Finally, I’ve worked through all the administrative problems of being in English Honours for one-half of my Dual Degree and I’m in! I couldn’t be happier…or more frightened. I’ve been spending a lot of time this summer preparing for English Honours (reading books, papers, etc.) but I haven’t a clue how I’ll do in comparison with my classmates. Here goes nothing.

Summer really went by too quickly and although I hardly did anything worth mentioning, I did renew an interest in visual art! Visits to assorted art galleries in the States really fostered that love. Here are some I thought were worth sharing:

After the deluge by Yoshitomo Nara (2006)

Illustration for Milton’s Paradist Lost by Gustave Doré (1866)

La musique by Charles-André van Loo (1753)

Neat, hm?

Which one did you like more? And more importantly, can someone at UBC get started on something like this?!

Edit: As if i weren’t already bummed enough to see that we haven’t got one, Johannes sends me this video from the University of Victoria UVIC (in Spain)! Come on UBC-ers, let’s get on this!

Footfalls on pavement echo, echo in the stillness of the night air,
Betraying expensively-kept secrets hitherto unknown,
The journey is well-trodden, the path well-known.

He passes by
The feline meeting,
Meeting by moonlight, mewing with murder,
Murderous intent, the secret
Consulation of familiars familiar.

He slips past open windows,
Melodies obscenely shared,
Hushed conversations,
Muffled whispers,
Silence?

And tonight, but nevermore,
One night only,
The footfalls on the pavement one last time.

I’m having a bad, bad day
If you take it personal, that’s okay
Watch, this is so fun to see
Huh, despicable me.
– Pharrell, “Despicable Me”

The movie, by all means, was great. The story was fun, the humour well-timed and (gosh darn it!) the orphan girls were so sweet! This makes me think that everyone ought to be forced to care for the young. Perhaps we’d have less villains that way? Behind our seats, a whole row was reserved for (what we assumed) was a birthday party. Hearing the children giggle with glee behind us wasn’t as annoying as I might have imagined — it was quite fun to have them behind us! (Too bad L was thwapped on the head by an overzealous child…)

After a rather long journey to procure a screen protector for A’s (new!) BlackBerry Bold 9700, we wandered over to Chapters where we discovered, much to our mutual pleasure, that we could have dinner together. We ate at The Boss (where I learned that I don’t actually know how to order beef in Cantonese…how do you indicate how well-cooked you want the meat?!).

Once full, we left the restaurant to a rapidly closing mall. We wandered over to a water fountain outside to wonder what we could do. I suggested we take a stroll in Central Park (despite my great fears of creepers running amok in the wooded areas). Off we went.

After dodging incoming golf balls from the pitch-and-putt and trekking through the verdant trees, we sat on a bench and noticed two people apparently shouting at one another. Perplexed, we gazed on to notice a man in a blue cape yelling to some people further away. Nosily, we inched closer and closer until…we noticed that it was a production! Outside! In the park! For free!

Enthralled, we found ourselves sitting on the grass (and swatting away the copious amounts of vampiric mosquitoes) and trying to unravel the storyline. As it turns out, it was a production of Neverland: Beginnings by Rainforest Theatre, a small local company. We watched with glee as Peter Pan was nearly wedded to the daughter of the pirate king and as we learned how Captain Hook gained (lost?) his eponymous appendage. With subtle amusement, we gazed on as one overexcited child-spectator inched closer and closer to the actors until he was actually sitting within the action, gazing upward and asking, “Can I see that?!”

I found it so magical that serendipity (and, admittedly, a reluctance to return home to do readings for ENGL 468) led us to a theatrical production in the ancient pulse of germ and birth. I thought I had encountered something out of Midsummer Night’s Dream! (But of course not. My appointment to see Henry V is this Friday.)

It is some indication of my great love for the theatre but I adored the way the actors interacted with the audience and with their surroundings. With little more than some light costuming, they created a world into which their children-spectators could be drawn by sheer charisma. And what is a more natural setting for a theatrical production than the forest?

