The 'victory' in 'victory lap'

Things I have done since the end of classes:

1. Gone to the gym... once.
2. Baked some labour-intensive enchiladas.
3. Planned a trip to Boston.
4. Cancelled a trip to Boston.
5. Gone to trivia at the Pub, without winning a round.
6. Played "Young Players'" Trivial Pursuit at Ducky's; felt better about myself.(Sample question: "What do Invisible Boy's super powers allow him to do?"
7. Worked at Computing Services and Student Services; earned some money for the summer.
8. Felt anxious about the future.
9. Gotten caught up on Girlicious.
10. Had a friend straighten my hair (a now 3-hour process).
11. Been promoted to Captain on the Windows Pinball game.
12. Learned how to cheat at Windows Pinball.
13. Played baseball on the town field.
14. Played catch in the Memorial Park.
15. Eaten a McFlurry.
16. Learned how to make a Long Island iced tea.
17. Made sushi.
18. Bought a couple of novels from Rags of Time.
19. Eaten breakfast at Mel's.
20. Bought two pairs of thrift-store shoes.
21. Helped to organize a friend's birthday party that included 5 cakes.
22. Baked a carrot cake that was supposed to look like a sushi roll, with marginal success. (It tasted good.)
23. Eaten a LOT of cake.
24. Read a book on a blanket by the swan pond.
25. Slept in.
26. Cleaned my laptop keyboard.
27. Paid off my library fines ($13.75).
28. Rehearsed a play to be performed on Convocation Weekend (Noel Coward's "Hayfever").
29. Kept my room clean.

Things I have not done since the end of classes:

1. Laundry

The big picture in a small town

I finally charged my camera batteries and started to carry it around town and campus. As a result, I have some photos of my favourite Sackville graffiti. First, the Ninja Turtle created out of chipped stucco, and second, the "thesis" tag that I have seen around town.


I think the "thesis" tag is particularly funny - some strange combination of academics and delinquency. I hope whoever wrote it has actually written a thesis at some point. (By the way, I haven't. My roommate is currently in the throes of her first draft, to be submitted tomorrow.)

The semester is winding down; I have two more papers to submit, and no final exams. I am looking forward to reading, running, baking, sleeping, and maybe going on a road trip or two.

Since I have some extra time, I have been giving more campus tours. This week I gave a tour to a middle school group on their annual band trip. According to the kids, no festivals coincided with the trip, and so the group was travelling to Fredericton to see some museums and then to tour the Sydney mines. On the way, they stopped at Mt. A - the band teacher is a 1991 alumnus. It was fun to adjust the tour to kids who had no context for university - when I took them into auditoriums, meal hall and the library I could hear a whispers of "Whoa! This is huge!" I took them to see a residence, and all 15 of them piled into some poor girl's room. They took photos of the classrooms and the swan pond - everything was new and exciting. It was nice to be reminded of how bizarre and exciting university really is - I suppose we lose sight of the uniqueness of living and studying and eating together in big rooms on a small campus.

Just before the sun sets, campus looks particularly lovely. Here's a photo taken from the breezeway looking out at the chapel.

Blueberries, policy wonks and Mexican refugees

Yesterday I attended the tenth national Metropolis conference in Halifax. Metropolis is a network of scholars, bureaucrats and advocates who work in the field of immigration. It has chapters in over 20 countries, including one in Canada.


The conference is taking place in Halfax's World Trade and Convention Centre, where I attended an international summit in 2006 on microcredit.

Based on these two events, I have developed a major beef with high-profile conferences. Upon registration ($152.55 for one day - thankfully covered by Mount Allison), I received a one-shoulder backpack full of pamphlets, journals and brochures. While I appreciated the journals and the conference schedule, the rest of the package was mostly irrelevant. The backpack, which reminds me of the fleeting one-shoulder trend in middle school, will likely end up at the Salvation Army.

Right after I arrived, lunch was served. It was an impressive array of fruits (cantaloupe, blueberries, strawberries, honeydew melon, grapefruit), vegetables, sandwich makings and drinks. Dessert was strawberry shortcake.

Somehow I couldn't reconcile the mission of the conference with some of its amenities. I don't need another backpack, and I doubt the mostly middle-aged participants are going to wear the one-shoulder to their office jobs. The food could have been local, or organic; the coffee could have been fair trade. It is possible to adjust large events to run more sustainably - the Hillside Festival in Guelph is a great example. Even to attend the conference, people flew from across the country and even across the world. I was looking for a bit more innovation to make the conference practically sensitive to environmental and social issues.

