Anchor-what?

The Guam-a-maniacs

2008-10-23T00:44:00.004+08:00

1 Karen, 2 Claire, 3 Sara, 4, Natalie, 5 Georgie, 6 - Moi.

After 2 years and a bit, the Lamma Outigger Canoe Club finally made its way to their first international race in Guam for the 10th Micronesia Cup. It was brilliant, the teams were fantastic and our hosts were absolutely amazing.

I've been to Guam on two other occasions, paddling with two other teams (a different one each time). On neither of those occasions did I have the pleasure of enjoying such generous hospitality nor the actual location as much as I did on this trip. This was something I had not expected, as organization of previous races (with dragon boats, etc) has been 10 stripes of hell in running to and fro and trying to keep everything sorted out.

It is fair to say that the physical demands of the races - coming only 4 hours after our arrival - were vile. I was so tired by the end of the first day that I was weaving on my feat, and could barely remember my own name (always a good thing while attending a race briefing for the following day). I really need to follow my own advice and sleep more. And eat more veg.

Outriggers certainly still demand lots of time and energy, but the crews are smaller and most folks are totally on-board the game plan.

In any case, here are a few pics of the events - and the blue colour of sea and sky are just the tip of the iceberg ... it was stunning.

Some notes on love

2008-10-15T07:50:00.003+08:00

MASON, Lionel MacKenzie

MASON, Lionel MacKenzie - 89, Tangier, passed away suddenly after a brief illness on Thursday, October 9, 2008, in Dartmouth General Hospital. Born in Tangier, he was a son of the late Stanley and Elizabeth (Murphy) Mason. Lionel was postmaster for 25 years at the Tangier Post Office. Lionel was a faithful member of Holy Trinity Church, Tangier. He is survived by his loving wife of 68 years, the former Gladys Hilchie; daughters, Judith Lisson, Lower Sackville; Heather (Clare) Miller, Darlings Island, N.B.; Patricia (Colin) Topshee, Wentworth Valley; Nancy (Henry) Kurbel, Kitimat, B.C.; sons, Lionel Jr. (Diane), Lake Echo; Stephen, Vancouver; Stuart (Vianne), Regina; Stanley (Mary), Dartmouth; Stacy (Marlene), Musquodoboit Harbour; Chris (Monica), Dartmouth; 25 grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren; brothers, Frank (Effie), Halifax; Burpee (Velda), Ottawa; sisters, Thelma Saco, Pearl Cool, Manchester, Mass. He was predeceased by son, John David in infancy; brother, Stanley; sisters, Hildred, Kathleen, and Lavenia; son-in-law, Russell Lisson. Visitation Sunday 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. with prayers at 7:30 p.m. in D.S. Crowell and Son Funeral Home, 22558 Highway 7, Sheet Harbour. Funeral service will be held Monday at 11 a.m. in Holy Trinity Church, Tangier, Rev. Pam Bishop officiating, assisted by Rev. David Boston. Burial in the church cemetery. Family flowers only. Donations may be made to Holy Trinity Church or a charity of choice.

Here is the very plain obituary of my beloved grandfather. Plain was his preference; he did not like ostentation. But here are some ideas and snapshots that should be said anyway, because my memory cannot hold everything always and some things are too precious not to be noted:

Waltzing on Tangier lake with my grandfather when I was a little girl and in love with ice-skating; he would twirl me around, singing "Side by Side," as I slithered and swirled around the safe orbit of his arms.

How many babies bounced to "The Grand Old Duke of York" on his knees? I did. My cousins did. My cousin's children did. Why else would we love that odd old nursery rhyme?

His rule about not taking communion more than once in 24 hours. When he explained this to me, it was the first I'd heard about such a rule and was my first real glimpse into the solid rock of his faith. About that, he was private and absolutely sincere.

His story, told increasingly over the past few years, about the first time he saw Grandma (through a spyglass across a bay) and saying "That is the girl I am going to marry." Then he hopped on a bicycle and went to find her.

His dancing. He danced more at my sister's wedding than anyone else there. He was so graceful.

Saying grace. There will always and only be one "grace" to me.

His teacup.

Cutting a hole in the lake ice in winter to bring water up to the cows in the barn.

The bull's horn. When I was small, he cut the twisted old horn of the old bull that had been butchered off the head. It was a gross and smelly object, but I prized it, and I sanded and polished that thing until it was creamy and smooth. It was a gift.

His sense of humor. His independence. How much he loved my grandmother. How much we all loved him.

There are thousands of memories. These are just a few of mine. The beginning stands out most of all, of sunny winter days in Nova Scotia.

Oh, We ain't got a barrel of money
Maybe we're ragged and funny
But we'll travel along
Singing a song
Side by side

I don't know what's a-comin' tomorrow
Maybe it's trouble and sorrow
But we'll travel the road
Sharing our load
Side by side

Thru all kinds of weather
What if the sky should fall
Just as long as we're together
It really doesn't matter at all

When they've all had their quarrels and parted
We'll be the same as we started
Just traveling along
Singing a song
Side by side

it must be that season

2008-03-14T06:16:00.002+08:00

It's that season to write, since I haven't written in ages, and to find a way to get past all the rubbish nadas I've had cob-webbing my brain for the past many months.

In my news - what has happened?

I left the cube and struck out on my own
I vacationed at home in Canada with my beloveds
I returned and began freelancing for various (dullish) magazines etc
I remembered how much I love writing, but how dull some reporting is
I got depressed over not having too much to do
I trained up my outrigger crews for another Round HK Island race (they were excellent!)
I fought with immigration to accept my independent business visa
After receiving my visa, a succumbed to the offer at a well-paying job at a bank (to stay unnamed, but of excellent 'not damaged by subprime' European repute)
I began DB season
I went back to the gym and hired a personal trainer to make sure I lift weights and strengthen my back
I was delighted to see my dear friend N[a]K started some lovely writing again
I decided to use this blog for ramblings, 'what's going ons' and assorted stuff.
I've decided to use Twisted Stack for anything I think might be worth writing about in a different manner.

I created Twisted Stack last year, thinking of making it just a waffle blog about poems I liked or blather... there are some old entries I don't like that shall be edited out. Al Purdy stays though. And even that old thing, by Liz Bishop - cause I love her.

Back in C-A-N-A-D-A

2007-08-13T23:49:00.000+08:00

And thank god Stompin' Tom isn't here to sing about it.

It's been ages, I realize, but between facebook torment, family gatherings and incessant driving, there hasn't been that much time.

In review:

Left my job! YAY!
Worked at bank for 3 weeks in order to afford long vacations ($$$)
Took some freelance work
Flew to Paris, then to Montreal, then got in car and drove to NB.
Km travelled: 6, 800.
Sanity and back in decent shape: Priceless.
NB - play with parents and sibs
NS - play with uncles, aunts, cousins and Granparents celebrating 90th Birthday!
NB - See above
Quebec - see km driven, (add another 800), and back in good nick
Ontario - Nina, Sue, and Meech lake for swimming!
Now: coffee and internet.

And some photos of family and friends.

Sara, owner of the world in the pope-mobile

Susan and Liam (on the fence)

Mzz Nina Anita and sprog 1

N[a]K's Sprogs A and S.

my bro Jo - the hoser (but no ho)

Who's 90? Gran and Grand-dad, Gladys and Lionel Mason not dancing
to Yellowbird, thank god.

Nancy and Heather, outhouse in background. (little, red, not too smelly)

Isaac - not a baseball star. Note the sunspot - how lovely.

Gladys at the garden in Tangier, NS

Does this mean I have to be a Mormon Fundamentalist now?

2007-06-21T08:48:00.000+08:00

Finally, after a rough, long, weird season, the Lamma Ladies did what I've been saying we could do all spring and summer: We won our Gold Cup at Stanley, for the second year in a row!

And boy, and I relieved (I didn't feel much like eating my words this week).

Before the backgrounder, here is a photo of the Ladies with our cup!

Happy Pink Faces!

Yeah - so here is how the season went:

Shatin was fine, with the team being slightly edged out in the final to take the silver medal. A good result!

Then we went on to Deep Water Bay, where my enthusiasm for the wonderful new members (our largest team ever), combined with zany pride and a lack of perspective convinced me that we could move almost all our experienced paddlers to the back of the boat to create an ass-kicking power engine and back that would jet us to victory.

Naturally, I decided to do this, with la beast Dawn's agreement, 36 hours before the race. The result was that people fell out of their comfort zone and got wiggy on the day. Hence, we got a bronze medal. Still a good result!

Having learned our lesson (NEVER change anything before a race! never, never, never!), we prepared for our own Heliads Lamma International Dragon Boat Festival.

In our first heat, we mixed things us a little (it wasn't a strict 'A' boat, which we reserve for finals if needed) but we had a strong race and came second. As I hopped out of the boat and ran back up the beach to continue trying to make the race run on schedule (as one of the organizers), I thought: "hey, that was great. We have this race."

Well, we likely had that race, except it was cancelled because of the cruel hand of the Old Testament God who evidently didn't like me shouting profanities at him as I walked to the beach that morning at 6am whilst lightning struck all around me, rain ran in torrents around my ankles, and red tide awaited me at the shore. No sense of humor that OT God - or perhaps, too much humour for my own good.

OK - so that was one awkward race and one super-tough blow.

Then, then we went to Cheung Chau where we have always in my memory over the past 6-7 years won the gold cup.

And we got knocked out in the first heat! What the F$@K? Now sure, it was a fluke, but how many bad things were we planning on chalking up this year?

So that was two Sunday's in a row that God was kicking my heart around Hong Kong waters.

Which is why Monday night was so much fun! Because on Monday night, I had to deliver the team list of who would and - critically - who would not get to paddle at the race in Stanley.

We had 28 women vying for seats in the boat. We had only room for 18 paddlers and, we decided this year, 2 reserves. Anybody who thinks this is a nice situation to be in has granite where their heart belongs.

And I know all the rationale for picking the strongest team. After all, Beast and I have to do the choosing and it's brutal. Of all the things I have to do in the run of my year, picking the final team is the worst (same goes for outrigger, but at Stanley, everyone is revved up and crazy to go, and they've trained their guts out explicitly for the event).

So after delivering the glorious news in person, and then having to telephone people who couldn't make the meeting, I needed either a strong drink (couldn't - racing next morning) or a rubber mallet with which to to hit myself repeatedly in the head.

Here is my face in the morning. I look like one of those sad Wrinkle-dog toys that were so popular in the 1980s. I believe that this face is the result of sore, burning eyes (the water was filthy and mine had bothered me for several days). I bought visine later and stopped looking so damned grim.

Yes, this is the dog that I look like. You heard it here first.

In any case, the day unfolded well. We ran our first race fairly conservatively to make it into the Gold Cup final (top four go to cup, bottom four t0 five go to plate).

Our lovely steersman Ivan had problems at the helm of the first race for the second year in a row - which I took as a good omen. And since we had secured a third place finish, there wasn't anything to worry about for the next few hours (5-hour wait between races!), so we went shopping at Stanley market and had some lunch. With that much time, you could have ordered a 16-oz steak with blue-cheese dressing and have digested the whole thing and already started benefiting from the protein burst.

Our second race (there are two finals), was wild. We came off the blocks well, evenly spaced with the other teams, but our starts are old-school (for us) and it shows. We were in 5th place after the first 50 meters and after a 'power-up' started to claw our way forward.

Beast-mistress Dawn called for a long finish, and the boat suddenly flew down the course with the whole team roaring our guts out. Really, if we had half the energy in our strokes that we had in our screaming, it's amazing we didn't have lift-off.

And in the course of that 20-second finish, I shouted so loudly and hoarsely that I lost my voice immediately. For real. So I squeaked through the rest of the day and today (2 days later), I still talk as though I have gravel in my throat.

The second final was not as good, but Stanley is weighted by points: first place gets 9 points; second gets 7 points; third gets 6 and so on.

So the only way we could have lost is if the IPC, who had placed second in the first final, had won first in the second final - giving them 7 + 9 points, for 16. But the took second place and second place for 14 points.
But Stormy ladies came first (9) and had come fourth in the first race (5) earning 14 points (and since they took a first, they were awarded over the IPC's race, or that is my understanding).
We had come first in the first final (9) and third in the second (6) to win 15 points overall and the cup.

If there is anything more frustrating that doing math on the beach to decide who won a race, I don't know what it is. OK, yes I do: It's watching your first festival get rained out.

But after that last entry about becoming a Mormon Fundamentalist, well, the tables have turned, so maybe that's a sign that I am wanted in some wacky other church. Sadly, I'd rather be one of those people who does snake charming or whatever. Mind you, having said that I might end up with the cobra on my doorstep again.

End of a race. A rare photo of me not looking exactly like a serial killer during race day.

So the day ended very well, and I came home with team-mates and ended up in the island bar drinking with a few of the fishermen and chattering about what a great day they had (they won their fisherman's series in Aberdeen!).

Blue cube, you're left there sitting alone... without an office girl clone, who's turning into a drone.

2007-06-14T17:14:00.000+08:00

Or, as should be obvious: It's my last day!

I am out the door; have dusted the blue of my heels and am making off into the sunset.

The last paycheck is in my pocket, and all I am missing is someone to drink a small amount of vino with to celebrate this landmark day.

For tomorrow, I have heaps of things to figure out.

In other news: the Lamma International Dragon Boat Festival was, in fact, visited by the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

In addition to the grotesque red tide, an amber rain storm which blew ALL of the Pearl River Delta's trash into Lamma's bays, six thousand lightning strikes in Hong Hong on the day, what felt like gale-force winds at about 12:00, and white-caps you could've ridden to Japan... well, it was a zoo.

But ALL the teams came and we did manage to run 10 races before conditions blew up again and the whole festival (wet, rainy, cold) had to be shut down for safety.

The name of "Thor" was muttered on several occasions.

On that note: I am so pissed off with these results after crowing about my connections with a loving Anglican Church God (who evidently likes to smack down hubris... what is he, the author of all Greek myths?) that I am converting and have decided to be a fundamentalist Mormon. Just as soon as they start their own Dragon Boating Clubs. Though that could be tough; what, with them hidden in the mountains away from the law and all.

See: now I will have the fundamentalist Mormon Church (and all their wives) after me.

But again the positive: most of the people I know in the community, and many I do not, have expressed their sympathy and good wishes for the next Lamma Festival.

Wait for it. We've still got frogs and locusts to come...

My mom's got a hot-line to God

2007-06-04T10:47:00.000+08:00

My Nephew Nicholas with Bishop Matthias of Ghana
and Reverend Leo Martin. Guess which baby has a direct ticket to heaven?

I remember many meals at my grandmother's house when Father Harris would come for lunch. One of my brother's godfathers is a lovely man named Father David Boston (in case you missed the reference, he is a Reverend as well).

After my own baptism and confirmation, it seemed that there were the same 6 Reverends' forming a strange geographic web that followed us from Nova Scotia to New Brunswick to Ontario and back. If I recall correctly, the same Reverend that baptised me was present at my confirmation, 3 provinces to the west of the first deed.

In any case, if it once seemed as if we couldn't swing a cat but to hit a priest when I was growing up, my parents have certainly upped the ante.

They are calling in international back-up. To whit: my newest and youngest nephew, Nicholas, clasped between the Bishop Matthias of Ghana (!) and the Reverend Leo Martin.

Maybe this is a little bit of think globally, act locally? I dunno. All I can say is, should ever crisis land on my doorstep, I think I've got my mum, dad, and the international Anglican Church at my back.

Doesn't that Bishop Matthias look nice? Now I want a hug from him.

In other news:
I am broody.
So I got a new kitten.
Take that, biological clock!

stuff continues

2007-06-02T12:39:00.000+08:00

We've had a week of unnaturally clear skies, broiling sunshine and night-time rainstorms. It's perfect Hong Kong weather, marred only by the fact that I have still had to go to the office. Who knew that a month's notice would feel so painful?

In a few hours I head down for the dragon boat session, and we have hot-weather warnings today. I pray the girls have been guzzling H2O, since we'll bake out there.

