Beyond the Horizon...

So after years and years and years of being a member, I have tentatively taken a step into The Great Beyond, and joined a Flickr group. Flickr Friday posts a new challenge every Friday, then you have all weekend to take a picture encapsulating that week's theme.

Last week's theme was "Beyond the Horizon". I took a picture on Friday but only added it (and myself!) to the group today.



This was my view, for one last day, from my office high above the Carleton campus (11th floor of Dunton Tower), looking across the Canal and the Experimental Farm, near the Hartwell Locks. On Monday, we moved back to the library. It's a nice, new space, following extensive renovations, but alas - only second floor, and no windows for me.

Can't promise that I will always participate in Flickr Friday, but it was fun this time around, and I look forward to seeing future themes.

How I missed the Ottawa Tulip Fest again

I started to write this post a few weeks ago, about the two back-to-back conferences that I went to in May. But then the entry started to get longer and longer, as I went through more and more of my conference notes. I have 10 pages of typed notes so far, and I'm not even on conference #2! So I'm not going to post any of that here, though if anyone is interested, I can send you my notes.

Then it occurred to me that, perhaps far more interesting than the conferences themselves, was the fact that, while I have lived in Ottawa almost 3 years now since returning from Japan (and for 2 years before that), I have managed to miss Tulip Fest almost every single spring of those three years. Or, rather, I have indulged in tulips elsewhere.

In May 2008, we were in Quebec City.


In May 2009, I was in Halifax.


In May 2010, I was in Hamilton (and also Windsor, but I didn't see any tulips there).*


Following this realization, I completely forgot (again) to finish this draft post. The pictures made it up on Flickr but this entry sat here, unfinished but not unloved. Until now.

So anyway, from May 8-12, I was in Windsor, Ontario, at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Librarians. It was, comme toujours,** a great conference. I didn't particularly like the venue (Caesar's casino in Windsor), and the city of Windsor was uber-depressing,*** but the sessions themselves were fantastic, and I came out with some good ideas and inspiration.


My boss Margo and I, doing a good job of pretending it wasn't wicked cold and windy.**** Click here for a few more pics of Windsor-Detroit.

I left CALL early on the last day to hightail it up to Hamilton, for the Workshop in Instruction in Library Use (WILU). This is an awkwardly named conference, but it was incredibly excellent. It's basically for librarians (and others) interested in information literacy, and I'm thinking I'd like to add it to my annual conference repertoire.

WILU finished at lunchtime on Friday. Afterwards, my colleague Andrée and I went to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, and then, since we were both headed to various corners of Toronto for the weekend, Andrée gave me a ride into town.


Hot! Lovely! Beautiful! ...The weather was sunny and pleasant, too, and the tulips were colourful. Click here for the full set.

And that, albeit in a less literary fashion than Mr. Dickens, is my Tale of Two Cities. And I'm going to post it before forgetting about it again. Will attempt to be more interesting next time. ...Well, there's always hope.


* For the record, if anyone cares, in May 2005, which was my first spring here, we were in Amsterdam, but after its tulip season. In May 2006, I think I may have caught a tulip or two between three (3!) visits to Toronto (mentioned here and here. In May 2007, we were in Japan with nary a tulip to be seen (they're in bloom in March and April).

** "Comme toujours" = all two times I have been.

*** We were originally going to go to Detroit to sit in a pub to watch a Detroit Red Wings game. The Wings got eliminated right before the conference began, however, so we didn't bother crossing the border, though it was right there, and I have trouble ignoring borders that are, like, right there. After hearing from a few people who did cross over to Detroit, I have decided it really wouldn't have been worth it. Although it looks pretty from across the river, with big shiny buildings, it's apparently as desolate and depressing as Windsor. Sorry Windsor-Detroit.

**** I'm not sure why, but Margo and I seem to be starting an annual tradition of travelling to cold places together.

Sweet Home Halifax

As I start gearing up for this year's CALL (Canadian Association of Law Libraries) conference,* my thoughts turn fondly to last year's CALL conference. Or rather, more precisely, the location of last year's conference, which was in Halifax.



As most of you know, while I wasn't born there, I grew up just outside Halifax, in a now-thriving suburb of Dartmouth (itself a suburb of Halifax, or rather, more accurately, now amalgamated into the Halifax-Dartmouth moniker) called Cole Harbour. Yes, that Cole Harbour.**

We moved there when I was about 2 1/2, and we left a few months before my 12th birthday, from 1979 to 1988. Consequently, I did all my grade school there. I have very fond memories of growing up at the edge of Cole Harbour (we were almost at the boundary line for Lawrencetown).

I returned to Halifax for my graduate studies, doing both my Law degree and my Master in Library and Information Studies*** at Dalhousie from 1999-2003. I was last in Halifax in May 2003 for my graduation ceremonies,**** so it was a real treat to be able to go back last spring, in May 2009.

I took lots of pictures, which you can view on my Flickr site here. You will also perhaps remember me blogging about the first half of the trip here, here, here, here and here. But if you were basing it on the photos alone, you would almost not know I was at a conference, since all the photos are very decidedly of the tourist variety. In a nutshell:

1) I wandered the waterfront and downtown.


2) I went on the Harbour Hopper.


3) I meandered through the Public Gardens.


4) I took the ferry to Dartmouth and visited ye ol' homestead in Cole Harbour.


5) I got chilled to the bone by wind and rain at Peggy's Cove.


6) I was further drenched by wind and rain in Mahone Bay.


7) I refused to let the wind and rain dampen my spirits at the enchanting village of Blue Rocks.


8) I cheered the slight lifting of the fog***** at Lunenberg.


What the photographic record fails to confirm, however, is that in addition to water and ships and fishing villages and quaint buildings, copious amounts of martinis were also consumed in the company of good friends. My bad - I will have to make sure that the next time I travel, I bring along my camera-which-photographs-friends.



* It's in just under 3 weeks. However, even more pressing, I am doing a short presentation at CALL this year, and my slides and presentation notes are due on Friday. This means I had better start them. Like, now. This year it is in Windsor, Ontario. I can't promise 150 photos, however.

** And no, I didn't know Crosby growing up. Not everyone out East knows everyone else out East. That, and he was a year old when we moved away from Cole Harbour. He wasn't playing hockey yet. A friend of mine whose ex-boyfriend used to coach peewee hockey out there did, however, see him play numerous times, and yes, the rumours are true - he really was as good back then as we all hear now.