The play finished and everyone dispersed. We headed over to P’s house to play poker briefly before I was summoned home with great displeasure at my waywardness.

And I could wish my days to be bound each to each with such wonder, joy and serendipity.

And oh it was rather large, larger than I would have liked. But my natural revulsion towards insects (only developed since I grew out of infancy) notwithstanding, I felt a little sorry for the insect who seemed to be caught in the window netting and possibly a conspicuous target for an over-ambitious crow. As part of my weekly housecleaning regimen, I hastened to release the insect from my window netting, freeing both of us from our mutual discomfort. With a pencil, I had hoped to prod through the netting to loosen its grip so it would fall neatly into the bushes below. Unfortunately, it required slightly more vigorous action than that (I had to tap rhythmically on the netting until it finally released its group, poor thing).

And tonight, as I mounted the steps to my house, who should I find but the same insect! Of course, I thought to myself, I could be merely mistaken. What’s to distinguish one insect from another? But it was a nagging feeling.

Once inside, I examined the insect again. Lo! I should very much believe that it is the same visitor from three days ago!

And now I think that perhaps it is one of my ancestors, come to visit in the guise of a humble insect whom I did so unwisely reject from my presence. So tonight, I left it on the window netting, murmuring a brief apology for my rude lack of hospitality previously.

If I see this insect a third time, I will know then that it has not been a coincidence. But for now, I am cautiously optimistic that my ancestors have dropped by to wonder how I am doing and deeply mortified at my possible mistreatment of what could have been one of my early progenitors.

I think perhaps I will tell my grandmother this story. She will know best what to do.

Let me be frank. Anne of Green Gables begins simply with a nosy, old woman, staring out of her window with her hawkish eyes. And but of course, she spies one neighbour’s husband plodding along for some inexplicable reason. She makes the laborious (not really) trip to her neighbour’s home to prod her nose into the affairs of the adjacent household. Having learned of the reason for the excursion, she gives her unsolicited and frank advice. When mildly rebuffed, she leaves with every intention of setting the neighbourhood tongues wagging by sharing her newly-gained insight.

Not altogether a promising start to what many Canadians would consider a national classic.

I mean, I’ve skirted around the topic before. In ENGL 112, I wrote a paper on metaphoric representations of genes and genetics, citing issues of epistemology. But I never really appreciated the subject until now.

More recently, I discussed the ways in which contemporary theories of knowledge (empiricism, rationalism and German Idealism) contemporaneous to the Victorian Period were explored in Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone. Could this be a legitimate mode of literary scholarly inquiry? My golden ticket into the world of literary academia?

I think I will focus attention this year on learning more about epistemology. Being an armchair epistemologist. Falling down the rabbit-hole, so to speak.

Hm. Curiouser and curiouser.

I first started this blog posting about my everyday experiences. It’s really cringe-worthy. I’d chronicle every mundane detail of my life, heedless of whether or not anyone cared. Now, I’m a little more conscious that there are, in fact, people who do read what I ramble on about. It’s nice, of course, to feel validated through text and all at once frightening.

Anyone who followed the blog for the past year will have seen my (few) ups and (mostly) downs. It ended off with me in a rather piteous state of melancholy. Needless to say, I am no longer in that headspace.

I’m not entirely sure what I want to use this blog for anymore but I can’t bring myself to delete it. It’s a habit of mine. To write. To delete. And something in deletion, I eradicate all that self-consciousness, all that self-doubt, the gnawing and burrowing worm of palpable shame and pain.

But I’ve grown. I think I’m not that what I used to be and it’s interesting.

If you’re reading, thanks for sticking around. I’ll be posting more in the future after I clear up what I want to do here.

