a good year. It just needs a little encouragement."

It did only need some encouragement.

By-Election Day

If you live in Victoria, Calgary Centre, or Durham, today is By-Election Day. The Greens were out bright and early with their signs (wait, what?). If you're in one of these ridings, go out and vote!

Elections Canada assures me that:

By law, qualified electors must have three consecutive hours to cast their vote on election day. If your hours of work do not allow for three consecutive hours to vote, your employer must give you time off.

It is an offence for employers to fail to provide time off for voting if required under the Canada Elections Act.

It is also an offence for an employer to reduce an employee's pay where the employee has been provided time off to vote in accordance with the Act. The maximum penalty for violating these prohibitions is a fine of up to $1,000, three months imprisonment, or both.

It is also an offence for an employer to use intimidation, undue influence, or any other means to interfere with the granting of time off to vote under the Canada Elections Act. The maximum penalty for violating this provision is a fine of up to $5,000, five years imprisonment, or both.

FIPPA

After an initial 3 days of majoring in Anthropology, I spent my first year of undergraduate studies doing coursework for a Pre-Journalism program. The political science and social studies classes were engaging and I was interested in the world. When I let go of my J-School ambitions to pursue other fields, however, I stopped really following current events. I don't have TV and don't watch the news, and until recently hadn't so much as glanced at headlines regularly.

Part of the problem is that Canadian politics is infuriating these days. It's infuriating that this country didn't pull together when it had the chance, and instead gave Harper a majority government. The truth is that we're governed by the Harper Government, not the Government of Canada; this is a fact. Is anyone else looking enviously southward?

I was outraged when I first saw Rick Mercer's rant on the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPPA):

Outraged, and unfortunately not overly surprised. It's exactly the sort of thing we've all come to expect from Stephen Harper. Follow the links to other recent Rick's rants and your blood will continue to boil.

So if you're outraged like me, and you want to maintain our tenuous hold on what democracy we have left, sign this petition with the good folks at Avaaz.

And come next election, let's do a better job than last time.

Perseids and other summer things

Sure, stargazing doesn't work well in the city. I didn't see many meteors, but lying peacefully in a dry patch of a nearby school's playing field, looking up at the sky with a good friend—well this is as great as my Saturday nights tend to get. I always wanted to be an astronomer, so any time I get to revisit that dream (even in a small way) is a good time. Especially since the sprinkler where we were staked out didn't activate until about a minute after we got up and left.

This summer I've been tending a tiny indoor garden. The cape gooseberries are alarmingly tall (and not particularly productive) but the bell peppers are prolific. The strawberries spent the summer dying off one by one, until there are just two plants left (banished to the patio—they can just take their spider mites out of my house).

On the subject of spiders... there might be nothing worse than encountering them inside. Little spiders are fine and I can ignore them pretty successfully. But huge ones like this specimen I found last night are anything but fine. It could have taken down a small rodent, I bet. 

And finally, I have a shiny new piano!

Leaving Hope

A few years back, I lived in a cramped upstairs suite overlooking Clover Point for a little less than a year. The ocean was almost at my doorstep. Some days the wind would stir the water and it seemed like the ocean was taking over the shore, with big waves breaking and a misty haze reaching up toward the clouds. The parasailers were always out there, even on those ocean-charged days.

It was a low time for me, for many reasons. I spent almost all of my non-class moments in my apartment, mostly listening to Leaving Hope (still one of my favourite songs of all time, and which seemed to aurally fit the landscape) and watching the people on the point. I was mesmerized by how the parasailers would just run out off a high cliff, and the wind would catch them and carry them up and away.

Now I associate that song with those parasailers, and with the ocean on those days when it crept up land and sky.

I still intend to write a travel post about my vacation last month, but in the meantime I've had to focus pretty much exclusively on work. For the past week I've been working in a makeshift office at the university helping out with piano academy.

The first day of anything is always chaotic, especially if you happen to be the person in charge of keeping things organized. Monday was therefore a painful day. For one thing, not a soul was on campus due to the Canada Day statutory holiday. The food court was closed which meant no morning coffee or midday meal. Worse luck, the pharmacy was closed and I desperately needed an anti-nauseant.