*** None of this IM nonsense for me.

**** And my grandmother had just passed away the day before the ceremony, so I wasn't feeling entirely festive.

***** It's the freakin' Maritimes. We'll take whatever we can get to pass for "good" weather.

Halifax, Day Four

Went to two really excellent sessions today: The Technology of Law, and Best Practices: Training Our Users. The first was a presentation by a law professor who runs the website Jurist, and was about the need to teach law students (or other legal practitioners) not only how to be information-literate, but also how to use technology to its full potential in the practice of law. Very interesting, and I plan on learning more about what is happening in this field. It has inspired me! In the "Best Practices" session, we heard from 3 speakers on tips and ideas for training library users. The first spoke about telephone training, the second about social media and Facebook and library guides, and the third about teaching across the generational gaps. Some good ideas in that session.

I skipped out on the last session with the intention of going shopping. Ran into David M. from Dal Law Library, and he joined me on my brewery and art gallery tour, then we went for a drink and a bite on the waterfront. It was so nice out, we sat out on the patio overlooking the harbour. It was just lovely. Then I headed back to the hotel, with another quick store stop or two. Dropped my stuff off at the hotel, combed my hair, then headed back to the conference hotel via cab with Margo.

This evening was the closing banquet. I made a giant mess of a delicious lobster. Then we were entertained by Irish and Scottish dancing, and regaled by a band with an extensive repertoire of Irish songs and sea shanties. We were also taught how to play the spoons, though I don't think I'm very good. Robin N. and I left around 11:30. I dropped her off at her hotel, then came back here. Now I just want to sleep, but we have to check out tomorrow, so I should probably re-pack my things first. Tomorrow morning there are a few more conference festivities, and then I am moving myself and my things over to the Dalhousie residence hall for two nights.

I don't know if I will have access to the Internet at the Dal residence, so this might be my last entry for a few days, unless I hit an Internet cafe, a wireless hotspot, or, god forbid, a library.

Halifax, Day Three

I have less than 10 minutes before we head out of the hotel again. Thankfully, and as a direct consequence, this will be a short post.

Today dawned bright and sunny and mild. (It's still May in Halifax, so I hesitate to use the word "warm".) So I put on my sundress, my flats, a jean jacket and a big scarf, and headed out to the conference hotel with Margo around 8:00 a.m. They were serving free breakfast, so it was worth our while to get out so early.

Plenary session at 9:00. Topic was recent developments in Canada's immigration and refugee policy. Speakers were Markham MP Paul Calandra and Halifax immigration lawyer Lee Cohen. Session was interesting, though not overly informative. Calandra talked about all the great things the federal government is supposedly doing; Cohen told some heartfelt stories. I think I know too much about immigration and refugee issues, and so am a bit cynical. Sorry.

The next session I went to was on embedded librarianship. Basically, this is the idea that librarians don't need to be in the library, but are often more effective outside the library, working in their organization directly. The session was interesting, though not earth-shattering (for me, at least). Working at the Library of Parliament last year, I already was a kind of embedded librarian - I was nowhere near the actual library, and I worked alongside, with and for, the analysts in the legal division. The library, at the LOP, was more a concept or idea than an actual physical place, at least for those of us in the research divisions. Anyway, the only thing truly controversial about the session was a couple of comments the speaker made about how she didn't think library schools were taking in the right types of students. I don't think that is necessarily true, though to some degree, library schools are more interested in filling seats with bums than with brains. I think the problem is more that library schools, at least in the U.S. (where the speaker was from), do not always teach library students the wide range of skills that they will need to survive once out in the real world. Some library schools focus very closely on technical skills. Many U.S. schools do not teach management skills, or how-to-deal-with-people skills. That's the real problem, in my opinion.

Anyway, must move on.

Lunch was served in Pier 21, just behind the conference hotel. I sat with Robin N. from LOP, and Mark and Maggie, friends of mine from library school. We ate salad, chicken in a cream sauce with veggies, and a delightful custard pie of some sort for dessert. There was an awards ceremony, and thankfully all the speeches were short and sweet (a skill I must still learn, obviously). Then we were regaled by Bruce Nunn, a/k/a Mr. Nova Scotia Know-It-All. I used to listen to him on CBC Radio, and would sometimes see him on CBC News in Halifax. He was very entertaining.

Post-lunch sleepiness having kicked in, I went back to the conference hotel for a session on sharia and talmudic law. It was very informative and two areas of law I think we will need to acquire resources in over the next year or two as they become more popular.

Margo and I skipped out on the last session to come back to our hotel to unwind for a bit, but now we are heading back out for the first of two back-to-back receptions. Then I am headed to The Fireside again for post-reception food (might not be hungry for the salmon, however, depending on how much they feed us) and drinks (on the other hand, there is always room for more drinks).

Halifax, Day Two

So yesterday I never made it to Spring Garden Road, as I wandered along the waterfront, taking pictures, etc. Then back to the conference for a short reception. Met some pretty cool people, including a bunch who have similar jobs and concerns to mine. If only I weren't so busy conferencing, I could sit down and have a real pow-wow with some of these folk.

Was on my own for dinner. I decided to hit Rogue's Roost on Spring Garden*, which is a restaurant with a delightful microbrewery. I had a raspberry wheat ale and chicken fingers. Then I headed back to the hotel, around 9:30.

Earlier in the day, Margo had told me she was planning on going after dinner down to The Lower Deck, where Signal Hill was playing. I was thinking about heading out again to see if I could find her when she walked in the room. She hadn't been down yet, so we headed out together. Signal Hill was great! We didn't stay very late, though, as I had an early morning ahead.

This morning I woke up at 6:00 since I had a First-Timers' Breakfast at 7:30.** Actually made it almost on time. Then I went to a meeting of the academic law libraries. It was interesting to hear the updates from the other libraries, though we didn't have time to make it through all of them.

At 9:30 a few hours of meetings of various committees were scheduled. I could have gone to some of these, but on Saturday night I had convinced Margo that we should skip these and go on the Harbour Hopper instead. It was awesome! It was cold and gray, like your typical Halifax spring day, but we had a great time. It was just Margo and I, and two older ladies on a road trip from North Carolina. Normally they won't run the Hopper with less than 8 people, but they decided to take us out anyway. For those of you who might not know, the Harbour Hopper is an amphibious vehicle which was formally an American army vehicle used in the Vietnam War, now painted with giant frogs on the side and with nicely cushioned seats installed. The tour spends 30 minutes driving around town, and then 30 minutes in the water. Pictures to follow.

We then got back to the business of conferencing, showing up back there just in time for lunch. Then I went to a bunch of mini vendor demos which lasted all afternoon. We crashed back at our hotel for about an hour (by which time it was pouring rain, but hey, at least we weren't still on the Harbour Hopper) and then went to a reception which was being held at the famous Pier 21.

Pier 21 was very cool. We watched a multimedia presentation on the history of Pier 21, which was the first port of entry for many of Canada's immigrants who arrived between 1928 and the 1960s. There was also lots of yummy food. Food and museuming, always a nice combination.

Now I am headed off to bed. Tomorrow is a full day of conferencing, followed by - count 'em - two receptions, and then I plan to go to The Fireside (yes again) for more martinis and salmon.