• Mansfield Park, Austen
• The Reform’d Coquet and The Accomplish’d Rake, Davys
• Pamela, Richardson
• The Mysteries of Udolpho, Radcliffe
• Doctor Faustus, Marlowe
• Evelina, Burney
• Love in Excess, Haywood
• The Monk, Lewis
• The Woman in White, Collins
• Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
• Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare

I do suppose I’m beginning to develop something of a bias towards the Renaissance and the Eighteenth-Century…

Here’s something I wouldn’t mind taking if offered:

Making the Sexual, Textual: Pornographic Texts of the Modernist Period

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.
– Philip Larkin, “Annus Mirabilis”

Numerous literary works have inspired controversy and, indeed, public outrage over perceived obscene or pornographic content. This course seeks to critically evaluate these texts using modern theoretical frameworks as well as to understand the cultural milieu in which these works were published. While a primary focus will be placed upon the texts themselves, some attention will be devoted to obscenity trials and contemporary discussions of the nature of literature and society.

Students are forewarned that course material may contain content offensive to some readers. Enrollment indicates a willingness to read through all texts.

Primary Readings:

• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857)
• Selections from Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire (1857)
• Selections from Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence (1928)
• The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928)
• Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934)
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

Secondary Readings:

• The History of Sexuality: An Introduction by Michel Foucault (1984)
• Dirt for Art’s Sake: Books on Trial from Madame Bovary to Lolita by Elisabeth Ladenson (2006)
• Other related material including scholarly articles, court records, newspaper clippings, etc.

I tried to over-reach my own competency and bit off more than I can possibly chew.

My English professors this term were mostly sympathetic, wrongfully so. I thank them for their sympathy but I would have thought that they should have chastised me for not giving due attention to the literature about which they obviously care. I have done my readings a terrible disservice, a violent crime, a dishonour by scribbling “analyses” tantamount to pablum and forcing my professors to read through them, cringing and wincing in pain and embarrassment.

Mea culpa.

My science courses have hardly gone better. I’ve kept up-to-date so far as I can keep abreast of the newest course material in case of tests and quizzes. I’ve even grossly neglected by two essays for cell physiology, a course that I love and in which I have actually done quite well.

If this year has taught me anything, it’s that I’m severely, painfully, humanly limited.

There’s some comfort in that understanding, and pain too.

All I can do now is just study hard for my examinations to redeem myself, then work towards avoiding overloading myself next year. I’m only glad that the stakes are so low right now; this is a life lesson best learned early, when the consequences are merely marks, not health or money.

I can do better.

Somehow remaining both a matter of fact and a revelation, my entrance into my fourth year of my undergraduate education both surprises and disappoints me. I find my studies fulfilling and my choice of extracurricular activities rewarding. Alas, I know I’ve only forestalled graduation by a single year through the dual degree program – am I doomed to fade into relative obscurity, arthiritis and dust all after that?

I’ve always known I was a bit precocious. Partly, I attribute it to my natural standoffishness and partly, my rather painful sense of self-awareness. Resultantly, I don’t think I can really say I had a most fulfilling childhood, I was always trying to prove myself to the powers that be of my maturity, to be taken seriously, to be a grown-up.

And so on the doorstep of adulthood, I cast a backward eye longingly, wistfully, painfully as I inch forward, bit by bit, second by second. It isn’t though I cast my eyes on dreary prospects in the past and the future isn’t necessarily something I fear, but I feel such paralyzing anxiety.

I suspect it is really the uncertainty of it all that gnaws on my soul and mind. I used to lie awake in bed for hours, merely postulating possible scenarios for the next day. Fortunately, exhaustion has become my welcome bedfellow, guiding me into sleep far too quickly to be trapped by such pontification nowadays.

This summer, I’ll have to take stock of what I’ve prepared for the past few years and to see what options are still available. Time to dust off that old compass and seek a newer world while this one crumbles to a close. I’ve completed what I had hoped to do all along, crossing dreams off the checklist, clipboard tucked into my arm.

Even Never Never Land didn’t last forever. What made me imagine I could stay in one place?

