Over and over and over again

It is finally Friday in a week that has often seemed as though it won't end. Even it being Friday hasn't really changed that--I only remembered last night that I have an exam meeting after all of my classes for the day, which will add another two hours to what I'm doing. :(

The weather has been very strange in the last day or so. It seems we are limping towards some kind of spring, so it has been slowly getting warmer...it's not quite four seasons in one day, New Zealand-style, but it is strange. Yesterday, we had snow squalls in the afternoon, followed by hail, then freezing rain, and then a thunderstorm. It's quite odd to see lightning and hear thunder when there's still a good six feet of snow on the lawn...

The Watchmen is out in theatres this weekend; the boyfriend is quite excited. I am not. I know everyone who reads graphic novels is all like "OMG watchmen=best thing ever" but it's really never done all that much for me. I like some of the pieces, but I can't say that the whole quite adds up for me. The misogynism might be part of that.

I Hate the Recession, or, It's Called "Common Sense"

One of the things that irritates me most about this recession (aside from the big picture worries of the world coming to an end/the economy actually imploding/not being able secure another job) is the veritable pantheon of "Survive the Recession" advice that is flying at us from all corners. As a society, it is of vital importance that we be told not to buy $9 coffees (sidebar: I'm shocked that Kinder Bueno commercial is still on the air), because we certainly can't figure it out ourselves.

The advice bugs me mostly because it is impractical: Have a staycation (gag) instead of a vacation. Do your nails yourself instead of going to a salon. Consider buying a smaller model car. Well, if I couldn't afford to do any of those things in the first place, how does continuing not to do them save me any money?

And don't even get started on the terminology people invent for this. Recessionista? Srsly?

Some of the worst advice yet comes from the Knitting Daily newsletter, which comes from Interweave Press. Mostly I enjoy Knitting Daily: with free patterns, helpful columns, and the gallery so you can see how stuff actually fits real people, what's not to like? Sure, they do shill Interweave's books/magazines/etc. a lot, but it's a small price to pay for what you get in return.

This week's newsletter is "Knitting Creatively On A Budget." Apparently, one does this by only buying one skein of yarn at a time from their local yarn store (to make sure they stay open, of course) and then making hats, wristwarmers, iPod cozies, neckwarmers, and baby clothes out of them. Or, one might purchase Leigh Radford's One Skein (published by Interweave) to access a number of one skein projects, including (!) some tiny knit cupcakes! They're adorable!

So here is my dilemma: why am I buying yarn for the sake of buying yarn, and why am I using it to make stuff with varying degrees of usefulness? Sure, as KD points out, I can make several iPod cozies out of one skein, and give them as gifts to my friends, but surely each friend only needs one, and don't most people already own some kind of iPod cover? Why am I making knit cupcakes? Sure, they are cute, but they're also useless. Aren't I supposed to be trying to cut down on waste here?

Here is my advice on how to survive as a knitter during times when money is short:
1) Knit from your stash. You already own it, so it doesn't cost you anything.
2) If you hate the colours in your stash, dye them yourself. This can be done relatively inexpensively when compared with the costs of buying all new yarn.
3) Save all of your leftover yarn for use in future projects. Learn to make mitered squares so that you can make squares for a blanket. Try to do one or two a week. If you start now, you'll have something ready to put together by the time December rolls around.
4) Don't knit things just for the sake of knitting them, or because Someone Famous is. Yes, the Yarn Harlot has fabulous taste in patterns and yarn, but you don't need to make a Clapotis/Jaywalkers/February Lady Sweater just because EVERYONE ELSE is making them. Which brings me to my next point...
5) Make things that you like AND that you'll wear/use. If you like shawls and wear them, by all means, make a Clapotis. I like to look at shawls more than I like to wear them, so it would be a bad choice for me.
6) Only buy yarn when you know what you're going to use it for. When you are looking at it, think "I will use this for _____". If the blank remains blank, or you change the sentence to "I want to buy this because it's soft/pretty/cheap/I want to buy something", put it back, and think about it for a couple of days.
7) If you're a book buyer, ask yourself how likely you are to knit more than one pattern in the book. If you're not, don't buy it.
8) Similarly, only buy online patterns that you already have the yarn for.
9) Look for sales. This applies to both yarn and books. Again, though, don't think, "OMG, Kidsilk Haze for $5/ball. Must buy." if you hate mohair. Yarn you hate or won't use is never a bargain, no matter how cheap it is.
10) Use the destash function on Ravelry. If you play your cards right, you can either get rid of stuff from your stash, and use that money to fund other yarn, or you can pick up yarn you need (for a project, of course) for less than you might pay at a store.
11) If you belong to a knitting group, arrange a destash night. My guild did this in January and it went really well. We had a table for stuff that was free, and a table for a stuff for trade. If people had anything really valuable, they were allowed to put a figure on it ("I want $40/equivalent trade for this skein of Blue Moon Ribre Arts Luscious Single Silk".)
12) When knitting for others, make things that are appropriate for the recipient. Don't use luxury fibers for newborn gifts. I know you want to make something awesome, and a cashmere layette makes a great statement, but no new parent will thank you for a gift that requires such delicate treatment. Similarly, if you are going to make something for an adult, make it something they will use.
13) Prioritize. If you really want to try that Tilli Thomas or Wollemeise, think about what you're willing to go without to get it.