* So I guess I did make it there after all.

** Note to future conference organizers: Scheduling the First-Timers' Breakfast for 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning is just MEAN.

Halifax, Day One*

Arrived in Halifax last night at 5:11. Margo, the director of the library where I work, was also on my flight though we did not sit together. The shuttle bus to Halifax was leaving at 5:25. Miraculously, both of our suitcases were among the first ten pieces of luggage to hit the baggage carousel, so we booted it to the shuttle bus and were on our way.

Upon check-in at the Delta Barrington, it turned out that Margo had been upgraded from a queen room (which would have two beds) to a king (I guess she forgot to tell them there were actually 2 people staying in the room). There was a queen with a pull-out available, but a bunch of hockey teams are also staying in town, and they were in that section of the hotel, and we were warned it would be loud. So we are sharing our giant bed until at least tomorrow, at which point we might switch rooms, though it doesn't really matter to me. I don't think I could even find Margo on that bed even if I wanted to! LOL

We went for dinner at The Fireside last night, which is hands-down my favourite restaurant anywhere. The Fireside alone is almost reason enough to move back to Halifax. We were joined by Sarah S., Andrea N., and David M., all of whom I went to library school with, way back when. I had my usual: pecan-encrusted salmon and MARTINIS (a melon ball and a black russian). Monday night is Martini Madness Night, so I may just have to return.

Back to the hotel by about 10:45, and managed to get the Internet working by plugging in the same cable I had tried plugging in earlier in the day. This time, for some odd reason, it worked. Yay me! Lights out by midnight.

This morning, I had a pre-conference session that I was attending on "Making and Presenting the Business Case". It was quite good. These are things that are not obvious to me - I have not yet had the pleasure\honour of having to cajole management into buying a certain product, or (heaven forbid) of having to justify my own job or my library's existence. But I have just recently embarked on a long-term project with a couple of the professors at the law school on developing some legal research materials, and I've been lucky enough to so far leave the please-give-us-money document-drafting to one of the other team members. However, it is a skill I should learn, so I found this session quite useful.

That finished at noon, and I wandered down to the waterfront just in time to be serenaded, along with many others, by a tall ship sailing slowly out of the harbour, with a band playing and all the sailors lined up and singing some songs very loudly. It was magical. I didn't have my camera on me! Boo. But I whipped out my cell phone and took a couple of bad pictures. Once I figure out how to transfer pictures to my computer (I don't have a cable, but I think I can maybe email them via phone - technology confuses me sometimes), I will post here. I believe the ship was Chilean.

Then I went to catch the end of the Farmer's Market, in the Brewery buildings. It ends at 1:00, so I just made it. I had almost no money left, unfortunately, so couldn't buy very much. I spent my last dollars on some Indian chicken curry and a samosa, plus some omiyage for my dog.

Ate my lunch in the hotel room. I have just made reservations for next Friday night to stay in a B&B in lovely Mahone Bay. I wanted to stay here, which was recommended to me by my friend Cheryl who stayed here a few months ago, but ironically they are not taking bookings for next weekend because the owners will be in Ottawa! So I am staying here.

Now I am headed out to do some shopping. First I must cross the road to Scotia Square and go book a vehicle for next Friday-Saturday. Then, since my hotel is attached to the Barrington Place Shops, that will be my next stop. Must go search out the doll house store that I loved so much as a child, except I think I did that once when I was living here during grad school and I think it might be gone now. Then across the street to the Urban Cottage, to find second-hand housewares that will fit in my suitcase. Then, if I have time, I'll wander down Spring Garden Road.

* Title not meant to imply that these entries will be daily undertakings, but I will do what I can.

YOU HAVE BEEN EATEN BY A GRUE

Email sent to me at work by Randal back in November, in response to a comment I'd made about being unable to answer the phone when he'd called earlier:


>> It’s Thursday afternoon and I am at the reference desk, 10 feet away from my phone, but a locked door separates us.

> Look desk.

>> The reference desk is bare, but for a posting of the library hours and some graffiti in white out.

> Look whiteout.

>> The white out graffiti says: "Greedo shot first."

> Look door.

>> The door is locked.

> Look lock.

>> You don't have a key.

> Look

>> You sure like to look a lot, don't you?

> Look floor.

>> Standard industrial carpet. You were expecting a trap door?

> Look phone.

>> Nothing fancy, though it does have a hands-free function.

>> YOU HAVE BEEN EATEN BY A GRUE.

Everything old is new again...

So I gave my 10 weeks' notice today at the library. Of course, as it was pointed out to me when I made the joke about 10 weeks, I'm working on contract and am not actually obligated to give any notice. But that wouldn't be proper, and since I know how slow the library can be at hiring people, I figured 10 weeks might be just about right to get someone in to replace me. Besides, I'd recently been told that my contract was being extended for another year, till September 2009, and I bet they'd wonder where I was when I didn't show up for work after August 29 (the end of my current contract).

But I digress. Where am I going, you ask?

Back to my old (pre-Japan) job: I have accepted a contract position[1] at the University of Ottawa, at the law library. It's basically the same job I had there before, providing reference services and teaching legal research classes, except now there's more classes to teach (used to be just the civil-law students, but now the library provides research courses for the common-law program, too). And, well, thanks to recent contract negotiations, it pays much better than it did the last time I was there. And I will no longer be a lowly Librarian 1, having merited (in someone's eyes) a Librarian 2 ranking. I've also been told that, were I to stay on at the university following the end of my contract[2], I'd likely be up-ranked to Librarian 3.[3] Currently the position runs till the end of September 2009, but I have been told that the chances of it being extended at least a few months more are very good.

I will miss the Library of Parliament - I really like my job there and I really like all of my colleagues. A lot. It's some of the most interesting work I have ever done, even more than when I was articling, and mostly because, while largely legal-based, it is incredibly varied and often challenging. But it will be so nice to be back at an academic library, and teaching! As annoying as the students can sometimes be[4], it's what I love to do.


[1] Oh, that someday I might have a position I can wholly and truly call my own...

[2] There are some potential possibilities, though nothing is guaranteed, of course.

[3] For those of you not "in the know" with librarian ranking (mostly academic, but other library folk likely have an idea what this entails), just take my word for it - Librarian 2 is good, but Librarian 3 is even better. That's supervisory/management level stuff, or pretty darn close.

[4] I'll begin with the more mundane example of the students who query why they need to learn how to properly note-up (get the history of) and cite (reference) a judicial decision since they'll *for sure* have a secretary who will do all this for them once they graduate (haven't they heard of articling? what about law firms without - gasp! - a librarian, let alone perhaps even a *library*!!!), and let your imagination take it from there.

have library, will travel*

Email sent to me yesterday afternoon by Randal:


maybe there should be a whole tout industry attached to libraries the way hostels and guest houses have.

