Bronwyn Rideout

LJ IDOL TOPIC 3: Smile

2009-11-07T00:51:11Z

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.

metal_tiara @ 2009-10-31T19:15:00

2009-10-31T23:28:04Z

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.

The Real LJ Idol. TOPIC 0: Introduction

2009-10-14T05:48:02Z

This is my second year of participating in LJ Idol. Since then, life as done something of a much needed 180.

I have completed the thesis of doom and while I am proud of the research that I did, I am resigned to the piss poor editing job that happened as a result. My grade was respectable and the overall degree enviable, but it really wasn't up to the stuff that funded PhDs are made of. Now, I've been on the fence for years regarding my feelings over getting a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science. Pretty much the second full day of classes sort of uneasiness. There were spurts of enthusiasm, an opportunity to change scenery that briefly invigorated a desire to make a living by living in the campus library. However, by the end of 2008, I threw in the towel and decided to prove that my MA was valuable outside of academia.

I am no longer in New Zealand. My scholarship and my student VISA required me to return to Canada on the last day of March. Of course, the plan for my partner and I has been for me to return sometime in the fall. School and some thesis work would be out of the way for him and I would have post graduate employment experience and a nest egg of cash. I realize now that the presumption that I would have a job or money was a silly one. Throughout the summer, the news has been filled with nothing but gloom predictions and announcements about the youth unemployment rate. I lucked out in finding the job that I have now, as I actually worked at two separate jobs within 2 weeks of arriving in Toronto.

To varying degrees of success I was briefly kitchen staff at a burrito place and a Customer Service Representative. I only worked 3 shifts at the burrito job and 1 shift at the call centre before I found a job that I guess I would have considered my calling when I the idealist I was in High School. I work for a fundraising consultancy company as a neighbourhood canvasser. Essentially, I go door to door and ask people to make monthly donations through cheque or credit card to the charity that I happen to be working for that month. I get an above average hourly wage (14$/hour now that I'm a supervisor) and the fringe benefits are sweet: a four day work week; 3$/day for drinks/snacks; significant weight loss from walking 5.25 Hours/day; 50% coverage of monthly public transit pass. I love my job because I love helping charities do the work that they do best. In the past 4+ months, I have worked for two environmental charities and one international medical aid charity. Hopefully, I can add a Human Rights charity to the list by the end of October.

Needless to say, making a straight wage at a job that has me on my feet in the cold and in the dark and in the heat is a vast improvement over sitting at a computer day in and day out .

Speaking of which, my computer, of which I complained bitterly about in my opening entry of Idol last year, finally died this July. Luckily, I had prepared for this eventuality by purchasing a netbook. The netbook ensured I kept in touch with my partner without missing a beat, but my credit card did take a beating that it didn't recover from until September.

My major hobbies at the moment are origami and unnecessarily fretting about my VISA application to return to NZ. The plan has been to get back to the South Island by early November. Complications with the application are making such plans a tight fit so, I picked up the most environmentally unfriendly skill in the world, paper folding, to keep me preoccupied.

Here's to the following weeks of Idol. I hope I'm not nearly as journalistic in future entries as I am here.

metal_tiara @ 2009-10-06T20:51:00

2009-10-07T00:54:14Z

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

metal_tiara @ 2008-12-01T09:45:00

2008-11-30T20:46:31Z

NIN are playing AUCKLAND in FEB.

I'm sooooooooo going.

metal_tiara @ 2008-11-18T11:04:00

2008-11-17T22:31:57Z

<div style="padding:3px; text-align:center; width:350px; color: #C285E0; background-color: #602080; border: 1px solid #400040">
 <div style="margin:3px; padding:3px; color: #f0e0e0; background-color: #404060; border: 1px solid #400040">
 Bronwyn Rideout's Dewey Decimal Section: 
 674 Lumber processing, wood products & cork 
 Bronwyn Rideout = 28543548945510 = 285+435+489+455+10 = 1674 
 Class: 600 Technology 
 Contains: Health, agriculture, management, public relations, buildings.
 
 What it says about you: 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.
 </div>
 <a href="http://www.spacefem.com/quizzes/dewey" style="color: #e0e0e0">Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com</a>
 </div>


----------------------

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.

LJ IDOL Run-off poll

2008-10-13T23:00:03Z

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

metal_tiara @ 2008-10-11T17:23:00

2008-10-11T04:25:30Z

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

Thank-you!

