Highlights from the St Andrews Anniversary Ball, Macbeth, and Thanksgiving Dinner

Last weekend was a busy one for yours truly.

Thursday night involved a lot of meetings and work, per usual.

Friday I spent baking an apple pie and pumpkin muffins for the holiday (Thanksgiving) season. I went to dinner with another American in Canada, a friend of mine with whom I celebrated last year. We had yummy yummy food, chicken, and stuffing, and green bean casserole, and gravy... and then apple pie. I wish I had more apple pie.

After dinner, my friend and I went to see the Hart House performance of Macbeth, which was pretty amazing. It's been ages (high school) since I read or watched Shakespeare, so the language took some getting used to, but the play is a powerful one, and was well acted and very well staged at Hart House. My favorite part might have been the way the witches were displayed behind black cheesecloth/mesh screens, and light would shine above them at strategic times so they were hidden and then foggily revealed. Lady Macbeth was fun to hate, and Macbeth was played very convincingly. We dressed up to see it, which just adds to the fun.

Saturday night I went to the St Andrews Anniversary Ball, which was great. Great food, really fun dancing, lots of kilts and sgian dhus, and bagpipes.

Ceilidh Practice, and Wine and Cheese: A Scottish Week

Whew. I have been drowning in schoolwork, supervisor duties, and stress.

Last night I took a brief break from all the craziness, and went to a practice ceilidh dance to prepare for the St Andrews Anniversary Ball that I'm going to on Saturday night (I'm really looking forward to it!!).

I was late due to the schoolwork craziness, but managed to practice four dances, and remembered how fun it is! I also saw some friends I've made in the St Andrews Alumni Club of Toronto, who are some of the most kind people I know.

Last Saturday night the aforementioned Club held a wine and cheese. This was kind of the anniversary for me, since the first event I ever attended was last year's wine and cheese. And I had a great time both nights. This year, one of the men I worked with on the St Andrews Dinner in Honour of the President and Vice-Chancellor, etc. gave me a lot of good advice about networking and getting a job. Getting a career. I really enjoyed listening, and that conversation motivated me to actually start asking people for informational interviews and the like. Anyway, I also had a great time talking to other people, some new, some I remembered from the year before.

It's definitely been fun getting away from the work and stress, but it sure didn't lessen the overall amount of either. Which means I should probably get started on the next thing...

November Resolutions Update:
I just remembered I posted about my November resolutions, and in going back through them I discovered that I have, indeed, managed to follow at least three of them (grad school does not equal life; I will get out more; I will spend less time in front of my computer). Unfortunately, I have hardly eaten five meals at home this month.

Why Am I Not Freaking Out? A Short Story.

Why am I not freaking out about the cockroach I found at the bottom of my steps, right out side my front door?  Right. Outside. My. Home? Practically in my home?

You might ask, if you know me well enough to know I hate bugs. All bugs. But spiders, cockroaches, and earwigs most. (Bedbugs terrify me, but that's another story. Oh, and I'm no fan of silverfish or house centipedes, either). That's not in any particular order, by the way, when it comes to finding them in my house.

The answer is, that I'm drinking. A nice, tart margarita with extra triple sec. I'm not freaking out because I'm concentrating real hard on that floaty feeling I have right now, that just erases the creepiness of finding that cockroach on. my. turf.

A toast! To getting over bugs by drinking a cocktail!

The End.

Epilogue
I committed murder on that cockroach, in case you were wondering. I broke a small tree plant pot on it, and then I stabbed it repeatedly with a shard. I admit it. I stabbed a cockroach.

Thank god these aren't the kind you find in Georgia, or Florida. Fixing that situation would have required at least two margaritas. And a cockroach dance, no doubt similar to this one. And a much longer story.

Amal, Outdoor Movies, and Lakeside Breezes

I went to the Harbourfront Centre again tonight, this time to see a free movie! The sun was beginning to set as I got there, and the breezes off the lake felt wonderful. There were a few sailboats and canoes out on the water, and the ubiquitous ducks (I hate ducks. Ask me to tell that story another time, though). The islands looked beautiful. Just before the film started, the sun set, with puffy pink and blue clouds hanging over the water.

