Procrastination, thy name art BLOG!

So I have a presentation tomorrow, and since I am blocked, I thought a little blog post might help me get more into the writing mood.

It has been awhile since my last post. I've been very busy with my schoolwork over the past two weeks, but I am less than three weeks away from the Christmas break, yippee! I have to start thinking about decorations for my house and what gifts to buy people (and where to find the money for said gifts), but right now I am focused on trying (operative word: trying) to finish the essays that stand between me and my well-deserved break. I am cloistered here behind an impossibly large stack of books and copied articles that are just begging to be read, appreciated, and cited. Great. I think I may be up late tonight working on this, but the outline and intro are already done, so at least that's a start. My presentation is on early modern woodcuts in Chaucer General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Hmmm...

Well, I suppose that's enough self-indulgent blathering on about things no one really cares about except me... Back to "work..."

My Blog Assignment

So remember my first post, where I mentioned that this blog was part of an assignment for school? The assignment report is due tomorrow. I guess I've gotten over my writer's block... Sorry if some of my posts were a bit long! So I am reflecting on the process of the writing and the reception of this blog, and it would be REALLY helpful if some of you who have been reading could tell me what you've thought of the blog cummulatively. Have you enjoyed reading my blog, or have you just done it out of obligation, because I told you it was for an assignment? What would you have liked to see more of, or less of, for that matter? And possibly my most important question to you: do you feel as though you know me better as a result of having read my blog for the past six weeks? If so, why? If not, why not?

Finally, I just wanted to say thanks for reading. I know I'm not really that interesting, but I appreciate your participation for the sake of academic inquiry! I may continue to post, but perhaps with less frequency during essay-writing time...

My Milestone Anniversary and Hallowe'en

It's been a crazy weekend! Thursday was my 10 year anniversary with my boyfriend, so we decided to go to Niagara Falls for an overnight trip. It was really great. I had a lot of fun. I always think that the touristy-ness of it is quite funny, though. Most of their tourism centres around providing different angles for looking at the falls. Really, how much can you get of them? You can see the falls from the path around them, you can go behind them, you can take a boat right up to them, you can take a helicopter ride over them, you can look at them while riding in a carriage driven by horses, you can even get eat your dinner at a fallsview restaurant or choose a fallsview hotel so you never have to stop looking the falls! "Let's see the falls from this angle, and then this one, and then this one...!" I'm sure the locals are sick of looking at them. I also think it's interesting that people come to witness the sublimity of nature as represented by the falls, but then they get a very manicured, built up area, catering to the tourism, and witness the falls in ways that would indicate a human mastery over nature (especially "Journey Behind the Falls" for which engineers designed tunnels leading tourists to areas where they can go behind the water). But I guess that's enough cultural analysis. Peter and I did have dinner at a fallsview restaurant, and we saw the falls from a ferris wheel called the Niagara Skywheel. The next day we went horseback riding, made a forray out to niagara on the lake, where I bought a hat from "Beau Chapeau" and had my picture taken with a statue of George Bernard Shaw, and finally we got a tour of a winery called Pilliteri Estates (and a little tasting, too). Here are a few pictures:

It was a really beautiful anniversary. Horseback riding through the niagara escarpment was probably one of the biggest highlights of the whole trip. I recommend it to everyone!

Yesterday was Hallowe'en, and I usually like to dress up as some sort of literary figure. This year I chose Alice in Wonderland. It was a great costume. I'll spare you the pictures on this one... My favourite comment with regards to my costume last night: " OMG! You're Alice, right? That was, like, my favourite movie of all time! I LOOOOOVE your costume!" This was spoken by a girl dressed up in a cat lady costume. Rather than explain that I am a literary scholar and that my choice of costume was contingent upon that, I just smiled and nodded.

Today I was wedding dress shopping with my sister. She looked absolutely stunning in all of her dresses. I can't post any pictures because we can't let the groom see! But take my word for it: gorgeous!

Needless to say, it has been a very hectic weekend! I have a presentation due on Monday about the historical significance of images in manuscripts and early printed editions of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Joy! I've done all the research, but I need to write the presentation. So the rest of my weekend will be occupied by that! I guess I'd better get right down to it!