Canada Day: totally deserted campus

 I count myself lucky that I no longer spend every night in agonized writhing from pounding migraine pain, but for a long time now my migraines have manifested more frequently as intense nausea and facial pain. I spent the entirety of Monday morning focusing all my energy on not throwing up. But the best thing about starting on a low note is that the week could only get better.

Perhaps the most optimistic thing that can be said from an administrative point of view is that it's more than half over at this point. At least the attendees are having a blast—all the students I talk to say it's been a fantastic experience, if exhausting. In my eyes, piano academy has two redeeming qualities: 1) the office space they give me has windows, and 2) many days, I'm able to meet up with my friend(s) who work on campus for lunch. It's the only time during the whole year that I've had the opportunity to lunch with a friend, and I'll admit I've been daydreaming about UVic beef dips the entire year long.

Natural light / Reunited at last

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.

Easter

I had a glorious four days off over Feaster (Easterfest/Feast Day) weekend. The weather cooperated, and we spent much of the weekend strolling around (with frequent stops for tea). On Saturday we headed up to the Shaw Ocean Discovery Center, where there is a goodly assortment of sea beasts (one such beast pictured at left).

Tree (and general plant) pollen is still malingering these days. I've had a lot of sinus pain ever since my trip to Cuba over a year ago, so I finally went to the clinic about it this past week. Hooray for painless breathing once again!

Pides 2012

It's been quite a year since the last Pides Festival. Not sure what kind of "quite a year," but quite nonetheless. Quite a rollercoaster, perhaps.

I recently got a Zoom H4n, but have yet to test it out. I hope to also get a piano, with which I would then use said H4n. Mostly, I just really want a piano. I'm pretty sure there has never been a greater need for a piano in the history of the planet.

The cherries are starting to bloom in earnest now, which means my allergies are earnestly acting up as well, causing my face to earnestly throb with sinus pain. More so than usual, that is.

Happy Pides to you (Pi Day and Ides, in that order)

• Raspberry Pi


• Banksy on advertising. Well said.
  

The Worst Good Advice

[I have no idea when I wrote this, but I found the draft buried amongst other posts when I was going through old writings the other night]

My grade 12 graduating class sat on stage under enormous bristol-board letters: "Shoot for the Moon; even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." Aside from being blatantly false, it seemed like a good slogan at the time. Optimistic, encouraging, like an anthem to carry forward into some imaginary rose-coloured future where the sky was no limit. It's the kind of advice all youngsters are fed; anything is possible, chase your dreams. Well sure, I grew up in lucky times and am grateful for it. When food is abundant, war is overseas, health care is free, and going to university is a given, the future is pure potential waiting to be realized.

But there are things that throw a wrench into the future. Bad experiences throughout your youth that shape your personality in a way that's detrimental to your own future. Personal traits that aren't compatible with some types of work. The sudden onset of a debilitating medical condition that gimps your capacity to do things. Circumstances in your personal life that create competing claims on your priorities. Things that just don't pan out; goals you just can't afford to attain. They say you can do anything, but you can't.

I can't remember now if I worked hard in high school. I did my work, for sure, and I got top marks because of it, but it came easily. The first couple years of university weren't much different; although I was told to expect a 10% decrease in grades, it wasn't the case. My first year English prof read excerpts of one of my essays in class as a model example, then went on to tell the class as a whole that the essays were almost universally abysmal. When I applied for music performance the next year, the department was awed by my "perfect theory test" and audition. When I moved on to English I got several writing prizes, and then during my final year's foray into the sciences for fun, I consistently got top marks in both coursework and labs.

During that brief but magical year of Music Performance, I sang at a vocal masterclass where the clinician advised us to be very sure that we wanted to be performers; if we weren't, we'd best back out now because it would eventually break our hearts. That summer I had the good fortune of being chosen as my province's soprano for National Youth Choir. Although it was the best two weeks of my life and I came home inspired, I couldn't help thinking that my university's department just wouldn't get me as far as I would need—there was only one voice instructor in the department at that time, for one thing. I contemplated going to another university, but in the end chose to switch faculties. The truth was, I didn't want to perform (at the time; now I'm undecided), and I unfortunately was under the impression that musicians must perform. The dept head did mention composition during my parting meeting, though, which I later followed up on in my own way.