There are two weeks left - free showings at the WestJet stage, on Tuesdays at 9pm (sundown). The emcee was loquacious, but in the end he did get to presenting the movie.

Next week: Lost in Translation
August 9: Audience Choice (Vote for Cairo Time!!)

Tonight's movie was called Amal. It's a film I'd never heard about until I watched the trailer before deciding to go out tonight. The film is a bittersweet (mostly sweet) story about a poor autorickshaw driver, content with his life, and always looking out for others. He unknowingly gets offered a windfall - an inheritance from one of his customers. The plot follows the customer's lawyers as they try to find the main character, and of the family members as they try to prevent the Will from being realized. The film is about the main character, but New Delhi also plays a role, as he drives his rickshaw around the city. The ending is perfect. I repeat, perfect. It could not end better.

I love this film. I'm no critic, but I highly recommend it. Go see it. Do.

Finally, a Festival!

Ever since I returned from backpacking, I've been hiding out in my apartment, resting my knee (and shoulder, after I wrenched it filling a watering can) and getting quite a bit of work done. I finally got bored yesterday, so I checked out blogTO, which I remember every now and then, as a good place to find out about happenings in Toronto. I ended up reading about the Tirgan Iranian Festival, taking place this weekend at the Harbourfront Centre.

Today, I biked downtown, and after eventually finding my way out of random parks and parking lots between Front St and Queens Quay W., I reached the Centre, and the festival.

Wandered around a bit, looking at the wares (I didn't spend much time browsing, since I easily succumb to the temptation of pretty things, and have no money to buy said pretty things). Decided I was hungry, so I walked around the "World Cafe", a little box of vendors from Iranian restaurants in the city, and bought a koobi-something wrap from one of them. Having no idea what anything was, I just asked the cashier for his recommendation. It was really tasty! Mm.

After awhile (I don't know how long, since I forgot to bring any kind of time-telling device), I noticed one of the stages was occupied. Seated on a little hill covered in hot, fake turf, I watched a few minutes of demonstrations on the Daf, a wide-framed drum, and then made my way (past the tea house) to another stage, where the Silk Road dance company was scheduled to perform at 3pm. At the tea house, I bought a minty drink, called sekanjabin, that was delicious, sweet and refreshing and summery. Got to the stage a bit late, and ended up sitting half in the sun (one quarter of my back, almost exactly square-shaped, is the only unburned section of my upper back and shoulders - don't ask me how that happened). The performance was incredible! They performed dances from all over the Persian Empire and Silk Road, including the Azerbaijan Tea Dance; Tajikistan Tulip Dance; one from Afghanistan that had been taught by a woman who had lived there during the Soviet period; and a dance that, before Christianity arrived in the region, celebrated the birth of the firstborn girl in a family. The costumes were gorgeous, and handmade. One set, for an Uzbekistan dance, was made from Samarkand silk in an Ikat pattern, that had been donated by a woman who saw the company's performance there. The dances themselves were beautiful, but I must admit, my favorite part was imagining the history of the region and the dances and the peoples. I highly recommend the performance.

Overall, a very good day.

Four Days in the Wilderness

Having found myself stressed by big-city living over the past several months, I recently took a small vacation to get out of the city. For the first time in my life, I went backpacking. My brother came up to visit for a week, and we spent four days in Algonquin Provincial Park, walking the Western Highlands Route.

One of the most stressful aspects of going backpacking? Buying and renting equipment. Yes, if one is an experienced and frequent backpacker, one is less likely to require renting and buying equipment. However, with my brother flying in, and with me being the least experienced, we had a lot of this to do. We rented from two different places, since the first place we went was out of tents, backpacks, and sleeping pads, but luckily the second place was right across the street. We did a lot of dodging traffic and jaywalking that day.

We had everything planned, we were going to get up early and leave the next morning after picking up the rental car for the drive north, but realized that night (before our departure) that the tent we'd been given had no poles. Yes, the tent was missing poles. How that happened... shrug. However, we thankfully discovered it before we left, and therefore did have a tent to sleep in for three nights.

