Monday, June 21, 2010:  Swamped Again

Why oh why oh why oh why oh why oh why oh why do I get myself into these messes?

I need so very badly to finish marking, and yet I do not think the marking will ever end.  It just keeps on coming, marching relentlessly into my inbox.  My brain will probably explode quite soon.  At the moment, it's 2:30 a.m., and I haven't finished Monday's comic yet.  I also have to apply for jobs.  *Pounds head against wall*

It's going to have to be a short Rant this week.  Next weekend, Blackboard (the program on which I run the course I am currently teaching) will be shut down for upgrading, and I won't be able to mark even if I want to.  Hasten to me, blissful enforced sloth.  I long to have you by my side.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010:  A Beginner's Guide to Canada Post

I have heard many people complain about Canada Post, declaring that it is right up there with Air Canada in the Annals of Utter Frustration.*  In truth, these people have simply not learned to interpret the intricate and useful code used by Canada's postal service for the greater convenience of its customers.  If you do understand this code, the frustration vanishes entirely.  I thus present to you a short glossary of terms you are likely to encounter when you, just for instance, attempt to track a parcel that is being sent to you.  Please memorise these terms.  There will be a test.

Regular mail:  A letter that will cost you very little to send anywhere in Canada and will probably arrive at its destination quickly and intact.  This definition applies to any small envelope containing between one and two sheets of very thin paper.  Anything else will shoot way the hell up in price and be stuck at the post office for weeks.

Regular parcel:  A "parcel" or "package" is anything larger, thicker, and/or heavier than a regular letter.  Conveniently, Canada Post will carry yours right across the country.  It will also charge you at least twelve bucks for the privilege, even if the parcel weighs so little that you can balance it on your pinky finger without feeling pain.  The farther the parcel goes within Canada, the more expensive it becomes.  It is actually cheaper to send it to the States and then have someone else return it to Canada.  However, never fear:  the difference in price between a feather-light package the size of your fist and a hugely heavy package the size of your head is about two dollars.  A parcel will typically arrive at its destination either 1) ten business days after it is sent or 2) when the hell ever.

Express post:  A parcel travelling by Express will cost anywhere from ten dollars more to two dollars less than a regular parcel.  it will arrive at its destination 1) within two business days or 2) when Hell freezes over.  A letter travelling by Express may be in the system slightly longer than a letter travelling by regular mail.

Expedited mail:  An item that is "expedited" will take at least one week and up to five weeks to reach its destination.  Canada Post has always been a little foggy on the meaning of the word "expedited."

Canada Customs:  A body devoted to storage of parcels sent from outside the country.  I have heard other definitions, but in my experience, CC is basically a storage facility.

In transit:  An item that is in transit could be anywhere, doing anything, but Canada Post needs a term to put on its pretty website, so there you go.

Out for delivery:  An item that is listed as out for delivery today will actually be out for delivery tomorrow.

Delivered:  A "delivered" item may be (in descending order of likelihood):  1) in transit; 2) out for delivery; 3) delivered to your landlady, even though you are home; 4) delivered to one of your neighbours, even though your address is clear; 5) stolen by a diligent postal worker; 6) tossed in the garbage by a diligent postal worker; 7) delivered.

I hope this glossary will help you decipher the wonderful language of the post office.  I know it comforted me yesterday when I saw that my parcel had been "delivered" while I was home, even though no one had phoned or visited my apartment all day.  Thank you, Canada Post, for "delivering" my parcel!  I wonder if Amazon will send me my lost purchases again if I show them this glossary...

*They are wrong.  Nothing is right up there with Air Canada in the Annals of Utters Frustration.  Well...maybe "Don't Stop Believing."


Monday, June 7, 2010:  An Open Letter to the People Who Park in the Bike Lanes on Sherbourne

Dear Jerkwads:

Let us first get the inevitable out of the way:

You hate cyclists.  You believe every one of them is a lawless menace who makes driving a nightmare and also tends to speed along sidewalks at fifty kilometres per hour, slaughtering pedestrians left and right.  You feel that cyclists don't belong on either the sidewalks or the roads.  You may even be one of the people who habitually write to the Globe and Mail, explaining that cyclists who are killed by drivers deserve their fate.

All right.  We get it.  We are Satan.  Now will you please stop parking in the bloody bike lane with your damn blinkers on?

The thing about bike lanes is that while they're supposed to make the roads safer for everyone, they actually don't because drivers pretend they're not there.  When you're cycling along in what is apparently your lane, and some moron in a luxury car screams past you and pulls right in in front of you without signalling, then stops dead, you are forced out into traffic (that is, if you don't ram into the back of the car and discover the glory of flight).  Even if you signal your intent to switch lanes--which, of course, you should--drivers are not expecting you to do so, since, after all, you have your own lane (it's not their fault you can't use it).  I actually find that biking down Sherbourne, which has wide bike lanes, can be more dangerous than biking down Church and/or Yonge, which don't.  The other frustrating thing is that a lot of the idiots who park in bike lanes do so just on the far side of intersections, meaning that there is no room for a cyclist to stop behind them and wait for a gap in traffic.  Supposedly, the drivers have stopped in these spots for the sake of convenience.  How happy I am that your convenience is apparently more important than my right not to die horribly.

Yes, a lot of cyclists behave like freaking imbeciles on the road.  So do a lot of drivers.  The difference is that if an imbecilic cyclist causes an accident, it will probably be the cyclist who dies.  If an imbecilic driver causes an accident...it will probably be the cyclist who dies.

Please just drive twenty feet further on and park around the damn corner.  I'm sure your passengers will complain bitterly about having to walk all that way.  Just hang on while I play the world's smallest violin for a bit here.

Yours sincerely,
Kari.


Monday, May 31, 2010:  Behind on Everything Again

I am ridiculously behind on absolutely everything yet again.  For some reason, when you're ridiculously behind on everything, things always happen to make you even more ridiculously behind.  An example would be the fact that my bike tire went flat on Saturday when I was an hour's walk from home.  I could have taken the subway but decided I would instead go to a gas station a couple of blocks away and attempt to pump up the tire enough to get me back to the apartment.  I went to the gas station and couldn't find an air pump.  (As a friend said, what kind of gas station doesn't have an air pump?)  At this point, it would have taken me at least ten minutes to get back to the subway, so I decided simply to walk home.  It would have worked out better if the bike tire hadn't escaped the rim and caused the inner tube to bunch up and get stuck, meaning that I was essentially dragging the bike instead of rolling it along.  I had to turn it upside down in the middle of a park and spend a quarter of an hour fixing the (flat) tire.  My machinations must have dislodged the rim tape, which broke into bits at some point in the procedure; it slowly worked its way loose and finally flopped out of the tire not far from my apartment.  It was covered with grime, so when I picked it up, I became even more grime-covered than I had already been.  I had been pretty grime-covered.  I even managed to get oil on the bottom of my feet--please don't ask me how--and I tracked it all over my apartment before I realised I had.  The huge splotch that ended up on my right foot has so far proven impossible to wash off entirely, and yes, I have scrubbed it several times.  Because I suspected my inner tube had been mangled beyond repair, and because I now needed new rim tape as well, I took the bike to the shop the next day.  I do know how to change tires, but I find it difficult to do the back one (which has no quick-release lever) by myself, and I figured I would just save some time and alleviate the stress by taking the bike to professionals.  I forgot that it would take time for the people at the shop to change the tire.  That was another hour down the drain, and since I hadn't brought any work with me, I just ended up wandering along the Danforth and spending money on T-shirts (which, admittedly, I sort of needed) and used DVDs (which I didn't).  In other words, one flat tire cost me at least three hours and quite a lot of money, and it has prompted this Rant.  At least my tire seems okay now.  Yay?