Yesterday, I took a walk at lunch time through Causeway Bay. Most of the way, I made an effort to stand in the shade, but on the edges between the sun and the shade, the head was absolutely overwhelming. It felt much like standing next to a furnace, which seems remarkable that direct sun and shade could have such a powerful difference. It's the same atmosphere after all.

The week has been busy with work and meetings and a job interview which fairly blew my socks off. It would take my back into literature, which is certainly something that I would like to do... I imagine days and days of reading and editing and reading - interspersed with my science degree and such... boats, writing, boats, paddling. I think that would certainly round out my last wish for lifestyle improvements here. I've felt pretty vacant for a long time, and this would bring me back to working with material that I love and that usually feels like second nature.

About 9 years ago, I was travelling with my friend Murray to Ottawa, and we stopped in Rogersville N.B. to visit a Trappist monk that he was dear friends with there. I had the pleasure of meeting this man, Brother Anthony, who had lived for many years as a hermit (really) in Northern NB.

We had along talk, and if anything in the world would have made me consider Catholicism as a creed of choice, he was that person. In any case, we spoke of literature and how it intertwined in our lives, and of writing. He discussed life and writing as scattered pearls, and talked about how our job was to take those pearls and string them together so that they are beautiful and follow a strand throughout - and have meaning and are no longer random.

I think that can sound rather banal on the face of it, but when you think about the task: how do you take the stories of your life (or stories in general) and make them meaningful and give them structure? How does one collect the random elements and give them a string? A forward and backward?

I don't really know. It's a task worth trying, I think. I hope I have the good luck to take this position: it would mean working with people who are genuinely great at their jobs (literary reviews, finding and printing new authors, etc.) and that is something I really want. I have NOT had the opportunity to work with anyone with more of a clue than I have for years, and that is not the way to get better at anything; rather it's the blind trying to lead the blind (and as blind person number two, I start swinging my cane at blind person number one with increasing frequency).

I've been absolutely exhausted this week, primarily because my body is still fighting off the colds and flues that have been going around. Headaches and stomach upsets and that general feeling of malaise - very aggravating, but certainly better than actually being sick. It doesn't help my productivity levels though, and that is disagreeable.

Anyway, I am just checking in with a progress report:

Countdown - minus 7 days until the Lamma International Dragon Boat Festival. Pray for sanity!
Countdown - minus 9 working days until I am free of the cube forever! (noted in my calendar in big red letters that read "FREEDOM DAY")
Countdown - minus 2 months until I am home for my brother's wedding!
Countdown - minus 2 weeks until my thesis abstract is due!
Countdown - minus 2 months until I need a new work visa.
Countdown - minus 18 days till the Stanley DB races.

Yes, I am still busy, and now I have new job interview materials to get ready. I feel like 7 years in HKG and 10 years absence from academics (Lit) have melted my skull. Worse, I have a massive blind spot for the literature printed in the last decade! Someone, fill me in! Do you know, I've only read 2 of the authors on Granta's Best Young American Fiction List? This is a BAD THING!!! (I agreed with their inclusion though).

Final Note:

Happy Birthday Nina! I miss you loads and tried to call the other day but realized I had an old number listed. You are 8 digits now, yeah?

Happy Birthday Murray! I know you don't read this, but I send my love anyway.

Happy very belated Birthday Holly! I hope NS is fantastic, and I am sorry I haven't written in ages. I suck.

I miss you all. Will write more soon, I hope. Ideally with some good news.

I am sorry

2007-05-23T12:11:00.000+08:00

That I haven't managed to get in touch with anyone in the past few weeks. Things are absolutely mental here at the moment and I have been getting terrible sleep, in addition to warding off what feels like a very, very nasty stomach bug.
(If it's not that, then I have an alien in my guts - and no, I don't mean the "patter of tiny footsteps" kind of alien. I mean the Sigourney Weaver and exploding chest kind).

In any case, I wrote my final exam of the semester on Monday night. It was not fun. It was 3 hours. If anyone out there can explain ion exchange to purify heavy metals from waste water in 10 minutes or less (handwritten - you know: with pen and paper - those strange artifacts of yesteryear), then please come to Hong Kong and take over that part of my life for a month or two, will ya? Cause the relatively novel charm of words like "eutrofication" and "flocculation" are starting to wear off.

So the past days have been exam studying, boating, meetings and calls and emails and calls and meetings (3 meetings on Saturday took 2 hours, 25 minutes and 5 hours respectively - interspersed with 3 boating sessions, which took 2 hours, 1.5 and 1.5 hours respectively).

Meanwhile, at the office, the company clearly has decided that there are a million things I could be doing now that I am leaving and I am full to bursting with horrid requests from horrid people for horrid writing.

And I am preparing for a wonderful job interview for a post I will not get because I know that even though I am shortlisted, life is NOT that kind. Also because the post was advertised in The Guardian and The NY Times - as well as the local rags.
In any case, I won't discuss the job here, since that is clearly a hex (see previous discussion of Room to Read post from ages ago).

The former mad client (previous posts discuss, I think) wants me to work for him again. So that is money in the bank if it should be needed (though sanity pills will also be needed). He stood me up for a meeting yesterday at noon - part of his "quirky" (read: jerk-off) nature, I am afraid. I am glad I am getting older in many ways though - having soup for lunch alone at a ridiculously swanky restaurant might have upset my younger self. As it was, I was just annoyed to have to pay the cheque!

Hmmmmm - what else? Not much really. I simply feel under siege and I am not sure yet how to dig myself out and re-assign work (as elements are still shady). So it is a battered and worn me that gets home late at night to absent-mindedly pat sad dog and cranky cat.

P is in Singapore again. That is likely in his own best interest.

And the crews: they need work. Lots of work. Lots and lots of training and incentivizing and harder work. In that I feel crazy right now, trying to get a balanced, meaningful approach across to the team is a little bit of a stretch.

It is especially hard when one team member has a problem with the skills or technique of another. I know it has to be addressed, but I feel like the person in question is under attack and respond by (too aggressively) defending her (when in fact, she could well be crap!). This effectively distresses the person who was doing the initial complaining, since that person is suddenly in the hot seat from her coach.

So my equanimity is askew, which is bad, since I have worked hard to be diplomatic in these things and usually have succeeded. Guess the problem is I haven't had enough time to read my good coaching guides through again this year. I know that sounds daft, but they are helpful when dealing with 35 adult women trying to squish into in one narrow boat!

In essence: I really need a full night's sleep. I need someone to make sure my dog doesn't have ticks. I need someone to make certain I eat enough fruit and veg. I need time to read my coaching books. I need a nap. I need a bikini wax (cause I really like taking time out of my day for that).

I think I need my mum.

Mum, please come to Hong Kong asap. Bring Dad and cookies.

friends of my youth

2007-05-22T17:25:00.000+08:00

I am sure you've seen this by now, but if you haven't, well you missed one of the more interesting Hinterland: Who's who programs from the CBC and - perhaps - the National Film Board.

Having once dated the son of an NFB film producer and director, I can say with limited authority, that at least a few of them were total pot heads and capable of this.

Pop a cap in his ass indeed!

Breaking news: I am broken

2007-05-15T17:03:00.000+08:00

It’s been a typical Hong Kong week. Mania from May 4 to May 10th, a new kind of mania (or a continuation) on May 11th through to the 13th and now: full blown mania, which will likely last right up until June 19th, when I fall down and die.

These weeks in my messy history:

Countdown to Hell - Week 7 & 6

April 27th – April 30th: Finally steel myself to discuss my loathing for my current blue-cube without intellectual relief to woman called my “supervisor” on April 27th. Poor dear is kind, but traumatized as this is first insinuation of impending resignation.
April 30th: she comes up with a plan of new ‘projects’ that will ideally occupy my mind. My mind realizes occupation would last 30 seconds and makes new proposal, requesting 3 months unpaid leave to gather momentum and come back to new ‘projects’ swinging. She tries not to blink and together we email same proposal (3 months + new ‘projects’) to our supervisor.

Countdown to Hell – Week 6 & 5

May 4: Complete essay on public policy. Promise to never be the kind of bitch that requests any student, let alone one over 16, to write comprehensively on government policy of a 50 years period (and its changes and structure) in under 5,000 words. Essay not bad; mood not good. Have too many glasses of wine with teetotaler American friend.
May 5 – 9am: Get up, arrange massive fund raiser with team members, carry prizes for fundraiser through village. Finish at 2:30. Race home. Drum for men’s crew from 3:00 to 4:30.
Practice with women’s crew from 4:30 to 6pm.
Race home, change vile wet clothes and race down to massive fundraiser.
Raise $20,000 HKD in evening.
Hobble home in heels with blistered feet in excruciating pain and watch Battlestar Gallactica on illegal internet channel. Pass out cold.
May 6 – 7:30am: Get up, haul ass to village. Paddle from 11:30 to 1pm. Join team for boozy lunch. Have boozy afternoon on team member’s patio. Order pizza and pass out on carpet (comfy!) at home. Too much booze.
May 7: Talk to ‘supervisor’. Agree to let proposal rest for 3 days while she is out of town. Start work on paper on Ash-waste management for power facilities. Am fascinated and smitten with new, nerdy, ashy pursuit.
May 8: Work like blazes as (unmentioned as yet) massive product roll out going on at office. Complete the last of the 12,000 pages requiring editing for rollout.
Write Ash-Waste paper in 3.15 hours.
Read and edit paper in 30 minutes.
Check bibliography and notes in 15 minutes.
Print, staple and head off to hand in paper.
Fastest paper ever. Terrible, boring class.
Exalted self: I am superwoman and can do anything!
May 9: Join team for Tin Hau festival on Lamma. Paddle like blazes and still come last as the only woman’s team among boats of traditional Chinese fishermen. Race home to work on presentation due at university that night.
Go to class. Present paper to class. Leave early.
Read mystery on ferry home. Loath my university for interrupting otherwise reasonable day. (Incidentally, called in sick to work to accomplish paddling).
May 10: Have meeting with BIG supervisor. Realize period is due in precisely 35 seconds as eyes get glassy with frustration and fury over unreasonable suggestion that I read the minds of mindless middle management minions and create make-work projects to occupy my self for next 12 months in blue cube.

Briefly get excited when it looks like breakthrough may occur and I be given interesting (and challenging) work to do. Hopes dashed when BIG supervisor says such things are outside the purview of my department. Have flash of realization: I hate my department. Plan for imminent resignation.
May 11: Discus previous meeting with “supervisor” back from trip. Nobody happy. I try to prepare her for imminent resignation.
Meet co-paddle-coach.
Plan team list for massively important race on Sunday.
Have too much wine and lose favorite new cardigan, in wretched outside patio bar.
May 12: Up at 7. Outrigging from 9:30 till 12:30. Eat food. Change wet shorts. Dragon boat from 4:30 to 6pm. Hector team. Have hissy fit when members of team quaff booze after practice. Head home and pass out on sofa. Am awakened by P at 11:30 and dully prepare for next day’s race. Bed by 1:30.
May 13: Up at 5:40am. Gather race gear. Have fight with P who protests my request he carry a couple of water bottles. Stumble out door under weight of 2 full bags of gear and massive bag of team paddles. Arrive at ferry at 6:35. Tick off paddlers on roster as they arrive. Head to race!

Race, race, race.

Results:
First heat –1st Place;
Second Heat – 2nd place;
Third heat – 3rd place.

Not our best. Collect cups and medals. Collect paddlers. Get on bus. Team sings fool heads off. Get to Aberdeen and head home by Sampan. Am asked repeatedly by team members about what “went wrong.”
Hold tongue for most part; discuss need to train harder as patently obvious cure.
May 14: Resign from job. Write nice letter to both supervisors and put my assistant forward for my post. I am saintly.

In the midst of all of this, I am desperately trying to manage the work for our first Lamma Dragon Boat Festival! We have 45 teams lined up! Click on link to see the details and imagine my bloody fear.

This means approximately 3,000 emails a day about festival alone.

Friends and Family: Sorry I haven’t written; I’ve been arguing with local teams about whether or not it is legal to stand in the races.
It isn’t.

And have I mentioned insurance and licenses and hotels and buses and ferries and all the arrangements I am trying to pin down now? They are innumerable. But they are getting done!

Also am trying to keep dragon ladies on track and outrigger alive and my Master of Science on the go (exam in one week – holding down an A average until that damned economics exam gets back!), and complete my current-buy-soon-to-be-over job, and get a new job, and discuss options with friends and people I know in the business community, and, and, and…

Also trying to keep dog from being consumed by ticks and P consumed by my force of my fury when he pisses me off; as you might have guessed, I don’t have that much energy to spare this month.

The festival is on June 10th. Stanley Dragon Boat Race is June 19th (the one that gives us our sponsorship dollars and greatest public kudos). I have to say: I drink too much this year. I’ve been drinking loads of wine with my fellow paddler women in the past 2 months and that really isn’t like me.

I am starting to think there is a serious correlation between wine and my schedule madness. Don’t get me wrong – it’s only on weekends, but there is still too much of it.

Ah well – I will deal with that later.
Isn’t that top paddling photo fan-freaking-tastic??? I love it.

But this guy? He's been drumming for the local Fireman's team for a kazillion years and he always wears this outfit and I always want to burn my eyes out when I see him. And he has a mincing walk.

But this is the Lamma Ladies on the beach. They are drinking beer. They are bad girls. But they sure as shit do NOT mince.

bias or rank stupidity?

2007-05-07T15:10:00.000+08:00

Being a Monday, my morning was dedicated to reading my Canada news sources to see what fascinating news and events had swept my fair nation over the weekend.

The most exciting news was that Paris Hilton is going to prison for driving while intoxicated (without a licence... she's a peach!). At least I think that was the story, but who cares about the facts.

The news story that made me want to swim home and smack a journalist (and his editor and publisher) around a few times was this: "Nuclear power needed to meet green plan: prof". Now let me give credit where credit is due, this gem was written by a reporter named Quentin Casey and was published on May 5, 2007 in the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal.

Everyone got that? Good.

Quentin had a charming interview with a fella named Larry Hughes, who is an engineering professor and the head of the Energy Research Group at Dalhousie University. Since Dalhousie has pretty good street cred as an institution of higher learning, we can assume that Larry is no slouch. But then, what do I know about engineering programs?

In any event, during his chat with Quentin, Larry apparently informed him that if New Brunswick is ever going to meeting its new, federally-mandated emission targets, then it's going to have to slap up a new nuclear power plant tout de suite!

"I don't see what other choice there is" said Larry.
New federal legislation will impose mandatory targets on industry to remove 150 mega tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and is intended to cut in half air pollution from industry by 2015.
For industry, that translates into a need to reduce the intensity of greenhouse gas production by 18 per cent over three years. But that does not mean emission levels necessarily have to drop, says Hughes.
That's because intensity targets merely require an increase in the amount of energy produced from every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted. If greenhouse gas releases stay constant, the province could simply up its output of energy.
"You have a choice," says Hughes, "lower the carbon dioxide or increase your productivity." That's where nuclear power, and to a lesser extent renewable sources like wind power, come into play.

Ok, now before we discuss Quentin's article in detail (those were all his words, not mine), let's go over a little back ground:

Saint John, New Brunswick currently has the largest oil refinery in Canada, producing -according to the Oil and Gas Journal, 300,000 barrels of oil per day. At the moment, it has made a bid to build a second oil refinery; processing another 300,000 barrels per day - or 600,000 barrels per day. If this is approved, the owners of this refinery The Irving Family, would have the 6th largest oil refinery in the world, and the largest refinery in North America. Bigger than Chevron and Exxon Mobile.
In addition to the would-be second oil refinery, the Irving Family* owns a 25% interest in an LNG terminal that is currently being built on the outskirts of Saint John.
In addition to the 2 refineries and the LNG terminal, Irving also owns a pulp and paper mill, situated at the mouth of the St. John River, feeding into the Bay of Fundy.

Our Dear Quentin leaps from mandatory emissions targets to the fact that they are intensity-based targets to nuclear power in a giant leap. He's rather superman-ish that way. Except Clark Kent was doing his leaping for the forces of good, not evil.*

So, Quentin doesn't worry his pretty little head about reductions, rather, he goes straight to the heart of the problem: we need more power! If there is more power, but no more emissions (since nuclear plants do not create emissions) then the emissions that are currently produced by the Irvings are fine. Status quo is good and we can all go home and choke to death in our sleep.