LJ Idol: Week 3

2008-10-10T11:54:24Z

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.

metal_tiara @ 2008-10-06T11:41:00

2008-10-05T22:55:45Z

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.

metal_tiara @ 2008-10-04T11:12:00

2008-10-03T22:12:41Z

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

LJ Idol: Week 2

2008-10-03T03:55:52Z

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

As much as I have submitted myself to the tyranny of chronology, I have failed – always failed – to show the same respect for time. This is problematic for any time traveler and is doubly problematic for my thesis.

My undergraduate training was in Classics and it has not boded well for me in my graduate studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, especially in the departments that I am divided between at my NZ university. Pure mathematics and Philosophy, with their expectations of lexicographic preciseness, yet free to be anachronistic, is at odds with the certain truths of Classical research: One object could be referred to by eight words and one word could refer to eight different objects, all logical depending on how one wants to read the text, but God help you if you ask the question, "What would Archimedes think of Newton".

Because you just don’t. Just..no.

One thing I have embraced through my research in HAPS is the complete and utter artificiality of time. It works for me like nothing else. It is really hard to explain why. It might just be me enjoying another bit of irony from my discipline, the demand for exactness to describe things that do not exist, but I think my particular dissonance with hours and minutes is somewhat more substantial.

First of all, I do not wear a watch. Sure, I own one and there are clocks included in my iPod and my mobile, but I just can’t be arsed. It may be that I am still immersed in a system that is so inanely temporal in its operations: all classes before noon end ten minutes early and all classes after start ten minutes late, the weekly math postgrad meeting is Wednesday @ 10am without fail and every two weeks you can be damn skippy there is a philosophy talk to attend. Why would I need a watch if all the time-tabling is done for me?

I also find watches uncomfortable to wear. Not to the extent that I despise rings of course, for I always worry that my fingers swell whenever a ring is on them thereby making them impossible to remove. It is more of the physical tic brought on by the snag sensation at the base of the phalange but rings have long since been relegated to the bottom of my jewelry box. With watches, the fear of losing an appendage is gone but I still fiddle with it to the point of my wrist being red, raw, sore.

Secondly, if I had to rally against normality, it would be our sense of propriety about times to wake-up and go to sleep. This began when I was young and my peculiar absorption with the Television led me to begin a list of things that adults did that I felt I was arbitrarily allowed not to. At the top of the list was being able to stay up late with the lights on. Getting up at 8 in the morning was pure misery; there was a period of two year during middle school when every school day my alarm would go off and I would get up and get my socks. Or so I thought until my father would tell me to get out of bed. Every day, without fail. Still, I was completely wakeful at night (though I would admit that letting me have the radio on CBC all hours of the night was not the smartest decision on my parents behalf) and read in the dark out of boredom, challenge, and necessity.

Undergrad temporarily corrected some of these habits out of sheer need for conformity and extra marks for attendance but in the past year that I have been working on my thesis, the first in which I have attended some sort of educational institution without the requirement to attend classes, I have slipped into a cycle that seems almost too natural: Bed by 3 am and wake up long after the day has already begun.

I do wonder how much of this is due to being in NZ but still wanting some interaction time with my friends, relatives, and culture back in North America. Most of them do not go online until long after I should be asleep and one of the things that I do before I finally turn in is to update myself on all of the just updated websites for the Globe and Mail, NY Times, and the CBC as well as all of the tivo-ed episodes of my favourite US shows.

Of course, there are downsides to this way of living. My disavowal of time can be interpreted is a more self-centered light, as I really could not be bothered about the deadlines set for me by others. This has kicked me in the ass in terms of scholarships and essays more times than I can count but somehow something shines through in my procrastination and I only come out at the end with a half-hearted promise to be more on the ball. My honours paper was a mess because of it and the only reason why the MA thesis is going so well is that I resolutely selected a project that demanded that I be constantly translating and writing at an indeterminate time known as ‘Several-months-before-submission’.

With my terminal tendency to drag my feet out of bed only minutes before my meeting with my supervisor, I have picked up one pretty bad habit. Fearing that I will miss an early morning meeting or presentation or deadline, without fail I will pull an all-nighter rather than go to bed early. It takes a physical toll on my body but once I get my second wind, all is forgotten. Indeed, regardless of the drawbacks, I do not have any motivation to revert back to my old time-punch life. Is this just a control issue is the first instance? A way to do something so restrictive (the thesis) in a way that I can manage without feeling like half-a-person. Maybe. I'm not all that interested in finding out.

LJ Idol-Week 1

2008-09-26T23:43:24Z

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.

The Real LJ Idol: Week 1

2008-09-24T01:31:18Z

As a quitter and a realist, I have no sense of what a real good-bye is anymore.