Hey where you going? I have nice book. Good quality.

Uh, I'm looking for The Rights of Refugees, 3rd edition.

Oh, that book burned up.

What?

Big fire. Here. How about this?

That's a book on torts.

Yes, good book. Very nice, very niiice.


I laughed so hard, I almost choked on the grapes I was munching at the time. LMAO.

* I came thisclose to titling this post, à la Strasmark, "Conversations funnier to the people having them, an occasional series".

This is not my beautiful house; this is not my beautiful wife...

I got the most bizarre letter today, in response to a job as a librarian for an employer who shall remain unnamed, more than 7 months after I'd been interviewed.*

Dear Ms. Lavigne:

After a careful assessment of the information you have provided on your application for the above-mentioned appointment process, the persons responsible for assessment have concluded that you do not meet the following merit criteria identified for screening:

Knowledge of the principles, theories, techniques and practices of library and information science related to the delivery of research and reference services.

Consequently, you will not be considered further in this appointment process.


As you can undoubtedly imagine, this comes as quite a shock to me since, with the exception of my recent stint teaching English in Japan, I have spent the better part of the last 5 years (and more!)** labouring under the belief that I have been, in fact, delivering research and reference services to others. But apparently, I was wrong.

It turns out the library in question hired someone for the position months and months ago, and it was only recently discovered that HR had never sent letters advising the various candidates. I suspect there was a scramble, and somewhere along the way, the wrong box got ticked off next to my name, kind of like when the JET people marked me down in their database as re-contracting, instead of not. I'm not looking for sympathy - I didn't even really want the job in the first place - and in fact, I think it's the funniest thing to have happened to me yet all year!***


* Surely the mention of the extreme time-delay has given the employer away as government. And to be fair, the letter came from the Human Resources section of the particular department in question - I like to feel that the librarians at the library itself would have never branded me in that manner.

** I first started working in law library reference services in 2000, so you do the math.

*** That makes my life sound boring. Make it "this week".

Why I don't blog on a daily basis

6:56 a.m. : Wake up with a start, realizing I've hit the snooze button on my alarm at least four times already. Crap. No time for breakfast. Again.

7:04 a.m. : Take a shower. It's nice and hot.

7:32 a.m. : Decide that since I'm probably going to be late for work anyway, I can sit for an extra 3 minutes on the couch.

7:57 a.m. : Step out of the house only to see that it's very, very icy (it had been raining on and off since Sunday afternoon) and so I have to be very, very careful.

8:04 a.m. : Finally make it off my front walk and across the little parking lot to the park across the street. (This usually takes about 30 seconds, and is possibly the only interesting part of my day today.)

8:10 a.m. : Get to bus stop. Wait.

8:11 a.m. : Board bus. Take out book. Read.

8:37 a.m. : Get off bus.

8:39 a.m. : Realize it is Family Day and all 3 of the coffee shops in my building are closed. Damn. I'm dying for a muffin. Why, oh, why do I work for the federal government? C'mon, Mr. Harper, give us the day off!

8:41 a.m. : Get in to my office and turn on the computer.

8:42 a.m. : No new emails. Read the daily update of happenings on Parliament Hill. Turns out Jack Layton is giving a press conference on the Hill today where he will ask Mr. Harper to extend Family Day to all federal employees (ie., make it a federal statutory holiday). Or maybe he issued a press release; I don't remember. Anyway, I'm amused that Mr. Layton and I agree on something.

8:46 a.m. : No new emails.

8:51 a.m. : Since there are *still* no new emails, I decide I can't avoid the inevitable any longer, and start real work. My task: Find all the provisions of the criminal law statutes of Australia, South Africa, and Scotland which grant a sentencing judge a certain type of discretion. No problem.

9:12 a.m. : Argh. As I'd suspected in preliminary searches on the topic that I did on Friday afternoon, the situation is very complicated. For starters, criminal law is individually administered by each state and territory of Australia, meaning there are many different criminal law statutes, none of which specifically refer to what I am looking for, and, further, to add insult to injury, that many of these jurisdictions have additional non-criminal laws that create criminal offences. Everyone should just follow Canada's lead and have ONE Criminal Code for EVERYTHING.

9:32 a.m. : Double argh. South Africa has a similar hodgepodge of criminal law (although just at the federal level, but it's spread out over many different statutes).

9:37 a.m. : Triple argh. Scotland, in fact, has NO criminal code but just charges people with offences as outlined by hundreds of years of common law precedent. Excellent.

9:40 a.m. : Discover that, no, there IS a Scots criminal law, but it isn't yet in force (despite being passed in 1997), at least not in its entirety.

10:12 a.m. : I'm really tired, and it's time for a break anyway, so I shut my door, put my head down on my desk, and have a 10-minute nap. I've never done this before and it feels awesome.

10:27 a.m. : Go see one of the other librarians about the lack of criminal laws in other jurisdictions. She finds this amusing and, in the end, gives me a number of good suggestions about how to proceed. She also gives me some tea bags and a cup so that I can make myself a cuppa', which I desperately, desperately need. (I meant to bring a spare cup in this morning, but forgot.)

11:00 a.m. : Sipping tea and composing a preliminary email to the client regarding the criminal law problem.

11:27 a.m. : Finally a new email! One of the lawyers in my department would like me to search for the whyfores and whetherhows of a certain regulation. This means pouring through old debates in the hopes of Parliamentarians having mentioned a regulation (odds are slim to none).

12:21 p.m. : Finish drafting the preliminary email to the client regarding the criminal law problem, and go see the same librarian as above. We chat some more, bouncing off other ideas.

12:51 p.m. : I should go for lunch.

12:53 p.m. : But first, I pop into the office of the lawyer looking for regulations, and we further discuss what it is she needs.

1:15 p.m. : I finally get out for lunch. I have not brought something today, thinking I'd get a sandwich from one of the coffee shops downstairs. I hope Mr. Harper realizes that his lack of action on Family Day has caused me to go without a nice healthy sandwich!

1:23 p.m. : In a food court a block away, most of the eateries are closed. I get some pizza and a chocolate milk, and bring it back to my office. I also, in a move I will soon rue, pick up a small bag of white cheddar popcorn. Smartfood, it's called. How bad can it be?

1:35 p.m. : Play some Scrabulous on Facebook and read a few online articles. Check CBC's website for interesting news. Try to relax. It's lunchtime.

1:51 p.m. : This popcorn is kinda icky. I shoulda known.

2:15 p.m. : Back to work. I telephone someone else in the library to follow up on an email I sent last week to see about the status of an unreported case I'd requested (she would normally then contact the courthouse to get it). No answer. I call someone else in her department, who also sometimes does this. No answer, and her voicemail says she is off today. Then it hits me: Family Day strikes again. Oh well, the client's not going anywhere; it can wait till tomorrow.