I mean, why search for a better solution? Old Larry the energy engineer didn't:

Hughes agrees that New Brunswick's economic base does not mesh well with Kyoto targets - targets he even admits are now unattainable.
"It's harder for New Brunswick because it's such a resource-based economy. That's also Alberta's big argument. It's an energy intensive economy," he said.
"To be honest with you, we can't meet Kyoto. It's wishful thinking to say we're going to meet it. We have less than four years to meet the targets," he noted of the plan to take emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Just a moment please: Who the hell is this Larry guy anyway? I mean, is he the God of emissions? Is his opinion an absolute truth?**

And don't you just love the way Quentin adds that little "he even admits" that he targets are unattainable.

Was Larry the last of the Kyoto freedom fighters and nobody thought to mention it? Is this a James Fenimore Cooper plot in the making? A film? Because I totally forgot my popcorn.

But that is not fair. I've been a journalist, and I know how easy it is to misrepresent what someone says. Larry may have been taken out of context. Or, Larry might have had many balanced and thoughtful things to say that are not evident in the article because Quentin didn't put them there.

It's also possible that Quentin doesn't know environmental issues from a bag of hammers, or that his editor doesn't like environmental issues and skewed the perspectice of the article. Or even that the publisher wasn't keen on the original article and put his/her own slant on things.

Or, it could be possible that Irving doesn't own nuclear power plants. Therefore, any energy created by a second power plant could be used to off-set Irving's emissions. It would be way cheaper to buy emissions credits from the power plant that reduce their own emissions.

It could be also possible that Irving does own the newspaper which employs our dear Quentin. It could be true... and you know what? It IS true! Isn't that a coincidence?

Just one thing bother me here:

Has anyone noticed we will still have loads and loads of emissions??? Anyone?

uhhhh ... is anybody home?

No?

Could you turn out the bloody lights next time then? It saves energy you know.

*This is all John Baird's fault. Or Stephen Harper's fault. Or both. The skuz bags.
**Larry may not be the last of the Kyoto Mohicans, but he does specialize in Energy Security, which explains his advancement for nuclear power in any case.

nostalgia for the inane

2007-05-03T14:51:00.000+08:00

While having a vindictive chuckle over my company's most recent e-manure about environmentally-friendly behaviour in the office, I noticed that within the "please act green" missive from corporate admin, there was a promise of a "nice company mug."

Just as I was having a snicker over what a nice "company mug" would look like (would there be a Hello Kitty image on it?), I was hit in the gut with the memory of my first corporate mug, from the daily newspaper I worked at in New Brunswick.

It wasn't an especially nice mug - basic white porcelain. But it had a very cheerful sunrise on it (to indicate the "morning paper" status, since the company also ran an afternoon paper. The mugs for the afternoon paper had an ugly globe on them), and I was - somehow - really happy to own this mug and I cherished it.

So here is my pretty silly secret: I love coffee mugs. Not just any coffee mugs, but ones with some kind of symbolic value, or mugs that were gifts from friends. My dear, beloved friend Catou has given me a couple of mugs that I would protect to the death.

Being reminded of my first office mug, I was also reminded of my small collection of university mugs. I have about 6 in storage somewhere. I hope they survive.

One of the mugs looks like the cup (number 7!) in the above photo. But it was fatter.
I wasn't crazy about Kings, but i did really like their paraphernalia. Wonder what that is all about? Maybe it's cause my mum is an alumnus as well.

generating thought

2007-04-30T10:29:00.000+08:00

Well, since Al Gore has apparently taken daffy old Environment Minister Baird to task, I won't bother grumping on it anymore (except to say this: people cranking about how Gore, as an American, should shut up, are still missing the point. Environmental issues still haven't figured out the 49th parallel - silly old environment!).

I am here, instead to share a video of a group of seniors recording 'Talkin' bout my generation' of The WHO fame. (I found this thanks to an article on CBC, incidentally.)

It is charming. More than that, it is thoughtful. Click here to see the video, or just click below:

stupidity - balanced with the status quo

2007-04-27T09:38:00.000+08:00

From today's Mope & Wail:

Head: Ottawa to cut emissions 20 per cent by 2020
Subhead: Kyoto commitments abandoned as Tories target reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved air quality
...the new plan, which is estimated to cost the Canadian economy as much as $7 billion to $8 billion per year, does not address all of the complaints lobbed at its predecessor.
It relies on the intensity-based targets that allow industries to increase their greenhouse gas outputs as they increase production. Those types on controls have been repeatedly panned by environmental experts who have demanded absolute reductions.
Under Mr. Baird's (Minister for the Environment) strategy, Canada would not meet its targets under the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas until 2025 — 13 years late.
"Our plan strikes a plan between the perfection that some environmentalists may be seeking and the status quo that some in the industry seek to protect." Mr. Baird told a press conference yesterday afternoon.

Now, quite apart from Baird's "plan striking a plan" plans (what the hell?) I must say that I find this gobbledygook too tiresome to withstand.

One of the problems with environmentalism and global warming being the press darling subject of late 2006 - early 2007, is that our memory is short and our data recall is limited.

First of all, this "perfection that some environmentalists may be seeking" that Baird describes: would that it were perfection. Kyoto was a minimum-standards base. It had baby teeth. It was considered a "starting point" among its signatories.

After signing, Canada's politicians - like those of several other nations - dawdled around with their thumbs in their collective arse for several years, while they could have been doing something to work towards the Kyoto targets (oversimplification, but still: where did we see the positive effects of the Liberal party's environmental plans?). Which brings us to today, where we gasp and boo-hoo as if this whole "emissions reduction" scheme is still new to us.

Guess what? Reducing our emissions is going to cost us. It will cost us a lot of money. But once we have spent a couple of years paying some of the true cost of those things we consume (gas, cars, paper, plastic, international foodstuffs, etc), then we might become a little more savvy in our consumption.

Sure, there needs to be a balance between what "people" (read: environmentalists) want, and what the economy can actually sustain, but there is one thing in this political drama that isn't being addressed: the actual state of the environment.

The environment doesn't give a shit what Mr Baird or the Sierra Club or even his blessed holiness, David Suzuki says (no sarcasm - I loves the dude). But Baird's talk about seeking to balance change with the status quo is insipid.

We buy goods and services from companies and factories that have kept their costs low because the real expense is offset by the environment. So now that the environment can no longer sustain this spending spree we've been on, our debt has been called in. The "status quo" here, is simply trying to delay payment.

Note: that is DELAY payment. We have to pay eventually (and the interest is compound).

It's not the government or industry or the voters who are demanding payment. It's the situation. You can argue with poeple and industry and politicians; you can't argue with a tsunami. Or hurricanes, or unseasonable rain that washes out the west-coast, or drought that destroys Australia...

You can try, but you'd be better off just paying the bill before the planet's tax-man evicts you.

my oh my, what a wonderful day

2007-04-26T10:28:00.000+08:00

Spent a few idle moments on the roof top just moments ago, performing a circular trot around the central core of the building and looking out across Hong Kong.

I've grown used to the view, which is really quite fantastic, even though I hardly appreciate it anymore. Still, the weather is bright enough that it captured my attention for a few moments and I looked down on this incredible harbour that is so busy that it actually seems unreal.

I know there are traffic separation schemes in Hong Kong - most of them are designed to keep container ships from running into each other (or aground, I suppose) or squashing ferries and whatnot. In Victoria Harbour 'proper' (forgive the scare quotes - they are meant to express my doubt over what is properly VH) however, ferries buzz around the water like drunk wasps in spring; tiny sampans bob, their passengers tossing out nets and occasionally dragging in some heavy-metal infected fish; ocean liners are docked at the TST pier, police boats scream past with enormous wakes (those guys must have a blast - they remind me of Relic in The Beachcombers, jetting past Bruno Gerussi in his slow-poke Persephone) and an endless supply of junks (teak or white fibreglass) and the occasional sailboat slip though the mayhem. As all of this happens, the Star Ferries trace their way back and forth across the harbour - Hong Kong to Kowloon to Hong Kong to Kowloon. A seven-minute voyage for 0.31 cents Canadian.

In the background, new towers rise (as always), clad in their green netting around bamboo scaffolding. The city is still (cubic meter by meter cubed) filling it the South side of the harbour with construction debris to reclaim land in order to build a new roadway and manage a new harbour-view real estate grab.

In any case, the sun shines down on all this construction and frantic activity and the fuzzy (smog-diffused) mountains just sit, like strange indifferent creatures far in the background.

On a separate note: when I arrived at the office this morning, I noticed a skip (dumpster) outside the main entrance that was full to the brim with office chairs. They are very obviously headed for landfill.

From what I could see, it is unlikely that those 150+ chairs were all unusable, or could not be passed on to some association (YMCA? Community group? Business start ups?), or at least dismantled and the parts used for something. Quite apart from the fact that Hong Kong is addicted to plastic rubbish that is handed out like Christmas treats with every purchase you make (example: buy a cd at HMV and they offer you some assortment of cheap pens/keyrings/dangly doodad in the shape of a space alien; at 7-11 a pack of gum nets you a tiny, hideous something that comes in its own foil/plastic wrapper! All part of consumer fun!) but everything you buy here is tomorrow's rubbish.

I honestly have no idea where we put all our junk. I can't imaging there being space for it all. Our landfills are rabidly filling; mass incineration is not on the table. Where, in the name of God, does all our crap go?

So yes, it's a beautiful day - foiled only (thus far) by the vision of 150 orange office chairs, on their way to fantasy island... or perhaps to form one of the many layers of our reclaimed Hong Kong land.

A final PS: Biochemistry is cool. Why did high school chemistry suck so much? Did nobody ever think that we might be more interested if they explained the application of all these compounds? Did you know that I am SO DENSE that I had never realized that Potash is - in the main - potassium (K)?

Stupid chemistry teachers. Even the nice ones deserved a kicking.

racing is such sweet sorrow

2007-04-23T16:19:00.000+08:00

The team had its first dragon boat race on Sunday. We actually had a very successful day, and took the silver medal home, which is great.
I feel a little precious these days, and want nothing less than gold, but have realized that I need to pull my head a little ways out of my ass, if I hope to paddle in a straight line this year.

The ladies were, as ever, brilliant, but it was a LONG day. We waited hours between the races, and the course is located on the least interesting stretch of river in the known universe.

The river itself has a great deal of promise. It's been cleaned up over the years, and looks like a fairly pretty canal. But are there shops, or cafes or restaurants or interesting arcades along this rather lovely bit of water?

No there are not.

Are there tall, uniformly ugly skyscrapers that are - apparently - home to multitudes (though we didn't see more than a couple of people all day, and each building could house a thousand plus change!) around this river?

Yes there were.

God only knows what they (the homeowners) do with themselves, since they certainly were not outside and there seems to be nothing to do nearby!

In any case - the races. After waiting 3+ hours between races, we were very narrowly beaten in the final. Our A-team (they were small, 10-person boats, so we ran two teams - an A and a B team) could certainly have been stronger, but then so could our competitions' A-team boat.

It will be an exciting year, I think. Everyone out on Sunday looked strong. The competition is fierce and it has all just begun. I cannot wait for the real obsession to kick in. Up till now, it's been about technique and practice. From this stage on, we'll be talking about the most absurd, obscure and ridiculous details of dragon boating - all in a quest to shave a few more seconds from every heat, and add as many more watts of power as we possibly can.

One of my (outrigger and dragon boat) paddlers took a photo of me yesterday. I am standing and clapping for my team, since we've just come off the water and we're offering each other congratulations. So my mouth is open as usual, and my hair is a mess, but there I am with these corded forearms and scary, ugly thick-veined hands, and my neck is just a mountain-scape of hollows and sharp, raised tendons.

My body looks feral, but my face looks genuinely happy.

This is not the woman I expected to be when I grew up. This is not even the woman I wanted to be when I grew up. It's a little scary to see myself this way. At the same time, there is something really joyful about the photo. I am looking forward to seeing it in print.

mean girl

2007-04-20T15:09:00.000+08:00

It's been a long week, full of economics and statistics and a fascinating and complex lecture on waste-water treatment (I kid you not: that is some cool shit. really - it is.).

The best part, thus far, was the long awaited arrival of my book package from Amazon.ca.
Now, before I get to praising my books, let me first say that Amazon.ca is the biggest honking rip-off ever.

Not ONLY did I get charged an obscene mail rate for my books (in keeping with all book orders from Canada, the USA and the UK), but it took more than 2 MONTHS to get here. The longest I've ever waited was 5 weeks from Amazon.com (USA). Some normal (land) orders have taken 2 weeks. So, to Amazon.ca and Canada Post: You suck.

On that happy note: I have great books!

After dabbling in the short fiction of a former student colleague of mine (We did our MA's together), I grabbed up Mean Boy by Lynn Coady. It was - and is - absolutely wonderful. Lynn's always had a strong hand with fiction, and her black humor has always been a great leavener in her material. Mean Boy was her first turn at "comic" fiction, and it is brilliant.

I am - mind you - biased. The characters spoke to my own experience, on many levels. The protagonist, Larry, is a young (19-years) poet from PEI, who has made his way to a small but well-thought-of university in New Brunswick (a very thinly-veiled Mount Allison). At the school, Larry is studying with his hero, a Canadian poet/professor.

The absolutely painful comedy of post-adolescent yearning to be an artist, to define oneself as some kind of "cultured" young person; the achey-breaky-heart cry for art and meaningful conversations with mentors and validation and success. The - sometimes - quest for love amidst a young person's efforts to define themselves... It is killer. Honestly, is there anything funnier than a 19-year-old's quest to become a recognized and celebrated artiste? (after all, that is what they/we all want).

I rarely read a novel I wish I had written myself. I commonly read novels bad enough that I think I could have written them myself. Lynn's books though - they all make me wish they were my own.

In addition to Coady's brilliance, I have received, Wayne Johnston's latest novel, Dave Richards' latest, Vincent Lam's collection, a few collections of poetry by a couple of Canadian poets I admire and a couple whose work I am tracking, and also the collection or short stories from my former colleague.

Sadly, I don't like the short stories. I didn't much like my fellow student either, but I did think he was smart, and fairly charismatic, which goes a long way in my general admiration of people.

I feel sorry that I don't like his book. I wouldn't be thrilled if I loved his book (given my relative ambivalence to him), but I actually feel really bad about not liking it. And this is why I feel bad:
I trust my taste in literature (as I trust my taste in no other thing).

But these stories were hollow. I have to say, when I think of writing, the thing that scares me the most is "hollow" writing; I fear writing cleverisms that expose me for the one-trick-pony fraud.

That is how this book feels: clever-clever. You can smell that on a book. It smells awful.

and then my head blew off

2007-04-17T16:58:00.000+08:00

So this is what undid me on Monday:

(Based on a government CVM) q = 40*0.04p

Where 25,000 baht is the opportunity cost of preserving 1 mile of river in Thailand for recreational enjoyment. P is WTP based on 1,000 persons.

What is p and what is q?

What is the efficient number of miles of river to preserve?

Yeah... well, the last time I did any math at all (apart from at Zellers one sad day in 1997 when I was embarrassed to discover that a 9-year-old level computer math game had me stumped), was in 1986.

Given my capacity for economic formulas, it may as well have been 1886.

Last night, at 9 and 11:30pm respectively, P walked me through quadratic equations over the phone from Singapore. Originally, I had complained bitterly that he was even going to Singapore, when I was in such dire need of help with my economics exam. Given what the quadratic equations conversation must have cost, I will not only hold my peace, but praise him as a prince among men.

The conversation went something like this:

me: where is the root button on my calculator? I don't remember what it looks like! I don't have a root button on my calculator! I have an M button. What's that?

saint p: That is the memory button. It's no help.

me: ohmigod, i think i found a calculator on my computer with a.... a - hey a root button!

saint p: okay, what is the square root of 4? Check to see if it works...

a pause while i feel mortified that P thinks I am so lame that I couldn't tell the answer to the square root of 4 and verify the usability of my root button on my own.

me: (sotto voce) it's 2.

saint p: okay it works...

sometime later....

me: (tearfully) ...but WHY do they put these numbers in brackets? WHY can't they just use the multiplication sign to show it needs to be multiplied? Oh god - that's a fraction, isn't it? Or is it? Do I divide the bottom by the top or the top by the bottom?

saint p: the top by the bottom.

me: but why????