People are full of the best-intentioned advice, but most of it has turned out neither helpful nor comforting:

• You just need to "find yourself." It could have been the complete lack of career guidance, but I had no idea what I wanted to do after school. If I could have had my way, I probably would have been happy to stay in high school forever, even though it has its own subsection in the "worst years of my life" category. But I didn't worry about it, because everyone said I'd only find my path after I'd taken a year of general classes. Ten years of "finding myself" has slowly painted me into an increasingly narrow corner. At some point, you need to make a (good) decision and stick with it.


• You're so smart, you could be anything you want. I've heard this a lot, and it infuriates me. It's particularly unhelpful because it insinuates that you don't even have to try in order to succeed; it will just come to you because you're so clever. Nothing could be further from the truth. Though I have to say, my whole family is very hard-working; I don't know how I turned out so unambitious.
  


• It's never too late to change your career. While this is technically true, it completely disregards the practical concerns that eventually catch up to you. Even if you're a hopeful new grade 12 graduate set to enter university on a full scholarship, with the next four years neatly paved out in front of you—once you realize your error at assuming your mind wouldn't change during those four years, you realize that you'll have to pay out of your own pocket to fix that error. After one degree, you get exhausted just at the thought of going back to school for something entirely different. After two degrees, it becomes unthinkable. That inner clock ticks more loudly the older you get, and it can easily work you into a frenzy. Besides, someone who hasn't even had a successful first career doesn't exactly have the means to indulge in being a dilettante.

The internet compounds the problem; it makes it seem like anything really is possible.

toothpastefordinner.com
When I was younger, I was an anti-feminist; I just didn't think they had an argument anymore. My upbringing was just that liberating, that I thought of myself as equal to anyone. In recent years, the internet has destroyed that idea; in certain circles I feel embarrassed just for being a girl. I remember the first time I encountered the internet. It was in the early years of high school, and a friend and I logged onto one of the new computers during lunch and I caught my first glimpse of Metacrawler. The internet seemed much smaller then, a tool rather than a space of social interaction.

At one point when I used to take composition lessons, my instructor told me that I probably wouldn't ever hear most of my work performed; that most of the time, composers have to live with hearing their music in their own heads. That was one of the most discouraging moments of my life. I don't even believe it's true; in undergrad the composition students wrote for and were regularly performed by a small new music ensemble. But for a struggling no-name composer who has never been in an instrumental ensemble and can't even write an instrumental part in the right transposition, there's more disappointment than hope. I didn't understand how hard one has to work in order to succeed (but that you could). All along I had been led to believe that I could be anything I wanted—yes, a successful composer—simply by willing it to be so. I gave it up as an impossible feat.

Once, a couple years back, my Dad gave me some actual good advice. I was still foundering at the question of what I planned to do after finishing my MA degree, and he said something like "You have to figure out what to do and do it, because life is passing." I have a bit of a phobia of temporality, and my fear of time passing can surface and derail my productiveness for weeks years at a time.

This is all very rambling and un-cohesive, but the point is that the norm of being overly encouraging and optimistic to new graduates is a disservice. I'm not saying they should be deliberately intimidated—there is enough intimidation as it is in high school to alter a person's future, as I well remember—but rather instilled with the desire to achieve that optimistic future, not unconditionally promised it.

And, too, all of this could just be my own misinterpretation of that slogan emblazoned on the wall.

10,000 days

Today is the day I turn 10,000 days old. I had originally planned to do a whole big thing; but, after all, this has been the year of plans going awry. But spontaneity has turned out just fine too. Ten thousand days in the fire is long enough.



Christmas was a trip back to Saskatchewan, where the snow was minimal and the weather mild. It did snow on the last day or so that I was there, but fortunately that didn't slow air travel this time around.


And my sound-making buddy has a new buddy!


