broken glass

I can't seem to win these days when it comes to updating my blog. Every time in the last few days that I've had the opportunity to, I've either crashed the browser/computer, or the power has gone out (as it did for almost two hours tonight). Prior to that, my parents' computer's hard drive went to the great Future Shop in the sky, taking the first draft of my thesis along with it. (Thank heaven and Neil Finn for back ups.)

So I rescued Cortana from Guelph this past weekend; all the better to begin a second thesis draft, right? Right? What do you mean, I have no desire to work on it? Temperatures here have been incredibly hot these past few weeks. While the heat has not bothered me as much this year (perhaps because I am not under the weight of ten pounds of wool clothing), I fully accept that at my heart, I am a winter person.

I have had many discussions on the nature of patriotism lately; this excites me to no end. I think my thesis has the potential to be something I'm quite proud of, but likely will not end up quite there. For someone as concerned with discourses of nationalism as I am (particularly in terms of cultural and postcolonialism discourses), I am very much an unabashed and unashamed patriot; I find myself buying into the propaganda of Heritage Canada, often in ways that I can recognize as ridiculous. For example, a new brewery (Robert Simpson Brewing Company) has opened in Barrie, and one of its initial offerings is a Confederation Ale. This makes me happy to no end, for no real reason, other than that it celebrates the initial union of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into the Dominion of Canada. Granted, it would be an even better product if it were Confederation Scotch, but that's really neither here nor there.

Finally, on a Canadian note, here are two celebrity blogs to look at: Rick Mercer (one of the best written and spoken Canadians I know of), and the BareNaked Ladies' blog.

shopping lists

The first draft of my thesis is due tomorrow. I am eminently not prepared for such an event, and will, accordingly, spend the entire day tap-tap-tapping away here at the computer in hopes of pulling together that at least makes it appear that I have tried. My supervisor has told me that a first draft is expected to be quite rough in content and form, but I am still nervous. Why, why, why did I think that doing live research would be a good idea?

The wee-est of the three sisters embarks upon the path of the sisters today: Ais is on her way to Saint-Boniface, which is the French quarter of Winnipeg, for the next five weeks in an effort to learn to speak French. Godspeed to her, the little doodle. There is no doubt in my mind that she will have fun; it has been seven years now since my own summer there, and I'd really like to get back if I can. Winnipeg is an awesome city.

Watching the Live 8 business yesterday was quite interesting. The Canadian concert took place in Barrie, which is a scant 26 km. away from here, but what with the working and the tickets being sold out, we were unable to go. We did, however, watch a good chunk of it on TV; I particularly enjoyed how everyone at other Live 8 concerts (as well as many of the international performers in Canada) kept refering to Barrie as Toronto...I mean, there's only 100+ kilometeres difference between the two places.

All snark aside, I did enjoy seeing the Pet Shop Boys in Moscow, Gary Dourdan (Warrick from CSI) rapping with DMC in Barrie, and Neil Young's performance of Ian and Sylvia's "Four Strong Winds". There's nothing like obscure Canadian folk music from the 70s when the whole world is watching you...Actually, Four Strong Winds is a great song. (And apparently it's been covered by everyone form John Denver to Teenage Fanclub to Marianne Faithfull, so maybe it's not as obscure as I make it out to be.)

Four strong winds that blow lonely
Seven seas that run high
All these things that don’t change come what may
Now our good times are all gone
And I’m bound for movin’ on
I’ll look for you if I’m ever back this way