To the former, my eagerness to get the fuck off of the island or to get away from bad relationships/dysfunctional organizations/failure leaves little time and few people to give a final. heartfelt hug too before the opportunity to escape. As much as living in residence as a blast for the first three years of undergrad, the pressures of writing a thesis and a distancing between myself and the people I had hung out with during my entire stay in student housing practically had me running out the door. I would have been gone sooner had I not had an exam scheduled for the final possible time slot in the exam period. It was a shame, really. I truly enjoyed Burke House for all the growing up I was finally allowed to do in there, but the disappointments could no longer be kept at bay; by the time I had packed the last box, it was 4 am in the morning and the partying had stopped and I was relieved.

From here, it is easy for me to move into the latter. I am rather complacent to whatever twist or turn of fate is thrown my way; sometimes, you have neither the time to say good-bye, even if you did have the inclination. Of all the things that fester unresolved in the narrative of my Dad's death, there was a certain freedom in the negation of the 'good-bye' in our relationship. It was a moment I had prepared for when I was little when a friend in my Grade 1 class father was fighting in the first Iraq war. We lived in the military town but most of the military families did not have deployed soldiers and since all I needed to know was WAR=CERTAIN DEATH, I became irrational with the thought of Dad disappearing forever.Really, quite irrational. My Dad would be the last person to enlist and hated frequent travel and long periods away from home.

But in a childhood with a fair share of " Dad is at a meeting and won't be home in time to read you a story", I decided my coping mechanism would be that my father would always be leaving before I wake up and returning after I went to bed because he was sooooo busy with meetings. it is almost ironic how things work out. He had an overseas job with a three year contract that started during my final year of undergrad and the last time I saw him was just before I boarded a plane to a summer job of my own in the US dayes before he was suppose to head back to his. Given how important getting into U of T was to my father, i was surprised that due to his travel schedule, we wouldn't be seeing each other face to face until Christmas.

Then he is dead about six days later.

Did not want to see the body.

Spent the next week listening to well meaning people tell me and my mother that Dad could not have died at a better time; in so far that he and his familiy had seen and achieved soo much in just under a year. I am somewhat disappointed in myself at this moment because I so wanted to avoid writing yet another LJ entry about death, but this too I accepted as par for what was to be an unusual summer: a time of too many sudden things. With the scholarship, I would be financially independent from my parents for the first time in my life. I had graduated with honours and could be gainfully employed. I was seen as a free agent and with that parenting job done, some thought it was comforting to point out that Dad could die happy then and there. Although I felt cheated but this cold comfort had some sense to it; good-byes require some sorrow, some remorse, some resentment at being left behind, at the unfairness of life. The quickness of the whole thing left meant we could not be angry about long periods of suffering and he left in a high point both in his home and social lives as well as his career. It was hard to be sorrowful and remorseful and rage against unfairness unless I wanted to feel sorry for myself, and I could not do that knowing that he could have died at worse times.

To our credit, my mother and I were left to deal with the public demonstration of the good-bye. In our inclination towards morbidity and the shock of our situation, Mom began sharing stories about which searching for ways to say good-bye could leave you paralyzed. With our how other widow/er/s dealt with the ashes of their loved ones. My favourite was of a woman, unable to part with the cremains despite his wishes, kept them and in the subsequent 15 years, she always ran into him during her monthly closet cleaning. But in our own house, I insisted that Dad be buried in a cemetary that could be accessible to myself and his immediate family while Mom searched her memory for months as to what Dad's wishes actually were. During that time, Dad stayed in wooden box in Mom's bedroom. Sometimes, we would watch the news together.

I doubt I will learn the meaning of goodbye anytime soon. Due to the conditions of my scholarship, I am obligated to return to Canada upon the completion of my studies. I cannot seek residency nor is it appropriate to try and stay under a work VISA. I have always made it a point to inform people of these conditions because people invariably think only of the luxury and privilege of a paid education abroad and not of the sacrifices and burdens that come with keeping it and how that impacts the people and relationships around you.

Since I started dating Sam, I still talk about those terms but slowly went into denial; I have tried to find schemes both at my university and from NZ immigration that might let me stay just a little while longer. It is clear that if I even lodged some interest with the scholarship administrator on campus, I would get a beatdown. I was trying this because by going back to North America, I am on academic vacation from January until the end of August whereas Sam would be finishing his degree from February to October/November. Long distance relationships are hard, but four months during which Sam would like be too busy for anything other than a phone call or the occasional coffee is much easier than twelve months in which nine of them I would essentially be farting around the cash register at Sears or Starbucks. I'm the one with the flexibility, supposedly, and there is no nobility to be gained from putting a relationship through a yearlong hiatus if it doesn't need to be that long.

