Bronwyn Rideout

I have a love-hate relationship with photography. When it comes to my life between the periods of birth to kindergarten, I know that I have always been chubby and my hair is impossible to manage consistently. Photos are like that. Any moment you think there is a possibility to become someone else, to throw away self-fulfilling prophecies, you are reminded that your core being was capture for posterity.

 

I guess I feel that photography provides a more brutal snapshot of how we actually look to the world. Certainly, a picture is only a fleeting millisecond in time but it is nevertheless a moment that did happen. That stupid look on your face did exist and will exist again.

 

 Mirrors, on the other hand, are complacent to our egos. Willing accomplices to the lies we want to tell ourselves, giving weight to our empty reassurances that, yes, that yellow eye shadow looks awesome on you. That, absolutely, you have an amazing smile.

 

Mirrors are the theory. We study, and we do study and rehearse our expressions and personas to the point of pain. Photography however is the proof that as long as we are lifelong students, there are pop quizzes that we perpetually fail. Especially when we don’t know that we are being tested.

 

The least we can do is to make the most of ever test we face. You don’t necessarily need to smile to pass or even look your best. Tests are like that. Sometimes you can pass an exam with a stomach full of vinegar, your rattiest PJS, and your head at the emptiest that it has ever been.  

I'm taking a second BYE for idol. I just received my VISA on tuesday and have been running ragged over the past week trying to tie up loose ends. Work has been hectic and exhausting to the point that I cannot even drag myself to post that I want to use my BYE. So Thanks and apologies to the contest master Gary for doing what he does.

I'm finishing my canvassing work on Wednesday night and on friday morning heading back to the Ottawa Valley to stay with my mother for a couple of weeks before returning to NZ on November 25. Yeah, things are going down quickly.

However, that also means lots of downtime for writing. I'm committing myself to actually trying out Nanowrimo. Every other year I have been bogged down with essays, exams, and or a thesis.

( Every day, I'm paid to introduce myself. )

I'm doing LJ Idol for the second time.
ommunity.livejournal.com/therealljidol/256751.html

NIN are playing AUCKLAND in FEB.

I'm sooooooooo going.

  <!--Start Dewey Decimal Quiz Results-->
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                <span style="font-size:90%">Bronwyn Rideout's Dewey Decimal Section: </span><br>
                <span style="font-size:120%"> 674 Lumber processing, wood products & cork </span><br>
                <span style="font-size:80%">Bronwyn Rideout = 28543548945510 = 285+435+489+455+10 = 1674</span><br>
                <br><b>Class:</b><br> 600 Technology<br><br>
                <b>Contains:</b><br> Health, agriculture, management, public relations, buildings.
                <br><br>
                <b>What it says about you:</b><br> You are creative and inspired to make the world a better place.  You can work hard on something when it catches your interest.  Your friends have unique interests in common with you.
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            <a href="http://www.spacefem.com/quizzes/dewey" style="color: #e0e0e0">Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com</a>
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Still alive.
Just submitted the big draft of the thesis for my supervisors to read. It is sans conclusion and the translation/commentary I did months ago needs a bit more polishing, more pictures, etc. At the moment, it is 182 pages long. (Here is food for thought: I printed four copies at the university yesterday. One each for my two supervisors, myself, and my bf Sam who offered to proof-read it for me). It is a beast. I am going to bind-up my own copy today so I don't have yet more loose pages flying around my room. I think a large portion of the amazon was destroyed this year just for my thesis drafts. When all is said in done, I have to print up two more copies, soft-bound, for the internal and external examiners and when that it done, another couple of copies for hard binding and permanent collection in the library and the department. However, I think I will get a hardbound copy for myself and I know Mom would likely want one too.

I will say one thing about the process. For all my bitching and complaining about LaTeX, it really does make one's life easier in the proofreading stages. AUtomatic creation of table of contents and consistent font size and positioning for all chapters, sections, etc? YES, PLEASE.

In other news, Mom is planning to visit in early January. Should be fun. I am going to bum around today to try to get some information about cruises to Australia/Tazmania for her and its likely that I will be tagging along.

Sick as but I am hoping to revitalize my workout regimen in full gear in the next couple of days. Really, my thesis is essentially done and I won't be getting anything back from my supervisors for a week at the earliest. I just need something to do other than editing and watching movies on the loaner laptop.

The loaner, by the way, is awesome. I like its compactness and it is a tablet too. I haven't played with the tablet bit yet but if it works out, I might look into buying one if I get into a PhD program.

I am neck to neck for the bottom two, so I'm asking you to vote for me in the run-offs before I get eliminated. :therealljidol.livejournal.com
Thanks

Voting time again for LJ Idol - http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/185799.html

Thank-you!

For all my bitching and complaining, I've never been more in love or happy in my life than when I arrived in New Zealand.