New Year's started things off on the right track. The main thing is that 2011 is over, because, on the whole, it was a pretty terrible year. There was Cuba way back in January, but things kind of fell apart after that.

But this feels like it could be a good year. It just needs a little encouragement.

[It's slightly past the opportune time for some birthday stories, but I found this draft post from 2006 while trawling through my unpublished posts. Commence obligatory birthday post.]

The first story takes place on my 18th birthday back in 2002, while I was in Quebec on a 4-H exchange trip. I had been staying with my exchange family for about a week, and since they smoked in the house all the time you have to imagine me in a state of being unable to talk out loud, and being unable to inhale without coughing violently. For a week. [Editor's note: I was able to recreate the sensation using only Cuban-grown mold and pestilent travelmates this past winter.]

Now imagine me having spent two days sitting in a barn in Quebec City waiting while all the French people walked around in a circle, pulling cattle around on ropes. But not just any cattle. First, there was an elaborate ritual that involved clipping their hair in such a way as to make them look bonier, then painting the black spots black. Then carting them to Quebec City and pulling them around on ropes in circles.

Then they made me pull one around in a circle, in front of a lot of people. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Did I mention that these people all spoke French and I don't speak French? All that my exchange person was able to communicate with me was something about a "Joooje" (judge). Whatever.

So the first night in Quebec City we stayed in a hotel. The second night (the night of my birthday), we stayed in a pig barn. Oh yes, a pig barn. But not just any pig barn. This one had some stalls (for lack of a better term) containing bunk beds with festering mattresses on them and garbage all over the floors. Apparently you were supposed to pay to sleep there, but as I said they were no more than stalls, and the walls didn't go all the way up to the ceiling, so we climbed over the wall and commandeered some more "rooms." Very early in the morning, all you could hear was the BEEP BEEP BEEP of tractors cleaning out the pig-portion of the barn. There was another 4-H exchange person from Manitoba there too, and we sat around waiting and joking about how slow these French people were, and I said something about how I bet one of us would miss our flights back home two days later. Yes, good joke Megan.

This wasn't part of my birthday-day, but they dropped me off at the airport in Montreal half an hour before my plane was scheduled to leave (keep in mind that this was the summer of 2002, still in the wake of the whole 9/11 deal, and people were supposed to be at airports at least an hour or two in advance). So I did miss my plane, and they gave me a ticket for the next flight and told me to go through the express line, but the lady wouldn't let me go through it and refused to speak English to me. So I missed the next flight, and by that time I was getting very uneasy because I had to make a connection to get to Saskatoon, and that flight only goes once a day. Finally I got on a flight and very fortunately the connection to Saskatoon was delayed.

I am never going to Quebec again.

Now let's fastforward to my 21st birthday (last year [Editor's note: gosh this is an old post]). I had been working at camp for a week, and the last day of camp happened to be my birthday. So, there was the traditional last-day-of-camp party, which was extra big because it was also the last camp of the summer. The idea was to drink a lot, but it was also a Sunday and all the refreshment stores were closed. So, we got me about 8 of those Red Bull type drinks.... I can't imagine why. I drank 3 of them and got too sleepy and had to go home (and also had to stop for several naps along the way [Editor's note: I realize now that what I interpreted as sleepy episodes throughout that summer were actually the first rumblings of my migraine problem]).

So those are my two most memorable birthdays. Growing up, every birthday was quiet, spent at my parents' farm, because nobody remembers summer birthdays.

[Editor's note: this concludes the original draft, and a slight updation is in order. Here follows this year's birthday story.]

I have a self-defeating personality to uphold, and part of the upkeep involves insisting that I don't want my birthday acknowledged. At work, this sentiment is sincere; I don't want the whole office to gather round the glow of a lighted cake and sing happy birthday to me (impatiently, because the sooner the song is over the sooner CAKE TIME). Fortunately, almost nobody actually knows my birthdate, except one single person whose own birthday happens to be the day before mine (and to whom I am quite certain I'd expounded at length about my dislike of birthdays).