Pumpkin Picking, CFP's, and Upcoming Assignments

So I decided to take yesterday off and go pumpkin picking with my boyfriend. It was awesome. We went to a little farm just outside of Woodstock, ON called Birtch Farms. There were pumpkins everywhere. This doesn't have anything to do with being a grad student. It was just fun. Well I guess that's not entirely true. The hayride was punctuated by a narrative about apples (the farm was also an orchard), and being an English grad student, I couldn't help but be over-analytical. They had wooden tableaus of apple related stories all along the hayride, geared towards the kids. Guess what the first apple story was? Yup, you guessed it. Genesis: Adam and Eve. After this, the next tableau was William Tell, a story I'd never really heard. I was surprised to discover a biblical intertext in that narrative. Very Isaac and Abraham-esque. Except fate seemingly takes the role of intervening force, and not God. Very interesting. Then, we came across another tableau of Snow White. Well, all the kids started going CRAZY and were literally climbing over the adults just to get a peek. Disney wins again. I also think it's interesting that Snow White functions as an analogue to the Genesis story, but I think that this academic pond has already been fished out... Too bad. Here are a couple of pictures from our day:

It was nice to have a break, but I have a lot of things to do, and a lot of assignments coming up! I joke with my friend that, that beacuse I am so busy, all I get to eat is perogies and pizza pockets. She laughs, but there's truth in jest, you know. The same friend also sent me a bunch of CFP's for the ACCUTE conference. I want to go, but I am so bogged down right now, and the abstracts are due on or before November 15th! Plus I have something due every week until the end of term, starting this week. And tons of grading consistently coming in. I guess I get back to reading. I have a busy seven weeks ahead. *GROAN*

Teaching Grammar (Zzzz...)

It’s Thursday again! Yes! I just finished teaching. Today’s lesson: grammar! My students were overjoyed. Can you sense the sarcasm just dripping from my narrative voice? I had one student, who, hilariously, was sitting directly to my right, literally put his head right down on the desk and go straight to sleep. He was sitting right BESIDE me! In my experience as an undergrad, the best way to sleep in class is to find the perfect angle at which you are the least noticeable and then practice resting your head in your hand so that when you close your eyes, it appears as though you are merely pondering the oh-so-interesting contents of your book. Or, just wear a baseball cap. But to place your head directly on the desk and doze off directly beside the course instructor without even the vaguest attempt to camouflage what you’re doing, practically drooling on the TA’s textbook, is just flagrantly disrespectful. Even the way he was sleeping reflected laziness and a lack of effort. At least try to pretend like you’re not sleeping! Also, in my experience, the best and most heart-attack-esque way of waking up someone who is sleeping in class is merely to use the verb “to sleep” in a sentence. So mid-sentence, when I noticed this student sleeping, I used the sentence “Sleeping in class, my notes were not sufficient for the final exam” as an example of a dangling modifier. I stared at him as I said it, and he woke up with a start. For some reason, when sleeping in class, students are oblivious to everything except the word sleep. It is as though they’ve programmed their brains to respond only to this word. It’s hilarious. I had a hard time containing my laughter. I’m not normally in the practice of humiliating students, but in this case, he was sitting right beside me, and if I let him away with it, I may lose the respect of the other students. I then instructed the students that if they really must sleep in class, perhaps it would be best to sit in a place other than right beside the instructor!

I guess that’s all. I have to go update my participation grades record now!!!

Ein Prosit!

Well, yesterday my family came down from the GTA for Oktoberfest. They stayed the night. My house is full of empty bottles and dirty glasses. I guess I have to clean again... urgh! It was a fun time, though.

First we went to St. Jacob’s where my family shopped (and I browsed, since I am a grad student), and then we went out for dinner. I wanted to take them to Wildcraft, but when I called and they said it would be about a 1.5 hour wait, so we went to Ennio’s instead, which was perfect.