The really horrible part of this story comes when we discover that we don't need to be doing quadratic equations at all. There was much cursing from Singapore last night. In fact, some of the words he used: he's lucky they didn't catch him and cane him for air pollution!

The long and the short of it is, that when I arrived in the office this morning, my colleague J helped me out. Neither J nor I are sure that his help was in any way helpful, but he's really, really good at economics. He can do formulas in his head and shit. I just sat and watched his eyes flick over the formulas. If he'd been reading Aramaic I would likely have understood more.

So hurrah for P and J!

As for me: the other 8 questions took me 14 hours. So don't go thinking I got off easy or anything. It's just that I got to use letters for the purpose that GOD INTENDED: Writing words, not for some crazy-ass formula.

And tonight I have a stats class! I'd rather have appendicitis. For real. or herpes.

outrigger derby

2007-04-16T07:37:00.000+08:00

In various emails and letters home to my beloved family and friends, I told you about the OC race with one of my crews.

Here is the women's 16km race, which began with a bang - then a "holy shit" - then a crash - then a "yahooooo!" - then an "omigod" - then a whimper.

It was quite a day, with a very new crew, and a last-minute fill in for our stroke (front paddler), because the original stroke had called me at 8am that morning to say her back was out.

Michelle, the lovely woman who took her place hadn't trained (but she is a tall, thin, giant among brave women) and hadn't sat at stroke in a race EVER. A few crew members had only 5 weeks' paddle experience. The other two teams had lots more experience (years), and boy - does it show!

Still, I was really proud of my ladies' crew. They fought hard under tough psychological circumstances, and came out smiling (perhaps cause the race was over?). I find this kind of race rather painful, since my job is to scream and shout (and steer and paddle) and be as encouraging as possible - and keep up from flipping over and drowning. After an hour and 20 minutes of screaming and shouting, it's hard not to feel like some evil torturer, whipping on a crew of exhausted women and driving them crazy because really, after a hard 1.5 hours, you really just want everyone to shut up so you can get back to dry land.

And here is the video! Which I hadn't known how to load before this minute.

Now I am off to write an economics exam because my life is about to end. Final note: we are the team in the red and black. There is a wonderful crash at the beginning of the video, following which, we got to be in the lead for a whole 10 minutes or so. Very exciting!

the rice paddy plot, aka: the farting water buffalos again!

2007-04-13T13:45:00.000+08:00

One of the by products of attending university in HKG is my regular amusement, which commonly turns to scorn and anger, with the Chinese professors who talk about the USA as if the States has nothing better to do than attack the Chinese as a culture.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly content, Bush-whacking with the best of them, but the paranoia and conspiracy theories that are occasionally spun out in class do get to be a little much.

First, there was a noise-pollution engineer who virtually spit whenever he said the words United States and NASA (a team of his fellow engineers had apparently offered their services in lowering the noise from fans and were refused. Professor X said he would save his expertise for the Chinese space program in any case! hack, spit).

Anyway, I have decided to name the most recent paranoia fest as the "Rice Paddy Plot." It's a good one.

A week ago, one of the bio-chemical whatsit professors came into class to teach us about bio remediation. Pretty cool stuff really, even though most of these classes feel like they've been parcelled out to professors here and there with the instructions to "teach those people something about something, would ya?" There is a little thing called context that HKU seems to have missed in its teaching MO.

So this week, Bio-dude breaks open a chapter on Methane, which is a pretty powerful greenhouse gas; considerably more powerful that CO2, though there is (fortunately) much less of it.

Anyhoo, methane comes from lots of different places, like landfills, natural gas systems, enteric fermentation, coal mining, waste water treatment, petroleum systems and rice cultivation, to name only a few. The majority of methane, however, comes from natural wetlands. Betcha didn't know that, huh? Pretty obvious when you think on it though, since it's the source of foxfire and whatnot.

Rice paddies, like natural wetlands, create the same gasses - it's a property of the muck and the fresh water, of course there are no where near as many rice fields as there are wetlands, but that doesn't bother Professor bio-dude.

What bothers professor bio-dude, apparently, is that when Chinese scientists report on the methane gasses created by Chinese rice paddies, a bunch of nefarious evil-doing scientists (and politicians, and white-trash divorced single mums, no doubt - the sluts) start pointing the finger at China and saying stuff like, "Yeah, we make lots of carbon emissions and burn coal and pollute the planet the most, but YOU guys have all those farting rice fields, so Global Warming is YOUR fault China, and you should pay the bill."

This, in a nutshell, is the rice paddy plot.

Cause the USA apparently hasn't notice the gazillion dirty coal mines in China, the polluted rivers, which only last week resulted in South China 150,000 villagers being cut off from water supplies because of high lead content (as published in the New York Times), and have I mentioned the smog? The air pollution that blights the skies and has turned China into a cauldron of stink and grey air and particulate matter that could choke Shrek?

Nope, the USA would rather bludgeon China over its excessive methane-producing rice paddies. I guess that means the USA doesn't care about Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, and all the other countries that produce rice. (Which is CRAZY! I mean, jeez, Indonesia is a great target to pick on, it's got lots of Muslims and everything. It's a natural for US aggression!).

Well, that appears to be the opinion of bio-dude anyway.

What is always interesting in these classes is that the profs look at me out of the corner of their eye as they say all this rubbish, you know, just in case I happen to be one of those capitalist running curs from the USA. For the most part, I just give them the stink-eye, since that kind of nonsense is really not worth my time, and they wouldn't say that crap if they had an iota of sense to begin with.

So what do I know about education from my 8 months at Hong Kong U? I know the administration is whacked. I know education "proper" doesn't even take a back seat to cash on the table. Education is actually in the trunk of this vehicle. I know that my fellow students are exceptionally good at doing the work that is handed to them, and exceptionally bad at progressing beyond the immediate work in front of them.

I know that the chief concern of the graduate department is that their students don't plagiarize their papers. I know this, because 75% of my methods and bibliography class (a standard grad-school evil) is about NOT PLAGIARIZING. FOR GOD'S SAKE, NEVER PLAGIARIZE!!! YOU WILL BE KICKED OUT OF SCHOOL . WE REALLY, REALLY ,REALLY MEAN IT. THIS MEANS YOU!!!

Did I say 75%? I should've said 85%.

So did anyone notice my using italics to write out enteric fermentation? Ya know what that means? Farting! Cool huh? such a swish term for farting. I think I will use it often.

rectum? damned near killed 'em

2007-04-04T10:37:00.001+08:00

It's a quiet Wednesday morning here in Honkers, on the last working day before the long Easter weekend, and I am making my leisurely way through a couple of political websites, Canadian newspapers, and finally, the South China Morning Post.

I notice a headline about Stanley Ho, a wrinkly monarch here in Hong Kong and Macau, best known for his casinos, numerous wives, warring family and alleged "gang" connections:

It sounded somewhat interesting: Tycoon Stanley Ho treated for injury.

Now, Stanley Ho is 86 years old, so I was curious about this "injury." Had he fallen off a baccarat table? Had a rival casino owner chucked a banana peel under his heels? Had his sister finally got to him?

Here is (part) of the story*:

Casino mogul Stanley Ho Hung-sun is being treated in hospital for an injury to his rectum wall suffered in Thailand, where he was undergoing treatment for constipation, family members say.
Dr Ho's** fourth wife, Angela Leong On-ki, said yesterday his condition was fine and he would be going home soon.
Media reports on Monday said the 86-year-old tycoon developed constipation as a result of taking cold medication. He suffered the injury late last month when he sought medical help after being constipated for more than four days.

His third wife, Chan Yuen-chun, told Apple Daily on Monday that Dr Ho had developed the problem two days before going on a trip to Thailand with Mrs Leong.
It persisted for the first two days of his trip and he sought medical help on the third day.

Great stuff, wouldn't you say?

Two of your wives comment on the state of your arse when you are 86 years of age.
Various newspapers post updates on the 'development' of your butt and post the time frame and treatment details of your constipation.
This news is posted in not one, or two, but (at least) three languages!

Now, by way of contrast, my grandfather doesn't like people to mess with his feet. He is a dignified man, who prefers to keep his admittedly painful feet a private matter. If my grandfather has a bum (and human biology says this must be so, but the point could be argued that no-one in the family is aware of evidence of this matter), we've never heard about it, and likely never will.

Not to make too much fun of poor old Stanley Ho's bum, but I have to say: I didn't need to know about his constipation or his rectal tear. That's just gross.

* I'd like to give full credit for authorship of this story to Danny Mok, the intrepid HKG journalist who composed this gem and then - presumably - wanted a byline for it. What an ass.

**I don't know why they call him "Dr Ho." Honorary degree, we may assume. Certainly he's no medical doctor or he might have guessed his cough syrup could have plug-like side effects.

ode to Margaret A.

2007-04-02T14:48:00.000+08:00

For those Canadian lit fans from days of yore:

You fit into me,
like a hook into an eye.
A fish hook,
An open eye.

Oh that Peggy Atwood, she was a card. She was a barrel of monkeys!

I shouldn't say "was," 'cause she is still alive and surely writing equally scintillating verse (when she isn't boring the crap out of people with The Penelopiad or equally tiresome revisionist text. I mean, didn't you read 'Till We have Faces' Peg? The idea is to improve on some aspect of the original and explore hidden concepts in greater, hopefully invigorating detail, yes? Failed on both accounts by my - arguably puerile - reckoning).

Anyway, I thought of that little poetic tidbit this afternoon after looking at an absolutely, shockingly, bright blood mark on my eyeball in the mirror.

I don't know what I did to my eyeball (sharp stick?), or whether or not I have an eye infection (that seems plausible, since my eyes hurt and are light sensitive), but it ain't pretty.

It's been a long time coming. After all: I paddle through enough vile sewage (in mucky harbours, near the power station, etc.) and have enough slime sloshed in my face to warrant an eye infection. It doesn't feel very nice though, and I suspect I will soon slide into feeling deeply sorry for myself, getting cross cause I look and feel gross, and snapping at anyone who offers concern or support (as is my want).

I deserve it.

I shaved the dog yesterday, got impatient with him (which is evil, since he is so good) and accidentally cut him. Yes, I am a bad person.

Then I gave him a bath with the nice expensive dog shampoo that moisturizes his skin (I am bad, not totally rotten) and I reminded him how wonderful he is.

Then I kicked the cat for laughs.

By the way, a "Canned Lit" version of the above poem is:

You fit into me,
like a hook into an eye.
A fish hook,
An open eye.
----- ow eh?

the answer is recycled underpants

2007-03-30T17:00:00.000+08:00

Today I did that thing that makes me really happy and really guilty at the same time.

I went shopping at Patagonia.

It's pathetic: just the name Patagonia gets me all giddy for the crystalline air of mountains, signified by the trademark-protected poly-capilene® fibre of a pair of Patagonia-brand underpants.

Those panties make my heart just swell. AND they reduce (I swear) the blisters on my ass.
This is important because when you spend most of your time in boats, ass blisters are not so funny.

Totally unrelated comment:
Look what my dictionary.com gifted me with today (I get their word-of-the-day service):

undulant \UN-juh-lunt; UN-dyuh-\, adjective:
Resembling waves in form, motion, or occurrence.

Undulant is from Late Latin undula, "a small wave," diminutive of
Latin unda, "wave."

Incidentally, Patagonia Capilene® underwear can be returned to Patagonia once it's worn out.* And here is some info on that from US Parks.com:

The US Common Threads Recycling Program Research shows that the environmental impact of recycling worn-out Capilene® base layers into new polyester fiber is significantly lower than making that same fiber from virgin materials. Taking into account that worn-out garments are diverted from trash incinerators, making new polyester fiber from recycled garments results in an energy savings of 76% and a CO2 emissions [greenhouse gasses] reduction of 71%,versus creating that fiber from new raw material.

*Okay, the sports bras and layers I can understand, but does Patagonia really want me to send back my sports thongs. Why else would we build hazardous-waste incinerators?

PS: While they are costly, their clothes are really, really, comfortable. And environmentally friendly (duh) and they are part of the 1% for the planet group. They are nice.
And yes, I feel like a geeky brand-whore. Stop picking at that particular scab, thanks.

boat boat boat

2007-03-24T20:17:00.000+08:00

I really don't know what I did with myself before dragon boating and outrigging took over my weekends.

I have a vague recollection of having lunch at the local shops with a good book for company, and evenings with a movie. Even in my first and second year of dragon boating, there was still plenty of spare time, although I have to admit, there wasn't enough time to continue studying karate (and I had been getting tired of a few of the instructors who were distinctly unpleasant).

But now I have the teams and the practices and the thinking and planning and safety inspections and training and paddling, paddling, paddling. And when you are not paddling, you are trying to figure out how to get stronger in cross-training so that you can paddle better when you are back in the boat.

But how can you not love a group of people doing something that makes them this happy?

This photo was taken 6 years ago, at my first international race in Penang, Malaysia. Though I was new, and didn't know many of the people on the team that well, I loved this.

This photo (below) was from our final race last year in Stanley (which we won, which was great). Can you see a colour theme?

In Asia, the colour pink is absolutely loved. Most of the people we compete with tell us how much they like the colour, the crazy feathers and tiaras, and the general attitude.

I am not a pink-loving woman. I loathed pink for many years. But my Lamma Ladies team? Those gals makes me want to mug Barbie for her wardrobe. Except for her shoes. Her shoes were crap.

my achey-breaky start

2007-03-19T21:45:00.000+08:00

Today was a great day for aching arms and shoulder and back. Almost everything hurts. My forearms are knotted like old rope, the tender skin below my scapula feels bruised and sore. My hips are bruised from being smashed against the side of the boats (dragon and outrigger) and my back feels absolutely fragile, which is not great, when you consider that a few short months ago I was screaming my guts out in spasms in emerg in Canada.

But it all feels so fantastic! That ache from pushing yourself through pain just snaps your shoulders back and down, and even though you feel like you should maybe be in traction, your posture is suddenly ramrod. Better yet, you make it to the gym and work it all out through a good, comfortable run, weight series (low weights) and stretch for ever.

But what felt best is that relaxed, "this is my body dammit and it feels great" vibe that just wobbles through me when I ache. I don't know a woman alive who doesn't fret over something about her own body that she'd like to change (I'd like a longer torso, thanks!), but when you ache and all the tension is gone because good sports ache has chased it out to make room; well you just feel fine. Even when you are a good 5lbs up from what your ideal season weight is. (I have lots of time, and 5lbs? Pfffft! A couple of weeks to see it bugger off for a few months at least).

I've been a sorry and sad wimp for the past few months. I've avoided weight lifting for fear my back wouldn't take it. I've not created the time for the gym. This weekend's ache said one thing only: go BACK to the gym, or your back will absolutely, no-bones-about-it, crap out on you at a really, really bad time.

The real reason? I sat back in at point this weekend in the dragon boats. While I am definitely happy anywhere in the boat, I have a real love-hate relationship with point. I love it because is hurts so damned much when you do it right; I hate it because its a loaded seat, with a barrel of responsibilities to the crew and your seat mate. Well, I don't hate that, but it does make for some heavy lifting.

The OCC and DB teams have a lot ahead of us.

As for me, for now: I have several bloody assignments due. In real life: I'd almost rather fail than do these bloody things. Only one thing stops me. Failing? Since when does that get to be an option? Saying, "no thanks, I've had enough and must stop for a break" is one thing. Failing, on the other hand, doesn't make the cut.

In other news, I got rained on as I headed for work this morning. It was rather hard to notice (or care) since I am soaking wet all day Saturdays and Sundays. Monday morning I wake up, head to work and get soaked in the rain. Clearly, being an amphibian might be the reincarnation of choice.

international dirty flag day

2007-03-14T17:17:00.000+08:00

Could there be some coincidence that as I dive into the excellent writing in Coal: A Human History (by Barbara Freese), that the air in Hong Kong bears an uncanny resemblance to the vile smoggy days of yore?