Onto the sessions. The first session I attended, "Current Research, Dissemination and Mobilization on Refugee Issues," was a small round table featuring a policy analyst from Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the director of the York Centre for Refugee Studies. The main theme of the talk was the tension between civil society, academia and the government when it comes to protecting refugees. The CIC employee discussed the need for "evidence-based research," and the academics talked about the impossibility of gathering enough evidence from such a transient and vulnerable population.

The second session, "The Challenges of Becoming a Welcoming City," was a round table featuring members of the Windsor, Ontario community. The municipality has gone from receiving 16 refugee claimants in 2006 to the current average of 50 claimants a month. The first group of claimants came from Mexico, the second, from Haiti. I went because of a summer project I did on Mexican refugee claimants. (It turned out that the research supervisor of a student I know conducting a similiar project also attended the round table.)

In the evening I attended two documentaries about immigration issues in Canada. The first followed a 100-person march from Montreal to Ottawa in June, 2005. The second was about Francophone-African settlement in the West of Canada. Following the films, a discussion began with the film makers. It was a neat moment - the discussion was almost entirely in French (as were the films), and once again the bilingualism of Canada played out in front of me.

The conference was a nice academic boost, and at the same time, a bit humbling. The issues of homelessness, resource communities, the Alberta tar sands and migration all came up over the course of the session - and are all topics that I have studied this semester. After being at the same school for five years, I feel confident in my classes and able to speak up on most topics. At this conference, however, I felt a bit out of place; I still have a lot to learn about the academic and political context of migration, and tried to be quiet and listen for a while.

The biggest benefit of the conference, for me, was the clear distinction I saw between the four groups dealing with migration issues: the bureaucrats (or "policy wonks"), the academics, the social workers (NGOs) and the lawyers. I realized that I have been thinking about each of these four arenas without laying them out as distinct options. I still haven't figured out where I would be most comfortable and effective.

In terms of my future, I have an internship interview on Friday. I have also been accepted to present my summer research at a conference hosted by York in June. Exciting times.

Frisbee in the frio

I can't get enough ultimate frisbee, it would seem. This weekend I played an outdoor tournament with Mt. A in Halifax. Yes, outdoor. It is called "The Tournament of Fools," and with good reason; when we arrived on Saturday morning, the field was covered in six inches of snow.

Even with cleats, the first few games included a lot of sliding and skidding. By the end of the first game all of us had wet feet - the main downside of playing in the melting snow.


By the end of the day all of us also had sunburns, our feet were still wet, our hands were swollen with the cold and we hadn't won a game. Despite these downsides, we were all still pretty happy.

We had a mascot - Oliver the six-month-old golder retriever - who was wrapped in a hoodie for most of the tournament to keep warm. Our starting cheer featured the team running around in a circle with airplane arms and then 'flying away'.

I stayed with a good friend who's attending King's College. After the Saturday games I went back to her place for a shower, lasagna, a glass of wine and some cake. I was very, very happy when I fell asleep on her couch.

We placed 10th out of 12 teams - not a bad feat for Mt. A. We are a young team, which means our stamina is our strength, but we don't have a lot of strategy.


This was my last tournament with Mt. A - my frisbee career began in first year after I didn't make the cut for the varsity women's soccer team. At a party during frosh week, a mostly drunk guy asked if I wanted to play some frisbee. Not knowing the sport, and assuming he wouldn't remember this conversation the next day, I agreed. The next day he found my residence room and left a note on the door asking me to play in a tournament the following weekend. The team needed girls, and he had been out recruiting.

My first tournament consisted of me standing in the endzone and trying to catch anything that came my way. I have learned a lot about the sport since - it is a neat game, because a lot of the learning happens experientially. Needless to say, I am very grateful to the guy who asked me to play in the first place - the sport has kept me active and a bit more sane during my degree.

Grape! Raisin! Grape!

For two years I have participated in the "Special Populations" music hour. Special Populations is a local programme for intellectually challenged adults run through the Sackville recreation centre.

The group meets for an hour every Friday to sing and do some basic music exercises. It is generally an uplifting time - the group is a good break from studying or talking to other twenty-somethings.