I feel somewhat secure in the fact that my birthday falls upon a Sunday this year. But the Friday before, there is an evil plot afoot. I begin to worry when a good friend lets slip that she knows it's a special day. The next time I see the person who knows my birthday is pending (let's call him Banjo), I quietly ask him to kindly not tell anybody. To my surprise, he becomes suddenly angry and stalks off. About two minutes later, Banjo comes in the office with a card that he's secretly gotten everyone in the office to sign, along with the dreaded candle-lit cake. I manage to choke back my fury fairly well.

The great joke in all this, of course, is that it's not actually my birthday until Sunday; in fact, it will be Banjo's birthday sooner than it will be my own.

Concerning Music

It's been a relentless two weeks, and even though I spent a good twelve hours in a makeshift office at the university on this last day of Summer Piano Academy—and subsequently spent a good two hours recording piano pieces only to discover that the quality was terrible—I wanted to complete these thoughts concerning music that I've been collecting for the past several months.

Not too many years ago I had high hopes of being a musician and composer; now my role is largely to facilitate other people's musical endeavors. While my work at the VCM keeps me within the musical world, it also feeds my own regret and disappointment at how time seems to have drained itself away. (N.B. This is not a blog post about work; it just happens that my workplace features prominently.) Each year brings a new class of hopeful students who are living my dream—one that I briefly lived but woke myself from for a now forgotten reason. I still like to think of myself as a composer, though I've been stuck on the same piece after only a few bars for... well literally years.

What ultimately discouraged me from finishing my composition/theory ARCT? Well, it's not that I was entirely unsuccessful. My song cycle was performed at the VCM, for one thing. The last competition I entered, my Anglo-Saxon choral piece was a finalist and only didn't make the very final cut; more than anything else, I would have loved (and still would) to hear that piece performed. And that's the ultimate discouragement: my composition instructor told me in one of our last lessons that as a composer, I'd have to get used to hearing my music only in my head; that the pieces I wrote simply wouldn't be performed. Of course that isn't entirely true; in fact, both times I entered that competition, I have been eligible to apply for a recording grant. But, I'm perceptive enough to realize that it would be true for me, given my self-defeating personality. Anyway, that was the day I walked out of that endless fugue class and decided I was wasting my time, along with what little money I had.

I can't write a post about music without mentioning my biggest musical inspiration. One of the people I admire the most (in pretty much every way, and particularly musically) is Melissa Dunphy. (I highly recommend checking out her What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?—and I'm totally in love with Tesla's Pigeon; I wish I were still studying voice just for the chance to perform this song cycle! While I'm making asides, I also love this video.) Very often at the conservatory I feel that the musical environment that we perpetuate is increasingly irrelevant: stodgy rules about harmonic progressions; centuries-old pieces that now seem to have obligatory positions in every performer's repertoire. I just wish there was more excitement built around new music in my city; I think works like the Gonzales Cantata are fantastic for the place they have in the society we live in today.

At any rate, this is what I wanted to create in life: beautiful, transcendent choral music. I wanted that since the summer I sang in National Youth Choir, when for two weeks we were a single instrument and the small rehearsal hall would fill with tangible waves of sound. It's what I tried to achieve in the few choral pieces I completed and the Missa Brevis I left hanging after the Kyrie. And now I'm surrounded by musicians pursuing all their dreams and more. How could things turn out this way in a music conservatory?

Three times since Christmas, I've woken in the night, delirious with perpetual poor health, seized with some idea that impressed itself upon my fevered mind as being the most important thing in life. In morning light they always turn out to be dumb ideas, but there's one idea that I think someone should take on in this conservatory, even if I'm totally unqualified. So here was my fevered dream: wouldn't it be the best idea in the world, if I get myself into a conducting class at the consesrvatory (in my delirium, a semester was all I would need). Then I would get a group of some of these fantastic musicians I've come to know over time at work, and we would create a new music ensemble to perform the works of us student composers. For several nocturnal hours, this was the best idea in the world.