The deal was sealed when I walked off of the plane in Auckland and again in Christchurch. It was Valentine's Day 2007 and I only know this because the flight attendants were giving single roses to passengers who were travelling as a couple - after 18 hours+ of flying, one needs all the date cues one can get and my sense of seasons was about to be fucked.

I left Canada not 24 hours earlier. My trip was punctuated with a few days in SJ and an overnight in T.O because winter travel with Air Canada can be so unpredictable from the west coast of Newfoundland that I needed to have bumper days on which I could travel quickly before or after a storm hit. When I talk about Newfoundland and happen not to be ranting about the word 'Newfie', I would have to describe my home province in a manner adopted by all backpacking international students: "Ever hear of wind chill factor?" and "Agriculture? You mean other than a U-Pick?". I jest. I swear that I am not that ignorant about Newfoundland's many industries but there is something cold about Newfoundland. Or something about Newfoundland has gone cold for me. Last year I did have a real homesickness for St. John's that passed as soon as the weather got warmer.

Granted, during my semester @ U of T, I was there during the final days of summer but it was a blistering, inconvenient heat that left my clothes soaked in sweat. It was the heat, not the humidity. Sure enough, the cold came back in. It didn't snow in T.O. the way it did in SJ but no matter how high I set the temperature on the dual heater/air conditioner, it would reset itself to deliver cold air.

In New Zealand, I have gotten used to something different. The days are warm but not unbearable and during the summer the breezes are cool but I no longer get a runny nose but I never thought of smell as coming into the equation. Indeed, much like my inability to taste salt, I somewhat pride myself on my rather poor sense of smell (likely caused by my screwy sinuses).

But New Zealand has this awsome smell. I shit you not, it smells like ferns and things that are bright coloured. It is strongest, obviously, when it is the springtime and all the flowers are in bloom but usually when I wanted a smell that fresh, I would pull out my Clinique Happy. Now I can't bear to put it on; I don't need an aritificial summer anymore.

Finally, some non-LJ Idol news.

-I am allowed to stay in New Zealand until my permit and visa expire at the end of March. This is great because I could easily be ordered to go back before then upon submission of my thesis.
-My Pasifika flatmates accidently flooded the kitchen to two inches of water and th dining room to one. They left the water running for ten hours and while it did not look all that bad on our floor, the flats below us easily had an inch of water each in their own lounges. That, my friends, is a helluva lot of water. To make things worse, I thought the blame would be pinned on me at first because I was the first one to pipe in that Sam had washed dishes the night before. However, housing decided there wasn't going to be a fine anyways and wo of my flatmates owned up to it. Fine times though. I was on edge for hours after I had been absolved of blame.
-My laptop, Archimedes, finally gave me the middle finger. Got a blue screen of death on the same day that the flat flooded and would not got back to windows. Lucky enough I am dating a walking talking IT dept, so he lent me his laptop while he tried to reboot my comp despite me not having the boot/recovery disc. Sam was able to get the comp starting again, but it is only a temporary fix with so much of the data corrupted and he wants to do a full out format. I am still transfering files to the external harddrive but my mouse problems often make that task impossible. SO, my moonlighting job as a ninja must be put on hold while I work from Sam's laptop, "The Noisy Fucker"
-Getting there with the thesis.

It is voting time @ LJ Idol.
Here is the link: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/182664.html

A mighty big thanks to everyone who voted last week. It was a tight race on my end not to get in last place but I made it to play another week.
Here is this week's entry. The topic is thing(s) I should care about but don't. Voting begins noon tomorrow.

This week, I also rediscovered this particular song by Ben Folds Five



( Read more.. )

The first round of polls is up for LJ Idol.

Cast your ballot here:
http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/179851.html

You can vote for as many people as you want, but for the time being the contestants are broken up into 5 separate tribes, meaning that you have to click submit in 5 separate polls (if you want to).I am in the 2nd tribe.

Cheers.

( Saying Good-bye )

This is the mandatory introduction for the unofficial first week of the competition;  this is a non-competitive round so no votes are begged for as of yet.. If you are interested yourself, you have until Friday to sign-up.

( Week 0 )

YES! A productive distraction from my thesis....

I'm participating in </a></font></b></a>therealljidol 

Are you interested in opening yourself up to the criticism (or bemusement) of internet randoms - You can sign up here until Friday!

If not, then for the next six months you all will have the pleasure of reading a series of less, self-centred entries after which I will make it all about me again and harangue you all to vote for my entry.

Now that an election has been called for October 14th, I am scrambling to register as an absentee ballot. Unfortunately, the process is still completed by snail mail. So, somehow I have to send my ballot/registration ASAP in order for it to be in Ottawa by the October 7 or 14 deadlines. However, I am hesitant. I am completely and utterly opposed to the reelection of Steven Harper as the Prime Minister of Canada; in many ways, his government is completely and utterly against who I am. My support for same-sex marriage, being a Newfoundlander, and disapproval for the serious cutting and misappropriation of arts funding for the military aside, the Conservative Government has destroyed a program and threatened an industry that have extremely influential in my life for these past two years.