The impossibility of staying in NZ for a few extra months just came crashing down last night. It was only monday when my supervisor told me that there would be no money for a research project. I was hoping for that easy-in but forced to finally look at the lengthy application process, I could see I was fairly boned; I needed to renew my passport first as well as get a certificate of citizenship but I would have to go to Wellington because there is no one who could act as guarantor who has known me for two years, thus requiring a consular official to validate the declaration in lieu of gaurantor and sign all of those bloody pictures. Then there would be the medical exam, processing fees, finding 4,500$ to prove that I could support myself.

I wonder if I quit somewhere in trying to calculate the cost of just making the application. I decided to pull out the scholarship paperwork for the first time in a year and look at it for the first time in two. The wording was pretty damn strong with no space to argue. I also suppose that in light of the obliteration of the developed countries scheme and the refusal of Canada and the UK to accept NZ applicants under that scholarship, at least someone would take pleasure in reminding me of the rules.

At this point, I am looking into the void with the very real possibility of having to say good-bye. Will I quit as soon as the effort becomes unbearable? I don't think so. Will I let it slide into oblivion because it would just be part of a narrative of things that are happening at that time? I hope not but I am aware to the uncertainties.

LJ Idol: Week 0

2008-09-19T06:58:43Z

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.

I have a laptop that is behaving very badly(again) at the moment. This entry has been rewritten several times not because of my unhappiness with drafts but, rather, the fact that my computer has decided that my mouse is autonomous and furiously registers clicks that my hands never made. So far the damage has been minor; in trying to shake-off an undesired click on a folder, said folder will disappear into another, at times it is difficult to write as keystrokes are not recognized unless something is suddenly highlighted and therefore can suddenly disappear. This is not a plea for tech help or contest clemency; merely frustration that a problem that has been recurrent since May/June appears unresolvable after a series of defrags, mass deletes, disk clean-ups, and Spy-bot seeking. I could just reformat it, but the laptop has gone through alot and survived more than my old Inte desktop.

I am part of the older cohort of what the trend-masters and overpaid bureaucrats in Higher Education call 'Digital Natives'. I am also what you call an early adopter in a literal sense; my father (born in 1960), was very much into computers during his B.Comm and MBA degrees from the late 1970s to the mid-80s. Think punch-card computers. By the time I came on the scene in '84, a life with computers was unavoidable.

I remember my first computer moreso than any other firsts: A classic green screen Tandy. I played two games, either the original Kings Quest or a simplistic Sesame Street game. Then there was Reader Rabbit, The Castle of Dr. Brain, the Apogee games like the original Duke Nukem, Commander Keen, Ski-free, the first Doom, Civilization, SimWorld before it became horribly (but alluringly) Darwinian. Before there was wikipedia there was Encarta, which was the bomb, especially the later versions that came with the Gormenghast-like castle trivia game. I once knew how to access windows from the C:\ and CD-Roms from D:\ before I could do long division and before most PCs and Macs allowed you boot-up into there interfaces immediately. I also remember feeling doomed when we finally got a computer that could take Windows 95 without needed a prompt from C:\.

Since my Dad was particulary savvy with the computer and general tech knowledge, I was long ahead of my peers when it came to the internet and its capabilities. Never a wiz at anything is particular but I did my share of following net trends when I was able to from my mid-to-large-sized towns in Newfoundland where I was monitored by parents and adults that were just tuning-in to the existence of web predators. Once everyone else caught-up, however, computer usage was by and large practical, if you want to call downloading music and shows in your Uni dorm room practical.

My laptop has weathered travel quite admirably. It has gone back and forth from the east and west coasts of Newfoundland more than I would have liked. It has been in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver. It has crossed the Pacific Ocean three times between New Zealand and Canada and has seen about as much of NZ as I have. It has seen me to the end of my Greek and Roman Studies Undergraduate Honours paper on Roman Aqueducts , my semester at U of Toronto, and the almost two years that I have laboured over my MA in the History and Philosophy of Science. The light is at the end of the tunnel, the thesis is due on December 11th, 2008, and I doubt that I will be able to write another word of it on this hunk of circuits. Luckily, the University provides computers to most of its Postgraduates but they charge a mint for on-campus internet usage and do frown upon facebook and ljing in the office. That's the rub. I just wish this thing would tolerate a bit more of my misuse until I return to Canada sometime between January and December of '09.

But I have other acitivites to distract and console while this inconvenience proceeds to give me an ulcer the size of Whistler. I have a package that I meant to send off in May that contained a plush monster for my counsin's 1-year-old daughter. I finally bought the box in late August and it still languishes on my desk. I gradually fill it up with NZ junk-food but then, occasionally, I deplete a bit of that supply. I vow to send it off next week. For reals.