When we were finished eating I tried to call a cab, but no such luck. It’s impossible to get a cab on the closing weekend of Oktoberfest! I suggested, since our ‘festhallen’ was on King street, that we take the # 7 bus to get there. Well, what a scene my family made on the bus!!! Most of my family is not used to public transportation, having had cars since the time they were legally able to drive. Some of the highlights, in quotes:

- (as an express bus passed): “Why isn’t he stopping? What a jerk! What does he think we’re waiting here for?”
- (after 5 minutes of waiting) Is this bus EVER going to come?
- (as we enter the bus, frantically) “How do I pay?!!!
- (sitting on the bus, with many bus regulars) “I can’t believe I’m on the BUS!”
- “It’s like a ride at Canada’s Wonderland!”

SO embarrassing. Other riders similarly headed to Oktoberfest events began to chat up members of my family, presumably because they were immensely entertained by their lack of bus-taking prowess. So at least that kept them entertained (and occupied) for the duration of the ride.

When we arrived at the ‘festhallen” which turned out (unbeknownst to me) to be a tent (family response: “OMG, it’s a TENT?! They BETTER have indoor plumbing!), we entered and claimed a hightop table. Almost immediately, two weird guys started hitting on my Mom and my Aunt. One was missing his two front teeth and smelled quite foul. He also had difficulty remembering any names, and just called us all by my sister’s name for the entire duration of the night because he was so drunk. The other, presumably weirdo #1’s buddy (though we weren’t sure if they were friends or just bonded due to mutual weirdness), was creepily trying to photograph us surreptitiously all night. *Shudders. They colonized our hightop table. My Mom and Aunt did not want to surrender the table, to which my response was “good god, they really don’t know how to shake one, do they?” Give up the table, it’s not worth it! My cousin, sisters and I gradually moved over to the neighbouring table, which was pleasingly occupied by cuter, more socially graceful men. My Mom and Aunt soon followed, and the two weirdoes got scared off by the other men (yes! Operation: successful!). The new, nice guys kept commenting on how cool it was that our moms were out partying with us. I think it’s cool too :D

In closing, it was a great girls’ weekend, and I have just one thing left to say:

“Ziggy, Ziggy, Ziggy, Ziggy,
Oy, Oy, Oy!”

Ein Prosit!

Just Some Random Things Happening in My Life

So this past week has been Oktoberfest. I decided (on my usualy Thursday night forray out with my friends) to visit one of these "festhallen" to see what it was all about. It was quite fun. We had lots of beeer and polka-ed until 1 am, when they kick everyone out. I am tired today...

I have my family coming to visit me this weekend. We're all going out to Oktoberfest together, since they've never been. This means I have to clean my house. Great... It's not that messy, but I have other things I need to be doing!

As a grad student, I worry about my health sometimes, mainly because I drink too much, eat the wrong foods (due to ease/speed of preparation or acquisition), and don't get enough exercise or sleep. So I am trying to turn over a new leaf. I went to a bikram yoga class yesterday. For those of you unfamiliar with bikram yoga, let me "enlighten" you (pun very much intended). Bikram yoga is much like regular yoga, except it is done in a room so hot that it rivals the deepest pits of hell. The room is literally heated to approximately 44 degrees celcius. Not only are you expected to stay in the room for 90 minutes, they want you to be active and do yoga. Hmmm. It feels good afterwards, but mainly because you come to appreciate being in a normal temperature. When you exit the room, you feel a relief like nothing else you can experience. It's good for me, and I shouldn't complain about it. I will probably go back. I am a glutton for punishment. Hence, I am in grad school.

Speaking of grad school, I met another grad student the other day who was still working on his OGS and SSHRC applications (HAHA!) and he was telling me about a dream he had about said external funding agencies. He dreamed that SSHRC and OGS were PEOPLE and they had singular, personififed identities. I thought this was hilarious. He said it freaked him out a lot and then he woke up. I told him that maybe he had just been reading too much allegory. Only an English Literature grad student would find that joke funny. It cracked him right up.

So I am working on a book review for Rawi Hage's new novel Cockroach. I suppose I'd better get back to it, since I told them I would get them somthing today, and I still have 150 pages to read! Maybe I can read and vacuum at the same time...

Epic EmbarASSment!