2:23 p.m. : I have to stop munching this terrible popcorn.

2:30 p.m. : I call the client who is looking for the criminal law provisions, and explain to him the immensity of this task. I offer to send what I have uncovered so far. He agrees. Seems like a reasonable guy.

2:47 p.m. : Another lawyer has emailed me, asking if I can find articles on a certain subject. Sure, I tell her, but not today. I put her research off till Wednesday, which she says is fine.

2:51 p.m. : Remember that I was supposed to email another one of our lawyers about some journal articles he is looking for. I haven't had time to do this yet. I email him, and thankfully he replies to say tomorrow, or even the day after, is fine.

3:03 p.m. : Hmm, when am I going to have a chance to look for the justifications for that regulation? I tell the lawyer I'll look in Hansard (the debates) tomorrow morning (I have to go to another location to do this). Meanwhile, I look online for articles that may have already done the research for me.

3:47 p.m. : No one seems to care about this aspect of the law. No one has written about it. Argh.

4:04 p.m. : I go see the other librarian, one last time, to ask a few stupid questions.

4:17 p.m. : I'm asked to find an online report and, finally, for once, the gods are smiling down on me, as I find it right away. At last! Proof I am not completely incompetent and/or useless around here!

4:19 p.m. : A phone call! It's the client who I sent the lengthy list of criminal law statutes to earlier in the day. And, hurrah! Good news: He's explained the complexity of the question to his superiors and they have decided that he (read: I) only needs to find TWO examples of this particular clause from each jurisdiction, not every single occurrence. I tell him I can probably do that in the next few days.

4:30 p.m. : Time to go but I'm trying to finish some stuff up before heading out.

4:32 p.m. : Randal calls on my cell. He wants to know if I'm going to the gym. "No," I tell him. I'm stressed out from the day, and my belly is slightly off anyway. I'm going to go to the grocery store and pick up some milk, of which we are in desperate need, then go home.

4:35 p.m. : Decide that, rather than go to the Loblaws near my house and risk the ice and possible rain, I am going to go to the grocery store downtown, which is about a 10 minute walk from my office.

4:47 p.m. : Finally make it out of the office.

5:01 p.m. : Get to the grocery store. Closed for Family Day. Figures.

5:12 p.m. : Back to the bus stop near my workplace.

5:15 p.m. : Get on bus. Take one of the last seats at the back of the bus. Take out book. Read.

5:37 p.m. : As the bus nears my stop, I look out the window to see if the Loblaws is open. I can't tell, but there's no one parked in the lot. Fine, then, I'll just go to Zellers in the mall. (Can you tell where this is going?)

5:39 p.m. : Get off bus. Look towards Zellers. All the lights are off. Shake head in disbelief (yeah, yeah, I shoulda known), then call Randal, who is still at work, on my cell. Ask him to find a convenience store somewhere, anywhere, downtown, that is open, and buy some milk. (I need my Ovaltine before bed.)

5:57 p.m. : Home again. Dog is happy to see me. I put him outside, get changed, bring him back in, curl up on the couch and read a magazine for a bit.

6:38 p.m. : Randal arrives home, milk in hand, and announces his intention to go to the gym tonight. This we know is open, because I looked it up on the Internet this morning, and it specifically announced it would be open on Family Day.

7:35 p.m. : Randal leaves for the gym. I reheat some leftover Chinese food.

7:55 p.m. : Randal arrives back home. Huh? Turns out that while the gym is, indeed, open, the mall wasn't, and he didn't feel like walking all the way around the mall on the icy sidewalks just to go to the gym and then have to walk all the way around again (it's a big mall, and usually we cut right through).

8:20 p.m. : Start writing a blog entry about why I don't blog on a daily basis. It was originally planned to be a much, much shorter entry. But somewhere along the way, it turned into this.

8:57 p.m. : Start reading the blog entry back to Randal, who instantly wants to know why it sounds like I live alone. My reply: "Because it was 6:56 in the morning and you weren't up until I left to say goodbye." His reply: "Blah. I was busy at 6:56 being woken up by your alarm." And now you also know, my dear readers, why I don't blog about mine and Randal's conversations on a daily basis. LOL

Le weekend (et la vie) roundup

My mom came to visit this weekend. And true to form, just to prove to her, once and for all, that she was glad she no longer lives in Ottawa[1], she arrived in the middle of a snowstorm. Luckily, she was taking the train, and so was able to make her trip without worry or bother.

Friday night, she stayed over at my aunt's place, and then she and my aunt came over to our house on Saturday morning. Randal and I made a big brunch of mixed-berry muffins, orange and cranberry scones, turkey bacon, hash browns, and my world-famous scrambled eggs[2], and we sat and ate and talked and opened some very, very late Christmas presents. My aunt gave me some lovely flannel pyjamas, and the most incredible pop-up book featuring the seven books in Chronicles of Narnia - if I wasn't worried about copyright issues, I'd take some pictures of the pop-ups - amazing!

Eventually, my aunt left, and Randal went to the gym. Mom and I stayed home with Rion, and watched one of my favourite movies, Gross Pointe Blank. When Randal got home, he made dinner - salmon with garlic and white wine sauce, rice, broccoli, butternut squash, and spinach salad with cucumbers, walnuts, and pear-guava dressing.[3] Soooo good. Then we watched another movie, Hot Fuzz, which, if you've never seen, go see![4]

Sunday morning, we started over again, with more food. My aunt and uncle picked us all up, and we went to a nearby pub called Tartan's, which has a Sunday all-you-can-eat brunch. It was tasty-tasty. Then we headed back to our place for about an hour before my mom had to leave for her train back to T.O.

Other than that, not much interesting has happened. We finally painted our living room and dining room a few weeks ago. Despite it looking in the can like a yellowy-green somewhere between baby poo and baby puke, the colour is AWESOME. Golden-yellow during the day, darkening to an orangey-yellow like the inside of a pumpkin by afternoon, and a soft camel brown at night (but almost limey green in direct light). I love it, and will post pictures soon. Just waiting to put some pictures up on the wall, then I'm going to take a whole slew of photos of the place.

Work is good. The first two weeks were tough, as I was training, and not doing a heck of a lot each day. But I've been in my actual section for over a week now. The work is interesting, and I'm just busy enough to not be bored during the day. Soon, apparently, I will be quite busy - it's a busy section. As I explained before, basically I am working in a research division with a bunch of lawyer-analysts. Whenever an M.P. (sometimes other people, but the M.P.s are our main client group) has a question, about anything whatsoever, they contact the library. Those questions related to law or government mechanics are sent to my division. Some of the questions go to the analysts (if they want a short research paper written on a topic, for example), but the majority go to the four of us librarians. It can be as simple as "What laws deal with adolescents who've committed crimes?" or "Can you find me such-and-such a case?", to much more complicated issues, like "What is history of food regulation in the European Union?" or "What did Trudeau and/or Pearson have in mind when they implemented the bilingual policy in the federal government?" Anyway, the work is interesting, and it will be good to sharpen my legal research skills. But I miss the daily interaction with people (most of our questions come via email, and I only rarely have to talk to someone on the phone, let alone in person!), not to mention my students.