As per the headline: I was returning from a disappointingly fast presentation at the Foreign Correspondents Club by writer Pankaj Mishra (who was discussing Central and Southeast Asian perspectives of the West), when we zoomed past Central Plaza and I looked up to see a parade of grey, dingy flags of the world.

If I were Switzerland, I'd be totally pissed that my crisp red and white flag looked like it had been dragged through a mud puddle and then used to wipe a yak's arse (a rather distinctive look, but HKG smog has managed a close facsimile).

On that note, I leave you with an amazing quotation from Emerson, (quoted by Freese) on Coal:

Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself withersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind its secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta; and with its comfort brings its its industrial power.

Pretty fantastic huh?

Now, since I live cheek-by-jowl with a coal plant, ya think that might by where some of HKG's smog comes from? That comfortable industrial power?

International Women's Day

2007-03-08T17:04:00.000+08:00

In Hong Kong, International Women's Day has a very different meaning for me than it did when I lived in Canada.

Here, I am constantly reminded that many (most) of the things I took for granted at home, are painfully not available to many Asian women. Generally the reasons for this are economic, but as economies grow, so does a liberalization of society (In my view anyway: many would argue definitions of liberal, but I am being a gross generalist here.).

Here is what happens on International Women's Day:

Annually on 8 March, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate their achievements. While there are many large-scale initiatives, a rich and diverse fabric of local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities and networking events through to local women's craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more. Source

To be honest, I don't know of any events happening in Hong Kong. I'm not sure if that makes me a bad woman, or a successful one. Some days, I am not sure of the difference in myself.

mission statement

2007-03-02T11:07:00.000+08:00

I've been writing a lot of these lately. How I wish it would end. How I wish people would believe me when I tell them that their grammar is off, their phrases are sloppy, and their punctuation a cruel joke that torments my waking hours.

But what do I know? They only hired me for my alleged writing skills. I say alleged, as there is precious little evidence that I know a semi-colon from a colonoscopy in this blog.

As for that last entry: I should have known it augured my menstrual cycle (particularly all the boo hoos and "I'm soooo lonely" natter). But no - instead I was surprised by joy mid-day, after completing an economics assignment (on the corporate dime). Well that is me and my biological destiny. Task over? Stress lifted? Ready, Set, Flow!

God help me if I ever get pregnant... every time I take a moment to relax I'd be ejecting the little critters from my uterus like they were on a cannon-ball run. Not funny perhaps, but I am am regularly amazed over the mind-body connection.

I've been reading and reading and reading this week. Back from the UK with a barrel-o-books and I've torn through Anna Quindlan's latest novel, Ellen McArthur's biography (v. young British gal who did the Vende sailing race a few years back - amazing grit!), and am polishing off Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro a the moment. It's compelling.

Realizing that I'd be done by noon (lunch is good for about 80 pages), I've packed some of the remains of my purchases into my bag and plan to nibble them on the ferry ride home. Seamus Heaney's latest and classic gems from Auden. Who's a poser? Me, me, me!

But, whilst on the topic of being a weenie, I happened upon a new reading list which I found to my liking... it's meant to be a meme, but I don't think that word applies to most "memes" I see.
Nevertheless, this reading list (100 books, listed as - have you read it? do you want to? have you heard of it? Do you own it?) is primarily British, American and Canadian in content. I didn't see any recognizable S. African, Australian or NZ authors, so it was pretty compatible with most of my own reading.

In fact, I've read (and largely own) 68 of the hundred books. There remains 19 I want to read, one I hadn't heard of, and 13 I have no interest in. I have no idea what this is meant to indicate, but I felt smug having read so many (though why? it really only indicates how I fritter away time that could have been better spent watching American Idol, or Days of Our Lives).

Anyway, here is the list:

WANT TO READ:

To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) - hadn't heard of...
The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
War and Peace (Tolstoy)
One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
Shogun (James Clavell)
The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
Ulysses (James Joyce)
READ:

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
The Stand (Stephen King)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
Les Miserables (Hugo)
Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
READ AND OWN:

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
The Hobbit (Tolkien)
The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
1984 (Orwell)
The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
The Bible
Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
Great Expectations (Dickens)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
The World According To Garp (John Irving)
The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
Emma (Jane Austen)
Watership Down (Richard Adams)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
Blindness (Jose Saramago)
In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
Lord of the Flies (Golding)
The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
NO INTEREST:

The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)

On review, it is a shockingly ethnocentric list. The "missionary position" amongst a world of sexual acrobatics. Safe, expected, and non-threatening.

I mean, The Bible, but not the Qur'an? And what about more writers in translation - at least? I mean Orhan Panuk? The guy only won the Noble Prize for literature? And this reeks of the cannon... where is (not un-cannonical, really) Toni Morrison? Or Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man? Or Alice Walker? Maya Angelou?

For that matter, where is Amy Tan on this list? Or Ha Jin? Quite apart from Khaled Hosseini's Kite Runner and Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance (flavour of the month, perhaps?), this is really a white-person's feel good list of books to read.

Forgive me for not entering Marquez or Saramago to this list, but in this context, they sniff of "dudes who are not strictly speaking, white in the NORTH American sense of things, but are commonly accepted as -ya know - uhh... acceptable."

You want to see a humbling book list? Ask any Southeast Asian book fan what they are reading. Mortification in seconds.

hoam sweet hoam

2007-02-27T23:39:00.000+08:00

After a few days in London and Windsor, I headed off to Oxford to see my dear and sorely-missed friend MCK.
The lovely MCK is a don at Oxford, which means - of course - that she is not only lovely; she is brilliant. I've known that for a long time, but you dear reader, may not have. Well, some of you did.
The occasion of my visit to her was sad, but that is personal and shall not be discussed here. Nevertheless, I felt, as I have done the past two times I've seen her, horribly lonely afterwards.
I will not pretend that I am (or was) anywhere near the class of academic that MCK was and is, but the immense pleasure I have in talking to her about books and ideas and theories and politics and whatever else comes up - well it makes me horribly sad that these conversations are over and gone so quickly.

Diversionary topic on the nature of friends, conversation and loneliness - feel free to ignore. Removed - as author cannot stand rereading her own pms-induced emotional bulimia.

Diversion over.

Anyway, as part of my visit, we went to BATH! It was charming and grand on a scale that was both large and small... how that is, I can't say, except that the city centre is compact and neat and intended for simple access and beautiful walks. The buildings were gorgeous - lime or sandstone - I am not sure which.
The countryside was beautiful. All around the city were rolling hills and deep valleys and the River Avon ran narrowly through it. It was really so lovely, and it made me rather scoff when I thought of the Romantics (Wordsworth) essentially bitching about cities when you could be out defiling a nut grove or talking to corresponding breezes and whatnot.
The old Roman bath itself was impressive, but I cannot say I really cared that it was a Roman ruin. I don't know why. The Romans - well, they were fine builders and conquerors and such, but I think the thing I admire most (when I see evidence of them in Europe) is always the viaducts. Guess I am not too imaginative on that scale.

The following day, we (MCK, P, Matt and I) all drove to Uffington, near Whitehorse, to see the big, white, chalk horse. Now that was stunning. Again, I didn't spare any time caring if it was aliens who had carved the horse (since it can only really be seen at its full potential from the sky, as no hills overlook it), or if there were really clever turf carvers wandering the hills of Britain 2,500 years ago, graph paper in hand, measuring out the squares for accurate representation. Mainly it was wonderful because it just felt "wild". Like some kind of brave totem left to guide people. Or just left to give someone heart.

We left for Birmingham a day later (after I'd wandered the 4 floors of Grey Friar's Books and bought some wonderful things to read, including an Elizabeth Bishop collection).

I cannot say I like Birmingham. It's got a lovely city center, but the outskirts range from sort of pretty (occasionally) to downright squalid. I can compare it to my home town though (which is a real love it or hate it place as well), but I have to say that Brum has more ugly bits. Yeah, it's bigger, but that doesn't seem to mediate my opinion. Still, it's P's hometown, and if anyone knows what it means to love a crappy, stinky, industrial town, it's me.

There are two things, however, that I really really like about Brum: one is fact that Edward Burnes Jones is from there (sp?), and the second is that Tolkein is from Brum. (which explains Mordor in any case).

Back to EBJ - he's one of my favourite pre-Raphaelite artists, though I think it's only fair to admit that I think some of his work was a little schmaltzy (Lady of Shallot in particular).

In the Centre of Brum is England's smallest Cathedral, which is charming. It's best qualities? Four GORGEOUS windows by EBJ. These include: the nativity, the crucifixion, Jesus' ascent into heaven and the Second Coming.

And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a bad phone photo of the Second Coming. I tell you, if EBJ were behind the real McCoy, I'd almost welcome it.

I also popped into another lovely church, called St. Martins, to see more windows by EBJ. This was to be my last stop for emotional visits.

Inside one small chapel was a "tree" (branches in a vase) and poked onto, hung onto or taped onto each of the branches were prayers and love notes for the departed. I read several, but they were so sad, and so loving, and so open that they made me cry (I'm snarfling now, recalling). So I wandered up the nave of the church and noticed that a rag-tag choir appeared to be practicing in the east wing. On closer inspection, I realized it was a small service. It was - finally remembered by me - Ash Wednesday, and as I listened to the priest (A woman with a lovely voice), that got me crying again, and I sat down and went through the familiar service prayers from the Book of Common Prayer.

P was waiting (with horror, I think, or at least impatience that my Anglican roots were showing) and I left before the Eucharist.

I am not, to my parent's dismay, a religious woman, but the sound of that service is the sound of my earliest childhood. Somewhere in me, it rings a bell and sends me home.

museum feet

2007-02-16T04:01:00.000+08:00

Today we made our way to the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. Quite apart from the fact that the building and Square are magnificent (there is no other word for it), the gallery – of course – houses an incredible collection, including some spectacular Botticellis (and I love Botticelli, I really do).

But what was most astonishing was that while wandering around the gallery, there were small battalions of school children there for tours as well, and these kidlets were involved in the most fantastic lectures.

One guide was teaching a class of kids, who must have been 7 or 8 years old, about a series of paintings representing classical Greek myths. The first one was of Odysseus, returning to Penelope in the guise of a beggar. Penelope is busy at her loom and a rather handsome suitor is waving his hands at her in a gesture of frustration as old man Odysseus comes thumping through the door with his walking stick.

The second time we ran into this group, it was with Perseus (was it?) carrying the head of Medusa and turning his enemies to stone when they tried to interrupt his wedding to Andreda. We didn’t really get to hear much of that one (so little that I have no idea of whether it was Perseus or not. Medusa’s story wasn’t one I really followed). Finally, the group was plonked down in front of a depiction of Venus getting a bunch of fellows drunk on wine for sly reasons of her own, of course.

What was amazing about these lectures was that the kids were relatively enthusiastic, despite their very young age. Moreover, they were all looking at the paintings with a genuine effort to see what was in them. It was impressive.

What was horrifying was that later, as I was rather wearily regarding the Rape of the Sabine Women, by Domenico Morone, another class of youngsters came roaring through. They must have been about 10 years old. As they passed my by, they pointed at a Rubens painting I wasn’t paying any attention to and didn’t recognize, and yelled (one after another), “Look! It’s The Judgment of Paris! Cool!”

Then they went pelting off after their teacher.

I mean: what the hell are they teaching kids these days? Isn’t it enough that they may as well be part robot given their lifestyle and skills with computers and technology? Now they have to be budding art historians as well?

Really. Kill me please. I felt so inadequate.

After the Gallery, we had a spectacular pub lunch (why eat anywhere but in pubs I ask? They are amazing.) and then moved on to St Paul’s Cathedral. I’ve gotta say: it is spectacular. Absolutely gorgeous. All hail Christopher Wren, I say. What a stunning building.

This is a rather crap photo of the outside. You cannot (alas) take photos inside, as per usual. But it is mind-blowingly beautiful.

The thing about St Paul’s, though, is that it feels more like a celebration of beauty and skill and learning, than it does like a “house of God.” Some of the Cathedrals here (in the UK) are stunning, but they also instill the sense of Awe that was clearly intended in their construction. Worship that Lord God and TREMBLE at his mightiness, is not subtext. It is the text.

But St Paul’s doesn’t feel that way. Inside is one of the most beautiful nave’s I’ve ever seen. It looks almost Greek Orthodox, the colors are all so rich and it’s done in a mosaic, rather than the expected fresco.

The interior of the dome is beyond describing, but the illusion of the pillars is continued up its length, in ideal perspective. The light from the windows at the top is stunning and it really gives the impression of a cloudy and sun-streaked heaven above. It was amazing and we were a little disappointed that we’d arrived too late to climb up to the dome’s gallery. Sometime I guess.

So it was a classical day, so to speak. I have what I call “museum” feet (related to mall feet, but more painful). We plan to see a flick tonight. It’s always a nice change to see a film without Chinese ads for skin whitening fluid from Fancl House. I loathe fancl house. If you saw the commercials you’d know why: Giggling bleached twits in girly dresses. Nauseating.

we've got castles!

2007-02-15T09:01:00.000+08:00

It's a computer world alright, and I am in love with my laptop. I am also in love with my phone, which TALKS to my laptop and allows me to take photos, load em up right away, and post them online (thank you overpriced British Telecom). Look mom! Windsor Castle! Damn, I wish Grandma had a computer!

So there we were, a little jet-lagged and spastic, but otherwise happily drinking beer in the King and Castle Pub, not 50 feet away from Windsor Castle, which is relatively cool by any colonialists reckoning, I figure. Later in the day we went inside (it cost money. shocking, those royal types!) and visited St. George's Chapel. You know: THE chapel, where - oh - Henry VIII and the VI and Jane Seymour and Edward III and the Queen Mum and- god knows who else- was entombed. Under our feet.

Frankly, it was some of the most stunning gothic architecture I've ever seen, and I was very sad that we weren't allowed to take photos.

P and I lingered so long, that we missed out on the tour of the Royal Apartments (no biggee, as far as I was concerned) and Queen Mary's dollhouse (ditto). But the Chapel was honestly magnificent, and this is coming from a woman who loves a good chapel. And yes, I am serious. I LOVE the architecture of churches and cathedrals and chapels. I adore Christian iconography. Give me a gold-leaf triptych of the annunciation any day.

Enough of that. Anyway, it was fab.

Here is P: on beer number 2 and there were several more to come over the course of the day.

Today we arrived in London and I am in our shitty little hotel room at the moment, on Valentine's Day, with two SINGLE beds because the reservation was screwed up. The clerk at the desk said, "you will notice there is a second bed in your room, but don't worry about the cost. It's the same."

So we figured it was a good-sized room. Hurrah!

When we arrived at the cubbyhole we are in (I won't post photos, just so you won't see how pathetic it is), we called the desk immediately. They offered to upgrade us tomorrow, if we stay put today. Valentine's demand, I gather. Buggers. We asked to pay for an upgrade tonight, but nothing doing. Honestly, we're too tired to care. We walked all over London this evening, and it is beautiful. I find it difficult to imagine that all these enormous buildings were ever required at the time of their construction. How many lawyers and traders and MPs and whatever could there have been?

We walked all through Hyde Park, chasing swans and ducks (coots are very cute) and the fattest Canada Geese imaginable. Their wings are not clipped, so presumably they could fly away (and we saw many a clumsy take-off and splash-landing), but why bother? Talk about living off the fat of the land.

The Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens was a little creepy to me, but P likes it. I prefer the old standards, and was pretty tickled to see a statue of Joshua Reynolds outside the Arts and Geological Society. There he stood, brush in hand, big as life and twice as bronzy.

Then, as we wandered towards Piccadilly Circus I looked in the window of a local gallery and saw a collection of Marc Chagall paintings. That rather knocked me on my ass as well; largely because the last time I saw more than 2 Chagalls in one place was during a special exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada, where you didn't dare breath too close to the canvas for fear you infect it with your peasant halitosis.

Here you could wander in the shop and gawk as crudely as you pleased, under the beady eye of the smarmy French gallery dude, mind you. And there were the traditional red stickers on the "sold" paintings. Dude: they SELL Chagall paintings in the streets of London! For money! Just like they were normal paintings or something.