I love thursdays. Thursdays are the end of my academic week. I always give myself thursdays off (well, except during essay writing time) to go out with my friends. I started this tradition in my MA year so I wouldn't get so immersed in my schoolwork that I became isolated and hermit-esque. Forcing myself to be social turned out to be one of the best things I could do. I made wonderful friends last year (you know who you are if you're reading this ;D). So I'm continuing the tradition this year and going out with friends that are still in the KW area.

I caught up on my sleep, finally. But not in a good way. I have been so exhausted with SSHRC/OGS/grading/the conference/my coursework that I accidently fell asleep on the couch on Tuesday night and was out cold for more than 12 hours.

Pro: I caught up on a lot of sleep.

Con(s): I stupidly neglected to post something on a course message wall that was required for class the next day.

And less importantly, the couch was not as comfy as my bed and I got a massive neck cramp.

Here's a comic, from http://www.phdcomics.com/ (awesome website that I frequent when procrastinating) that I feel epitomizes my life:

I woke up with the sun beaming in on me, in the biggest freaked-out panic you can imagine. I had a moment of cognitive dissonance where all sense of a spatio-temporal reality faded and I didn't know what time of the day it was and part of me thought I might actually be missing class (bigger freakout). I frantically checked the time, realized I was not missing class, and then darted upstairs to post what I was supposed to put up.

The most frustrating part is that I'd already prepared this a couple of days in advance, but I didn't have my password for the course website (a very obscure and difficult to remember password of random numbers and letters, some lowecase, some upper), so I decided to post it later...

After feeling like a total idiot, I got ready for class, and ready to feel even more completely humiliated! It wasn't so bad, but I did feel like a big loser.

After all this, I am really glad to have this week behind me, and that I get to relax tonight. And bonus: It's a long weekend! Yay, turkey!!!

FREEDOM!!! sort of...

I handed in my SSHRC and OGS applications today and now I'm free!!! Sort of... Thank god! Oh, it feels so good to be done. My friends in other programs had later deadlines (by two weeks!) and I was so jealous, but now, I'm living it up! Yay.

I should maybe foreground this by saying that I have been up for about 48 hours now, not because I wasn't done, but just because I couldn't sleep knowing that there might be other things I could change, edit, or fix up. I worked on it right up until the moment I had to leave for class, and even then, I was hesitant to click on that oh-so-final print button.

I emailed my edited draft to the professor who told me to reorganize everything (see post from September 30) on Friday, asking if he could take one more look at it to see if there was anything horrible about this draft that I should change. I got a response one hour before I had to leave the house. I was deeply afraid of opening this email. What if he said the whole thing was horrible and that I should reorganize everything again? Oh god. Panic set in. I opened it anyways. It said that this version was "MUCH stronger" (I liked the caps, that gave it a nice emphatic touch). Thank god. I don't know what I would have done if he hated it.

I've spent the entire past two nights combing through both proposals, and I really still don't know when you cross the line from constructive editing to deconstructive knit-picking. Hopefully OGS and/or SSHRC will give me the fame and fortune I'm after (HA!)...

Shirking SSHRC

Nothing has changed over the past three days, really. SSHRC and OGS are still driving me absolutely crazy. I decided that I would organize a peer review with two of my friends (from other schools, no chance of them stealing my brilliant ideas that way). We met up at Laurier's grad pub. But before reading each others' proposals, we decided to go get some dinner (can't think on an empty stomach...). After sitting down to dinner, we exchanged proposals. Perhaps because we're all at the same level, or perhaps because we're all too polite, none of us had any criticism. It became an occasion for ego-stroking. "Wow, your proposal is SO good, I can't see why they wouldn't fund this," etc. At least it forced me to get some revision done.

After this uselessness, we went out for a drink to numb the pain of external funding application processes. One drink turned into two, and two turned into several, and before I knew it, it was last call and I was cursing this peer review, which had digressed into a beer review.

So now I am sitting here writing this, putting off further revisions to OGS and/or SSHRC, and hoping that I'll have an epiphany about what I can change so that the adjudicators of these competitions think my project has "merit" and is "worthy." Hmmm...