Living in Orléans is great. We love our place. It's so nice to have so much space, and the dog is really happy. It takes about a half hour to get in to work in the morning, plus about 10-15 minutes walking time (10 to the bus station, 5 to my office). If I leave at 7:50 (which I've never managed yet, but there's always hope), I can get to work by about 8:30.[5] I usually read and/or listen to music. In just over 3 weeks, I have already finished two books![6]

Anyway, that's it for now. See you again in about 3 weeks.[7]


[1] She grew up in Ottawa.

[2] They really are the best scrambled eggs you'll likely ever have, if I do say so myself. I add a bit of milk and lots of cheese (cheddar and gruyère, this time), and make sure not to cook them too long. Anyone who comes to visit us (on a weekend) is welcome to a helping. Now come visit!

[3] Yes, we like food. And yes, if you come visit us (on a weekend), you can have some good food too!

[4] My friend Mark has a short, but pithy, review of it here.

[5] Those of you who know me well, know that I am not a morning person. However, I actually chose that start time. Right now I work till 4:30, and it's great leaving so early in the afternoon. After April 1, it will be 5:00, but it's really not so bad.

[6] Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland, and I'm almost done The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler.

[7] Just kidding.

I'm no longer an unemployed bum!

Yes, the rumours are true. I have a job. And not only do I have a job, but I have a job that starts on Monday. (I was given a tentative job offer just before Christmas, but didn't get the actual paperwork with the offer in writing until earlier this week. So it's not a complete surprise. To me, at least.)

I am going to be a reference librarian with the Library of Parliament, Law & Government Division. This is actually the second time I have applied for this job (and, incidentally, the second time I've been offered it, but I had to turn it down the last time around). It's only an 8-month contract (filling in for a librarian who's been seconded to another government department), but I've been advised that, due to various reasons, there is a good chance of another position being available for me, either in the Law & Government Division, or elsewhere in the LOP.

Don't know exactly what the job will entail yet. The Law & Government Division has about 25 or so people in it, four of whom are librarians. (Although there's only three of us right now - long story.) It's a research division providing support to Members of Parliament on questions specifically related to law and government. Some of the other members of the division are lawyers, but not all of them.

I've only ever worked as a librarian in an academic setting, so this will be quite different for me, I think. I suspect I'm going to miss the one-on-one reference sessions with students (not to mention teaching, which I miss already!), but there will surely be many challenges for me to tackle and new things for me to learn, and I doubt it will be nothing less than quite interesting.

But please, hold back your congrats on my going to work at the most beautiful library in all of Canada. Those of you not interested in libraries may not know that the Library of Parliament underwent a massive renovation a few years ago. It's the only part of the original Parliament buildings left standing, built between 1860 and 1876. In 1916, a devastating fire burned the Parliament buildings down to the ground, with the exception of the library, which was saved, at least in part, by the heavy, closed iron doors that stood between it and the fire-gutted Centre Block. Anyway, the library is gorgeous, like something out of a movie set:



However. I won't be working there. (I wish!) No, my division of LOP is off-site (as much of its divisions are), in a nondescript building near O'Connor and Queen, a good five or six blocks away. My workplace will likely look more like this:



Do you suppose I could negotiate to have Ron Livingston visit me once in a while? He can even have my stapler.

A resolution or two...

So seeing as how it's the New Year, a good time to take stock of one's life, I thought about whether or not it was worth my while to make any resolutions. Is there any point in trying to improve perfection, I ask you?

But what could I possibly resolve? I couldn't resolve with a straight face that I'd start going to the gym, since I already am going to the gym, having taken out a membership at my local Goodlife back in early November. And I've been pretty good about going since then, with the exception of the past few weeks which were largely spent traveling here, there, and everywhere.[1] I in fact like going to the gym and I will go again. Tomorrow.[2]

Other ideas that crossed my mind were: travel to an exotic land, learn a new language, search out old friends now lost. But you know what? 2007 was a good year. I traveled to Japan and a myriad of other exotic Asian countries, I at least pretended that I was learning Japanese (that one could perhaps use a new resolution), and I reconnected with a bunch of folk from high school and elsewhere thanks to the wonders of Crack -er, Facebook. On a related note, I might take a trip to Quebec City later this year - that's pretty exotic.[3]

Some people resolve to get a better job. Well, seeing as how I've been unemployed for over 5 months now, I figure almost any job is a better job, if of course you subscribe to the silly notion that sitting around at home playing with the dog all day is not a job.[4] At any rate, I already belong to the best profession in the world, and couldn't ask for a whole lot more.[5]

I entertained the idea that I might give up, once and for all, procrastination. But, you see, I've worked it to somewhat the level of an art, and would feel bad giving it up now. Maybe next year.[6]

What else? I already cut my hair short (what? I didn't mention that?), learned to knit, take the dog for daily walks, read as many books and watch as many old(er) movies and play as many boardgames as I possibly can, and am in the process of memorizing all the words to all the ABBA songs ever recorded[7].

I decided, then, to make two simple resolutions:

1. I will drink lots of water, somewhere near the recommended 8 glasses if possible.
A weird resolution, I know, but something that is recommended time and time again by doctors and nutritionists and healthy people. I did it for a while a few years back and I felt great. But all too often, I spend my days nearly dehydrated. So look out toilet! I'm going to visit more often.[8]

2. I will learn to cook.
Of course, I know how to cook. I even enjoy cooking once I get down to it. However, my repertoire is rather, shall we say, limited. I have 7 different variations of pan-fried chicken[9], I can make mashed potatoes and rice[10], I am locally acknowledged as the maker of delicious hot dogs, and I did fry up two hamburgers the other night, but really, there's a wider world of food and cooking out there that I want to discover. I've had some really good cookbooks on my bookshelf the last few years, and I plan on using them. But I'm slow as molasses about getting anything ready, and I don't try new things. Maybe I will occasionally share some of the cooking successes (and/or disasters, since it's possible there may be more of those) on this site.

And on that note, since Randal had his first day back at work today, I'm going to look into making some dinner. I think I might try a soy-simmered chicken, though I note I have neither star anise or cinnamon sticks- Do people really keep those kinds of things in their kitchen on a regular basis? *sigh* I have so much to learn.



[1] Also known as Toronto three times and Winnipeg once.

[2] Or maybe the day after. I mean, today's almost over, which means tomorrow is almost here, which means I need tomorrow to do the things I was supposed to do today.