Talk about country mouse hits the UK.

But Hong Kong is crap for culture. CRAP. So it's a bit baffling to find yourself in a capital that holds art in high esteem.

Don't even get me started on the bookstores. I promised myself that 5 kilos of books was all I would take home.

That is a promise I have no intention of keeping. And it's cold here, so I might need a new sweater. It's not certain yet, but I might.

i am not that girl

2007-02-08T16:31:00.000+08:00

Some people have an amazing proficiency for writing educational material. They can write essays, and disassemble them, and show the arguments and the contradictions and the problems and the disagreements. They can wrap riddles around the material and they can point the way out of the maze.
I am not one of those people.

It might seem unreasonable (it does to me), but I stink at word games. I loath crosswords, and lose patience with them immediately. I think I've finished 4-5 in my life.
Likewise, I have a terrible time writing flawed material for students to correct, or dissect. I can write straight material, or biased material, or material with unreliable narrators and false leads and hyperbole, but hey - that's just journalism, right?

Hence I am having some problems finishing a freelance assignment for my former client, and this troubles me. It troubles him too, since it's a shortcoming that he doesn't seem to comprehend in my writing (which I generally do very quickly). But here is the problem: I was taught to write "well" (though my product surely belittles that claim), and I was taught to edit. I wasn't taught to make mistakes. I had a similar problem when teaching grammar many moons ago at University. It took me hours to come up with flawed sentences for my students.

Spent a couple of melancholy moments on the rooftop. All around the harbour front, buildings go up, land is "reclaimed" (trans: the harbour is filled with stone, dirt, sand, busted up concrete from old construction sites, to make "new" land) for new traffic lanes, and ferries, container barges, cruise-liners, junks, and sampans bob around on what remains of the "water" in the harbour.

For some reason, the phrase - or sentiment - of "let's do lunch" came to mind. Remember that from the movies? When insincere people would air-kiss each other -mwah-mwah- and bleat, "oh darling, let's do lunch." Like it was imperative they catch up on all the gossip about the latest fashion.

We all sneered at that line, till it grew stale.

But I will tell you: I am dying to do lunch. I yearn for brunch. I would give an arm for a weekday afternoon, where all I had to worry about was whether or not I should really have another glass of white wine, since - after all - it was 3:30 and we'd been talking and eating since 12, for heaven's sake.

My current version of lunch is either a meeting (with old clients), or a race to manage some kind of errand, or a quick plate of pasta with P, when we know we really won't be seeing much of each other throughout the week.

At it's best, lunch is 50 uninterrupted minutes when I can relax and read a book or a magazine.

"Doing lunch" means decadence and time. I'd love me some of that!

In other news: my economics class last night was dire. Useless. Hopeless. I left early. At 8pm, after having been in the cube all day, I have very limited patience with the limitations of my professors. Since her lecture made it evident that nothing could be gained by staying (other than a tension headache from rage) I vamoosed.

Do I resent paying money for this kind of dross? Yes I do. I paid these folks to educate me, not piss me off.

That said, she seems a lovely woman, and is apparently very, very clever. Too bad I want to throttle her.

(the) run down

2007-02-07T11:04:00.000+08:00

It's a disturbingly lovely day in Hong Kong, with temperatures hovering above 20 and the humidity up. It's not even April yet, and here I am asking that age old question: Socks or Sandals?

(Socks it is. The university is freezing at night and I don't care to spend an economics lecture rubbing my ankles in what appears to be some odd, fetishistic frenzy).

So here is a sampling of today's important headlines:

Now, more than half of those are from the South China Morning Post. The others are from the Globe & Mail. Incidentally, CLP means "China Light and Power."

Mind you, on the ferry this morning, the only story people were talking about is the love triangle with the astronaut. All very tawdry and sad, really.

So, our headlines and a short recap:

Clean coal: it costs a lot. China doesn't want to pay the price. Go figure.
Petro-Canada calls off Oil-Sands sale: HA HA! and I quote: "On the Toronto Stock Exchange Tuesday morning, Petro-Canada's stock was down 36 cents at $46.28." What, we didn't see that coming?
Tax-Cuts, GHG rules: Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose
$10B and global manufacturing: ibid. Also - Environment gets lip service.
Carbon trading: 'bout time.
CLP Smokescreen: I wish the pun were funny.
Water Crisis: Shanghai and Beijing in denial. They wish it was a river in China.
Costly clean energy: Same as #1 for China.
Thin Ice: How odd, the lakes are not safe to skate on in Beijing!
Shanghai sinking: like Venice, but the architecture is being ruined really fast.
Astronauts: No, You're a rocket scientist.

Oh how I love the news.

In my own life, I've decided to suck it up and play gopher in the blue cube for 3 more months. I think that takes me to the end of May, which is about 70 days. Yes, I am marking them off with a calendar.

Following that, I hope to make a decent stab at my own business. I've registered one here in Honkers, and need to make effective proposals and stuff for investment visa applications. Planning on running to my strengths here with CSR and the new degree and all that.

In other news:

Dragon boating is in it's 3rd week. Hail Mary, full of grace, please save my ass from crazy ladies.
Outrigging continues. New prayer to ward off exhaustion.
Doing Law and Economics courses for this 1/2 semester. I like law. I like pretty formulas in economics. I don't like graphs.
Still freelancing a little, with my spare 5 minutes a day.
Decide to give former client a pass. He is nice, but not dependable. And he's wacked. barking. nutty. (successful though).
I am headed to the UK next week to visit a friend and P's parents. "Why am I doing this when the weather is cold and HKG is unseasonably gorgeous?" you ask. Please don't ask.

Incidentally, I feel great at the moment, but am generally exhausted these days. I need more sleep. How do people with kids lead lives outside their homes? I cannot imagine dealing with children and working and doing other activities. Where do they find the time?

Finally, I've been hunting for a poem by Al Purdy online, and cannot find it. Nina, please find the poem, which I think is called Love at Robin Lake and send it to me. (It's gotta be in the Nortons. I am sure that is where I read it).

But for your reading pleasure, here is a fantastic poem by Al Purdy, which I like very much. I've even heard him read it (on recording - duh).

AT THE QUINTE HOTEL - AL Purdy

I am drinking
I am drinking beer with yellow flowers
in underground sunlight
and you can see that I am a sensitive man
And I notice that the bartender is a sensitive man too
so I tell him about his beer
I tell him the beer he draws
is half fart and half yellow horse piss
and all wonderful yellow flowers
But the bartender is not quite
so sensitive as I supposed he was
the way he looks at me now
and does not appreciate my exquisite analogy
Over in one corner two guys
are quietly making love
in the brief prelude to infinity
Opposite them a peculiar fight
enables the drinkers to lay aside
their comic books and watch with interest
as I watch with interest
A wiry little man slugs another guy
then tracks him bleeding into the toilet
and slugs him to the floor again
with ugly red flowers on the tile
three minutes later he roosters over
to the table where his drunk friend sits
with another friend and slugs both
of em ass-over-electric-kettle
so I have to walk around
on my way for a piss
Now I am a sensitive man
so I say to him mildly as hell
“You shouldn’ta knocked over that good beer
with them beautiful flowers in it
So he says to me “Come one
So I Come On
like a rabbit with weak kidneys I guess
like a yellow streak charging
on flower power I suppose
& knock the shit outa him & sit on him
(he is a little guy)
and say reprovingly
“Violence will get you nowhere this time chum
Now you take me
I am a sensitive man
and would you believe I write poems?
But I could see the doubt in his upside down face
in fact in all the faces
“What kind of poems?
“Flower poems
“So tell us a poem
I got off the little guy reluctantly
for he was comfortable
and told them this poem
They crowded around me with tears
in their eyes and wrung my hands feelingly
for my pockets for
it was a heart-warming moment for Literature
and moved by the demonstrable effect
of great Art and the brotherhood of people I remarked
“— the poem oughta be worth some beer
It was a mistake of terminology
for silence came
and it was brought home to me in the tavern
that poems will not really buy beers or flowers
or a goddam thing
and I was sad
for I am a sensitive man.

she's a tartar

2007-01-26T14:56:00.000+08:00

Some days, the fact that I manage to get dressed in the morning without a crisis surprises me. Despite my seeming control fetish, which dictates my fixation on schedules, reminder emails and mass research on all things great and small, I don't take great care of myself.

I always wait till the last available moment to file my taxes. I allow my financial reports to pile up, without ever examining them to see if my bank is ripping me off (ignorance = bliss?), or if some weenie accountant is siphoning dollars from my retirement fund, one dollar at a time.
If I have a pain, I don't go to the doctor unless I absolutely have to. I hate hypochondria, and fear it in myself.

Likewise, if I think I have a cavity, I sit on my hands for more than a year before going to the dentist. Just in case... in case... I don't know what. My teeth fall out and make cavities moot? Whatever.

Medieval tooth extraction. Fun!

Anyway, I finally dragged my worrisome teeth to the dentist today, and was informed that I do not have any cavities.

HOORAY!

I did have some tartar on my teeth, but now that is gone; scrapped away by the sharp pick of Dr. Fok.

I like Dr. Fok.
I like his tartar-scrapping ways.
I really like his fees. I may go see him every week.

Anyway, I learned a pretty basic lesson: a dark mark on your tooth is NOT necessarily a cavity. It could be tartar (which is yucky but not the worst thing ever!), or a bit of parsley from lunch.

When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to one
And you feel like having lots of fun
You brush you teeth ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch
You brush you teeth ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch

When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to two
and you feel like you need something to do
You brush you teeth ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch
You brush you teeth ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch

When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to three
and your minds starts a singing twiddle-dee-dee
You brush you teeth ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch
You brush you teeth ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch

When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to four
and you think you hears a knock on the door
You brush you teeth ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch
You brush you teeth ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch

Actually - brushing don't cut it. And I guess I can't skip anymore night's flossing.

Can anyone tell me what they put in tartar sauce?

When, in disgrace...

2007-01-22T12:04:00.000+08:00

Last Friday I had a memory burp.

Somewhere in the back of my head, my (formerly) favourite Shakespeare sonnet danced out - whole and almost completely - syntactically - intact.

Swiftly following my delight in this new sign of oncoming dementia, was a paired memory of the last time I recited this particular sonnet.

During my year in Halifax, my university was staging a performance of some Shakespeare play or another. I think it was Twelfth Night or some other odd piece. All I remember about it was that I was interested, so it certainly wasn't The Tempest or A Midsummer Night's Dream (I have never enjoyed the latter).

In any case, I made my interest known to a couple of friends one evening, and we planned to drop into the audition room to see what the scoop was. Before we did so, we drank an awful lot of wine.

The result was my friends accompanied me to the august halls of academe to "audition" for some role in the play (Maybe it was Merchant of Venice?). Oh - it seemed like such a laugh at the time.

I don't remember if there was a line up. I do remember staggering into a blindingly fluorescent room, and slurring my way (with grand gestures, and flailing arms) through "Fortune and Men's Eyes".

When I was done (and I have no idea if they had actually wanted me to read from the script. I think I may have brushed off that suggestions), the good folks in the room asked me if I would be interested in a secondary part.

Nothing doing, I said. I was a busy woman, and if it wasn't a lead role, I wasn't going to waste my time on some dull exercise with a blah university troupe.

Then I twirled around, located the exit and flounced out the door; belting out Sugar in my bowl all the way down the hall where I met up with my equally drunk and loathsomely gleeful friends.
I mentioned I was loaded? I like to think I was really, really loaded.

Let this be a warning: memorizing Shakespeare is hazardous. Particularly if you like red wine and generally live on nachos and kraft dinner. It screws with your head.

Sonnet XXIV

When, in disgrace with Fortune and Men's eye's,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate,

For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

- W Shakespeare

Loneliness of the long distance runner

2007-01-18T14:15:00.000+08:00

Again from the roof of the world.

From the North-side of the rooftop, I look down onto Wanchai public sports stadium where children throughout Hong Kong regularly go for track and field meets. It's a good stadium with well-marked, even lanes. Often I watch school kids perform their sprints, relays and their long-distance races. From 30 stories in the air, the child out front (there is almost always a single child a long ways out front) looks lonely and brave.

I love watching these kids run. I whisper encouragements to them from the roof, since I command a view of such omnipotence. Hold back, don't rush, not yet... wait for it. I say, and then: Go now! Everything you have...

I remind myself to look out for people who could witness this one-sided exchange.

Watching these kids always reminds me of an unpleasant track meet I attended when I was 14. The family had moved back to the Maritimes from Ontario, and at a spring event I was slated to run either the 1,600 meter distance. It was only four times around the track (or around a regulation track, I have no memory if that track was standard length), and since I'd done a fair amount of running the year before in Ottawa, I thought I would do reasonably well.

For the record: it never occurred to me at that age that kids trained to run. I just figured you ran or you didn't, and that the outcome depended on your pain threshold, your will and your inborn speed.

There was nobody to really explain otherwise: the middle-school I attended in the Maritimes was a dire place, with ghastly coaches who apparently had no interest in coaching "sport", and instead allowed - and instilled - in their students, a vicious, mean-spirited and wholly-untalented approach to games and competition. (Which put me off sport for many years).

In any case, for some reason, during my race on that bright spring day, I pulled ahead of the pack midway through the race and was running ahead. It was an amazing feeling, this being in first place (which I wasn't accustomed to), and it was apparently amazing to my fellow students as well, who were torn between cheering me and jeering at me, and somehow managed a combination of both.

It was disheartening, but I don't think that is what ultimately lost me a top-3 spot. I'd just gotten excited and ran my hardest - full out, until I burned out at about 1,400 meters. I slunk over the finish line to the refrain of a few more half-hearted taunts; defeated on every level.

When I look at these kids in Hong Kong today, it strikes me that they look brave and lonely. They remind me of how great it feels to run now and how awful and shameful it felt to run when I was 14.

Despite my keen memory of that long-ago event, I've never feel any sympathy for the kids who can't manage to run more than 50 feet, or who lag behind their fellows in small groups. I've only ever felt disdain for them, though I should know better. It's easy to forget the psychological anguish of adolescence; how the importance you place on your peers opinion carries an emotional punch rarely matched in later life. How it means everything.

So thinking on all this brought to mind a scattering of memories and ideas, and I got muddled and confused. It reminded me of the short story, "The Swimmer" by John Cheever (and for some bizarre reason, I though Katherine Mansfield had written it... how far off can you be?). The plot of "The Swimmer" bears no resemblance to running, but the dislocation, and befuddlement and loneliness of the title character inspired the connections.

The other was, naturally enough, "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner", which is also a short story (that I haven't read) and a poem, by one of my favourite guys.

The poem has nothing to do with running either, but it's Nowlan, so who really cares?

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
Alden Nowlan

My wife bursts into the room
where I'm writing well
of my love for
her

and because now
the poem is lost

I silently curse her.

down by the boardwalk

2007-01-18T11:32:00.000+08:00

Up on the roof of the tower o'cubes today, I have a spectacular view of Hong Kong Harbour. Below me, a small construction/landscaping crew is laying out boards, for a boardwalk on the harbour front; stretching from the helipad next to Kellet Island, down to the Wanchai ferry pier.

This is a remarkable development. Hong Kong has, arguably, one of the most brilliant waterfront's in the world in Victoria Harbour, and people have never been able to access it. It's always been blocked by cargo-boxes, or tall, steel fences, or construction pipes and materials.

You couldn't get to the edge of the pier and look out, as the whole area is blocked from the public. The only place I could access the actual slips, was in Western District, when I used to run around the cargo bays during my evening jobs - and that was a long time ago. Pre-Lamma habitation.

So I am excited about this boardwalk. And I am amazed to see these landscape artists (or whatever), planting shrubs and grass and small trees behind the "boards" of the boardwalk. And one more thing to note:

BOARDS. They are using wood, as opposed to glass or concrete or bathroom tiles or whatever. Now that is really unusual, and I must say, a welcome change.

new laddies and old ladies

2007-01-16T14:53:00.000+08:00

Nicholas Aiden, January 12, 6lbs, 10oz.