We generally start with a warm up called "Grape Raisin". When the leader calls out "grape," everyone stretches their faces as wide as possible. When the leader calls out "raisin," everyone scrunches their faces as small as possible. Once everyone has the hang of it, the leader speeds up and calls the same word twice until we get too mixed up to continue.

We often do another warm up called "show us how to get down." This is a call-and-answer game that begins:

group: Hey Emily!
me: Hey what?
group: Hey Emily!
me: Hey what?
group: Show us how to get down.
me: No way!
group: Show us how to get down!
me: OK
group: (while I am dancing) D-O-W-N, that's the way to get down (x2).

Every week, without fail, one of the women says "Say what?" instead of "Hey what?" and everyone smiles a bit.

There is also a drama programme for Special Populations run by another student; her programme was actually the inspiration for the music component. Every year the group writes a play and performs it in April. Last year, the play featured the Flintstones, and the year before, some sort of newscast.

It is nice to get off campus every once in a while and realize the diversity of people in Sackville. It is also nice to sit with a guitar for an hour and sing some Shania Twain, Johnny Cash or Elvis Presley (country music is always a big hit with the group.)

At the end of my time in Sackville, I sometimes wish I had met a few more people in the community. There are some great groups: TEA (Tantramar Environmental Alliance), MAST (Mount Allison Student Tutors), a drama troupe that works with the middle school, a community garden, etc. University students are great company, but it's refreshing to step outside of the Mt. A bubble within the Sackville bubble every once in a while.

French frisbee, French immersion

Apparently I don't like to play ultimate frisbee in English - the league I have joined in Moncton is about 80% French. Most of the conversations happen in 'Chiac' - a hybrid of French and English with no official rules. A few examples:

"Est-ce que c'est last point?"
"Alors tu vas courir jusqu'au end zone, je vais faire un cut et puis tu peux send un hammer - ok?"

Like in Spanish, a lot of the words from ultimate frisbee are not translated: dump, swing, hammer, huck, deep, cut, etc.

Even though I have a minor in French, I don't really feel comfortable talking to my teammates in anything other than English. This is a strange twist of events; in Mexico, I felt entirely comfortable talking to my Mexican teammates, and even talked to French friends in Spanish. In bilingual Canada, however, I can't muster the courage to speak in the language that I have been learning since grade 3.

On a related note, the province of New Brunswick recently announced the elimination of the Early French Immersion (EFI) programme (which begins in kindergarten). The province cited financial and educational reasons for the decision, including the possibly negative effect of EFI on the resources available to core students.

Many parents and students have been confused and offended by the decision, and have organized to save the programme. According to them, the province's decision contradicted evidence of financial and education benefits, and therefore makes little sense. A large group of Sackville residents turned out for a forum to save EFI, and later participated in a local 'tintamarre,' or protest.

In Canada's only officially bilingual province, I can't quite see the wisdom of the decision. Living in New Brunswick has shown me a new side of Canada where English and French can be mixed without any judgment or tension, and it is essential to preserve this middle ground. 'Chiac' is more than a dialect; it represents some level of integration between Canada's two linguistic groups.

I am writing an article on this province's decision and Sackville's reaction for this week's Argosy. It has been interesting to see how passionately some Sackvillans have been campaigning to keep EFI, and how quickly they organized a response. To read a local blog of this activist, visit http://hamlit2008.blogspot.com/


Photo courtesy the Sackville Tribune-Post

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education"

-- Mark Twain


I have one month left of school. This is not a hopeful exaggeration; today is March 9, the last day of classes is Thursday, April 10. I don't have class on Thursdays, and I don't have any final exams (the luxury of upper-year classes) - so there are 31 days between me and the end of my degree.

This final month is full of events - end-of-semester concerts, speakers, recitals, forums, banquets and fundraisers. It is also full of academic deadlines - term papers, presentations, quizzes and reports.

In this month's battle between 'events' and 'education', I have chosen events. This is my mad dash to try and extract as much as possible from the university environment before I have to move onto big city, big budget culture.

Recently I have attended a good diversity of events, and all of them were worth the time. Just over a week ago I popped into the CCAA National Badminton Championships (held at Mt. A) and watched the men's singles final. It was an intense game; the losing player came back from a 10-point deficit to time the game at 14-14 (although he still lost). I almost teared up watching the game (OK, I teared up), because the players were so good and so passionate about their sport.