Monday, May 24, 2010:  An Open Letter to Winter and Summer

Dear Mr. Winter and Mr. Summer:

Your colleague, Mr. Spring, has brought to our attention the fact that once again, he is finding it difficult to perform his duties.  This time, however, he is being harassed by not one but both of you.  You, Mr. Winter, extended your stay well into May; as soon as you vacated the position, Mr. Summer leapt in and has now hiked the temperature up to levels better suited to mid-July.  Mr. Spring tells us that between the two of you, he was lucky to be able to snatch a few hours on 15 May for a bit of half-hearted gardening.  Otherwise, he has been almost entirely shut out of his own quarter.

Gentlemen, this has simply got to stop.  Your arrogance and bullying tactics are causing confusion amongst the ranks and demoralising your co-workers, who no longer feel they can call their seasons their own.  As well, the environment of this office is suffering.  For months, we expected snow that never arrived; when we had given up all hope, we found ourselves shivering beneath flurries in May.  Now, a month early, we are cursing the humidity and attempting to learn how to breathe smog.  Shame on you both.  We are beginning to wonder whether you are behaving as you are out of malice aforethought.

Please cease and desist your scandalous behaviour forthwith and allow Mr. Spring to do his job.  We suspect he is rather good at it, though it is hard to tell, as you rarely give him a chance to demonstrate his skills.

I trust there will be no further incidents.

Sincerely yours,


Toronto


Monday May 17, 2010:  DAMN YOU, MICROSOFT

I don't know.  I really don't.  I mean, assumedly, someone somewhere has sat down and tested Microsoft products for user-friendliness and decided they're excellent enough to sell at exorbitant prices.  Assumedly, Microsoft Word--just for instance--was not forged in the fires of Mount Doom, though frankly, I wouldn't be hugely surprised if it had been.  There has to be some sort of sanity behind this software.  Surely?  Can anyone confirm?  Please?

The latest chapter in my epic struggle against Microsoft Word involves a template I downloaded from Lulu so that I could make my WoB book.  The template measures 7.5x7.5 and is sometimes useful and sometimes infuriating.  However, I do not need to use the template for any other documents.  I just need it for the book.

At the moment, Word is utterly refusing to open a new document in any size but 7.5x7.5.  If I want an 8.5x11 sheet, I need to open some other finished document, rename it, and erase all the content.

Before you start sending me complex solutions that are completely beyond my capacity to understand, let me tell you that I have already, on the advice of several Internet acquaintances, tried all the usual fixes and some not-so-usual ones.  It seems Word believes the square document is its default template.  It also resists attempts to change the default, as the "Page Setup" page lists the print size as being, natch, 8.5x11.  In other words, the settings fail to match the reality.  It is impossible to change the reality when the settings do not appear to be wrong.

HONESTLY, BILL FREAKING GATES, IS THIS BLOODY WELL NECESSARY?  THE PROBLEM SHOULD BE EASY TO FIX!  NO...THE PROBLEM SHOULD NOT EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE!  THERE IS NO REASON FOR THIS TO BE HAPPENING!  I DIDN'T EVEN CHANGE ANY SETTINGS AT ALL, SO WHY ARE YOU ACTING AS IF I DID AND ALSO AS IF THE SETTINGS HAVE NOT BEEN CHANGED, WHICH THEY CLEARLY HAVE, FOR SOME REASON?  ALL I WANT TO DO IS MAKE THE STUPID PAGE LETTER-SIZED, AND YOU WON'T EVEN LET ME DO THAT BECAUSE YOU THINK EVERYTHING IS NORMAL!  IHATEYOUIHATEYOUIHATEYOU!

Ahem.

This concludes Kari's Adventures in Computer-Related Nightmareland, though it is perhaps also worth noting that my "4" key is about to fall off.  As I have already lost the "~" key, I know for a fact, as does at least one of my friends, that it is nigh-on impossible to reattach keys to this type of keyboard.  I look forward to the day on which the last key will fall off, and I will be left typing on little anonymous white squishy button thingies.  Hurrah.


Monday, May 10, 2010:  Another List

I seem to be listing stuff a lot lately.  This list will be short because I am tired.  A startling comment in the elevator (#4 below) has led me to unveil the List of Unexpected Things Said to Me in Random Situations.

1)  "I like your belt."

This was from a complete stranger on a SkyTrain platform in Vancouver.  The belt in question was extremely old and very obviously falling apart.  I'm pretty sure the guy was coming on to me, but I'm less sure he understood what would constitute an effective come-on.

2)  "You wear a lot of green.  That can be an indication of your predominant aura colour."

Uh...okay.

3)  [After we have watched a woman dressed in boxer shorts and a child's T-shirt scream abuse at her absent mother, bang her head against a pole, and threaten to kill herself]  "So...where do you live?"

So...where do you want me to kick you?

4)  Him [looking at my jacket]:  "Taiga.  That sounds Japanese."
      Me:  "I got it in Vancouver."
      Him:  "Yeah, well, you've got Japanese hair."

...I give up.

I still sometimes wonder whether if I knew anything about the backgrounds of these people, their comments would make more sense to me.  As it is, I must simply wait for the approach of the next nutbar.


Monday, May 3, 2010:  Okay, the Floor is Definitely Going to Cave In

My friend Ester is about to go back to Brazil for two months.  This is sad, of course, but the really worrying bit is the fact that she is about to give me back my guitar.

Some history:  Ester has been borrowing my guitar on and off for several years now.  I like guitars, but I play mine less often than I do many of my other instruments.  As I wrote in an earlier Rant, Remenyi actually broke the guitar I was lending to Ester, then calmly sold her another one at full price.  I therefore now have two guitars:  the poor broken one and the shiny new one.  However, though the broken one (and its case) has been living in my apartment for half a year or so, the new one (and its case) has never been in my possession before.  It is about to be.

I think my apartment may be about to collapse into a ball of super-dense matter that will then become a star.*  I mean...yay, guitar...but where is it going to go?  On top of one of the pianos?  In my bedroom, a space that I think is probably a lost cause?  None of this is the guitar's fault, and I'm glad to get a chance to play it, but I need Harry Potter to drop by and make my apartment bigger.  Though it is sometimes described by kind people as "cosy," I'm thinking that "scary and oppressive" is probably more accurate.

I expect I'll find somewhere to put the guitar.**  However, I'm reasonably certain that the acquisition of one more pennywhistle is going to send this apartment into deep crisis.***

*Yes, physicist and astrophysicist friends, it is clear to us all that I haven't the faintest idea what I'm talking about.
**Possibly under the coffee table.
***Note to Ester:  I wrote this Rant with tongue firmly planted in cheek.  I really am grateful  for the guitar.


Monday, April 26, 2010:  Waiting for the Floor to Cave In

It was probably actually several months ago that my apartment achieved critical mass.  In living-space-related terms, "critical mass" is the state reached by a domicile when there is no longer room in it for new possessions.  For example, I have not only filled every bookcase I own to capacity (including stuffing the gaps between the rows of books and the shelves above them with more books), I have run out of room for new bookcases.  When I buy books, which I continue to do because they are books, I need to pile them on the floor at the end of my bed.  The floor at the end of my bed is pretty well filled now, as is the floor on the left side of my bed, though that's because I have piled boxes full of papers on it.  The boxes full of papers are there because I have run out of room in my closets for anything, including clothes.  I do have a bookcase with files in it, but it is full as well.  It tends to frighten people who enter my apartment; they think it is going to fall on them.

