a sibilant intake of breath

After a productive meeting with Bryony this morning, I lay down for what was to be a judicious twenty minute nap. Instead, it became two hours of the strangest dreams I can remember: as strange as the infamous pony dream, but involving Herman Melville. The BBC was there, and Japanese imperialism – personified. Even so, the paper for Dr. Hurrell was dispatched by three and I my reticle was firmly centred on interwar American foreign policy soon afterwards. By midnight, I had a solid and comprehensible seeming draft of that paper done as well. Kudos all around. I definitely feel some affinity with the various Oxford bloggers churning out words for National Novel Writing Month (NatNoWriMo).

The incredible thing about completing these two papers is that, with the exception of reading and one more stats assignment, this marks the completion of the workload for my first term at Oxford. Of course, the inter-term break will be well-loaded with work of its own, but it is still gratifying to see one phase come to a reasonably successful conclusion.

Aside: Pondering Meghan’s Riddle 

As per her requests, I have been pondering what gift Meghan has inserted into the international mail system for my birthday and Christmas, both. I know that it’s something for which I once expressed very strong approval, that it “isn’t at all practical,” and that it isn’t from ThinkGeek.com. A large, laminated world map struck me as a possibility, but it would be both quite awkward to mail and quite practical for my course of study. Another possibility I’ve considered is rare earth magnets. I’ve always found magnets fascinating: they seem to defy all of our expectations about how matter should behave. They remind me of something Homer Simpson once said: “The Lord gave us the atoms, and it’s up to use to make them dance.”

One major possibility is some kind of gadgetry. Anything photographic would fall under ‘useful,’ and there aren’t really many photo gadgets that can be used with a point and shoot digital camera. I’ve always been a fan of folding type metal gadgets: like my large and small multi-tool. Again, however, they are eminently useful. The same goes for virtually all books, so I am at something of a loss for ideas. A complex three-dimensional toy of the Science World variety (separate the rings, open the box, etc) seems possible. The lack of certainty makes it rather more exciting, anyhow.

After a collection of days as sleepless as the last few have been, it’s of vital importance to get back on my standard sleep schedule: going to sleep between 1:00am and 2:00am and waking up at 9:00am. Getting back into the regimented order is the only way of wearing down the sleep debt without destabilizing my sleep pattern for a long time, sleeping for a whole day, or both.

• A blog about the Festivus Pole: symbol of a superior holiday.
• I had an interesting conversation with Lauren tonight, and received some engaging correspondence from Astrid.

As I sit in my room writing this, I am wearing a MEC microfibre shirt, a wool sweater, my woolen hoodie (hood on), and a fleece over top of all of it. Central heating here is more nominal than real and I prefer bundling up to breaking out energy inefficient space heaters. Besides, the cold helps me concentrate.

Today featured a sustained effort to finish the two papers due on Tuesday. Being able to celebrate the end of this crush period with Nick is most welcome, but I need to defer all contemplation of such things until the two hurdles have been o’erleapt. I finished the Jonathan Spence book tonight and I think it will form the chronological basis for the China paper. Tomorrow I will mount a Northern Expedition to the SSL to access confined books vital to the American foreign policy paper.

At about ten tonight, between spans of reading and writing, I spent a pleasant half hour having soup with Nora and Kelly. I lost track of them at the bop yesterday, though their nights seem to have concluded reasonably well. From their descriptions, I am glad I was wearing my headphones while working between 2:00am and 6:30am, when I went to sleep. Tonight looks set to be comparable but, soup fortified, I will surely be able to manage it. My editing session with Bryony has been pushed back to 9:30am tomorrow.

sardonic: Of laughter, a smile: Bitter, scornful, mocking. Hence of a person, personal attribute, etc. Characterized by or exhibiting bitterness, scorn or mockery.

My determined effort to go and read in the library led me instead to Leonora, and from thence to my second, far longer, and more enjoyable encounter with the Queer Bop phenomenon. The Wadham Library is being used as a kind of warming and refueling centre, a storage depot, and – in the darker corners – a venue for more adventuresome activities. We did not persist there long, but headed out boldly into this human wilderness.

As quite possibly the two most sober people in Wadham, Leonora and I wandered through the JCR Quad area, immersing ourselves several times in the tent that was the nexus of all light, sound, and activity in Wadham tonight. By the time we were there, some of the energy density had dissipated; it was more of a throng and less of a crush and consequently rather more enjoyable. Additionally, having at least a good portion of the attention of another person makes these sorts of experiences far more comprehensible and enjoyable for me. I even made a few awkward and pathetic attempts at dancing, as well as getting to serve as the base of one of the two-person amalgamations that swerve around to “Free Nelson Mandela” at the end of Wadham bops.

While all manner of interesting things took place tonight, this blog is not the venue for all stories. Moreover, if I am to have anything at all to edit with Bryony tomorrow night, the rest of tonight will have to be devoted to producing it. In any case, my thanks go to Leonora for helping me to perceive the bop in something much closer to its proper light. To have not done so would have been a betrayal of the basic imperative to experience and understand life.