On Monday editors from The Dominion came to speak about their five-year plan to increase their presence as the alternative press of Canada. Their talk was interesting, especially given the publication's recent focus on the Alberta tar sands. They are looking for small financial contributions from "sustainers" to help increase their reporting capacity and launch a Canada-wide media co-op programme.

On Thursday I went to a forum hosted by Mt. A's queer issues society, Catalyst. Called "What Do You Mean There's An Elephant in the Room?", the evening featured four speakers who discussed how we can "take the elephant out of the closet" (hah) and be more aware of the discrimination caused by 'heteronormativity', or the assumption that everyone is straight.

Last night I attended two one-act plays performed at Mt. A's Windsor Theatre. The first play, "Wanda's Visit", tells the story of a bored couple whose lives are interrupted by the visit of the husband's insane high school sweetheart. The second was an original, collaborative piece themed around ignorance. The play used abstract scenes to represent the full-circle progression from revolutionary idealism to oppressive conformity.

And there is more to come. Black Tie Productions will be staging "Hair" next weekend. The Society of All Nations has its annual banquet next Saturday, followed by the grad banquet on the 19.

I still go to class, and still enjoy the preparation and discussion. But showing up to events is a bit more exciting, and a bit more spontaneous; after all, when's the next time I'll see a championship badminton match?

Sometimes these events are well attended, other times they are not. It depends on academic deadlines, other events, and the proper planning and advertising. Contrary to some opinions, we are not Mt. Apathy - most students are interested in campus life and want to contribute. Sometimes, as you can see, there is just too much - too many potential commitments. Instead of attending a cancer fundraising concert last night, I stayed home and baked muffins.

The afterlife

Reading week is over. This has set off a spark in my mind about life after graduation - which comes with the expected mix of excitement, intimidation and uncertainty.

After seeing many of my friends' graduate last year, I am looking forward to my turn. The ceremony is a bit stiff; students process into Convocation Hall to a standing audience of emotional friends and family, the alma mater song is sung at the podium with the organ, numerous speeches ensue, and then we all walk across the stage to receive our hoods (on loan) and diplomas (to keep). Since Mt. A is such a small school, there are only two ceremonies: one for arts and one for sciences.


And then?

This is where my mind really gets going. I have applied to a few internships with policy institutes, but there are so many other possibilities. What about an internship with the United Nations? The Organization of American States?

After a class on the Alberta tar sands, I started to wonder why I had focused on non-Canadian issues and organizations. The tar sands have huge, even global, consequences - including in the field of migration, topic that has recently piqued my interest.

I could even start up my own organization - Mt. A grads Margaret Leighton and Dru Oja Jay did just that, and have been successful.

Or I could move home, find a steady job, and become a 'real person' for a while. I am a bit tired of uprooting myself from place to place. It would be a break with a warm bed, some home cooked meals, a steady salary and no rent.

And then?

Law school, grad school, etc.

And then?


Photos courtesy of Frances Ross, who has marvelous post-grad plans teaching in Nunavut.

Reading week ramble

It has been a good week to be an International Relations major. Between Castro's resignation, the independence declaration of Kosovo, and the elections in Pakistan, there has been a lot of global developments to discuss.

I don't always feel so keen about my major - I have gone through phases of wishing that I picked some other discipline for my undergrad degree. This is typical of IR majors, I think, because the programme is so interdisciplinary. Every once in a while I will be in a class or at a talk, and decide that I should have been a Geography major, or a Canadian Studies major, or a Religious Studies Minor.

Recently, I have been thinking about Canadian Studies. This began with a Geography class on the situation in Fort MacMurray, which made me want to take the first plane west to try and volunteer with some kind of charity organization. The class focused on the social, economic and environmental stress caused by the oil sands development. I began to think - if we have these global problems here in Canada, why am I studying International Relations?


This same crisis has recently befallen a good friend of mine who goes to Acadia. She studies music therapy, but has been disappointed a bit by the discipline - or at least how it has been taught. I am currently visiting her out in Wolfville, which has involved some snow shoeing (see photos) and lobster (speaking of Canada).

I sat in on two of her classes today, and was really quite surprised at how many laptops were in the classroom. A good 75% of students had brought their laptops to both classes - one in an auditorium, and the other in a seminar room. While this was useful for taking notes without wasting paper, it was also useful for e-mail, MSN, facebook, and Youtube. The sound of clicking keyboards was nearly constant, with a small crescendo whenever the professor said something particularly relevant.

