Spacing Out

I have, as my friend ~L* says, the November blahs. ~L is also a grad student. My classes are weighing very heavily right now. For one class I have a final presentation, a final report and a final exam all in the next two weeks. For another class I have a final project due just before Christmas. For the last class, I have a final report and a final exam. Plus, I'm expected to be making progress on my thesis. So it's high stress time. And the work is very interesting but there's Just. So. Much of it. It gets pretty overwhelming and I spend a lot of time just spacing out.

Sometimes when I'm spacing out, I think about people. Then I wonder if those people are thinking about me. It is, I suppose, an exercise in narcissism. Then usually I get distracted by a reference in a paper or my growling stomach or something shiny off in the distance.

I suppose Murphy's law dictates that the people I'm thinking about are probably not thinking about me at that time and that the people who are thinking about me are not the people who I'm thinking about at that time. But of course, there's no way to know, for sure, because testing it breaks it - if you call someone to ask if they're thinking about you, of course they are; you just called them. I think this is one of life's great cruel paradoxes, never being able to know if the people you're thinking about are thinking about you.

Also, I think I think too much.

*~L is not the same as L, my girlfriend. I call her ~L to distinguish her from L (the voice of reason) and also because that's how she signs her emails.

6 Month Lag

Today, I had to tell my students that they will be getting a new TA next semester, that I will no longer be assisting them in CHE204. That was kinda sad for me and some of them even seemed genuinely sad to see me go. Even though I probably marked harder than any of the other TAs, I think that, at least for some of them, they will remember me as one of the TAs they actually liked.

Later, L and I got talking about how, within a few hundred years no one will remember me or her. Unless we become really famous. I then pointed out that people have very short attention spans these days, and people would need to be reminded.
She said, "That's why I'm going to permanently carve a huge sculpture of my face in—"
"The moon?" I interjected.
"I was going to say the Earth," she clarified.
"Yeah, well," I pointed out, "it would take at least 6 months for google maps to pick that up, whereas everyone has to see the moon almost every day."

The New Deal

So it turns out I was partly right about going to grad school. I figured I would have a lot more time for things like sleep because, said I, "my thesis won't be calling me at 4 in the morning." Only this last part has turned out to be true — my sleep now comes, typically, in contiguous chunks, however, they are not very long chunks. Turns out I grossly underestimated the workload and took on an extra course I shouldn't have.

Also, my sleep isn't always completely uninterrupted. I woke up at about 4 in the morning a few weeks ago to being punched in the back of the head.

"Ow! You hit me!" I cried.
"Well, you were trying to put a silverfish on me," L explained.
"I was asleep!" I defended.
"Well, don't be mean to me in my dreams and I won't wake you up," she offered.
"Fine. Deal," I said, and I went back to sleep.

Keep Your Stick On The Ice

It is election day in the US. We had ours in Canada a couple of weeks ago. On that day, I was working for Elections Canada as a Registration Officer. It was my job to fill out the forms of people who had not received voter cards in the mail. By hand. For 12 hours.

One thing I noticed at the end of the democratic process is that my writing hand really hurt. Now, I am all for the paper voting process. I like transparency and paper trails. I am the first person to say that if Canada ever tries to switch to electronic voting, I will be the first angry person on Parliament Hill. But would it be too much to ask for typed voter registration forms?

The other thing I noticed at the end of that process is that I don't actually know much about the people in my country. If you were to extrapolate the makeup of the entire country from the people to whom I am routinely exposed you would find that almost everyone has a university degree, many people have advanced university degrees, that incomes are high, and that most people are quite technical. Also, that almost everyone is between the age of 18 and 38. I was shocked to learn that that isn't how the country looks. I live in a bubble.

I don't know why I think it's okay to put a graph in my anecdotal blog, but graphs do serve to illustrate points, sometimes, and I think this graph illustrates the point particularly well. I think everyone is between 18 and 38 because in my neighborhood, everyone really is between 18 and 38.


The point is this: it's all too easy for us to get caught up in our immediate environments. There are a lot of people on the planet and they are all different from you. They all affect you, and you affect all of them, even if it's in minuscule ways. It seems to me you can only truly make a wise decision about how to improve the planet, and thus improve your own chances for happiness, if you take them all into account, in some way.

Anyway, just some food for thought.

To quote a great man, "Remember, I'm pullin' for ya. We're all in this together."

You Got Yourself Into This Mess...

I grew up in the land of consequences. When I was about 8 years old, my grandmother was taking drink orders for us kids at Christmas dinner. Being my smart-ass, 8 year old self, I asked for rye and water. So she brought me a (very small) glass of rye and water. I told her I was only joking, but she refused to bring me anything else until I finished it. And so I learned two very valuable lessons: 8 year olds don't like the taste of rye, and be careful what you wish for.

I think I kind of lucked out with my parents. A lot of people think they should be glad for all the times their parents were there for them, and I sure am (or I would be if I could think of any... kidding!).

What I am more grateful for is the times they weren't there for me. I'm talking about the times they said things like “you got yourself into this mess, get yourself out of it.” Because I learned that I could get myself out of those messes. I learned that screwing up wasn't the end of the world and that I was capable of a lot more than I thought. That life goes on. And I got to learn these things as a kid. Becasue of coddling by their parents, these are lessons a lot of people my age are only starting to learn for themselves and let me tell you, learning is a lot harder as you get older.