[3] There's been rumblings of a 15-year high school reunion back at QHS. 15 years? Yikes. I'm sure I'm not old enough to be attending that.

[4] 'Course, I don't get paid for it. I should really try to negotiate that.

[5] Someone actually pays me to sit around with books all day long, research interesting topics, help people find what they are looking for, and even teach. Well, when I'm actually employed, that is.

[6] It also occurred to me that such a resolution might entail the inclusion of timely updates of my blog and my photos on Flickr. I just can't espouse the adoption of a resolution that I am inevitably going to break, and in record time, too! But you know what? I'll try to be better.

[7] OK, that's not true. I in fact am fiercely proud of being, perhaps, the worst person in the world for singing along to songs for which I have absolutely no idea what any of the words are: "It had to be you, it had to be you, dee dee blah blah blah, something something blah blah, no matter whooooo..."

[8] On that note, don't ask me how much water I've had today.

[9] With soy sauce, with mustard (preferably dijon), with honey and cayenne pepper (my favourite), with Thai chili sauce, with beer (I love cooking anything in beer, actually, since you then have the "excuse" to drink the rest of the bottle), with hoisin sauce, and with apple slices and white wine (OK, I've never done that one - I needed to come up with a seventh - but it sounds kinda good, no?).

[10] Not together! Those are two separate entities. I haven't mastered the art of noodles yet; they scare me.

Random thoughts

So Randal said it best. I advise you go read his post first; I'm going to make some random comments about life and living in Japan, and our decision to not recontract.* He covers the general reasons very well. I'm going to talk more about teaching, and also a bit about Japan.

I haven't blogged a lot about how I like living in Japan, for the simple reason that, well, I don't think I really do. I like Japan. Gifu is even okay some days. I like teaching. My school is fine. There are a number of gems among my students, and every now and then, something happens that makes me feel GREAT about teaching there.

For example, last week I found out that two of the 3rd year students who have been coming to see me for the past month or so for a bit of extra help with translation work and conversational practice (I don't teach 3rd years at all, so this was nice) in anticipation of university entrance exams, BOTH got accepted into the Tokyo University of Foreign Languages (one to study Portuguese and the other, Polish), which is apparently a very difficult university to get into. That was nice.

The reason I usually give to other JETs when they ask me why I chose to not recontract is that my job is unfulfilling. (I didn't tell my school this, as I don't think they would have understood; a bit of a selfish Western concept. I simply told them that I wasn't in a position to commit to what was, in effect, another 18 months in Japan. That is also true.)

I like teaching. I have been lucky enough to do some teaching twice in the past - at Dalhousie, when I was assistant teacher for an undergraduate course in communications, and, of course, last year, when I taught a first-year law school course in legal research methods. Also, when Randal and I took a short certificate course in TESL methods in Jan 2006, I ate it up.

However, I just don't enjoy teaching in Japan as a JET. Though I am luckier than some others, in that I am pretty much given free reign with my lesson planning, teaching what I wish and what I think is important, most of the time I feel like I am more The Resident Gaijin - amusing, but a sideshow to the real work of learning and teaching English.

English is a mandatory course at all junior and high schools in Japan, for all grades, but there's a major disconnect between what the Ministry of Education says and what actually gets implemented at school level. Reading and writing are taken very seriously, in a let's-learn-English-the-way-they-used-to-learn-Latin kind of way. But speaking! Let's leave that to Julie. Oh, and let's make her class worth NO MARKS so the students know it's as important as dirt. I'm at a high school which is quite academic - we're the second-ranked school in the prefecture, and most of our students go on to university. However, being smart doesn't mean these kids WANT to learn English.

I come from a bilingual country. Most provinces allow you, at some point, to stop learning French if you should so choose. (Quebec is an exception, for understandable reasons, and you must take French every year; but note that students at French schools must also learn English every year until graduation.) The onus is then upon YOU to decide whether or not you want to become fully bilingual; that is, whether or not the second language (in some cases, of course, it is a third or fourth language) will be useful to you in the future. I think this is smart, and I think Japan could learn a lesson or two from this.

Part of the problem, I think, is that, in Japan, the group is more important than the individual. Always. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, is a well-known expression. In education, this translates to everyone learning the same thing at the same pace. Of course, they are streamed and re-streamed at various levels (the JHS students write tests to get accepted into various HS, depending on their academic level and career goals; students at my school can focus on science\math courses, or just take a general curriculum), but accepted to a school or university, everyone is pushed through at the same rate. It's really perplexing, and it doesn't work.

It also drives me batty a lot of the time.

Other than work, Japan is okay. There are many days where I wish I could go into a store and NOT have the store clerk say, "Irrashaimase" ("Welcome, thanks for shopping") and then blush furiously and avoid my gaze when he/she realizes I am not Japanese (and break into a sweat if, god forbid, I have to ask a question, which I only ever do if I'm fairly certain I will understand the response). Also, and don't tell my school I said this, but I don't really like a lot of Japanese food. I didn't think I was a picky eater. But they do weird things to vegetables, and are fond of weird cuts of meat. Ebi (shrimp) is virtually impossible to avoid (I'm getting almost fond of it...almost), and eating ika (squid) and tako (octopus) are, unfortunately, national pastimes. Mostly, however, it's the vegetables. No more tsukemono! Not every vegetable is improved by being pickled. Ugh.**

Anyway, I wanted to keep this short and I did not.

Before everyone freaks out and thinks I am miserable here, I am not. I find small moments, small tasks that give me some satisfaction. I plan on enjoying my last 5 months here. I want to do a good chunk of traveling, both in Japan and elsewhere. There are a number of things I still want to see and do. But could I do this for another 18 months? NO.

In other words, I'm looking forward to coming home, but I'm glad I'm not leaving next week. I think that's key.


So what's next?

When we return to Canada (we don't know which city yet), I want to go back into a library, and hopefully one where I can do teaching/training (not necessarily an academic or law library). I've even toyed with the thought of - gasp! - working in a public library for a bit, just to get the experience.*** Or maybe not. Anyway, I'm lucky, since, unlike many other JETs I know, I'm already highly employable in a profession I truly like. I would be interested, however, in teaching part-time at a private English school once I return home, if at all possible. I really do like TESL teaching. I'm also interested in maybe, maybe, maybe, at some point (in a year or two), doing some further studies in the educational field (like a Master of Curriculum Studies or something). Just ideas. I am also lucky in that, with my library training, I am qualified to work anywhere in the world, and I hope to someday be able to take advantage of that fact. If you hadn't noticed, I like to travel.


I am now going to amuse myself (and hopefully you) by posting some random pictures to Flickr.


* Or not-so-random. If your name is Mark Reynolds, please don't blow my cover by pointing out that many of the thoughts I have set down here are stolen almost word-for-word from an email I sent you back in January.

