improved. but certainly not new.

for anyone who missed me, i can now be found at my slightly more, but not always, professional blog

the past is prologue

my life is now public history, design, being a wife, cooking (not for my husband!) and vaccine clinics. please be advised ;)

119| in the margins.

i like talking about marginalization. mostly because i believe such a dialogue is healthy, and somewhat necessary to putting an end to marginalizing groups and individuals.

meg is talking about feminism and weddings today. it makes me ridiculously happy.

on the other hand, a local columnist in london {ontario} and i have been picking our battles this weekend over his ethnocentric column from a week ago. the column talks about his experience with a family of either "romanian or lebanese" origin, haggling with someone at a sears outlet store. hardly newsworthy. his assessment of the family as weird and his mocking of their experience was indeed very ethnocentric and hardly empathetic to the culture shock they likely experienced. anyway, it has resulted in a back and forth of comments from myself and from the blogger and a discussion about ethnocentricity and the marginalization of minorities in North American journalism. the discussion was interesting, even if i didn't change his opinion {it ended with "you're wrong, kate! you're wrong about canada and you're wrong about journalism-- i'm not sure if he realized that i'm a communications & canadian history major.}

| image yushimoto |

115| neglect.

yikes, it has been a very, very, very long time since i have written. it's a bit sad. but my life has bceome consumed by really and truly two things. which i love dearly, but are too much at once...

• the end of my work contract
• my term paper on david bowie/glam rock/ homosexuality

last night was a very late night, followed by an early morning. and i felt as though something was missing. i was looking through mouse's blog {currently occupied by the lovely amanda} and came across some eddie izzard, who might be my favourite comedian of all time. and it broke it. i have had this serious, i have to do everything right, and right away atmosphere hanging over me for the past week, and eddie broke it. thank god!

i had been neglecting laughter, and smiles, and beautiful things. pretty things. yes, eddie izzard is pretty.

i was searching through my bag for my lunch, and found to my shock and dismay, my engagement ring. i thought it had been on my bedside table all this week, but not that i think about it more, it was actually in my bag, from the gym, which i finally had with me again today {something else that i have been neglecting}.

i picked up the ring, held it, examined it, and promised it not to forget about it for a very, very long time {i'm at the point where i don't feel anymore naked with or without it...}

anyway, i'm back. i promise. at least for a little while.

image waleed

114|

“Success is never final. Failure is never fatal." 

i'm sitting in the library, where i should arguably be reading on rock and roll as a cultural practice. however, it's been a sort of a bitch of a day. but, only because i'm allowing it to be. the train was forty-five minutes late, i happened to try to do all my errands over lunch, forgetting that the rest of the world eats around then to, and it turns out my application for graduate scholarships failed. 

given that the application was a yes or no sort of deal, and that the scholarship was in the neighbourhood of 10K per year, it feels a bit epic on the fail scale. but, failure is an event. not a person. and i should arguably be celebrating the opportunity to create more debt for myself {debt, which will be paid off much sooner than most, because it will nonetheless be on the small side}. as unfortunate as it is.

i now return to my regularly schedule program of reading, wrting and editing in such a fierce way one would think that i were a monkey at a type-writer.

i promise, that this blog will become more wonderful in the coming weeks.

113| reminiscence, present

i have but one exam this term, my final exam, of undergraduate school. it's tomorrow {today} at nine a.m. go figure, one exam and it's a saturday morning.

the topic is easy. introduction to canadian studies. and the exam is only worth 35%, a fraction of a half-credit course. and i'm doing quite well in the other 65% of the course. it's not that i don't want to do well in the exam, because i do. but between my sizeable term paper on bowie, and the end of my government contract, i have had more on my plate than was manageable.

so, here i sit at three a.m., some six hours before my exam, contemplating the last four years of studying, and exploring. reminiscing before it's over. a girl i had courses with will leave for her first full-time job in the north tomorrow. and, i of course, am cramming for this exam. except not really.

because if university has taught me one thing, it that knowledge is power, but being quick off the draw in acting on that knowledge is possible more important. 

right now, however, all i can think is "man, when i lived in residence, i could get upten minutes before my exam and stroll into the room in pyjamas". but for the part where i never did that.

|image vermontferret |

105| cities, old.

i can't help but thinking that it's strange that ontario, canada has a paris. it's near toronto, and not very big, and not particularly parisian. but there it is {there's also one in texas, for you american folk}.

my friend's family is from waterloo, ontario...which used to be known as new berlin before the war. it hosts the largest oktoberfest outside of canada, which is something to brag about {if you're me.}

new york used to be new amsterdam. and at one point, america considered german as its official language. wie interessante waere die welt denn? {what an interesting world it would be}.

just something to consider in light of globalization, history, nomenclature.