During those times, I'm sure I felt like I'd been abandoned, that my parents were jerks. I suspect it was as hard, if not harder, for my parents to watch me struggle than it would have been for them to step in. They were motivated, however, by wanting me to succeed later in life, ie, to get me out of their house.

I sort of feel like this is all a good analogy for the current market woes. People asked for capitalism, and by gum, that's what they got. Virtually unbridled, unregulated access to markets. And what did they do with it? They blew it. They took out loans they couldn't afford; they loaned money to people who couldn't afford it. They lied to each other; and they invested in things about which they knew not. People wanted capitalism but they didn't want to shoulder the responsibility and do their due diligence.

So now what does everyone expect? For mom and dad, AKA the government, to bail them out. Well, you know what I say? You got yourself into this mess, get yourself out of it.

Of course, the government doesn't have the same motivation my parents did. The government wants to keep people under their roof. Because that's where they can control them. And think of it this way: which is going to garner more votes now? The quick, easy solution that falls apart after 10 years or less? or the long, hard, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps solution which results in a much more sustainable economy where everyone gets a shot at being happy?

It's too bad, because I think now might be a good chance for the economy to learn that it's not the end of the world if the government doesn't bail you out. The way I see it is this: the price of capitalism is personal responsibility for all transactions. People didn't pony up and I suspect that what we get next will carry a much heavier price tag: freedom.

I Like Being Places, I Just Don't Like Going Places

I'm going on vacation. I need one pretty badly. I'm going to explore LA, which will be fun. I love visiting new places. The problem is that traveling really stresses me out. Right up until the plane is off the ground, I live with a constant fear that some horrible bureaucratic mess is going to keep me from getting to my destination (or home, if it's the homeward leg). One day I will probably write a posting which contains the story that is both a reasonable basis for this fear and also the evidence that I, of all people, should probably worry about that the least.

The last time I remembered seeing my passport was a few weeks ago after a quick shopping trip to Buffalo. I left my passport in the visor of my car after that. L and I had been packing all night and we were both going on the assumption that my passport was in my car. After getting ready for bed, I all of a sudden realize that I had my car interior professionally cleaned a week or two ago and that I didn't get a passport back in my bag of stuff I left in the car. I panicked, threw on some clothes and ran out to the car, which is a block away from my apartment.

It's raining out tonight. As I walked under my umbrella, a group of three strangers walked towards me. 

"Hurry up, man," said the first girl, obviously wanting to get out of the rain as quickly as possible. There was a guy close behind her who was clearly sharing the same sentiment. A few metres behind that came a guy who was limping rather than walking. 

"It's okay," he called to them, "don't wait up for your crippled friend or anything."

I got to my car, checked the visor, and quickly ascertained that the passport was not their, nor was it in the glove compartment or the console. 

I rushed home in a complete frenzy and started tearing up my sock drawer, which is where I usually keep my passport. Isn't that where everyone keeps their important stuff? Anyway, not there. Not in the bag of stuff I took out of my car before sending it to be cleaned. Not in the bag of random crap I keep around. Not in the box by the front door. 

"What if the carwash people stole it?!" I speculated.

"Uh, what use would they have for a stolen passport?" asked L, the voice of reason.

I continued looking under things and behind things and inside things.

And finally, after destroying my bedroom, my car, and some of my living room I discovered that my passport had been, all along, on top of my dresser. 

I hate travelling.

Too Many... or Not Enough?

I think I have a problem.

The other night I felt like I was having an unproductive evening because I'd only managed to clean my fish tank, plant my seeds in preparation for the end of the frost and make home made ice cream between work and bedtime.

I have too many hobbies. My girlfriend L suggested that perhaps I should start a hobby rotation plan. I pointed out that this would result in most hobbies being visited once a year or so. Which is fine for, say, photography*, but not so great for, say, my fish. So, instead, I have decided I'm going to start combining my hobbies. Blogging, as one of my hobbies, will have to start pulling its weight in the syngeretic hobby circle. This means that my blogs will start being about things. That's okay, I'm out of anecdotes anyway.

Incidentally, tonight's blog was going to be about bicycle mechanicking. Wheel building, specifically. Building a wheel is a simple, but sort of intense task. You get a hub, a rim, some spokes and some nipples. Oh, grow up. You then systematically thread the spokes through the hub and into the rim, until you have a self supporting structure. The components come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The most common wheels have either 32 or 36 spokes.

For "Guy Valentine's Day" L gave me a present — a brand new yellow
Velocity aero rim to go with my hot fixie wheel. (What did you think I was talking about, pervert?). So last week I stopped into the bike shop and bought a hub, some spokes and some nipples. Tonight I sat down with all my parts at my truing stand.

After threading 1/4 of the spokes I had, I discovered that I had run out of holes in my 32 hole rim, but had space for another spoke in the hub. Guess it's back to the bike store tomorrow. And this time I will count.

* I apologize to my friends who disagree, but I have to say, my camera will simply not die if I don't use it, whereas my fish, probably will die if I stop feeding and cleaning them.