Got lost on our way north, in part due to bad directions (at a Shoppers, an employee suggested we take King's Way to Highway 11, which was the continuation north of Yonge St. Found out when we got there that really, Yonge St. turns into Highway ONE. Sigh).

Anyway, we did make it to the park on time, thanks to some speedy driving and Google's overestimation of the time it takes to get there. We started out that evening, hiking for just under two hours before reaching our first camp, next "door" to some very nice, helpful campers. We camped right in front of a pretty lake, Maple Leaf, it was called, and had our first freeze-dried (my first ever) dinner. Beef stroganoff. Not my favorite, but still edible. I learned the bear-bagging process that night, which involved lots of wandering around and staring at trees, and then some good (and bad) rope-throwing. My main tasks seemed to be to throw accurately when my brother got tired, and to tug on the rope once we got the food hooked onto it. We also discovered the mosquitoes that day. Which turned out to be a key theme and motivating factor throughout our hike.

Day Two involved a pretty early wake-up time, but a late start, given trouble finding moving water to zap with UV rays. After packing everything up and doing some waiting, I heard a ferocious barking across the lake, and then my brother's voice asking politely, if somewhat hesitantly, if he could use the water the dog's owners were using. They happily agreed, as far as I could tell, and I spent some more time waiting around. We hiked like we were running away from Sasquatch the next day, and without stopping for lunch, made it to our next campsite in half a day, just after lunch time. We spent that afternoon hanging around down by the next lake (Maggie, I think), and wading in it, and watching leeches and loons and frogs, and swatting at horse flies. We must have had a whole section of the lakeside camping grounds to ourselves - never heard or saw anyone. That night, we were treated to a chorus of frog song, which I like less than cricket noises. We heard the most amazing bird-calls, but couldn't identify it - one sounded almost like a scream, while another sounded like a high-pitched chuckle.

We got up rather late that morning, having figured we had time to spare, given our early arrival at this campsite. Walked another half-day's hike up and down and up and down hills, but that day we did stop for lunch. Thank goodness. We spent a relaxing hour by yet another lake, watching loons and butterflies this time, and not wading. Followed a canoe portage out of the campsite, and continued on our way. I think this is the day we started seeing moose tracks, although we never saw the moose, which was slightly disappointing (or more than slightly, if you ask my brother). Our third campsite had two levels, though we just used the first one - it was high above the lake (Ramona), so we could see over the water. Saw a loon fly back and forth, fish in the water, and more frogs (and a tadpole-frog!). Endured more mosquitoes and horse flies, and had the most trouble ever trying to find appropriate trees to use to hang the food. We ended up, after much frustration, tramping around in decaying and mossy leaves, clambering up onto and over a fallen tree, and getting the rope caught on the rough bark, before finally getting the bag high enough. We should have had a hilarious picture of my brother doing a poor imitation of a bear under the bag, but had forgotten the camera. Next morning, when we'd planned to take it, events intervened.

I woke up around 5:45 in the morning because the sky was just light, and I heard a loud, booming noise. And then it came again. And I woke my brother up, asking, Did you hear that? He stared at me, uncomprehending, before he heard it, too. I asked the obvious, Was that thunder? And he agreed. So I asked, Should we get going? And we both leaped up (or some variation on the theme) and started running around, trying to get all our stuff out of the tent and the tent rolled up and the food down and our bags packed and rain gear on... we made it about halfway through all our preparations (not including breakfast) before the sky opened. We spent the first half of that morning's hike walking in the rain, and the whole morning trudging through mud and muck. I almost preferred the first part of the morning to the second, because the mosquitoes came back (I guess that implies they left us alone, which they never did) swarmed with a vengeance. Horrid things. We had our rain gear on, so the only things they could reach were faces, necks, and hands... when we finally, finally, reached the last information sign that informed us we had about ten minutes walk to the car, we picked up the pace and practically ran to get away from them. Not that it helped.