Sorry about how grainy the above photo is. This is what happens when you set the ISO equivalent on the A510 to 400. Not such a bad effect, once in a while, but the ones in the 10:30 update are better. Once I have sorted the potentially publishable photos from those better confined to encrypted disk images, some more of them will appear online.

The rigidity of the once-a-day entry system is not ideal. At the same time, people seem to like the consistency. My solution for the moment will be to release daily flagship entities, complete with the photo of the day, and supplementary entries on other topics. As always, it is up to those reading to decide what they want to do with this information.

Today was fairly productive, in terms of schoolwork. I embedded myself first in the Cornmarket Starbucks, reading, then the High Street Starbucks and finally in the upper reading room of the Radcliffe Camera. While it’s not a style of architecture for which I generally have a great love, the Palladian styling of that rotunda is really quite lovely. It doesn’t have the dolled-up, overdecorated feel that many domed, semi-Romanesque buildings have. Instead, there is something of the simple elegance that I so appreciate in gothic buildings. I particularly like some of the stone sculpture right below the lip of the dome. Right across from the Codrington Library, it’s a part of Oxford where I should spend more time. I am shamefully ineffective at reading in my room and the fluorescence of the DPIR at night is reminiscent of Staples.

I am anxiously awaiting the time when we will have more freedom to study what we are actually fascinated with. While all this history is important, I am anxious to arrive in the contemporary world. History, like gardening, is something that the young take up by necessity, the old with passion cultivated through patience.

The time when we get to direct our own studies will be the point at which I decide whether this whole graduate school this has ‘caught:’ whether it’s something I can commit myself to for another six to eight years, in order to complete a PhD. While I don’t feel like it would be either wise or possible to complete all of that at a stretch, it would be good to have some real certainty about it as a course of action. That’s one of the big motivations for doing the M.Phil: it will let me test the waters of academia before spending a few years working in government, for an NGO, or in some other non-academic role.

This morning, I had a walk and a cup of coffee with Margaret. After so much telephonic interaction, it was good to see her in person. I also received a very kind birthday card and gift from my family back in Canada. I’ve been affixing the various cards I receive to the non-painted surfaces in my room and they do much to give the place a bit of character.

For those who don’t know, my parents and youngest brother live in North Vancouver, in the house near Edgemont Village where I lived between second and twelfth grade. My mother’s name is Alena and, in addition to teaching English as a second language, she does a lot of volunteer work. Because of the demographics in North Vancouver, she teaches a lot of Iranians. With luck (and a visa that is still being awaited) she will be visiting Teheran in the spring of next year to see friends and former students. Aside from teaching, my mother is a very active reader and the source of the great body of excellent novels that fill the shelves of the house. My father, Oleh, is a lawyer at the firm Miller Thomson – where I have also worked, upon occasion. By far the most physically active member of my family, he plays squash, cycles a great deal, hikes, runs, and is a source of enthusiasm behind familial wilderness adventures: including the Powell Forest Canoe Circuit trip and the first and second Bowron Lakes adventures. One of his more notable adventures recently was working as an electoral monitor in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution.

My brother Sasha, still in high school, lives with my parents. He is on both the junior and senior improv teams at my old high school. Improv is actually an activity he inherited from my middle brother Mica, who is now at UBC. Several times, Mica went to the national championships in improvisational comedy: once on the same team as my friends Hilary and Alison. In his last year of high school, Mica’s team won the national tournament. Last year, the team that Sasha captained won the provincial championship. A player of baseball and soccer, Sasha is also a fanatical devotee of World of Warcraft: within which he runs a business exchanging characters and gold for real money. Of the three brothers, he seems to be the one with the most entrepreneurial aptitude.

Mica is definitely the foremost dramatist of the trio: with starring roles in several of the major shows put on by my high school, as well as the production of Damn Yankees at UBC last year. He is also probably the most athletic of the three of us. While I did not persist long in sunny baseball afternoons and rainy soccer mornings, Mica had quite a bit of dedication – especially as a pitcher. He now seems to pour a lot of his energy into making videos, many of which are quite excellent. Studying history, he was in the Arts One program last year, and intends to do his teaching certificate once he finishes his undergraduate degree.

One of the most difficult aspects of spending two years in England will be either not seeing or barely seeing my brothers over that course of time. While I do keep in touch with them over MSN and through things like the blog, it’s certain that the next two years will bring some huge changes for both of them. While I am sure they will both do very well – they have talents which I lack and envy, as well as the sense of humour which is so critical to maintaining sanity – it will be unfortunate to see it from such a distance. I hope very much that they will visit me here. The last photo in this collection shows my brothers and I at my departure party.

One thing that people find confusing is that only Sasha, my father, and I have the same last name. When my parents wed, my mother kept her last name. Furthermore, they agreed to alternate the family names of children, beginning with my mother’s in the case of a female child and my father’s in the case of a male child. It strikes me as a fair and sensible way to go about it.