** Also, Canada has better sushi. Yup, I'm definitely a 3 on Randal's Re-contracting Regret Scale.

*** Public libraries scare the frick out of me. I'm not sure why. It seems to me that you'd need to be smart and quick-thinking as all hell to survive as a reference librarian in one, however.

Is there a "stop" button on this thing?

I'm having a frustrating evening. I left the junior high where I am teaching this week a little early (ha! it was 4:00 - that's not really early) to go to my usual high school to talk to a few of the teachers about lesson plans for next week. When I got there, it turned out they were all in a staff meeting till at least 5:00. I thought staff meetings were usually the first Monday of the month. Apparently not. So I left.

I bicycled over to the grocery store at the nearby mall, which is farther away from home than my usual grocery store but tends to have a better selection, because I wanted to get some sushi or (preferably) chirashi for dinner. They didn't have any nice trays. I ended up picking up some fried chicken and rice.

On my way home, I took some side streets to explore, and I discovered a small grocery store that is about two blocks from my house, rather than the one about 10-15 minutes away, where I usually go. Didn't go in, so I can't swear to its quality, but I saw a nice selection of fruits and veggies through the front door. I'll never be able to find it again - Japan is like that. I bet they sell sushi there too.

Got home and tried to upload the blog entry I wrote at school today (what can I say? JHS is not very busy; I'm only there for one week so it's not like I can plan ahead). Blogger goes through all the motions of letting me add pictures, then ultimately fails to upload them. I spent almost an hour fighting with Blogger over this. Shelve my blog entry for another day.

Remembered that the other reason I'd decided to go to the mall was to buy some pins to stick in my world-map that I have up on the wall (I'm marking all the places I've been, and I ran out of pins - that either means I've been lots of places or I don't own enough pins; not sure which). Maybe tomorrow I'll go back to the mall.

The fried chicken and rice was mediocre and forgettable. I can get better (and healthier) food at the convenience store next door.

I'm doing some research for a lawyer back in Canada, and I'm sort of on a deadline (she never actually gives me a date, but I assume she wants this soon), and I can't find anything useful. She told me to spend an hour to see what information I could find on the topic (IP-related stuff); I have spent almost two so far, not wishing to declare defeat. It is not a tricky topic; the world is obviously just against me today.

I tried calling Randal a few times in order to complain about the state of my life over here (lucky him), but there's no answer at his place.*

To console myself, I made a bowl of microwave popcorn but less than half the bag ended up popping even though I set it for five minutes. (My microwave here takes twice as long to do anything as it would do at home.) I remain, unsatisfied. I may have to make another bag (they're much smaller than the ones at home), and then I will have to bicycle back to the mall tomorrow to get more.

Tried Blogger again. No luck.

Stared at my world map for a while, trying to figure out how France (where my good friend Mark now lives) could possibly be only 7 hours behind Japan while Toronto is 13. Isn't it later in China right now than it is in Japan, and thus later in Afghanistan than in China, and so on through the Middle East to the Mediterranean and Greece and so on? Which makes France ahead of Japan by logical (to me) extension, but then Canada would also be ahead - it's like horrid Grade 13 math conundrums all over again. I just can't wrap my head around it.

I should have quit while I was ahead.**

* In his defence, he has to get all his marks in for his class by tomorrow, and he apparently got two hours' sleep last night as a result of sitting up late trying to finish the marking, so he's probably asleep ...

** Sometime around 7:10 this morning, right before I got out of bed.

Almost as good as Hitchcock...

In further Close Encounters of the Winged Kind, today at lunch I met up with my friend Jennifer on the spur of the mo', and we got hotdogs from the guy who sells them on the edge of campus along Laurier. We sat on the steps of one of the university buildings while savouring our street meat. And were promptly joined by a number of birds, mostly sparrows again, who wanted to partake in the feast. Of particular note was one plucky little fellow who plunked himself down on the ground no more than a foot away from me. He kept a keen eye on my hotdog for a few moments. He then proceeded to engage in the most extreme display of chest-puffing out his chest and causing his feathers to ruffle all around him. If it is possible to be horrified and amused all at the same time, then I was. Jennifer remarked that he was probably used to people oohing and ahhing over his cuteness and then having people feed him bits of hotdog. But let me tell you, that hotdog went entirely into my gullet and no one else's.

I spent a chunk of the rest of the afternoon talking and giving computer technical advice to Josephine, a friend of mine from the law school here who I also know from Dalhousie, and then searching for a missing issue of the Supreme Court Law Review. (I found it.)

Tonight's agenda:
Get rid of nasty headache plaguing me since 3:30 - DONE
Laundry (one load only) - ALMOST DONE
Take Rion for a walk - DONE
Wings with Cheryl & Glenn at St. Louis' - 7:10 (SOON! YIPES!)

And my friend Simon, who I went out with last night, couldn't understand why I have virtually no spare time between now and July 29...

Kids say the darnedest things...

One of my students was at the library today and she popped in to my office to say hello, so I told her I wouldn't be back next year as I was going to Japan to teach English. After expressing surprise and disbelief that I'd actually want to do this despite all the fancy degrees I hold,* she wished me luck and said she hoped I would meet some fabulous Japanese businessman who would whisk me off my feet. Upon hearing that my boyfriend, who is accompanying me overseas, might have an issue or two about that scenario, she blurted out:

"You're bringing a sandwich to the restaurant???"

Mmmm, tasty :)


* This is the same student who, upon realizing I was an actual lawyer who'd been called to the Ontario Bar, once exclaimed, "Then why the hell do you work here at the library?!?!" But she also believes that once she graduates, she won't ever have to do legal research...HA!

Monday, Monday

Since this is my last week of work at the university, I've decided to share snippets of each of my day. Not necessarily my workday - it's really not always that interesting (at least to non-librarians) - but just my day generally.

Walking to work was nearly beheaded by a low-flying pigeon grasping a sharp pointy stick. Randal says I am paranoid (I don't like birds, little flying demons with razorsharp, needlelike beaks and claws) but this pigeon did come very close. He had this grim, determined look in his eyes, like he was thinking, "Must. Get. Stick. Home. Before. It's. Too. Late." (He swooped down from one building on campus, crossed the street, and then flew up to a perch on another one.) After collecting my shattered sense of bird-safety off the ground, I couldn't help laughing. The pigeon made me think of Rion when he's got a sock, or some other such contraband, in his mouth and he's determined to hang on to it against all odds. In the way that Rion perceives the whole world to be against his possession of socks, so too did the pigeon clearly indicate its determination that, no matter how much I might disapprove, he was NOT going to let anything come between him and his stick.

Not that I was going to get in his way, of course. Not in a million years.


Remember the Goodfeathers in the Animaniacs cartoon show? Now those were birds I dug.