bad blogger

I am a bad blogger.

More correctly, I'm a busy blogger who also has the personality defect of being somehwat lazy, an dletting her personal life swamp her rather than taking the time to add a tiny bit of sanity and order to the chaos by writing 100 words here.

Sleep has been something of a luxury lately, as changes in my schedule have confused the cat to no end, and he is now determined to wake us up through playing the pouncing game at various hours of the morning. This has resulted in him getting shut in the bathroom for a few hours each morning in the interests of actually being able to sleep. Now, of course, he has conked right out on the floor. He is a very tired cat, you see.

I started a pair of socks last Monday and I am within five pattern repeats of finishing them--I can't believe how fast they've come off the needles. The yarn is a merino/bamboo/nylon blend, and it handles so nicely. This is my first attempt at toe up socks, and it's been a good experience on the whole. I am a bit worried that it will result in a lot of ankle/short socks, though, as I usually get very bored of what I'm doing after the heel. Cuff down, I have to keep going because socks need a toe, but toe up, I'm free to quit whenever I want to...

I've also cast on for my mom's birthday present. She's been after me to make her a sweater for a while now, but when pressed she's expressed no interest in any of the particulars: size, colour, shape, cardigan vs. pullover, fibre, etc. Thus, I've chosen the yarn and pattern myself, and will reclaim the sweater if she doesn't like it. (Although I'm pretty sure she will.) The only thing I'm really nervous about is the fit--I may have sized a bit big, but I supposed bigger is better than smaller.

you can read me like a book

The venerable Wall Street Journal has an article in its Book Lover column about fictional crushes. Naturally, this stems from Twilight-mania, but I would be lying if I said that there weren't a few good men from between the pages who have claimed a tiny piece of my heart.

Gilbert Blythe, from Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne series, has ruined me for other men. Montgomery's characterization of him is just awesome: he loves Anne for who she is, and is drawn to her strength and her intelligence. He's also proud, so he is an actively participant in their relationship.

I also love Andrew Ryan from Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan series for many of the same reasons. The replacement of the Ryan character with David Boreanaz's FBI agent in the TV series is one of the main reasons I don't watch Bones on TV.

Jon Snow in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Craig in Craig Thompson's Blankets graphic novel.

I'm sure there are others, but I'm quite tired and can't think of them.

Inspiration

I like to think of myself as a creative person, but if that were true, wouldn't I have a lot more to show for it? There may be a lot going on in my mind, but I'm seldom able to transfer that from the realm of possibility to the tangible world. There are currently two novels, a play, a screenplay, and a couple of poems in my head; the sum total of all these in terms of actual writing is probably less than two thousand words at present. I lack discipline and confidence.