It is true that my apartment is of the variety known to the renters of Toronto as the "junior one bedroom."  In other words, it is just like an ordinary one-bedroom apartment, except way smaller.  A friend of mine who rents a one-bedroom apartment two floors above me has perhaps twice the living space I do.  Admittedly, he also has fewer possessions and has not reduced the size of his apartment by several dozen square feet by lining all the walls with bookcases, but I do sometimes still envy him the ability to stand in the middle of his floor, stretch his arms out, and not hit something with his knuckles.  I expect I can also blame my various musical instruments, including the digital piano and the portable keyboard and the other portable keyboard and the roll-up keyboard and the two accordions and the guitar and the mandolin and the ukulele and the harmonium and the various whistles and flutes and recorders and so on, not to mention the drums.  I think I may need help.

Since I never know if I'm going to have a job from one term to the next, I can't afford to move to a bigger apartment.  However, it is possible that this apartment may explode soon.  I'm kind of sad that there's no possiblity of me finding Narnia in one of my closets.  I mean, it may be there, but there's so much stuff in the closets themselves that I'll never be able to get to it.  It would make a good place to store stuff, though.


Tuesday, April 20, 2010:  Too Many Books

I have inadvertently amassed a frighteningly large pile of books that I really want to read but somehow can't get started on.  I don't know what my problem is, actually.  I've been looking forward to reading some of these books for quite a while; others I have acquired less intentionally, but they still look good.  I just...can't...open the first one.  I think part of the problem is that I know that once I start, I'm not going to be able to stop reading in order to do other necessary things.  I don't know whether I'm being uncharacteristically virtuous or just procrastinating with even more success than usual.

In an attempt to jump-start my reading, I am going to tell you about the books in question.  I'm not entirely sure how this is going to help, but maybe my own descriptions will spur me to action.  I don't know.  At any rate, here are the Seven Books I Really Need to Start Reading Soon but Have Been Avoiding for Some Incomprehensible Reason:

1)  A Wizard of Mars by Diane Duane.

Diane Duane started publishing her Young Wizards series in 1983, when Harry Potter was not yet even a glint in the eye of an eighteen-year-old girl named J. K. Rowling.  (I say this mostly because I remember a friend asking me about one of Duane's books once.  When I described it, the friend rolled his eyes and proclaimed it a "Harry Potter rip-off."  I find myself having to defend Diane Duane's honour a lot.)  The titles of the books can get silly--the first one is called So You Want to Be a Wizard--but the books themselves are frickin' fantastic.  The characters are believable, the plots engaging, the dilemmas gripping, the cost of the magic palpable, and the sly humour ever-present.  I do so want to read this latest book, and yet it is just sitting there, mocking me.

2)  Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay.

This is another author I have been following forever; I always look forward to getting into his ginormous historical fantasies, which he tends to set in worlds that resemble but are not identical to our own, albeit our own a thousand-odd years ago.  His latest novel is set in the otherworldly equivalent of eighth-century China (previously, he has done Italy, Spain, Byzantium, Provence, and Britain).  It is difficult to resist a story that apparently begins with a man receiving, for his services, two hundred and fifty priceless horses (rather than the one or two that would be normal in such circumstances) that he is now somehow going to have to get back to court without them being stolen or him being killed.  Oh, Guy Gavriel Kay, you tantalise me with your intriguing set up.  Am I reading your book right now?  No, I am not.

3)  Lamb:  The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore.

All I really know about this book is that people keep claiming it's great and insisting I'll like it.  I must admit that the title intrigues me.  As well, Christopher Moore has written quite a few books, so if I like this one, I'll have discovered a whole new source of procrastination.  Still not reading it.

4)  The Idylls of the Queen by Phyllis Ann Karr.

This is the Dark Horse entry in my Tournament of Unread Books.  I don't know if it's supposed to be good or not.  I actually had to buy it used off the Internet because it was out of print (or at least very difficult to find new); I'd noticed it mentioned on the "King Arthur" page over at TV Tropes and got intrigued.  I mean, seriously:  an Arthurian murder mystery starring Sir Kay as the detective and Mordred as his sidekick?  Could I ask for anything more?  Just the premise has me half in love already.  The book itself remains closed.

5)  The Choir Boats by Daniel A. Rabuzzi.

I bought three books at Ad Astra (a medium-sized Toronto SF con) last weekend.  One of them was this.  It involves a world called Yount.  This is such an excellent name for a world that I'm really going to have to read the book.  The back cover also mentions a "monstrous owl with eyes of fire."  I'm totally sold here.  I'm sure I'll get to it eventually.

6)  The World More Full of Weeping by Robert J. Wiersema.

Ad Astra Book #2 is about a hundred pages long and probably properly counts as a novella.  Like #5 and #7 in this list, it has been published by CZP, which specialises in dark fantasy.  I often like dark fantasy, and I often like short dark fantasy, and I also often like the people who recommended the book to me.  Someday...

7)  In and Down by Brett Alexander Savory.

I was more or less bullied into buying this book, but it does look interesting.  In addition, the author has inscribed upon the title page, "To Kari, this curious gothic.  Cheers!"  I have utterly no idea what this means and am almost certain the author does not know either, but I very much applaud the avoidance of such platitudes as "Best wishes" and "Keeping reading."  You go, Brett Alexander Savory.  I promise I am planning to read your book.

I am daunted by the potential of this pile of unread material.  Nonetheless, I must eventually take the plunge and start reading.  What have I got to lose?


Monday, April 12, 2010:  Stereotypes 101

I know I go on about this a lot, but the gender-related double standard in popular culture really does bother the hell out of me sometimes.  A lot of people don't understand why.  For instance, when I saw Superbad, I became extremely annoyed with it, while the men around me were all guffawing and holding their sides with mirth.  I swear I actually do have a sense of humour.  I'm just a teensy little bit tired of "hilarious" movies based on the geeky-teenagers-obsessed-with-sex-and-always-surrounded-by-improbably-hot-women-who-want-them premise.  When an overweight and enimently unattractive male character pontificates on how he can't possibly go out with a particular girl because she's not pretty enough, I lose all hope for humanity.  I also don't have a huge amount of sympathy for people who earnestly explain that there are no women in their stories because "this is a story about men, and a woman here would just be a token."  I will buy this excuse for, say, one story out of five, but if all your stories are like this, I start asking why the bleeding hell every goddamn story has to be about goddamn men.  It is actually entirely possible to introduce an important female character into a story without making her a token or a raging stereotype.

In my latest quest for meaningful female characters in popular texts, I shall provide a number of gender-reversed plot summaries.  These summaries take well-worn plots (not necessarily corresponding exactly to any one work) and switch the gender roles.  Behold:

1)  Two teenaged girls go on a road trip.  One is short and fat, with bad skin, two chins, and a propensity to speak very loudly and with great vulgarity in public places; the other is tall and spindly, with disordered hair, no chin, and glasses.  Both are exceedingly dim-witted.  During their trip, which involves quite a bit of drug use, the girls are constantly finding themselves in situations in which beautiful shirtless men are attempting to have sex with them.  However, the fat one is actually in love with the boy next door, who is quite extraordinarily built and coiffed and who has had a secret crush on her since they were eleven.  After several coming-of-age adventures, including a sexy hot-tub incident, the girls come to terms with who they are and return home.  (The skinny one has actually fallen for her friend`s smoking hot forty-year-old shirtless father, who comes with them.)

2)  An elite team of soldiers goes on secret world-saving missions.  The team is comprised of:  the leader, a devil-may-care fifty-five-year-old female colonel with a dark past and a propensity for suicide missions; a trigger-happy female lieutenant; a bookish female scientist; and an incredibly handsome twenty-three-year-old male sergeant.  The sergeant, as the sensitive member of the team, is continually having to moderate conflicts and sooth frayed tempers.  He is secretly in love with the colonel, who is more than twice his age.  He spends an inordinate amount of time with his shirt off.