We survived, and had fun, and those are the important things, although, in addition to looking like a pincushion or a person with a really bad rash, I busted my knee. Found out about that a day after we got back, trying to get ready to go out for what appeared to be a fun evening (I didn't get to go, because the walking thing wasn't happening). We learned a few things about backpacking, for instance: avoiding mosquito season is a really good idea. Also, I have never appreciated a shower as much as I did the evening we got back.

Advent, Day 19: Transition

Tomorrow I'm off home for the holidays, which is very exciting. I've been having a relaxing few days here, but the way things have been going I'd be very bored if I didn't have something else to look forward to! Not to mention I can't wait to see my family and all my friends back home, bake and eat cookies, decorate the Christmas tree and maybe even the house, drink mulled wine with people, see my cats... oh, so many things!

The past few days, as I mentioned, have been slow indeed. Nicely slow, but I've been doing laundry, cleaning, packing... the stuff I'd rather ignore for a bit longer (always). I've neglected the advent calendar a bit, but not entirely, as you can see from the list of activities below.

[This photo is one I took at the Christmas Market last weekend.]


Day 16: With the purchases I made on Day 15, I made mulled wine and enjoyed a whole bottle (it reduces, not to worry... one bottle makes about 2 mugsfull). While drinking mulled wine, I listened to a whole host of Christmas songs, carols and ballads, and wrote about 15 holiday cards. Sadly, my handwriting was terrible... I blame it on the pen.

Day 17: I enjoyed a good swim with a good friend in the early afternoon, after which we visited a Jewish bakery, got yummy sweets and posted my Christmas cards. Taxes here are awful (13%!!) but since I spent more than $5 (about three times that in fact), my purchases were exempt from said tax, which saved me $2. :P Huzza!

Day 18: Yesterday I spent most of the day doing laundry and cleaning. In a fit of restlessness I decided to do some stretching and exercising, and am paying for yesterday's whimsy with a sore back today. Nothing Christmas-y except the fairy lights.

Day 19: My plan is to do nothing more taxing than listening to some Christmas music under my fairy lights and possibly find a holiday movie online.

A Tale of Two Networking Opportunities

The first networking opportunity: Having volunteered at a CRRS (Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies) conference on Book History and Print Culture back in October, I received an invitation to a gratitude reception that took place last week. I went alone, expecting to see a few people I knew, but also  knowing I'd have to make an effort to network and meet new people. I was welcomed by the people I knew, and introduced myself to a woman sitting alone on a couch - we chatted. I learned from one of the women I'd worked with at the conference that there is an opportunity coming up for interdisciplinary work with CRRS, with which I hope to get involved.

The second: A couple of months ago, new to Toronto, I came across the alumni club for my old university, and made up my mind to go to their next event, which was held last night. After much internal deliberation (The semester ends on Friday, and of course I have mountains of work) I decided not to back out in cowardly fashion. I expected a similar experience to the one I'd had earlier this week, but nothing could be further from reality. From the moment we walked in, we were welcomed, our names given, received and remembered, and everyone there made an effort to talk to the new people and find out who we were, etc... in short, they are wonderful people. I made two networking connections in addition to the social connections I hope to keep. I sincerely look forward to their next event, a Burns' Night celebration in January.

Pie for Breakfast

I've been eating pumpkin pie for breakfast all weekend, and of course loving it, because isn't pie one of the best breakfasts ever? At least, that's how I feel about pie for breakfast. I lie and tell myself that because it has pumpkins, or apples, or peaches in it, it's healthy. This time it's pumpkin, and it's left over from Thanksgiving.


Being in Canada, and not having many American friends (they're probably off to places like Europe, if they study abroad, because who goes to Canada if they can help it, right?) I thought I'd miss out on Thanksgiving, my second favorite holiday. But I got lucky - I happened to run into another American, whose roommate is American, and so she invited me to their mini celebration dinner. 


The highlights: 


1. Nobody'd made cranberry sauce, so we had cranberries with vodka. In juice form. 


2. We had chicken, instead of turkey, because we're still students, no matter that we're graduate students, and turkeys are frozen and HUGE. What student has an oven that big? 