So imagine my surprise, then, when I picked up a stitch library at a friend's house over the weekend, and thought, "I could make a sweater from that." And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there are several knit items that I want that don't have patterns. The only solution is simply to create themselves. I've got five projects in mind: a cowl, a pair of mittens, a pair of socks, a series of purses incorporating elements of Charles Rennie MacIntosh's work, and the sweater, which I think wants to be knit in a wool-silk blend and will use a Gothic spire stitch pattern.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether I'll be successful in producing patterns for any of these, but I remain hopeful that I can make it work.

in the arms of a poet

I'm about to see a major project come to fruition tonight: My department's fourth annual creative writing exhibition. I've spent much of the last month drafting letters, booking rooms, emailing, editing copy, calling writers, cajoling writers, badgering writers, and all manner of stuff. I'm excited because it is good to see the results from the things that you do. Knitting is good for this; teaching first and second year university students critical reading and writing skills is usually...not. I've also been self-appointed as the event photographer. The university has loaned me a Nikon D-SLR, which is quite nice, and I'm hoping to spirit it away home to take pictures of Finished Objects, and also of the Cat.

I'm wearing my new sweater for the first time in honour of the occasion. I've already got two compliments on it from students.

Starting Over, Passing Through

I didn't get to watch today's inauguration because I was busy running around trying to get a variety of things organized. One of my colleagues is out for two weeks, as per doctor's orders, so I am having to pick up one of her classes and a joint project we are working on. This isn't really a big deal, but when you combine it with essay proposals in both of my courses and the general high anxiety levels of my second year students...well, let's just say that it makes for a busy day.

A few good things did come out of all the busy times, though: I snagged a waffle iron and a hot air popcorn popper, and my new glasses were finally in! The types of people who "design" glasses frames (or lend their names to such) fascinate me. There's everything from Hilary Duff to Nintendo to Eddie Bauer to Cadillac. The pair I wound up with are Cosmopolitan (...I know) and I have to say that I think they are pretty sharp. This is my first new pair in about 3 and a half years, and it's marvellous to be able to SEE again.

Reading the status updates of my friends on Facebook today has been a tremendously uplifting experience.[1] It's hard not to catch that optimism, that hope. In one of those moments that is truly serendipitous, my first year students are reading Nella Larsen's Passing, a novella that will challenge them to consider and re-consider how they perceive race and gender. Right after the first lecture, one of my students asked me, "But how can it be that no one notices that these people are black?"

Which is, of course, a very loaded question to deal with in that few minutes while your class is filing out and the next class is filing in to the lecture hall.

My students attend a *very* white school. (In fact, every time I see the school's latest marketing campaign, I laugh a litttle, since it suggests a student body that's much more diverse in terms of both race and gender.) A lot of them will have never thought about race in anything more than an abstract way, much less realized the myriad of ways that race shapes discourse and interaction in our society. I'm hoping Obama's inauguration allows at least some of them to engage with the ideas that Larsen proposes in her novella.

1. The other thing that really struck me, upon reading through pages of Facebook status updates, is how many people viewed this as a historic moment. Which, duh, it obviously is, but it's interesting to see how people identify it as such in the moment: "...is watching history being made" etc. CNN has historic t-shirts, too. The half life of nostalgia is truly growing smaller each year...

Reading, Knitting and Other Diversions...

Reflecting on yesterday's first post,[1] I'm sad that I no longer read as much as I should/want to/used to. Knitting takes up a lot of reading time, you know.[2] I'm currently cracking through The Mill on the Floss again, while working on two lace projects: Wisp and Ice Queen.

I think it's time for me to start listening to audiobooks again, so I can do both at once. Listening is such a qualitatively different experience from reading, though...

[1] Which I keep having to edit as I think of other reasons why I read.
[2] So do video games.

Poetry mittens

Two posts in one day, I know. But I just couldn't wait to write about these: Poetry Mittens.

According to the Knitting Daily newsletter, poetry mittens are an early American tradition, where women would choose their favourite poems and knit lines from the poems into the mittens. They're pretty awesome looking.

(Boyfriend thinks they are the nerdiest/lamest thing in the world. He is lame and thus I am never going to make him that second mitten.)

The most important question, obviously, is what poem to pick.