3)  The members of a police precinct solve murders.  Most of these members are female, though there are also two important men.  One of them is a complete idiot; the other will eventually turn out to be leaking information to the criminal underworld.  The complete idiot is in an on-again, off-again relationship with an older FBI agent, who likes him for his looks.

4)  A Dark Lord menaces the realm of Tharion, and only Illa, the muscle-bound daughter of the sage Larial, can save her world.  She sets off to find the mystical Grandulant, which will first test her prowess and then (if she passes) allow her access to the Dark Lord.  On her quest, she gathers several companions:  Jemma (an axe-wielding female dwarf), Miri (a grim, plain young woman nursing a dark secret), Salija (a grim, downright ugly older woman with a sort of animal magnetism that draws pubescent males to her without any effort on her part), and an innocent, naive boy named Feje.  During the journey, Feje is constantly in danger of rape and must be rescued again and again by the other members of the party.  Illa's fight against the Dark Lord is complicated by Feje--who doesn't have an actual personality, incidentally--being captured by an evil army that Illa must defeat.  Feje is eventually revealed to be a foundling prince, and Illa marries him and ascends the throne.

5)  A twenty-one-year-old man who is obsessed with his weight dreams of finding his one true love and getting married.  So eager is he for matrimony that he frightens away the dreamy older women with whom he seems to be surrounded.  He believes that his lack of a wife makes him the pathetic object of his friends' scorn; he knows he will never be complete without a woman to take care of him.  He longs to be able to give up making decisions and holding down his job as a secretary.  Two women--one beautiful and virtuous, one beautiful and dangerous--appear in his life, and he must choose between them.  He makes the right choice and lives happily ever after, perfectly content to look after his wife's six lovely children from a previous marriage.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

It is odd how absurd these premises sound.  Well, guess what, gentlemen?  They sound just as freaking odd to me with the gender roles in their "proper" places.  Goddamnit.


Monday, April 5, 2010:  Be Prepared (Cue the Goose-Stepping Hyenas, Really)

I bought some Girl Guide Cookies the other day.  I can never resist Girl Guide Cookies, partly because--to paraphrase our friend Special Agent Dale Cooper completely out of context for no particular reason--those are damn fine cookies, but possibly also partly because I was a Girl Guide once too.

I hated it.  Sorry, current, former, and future Guides, but during my miserable time trapped in this organisation, the damn fine cookies seemed merely a front for the clique-ridden horror behind.  The Girl Guides are a good enough idea, but they can really do a number on an unpopular kid.  I was already a pariah in school; this status did not entirely translate to the Guides--the adults watched us too closely for that--but it manifested in more subtle ways, with the sanction of the adults.  Whereas in school, the bullying tended to be blatant, in Guides, the bullying took the form mainly of psychological warfare.  I was elected Patrol Leader at least once or twice, but it was still made clear to me in various ways that no matter what power I appeared to wield, I was not, and never would be, One of Us.

The Guides teach useful skills such as orienteering, basic camping techniques, and social conformity.  Back when I was a Guide, we had badges for "cooking," "sewing," and "homemaking" (I kid you not); I expect the first two are still in circulation, even if the third has mercifully been retired.  There is nothing wrong with learning how to cook and sew, but the reason these badges were there was to teach us to be good little women, ready to grow up, marry strong men, and start popping out babies.  The Guides have now moved on--I was a Guide in the eighties, when the organisation was still apparently existing in the fifties and thus not quite catching on to this whole "feminism" thing--but the principle remains the same:  take a bunch of kids with many different interests, force them to congregate in little groups, and send them out to complete pre-set activities designed to teach them how to be useful.  All right, yes, in principle, this is all awesome.  I admit that.  It's just that in practice, what happens is that the official lessons in usefulness are supplemented by unofficial lessons in manipulation and exclusion:  lessons perpetuated not just by the girls but by the adult leaders, who tend to reward brown-nosing and extroversion and ignore girls who are not always the centre of attention.  We are still learning to be good little women, exercising power in the one way a woman should.

I am taking this way too seriously, and I am also being hideously unfair.  I do have some fond memories of Girl Guides.  I also have some fond memories of elementary school, but those memories don't erase the much more acute memories of the constant emotional abuse I underwent there.  I just think that maybe we shouldn't be so quick to shove our girls into the Guides on the assumption that it will "help them gain life skills" or "toughen them up."  I'm not even thinking of the pariahs here.  What about the girls who take to bullying and are rewarded for it by the leaders?  By all means, let's teach our girls to sing, rock-climb, and crush their underlings via manipulative rhetoric.  It certainly sounds like a good idea to me.

But I've got to admit that those really are damn fine cookies.


Monday, March 29, 2010:  Ouch

I`ve done it again:  I`ve gone and injured myself in absolutely the most idiotic manner possible.  Not content with previously gaining an infected hand and subequent permanent scars after scraping my knuckles against a wall, or with spraining my ankle while walking down a staircase, I have attempted to climb over one of those damn table things in the Round Room at Massey, tripped over it, and flung myself violently onto the ground, thus gaining bruises on my chin, elbow, knee, thigh, and ribcage.  The chin bruise is naturally the most spectacular (it is currently a fetching black).  Even better was the fact that I nearly knocked myself out and spent about three hours afterwards experiencing the uncomfortable physical effects of shock.

Someday, somehow, I shall injure myself while doing something heroic.  Ideally, it will involve small children and a raging inferno, but I`m not picky.  I just want to stop breaking my toes by accidentally kicking stuff (I have done this several times) and taking all the skin off my knees when I unexpectedly fall off my bike.  I`ve heard that there are people who possess a quality called grace.  I would really like to be one of these people.

It is probably a really good thing that I have never been tempted to try to run with scissors.



Monday, March 22, 2010:  Words, Words, Words

Something like seven hundred million of my friends are receiving their dictionaries this Friday.

Confused non-Masseyites should note that the Conferral of the Sacred Dictionary is an odd little Massey custom that I think originated with the current Master, who has been at the College for quite some time now.  What happens is that at the Fellows' Gaudy, the final High Table of the academic year, the Master hands out dictionaries to people who graduated with Ph.D.s or M.D.s the previous spring or fall.  In recent years, graduating law students have received dictionaries as well.  There has been some grumbling from people who point out that 1)  the law degree is an undegraduate degree, and thus 2)  the undergrad law students receive dictionaries, whereas the graduate Master's students don't.  Incidentally, few complain about the M.D.s being included, possibly because medical students, like Ph.D.s, become "doctors" when they are done.  Only people who actually attend the dinner are given dictionaries; one cannot receive a dictionary in absentia.

I know of several people who will be flying to Toronto to receive their dictionaries, some from across Canada or somewhere in the United States.  The Massey dictionary is a coveted property amongst Masseyites and former Masseyites.  It has an odd and very specific kind of value; no one outside the College can do other than think the tradition entirely insane, and yet Masseyites will move heaven and earth to gain those weighty tomes.  I earned my dictionary a couple of years ago, and I treasure it still.

For this is not just a dictionary, my friends; it is a symbol.  The Massey dictionary represents the Ph.D. programme* in all its hideous glory.  After the years upon years of torment, toil, frustration, agonised procrastination, and exploitation, the weary student reaches the end of the terrible road and claims the dictionary as a trophy.  Even--or, perhaps, especially--someone who has hated every minute of the be-damned Ph.D. programme can look forward to that one shining moment at the Fellows' Gaudy where she will be able to loft her dictionary to the skies and cry, "I survived!  I survived this hellhole!  And now I shall look up the meaning of the word FREEDOM!"