I got one piece of distressing news over Skype from my mother today. Apparently, Sasha and his friend Jonah got mugged by four 2″x4″ wielding thugs on their way home from improv practice a couple of days ago. Sasha knew one of the assailants from school. They were after money and iPods and, despite Sasha’s efforts to talk them out of it, they persisted in making threats of violence. Luckily, Sasha and his friend were able to run away and gain sanctuary in a stranger’s house. Apparently, the police are unwilling to press any charges, despite the fact that they caught all four of the would-be thieves, because nobody was hurt. To me, that seems extremely irresponsible and an encouragement to such thuggishness. They did, however, commend Sasha for his handling of the situation. 

I was unsuccessfully mugged twice in North Vancouver while in high school: once with Jonathan on Highland road by a couple of snowboarders and once in Edgemont Village with Chevar by one of my classmates. The second time was at knifepoint, right in the middle of a sunny afternoon. In neither case did I have any money on me, as I am in the habit of almost never doing so. The fact that the police have never managed to do much of anything when any member of my family has been robbed or burgled does not create great confidence. I am extremely glad, in any case, that nothing too bad befell Sasha or his friend. Hopefully, the four thieves will find cause to devote their energies to something more productive and socially acceptable, even if the authorities are unwilling to compel it.

One last item. You hear bandied about a lot of talk about liberal bloggers, conservative bloggers, and bias overall on the internet. To me, such labeling risks being counterproductive. Just because you can categorize someone in one way or another doesn’t let you anticipate or automatically ignore their ideas. It’s absurd to think the complex political and ethical questions of the day can be answered along a single axis of difference. It’s equally absurd to think that a polarized community willing to completely ignore the arguments and positions of others will lead to the advancement in knowledge, thinking, or ethics. Open, civil debate must be the approach taken. 

This morning, I went for coffee and a walk with Bryony Lau: one of my fellow Canadians in the M.Phil program. She is a well-travelled and interesting person, who seems to be handling the program extremely well. I am glad that she will be coming to the dinner and film at St. Antony’s tonight, to which Alex has invited several of us. Like Claire, Bryony is taking a course at the Oxford University Language Centre: an idea that I should probably emulate. I can almost feel my command of French seeping away.

In the early afternoon, I met with my college advisor – Dr. Paul Martin – for the first time. We spoke about scholarships to apply for, the structure of the university, and the M.Phil program. As he explained it, college advisors don’t really do anything, aside from answer general questions by email and take you to dinner at high table twice a year. Dr. Martin also said that I should be reading eleven or twelve books a week, which I think is mad. Either I would have no comprehension of them whatsoever, or I would have time to do absolutely nothing else. That kind of personal abuse really doesn’t seem like education to me. That said, I definitely don’t feel as though I have been reading enough. It’s quite a difficult thing for me to buckle down and do, unless there is no more interesting alternative or the situation has become absolutely urgent. Perhaps I am not well suited to academic life.

Today brought two excellent pieces of mail. The first was the NatWest credit card which I applied for in September. My days of pondering the Mastercard Pound-Dollar exchange rate when buying groceries have ended. Better still, I got a birthday card and gift from my maternal grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousins in North Carolina. I shall write them a letter of thanks. My Uncle George and Aunt Eva are the parents of my cousin Jiri in Prague, as well as his sister Kristyna. It seems that Sasha and my mother will be going to visit them around Christmas time.

In the evening, I took a stab at Vancouver emulation. I sat in Starbucks, listening to Melissa Ferrick, and read The Economist and the Spence China book. Never mind that when you order a Venti dark roast here you get a blank stare followed by a query to the manager about what a dark roast is. Differing voltages, differing nomenclature. Despite minor cultural friction, it was an excellent way to escape the cold, induce wakefulness, read, and avoid libraries all at the same time. For those who haven’t heard her, Melissa Ferrick is an energetic and engaging Canadian singer. For me, her musical talent is somehow well demonstrated in the precise timing of the pause between the words “You are” and “walking grace” in the live version of the song “Will You Be the One.” I think it’s the constant theme of seeking love in her music that so endears it to me. Another fine musical introduction from Astrid.

The later part of tonight was extremely nice. Having dinner at St. Antony’s with Alex, Bryony, Shohei, and Iason, I felt like I was finally part of a community, not just friends with a few people in Oxford. It’s a powerful thing, to finally feel connected in a place.  

After dinner, Bryony, Shohei, and Iason had to go off to work on various projects. Alex and I, however, went to see Buongiorno Notte with the St. Antony’s European Film Society. It’s a difficult film to write about, really. Most anything you would care to say about it is said better by the film itself: a complex and beautiful story about the power of human choice.

I should get back to the eternal task of reading – one that I don’t feel that I do enough of or sufficiently well at. My thanks again to Alex for the invitation.

Night of 1000 Dinners: Sunday, December 4th  

I encourage those in Vancouver, whether at UBC or not, to participate in this excellent event at the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Coal Harbour, which raises money to combat the global problem of land mines. All proceeds from the evening go to Adopt-a-Minefield, which funds mine clearance and victim assistance programs. I attended all the ones that were held while I was at UBC and enjoyed each thoroughly. Tickets are $20 for students and $40 for non-students: on sale by my friend Fernando and others. If this year is the same as previous ones, the United States Consulate General in Vancouver will provide free wine.