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs
--Wallace Stevens

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
--T. S. Eliot

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
--Matthew Arnold

All good possibilities...but what I would likely choose:

Hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.
--Edward Lear

At least until I can choose a Finn song, anyway.

The Big Question

Karie asks an important question over at her blog: Why Do You Read?

I read because I can.
(And let's be honest, it's one of the only things I'm good at. I'm a really good reader. I read at least 600 words per minute, and have impressive retention skills for what I have read. It seldom takes me more than a day to finish a novel.)

I read because I enjoy it.
(I do. I like books. I like holding them, touching them, ogling their covers, learning about the characters, solving the mysteries, falling in love when the characters do, being devastated when they are, laughing at the good bits, crying at the sad bits. I like what reading tells me about myself and about other arounds me. I like that I can read serious academic works and the most trivial mysteries and comic books and enjoy all of them.)

I read because it's compulsive.
(It really is. I'll read the ingredients on a cereal box if nothing else is around. I have to be careful when I read comics because it's very easy for me to forget about the pictures and focus just on the text.)

I read because I get paid to.
(I love my job I love my job I love my job.)

I read because I makes me happy.
(When I was a child, one of the most effective punishments was for my parents to take away my books.

I read because I get lost in what I'm doing.
(There are numerous stories about me getting lost on the way home from school because I was too busy reading to watch where I was going. I never actually got lost--we lived too close--but I did tend to dawdle.)
Why do you read?

oh, the weather outside is frightful...

I could not blog today without talking about the weather. It is cold here. In all fairness, cold does not begin to cover it. At present, it is -32 celcius here in North Bay. The television tells me that this can technically be referred to as a deep freeze. The only good thing I can think of right now is that at least when it's this cold, it doesn't snow.

Second term is now underway. I feel bad for my second year students, as I think they are vastly unprepared for the onslaught of work that's about to hit them in the next three weeks. I have to keep reminding myself that it is not my fault if they are unable to read the schedule of assignments off their syllabi.

I've decided to make it a point to mention Twilight in each of my classes this week. We're doing Great Expectations in first year, and Tennyson's "Tithonus" in second. What is the relevance, you might ask?

For Great Expectations, we're reading and comparing the two endings that Dickens wrote, and discussing which we think fits the tone and scope of the book better. (I am published ending FTW, by the way.) One of the questions I like to put to the students is to what extent an author needs to consider how his or her audience will react to a text. Harry Potter and Twilight are the obvious comparisons because of how personally invested their readers tend to become in the stories. It's actually prompted really good discussion from a (normally) fairly quiet class, so I'm quite happy about that.

For "Tithonus", we've been talking about what aspects of the Tithonus myth are relevant to us, and the idea of eternal youth/beauty to go along with immortality presents an interesting segue to Twilight and our larger obsession with vampire stories. The ideas of immortality and eternal youth are so closely intertwined for us that you almost wouldn't consider them separately. (And, of course, in Twilight, Bella is obsessed with being even slightly older than Edward.)

I finished my sweater, and it is huge. It actually looks more like a sweater dress. Stupid blocking. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. Perhaps once I get the sleeves on I'll feel more kindly to it. I've started a new Wisp in the KnitPicks Imagination sock yarn, which is an alpaca/wool/nylon bled. The colourway is called Looking Glass, and it's the most lovely shades of blue, green, and grey. It actually reminds me of beach glass.

I need another project, but just can't seem to figure out what I want to knit. It's making me antsy.

End of the year

This is going to be a hard year's end for me to write. The year hasn't actually been all that bad, but the last month has, and it will be difficult for me not to let December change my perceptions of everything else that happened. I don't know that I've ever been so happy to see the back of a month--and I can only hope for better things for the next year.

Good things I would like to remember from 2008: Buying the house, moving in with the boyfriend, adopting the cat, the Danforth Music Hall, front row for Great Big Sea, the "Crisis in Orkientalism" lecture, 3 year contract, "Life of Pi" lecture, Darren's wedding, Ravelry, new friends, old friends, Extras, new babies, Juno soundtrack, Stars album, 7 Nights Pt. II announced, Tropic Thunder, Wall-E.

I will also remember the people I lost this year.