We are going to be awash in dictionaries on Friday.  I look forward to seeing the invisible weight lift from the shoulders of my friends as they head back to their lives, secure in the knowledge that they will always be able to spell "victory."

*And those other ones as well, but mostly the Ph.D. programme.


Wednesday, March 17, 2010:  Recovering from the Horror

I apologise for forgetting to Rant on Monday.  I spent this weekend recovering from weeks and weeks of constant, horrifying work.  I am now having a hard time doing anything productive at all.

You see, since last spring, I have been authoring an online course.  It's taken a rather long time to get through, partly because I thought I was almost done last fall, then was told at Christmas that I needed to condense all my modules (the module is the distance-ed version of a lecture) and add four more.  So I have been writing rather a lot lately.  There are fourteen modules, and they probably average out to about twenty pages single-spaced each.  Math tells us that this makes 280 pages, or 560 pages double-spaced, or, well, at least twice the length of the average Ph.D. thesis.  Thankfully, I have now finished all the modules and am awaiting comments on the last two.

I am here to tell you that creating an online course is a hell of a lot of work.  The last time I was this shattered was right after I finished my thesis.  Sure, the course was, in many ways, easier--no footnotes were required, for instance, and I didn't have to study hundreds of years' worth of French and Latin sources for my primary texts--but it also involved a lot of writing condensed into a relatively small period of time.  In a wry twist of fate, it turned out to be a good thing that I was otherwise unemployed this term.  I could simply hide in my apartment all the time and write my little heart out.

Freedom is nice, but I probably need to start punching myself in the face and doing something productive again soon.  Yippee.


Monday, March 1, 2010:  An Open Letter to my Next-Door Neighbours

Dear Next-Door Neighbours:

I must say that I didn't think I would be writing to you so soon after my message to my pot-smoking downstairs neighbour.  I mean, surely I can't have two problems with inconsiderate neighbours in the space of a week.  Surely the odds are on my side here.  If my downstairs neighbour is busy making it difficult for me to breathe, shouldn't my next-door neighbours be paragons of sweetness, light, and considerate behaviour?

Alas, my illusions on this matter were shattered on Sunday, February 28th at 1:45 a.m., the point at which the two of you began to scream at each other.  One of you had an ordinary sort of voice that didn't carry particularly well.  The other one had the loudest and most annoying voice I had ever heard.  I couldn't hear exactly what you were saying, but I gathered that you weren't very pleased with one another.  You were expressing your opinions about each other at the tops of your voices, assumedly just because you could.

Now, I am normally the last person to complain about people utterly losing their tempers and ranting and yelling and throwing things at the walls and...well, at any rate, I know where you're coming from.  However--dear, dear neighbours--I do think that it would perhaps have been better if you had had your little meltdown during the freaking day.  If you had, you wouldn't have kept me, and very probably everyone else on my floor and the ones above and below it--up until three a.m.

Admittedly, your first bout of passionate yelling lasted for only about fifteen minutes, at which point one of you screamed, "Get out!  GET OUT!" and slammed the door really loudly.  However, maybe ten minutes later, the banished party returned, and the argument picked up where it had left off.  I believe this stretch of animosity also eventually ended with someone slamming a door and storming out.

Did you truly have to resume yet again at about 5:00 a.m.?  I mean, truly?  Was it vital for you to bloody freaking shout at each other all night?  Gentlemen, honestly:  if you're going to kick each other out or leave each other high and dry or whatever, why not do it just once instead of thrice over a period of three and a half hours?  It would save you both time and energy, and the rest of us might be able to get a small amount of sleep every once in a while.

I do hope you resolve your differences.  I don't actually know whether you are lovers, friends, or just roommates thrown together by circumstances, and frankly, I don't really care.  Neither is it any of my business what you were yowling about last night.  Yet since you imposed your argument upon the rest of us, I don't think it is particularly impertinent of me to shake the fist of rage and exhaustion in your general direction.

Please do not repeat your performance tonight, dear, dear neighbours.  I am only awake at the moment because I got all excited while watching the gold-medal hockey game (Best.  Game.  Ever.  Seriously).  Do not make me pound on your door and cry at you in the wee hours.

I wish you the best and hope you repair your relationship.  I suggest you do it quietly, preferably at noon.

Yours sincerely,
Kari.


Monday, February 22, 2010:  An Open Letter to my Downstairs Neighbour

Dear Downstairs Neighbour:

As far as I know, I have never met you.  It is, of course, possible that we have run into each other on the elevator or near the mailboxes.  I've certainly noticed people getting off the elevator on the fifteenth floor.  There may be more than one of you, though since you, like me, live in a junior one-bedroom apartment, I'm suspecting probably not.  I'm 90% sure you are male.  I have heard your voice and the voices of your friends when you sit out on your balcony and have loud parties at 2:00 a.m., you see.  You may be interested to hear that you are not a very good singer.  If you must sing while strumming a guitar you can clearly not play very well, you should probably do it inside.

There is, however, one thing I dearly wish you would not do inside.  In fact, I am sitting here begging you not to do it inside.  Please have pity on me, downstairs neighbour.  Please stop smoking pot in your apartment.  It is on the verge of driving me right up the freaking wall.

I do not object to you smoking pot.  Despite being from BC, a fact that my friends feel obliged to point out every time the issue of marijuana comes up, I have never smoked weed in my life; nonetheless, if you wish to indulge, I have no problem with that.  (I feel the same way about alcohol, by the way, so no, everyone, I am not sitting in the pub nursing my root beer and judging you all.)  What I object to is you smoking pot here.  The stuff does not smell good.  I once heard someone compare the smell to the stench of a panicked skunk, and while I am inclined to disagree, I can certainly detect some similarities.  Being trapped in a tiny, cramped apartment--currently the only place I have to work--while the less than delicate odour of pot fills the place for hours on end is decidedly unpleasant.  It is probably different when you are actually smoking it.  I wouldn't know.

My old downstairs neighbours used to smoke (tobacco, not marijuana) in bed.  This went on for so long that I actually stopped sleeping in my bedroom, as I grew tired of waking up in the morning coughing and voiceless.  Now, you fill the whole goddamn apartment with pot fumes.  You even smoke in the bathroom.  Why do you smoke in the bathroom?  You're clearly not trying to hide your habit from anyone.  Do you smoke while you bathe?  I think I may be getting into TMI territory here.

When I started this letter, I thought this might be one of the rare evenings you were out or not indulging.  However, as I typed, that ruddy smell began to creep into my apartment once again.  Are you aware that you are about to make me cry?

Downstairs neighbour, have pity on me.  Take a day off.  Go outside and smoke rebelliously in public.  Get down into the Don Valley, which is ten feet away from this very building, and smoke there.  Just stop making me want to storm downstairs and punch you in the face.  I don't think either of us would enjoy it if I did.

Yours sincerely,
Kari.


Monday, February 15, 2010:  Come Together in Caaaaaalgaaaaa--Oh, Wait

It has been an odd Valentine's Day.  I always spend the evening of this most obnoxious of all "holidays" sitting alone in my apartment, but this year, as Valentine's Day coincided with Chinese New Year and the second day of the Vancouver Olympics, I spent the evening sitting alone in my apartment, privately celebrating the beginning of the Year of the Tiger while watching the finals of the men's moguls on the Internet.  I saw Canada win its first domestic gold medal ever.*  It was more exciting than Valentine's Day usually gets.