When I was deciding which university to attend after high school, my choice was between Acadia and Mount Allison. When making my decision, I was deterred from Acadia by "The Acadia Advantage" - the provision of a laptop for each student. These laptops are rented - students return them each summer and have the option to purchase them after graduation. While this would be beneficial for some programmes, it wasn't what I was looking for. Sitting in on a class, I realized the difference that a laptop can make to a class atmosphere.

Next year Acadia is launching "The Acadia Advantage 2.0". This policy still puts an emphasis on technology, but replaces mandatory laptop rental with a list of suggested models for Acadia students to purchase. (This is something Mt. A does as well.) It will be interesting to see if this changes the classroom atmosphere, or if technology still plays a dominant role.

Mount Allison marketing

I love this school - the opportunities it has afforded me and the people it attracts. I would not have chosen any other university for my undergraduate degree. But the very things that I love about this school don't seem apparent in any of the many marketing campaigns that Mt. A has launched in the past five years.

Mount Allison 'sells itself' through a series of disjointed slogans and websites that try just a bit too hard to be fresh and innovative. As a result, the school appears kitschy instead of mature, desperate instead of calmly waiting for students to discover its true depth. An overview:

---

1) The "MTA Survival Guide"


Sponsored by Alcool NB Liquor and Moosehead breweries, this website calls itself a guide "to campus life at Mount Allison University". When I first visited the site I was optimistic - the site offers videos on a variety of topics to provide the 'inside scoop' about student life. Sadly, and somewhat predictably, the site talks almost exclusively about drinking (with an emphasis on over-drinking). Topics include "Drinking + Sex = ??", "Drunks hitting on you", "Who cleans the puke?", "Keeping track of money at the bar", "Remedies for a hangover", and "Can you drink while studying?" This is not the school I chose to go to, and I am ashamed that the Mount Allison name is attached to such a biased portrayal of on-campus life.

There is drinking at Mount Allison, without a doubt. But this has never defined my experience at this University - for the first two years of my degree I didn't drink at all. If I had seen this website as a non-drinking prospective student, I might not have come here - a shame, considering that this is not an accurate picture of the different ways students choose to spend their time at Mount Allison.

I am shocked, really, that Mount Allison would allow its name - its 'brand' - to be attached to this biased website. Luckily, the site doesn't yet appear on a Google search, so perhaps it will remain hidden to prospective students. (Although I suppose posting about it on my blog doesn't help.)

2) "Present Intense, Future Perfect"

This phrase was unveiled a few years ago after a lengthy search for a new Mt. A slogan. I have always disliked it - both as a slogan and for what it is trying to communicate. Essentially, I don't want my present to be intense, and my future will not be perfect. This seems to be an overachiever's interpretation of the school, whereby we are constantly busy and forever striving after some unattainable, fixed future goals. I would much rather enjoy my time here at a reasonable pace, and I think it is much healthier to have realistic expectations and multiple goals for the future.

This phrase still appears on Mt. A websites and brochures, but seems to be a bit less prominent than when it was first launched.

3) "These are the good old days at Mount Allison"


A photo of students in old Mt. A sweaters mysteriously showed up a few days ago on the Mt. A homepage, with "These sure are the good old days at Mount Allison" printed across the top in bold colours. I had never heard this slogan before, and assumed the photo was an experiment by the Mt. A web staff. When I Googled this slogan, however, I found a small article on a marketing website about a Mt. A recruitment campaign directed specifically at Ontario students. The article includes a mock movie poster advertising an idyllic Mt. A - "a timeless place of imagination, creativity, fun, and new beginnings."

---

So, are we full of partiers, keeners, or fairy-tale Allisonians? Do we get hammered here, get good grades here, or get married here?

It is hard to capture Mount Allison in one slogan or marketing campaign. Image-making is necessary, I suppose, in order to attract enough students to fund our high-cost model; we require many buildings and professors for a relatively small student body. But is the corporate image really required? Do we need to project this glossy, sloganized identity in order to attract high-quality students?

Most of the students I know at Mount Allison did not choose to come here because of a poster or a slogan. One-by-one, we each discovered this institution and realized that we liked it because of its broad uniqueness - the community, the opportunities, the clubs, the high academic standards. I am no marketing expert, but I think if Mt. A promoted the diverse "Mount Allison Experiences" instead of trying to squeeze its identity into a compact, marketable package, the school would still attract students. It might even attract better students - those who went out of their way to find a school that suited their dynamic interests.