Here is the latest member of the family brood. He's just had drops put in his eyes and enjoyed the dubious pleasure of a brutal labour which will likely inspire him mum to consider becoming a Catholic Nun (well, one of those nun's that aren't supposed to have sex, anyway).

Unfortunately, I was not at my post over the weekend. Instead, I was out paddling and such, and did not get word that wee Nick was headed out the hatch on Friday.

When I did finally plug in and get the news I was greeted with many a cry of "where have you been???" I am not certain if I am honored or not.

It could be that I was expected to teleconference through the birth (unlikely), or that my family rightly supposed that hell had frozen over and I'd decided to allow the birth of young Nick pass without comment (right).

But I am back, and the baby is fine, and his dad and mum are fine, and my dad and mum are fine. So all the grandparents, parents and aunts and uncles (and cousins, I suppose) are accounted for - and fine.

A renewed request:

Now that Nick is here, would everyone (Becky and Jacob) please stop having babies. You are freaking me out. Don't you know you are still in elementary school? Stop pretending you've grown up. Time is frozen: this is the rule. Nothing happens in Canada throughout the whole period I serve my self-imposed exile in HKG.

Hey: I found a link of a hot-shot political pundit in Ottawa (originally from Nfld) that I snogged in Halifax, about 10 years ago.

He wasn't a hot-shot pundit a decade ago. I think he sent me some dead flowers that we'd pulled out of a park the evening we met, drank red wine on a swing set, and got really stinking drunk. I chipped a tooth that night, which just goes to show: cheap Italian red wine and swing-sets in the Halifax area do not mix. (Think a nice dry white wine and a teeter-totter instead).

Think I should call him and ask for a job? Ah - forget it. He's a Harpy, and that just isn't on. Unless there is really good money in it, and I get to dismantle the master's house with the master's tools and all that stuff.

We miss you, Audre Lorde. I miss you, sanity.

crusader days

2007-01-05T16:08:00.000+08:00

I had to laugh today. It occurred to me, while I was preparing materials for a new writing project (and researching schools) that my old high school might now have a website in this brilliant age of technology.

It does, and it isn't very good, but there was a disturbing section of the website that allegedly addresses different learning needs for students.

Now sure, I agree that students require individuated levels of teaching or learning apparatus (or whatever). It seems to me, though, that biz-speak has infiltrated schools at almost every level, and the language of corporations has taken over academics. To whit: here is
a bit of fabulousness on Layered Curriculum which seeks to explain "student centered teaching method which is based upon a triangular model of three layers each requiring a higher level of understanding."

What's in a Layer?
C Layer: Basic knowledge, understanding. The student builds on his/her current level of core information.
B Layer: Application or manipulation of the information learned in the C layer. Problem solving or other higher level thinking tasks can be placed here.
A Layer: Critical Thinking and Analysis. This layer requires the highest and most complex thought.

Now what I find disturbing about this reverse pyramid of learning layers, is how much it seems to echo the reverse pyramid of employee dynamics within my own company (which also has three layers, and an "unmentionable" category).

I present the rules and rulers of the blue-cubizens:

Head-honchos are overall dictators in their respective functions, setting the framework and nose-to-grindstone ethos to promote company policy and money-laundering.
Whips set agendas and facilitate agony of lesser beings and peons; they hoard resources, 'manage' processes in their 'areas' and aid and abet head honchos in their evil plots.
Dogsbodies are worker bees who grovel and cringe before their masters to perform processes resulting in cash flow. Sometimes they will develop insidious plans to organize tasks all by themselves or in collusion with others.
Unmentionables get the lowest number of paid holidays and help clean the toilets whilst those poor souls (who do not merit a 'title') have been called away to cater to the porcine requirements of the head honchos. Unmentionables usually do the 'filing' or typing.

I find this rather alarming. What happened to all those oblivious students who just wafted about the halls, trying to read Wuthering Heights or manage grade 11 maths without getting caught cheating off the smart, weird girl in the front row? (Hey, I didn't say I was proud of that.)

When I was in high school there were obvious separations between students:

Academic students (kids earmarked for a future that involved basic literacy, at least)
Industrial Arts students (where all the rich plumbers and mechanics came from... boy did the majority of those sweating academics feel dumb once saddled with $30,000 student loans, mortgages, and then had to pay the local "shop dork" $500 per hour to fix their toilets)
Business/secretarial students (which for some reason incorporated what used to be known as 'home economics'. I don't know why.)

Anyway, quite apart from all of this nonsense, my old high school is apparently the 2nd best in Canada in academic programs. It would appear that the corporate mentality has done something right... too bad it didn't work in the office!

dividends of christmas past

2007-01-04T13:58:00.000+08:00

A possible offer that i may not want to refuse?

A former client, from my betwixt-visa months back in 2004, asked me to lunch today.

Sniffing the potential for more freelance moolah, I agreed.

As it happens, he's looking for a senior editor (again) and wants to know if I will return to his land of pandemonium in order to take up the post.

Hong Kong is awash in false prophets, it would appear; few of whom can read English, let alone write it - and certainly not with any kind of savoir-faire.

I guess it speaks to what I've been yammering on about for awhile: this city breeds money and people who chase money. It does not require or inspire well spoken, or well read, individuals.

In any case, he's suggested a contract which (on the face of it) would be well in my favour. A couple of short days at the office, a new visa, and a salary roughly equivalent to what I make now. This would - theoretically - leave me time for additional freelancing projects. The real details are yet to come.

The trick is, working with him was a nightmare. I generally produced 5-8,000 words per day back when I worked for him and he grumbled that I wasn't fast enough (he was lying).

In addition, multiple drafts were required (not a problem, just more time taken) with ever-more moaning.

And his sense of boundaries was not great: I regularly fielded phone calls after midnight. It wasn't my favourite thing.

Still, I have been too bored for too long and it is nice to feel appreciated. It was especially nice to have him recite articles - word for word - that I wrote for him 3 years ago. Most of them were anything but politically correct. It can be quite entertaining writing as the devil.

One article, which was meant to be an inflammatory piece about obesity, actually had the line "Fat people are ugly."

Now bear in mind: this was a series that had many rude articles, among them was one on the more gruesome perils of anorexia, the benefits of smoking pot, and sexual arousal brought on by sushi consumption.

They were not meant to be indicative of my personal opinions; to the contrary, they were supposed to be analyzed and critiqued by the reader.

Unfortunately, the final editor of these articles was apparently a very heavy woman, who was deeply offended by the "Fat people are ugly" line. And who can blame her?

My former client claims the brouhaha that erupted over the obesity article is now a long-standing joke in the office; and that when someone is severely pissed off about something, the phrase "fat people are ugly" is used to diffuse the situation.

How comforting to know I've inspired such elevated discourse.

Still, I cannot help but be flattered when someone recites my old work. It's one of the deep pleasures of writing: people enjoying (at some level) what you've written. It's been a long time since I've had that pleasure. It was certainly at its keenest when I wrote for newspapers (lo these many years ago).

So overall, it was a very interesting lunch with much food for thought. That wasn't the only food though: I also had snake soup and yum cha. mmmmmm.

foiled by stupid search engines

2007-01-03T10:59:00.000+08:00

Dear Katie,

If you know what is good for you, you won't share this website with the Outrigger Crew, or the Lamma Ladies, or any other HK paddlers on pain of death or the publication of the worst photos I can find of you ever. (And I am thinking of the ones where we are pulling faces at Tin Hau).

And:

I know where you live.
I know your kids.
I will set my vicious dog on you, and he will wander up to you and feign interest in what you are doing for as long as you are holding bacon or some other recognizable foodstuff.
So be scared.

Adie: ditto - minus the kids and photo bit.

In other news (for the folks at home): Nothing is happening.

Paul's relatives carted approximately 400lbs of stuff onto a plane, along with their small ones and some shiny new golf clubs, and a bike and flew away home to the UK.

Sorry mom: I am still not getting married. One kid at a time, okay?

Hong Kong officially went "non-smoking" on January 1st. This is all very exciting, since there are apparently a bunch of public areas that are designated as non-smoking, but it's hard to tell where those (outdoor) areas are.

There are very few places recognizable as "parks" in Hong Kong, so many walkways between buildings and street corners are known as "public areas." These public areas are broken into smoking and non-smoking spots. I am not sure what will happen, but with the police under orders to slap $5,000 fines on folks not observing the new law - without a first-offence warning - things could get interesting.

In truth, I am all for non-smoking in restaurants and bars and public venues. Tere is no need to smell bad all the time for the sake of unhealthy addictions.

I am, however, annoyed by the avalanche of media crapaganda linking smokers with moral degenerates and drooling idiots. Smoking isn't pretty, to be sure, but placed alongside people who've over-imbibed, they suddenly look like intellectual giants - even the really stupid smokers who are moral degenerates.

Visualize the smoker: sallow skin, yellowed teeth and cloudy eyes.

Visualize the drunk: sallow, flushed skin; red, rolling eyes; fetid breath; flying spittle; lack of coordination; lack of volume control; occasional vomit; increased potential for inappropriate displays of temper, and of course - raised incidence of sex with horribly inappropriate people.

Now of the two, obviously I would choose the occasional drinker over the smoker in terms of health benefits and overall body-odor issues.

Otherwise, please give us a rest with the smoker = evil horseshit. Pick on the real villains: tobacco companies:

Tobacco is a worldwide agricultural crop that faces problems similar to other
crops: Agricultural practices can contribute to water scarcity, increasing loss
of biodiversity and decreasing soil fertility when too intense and exploitative.
Moreover, as a large part of tobacco is grown in emerging markets or developing
countries and as the tobacco harvest does not require high skills, cases of
unfair treatment of farm workers have come up. In addition, child labor is a
well-known problem on tobacco plantations in some regions.
from the Dow Jones Sustainability Index

So if smokers have anything to apologize for, it's that they give money to tobacco companies who are - by all accounts - purveyors of death.

By the way, please check your stock portfolios: that is what the DJSI is for. And dump those tobacco shares.

blue cube, you saw me sitting alone... dooo wah do

2006-12-27T14:27:00.000+08:00

It was, without a doubt, an exhausting weekend. Merry Christmas to all, and may all get a good night's sleep!
Following the joyous writing of the sustainable development paper (and the equally delightful time I spent panicking over my lack of an email address to send it to - which was eventually located, fear not, at the 11th hour), I hauled my sorry ass out of bed at 8am the next morning and high-tailed it to the land of Retailvania, where cunning leeches sucked the life-blood from my wallet in 3 short hours.
In truth, it wasn't all that bad. I found a gift for our house guest, which seemed appropriate since he appears a little lonely this Christmas, and I don't know him well enough to inspire meaningful heart-to-hearts over what his girlfriend is up to, or how his son is. I also managed to pick up the perfect version of the miracle that is a golf bag with wheels for P.
Silly me: I'd rushed about HKG looking for a golf bag with BIG wheels, since the little tottery ones that I saw everywhere looked absolutely useless for a golf course. P had asked for a wheeled golf bag, which seemed like a boring if perfectly reasonable Christmas request. I discovered, however, that the wheels are only necessary to drag the thing about HKG (to the ferry, and in and out of taxis, etc.). After that, the caddies take over and drag the things around for the foxily-dressed golfers.
How obscenely decadent. God forbid you carry the bloody golf bag more than one kilometer on your own. Such effort! And imagine: it could make you sweat.
I might love P, but I really and truly think that golf is the wankiest freakin' excuse for a sport ever. And don't even get me started on the clothes.
Anyway, I also bought myself a book, because no Christmas would be complete without me shopping for me. I am the very spirit of giving.
But I will tell you: I bought it for the cover, which has a copy of a photograph of a girl, straddling a wall and looking over it toward Shenzhen, shot by Weng Peijun.
Her torso is turned completely away from the viewer and you only see the back of her head.
It is - to me - the Christina's World of Chinese photography.
Actually, having reviewed Christina's World, I have to say, I like it better than that. Christina's World (which I liked very much as a teenager - it clearly spoke to some weird longing in my adolescent chemical soup), is - on sober, matured reflection - a very creepy painting, with the eponymous Christina looking grossly frail and frighteningly hunted.
The fact that you do not see either character's face is the same though, and there is a very real sense that whatever it is they are looking at, is something that is commanding the whole of their attention.
Weng's photo is better. Or perhaps the scene his character is looking towards is more meaningful to me now, than a field and a farmhouse happens to be.

On to Christmas: I was spoilt. A small mountain of books (thank you all so VERY much! I am already through 2 of them!), including some brilliant collections on women and sport; Leonard Cohen's last collection of poetry; lots of save-the-planet stuff, and Alice Munro's more recent collection of gems. It was a haul to delight the grey matter.
In addition to that, P bought me an alarming assortment of unguents to make me cleaner/smell better/scrub up.
Perhaps I stink?
Friends dropped by with more books and groovy calendars and such. It was fab.

Following the Christmas gift excess, we slouched into the kitchen to make pancakes and bacon and eggs. Then we fell down and had some cookies.
Eventually, we got up again and prepared X-mas dinner. Dinner included 7 adults and 2 small fry, eating:

turkey
2 kinds of stuffing
peas (shelled)
carrots
snow peas (unshelled)
parsnips
roast potatoes
sweet potatoes
salad
gravy
mince pies
chocolates
cookies
10 bottles of wine/champagne/fizzy stuff
coffee

Have I forgotten anything? I hope not. Reading that list makes me want to burp out the memory of the anguish my swollen belly suffered later in the evening. My brain still weeps from the wine.

Fortunately, the next day I had promised to take P's cousin for a paddle. We did a leisurely 6km, and it was wonderful to clear my head on the water. She was fine on the OC1, which was nice (and I didn't have to worry or watch too closely).

It was fantastic just to reach out and grab the water in long, mellow strokes. I worried that I was being lazy, but put it away. I worried that my right rotation wasn't as powerful as my left, but put it away.

Just two calm, quiet, fresh hours on the water. Then we hit the beach again, put the boats away, and the sun went down on my Christmas weekend.

Today, of course, I am in the cube again. An earthquake (BIG!) in Taiwan disrupted our Internet systems, but this blog system seems to be managing now. Hopefully my day's record won't be lost.

And I must return to my work, such as it is. There are 2 more days to the work week. I expect to write a novel here in the next 48 hours. Stay tuned.

jingo all the way

2006-12-24T01:34:00.000+08:00

Well, this really isn't about a cat named jingo, or a dog named bingo or jingoism or bingoism or any domestic animals, fetishization of nationality, or games involving crazy people wielding ink stamps.

Actually, I just called to say "I love you."
nd to say I am high on carbon dioxide, since I spent 8 hours of my first day of the Christmas weekend closeted in P's computer room finishing my last term paper. Once that was done, I walked to the local ATM machine and took out some green-backs so that I could gift my helper with cold, hard cash for Christmas. Then I did 1.5 hours' of paper work. It is now officially Christmas eve, but only because I am up too late.

I cannot tell you how much fun I've been having. It's been a day-long party, with giggles and Christmas cookies and elves, leaping before my eyes like pixelated graphics; whirling about the computer screen until I thought I would throw up from the gleefulness of it all.

Well it's ALL DONE NOW! As of tomorrow, the only duties I have are picking up the last of P's x-mas loot (yeesh), figuring out some environmentally-friendly means of wrapping P's loot, so that I can lord my sustainable goodness over him until New Year's (when I shall have to start my goodness tally afresh), and drinking loads of vino with whatever friends are foolish enough to drop by. Ho Ho Ho indeed!

And so, dear friends, if you are bored enough to be reading this bit of nonsense on December 23-24, and you don't hear from me before, during or immediately after Christmas, I bid you a holly, jolly, wonderful season of random consumer pleasure and not-so-random family love.

Eat birds and pigs and whatever strikes your fancy. Snap Christmas crackers till the house burns down. Drink hooch when-ever and where-ever you can (please don't be driving at the same time) and party like its 1993 - or when-ever you last partied until you passed out naked on the bathroom floor (okay, it was 1990, but I don't really want to date myself that much).

May your days be merry and bright, your kitchens' sparkling with light, and may there be good books, warm sweaters and great tunes aplenty.