I don't know what it is about the Olympics.  I mean, essentially, it's sixteen days of kids throwing themselves down hills on various bits of fibreglass and sliding around skating rinks while grinning madly at cheering crowds.**  As I watched the moguls, I was basically thinking...these guys are skiing really fast over bumps and every once in a while launching themselves into the sky.  Yeah, okay.  And they've all trained for years and years so that they can do this while the whole freaking world watches.  They're all amateurs because as far as I know, there isn't such a thing as a professional mogul skier, and most of them will retire fresh out of their teens.  And yet they dream of the Olympics...that one moment of glory gained by the person capable of skiing the fastest over bumps.

I guess my bafflement is not really fair.  I do plenty of odd little things that other people find pointless;*** we all do.  And if these kids see glory in a skating rink, good for them.  But we see it there too, even when we are like me and go around claiming loudly that we don't.  We like counting medals and seeing how we're doing against the United States.  We like seeing ourselves as competitors.  It doesn't even matter what the competition is.  It may as well involve skiing; why not, after all?

I think there is some curling on today.  That should be interesting to watch.

*I also watched some Stargate Atlantis, which appears to be a television show about how extraordinarily stupid people from Earth get as soon as they leave the planet, but that's beside the point.
**There's also curling, which doesn't entirely fit into either category and is one of the weirdest sports in existence, period.
***Such as playing the accordion, just for instance.


Monday, February 8, 2010:  How to Write a Love Story (from the Female Perspective)

Hollywood has taught us many things.  One of the most pervasive involves how to construct a "chick flick":  in other words, a film specifically designed to appeal to all women..*  If you have ever had an urge to create your own Hollywood-style love story, never fear;  just follow these twelve easy steps, and before long, you'll have Tom Hanks gazing wistfully at your script and thinking back to the days when he could play exactly the same leading man in every single film and still always get the girl in the end.

1)  Your protagonist should, of course, be a woman.  The fact that she is a woman proves that you are an empowered feminist (but not too much of one...heavens, no!).

2)  This woman should either have a name ending in "y" or "ie" (for that perky, elfish sound) or be called "Sam" so that she can, at some point, be involved in an amusing misunderstanding with the male chauvinist pig she will eventually fall in love with and marry.

3)  She (let us call her "Elly" for convenience's sake) must be beautiful and preferably rail-thin with breasts the size of honeydew melons.  If she is above a size 6, her friends, of which she has three (the ditzy one, the sassy one, and the flamboyantly gay male one), must constantly refer to her as "fat."  If, for the sake of what I shall, for want of a better word, call the "plot," she needs to start off the film as "plain," she should wear slightly unflattering clothes, twist her hair into a tight bun, and perch glasses she doesn't need on the very tip of her nose.

4)  Elly is in a rut / has no sex life / is in love with the wrong person / is about to get married to a dick / has a terrible job / doesn't know what it is with the men these days / is about to be a bridesmaid for the third time.  At any rate, despite the fact that she is beautiful, rich, and a frickin' size six, she is terribly unhappy because she is single.  You may, if you like, have Elly pretend to be perfectly content with her life, but this will, of necessity, turn out to be a hideous lie.

5)  Elly will meet a man whom, due to a hilarious misunderstanding, she will instantly hate.  He will come across as a jerk, though he is really a nice guy.  In the meantime, Elly will meet another man whom, due to a hilarious misunderstanding, she will instantly love.  He will come across as a nice guy, though he is really a jerk.

6)  Elly and her friends will get together at a restaurant and talk about men.  They will continue to talk about men at every opportunity all the way through the film.

7)  Stressed out over being a beautiful, wealthy size six with two men after her, Elly will indulge in a Shopping Montage, after which she will astonish both her suitors by getting out of a car in such a way that her entire leg is visible before any of the rest of her emerges.  At this point, a clarinet will be wailing in the background.

8)  Elly will be offered an easy way out of the living hell that is her current existence.  Choosing this way out is not a good idea, but she is unaware of the rules of narrative causality, and she takes it.

9)  Elly and her friends will get together at a restaurant again.  The friends will express their disapproval of Elly's current course by telling her she has "changed" and is "not the Elly they used to know and love."  They will then leave her sitting in the restaurant, alone and distraught.

10)  Elly will have an epiphany:  she is in love with the first man.  Though she believes he loves someone else, she will drop whatever she's doing and seek him out.

11)  Elly will fling herself into her lover's arms and quickly arrange to drop every aspect of her life except him.  The problem her friends were having with her will now magically vanish because she has been Saved by the Love of a Good Man.

12)  The film will end with Elly engaged to be married and everything else restored to the status quo, except that Elly is now a size 4.

If you are aspiring to break into Hollywood filmmaking, I sincerely advise you to master this formula.  From what I have observed in the past twenty years or so, knowledge of this basic story will keep you employed in the writing racket for a long, long time.

*Who like love stories.**
**And endless shopping trips.***
***And who are okay with 50% of the human race being portrayed as brainless, whiny, helpless, and obsessed with shoes.**


Monday, February 1, 2010:  It's That Time Again

That's right, boys and girls:  February is here.  It is time once again for me to start Ranting about the role of love/romance/etc. in the popular media.  I'm not sure why I put myself (and you) through this every year.  It's just an issue that bugs me, I guess, and February seems a thematically appropriate time to bring it up.

I've covered romantic comedies and love songs, so this year's Rant is going to focus specifically on another of my pet peeves (I dealt with it briefly on November 12, 2007, but now I'm really going to go to town on it):  Hollywood's need to insert a love story into absolutely frickin' everything.

I think there may be various reasons for this annoying little trend, including and especially the general and vastly annoying belief that if one wants to attract a female demographic, one needs to include a love story.  Frankly, I get turned off by love stories when it's blatantly obvious there's no reason for them to be there.  Take, for instance, the recent film Sherlock Holmes.  I have many problems with this film, which effectively turns the world's greatest detective* into an action hero, but my biggest beef with the movie is its employment of Irene Adler--who appears in one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes stories--as a damn love interest.  Irene is an interesting character; she is a criminal who counts as one of the only people who ever gets the better of Sherlock Holmes.  In the original story, "A Scandal in Bohemia," Watson, the narrator, describes her as the woman who, for Holmes, "eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex."  However, Watson adds:  "It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position."  Holmes's inability to love is an essential attribute of his character.  Yes, the film is an adaptation and thus at liberty to change him, but it seems a little too gratuitous to force a love interest on the poor guy.

It would be more forgivable if it were more integral to the plot.  As it is, however, Irene Adler's presence in the story is jarring.  She seems shoehorned in, and the love story has so little to do with the film's actual plot that it pulls the viewer out of the story.  I would probably have been able to forgive the film for the slow-motion explosions if Irene Adler hadn't been there, or had at least been in a more appropriate role.

This sort of thing happens far too often, to the extent that when it doesn't happen, the change seems refreshing.  In Iron Man, for instance, the will-they-won't-they subtext is there, but it is underplayed and ultimately unfulfilled.  In The Dark Knight, at least the love story serves as essential motivation for several characters, unlike in Batman Begins, where it is awkward and unnecessary.  Yes, I am mentioning a lot of superhero films here, probably because these sorts of action-heavy films are the ones that need gratuitous love stories the least.  Besides, "Kill the bad guy and save the girl" is getting kind of tedious as a plot, especially when the girl is effectively a cardboard cutout.

The whole thing becomes even more depressing when you start applying the Bechdel Test to movies.  The Bechdel Test, as introduced in this comic by Alison Bechdel, specifies that a film passes the test if it 1) includes at least two women 2) who talk to each other 3) about something besides a man.  Depressingly few films pass.  Even female-heavy movies often choke up on #3.  In failing films that also include love stories, the woman is frequently simply a token, a prize for the male hero.  She will, of course, be yearning for marriage, and if she's not, she will have a change of heart at the last minute and sacrifice everything she has ever wanted so she can be with her man.  Alison Bechdel must spend a lot of time staring despairingly into space and lamenting the stupidity of the world.  In combination with anti-Bechdel-ness, the mindless insertion of love stories into films becomes maddening.