If we are going to market ourselves, it should at least be according to a uniform set of values and images. The school seems almost schizophrenic when comparing the absolute identities promoted in these three campaigns.

This weekend I went out to a charity ball, participated in an academic conference, had tea at Mel's, and went to see some student theatre. I just can't see my experience in any of the identities attached to Mount Allison marketing - what happened to the simple but elegant idea of the "education of the whole person?"

Civic creativity

Richard Florida looks pensive

This week I attended two very different on-campus talks. The first featured Richard Florida, the celebrity US academic who has recently been hired by the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. The event was co-sponsored by the town of Sackville and Mount Allison's Wilfred B. Jonah Lecture Series.

Apparently he is a big deal, so I decided to go hear him speak. I realized during his talk that I had read one of his articles in an economic geography class - specifically about his "Gay Index" and "Bohemian Index". Allow me to explain.

Florida is not a conventional professor; he straddles the gap between the isolated 'ivory tower' and mainstream culture. In same the vein as "Freakonomics", Florida uses clear language to explain broader economic concepts.

His argument is based on the role of the "creative class". The choice of the word "class" is a bit strange, however, since Florida's main point is that every human being has the capacity for creativity. Harnessing and releasing this creativity is the key to both happiness and economic development.

Creativity creates value, which creates wealth. This is why we see a correlation between prosperity and the presence of a creative, tolerant, open culture in a given community. Thus the "Bohemian" and "Gay" Indices - the more gay or artsy people in a municipality, the more wealthy and developed it will be.

I enjoyed the overall message of the talk: arts and culture are not peripheral to development, but are at the core of human expression and development. Some of his examples and assumptions betrayed him as a bit elitist, however. (In fact, this has been the main critique of his work.) Some of his thinking only applies to middle-class America - those "yuppies" who value design and aesthetics as the highest form of expression. Meanwhile, the working class and entire societies in the developed world do not necessarily have access to his particular vision of a creativity-based society.

Perhaps my critique comes merely from his persona. Dressed in a hoodie, a blazer and jeans he casually delivered his talk without notes, dropping names like Hillary, Oprah and Colbert as if they were old-time friends. At the reception following the talk, a black limousine was waiting for Florida outside; this is a strange luxury in Sackville. (While the car waited, I stuffed some havarti and pita from the snack trays into a few tupperware I had gone home to collect.)

I found an entertaining visual version of his talk online (click to enlarge):


The second talk I attended featured Mount Allison professor Andrew Nurse. The co-ordinator of the Canadian Studies academic programme at Mount Allison, Nurse gave a talk entitled "Canadian Liberalism and the Dynamics of Civic Nationalism" as a part of the annual George Stanley lecture series. (Remember George? He designed the Canadian flag.)

Nurse used citations from Michael Ignatieff's and Pierre Trudeau's writings to argue that civic nationalism is a flawed ideology. Civic nationalism, according to these thinkers, is the rational alternative to the heated, potentially violent loyalties of ethnic nationalism. We are so immersed in the logic of civic nationalism that we fail to acknowledge how it too can tend toward irrationality and violence. This liberal ideology cannot be a superior method of political organization; it is merely a matter of cultural preference.

The talk was thought-provoking; Nurse speculated on new ideas, while making his logic accessible to those who were not fully familiar with the terms and concepts of Canadian Studies. He applied his thinking to Canadian pop culture, explaining how various Canadian artists had already negotiated our 'hegemonic liberalism'.

The best part of the evening was its community spirit. Before and after the talk two professors sang the praises of Dr. Nurse, who has been an active member of the Mount Allison community and a strong advocate for Canadian Studies programmes across the country. While being introduced, he looked humbly at the floor as if to downplay his long list of contributions to the school and his discipline. The question period following the talk included thoughtful comments from students and professors who I have met during my five years here, and I left feeling I had participated in something uplifting and stimulating.

So, in one week I saw a high-profile, stylish, Hillary hob-nobbing academic in Convocation Hall, and a humble, home-grown, provocative professor who sits at the centre of the Mount Allison community.

Andrew Nurse makes lunch for his daughter

On another note, it is snowing outside, and I am hoping, somewhat in vain, for a snow day.

Curl for Cancer 2008

The Sackville Curling Club hosts an annual "Curl for Cancer" as a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society. It is an all-day event featuring recreational games between teams of all ages and varieties.

