the essence of flavour

This weekend was bitterly cold, -30 to -35 celsius was common (with windchill). Saturday night was about -30 but there were still a good three or four keg parties going on. My russian buddies phoned me at 5am Sunday morning to come out to their wine and brandy party (they had just arrived back from Toronto by car and, evidently, desired to get wasted).

I’ve been dutifully figuring out my housing options. Dominic has determined that he must stay in campus residence in order for his father’s employer to pay for his housing expenses, and I am determined to live off campus. I have had to adapt my plans as a result. Finding a good place was easy, finding roommates is harder. It would seem that most people I know and enjoy live in town with family – strange. That being said, I’ve found some buddies on my floor who are good fellows and willing to go in on a place. The only problem is that I will be staying there for eight months straight, while they will be staying 4 months, working 4 months (possibly elsewhere), and then staying another 4 months after. Just need to find a place that deals with each person rather than the entire unit… don’t think it should be a problem.

Why are so many of my course readings inherently flawed in their reasons for existing? What use is this fact-spewing parrotesque ideal we are told to strive for?

Perhaps I just came into my program with a lot more prior knowledge than others. Canadian demographics, while useful background for my field, are certainly nothing new to me. I don’t give myself proper credit for the knowledge I have. Why is that?

Don’t you tell me how I feel.

I will be returning to Vancouver during my reading week. Expect me in town Feb 19-27. I intend to spend the majority of my trip (ha) taking photographs, exploring, and getting in some skiing.

Oh my beautiful liar
Oh my precious whore

I have been feeling very happy lately for no particular reason… I’m not sure exactly why that is. Worrying is not the loss of control, but the inability to pinpoint a source. I fear that it is solely because I have been spending time with a girl that is absolutely gorgeous and angelic. Why is it that even a friendly presence can affect so? It paralyzes.

Damn the torpedoes.

I am now picking this up again after leaving it for several hours… just finished a few phone conversations.

It occured to me the the other day while watching old Public Service Announcement type propaganda films from the 50s and 60s that society has morphed. Then it was the means of production and how to increase them so that we could have more people buying more things for our economy and gospel to get bigger and bigger and spread farther and farther. We were unstoppable.

Then I realized that for my entire life, humanity has been different. From the day I was born it has been environmental doom, economic gloom, castings and shadings of the end that awaits us as we tragically and stubbornly steam to our conclusion. First save the pandas, then the whales, then the ozone layer and then finally the precarious balance of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. What sort of psychological impact does this have on a generation? We have never known the orgasm of production, the welcome glut, the infantile pleasure derived from having too much, from satisfaction derived from the wasting of what we know to be insufferably beyond our control despite every attempt to assert otherwise.

What of this?

Their exuberance our regression.