The External Funding Blues

So for those of you who don't know, though I'm sure the majority of the readership for this blog does, OGS stands for "Ontario Graduate Scholarship" (although my friends likes to refer to it as the "Orbiting Garbage System"), and SSHRC stands for Social Sciences and Humanities Research council, and is pronouced "shirk" which ironically, is a verb meaning "to avoid work or duty" which is what graduate students routinely do with their proposal writing, making the phrase "I'm shirking SSHRC" the ubiquitous response to the question "what are you doing today?" amongst graduate students during application time.

Basically what these grants translate into is $. Both of these government agencies provide funding to worthy projects at the graduate student level. The only trouble is you have to prove that your project (and you) are worthy! AND, you don't really quite know what they're looking for. So upon my return, my proposals for OGS and SSHRC are taking up the majority of my life right now, though I still have to keep up with school work, hence why I am writing this blog...

At least it's cathartic.

So before I left for my trip, I met with a few professors regarding my proposals and one of them advised me to reorganize the whole thing. So that's what I'm doing (reticently) now. It's very hard to maintain a critical distance from your own work. I put so much effort into this, and I don't want to change it, but I see why it needs to be done. I had arranged my proposal chronologically, going through the texts in the order in which they were published. My professor very wisely advised me to seperate the sections based on the different subject-positions (race, class, gender) that I will be analyzing. It makes more sense, but it's so much more work. I like my friend's idea of just writing "please?" at the end of this and hoping for the best! I am going to keep working on this until the last hour, but it's becoming quite onerous. I also have heaps and heaps of grading to do, and I don't feel like reading undergraduate writing at the moment. I am so stressed out. It sucks to be back. Can I go back to Amsterdam now?!

On the plane, going home :'(

I am on the plane on my way home from Amsterdam now. I am going to write this and then pass out (perhaps with the assistance of some gravol), so I can get back into the right sleep patterns for Eastern Standard Time.

The rest of the conference went well and was very interesting. There was one paper on video game adaptations that was especially astute. The author argued that the abiliy of the user in "World of Warcraft" to film, edit and replay the player's actions within the game functions as a sort of adaptation from video game to film. Very interesting! I never realized how up and coming video game studies are. Or how interesting they can be!

We decided to go out last night to a club called Paradiso, which was converted from an old church. The D.J set his equiptment up where the altar would have been. Iconoclastic, nice! Moral of this story: I am too old for clubbing. Jenna and I spent 18 euro on cover, and we ended up leaving early and sitting on a patio near a canal and talking about life. Much better than the club!

We also had dinner at a very nice restaurant to commemorate our last night here. It was in the Red Light District, which I thought was unusual, since the area is not know for it's food... I found it especially unusual since we had to walk down a dark, graffittied alley to get to it. When we arrived at the door, three men in suits, presumably restaurant patrons, though we'll never know for sure, said "Hello, ladies," increasing our trepidation about entering. There was a blue curtain shielding the door which we had to pass through to enter. It you know anything about the cultural significance of architectural apertures and curtains in Amsterdam, you'll understand why our trepidation was increased further at this point. Jenna, being a braver soul than I, walked through the curtain first and I followed. The restaurant was beautiful. Haha, you thought that was going somewhere else didn't you? Nope. Just a nice restaurant.

We were seated immediately and provided with menus. Jenna had found this place in her guide book but did not check to see what the symbol €€€€€ meant. It turns out that all restaurants in the book are rated for price out of a possible 5 €, and this one was at the top. The waiter returned after we almost had a coronary upon seeing the menu, and provided us with a narrative for each of the entrees, telling us how the meat had been raised, how the dish would be seasoned, even down to the plating. All of it was explained. I thought about how interesting it is that when you inscribe something with a narrative, it automatically gains more cultural value than it initially had. (I'm not a literary scholar or anything, pfft....). The food was delicious and the wine was the best I've ever had. Although the dinner was (very) costly, the experience was worth the price. The chef even has a michelin star, which is apparently a very big deal in the culinary world. It's almost like winning a Fulbright Award, but for a chef!

I guess it's out of the world of fancy dinners and interesting conferences and back to the world of OGS and SSHRC...

One More Conference Paper for the CV!