For resolutions, I have a pretty big list:
1) Eating better. (This is already in progress, but there's always room for improvement.)
2) Finish knitting projects, and knitting through the stash. It's getting quite big.
3) Be more sympathetic. (I've had a very hard time seeing beyond myself this year. I want to change that.)
4) Be more active.
5) Write more. (Including blogging every day!)
6) Be happier.

Book Challenge, yeah

Since I clearly don't read anywhere near as much as I should, I've decided to sign up for the "What's in a name? 2" book challenge. You get six categories and have to choose and read a book with a title that fits that category.

1. A book with a "profession" in its title.
2. A book with a "time of day" in its title.
3. A book with a "relative" in its title.
4. A book with a "body part" in its title.
5. A book with a "building" in its title.
6. A book with a "medical condition" in its title.

My choices:
1.) J.K. Rowling's Tales of Beedle the Bard
2.) Dennis Lehane's The Given Day
3.) Joyce Carol Oates's My Sister, My Love
4.) Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness
5.) Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth
6.) Vincent Lam's Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures

the goose is getting fat

Every year my parents ask me what I want for Christmas. It always takes me a really long time to figure out what I want, and this year has been no exception. In fact, I only realized what I wanted this morning. Which, what with being a good week from Christmas, is much too late to actually communicate that to my mother.

(An iPod touch, just in case you were wondering.)

I took Cait Christmas shopping this morning, and managed to keep the spending to a minimum, although once I get paid on Friday I'll be heading back to the mall. I actually only have a few gifts left to buy: Boyfriend's mother, Boyfriend's sister's boyfried (...), one friend, and a cousin. I do have a couple of things left to knit, though, and most of them seem to be for my mother. (Who has suddenly decided that she wants a hat, please and thank you.)

I've been knitting frantically for the last few days, which have been a bit stressful. My gauge, normally quite loose, is like cast iron--to the point where I actually had to tear out part of my knitting. (When I went to try it on, I could hardly get my hand through it.) The other result of this tension is that I've actually started to lose some of the feeling in my left arm. As tingling and numbness of the arms, particularly the left arm, are not especially good things to be experiencing, I was worried that it might be something else, but it is definitely the knitting. Bah humbug.

wherever you go, there you are

Every once in a while, the universe likes to remind me that I am actually exactly where I should be. Today was very much one of those days. The semester is done, and I have been working from home on marking knitting fiendishly for the last few days. Today I had a meeting at the school, and between one thing and another (specifically, Boyfriend and Cat) I wound up leaving a few minutes late. As I was driving up the hill, a Crowded House song came on the radio--and if I had left on time, I would surely have missed it.

After my meeting, I had to grab a book from my office, and when I got there, there was a small package attached to my doorknob with a note:

“Professor X,
I saw these at the booksale and they made me think of you. One is new but has lots of margin notes and the other is old and doesn’t have any notes. If you already have them feel free to give them away. Happy holidays!”

The books in question are a new Folgers copy of Romeo and Juliet, and an old (1923) Copps Canada Library copy of Henry V. To say that this made my day would be a massive understatement. The marking I've done in the last couple of weeks has been soulcrushing, for lack of a better term, and I really needed something like this to remind that there is a reason for me to be here. I have no idea who sent the books, but I'm really happy that he or she did. Thank you, Anonymous Student!

Sleigh bells ring...

What a week. What do you mean, it's only Wednesday? Tell that to my bones.

So much has been happening these last few days--to me, to my friends, to Canada. These would be exciting times to be alive if they weren't so darn scary.

On a personal level, I finally accomplished something this week that's been ten years in the making: I am now a fully licensed driver. It only took me ten years. I took my first G level test about three weeks ago, and failed, but this test went much better. (When the examiner asked me to parallel park, and I pulled up beside a Smart Car, I figured everything was going to be okay.)

I am also finished school until January, which is fantastic. Loads of marking to be done, but that's okay.