Filmmakers:  here's a thought.  Instead of writing stories about guys and tossing in a few ladies so that you can have some kissing scenes, why not create actual female characters and leave out the kissing scenes?  If you think you can't because you "don't understand women," try thinking of them as human beings and writing them that way.  Maybe you can even let them keep most of their clothes on for the duration of your films every once in a while.  And if you're going to write a love story, write a damn love story.  Make it matter.  Empty romance may be the easy way out, but it just helps to highlight the hollowness of what you are producing.

*Sorry, Batman, but come on, really.


Monday, January 25, 2010:  Board Games:  A Reflection

A recent birthday gift has got me thinking about the weirdly large number of board games I own.  Okay, it's nothing next to the number my family had when I was growing up, or even next to the pile in the Massey Common Room, but if you take into account the fact that I live in an apartment the size of my head and rarely have anyone over, the proliferation of games begins to seem a little odd.  In addition, all but one of these games have been either gifts or inherited from the people who used to live in my apartment.  I've just sort of...collected them.

Don't get me wrong:  I love board games (the good ones, at least).  I'm always happy when I get one as a gift.  However, I'm beginning to wonder whether the whole board-game industry is predicated on the existence of Christmas and birthdays.  The games are often so expensive that it's difficult to justify buying them for oneself.  Recently, a couple of friends and I were checking out the price of Settlers of Catan (which I enjoy but don't own); just the basic game is about $50.  I remember when it was more like $70.  The fact that a $50 game can be regarded as relatively cheap may tell you something about how much it hurts to buy one of these things.

Amusingly, my sister and I tend to load each other up with games.  She has given me four; I think I've given her a similar number.  We give each other games we like but don't own.  I don't yet own any of the games I have given her; she probably doesn't yet own any of the games she has given me.  It's like some weird, contorted version of paying it forward:  you play a game owned by someone else, like it, and pass it on without attaining your own copy first.  It's the Circle of Games, and it rules us all.

Below is a list (with commentary) of the games I have somehow managed to acquire.

Random Cat Jigsaw Puzzle:  This is one of the games (well, it's technically a game) left behind by the previous inhabitants of my apartment.  I have to say that I can see why these people abandoned it.  The horrible kittens featured on the puzzle reminder me of nothing so much as the foul, simpering kittens gracing the pictures in Professor Umbridge's office in the Harry Potter novels.  They are truly appalling.  I have never tried the puzzle or even attempted to ascertain whether all of the pieces are there.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire:  This is the other game left behind in my apartment.  I know nothing about it except that it is based on the game show of the same name.  Apparently, its original owners knew just as little about it; the cards inside the box are still in their original shrink wrap.  It is rated quite well on Amazon, though, so maybe it will eventually be worth a try, even if it is yet another trivia game based on a TV show that was a big deal way back in 1998.

The Harry Potter Trivia Game:  This one was given to me in 2001 in thanks for my work as LMF co-chair.  I've played it once.  The questions are based entirely on the American version of HP 1, and as far as I can remember, most, if not all, of them are multiple choice.  It is clearly geared towards children, though the designers may have been a little misguided here; I have met a lot of kids with such a complete knowledge of the HP books that a multiple-choice HP question might strike them as rather insulting.  I do remember it being fun to play.

Upwords:  This one was a Christmas gift from my sister on the advice of my mother.  I've never played it.  It's sort of like Scrabble, except that you can build new words on top of old words.  I'm not entirely sure whether it is, in fact, fun or extraordinarily frustrating.

Scrabble:  This is the one I bought for myself.  Well, I had to have a copy of Scrabble, didn't I?  I am fond of this game, though I have only used my set once.  I tend to play at other people's places.  They all own the game as well.

Pandemic:  My sister gave me this one for Christmas this year.  It is the first cooperative board game I've ever played, and I've got to say that it's much more fun than I thought it would be.  Sure, I couldn't go around stabbing people in the back, but working together to beat the damn board (which is very difficult, even at the simplest level) turns out to be engaging, in a frustrating sort of way.  Basically, the players have to save the world from germs.  Topicality in board games can be a good thing, I guess.

Carcassonne:  Friends gave me this one for my birthday this year.  They had never heard of it before; I, on the other hand, have played it several times.  Carcassonne is a good game that I am glad to own.  It is something like Settlers of Catan, in which players compete for resources, but it involves different actions and goals.  As with Settlers, the board looks different every time the game is played.

Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot:  I really want to try this one, but I've never had the chance; the year my sister gave it to me for Christmas, she was barred from our house because she was pregnant and my parents had been exposed to German Measles.  Someday, I shall force my friends to learn this game with me.  It looks awesome.

Once Upon a Time:  This is a card game given to me years ago on my birthday.  I've never played it (are you sensing a pattern here yet?).  It's a storytelling game that is apparently quite fun to play, and I would like to try it eventually.

Dominos:  Yep, really.  This one was from my sister, again on the advice of my mother, who is addicted to a domino-based game called Chickenfoot.  I've played it; it's fun.  I've also got directions for a whole bunch of other domino games.  There are a lot of them, apparently.

I do also have various packs of cards, of course.  I carry one around with me in my backpack; it saved two friends and me the day we were helping a fourth friend move and, due to an unfortunate combination of rush-hour traffic and a need for him to go back to his old place and reload the truck, ended up stuck in a room for something like three hours with absolutely nothing else to do.

At any rate...what I, personally, have learned from the list above is that I really need to clean my apartment more often so that I can invite people over and break in all these games.  I have a lot of them, and I have played relatively few.  At the same time, I have only ever bought one of them for myself (the cards don't count).  I guess it's just one of those things.


Monday, January 18, 2010:  Very Much a Morning Poem

As I have once again managed to postpone the writing of my Rant until 4:15 a.m., I shall once again be regaling you with a completely nonsensical poem-like thing.  Thus:

Trapped once again in the wee hours,
I hope the sore throat that is
becoming very obvious now
is not the precursor of the flu, which
I have already bloody had.

I think I caught a cold
at the Massey talent auction,
and that seems a little unfair,
since I don't actually go out all that often.
This poem is really just prose with line breaks.

If I were Jack Bauer,
I would torture the poem into making
some sort of sense, and also into being pretty,
but Bauer is off fighting terrorists in fiction somewhere.
Perhaps I shall phone him tomorrow.


Monday, January 11, 2010:  Fun with Calculators and Stereotypes

Last Tuesday, I was coolly informed that the course I was to have taught this term had been cancelled, thirteen days before the drop deadline and six days before the course had even started at all.  I expect the motivation behind the early cancellation may have been tied up in the university's desire not to pay me for two weeks' worth of work for a course it was assuming wouldn't run, but whatever.  I do like not having enough money to pay rent.  It leaves me with a warm, benevolent feeling towards the world in general.

Today (which is Friday, early for the writing of a Rant, but hey, what else do I have to do?), I noticed in the online Toronto Star an article on the pending college instructors' strike.  I made the mistake of reading some of the comments on this article.  As per usual, the general public (or the lunatic fringe of the general public that writes comments on the online Toronto Star) is happily labelling instructors lazy, overpaid, underworked, greedy jerkwads who don't deserve the right to strike.  One former business instructor started going on about how in his day, 26 hours per week of teaching time had been considered a full load, whereas now, the lazy bastards were whining about their 16-hour work-weeks.  Yawn.  We've heard this all before, really.