But it gnaws at me—why doesn't the conservatory do something like this? It doesn't have to be a large ensemble. It doesn't have to offer a wide range of instrumentation. People like me will take anything with eternal gratitude. My new-found passion for new music is so strong that I start to seethe a little when I have to sit through too much Bach, or arias from Italian operas (do they not go in the most predictable direction imaginable?). And the almost single-minded emphasis on Baroque music in the vocal department has me rethinking my decision to finish my ARCT in voice performance. I can't see the relevance anymore.

This excerpt from Anti Social Music's website really sums up my thoughts:

Frustrated?

We get it.

We started this whole thing because we were a handful of young composers sending scores into the black, thankless void of competitions, open calls, grant applications...the Kinko's fees add up and the postage is crushing, and for what? A one-line rejection, if that. So we got together and started performing and recording our own damn pieces.

My greatest wish in the world is to be able to hear my work performed. The greatest dissuasion from composing, for me, is the crushing defeat of watching yourself age and your compositional output cease, and all of it be swallowed up silently, the pieces you agonized over for months and years to slowly turn to dust.

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.

I remember a classmate once arguing that "English" was a misnomer for what we do. She suggested that "Literature" would be a much better term, since literary students will find themselves faced with other languages and translations all the time. Heck, the most epic literary works we know were written in Greek and we deal with translations (except the semester I spent translating Book 6 of the Aeneid for advanced Latin, and also all my coursework in Anglo Saxon). But if "English" is a term fraught with peril, I'd say "Literature" is equally bad if not worse. What about the linguistic side of our studies? Surely that deserves some recognition.

Granted, many people I know assume that English is all about reading books. And honestly, you really don't always need a primary source (in the traditional sense of the word) (also, I love ITED). My MA research has no primary literary text, strictly speaking. But that's where "English" becomes a hazy label that I can't easily explain to civilians. The best I can do is to say that it's one of many angles that Humanities scholars can take, though I think I'll always have trouble explaining what literary theory is, and why. Perhaps the boundaries between the different departments are dissipating as time goes on, particularly with shifts in media.

On the other hand, for many years I've just taken it for granted that Academia accepted that we all "read" our environments, media, etc. every day of our lives. Trying to explain what my master's essay was about to anyone is truly painful, yet people unfortunately find it necessary to keep probing after I say "well it would be totally meaningless/uninteresting to you."

At any rate, it's all officially done now:

Another Year Older

Looking back on yesteryear's birthday post, it seems that I've accomplished one of my birthday resolutions. I am officially Magister Artium. The essay itself shaped up into something pretty interesting, but I'm happy to be done with it. The defense seemed to be much less of a big deal than it's built up to be, but for all that it was plenty nerve-wracking.

Speaking of birthday posts, I guess this would be it. Despite being an excessively stressful week, this year's birthday was the best in many years: we went to see the ducks at the pond; perused the plant shop; and went for a surprise birthday dinner at a fine French restaurant. A bit of a shame much of the day was wasted at the office (alone, on a Saturday, which I'm becoming thoroughly sick of) and being inwardly gnawed by anxiety about my looming MA defense. Earlier this summer, I spent a couple weeks back home in Saskatchewan reuniting with family and camping with friends. Epic thunderstorms.

Now with school out of the way, I will be working nearly-full-time. Same old job, but more of it. I wish someone would pay me to draw cartoons or grow zucchini or something, the way they're so eager to pay people to play hockey.

Salty Sunday Morning

Victoria was host to the International Fleet Review this weekend, in celebration of the Canadian navy's 100th anniversary. One area of town seems to have taken up the opportunity to invent an awesome new annual celebration called Buccaneer Days. We went searching for boats at the harbour, but didn't see any (except for a model ship gathering that we passed). The optimal ship-viewing time would have been yesterday (during the actual fleet review), but Sunday morning is really the only available adventure time I can manage on weekends.

We walked along the Ogden Point breakwater, though, which I hadn't been to before.