The hostel switch was the best thing we could have ever done. It's so much cleaner and nicer! I finished revising my conference paper and presented it today. See?:

It was well received. I've decided though, that in future, I am only going to submit abstracts to conferences for essays that I've already written. It's all well and nice to say "wow, that's an interesting topic, I think I'd like to write an essay about that" when you're submitting an abstract months in advance, but when the time comes to sit down and write that paper and you're bogged down with teaching, course work, and travel plans, you realize maybe it's better to use something you've already written. That's okay. I'm learning as I go here... I always get a bit nervous when presenting, but at least you're just reading off what you've already written. Since there were 4 people on my panel, and they only allowed 90 minutes for it, there was no time left for discussion or questions which was disappointing (but also, strangely relieving). But people were asking me questions and engaging with my presentation during the drinks afterwards. I think everyone just wanted to get out of there and have a beer! It was nice to have questions in this more relaxed, slightly less interrogative atmosphere.

I was speaking with a professor from a university in the UK, and we were talking about Canadian Literature, which is my main area of academic interest, and he told me about a book he'd read which he thought I might find interesting (and I DO!). It's called The Tenderness of Wolves by Steph Penney, an agorophobic British writer. The novel is (in part) about the harsh landscape of early 19th century Canada. The irony is that Penney has never been to Canada, on account of her being agorophobic. I have a great deal of interest in this text since it garnered much literary critical (most of it positive) attention. She was long listed for the Orange Prize. How does a text which appropriates this somewhat archaic view of Canada as a desolate, scary, freezing cold space, get nominated for numerous literary awards??? It's almost like since Canadians are no longer writing texts that subscribe to this "Garrison Mentality" (Frye) [yes, I just used an in-text citation in my blog], writers from other nations are doing it for us. Very interesting! Perhaps I'll incorporate this into my thesis or write a paper on it (just for fun, NOT!).

Anyways, the conference is very engaging and I am meeting lots of very interesting academics. There was even someone on mmy panel who just graduated from UW for PhD less than a year ago. He teaches at a university out west, in Kamloops, BC, and he's tenure track! It's good to see graduates of the program who are meaningfully employed.

Since we got here, we did a tour of the Dutch countryside and I went to Anne Frank's house, which was a great deal more emotional than I had anticipated. On our tour, we walked through the village of Marken,

took a boat ride to Voldendam,

tried dutch pancakes,

had pictures taken in Dutch costume (what's the good of being a tourist if you can't have a sense of irony about it?),

went to a museum,

visited a windmill,

were shown around a cheese factory,

and saw how wooden shoes are made.

What a long day!!! I was shocked by how many languages our tour guide spoke. I counted at least 5 languages that she used during our tour (English, Dutch, French, German, and Spanish) and I think she probably knew even more! She seemed very happy with her job and very fulfilled. I have a hard time with just French!

Speaking of French, we stopped to ask this couple directions and they responded that they knew only French. Being the good Canadians we are, we decided to rey to communicate with them anyways, having been taught French all through school. Well! They could not understand anything we were saying! It was at that point I realized that Parisian French and Quebecois French must be very different. I feel slightly ripped off now that I know my French knowledge doesn't really help me in Europe. :(

Anyways, I am having a wonderful time here in Amsterdam, the conference is great, and I don't want to come back down to reality. I know that when I get back I will have a lot of work to do, especially on OGS and SSHRC, and I'm thinking maybe I'll just stay in Amsterdam. No? Not a good idea? Okay, I'll come back. I guess...

In Amsterdam!

NB: All of the posts I've written while in Amsterdam were posted when I got back, since internet costed 4 euro an hour there, and I am a grad student. I wrote these posts down in a journal, and the posted date reflects the date I wrote the entries, not the date they were published. Enjoy!

So I landed in Amsterdam today to attend an academic conference. The plane ride was long and I didn't get any work done, which is a problem. I did get some sleep though, which is unusual for me since I'm always up until ungodly hours working on things. I was pretty hungry when I woke up since I had been asleep when they handed out the tiny and somewhat disgusting trays of chicken korma. I guess that's what you get when you fly charter. In coach. Somehow, I think I would have still been hungry even if I were awake when they handed those out. The whole plane reeked of it. I looked around and saw many green-looking faces. I think air-sickeness comes less from motion and altitude and more from the culinary joke that the air travel industry plays on its patrons...