102| walk on the wild side.

i was looking through glam rock music libraries tonight, as i so often do on sunday nights {actually, i'm presenting a working draft of my paper tomorrow}, and came across this character, mr. lou reed. did i know who he was? nope. why not? i'm not sure.

needless to say, i thought velvet underground sucked on principle about two years ago. and then juno came out last year. and then i fell in love. and only now do i realize that this guy is this cool.

on an unrelated note, i decided last night that leonard cohen sounds exactly like my uncle. exactly. bar none.

94| grateful, yet busy

i have five job interviews between thursday and monday. five! i'm not complaining. i really think this is the greatest thing that could happen to me right now: to have a job lined up before my contract is completed!

but, i also recognize that between now and tuesday, my life is going to be consumed with things that are important, but not necessarily what i want to be doing. that is, if what i want to be doing is blogging, cooking, colouring {things other than maps}, planning my trip to new york over sushi, drinking with my teammates, and doing any sort of exhaling.

what i will be doing is researching, writing, editing, writing, editing, researching, writing, editing. and polishing: my resume, my shoes, my hair.

exhale. and go.

92| levelling up.

i've done it all {almost}. i've blogged from work. i've blogged from my other job. i've blogged from the library. i've been caught tweeting in class. i also had my cellphone go off in class once, two years ago, and it resulted in the professor answering it and embarrassing andrew {who was on the other line} more than me.

now, i am blogging in class. except that lucky for me, class hasn't quite begun. however, this is precisely the reason why i do not bring my laptop to school, unless absolutely necessary. i imagine this will change when i start graduate school. {bonus mark: all graduate students at carleton drink evian. comment.}

anyway. dresses. i really want something whimsical, funny, flirty, feminine and all around pretty for summer. i have two weddings, convocation and a host of other great reasons to wear such a wonderful dress {reading under a tree, for example}. 

the hunt carries on.

91| best dress{ed}.

so, whilst i should be trying to figure out what viscount willingdon said when he inaugurated the carillon, i`m actually mildly more concerned what i will be wearing where i finally graduate from undergrad. and to my cousin`s wedding. and to a friend`s wedding. and hopefully for other fun events.

does anyone have any good leads on dresses? or halfway decent leads on good dresses?

75| ceci n'est pas un trend...

back in second-year communications, we were shown the work "the treachery of images" {la trahison des images, 1928/1929} painted by rene magritte. the work {a drawing of a painting of a pipe} is used to show that images are not actually things, but rather mere representations. wow, i suddenly feel like i got my money's worth in tuition.

"the treachery of images" has been reproduced in popular culture for several decades now, including the simpsons' "ceci n'est pas un couch gag" couch gag and in a handful of video games. but it's becoming more a recent trend...

i think my favourite representation of this can be found here, or here. partly because i'm not a big fan of ties, but at a wedding you have to have a tie. so, andrew might as well wear a non-tie tie.

71| maybe i could move to australia?

i slept in, really really late, making it near impossible for me to reasonably get in a half day at work, before leaving.

i left my {underfinished} assignment on my computer. the most up-to-date copy i have is from friday. which is before i made seven pages of edits and changes. word count on my computer: over 4000 words. word count on the copy in my inbox: 525. fuck.

i also have all these wonderful ideas and thoughts running around my head, which i would love to blog about, but sadly, that cannot be done. at least not right now.

oh, and doing the other five pages will be hard today, given that i have a meeting with my boss...karma. is. a circle.

67| march, like a lion.

this month is blustery, a lot like the winds in the city yesterday. i have two papers and a presentation, a handful of interviews, and a final project for work that needs to be done by the 4th of april.

life leaves little time for blogging. i merely hope this won't become few and far between.

54| i'd rather be.

tuesdays are the weird day in my weeks. i start the day with a class, "a history of sexuality". i can't really put a definite pronoun on it {the, for example} because lord knows, it's not the history of sexuality, but simply a collection of histories that have to do with sexuality. today was about rape. and genocide. and war. and lots and lots of icky things, that make me rather happy that i chose glam rock and homosexual outings as my finaly research topic.

from there, tuesdays are loosey goosey, but usually involve food, friends, research, and maybe the gym. tuesday evenings are one of only two in the weekdays {friday being the other}, where andrew + i are both home.