The Boyfriend and I have also put up our first Christmas tree. We did this Sunday night, and the cat has already succeeded in removing three of the bottom branches. (It's an artificial tree. Boyfriend is allergic to the real kind, which is unfortunate, as the cat might have more difficulty with a real one.) He (cat, not boyfriend) has also figured out how to remove some of the ornaments, and plays a game where he throws one of his pompoms into the branches and then has to go get it. It's quite adorable to watch. I am a bad cat disciplinarian.

the most blunderful time of the year...

The countdown is on. One day left to this week; three days left next week, and minimal teaching all around. (Minimal teaching, of course, means maximal marking. Bah humbug to that.) I'm always ground down this time of year; I let my job be more stressful than it should be, and I am so effing ready for a break I can taste it. I went to bed at 11 p.m. last night, and woke up around 7:30 this morning. It's now 4 in the afternoon, and I am exhausted. There's nothing left in this tank. Just air.

(As an illustration of my point, I just paused from writing this scintillating rumination on my life to go pick up some stuff from the print room here. Apparently, you actually need to send documents to the printer before they will be printed off. Where the heck is my telepathic printer?)

Don't get me wrong. I like my job. But I'm ready for a break right now. I'm ready for comfy clothes and healthy food that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and time spent with a cat who has no sense of entitlement except when it comes to the Boyfriend's computer chair. I don't want to read more essays that misinterpret both texts and questions. I don't want to be as tired and frustrated as I am right now.

I'm hoping the quick trip home this weekend will refresh me. If not, maybe I will just sleep for the whole month of December.

Goodbye, yellow brick road...

I have lead a life that been largely untouched by death. In 27 years, I have lost only three family members, and no friends. Today changed that. A friend of mine went out for a run last night, had a heart attack, and died, at the age of 44 years.

I've known John for about four years now. We met at The Historic Site Which Shall Not Be Named, where he was working part time while teaching. I was working on my MA thesis project at the time, which he was quite interested in, as his background was in history. He shared my love for North Bay Rock City, having also attended Nipissing for the Bachelor of Education program. Our paths would cross at work several times over the next couple of months, and we grew to be friends outside of work as well.

John was always up for a good time. He loved to grab a pint at Cellarman's, or to stop by other people's houses, or welcome us into his home. The Possum Lounge, his cool, drafty attic, was a wonderful place to hang out, full of hockey memorabilia and souvenirs of John's life. He loved music, as well, recording and releasing his first CD, Highway 401 Tonight, this past year.

John had a very generous and kind heart. When I lost my first teaching job two years ago after the board restructured, he went out of his way to offer me supply days in his kindergarten classroom. Oh yeah--that's also the kind of guy that John was: the kind of guy who was quite happy to teach in the primary stream. When I went into his classroom, it was very apparent how much his students just adored him, ahnd with good reason: he made up songs just for them, and created a strong, nurturing class environment. I can't even imagine how his little ones are going to deal with this.

I think what makes this so hard to understand and to accept (aside from the part where I just plain don't know how to deal with it) is that John was at the peak of his existence. And sure, it's a cliche to say that someone "was taken to soon" or anything along those lines, but it does actually apply here. A few months ago, John met a woman and fell hard for her. They had just purchased a house together, and given their housewarming party four days ago. I saw them at the Historic Site over Thanskgiving, and their happiness was so complete that it was almost tangible. My heart breaks every time I think about what she is going through now.

How terrible to be taken away from this world just as everything comes together. It is difficult not be saddened by all the missed opportunities; the unfulfilled potential; the memories. But at the same time, I can't help but think--at least he was happy.

Take care, John. I hope you know how much your friendship meant to me.

Gears of War: 90 years since Armistice

"But it's not 'Lest We Forget', it's 'Lest We Remember.'"
--Alan Bennett, The History Boys

I'm a big fan of Alan Bennett's The History Boys, though sadly I have yet to see a stage production of it. For me, one of the most intriguing scenes in the movie deals with Irwin, the teacher, attempting to teach the boys about how the first and second World Wars fit into their views of history. The quotation above sticks in my mind for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that I am currently very interested in how we choose to commemorate and remember our dead.