Workynge week-ends ys a thynge of muche wo

I don't know why I hadn't come across Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog before now, seeing as I spent several years as a dedicated medievalist. It's all kinds of awesome. Having just read a wealth of Margery Kempe for a recent course, and having attended a 'helpful' seminar on what to expect and how to attend/prepare for the MLA (which I have no intention of ever doing), I especially loved this entry. Middle English is so great. In other academic news, Cary Wolfe—one of the bigger names in my field—recently came to the island and gave some talks, which was pretty exciting. Weekend work schedule means I wasn't able to tag along to the Massive Attack concert on the mainland this weekend. To add insult to injury, all day today the building is throbbing with drums, dancing, bare feet, dreadlocks, wailing-cheering, and vinegar. The organ in the performance hall at work is finally being restored after 10 years of disuse. The console has been sitting in the lobby for years, and intrigues me with its dark wood paneling, four manuals, and dozens of stops. The restored organ will be controlled digitally, and thus the console will be replaced to reflect that, which is a little disappointing. Pipe organs are something of a mystery to me, but as it happens I will have to learn how to compose for organ—and thus how they work—in order to enter a specific composition competition this winter. The first year I entered I made it to semi-finals, then last year I made it past quarter-finals, so if it weren't for the organ requirement this year I'd have a pretty good feeling.

No more classes

As of last week, I'm totally done classes for my program (and that's a wonderful feeling after 7 years of post-secondary schooling!). This just leaves my final essay, which is roughly half finished and which I'll be defending in August. It's exciting stuff, but my motivation has been lacking of late. One thing I will say for university is that it provides a wealth of drawings ideas, and as soon as I can forage another battery for my camera I'll be back in business. (Actually, there are a lot of great things about university.)

I've been harbouring thoughts, recently (again), about going into Pharmacy like I had considered several years ago, but if it seemed grievous to embark on a 5-year degree at that time, it's an even bigger problem now with 3 more years of schooling under my belt.

The bad thing about working on weekends (actually, there are a lot of bad things about working on weekends) is that I'll almost certainly miss out on this year's Oak Bay Tea Party, among other things. Summer in Victoria is fantastic, but it would be nice if our schedules were more coordinated so we have more than Sunday mornings to enjoy it.

Cherry blossoms

It's cherry tree season. Some people get jazzed about rhododendron season, but streets lined with cottony blossoming trees in varying hues of pinkness and paved with snow-like drifts of petals are far more glorious. The sky has been absolutely clear and blue for days now, for the first time since last fall.

I've found the perfect walking route: it takes me past numerous blossoming trees; past that decaying cafe that remains untouched inside, like Miss Havisham's cafe if she ever chose to open one; past a house where a cat lives and sometimes perches near the sidewalk (sigh... how I wish I had a cat); past a yard with a few well-mannered and silent chickens; past an enormous abandoned house, surrounded by rusting and rotting things, that reminds me of an old farmhouse on some of Dad's land that we used to explore as kids, and I was always terrified of being attacked by raccoons in the upper storeys; past a huge blackberry patch grown out of control; down a silent residential street where the heavy traffic and ambulance sirens of the main road are strangely absent; up a wide street without sidewalks, but it's a dead-end anyway so you just walk along the middle of the road while people languidly stroll from house to house, chatting with other people leaning on fenceposts just enjoying the day. It feels like a small town with hints of a ghost town.

My schedule lends itself to a strange illusion of depopulation, for lack of a better way to describe it in a word. On Saturdays the morning sidewalks are still quiet, though as the year wears on they will fill; the same handful of people (my Saturday friends and nemeses) come by, with the occasional external event appearing unexpectedly (and predictably) early. On Sundays, almost no traffic goes by on the main road, the noon bus is virtually empty, the sunny sidewalks are also largely empty, and the day at work might pass with no more than a few familiar faces dropping by. On weekdays, much of the world seems to be at work or out of sight, and since I alternate between researching/writing at home and strolling around the neighborhood, I have little reason to go to more populous areas of town. Occasionally I'll wander around the grocery store, shoot the breeze with the affable cashier at till #4 (we have a bit of a rapport), wander on homeward through the silent hospital parking lot (where you rarely see people hanging out). Then on Thursdays when I go to my morning class, there are so many people jammed into the bus that it soon gives up and blazes right by the bus-stops while the waiting students look on forlornly and resentfully, and are obliged to wait for the next bus, or the next.