3. I drafted myself to make the pumpkin pie, because I love making and baking pies, and really they're the only kind I like to eat. Homemade pies, that is. I had this recipe that called for anise seeds in the crust to give it an "Italian" flavor, but naturally my small neighborhood grocery store didn't have anise seeds. My crust recipe yields enough for a bottom crust and a top crust, and I got the really large can of pumpkin, so I got two pies for the effort of one! Which is why I can have pie for breakfast this weekend. Turns out my pie was a big hit (it's all about the cream-instead-of-condensed-milk). 


4. I was tired, but not hungover, for my Friday morning class. 

Canadian Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Weird, I know. It's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, which is throwing off my internal timetable. I mean, I've only been in school for a month, and the weather's still at 70 degrees! (That's Fahrenheit - I think it's 20+ in Celsius, but I'm not sure.) Not to mention I've not seen a football game yet, there's no Macy's Parade, no Christmas sales starting on Tuesday (Christmas is still two and a half months away!)... It's not even almost the weekend - the weekend's almost over!

I just can't wrap my American head 'round it.

An American in Canada

Last week, sitting in my tutorial and listening to a presentation on an article about the Internet in Trinidad, I came to a sudden realization: I have never been as foreign as I am right now in my department.

The epiphany occurred as I puzzled out comments by two of the presenters. The Internet, to them, has an identity. Not just any identity, but an American one. "What?", I thought.

As soon as the presentation ended, I raised my hand to address one of the discussion questions, which regarded the identity of the Internet, and individuals' identification while using the internet. As I asked the question, "I don't know if I'm the only American here..." I scanned the room of twenty or so people, and got nothing. Nobody moved, nodded, shook their heads... only my professor chuckled.

Shocking. Even in Scotland, I couldn't attend any of my classes without at least being in the company of one other American. Here, the classes are completely dominated by Canadians (although I don't think I was the only foreigner in class that day).

I've never felt so foreign in my life, except perhaps when I was the only American in Italy on a European exchange program.

Trash in Toronto

I can't access the university website, so naturally, I'm not doing my homework.

After a long hiatus (how do you spell that?) from writing about what my blog is actually supposed to be about, I have another Greener Life post.

At home in the States, I thought my town was pretty avant garde for all the things they picked up in recycling bins. Books? Yep. Milk cartons? Totally. Newspapers, cardboard, tin cans? Of course!

Reality check. Toronto picks up your regular curbside trash, your regular curbside recycling... AND they pick up composting! It's taking me awhile to get used to putting my food scraps in a separate bag. Finally yesterday I got the little bin everybody uses. I feel so much... Greener ... than before.

So the deal is, they pick up trash and recycling on a bi-weekly (by that I mean once every other week) alternating basis. Compost, cleverly, they pick up every week.

They even have a "waste wizard" online to help out with the "what goes where" question.

I almost forgot: On the street, they even have separated bins for trash, different kinds of recycling, and often, special compartments for coffee cups! I challenge you to find another city that recycles coffee cups on the street. (Really, please share. Is it Canadian? Is it a west-coast mindset? A big city thing? I'm curious).

Day-to-Day Update: I've Landed in Toronto!

Contrary to what the title suggests, I drove to Toronto. Road trip! Love them. It took all day, and we stopped in Niagara Falls, Canada, before we found our bed and breakfast in downtown Toronto.

The past few days I've been apartment-hunting, walking, drinking coffee, taking the subway, meeting people, and going to orientations. I've also been doing all the important "administrative" things that are necessary for living in another country. And re-discovering the complications of being a foreign resident. Sigh.

I'm a little terrified of grad school. (Can one be a little terrified? Or, if terrified, is that only an extreme?) It all looks very exciting, but the responsibilities of being a "junior colleague" to my professors and advisors is intimidating.

This morning, I registered with my faculty, and while on the steps to the front door (which usually requires a university ID to enter), discovered I'd lost mine. Student ID, that is. After some desperate thinking, I figured I'd left it at the library yesterday afternoon. No coffee unless in spill-proof containers in the library, so I had to take one last gulp and pour the rest out before entering. Double sigh.

I believe I need a refill now, before I meet my advisor.