And so it stood that at Cambie, I arose and snatched an open seat faster than desperate housewives pounce on grocery price mis-prints. I sighed in relief and celebrated in my mind, my face not betraying my triumph.

Then I saw her. Wizened, grey hair all about. She sat down uncomfortably, ungracefully, a few seats ahead of me. I studied her only briefly – a definitely senior, East Indian woman with several large bags. Shopping, no doubt. However unlikely at that hour. I paid no heed.

That was my mistake, mea culpa. Seconds later, she bustles over and takes the seat next to mine, sitting awfully, uncomfortably, painfully close. I feel her breathing, shallow and loud, into my left ear. Her leg not only brushes against mine, it makes itself quite familiar with the curves and lines of my leg. I squirm uncomfortably and edge closer to the window. There is no escape.

I hold my breath as I feel her breathing come, heavy and warm, in my general vicinity. I continue to squirm. Inexplicably, unexplainably, she has contorted her body in my general direction so that should I make the most casual, innocuous glance in her general direction, I meet her probing eyes. I purposefully stare out the window and dutifully count the number of lamp-posts from Oakridge Mall to my house.

Passengers board and exit, board and exit, heedless of my very visceral internal struggle and the less obvious external one. I take great pains, make great efforts, to hide the feelings from my face. All the while, my skin contacts hers far more than I would ever like.

I begin the rationalization phase. Perhaps she is an immigrant, newly come to Canada, unsure of our customs of personal space and standoffishness. Perhaps this is the only human contact she has had in six years, aside from an aged doctor who prods and pokes her in uncomfortable, unmentionable areas of her body she fails to name in English. Maybe I resemble some long-lost son of hers, kidnapped on the streets of Mumbai, never to be reunited with his mother, doomed to some existence consisting of looting, pillaging, drugs or some combination thereupon. I puzzle myself into a tempest of thoughts, ever aware that my stop would soon arrive, my time would be up.

I decide to act. I stand decisively, several stops ahead of mine. With great purpose, I turn to exit. She lazily jerks her body into a different conformation. Had I been a much fatter person, I would not have exited with the fluid, liquid, cat-like grace that I did that night. Politely, I mumbled a ‘thank you’ to this stranger with whom I had shared my air and my space as I walked to stand in front of the exit. Other passengers glanced at me, annoyed that I would insist on being an impediment to their exits. I didn’t apologise.

My stop came. I rang the bell. The mysterious woman arose with no great grace and hobbled off the bus at the entrance as I quietly exit through the back of the bus. I did not and do not miss our encounter.

Some of my life stories are written when mysterious benefactors enter and exit my life imperceptibly, leaving behind memories, lessons, thoughts. I think back, musing, remembering, reliving – re-learning.

This story is not one of those.

I’m going to throw it out into the aether here, but I’m wondering if anyone can help me out with my intermittently-freezing laptop? It’s an HP tx2524CA running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. It doesn’t seem to have any rhyme nor reason to the freezing then crashing (often accompanied by a blue screen but not always). If there were a pattern, I might have figured out the diagnosis with some Googling but as of late, I’m utterly at an impasse. Help?

Back to my post. I was feeling an overall paralyzing feeling of dread, of inadequacy of self-awareness and (dare I suggest this?) the slightest tincture of self-loathing. I resented myself and pitied myself at the same time. I wanted to bemoan my sorrows to the world, imagining that, as the proverb goes, a shared sorrow would be half sorrow, a shared joy would be a double joy.

Experiencing technological failure mitigated that pity party of a post. Why am I suffering inconsolable malaise? I don’t know. It’s unlikely that I will figure it out. But what’s important is that I hitch myself by my bootstraps and get out of this hole.

That I’m always pressed for time isn’t something new. I had chosen that path at the beginning of this school year. I don’t really have anyone to resent but myself. With that attitude in mind, I hope I can stop wailing over my perceived and supposed misfortunes and focus upon getting things done.

Chin up and shoulders back! Let’s push on.