I have never participated, but this year I stopped in to watch a few friends play a game. It was a great atmosphere - local songwriter R.A. Lautenschlager was playing his folk music, small children were running around eating cookies, and spectators were enjoying cups of coffee and beer. As I walked into the lounge area, I saw a team dressed like 1960s hippies come off the ice.

My friends soon went onto the ice in a game against "team Canada". This team had dressed in Canada paraphernalia (maple leaf scarves, hats, and lots of red and white), and apparently sang the national anthem before their first game.

As I sat spectating, I realized the "Canadianess" of the entire experience. Between "ends", I ran to the library to find a Mexican exchange student who attends the same school where I did my exchange last semester. She had never seen the sport before, and I struggled to explain the game - which I only loosely understand - without knowing the Spanish verb for "curl".

FruitBowl 2008: Heavy Metal Rampage

As promised, here is the story of my weekend frisbee tournament. I decided to go to the tournament even though Mt. A didn't send a team - there wasn't enough interest to send a full roster. I ended up subbing for the St. John team, temporarily named "Heavy Metal Rampage".

I hitched a ride with a team traveling from Halifax, and arrived at the field house 10 minutes before our first game. I arrived just in time; the team had only two female players and needed a third to be able to play. (A team fields 7 players: 4 men and three women). I played my first game with no subs - a good initiation into a tough tournament.

Following the game I went with a teammate to his friend's house, where I stayed for the weekend. As we were walking to the front door of the house, my teammate turned around and asked,

"Oh, are you allergic to cats?"
"Yes."
"That's not good."
"No."

It turns out they had three cats -- all of them furry, and one of them fat. With the help of Benedryl I made it through two nights without any problems - surprising given that I have been allergic to my Sackville apartment since arriving in January.

Once inside, the teammate's friend's girlfriend (less complicated than it sounds) greeted us holding a what looked like a paint can with the word "sex" printed accross the label. This all seemed normal to my teammate, so I didn't comment. Later in the evening she asked,

"Oh, do you know what I do?"
"No."
"I host fantasia parties."

It turns out that she is making a name for herself as the top fantasia party hoster and organizer in New Brunswick. She has recruited several other party hostesses, and just earned a trip to the Dominican Republic for her achievements within the hosting company. The penis magnet on the fridge suddenly made much more sense.

We didn't win the tournament, in fact, we didn't come close. But it was fun and I was glad I made the commitment to go.

We played the tournament in the Nashwaaksis field house - an indoor sports complex used by the local middle school and surrounding community. The middle school has decorated the far wall with a row of large paintings - each depicting a 'sport'. Some of the paintings are worth a second look, notably the ones I have included in this entry. At the end of the long row is a painting of the Starship Enterprise. I can just picture the small, nerdy kid who decided that he didn't have a favourite sport, he liked Star Trek, and so was going to paint Star Trek no matter what his art teacher said. And then the teacher had to put the painting up on the wall, and tried to hide it by sticking it at the end.

The sports of bungee jumping, exotic dancing and parachuting

Hace un rato estuve en México...

This weekend I played a frisbee tournament in Fredericton (details to come). In the car on the way back to Sackville, I started to get nostalgic for the time I spent in Mexico - the people, the language, the food, and the frisbee. Frisbee was a big part of my experience there, especially tournaments and long bus/car rides to get there.

When I got home, I had an e-mail from my host family. They heard that the weather in Canada was quite cold, and sent me "un besote y un abrazo de oso polar" - a big kiss and a polar-bear hug. I couldn't have been happier.

The centre of the universe

The Mount Allison/Sackville community radio station (CHMA) hosted a music festival last week called Stereophonic. Throughout the ordeal, Sackville lived up to its reputation as the centre of the universe.

Being from Toronto, recognizing the supremacy of Sackville is hard step for me. But the number of national and international connections to this small town have always impressed me - it is bigger than its 2 stoplights and 5,000 inhabitants.

Since I have been here (2003) a series of celebrity speakers has tromped through town - big names for a small place. Adrienne Clarkson. Craig Kielburger. Steve Wozniak. Stuart McLean. Cindy Sheehan. George Elliott Clark. Gwynne Dyer. Tariq Ali. Peter Mansbridge. David Suzuki. Lawrence Krauss. John Manley spoke the year before I came. Next month, Richard Florida will be speaking here. According to an e-mail from the Mt. A president, he is "one of the most sought after speakers and consultants in North America."