The decimation of the Commonwealth Scholarship by Canada's declining foreign applicants just before I received my scholarship to NZ has since led to the withdrawl of the UK from the scholarship scheme as well. The departure of these two major destinations in the Commonwealth program appears to be the beginning of the end for the program; countries such as New Zealand still accept scholars from developed countries, but without reciprocal acceptance of their scholars, the program, at least for developed countries, will shut down permanently(1). The program for developing countries will continue but at a severly reduced capacity:

Developing/Caricom countries- Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitt’s, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos
-College and Undergraduates exchange program
-Graduate exchange program (for PhDs and Master's

The reach of the developing countries scheme is not as wide as it once was and the length of the exchange is limited to 4 months for the C/UG program and 4-6 months for the G program. More troubling is the reduce number of eligible subject areas from the developed country program: Good governance, rule of law, democratic development, pure and applied sciences (such as environmental science and information technology), economic and trade policy issues, teaching and commerce. 

The reasoning offered by the government for this change is thus-
http://www.scholarships.gc.ca/csp_nc/CARICOMnc_csp-en.html

The Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship Plan is undergoing changes. The new program is designed to support the Government's strategy in various regions with an approach more targeted to the thematic priorities for Canadian policy and to increase aid effectiveness.

The objective is to increase development impact in human capacity building through sustainable bilateral and institutional relationships within various fields by 1) contributing towards increase of exchanges between Canadian post-secondary institutions and regional counterparts and 2) providing foreign graduate students with the opportunity to have access to academic mentors and academic research networks in Canada. These new programs replace former Master’s and Doctoral awards.

To me, we again see the slow throttling of the arts and humanities from the global academic stage; I attempted to make this argument with a member of the Commonwealth committee in the UK when similar statements were made by the UK Foreign Secretary.  They disagreed but I maintain that the proof is in the pudding and only became more evident with Harper's most recent cuts to PromArt etc.

This brings me to another area in which I see the Conservatives trying to make moral decisions with my tax dollars that should not be made in the first place. Luckily, Bill C-10 was rescinded but the refusal of the Conservatives to even attend the special viewing, while not unexpected, was the crowning sign of a party that is ethically dysfunctional and unfit; I would have some respect for them if they attended the screening and were still able to maintain that the film was pornography and offensive.

However, this issue is somewhat more personal for me. Ya'll know I interned at Copperheart during the production of this film and ya'll know that I loved that job dearly evern though I wasn't getting paid and it has been to teh detriment of my original academic goals (which I do not regret). The only reason that internship was available was because Copperheart knew that they were entering a busy time. Of course, I was free labour and they could have an intern anytime they wanted, but they didn't, they hadn't, they hired me and when I was finished, they decided to bring on another intern. That is a good cycle to be honest, making opportunities for other students to get training in the industry, but this can only happen if there is business in the first place and inorder for there to be business, most film projects in Canada rely upon tax breaks and other forms of funding from the G.o.v.t.

And, knowing what I did about the film itself ala pre-production and knowledge of the original script, I mean, is just further proof that the government either fears Moses Znaimer or just doesn't watch CityTV despite it being EVERYWHERE.

As for my hesitation, well, my residential address is in a community back in Canada where I do not live. What right do I have in applying my ABC stance to a district that actually may not benefit from that stance? Why should I be forced to vote in a district where my mother lives for my vote to be ineffective or negatively impacting the true voter decision of the area.


(1) Canada has maintained a commitment to students from developed countries, UK and NZ, but only on a Post-Doctoral level. This is for research that has a duration of 12 months.  This is nowhere near as generous nor as long as the original Master's or Doctoral programs which allowed study in Canada for the duration of one's chosen program.

Possible Baby-gate for the McCain-Palin ticket. Discuss.

I'm joining the ChCh Roller Derby League. Just waiting to hear back from Sin City Skates about some order specifications before ordering my Deluxe Rookie Package with SG Rebels. It will be awesome to do skills training with Ivanna S Pankin and Trish if they get here before I return to Canada.

Still thinking about PhD programs. Cambridge looks more interesting.

-I don't believe I have seen anyone more excited to come to Newfoundland then Sam. Unfortunately, if we are able to get down in Jan/Feb, Gros Morne and L'anse Aux Meadows will be pretty difficult to get to and buried under snow.

-Every now and then I read the regional MENSA magazines to reinforce the notion that I am far better off not being a member. In reading the most recent issue of the Western Canadian magazine, i didn't have to read very far to get pissed off/confused. The AGM will be held in Quebec City this year, which MENSA is touting as the oldest City in North America. See, I would certainly give the honours to St. John's, if we were only talking about Canada and the US. however, we we include Mexico and islands such as Puerto Rico on the list, SJ and Quebec City aren't even in the top ten. What say you?