The Olympics are finally (and I mean finally) upon us and even though I’m not an international sports enthusiast, I do feel a little warm inside.

Detractors can argue that the Olympics stand for everything we ought to be fighting in an enlightened society. Wasteful spending, misplaced priorities, runaway government budget overruns. It can’t be denied.

But really, protesters, can’t you be civil? Thoreau and Gandhi were major supporters of civil disobedience, suggesting that only in impossible cases should force be used. I think the Olympic organizers have been more than accommodating by establishing safe areas for dissent and protest. We can suggest government conspiracies (e.g. governments trying to localize dissenters for later identification and removal) but I like to imagine that they’re people too, not evil automatons.

Besides, the property you damage, the people you hurt, these aren’t politicians or corporate fatcats. They’re Joe the Plumber living down the street who works at the Bay or Sally the ISU Volunteer. They don’t deserve to be in the crossfire; they’re not trying to be complicit in whatever you think the Olympics are doing – they’re just trying to get on with their lives.

After two days of watching Olympic protests get out of hand, I just want to see the protesters realise that far from changing anyone’s minds towards their causes (and using this social momentum to effect change at the voting polls during the next election), their irresponsible, damaging actions are really hurting their causes. Already fringe, they continue to distance themselves further and further from the mainstream.

I care about issues of Native sovereignty and poverty too. But make a compelling case for people to care; don’t damage and disrupt so that people will listen to the temper tantrum. Be peaceable.

And then I realise, of course there is. This is my scratchpad. I’ll have to preface that metaphor though.

I notoriously vacillate among positions on things. Hesitant to think about decisions, loathe to make them. The track record is pretty clear –  choosing to (not) go to IB, choosing Science over Commerce, etc. And I justify them (the decisions, that is) to myself somehow, someway later, post factum.

It all happens in my head which is often a bewildering and confusing place. So I blog. It’s ridiculously mundane and painfully dull, but I’ve firmly convinced myself (for now) that there is a purpose, a teleology to all of this and I have to compel myself to begin again.

Of course, it doesn’t help that my laptop has broken down. I’ve reformatted a few times but the problem still reoccurs – I love my HP tx2500 but I think it’s on its dying days with some sort of hardware problem. I’ve suspected for a while that it could be the motherboard but my dad reasons that it must be the hard drive. At any rate, the RAM seems fine and it’s 2x2GB so if I can salvage them, I will.

It’s been odd, transitioning back to paper notes for classes. I guess I do listen a bit more, lacking the distractions of the internet but at the same time, I fell as though I’ve been unplugged and am now laying dormant. I’m not as updated with news and when I do find out, I’m certainly not the first. I hardly play any games on Steam anymore, mostly because my desktop is old (but reliable). This technology detox may yet do some good.

Here is hoping that I can keep this writing thing going.

This is a promise to myself (and anyone who still reads this) that this blog will continue, but in a different way. Not as a melange of daily idle thoughts and musings, but as a place to reflect, regenerate and refine.

And for anyone who’s counting, my commitments this term are

• BIOC 302
• BIOL 337
• BIOL 360
• BIOL 362
• ENGL 343
• ENGL 348
• ENGL 357

I’ll be taking my driving test (N) this coming Monday. Fingers crossed.

Also, I’ve given you fair warning so keep out of Richmond if you don’t want to cross my path!

Here’s hoping everyone a very happy new year. Drive safely and always use protection.

Anyone have any resolutions they think I ought to try? (Writing more often, for example?)

I Am A: Lawful Good Half-Elf Wizard (2nd Level)

Ability Scores:
Strength–11
Dexterity–12
Constitution–11
Intelligence–16
Wisdom–12
Charisma–12

Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.

Race:
Half-Elves have the curiosity and ambition for their human parent and the refined senses and love of nature of their elven parent, although they are outsiders among both cultures. To humans, half-elves are paler, fairer and smoother-skinned than their human parents, but their actual skin tones and other details vary just as human features do. Half-elves tend to have green, elven eyes. They live to about 180.

Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard’s strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar– a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

ENGL 304 (Advanced Composition)
This one felt pretty touch and go for most of the way…the professor really knows her stuff (she should – she wrote the textbook after all) and there were definitely some innovative teaching methods. However, I never really felt like I ever got into the rhythm of things and when I did, it was short-lived. I’d recommend anyone to take this course if they feel that their writing is a bit on the weak side; this course should help you polish up your composition skills. However, the title of the course, “Advanced Composition” is a bit of a misnomer – most of the course is spent on persuasive essays, not expository.

ANAT 390 (Introduction to Microscopic Human Anatomy)
This one’s definitely a rite-of-passage for most and it’s reasonably tough. Because it’s a survey course, you cover a lot of ground very quickly, leaving students who haven’t taken advanced biology scratching their heads. If you are, however, a biology senior with a good number of cell biology courses under your belt, you really ought to be fine; it won’t be anything you can’t handle. It’s taught by a variety of different professors, each of whom is an expert in the material that s/he teaches – this is great because you get instructors who really are experts at what they are teaching but you never know the level of instruction you’ll get. Some are great and some not so much.

BIOL 361 (Introduction to Physiology)
I can’t say I ever really wanted to take this course – I took it because it’s mandatory for my program. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable, largely due to the efforts of my two wonderful instructors. The course material itself is accessible and not too onerous; all evaluations were open-book so it was really a test of getting enough down on paper to show that you knew what you knew. The topics are, at times, dry but I guess I can see why the course is mandatory for all biology majors. Regular study should lead to success in this course quite easily.

BIOL 304 (Fundamentals of Ecology)
Co-taught by two instructors, this course was in its first run this year after being revamped from the previous BIOL 302/303 program. Deceptively breezy in the beginning, many students learned the hard way that this course stressed critical thinking (for long-answer problems) as well as rote memorization (for definitions) on the midterm examination. The labs were fun if labour-intensive; they were generally mark-boosters. I’m sure, with time, that this course will become more refined but all I can say is that the course was still a bit rough around the edges when I took it. It was, however, interesting enough that I’m considering taking BIOL 306.

BIOL 300 (Biometrics)
Absolutely dreading this course, I walked in with the lowest expectations ever. I felt that I had been deceived – I thought that no math was required after first year if I wanted to do the Biology program! Nevertheless, the math involved is quite basic if laborious at times (ANOVA, anyone?) and the examples provided are compelling and interesting. I can see why this course is mandatory for all biology majors and I found, in spite of myself, that I enjoyed this course and saw how it would be relevant to research. The evaluation is straightforward and fair, if comprehensive. Regular study and practice should serve you well.

BIOL 360 (Cell Physiology Laboratory)
This course was a blast from beginning to end! It’s structured far more casually than those formal chemistry labs and you get to pick and choose among the experiments that interest you. There’s not a strong emphasis on the acquisition of laboratory techniques, though, aside from centrifugation and micropipetting, which was very disappointing. The TAs were helpful and the director was always open for questions, though. Marking is rigorous and more difficult than you might imagine.

BIOL 240 (Experimental Design in the Life Sciences)
This review might be moot seeing as how this was the last year that BIOL 240 will be running (for now) but I thought it was wonderful. It’s extremely time-consuming, however, and required much more attention than I had previously imagined but what you put in is what you get out. I learned a lot of valuable laboratory techniques in here, as well as figuring out that scientific research is not as romantic as I might have once imagined (I have so much pity for people who work with Neurospora crassa). Still, this course was just so rewarding and so great! I took so many pictures and they’ll always have a cherished place in my heart.

Next term is almost certainly going to be hugely different; a huge influx of ENGL courses will shake up the balance of things while BIOL 337 will either break me or make me. I’m excited!

Now, not to get ahead of myself, time to commence studying!