Since we are on the topic of May, I started to learn the sport of Roller Derby around that time. Outside of running, I am really slow on the uptake when it comes to sports and before I felt confident on my skates, I knew I would have to be comfortable being able to fall. Falling/failing? easy peasy, especially with knee pads the size of your face. As of this moment, I am not a danger to myself but am a danger to others.

I have been metal_tiara on LJ since August 14th, 2001, but you wouldn't be able to tell from the amount of posts that have been placed under friends lock. All my entries for LJ Idol will be public and I will gradually add people onto my friends list. Maybe that story will come up later.

The moniker I have had since High School. I don't care for it much anymore.

Everything else will become fair game when the game begins.

metal_tiara @ 2008-09-15T22:27:00

2008-09-15T10:34:29Z

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

I'm participating in </a></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.

metal_tiara @ 2008-09-12T13:31:00

2008-09-12T01:58:31Z

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.

metal_tiara @ 2008-09-01T23:27:00

2008-09-01T11:27:47Z

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

metal_tiara @ 2008-05-12T21:03:00

2008-05-12T09:14:06Z

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.

metal_tiara @ 2008-04-25T14:07:00

2008-04-25T02:20:35Z

-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?

metal_tiara @ 2008-04-11T14:58:00

2008-04-11T03:11:30Z

Dear Bauhaus,

Today, I bought 'Go Away White'. To be honest, this is the first album of yours that I have purchased. I have either downloaded the rest at one point or another and what I have in CD form are "Passion for Covers" and the Black/White Greatest Hits. Not all that impressive.

Needless to say, when I read through your official mailing list that you were releasing GAW, but not touring, well dudes, you made my year. However, I am in New Zealand, were CD prices are retarded, so this album better out flat 'In flat fields' or I will get bored.

Only two songs in, and I feel that I saved $10 on 'Dig! Lazarus! Dig!' by buying Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds other new album GAW. jk, I know that's you there Pete. Singing was never your real strong suit and the effects of aging on the throat are hitting you as hard as it is Sting.

Third Uncle will be my favourite song foreveahs and evahs but International Bullet Proof Talent is certainly going on my Ipod workout playlist.

Cheers,
Bronwyn

metal_tiara @ 2008-04-05T20:17:00

2008-04-05T07:20:40Z

metal_tiara @ 2008-04-05T13:59:00

2008-04-05T01:09:55Z

Saw the most recent South Park the other day. I like the way that they portray Newfoundlanders. Certainly more positive than most Canadian outfits. Even in this episode, they included the difference in our accent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVjKQxknkoY

1:40 is where the song starts.

The Kiwi's are still amazed that I say 'about' rather than 'aboot' even though I am from 'Canada'. I'm thinking it has to do with the strong Irish/British linguistic roots that constanly has people guessing that I am from the US.

Crazy International Photographic Project

2008-03-28T14:58:45Z

Friend's list occupants who have already received their invitation to join the Facebook Group 'You look like someone I know...' can disregard this message, unless they want to pass it on to their other friends and they are certainly free to invite more people to the Facebook group. I would like to have as many subjects as possible.

While I plug away at my thesis, I am starting what I hope will be a large scale art project. Whenever we are far from the people and surroundings we know, we have brief moments with other people's doppelgangers. I've never treated these encounters as outcroppings of homesickness, but have been rather curious as to whether facial features have finite combinations of their variations. Why, despite being thousands of miles and several generations between them and a shared relation, two people can have an uncanny resemblence. This goes beyond the pick and choosing of a Police sketch artist but the frequency in which some facial combinations appear frequently across the globe.

I am looking for human volunteers between the ages of 20-30.
At the moment, I need New Zealand subjects in the Christchurch area who are willing to have a portrait shot done. Digital camera, public location. I am also looking for subjects from outside of New Zealand who can provide a headshot. Hopefully, a reshoot will be possible in the future.

All volunteers will receive a copy of their portrait but by volunteering are agreeing to their likeness to be used in the project as I see fit. Your image will not be used offensively or obscenely nor will it be sold or distributed for purposes that are not this particular project.

Any questions can be directed here for now.

metal_tiara @ 2008-03-20T13:31:00

2008-03-20T00:42:36Z

I am making garlic fingers for my Kiwi boyfriend tonight. I mentioned them to him the other day because asides from being a staple in Canada, I had yet to see them elsewhere and certainly not in New Zealand. This has always struck me odd as the Kiwis love garlic and have really interesting and delicious ideas about what goes on a pizza. He never tried them before and when we wikipedia'd it, it was revealed that garlic fingers are an Atlantice Canadian dish. Go figure.