My maternal great-grandfather fought in WWI; my paternal grandfather participated in WWII as a Royal Engineer, and saw action in both the European and Pacific theatres. Both were fortunate enough to survive. I do not take war lightly; I do not take lightly the sacrifices made, nor the people who are overseas right now--no matter how much I disagree with our role in Afghanistan. That said, I'm really unimpressed with a commercial put together by the Royal Canadian Mint to commemorate this year's Remembrance Day. The commercial in question is below:



This commercial bothers me because it approaches war from the perspective of a first person shooter video game, like Wolfenstein or Halo. War video games have always made me uncomfortable: I feel that they trivialize the sacrifices made by those fought and those who died. They simplify history into the lowest common denominator of GOOD (us) vs. BAD (them), and remove the humanity from history. Battles that real people fought in become simply obstacles to be defeated; levels to be conquered. There is no humanity in it anymore: it is simply entertainment and cinematics.

(I am aware of the various counterarguments here--movies as entertainment/glorification of war/propaganda; no real difference from non-war first person shooters; etc., but I will simply remind you that when watching a movie, or playing Halo, there is an additional level of fiction built in. You don't have to kill anyone simply watching Saving Private Ryan, and you don't have to kill anyone human in an FPS, which makes it much easier to disassociate yourself.)

Obviously, the Mint has chosen to portray this ad in this way for a particualr reason: they think it will appeal to a different audience. And to an extent, I think they're right--I was sure this was an ad for a video game, since it apes the conventions of video game trailers most expertly. The implied message, though, is what makes me so uncomfortable. In the video game world, war is a finite series of combats that have an infinite number of 'do overs' and 'save points'. If you die, well, just start over! If you stick to it long enough, by Geroge, you'll eventually beat the whole thing! And then you can put the CD back in its case, and leave it on a shelf, and forget all about it. There is no real sacrifice--not by the soldiers, not by those living in the war zone, not by those left at home. The actions of the gamer have no real consequences--unlike the soldier's. Even more than that, there is no aftermath. The war simply ends when you take out the game. There are no war reparations, no post traumatic stress disorder, and no real cost involved.

What a sad statement it is on us, that we have to interest people in remembrance in this way.

American Politics Through Canadian Eyes

I'm a pretty staunch Canadian nationalist, and I've spent a good portion of my life convincing myself that I don't care at all about what happens in the States. Obviously, as I've gotten older and my worldview has developed, I've realized how foolish that is, and I followed the 2008 presidential race pretty closely for someone who didn't even get to cast a ballot.

Canada just came through an election that few wanted, to the tune of $300 million, and it has been fascinating to contrast that process with what I've seen unfold in the US. We were sluggish and apathetic, lacking leadership in a time where it could have made all the difference. The status quo remains here. The Americans, by contrast, are fiery and energized. People care. Voter turn out was awesome, inspite of a million difficulties.

And Barack Obama was elected.

I watched the election coverage by myself, knitting away on a toddler sweater. The first few hours were so tense for me that I had to keep changing the channel every few minutes (perhaps CNN's Election Night in America music had something to do with this) but as more and more states went blue, I was able to relax and just enjoy. At 11 p.m., when CNN declared for Obama, I lost it. I cried. Watching the reactions of everyone gathered in Chicago, and in the studio, and in Ebenezer Baptist Church was truly awe inspiring.

John McCain's concession speech was very classy. I know some have expressed the idea that it was written by someone else, and not necessarily something he believed, but I think he did an excellent job of selling it. He behaved very graciously and spoke very eloquently. (Just out of curiosity, does his voice remind anyone else of Andy Rooney's?)

Obama's speech had me tearing up again. It served to showcase all of his best qualities, and again, watching the crowd's response to him was as heartwarming as actually watching him. I'm so happy his daughters get a puppy. His story about 106 year old Ann Nixon Cooper was especially strong. It is easier to believe in the future now. I have hope.

One of my more politically inclined friends told me a few months ago that Stephen Harper timed his election to avoid being conflated with the American election, in fear that an Obama victory might turn the tide against the Conservative Party here in Canada, and I have to say that I think he's probably right about that. (So, unfortunately, was Stephen Harper--I don't think Obama's victory would have done anything good for his party.)

Here's to the future, everyone. Regardless of your politics, let us believe that things can only get better from here.