George Staney, designer of our current Canadian flag, is from Sackville. A play was written about him and is periodically performed at historic sites in town.

Apparently, if Canada were to be attacked in a major war, Sackville would be a top target because of the location of 13 Radio Canada International towers on the edge of town. These towers are vital to national communication.

Back to Sackville's music scene - the whole inspiration for this post. Along with excellent speakers, Sackville has attracted the best of independent Canadian music over my 5 years. The Constantines. Joel Plaskett. Sloan. Corb Lund. Cuff the Duke. The Sadies. Final Fantasy. Two Hours' Traffic. Hayden. The Hidden Cameras. Jon Rae and the River. Julie Doiron lives in Sackville, and homegrown Shotgun and Jaybird (now defunct) and Shotgun Jimmie have climbed the national charts. We have a stellar blues society that brings in notable acts each month.

As the 5th annual CHMA Stereophonic festival approached this year, I started to hear a buzz on CBC Radio 3. I download their music podcasts and listen to their online radio, and heard Sackville mentioned 5 consecutive times on different CBC Radio 3 shows in the lead-up to the festival. One show even talked about the CHMA's summer baseball team. Granted, Radio 3 was sponsoring one of the Stereophonic stages, but the level of coverage for the festival was impressive. One show (the R3-30) decided to come up with a sound effect for Sackville because it was getting so much press.

At the end of the day, Sackville is no Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. But for its size I have been continually impressed with its cultural vibrancy. To top it all off, Sackville was named one of the "cultural capitals of Canada" for 2008. This national award gifted the town with up to $500,000 to fund cultural events. Again, impressive.

Icicle! Icicle!

A row of intense icicles has developed outside of my kitchen window, and when the sky turned blue today I decided to dig out my camera.

Since I still have some spare time on my hands, I have learned how to make coffee, soyburgers and refried beans (a little bit of Mexico nostalgia). Today I also matched all of our containers to lids, and was surprised to find that many were without their mates. (Where are the missing lids?)

Also nostalgic was my return to ultimate frisbee. I was a bit disappointed to play indoors after four months of outdoor play in Mexico. The good news is that I am a much better player after so much practice. I will be at a tournament in Fredericton next weekend and playing in the new Moncton league starting mid-February. Frisbee frisbee frisbee.

My roommate has taken off to Ottawa for the Canadian Universities Press national conference - something I attended in 2005 and 2006. It is full of newspaper nerds (like me...) who like to debate fonts and layout over a pitcher of beer.

When I'm not finding lids for my tupperware, I am hopefully going to class or the library. My classes are great - on migration, the EU, resources communities (think Fort McMurray), and the environment and development. I also have a made-up course on Mexican migration that is an extension of my research project from last summer. (I will tell you about this later when I have more to say.) Three of my classes are fourth-year, which means a lot of reading a pre-class preparation - but also means that class is only scheduled once a week.

Weekend plans? Well, this week is CHMA's (community radio station's) annual fundraiser: Stereophonic. This year the music festival has been getting a lot of press - it was just mentioned on the CBC Radio 3 podcast I am listening to. There is a Guitar Hero III competition tonight at Ducky's as a part of the festival, and I just might give it a try.

Back in Bagtown: The introduction

After spending four months studying in Mexico, I am back in Sackville and ready for one more semester. The adjustment has been fairly easy, even though many of my friends graduated last May. I have a few close friends who are still in town to finish up a two-programme degree (e.g. Psych and Chemistry) and others who are back to do an honours thesis. I am back because in my third year dropped down to part-time status (two courses per semester) to focus on editing the student newspaper.

Sackville	Xalapa, Mexico
cold	warm warm warm
Sally-Ann fashion statements	high heels, collared shirts and lots of hair gel
alone time, friend time, and very little family time	a social, family-based culture; being alone is a bit strange
class start on time, essays are due on time	classes start up to 30 minutes late, essays are flexible
a lot of people would rather be in Mexico	a lot of people would rather be in Canada

With one semester to go, a lot of the academic and social pressures have lifted; I am quite comfortable in Sackville, and know how to hold my own. Slowly descending instead are the pressures of post-graduation plans.

This blog is a part of Mount Allison's student blogs programme, and I will update weekly with whatever is new and exciting.

On another note, I googled "back in bagtown" and found the blog of a US soldier who used the phrase to refer to his return to Baghdad.