When I got off the plane, I had to grab my pack from the baggage carousel and find a live person train ticket vendor, since I had no euro change for the ticket vending machine, having just arrived. Being bleary-eyed and disoriented, not knowing where I was going, and having a 20 lb. backpack strapped to my body, all of this took about me about an hour and a half. I decided my dream of appearing on and winning The Amazing Race might be dead.

My friend Jenna, who is touring Europe, decided to meet me and picked me up from Centraal Station. She was happy to see me (and my new haircut) and we walked over to the hostel I had booked for us. While this hostel was "conveniently" located near the train station, and for some unknown reason received excellent online reviews, it was just GROSS. The place reeked of weed (I am having a very olfactory experience so far), and everyone there was completely stoned. Since I was arriving early in the morning, my bed was not yet "vacated," so I (reticently) stored my pack in their lugggage storage and went for a walk of the area. I was stricken by how quiet the streets were, even at this early hour. It was about 8 am local time. There were no bikes, cars, or trams anywhere. Clearly, this is a different way of life that the North American hustle and bustle of the early AM rush hour. I like the calmness here. It's so quiet here and the canals are so beautiful. We stopped at a tiny bakery to get some juice. It was the only place open. After our little forray out, we returned to the hostel so I could check in. We did this, and went up to take a nap (Jenna loves naps, and I was really jet-lagged). When I got there, however, there was someone still in my bed! We had to wake him up and tell him to hit the road, find a clean set of sheets and remake the bed ourselves. We then decided, after seeing the condition of the room and who we'd be sharing with, that we would change hostels and move to an all-girl dorm, in a no-smoking hostel. Jenna made the booking so we're staying here tonight (oh, joy) and moving tomorrow. I think we might venture out tonight for a couple of drinks and maybe walk through the infamous Red Light District, if we can work up the courage! I still have some finishing touches to put on my conference paper. Maybe I'll work on that when we get to the next hostel...

My first post...

So I've been given an assignment. I have to create a blog for one of my grad clases about "Writing the Self Online." So here we are and I have no clue what to write.

I guess I've decided to theme this blog around the idea of my life (or lack thereof) as a graduate student. The first and most difficult part of life as a graduate student is something called "writer's block," a phenomenon which I am currently experiencing... The Urban dictionary defies writer's block as :

"A period of time when a writer's mind is completely blank and drained of any kind of inspirational essence. They are unable to write. They start to bang their head against the basement wall. It bleeds. They scream and shout in agony. And finally, they pray that the pain from this blunt physical trauma and the sight of the sweet sweet catalytic blood finally gives them SOME kind of weak-ass idea."

Or:

"An imaginary non-existant concept designed to help writers feel less guilty when they lack the mental capacity to write well for a certain time period. The real reason for this temporary lack of creativity is usually one of the following: distraction, health problems, lack of focus, laziness, or sometimes just the basic idea of writer's block can scare a writer into actually getting it. "

A friend of mine, Joe Farag, wrote this lovely poem during essay writing and posted it on one of my facebook group walls. I think it is appropriate now:

The Blinking-Cursor Demon
by. J.R. Farag
"blinking cursor, why do you mock me so?
don't you know your incessant blinking makes me feel so low?
I look at the blank page, white as freshly fallen snow
and think to myself "out, I shan't go"
blinking cursor, cease your incessant assault!
writers' block is hardly my fault!

blinking cursor, forgive my procrastination
but sitting staring at the screen has cause great alienation
blinking cursor, I beg you, give me some sweet respite
I promise maybe, perhaps tomorrow, I'll sit down and write"

I love quotes. They take up so much space! I mean... they're important in setting up your argument within a previously existing discoure between academics. Yeah.

Right now, I am working on my SSHRC and OGS applications, and I also have a conference coming up in a few days. But since I have writer's block for both tasks, I'm not really getting anywhere. I know I'll get both done, I just have a sneaking suspicion that I will be suffering through a few all-nighters very soon.

I suppose I should get back to "working" on my grant proposals now. Stupid blinking cursor.