But it did get me thinking about a time of my life in which I did actually have what was pretty close to a full-time job.  Last year at this time, rather than clinging desperately to my one small remaining piece of work and hoping cheap pasta would be on sale at Sobey's for the foreseeable future, I was gearing up to teach four classes.  At this particular university, five classes was considered a full load; four was still just part-time.  Today, I started wondering how many hours per week I had actually worked.

The following account is not actually me whining.  I am not playing for sympathy.  I am merely interested in the mathematics of my former part-time job and what we might call the "hidden" hours of work in behind the supposedly light hours of a sessional instructor's job.  Keep in mind that people who take these jobs do know what they are getting into, generally.

Some background:

My four classes were distributed as follows:  two of them were identical sections of the same course (one I had taught before).  A third was another section of this course, but adapted for a Continuing Education scenario.  The fourth was a course I had never taught before.  Two of the classes contained about fifty students each; the other two contained about forty.  The number of students varied over the course of the term, but for the sake of argument, let's say I had about 180 students that term.  I did not have a TA; the department assigned TAs only to classes containing more than 65 students.

Each class involved three hours of classroom time, so I taught for twelve hours a week.  Instructors were also expected to schedule one office hour for each three hours of teaching; that brought me up to sixteen hours of work weekly.

Now we get to the interesting stuff.  Back when I was a TA and was allowed to try the occasional lecture, we were paid for four preparation hours for each one-hour lecture we gave.  Let's assume this number is accurate.  Some of the activities included in the four-hour prep would be:  reading or viewing the works being studied in class (some of them quite long novels), and writing notes on them; doing research on literary or cultural backgrounds; working these backgrounds and one's own analysis of the texts into a coherent one-hour lecture that incorporated student questions and discussions; putting together power-point slides and/or handouts to complement the material (this is beginning to become an unwritten requirement at the university level); and creating assignments and exams.  Four hours of prep time per one hour of lecture time may actually be a conservative estimate.  However, we'll run with it.  I'll be fair, though:  one of the courses I was teaching was a repeat.  The prep time was seriously reduced, though I did add one text to the course (and had to write six hours' worth of brand new lectures on it).  So let's call it twelve hours of prep per week for the new course and three for the old (this takes into account the new material, as well as my need to refresh my memory re. the old and revise the old lecture material from time to time).  That's fifteen more hours, bringing our total up to thirty-one.

A major time-suck for university instructors is e-mail, which is generally completely unacknowledged by people estimating working hours.  Students are often lured by the convenience of e-mail and would rather dash off messages to an instructor than go to see her in her office.  Again, I'll be conservative and estimate only an hour of e-mail a week (this is very conservative, but as you'll soon see, I can afford the generosity).  We're now up to thirty-two working hours per week for a part-time instructor job that might be considered 4/5 of a full-time job.

Sound fair?  Very.  However, we haven't added the marking yet.

The number of assignments per course varies, but a common formula is:  one midterm, one group project, one term essay, one final exam.  I used this formula for course #1.  Course #2 had a detailed essay proposal instead of a midterm, plus a longer research essay instead of a nice little five-page close reading.  The amount of work was about the same in both courses, and the amount of marking was as well, so just to simplify things, I'll take the original formula as the model for all the classes.  Once more using conservative estimates, I'll say that a midterm takes about twenty minutes to mark, a group project (which involves comments on a presentation and an essay) forty, a term essay thirty, and a two-hour final exam ten (the instructor does not need to make comments on the final.  I probably usually take longer than ten minutes per exam, but again, I can afford to be generous).  There were about ten group projects per class.  We then end up with what we'll call a fifteen-week term, with thirteen weeks of classes and an extra two weeks added to represent the exam period, invoking the following marking formulae:  20 minutes x 180 = 60 hours of marking; 40 minutes x 40 = 27 hours of marking; 30 minutes x 180 = 90 hours of marking; 10 minutes x 180 = 30 hours of marking.  Together, that makes 207 hours of marking.  Divided by 15, we get 13.8 hours per week.  Let's call it 14.

That takes us up to forty-five hours of work per week for a part-time instructor job.

But wait!  There's more!

You've got syllabus creation.  You've got the hours an instructor spends spend building these courses, often by sifting through material with which she may not actually be that familiar yet in the hopes of finding good course texts.  You've got grade compilation and submission.  You've got extra office hours for students who can't make your four official weekly hours.  You've got plagiarism detection, evidence-gathering, and meetings.  Let's be conservative again and add a couple of hours per week for all this lovely stuff.  Forty-seven.

And now...take it down to thirty-two again.  Marking and all that extra stuff I just mentioned doesn't happen every week, after all.  Take it down to thirty-two, and regard the "extra" hours in the previous paragraph as floaters that could appear here and there, sometimes in twenty-minute and sometimes ten-hour consecutive stretches.  Now consider that marking often doesn't begin until after reading break, which generally happens about seven weeks in.  So let's assume there was no marking in the first six weeks of the term; it all happens in the last nine.  What's 207 divided by nine?  Why, I do believe that would be 23.

So for the first six weeks of term, the part-time sessional instructor works thirty-two hours per week, with occasional floating extra hours.

In the next seven weeks of term, the part-time sessional instructor works fifty-five hours per week, approximately (though obviously, the marking will not be spread out nice and evenly like this)...with occasional floating extra hours, natch.

In the last two weeks of term, the instructor should be back to an average of twenty-three hours per week.  BUT!  WAIT!

Exam marking takes the least time of any of the various types of marking.  That means that the concentration of marking hours taking place while classes are going on is higher than has been acknowledged.  This marking can be so intense that it spills out into exam-marking time.  I would do more math at this point, but I think I just broke my calculator.

How much money did I make for this "part-time" job?

About twenty thousand dollars...five thousand per class.

So yes, Virginia, sessional instructors do actually have real jobs.  If they are lazy, they can probably not keep up with their real jobs.  Again, this is not me complaining.  I took on the job because I was qualified, and I liked the material being taught, and, yeah, I needed the money for rent and food and so on.  But people who claim that sessionals don't work very hard are dreaming.  Don't knock it until you've tried it, General Public.  And do have a lovely new year.


Monday, January 4, 2010:  Oh, What Fun It Is to Freeze in a One-Room Highrise Slum

Dear Landlady:

Times are tough.  I understand that.  I know everyone is feeling the pinch as the economy crumbles, etc., etc.  Why, I'm not absolutely certain that I myself have a job this term.  I feel your pain.  I do.

That said, it is ten goddamn degrees below zero outside.  The windchill is -20C.  Could you turn on the bloody heat now, please?

I got my space heater out today for the first time since I moved into this building.  It worked for about twenty minutes.  Now it is industriously humming, but the coils have stopped emitting heat.  It is so...freaking...cold in here that the mere frigidity of the air has broken my space heater.  (I thought it might just be on the "off" part of an "off and on" cycle, but there has been no heat for an hour now.  Of course there hasn't.)

I don't know exactly how cold it is in here, but the way it hurts to move because the slightest motion will cause icy air to caress my skin reminds me of my days at Massey.  As I did then, I am now wearing several layers and considering typing in gloves.  I am huddled under my down comforter.  I am still cold.  I was actually warmer when I went for a walk in the howling wind this afternoon.  At least then I was moving around.

I'm sure, landlady, that you are wiser than my previous two landladies, who overheated this very building so much that I used to have to keep the windows open all winter.  However, I would like to note that heat rises, and I live on the sixteenth floor.  How cold is it down on the sixth floor?  What the hell are you doing to those poor people?  I'm glad you're saving a few pennies on heating, but there are not enough layers in the world to make this acceptable.

I hope you have a good year.  Seeing as I'm not even going to have an office to go to this term, I clearly won't.

Yours truly,
Kari.


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