all of this said, my schedule today is hectic, and mixed up from what i thought it would be last night. i got a call from my fitness club yesterday saying my trainer was no longer with the club {conspiracies abound: i think she was probably fired, which is a bit sad, really}. so, that axed out my tuesday workout with her {as well as my thursday one...until my new trainer can get in touch with me, all formulated workouts are off. i am pissed.}

i got a call this morning, on the way to my class on rape + genocide from andrew saying that our landlord would be home this afternoon, and "what time are you planning on being home, because he needs you to change the date on your march cheque from 2008 to 2009". whoops. i feel bad, i really do. i'd also rather give him cash, really, so i know the money is there. and more than changing the date, i'd rather write him a new cheque. not that i'm anti-saving-paper-trees, because i'm in favour of our forests {note the title of this blog...ahem...and my job in forestry}. that said, i also really don't want to have to wait until he comes home to change the date, because it means that i'm spending another half hour or so at home which i really don't want to {also, if i were to go to the gym, it means that i would be getting there around the same time as everyone else thus making the change rooms a tight fit}.

all said, i'd rather be. i'd rather be baking healthy cookies or muffins {because lord knows that the linzer cookies, while delicious, are deadly}. i'd rather be napping. or colouring {but not maps}. i'd rather be dancing. i'd rather be laughing. i'd rather be looking at fabric for flowergirl dresses. there are many things i'd rather be, but rather unfortunately, i have to be an adult for the time being*

*i do have every intention of informing our lovely landlord that i will leave a cheque for him in his mailbox. then, i will proceed to the gym in an orderly fashion and ask to talk to my trainer. i will be rather assertive about all of this, i think. and it will be good for me. but that's not to say i wouldn't rather be colouring or napping, because i would.

|image heartoflight |

33| a most miniscule glimpse.

every morning, i get off the bus at bank and albert, grab an americano from my favourite coffee shop and schlepp my stuff three blocks to my office. about two blocks in, i was stopped by an rcmp officer, a mountie if you will.

and so it began, ottawa's circus maximus, the preparation for the arrival of american president obama. for the past three days, there has been an nbc van outside my office {which is across from parliament hill}, and the crowds this morning have been building around the building. i think about this in terms of a miniscule glimpse, both in terms of glimpsing at the president {not likely} and also a somewhat satirical glimpse into what a security state in canada would look like. the mountie stopped me and asked me what my business in the area was. i shook my head, told him i worked in the chambers building, and moved on. but by no means could i take this attempt and state control seriously, even as the officers were stopping every vehicle on the road, because vehicles are much more likely to harbour terrorists.

either way, i think {no matter how much i adore obama} that this visit will further a post-colonial {read: americanized} canadian identity, and will remind me why i really can't stand canadian media.

yes, we can {overdo it with media coverage of obama's visit}

credit hankins

18| the irony of a university education

carleton university has one of the best journalism programs in the country. they also have a mass communication program that ain't too shabby on its own feet.

however, it must be pretty rare that their mass communication department and their marketing team hang out. the university is running a series of bus advertisements posing the so-called big questions, including the following:

who owns the media?

and, they're asking this on an advertisement, on the side of a bus. i couldn't help but feel a little bit like the last four years of my education have been a bust.

15| shameless.

if there is one thing that i love about my program at school, it is the ability to take something completely wonderful, and turn it into a history lesson. i adore that my professors encourage this in us. what? you have an interest in comic books? why not study how comic books record history? oh, you like david bowie and the rolling stones? why not talk about the shamelessness of sexuality in popular music in the 1970s and 1980s?

why, i think i just might.

once i have finished my cultural studies midterm tonight, i can turn my focus to the lovely and amazing david bowie and all of his 1970s glam rock splendor. i could not be more excited to get to talk about mr. ziggy stardust himself for a whole 25-pages. even if it means i also have to talk a bit about the pet shop boys.

so, professor evans {because we are facebook friends, and we follow one another on twitter...so i do not doubt for a second you will one day come across my blog}, thank you for encouraging me to look to uncommon relics of sexuality for inspiration.

as much as i love cultural studies {with the exception of margaret atwood and northop frye}, i love bowie`s queen bitch even more.

| credit galaxyfm |

7| price, percival

one of the courses i am taking this term involves a practicum under the curator of the house of commons. i am working to try and determine whether the peace tower {the main tower of the parliament buildings} were ever inaugurated, or if they just got their name through informal practices.

one of the routes through my research has been by way of the office of the carillionneur, who rings the bells in the tower at lunch and on special occassions. percival price, the first carilloneur of the peace tower was quite an interesting man it appears, based upon this letter to the deputy minister of public works:

percival price, the carillonneur, a civil servant on the staff of your
department...sleeps in the tower every night in spit of our regulations and
has bottles of milk delivered at the rear door of the house of
commons.

price {or perhaps more his archive}, in addition to sleeping in his office, also seems to be a huge lead for me, having one of the few original invitations to the inauguration.

so, mr. percival price, i raise my glass of milk to you, whereever you are.

| credit parliament of canada |