I am headed to bed, before my benevolence wears off and I am forced to consider the duties of the coming year. Ah! running away now.

mem-or-ies: busted out of the corners of my mind

2006-12-20T16:48:00.000+08:00

I wrote an exam this past Monday; the first real exam I've had to sit since about 1996, when I think I wrote my last one (3 hours' worth) on translations of Beowulf and various passages from Anglo-Saxon English.
I am sorry to say that 10+ years has done nothing at all for my memory, other than erode it.
So there I was, writing nucelle, nucelle, nucelle, over and over on paper. Trying to ram through my stubborn brain a connection between a "snail" and "nucelle."
My brain wasn't having it.

Hours swept past. The exam time was looming. Nucelle, mytilus, geospiza, chthamalus, balanus, pisaster...
Not a one wanted to stick, save chthamalus, simply because it offended my perspective on consonants.
magnrotis, parvula... what's a girl to do? Writing them over and over, like lines, was useless.
Eventually I bowed to the inevitable and made up mnemonic tricks to link the English nouns to their Latin names. Somehow that bothered me, a lot.

When I did my first BA a million years ago, one of my favourite profs once explained the idea of the Renaissance "memory theatre." The concept - in a basic outline - was that genius poets of the day would construct a theatre in their minds and assign a different memory, item or phrase to each spot/seat/plank/door/archway in that theatre. Later, when they needed to recall something, they would revisit their imaginary theatre, and simply look around in order to locate the selected item.

I loved that class. It was called Elizabethans and Metaphysicals. Could anything sound more wonderful? Honestly, it was brilliant.

Anyway, I forget which professor brought up the second memory discussion, but the premise of this one was less inspiring. Basically, the prof suggested, our minds are like bookshelves with a finite space and open sides. As our shelf gets over-full, we can cram additional books on to it, but some other book will fall off the open end.

I have no idea what nucelle, mytilus or geospiza have kicked off my memory shelf, but I hope I haven't lost anything really good. (Actually, I am sure I could spare something for the geospiza.)

The exam itself could have been better. I made an embarrassing mistake in discussing how Darwin's finches prove the case for speciation. Given that my very early education was devoid of any basic science; I cannot bring myself to be too ashamed (the last time we discussed the animal kingdom in any 'scientific' detail at school, I was nine years old!).

The studying did make me nervous. "I don't think my brain will absorb new information" was my very panicky and genuine fear. "I think my brain has called it quits!"

(I was going to write about all of this yesterday - after the exam - but I forgot.)

Age is creeping around, chomping on my spine and taking long licks at my brain cells. Back to the ginkgo biloba go I.

In other news: the Room to Read charity folks have dropped me from their "next stage interview" list. I am, naturally, disappointed. You may all send me frito-lays to get over the pain. Then you may send me laxatives to get over the fat.

Or, if you think I would have been perfect for the job, you may call or email them and tell them so. Just so they know I have friends and such, and that you really want me to stop bitching about how bored I am of the capitalist car park where I am currently ensconced.

And finally:

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –
Emily Dickinson - I felt a funeral in my brain, 1955

for want of a horse-shoe nail

2006-12-19T14:42:00.000+08:00

I was reading a series of poetry blogs this morning, mainly because I'd happened upon an article in my home-town paper about a young woman who has been racing about the city at night, spray-painting miscellaneous lines from regional poets on the city's sidewalks.

Fortunately, she uses a stencil or something, so they look quite nice. Some of the lines are pretty evocative; others are - at first blush - a little amusing, but in a Bart Simpson kind of way... "who the hell is robbie burns" was one of them.

Anyway, one link led to another led to an old university friend of mine who owns and operates a reputable press house in Nova Scotia (methinks) called Gaspereau Press. His press creates some absolutely lovely books. They are artifacts really, and I am always tempted to order some (in fact, I mean to order one of the reprinted editions that incorporates the rather dark and broody charcoal prints of an artist I quite admire from home).

Enough of that... there were a couple of meme's that were not too bad. Well one is sorta crap (the one word meme); but the other is fun. So we will start with the one word meme first.

By the way, I had no idea what a meme was and had to look it up:

meme: Richard Dawkins's term for an idea considered as a replicator, especially with the connotation that memes parasitise people into propagating them much as viruses do.

Memes can be considered the unit of cultural evolution. Ideas can evolve in a way analogous to biological evolution. Some ideas survive better than others; ideas can mutate through, for example, misunderstandings; and two ideas can recombine to produce a new idea involving elements of each parent idea.

Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool- and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has become more important than biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Hackers find this idea congenial for tolerably obvious reasons.

Actually, I think the meaning of the word meme is considerably more interesting than the memes themselves, but what the hell. (I particularly love that last line: "hackers find this idea congenial for tolerably obvious reasons." I mean, who came up with that as a definition? Too fine!).

Number one.

One-word meme
Yourself: ghostly
Your spouse: absent
Your hair: brown
Your mother: laughing
Your father: glasses
Your favorite item: book
Your dream last night: none
Your favorite drink: water
Your dream car: boat
The room you are in: awful
Your ex: never
Your fear: boxes
What you want to be in 10 years: happiest
Who you hung out with last night: class
What you're not: onion
Muffins: carrot
One of your wish list items: alice
Time: little
The last thing you did: shrugged
What you're wearing: jumpers
Your favorite weather: colorful
Your favorite book: narnia
The last thing you ate: pudding
Your life: alive
Your mood: melancholy
Your best friend(s): missed
What you're thinking about right now: friends
Your car: none
What you're doing at the moment: thinking
Your summer: lost
Your relationship status: awol
What's on TV: huh?
The weather: bright
The last time you laughed: noon

See, that was not so good. But this one is much better. Here is the standard: grab the book closest to you, open it to page 123; go down to the fifth sentence and write out the next three sentences. Then give the name of the Author and the Book (I gave the year too, to be helpful).

Here is mine:

The idea, radical for the 1960s, was to create a system wherein every Abbott
manager in every type of job was responsible for his or her return on investment, with the same rigor that an investor holds an entrepreneur responsible. There would be no hiding behind traditional accounting allocations, no slopping funds about to cover up ineffective management, no opportunities for finger-pointing.
But the beauty of the Abbott system lay not just in its rigor, but in how it used
rigor and discipline to enable creativity and entrepreneurship.
Good to Great – Jim Collins, 2001 (pp 123; sentences 5-8).

Aren't you appalled that this is my book? I am, but it is the one that is closest to me on my desk.
And that is as much of it as I have ever read. AND - they used the word rigor three times, entrepreneur twice, and the word "enable" which I personally feel is one of the greatest word-crimes of the modern world. Enable - what sycophantic loser came up with that bit of butt cheese?

I would rather have posted this, which was in my bag under my desk:

"When?"
"Last autumn. And Alice said, A rockery would look enchanting in your back
garden," and you agreed.
Black Swan Green - David Mitchell, 2006 (pp 123; sentences 5-8).

Now that is considerably more interesting... and there is no context at all.

hit my head on the nostalgia beam today

2006-12-14T11:07:00.000+08:00

On one of my colleagues' desks there is a big, old-fashioned glass bearing that good old corporate logo "Coke!".

This is not a business-bashing entry.

I was headed out to the roof-top for a breath of air and to admire the vista of a raining Hong Kong harbour, when I noted that I was humming the rarely-recalled (by me) tune of the old Coke is It! commercial jingle. However, the lyrics of Coke is It! had been altered to Pas-co-bac!

Pascobac! It's where the sun shines all day long,
Pascobac! It's where we sing this silly song,
Pas-co-bac... Pas-co-bac!

Pascobac was a campground, that I believe was owned by the YMCA, and for years, summer on summer, I went to music camp there. First as a camper and later as a camp counsellor. I loved it.

Pascobac - the most exciting way,
To make the most of every day!
When you pick up your Uke at the crack of the dawn,
You run to the lodge and you burst into song,
Pascobac!

And what is a Uke, pray tell? Well, when I say music camp, the instrument that dominated that music camp was the ukulele. And you know what? I still have to look up the word ukulele when I write it today.

Now lest you think our ukuleles were the standard-fare, Hawaiian style Uke's, shaped like mini-guitars (which I can spell unassisted by the way), let me set the record straight: these were specially designed triangular-shaped ukes. And they were designed and made by a fellow named J. Chalmers Doane, who launched them -like a deadly fleet of v-shaped plunking torture devices - on school boards all over Atlantic Canada.

They were cheap, they were plentiful, they were a perfect "starter instrument" for kids, and they mercifully (or not) replaced the recorder as the learners instrument of choice. In retrospect, what was fantastic about them was that you got to sing and play the instrument; not an easy stunt on a recorder.

This is what a JC Doane ukulele looks like. The fellow playing is bears no resemblance to the army of 7-14 year old twerps that played it 3 decades ago (I am getting OLD).

The gentleman appears to be playing a basic model of the JCD (J Chalmers Doane) ukulele. Perhaps a JCD2? I can state with a little authority that the wood does not appear to be the same quality of the graduated models (they ranged from JCD1-JCD5 in my day). I think my model capped out at a JCD4, which cost in the realm of $120... whereas the JCD1's were about $35. To a kid (in 1982) that was a LOT of dosh.

For your interest, here a collection from Nova Scotia, of assorted ukuleles:

They look sorta cool, huh?

Uh - if you are interested in this stuff, click here for more info. I will be frightened if you do, but it's a free planet and all that stuff, you freak.

Anyway, I am sure this all sounds rather comedic, but it does get better:

I loved music lessons as a kid, and the ukulele was the most accessible music "group" available to kids for years. As time went by, some kids took up standard instruments such as violin (for school orchestras). I am not certain how I missed that boat, but I did. I did study piano for years, and had voice lessons. I played guitar and got a crack (while living in Ontario) at the violin, viola, cello and double bass - in that order.

I played clarinet (dad's favourite) and failed to do more than create a couple of flatulent squawks on the flute... I learned basic drum beats; eventually managing to get hands and feet to synthesize their motions. But the instrument I played the longest was the ukulele. In fact, with a lot of guilt-inflicting prodding from my mother (who was friends with the ukulele instructors), I stuck with it until I was 15.

Of course, by that age, only complete losers played ukulele anymore. Eventually, it would take way more than guilt to induce me to carry a ukulele around my high school and although I felt bad for my former music instructors, who were clearly suffering from a serious reduction in numbers and the upcoming death of the ukulele as "started instrument" in the classroom, I dropped that v-shaped instrument of terminal geek-hood like a hot rock.

Not before I had been to music camp for 5 years running though; or toured the Maritimes for shows and concerts, or cut a record in which I got to play some solos and shake the maracas!

But for all of the corniness of those cheesy music years, the music was actually pretty cool. We learned favourites of the 20s and 30s (who can say that?). My grandparents knew all my favourites very, very well. And when I remember some of the tunes even now, I get misty (as it were) at the elemental truth to some of the songs. Because when I sang them, they were true.

Sometimes a melody comes from the heart of me
driving my worries away.
Nothing is really wrong, if you can sing a song,
music brightens your day.

If I ever want to sing a song, if I ever want to play a tune;
I'll let - the music - come through.

So, 80% of those lyrics are crap - but that first line: well, sometime a melody does come from the heart of me.

And god help me: this morning it was Pas-co-bac!

did i mention my heart is STILL in my throat?

2006-12-12T16:01:00.000+08:00

Because I am waiting on news of this.

Which will refer you back to this.

Interview two, with this lady (sorry, ya gotta scroll down to 'chief development officer' description), seemed to go well.

It's hard to judge how it really went, since both the people I've spoken with have been exceptionally nice and congenial on the phone.

Mind, they likely wouldn't be so good at their jobs if they weren't. (Great: new incite increases stress levels! Update at 6!).

Anyway, if you are curious about the staff, scroll through the mini bios on the website.

Now, if you know me, make a quick comparison.

Do you see a difference? (Hint: as yet, I am not within sniffing distance of the sainthood status these folks clearly deserve).

I hope to hear more tomorrow. At which point I will either be suffering heart palpitations of anxious joy (as another interview would be required), or will be out hunting anti-depressants.

Fortunately, Hong Kong "pharmacies" stock everything, so I could be ecstatic by the days' end; high on mood-altering substances and absent medical ethics!

city of water; heart of a jellyfish

2006-12-12T12:08:00.000+08:00

Emily Kwok Sin Man, Age 14
Hong Kong, China School of Creativity
Teacher: Stephanie Yip

After charging down the hill towards the ferry this morning, having woken late and a scant 20 minutes before I had to catch my boat, it took me a while to relax before reaching Hong Kong Island.

Most days, I start the official commute (as in vessel transport; rather than foot-powered) at 7:40am. This means that I am on a fast ferry, which takes some 7-10 minutes less than a slow ferry. The real benefit of the fast ferry (which costs more) is that the seats have cushions and are comfier.

The slow ferries have evil, plastic-moulded chairs that aggravate tired spines, and are too low to allow for lolling your head back when you need a moment's additional shut-eye.

My friends Arja's father was on the ferry this morning, preparing for his return to Finland after shooting a documentary on - you guessed it - trade and transportation from S China and Hong Kong. So, seeing him sitting alone at the back of the ferry, which is a cargo-area with a few chairs, I joined him.

The cargo area is open to the air, and on occasion, plumes of spray will wash into the chamber, sometimes soaking unwitting passengers who stand too close to the "windows." That was not a problem this morning, although the wind was fresh and I was feeling chilly.

After my morning grumpiness had passed, and I'd managed to read a new chapter in my book of the day, I looked out on the harbour to see what we were passing through.

Typical stuff: there was a large (5,500+ TEU) vessel from Japan, and a few big Hong Kong ships. Here and there you could spot a fishing boat on the water, and a few smaller sampans with locals jigging fish from them. The barges were already at work, transloading containers on and off ships, since they didn't have a berth at port (10% of cargo containers are moved this way in Hong Kong), and of course there were ferries whizzing along every which way, bearing commuters like myself to Hong Kong from Lantau Island, Cheung Chau, Macau and Peng Chau... and Lamma, of course.

So I settled in and reviewed the waves. The waters here have been a wonderful, clear blue lately. I don't know why they appear so clean these days.

Since (apart from the roar of the diesel engine) it was quiet and sunny, I got to feeling rather reflective, and was appreciating the good fortune had brought me to this place, where I got to cross water everyday in order to go about my business.

I expect that doesn't sound like much to most people, but there is something that is - to me - profound about having to climb aboard a boat and make my way across a harbour or a river or a shipping lane (as it were) to join the "rest of the world."

To some degree, it gives me this feeling that I am connected to my family history. As a Canadian, particularly an East Coast Canadian, the knowledge that "we all got here (Canada) from somewhere over there (UK, Italy, Russia, etc.) and that the voyage to get to Canada involved a very, very dangerous trip over a frozen ocean" is never buried too deep.

Apart from inhaling the ferry's fuel emissions, this was a good way to start the morning: Reflecting on my good luck and the circumstances that brought me to Hong Kong.

And it made for a nice change, because lately, I've been a royal bitch.

I've felt tired and cranky and angry that I am here and not at home in Canada with my family. I've been sick of pollution and sick of my job and sick of the food I eat and the bed I sleep in. I've been a curmudgeon, whose sole remaining virtue is trying to keep her grouchiness bottled up, and away from friends and children, instead of venting and enfouling the air around me.

Yeah - it hasn't been pretty, but the Christmas season has me a little cold this year. I'm having a hard time buying things. Every item I look at or pick up fills me with doubt.

"Will is be used?" I wonder. "Am I wasting money, energy, resources, time, etc., etc. on these things?"

Christmas shouldn't feel like this. I shouldn't feel like this.

In my sustainable development lecture the other night, we were discussing the kinds of traits or characteristics people need to live a "sustainable life." Forgive me if I sound like a horrid pedant, but chief among them was courage.

To me, that sounds a little ripe. And I don't fancy carting a soap box with me where ever I wander.

But courage does take different shapes and forms, and the courage to say:

"I am really struggling with my desire to gather
trinkets for all the people I love with my need to write to you all and say, 'you know what? I really love you, but I cannot countenance sending you
anymore shit you don't need. So if you don't send me a list, I just cannot bring
myself to send you anything.' "

Honestly, that would take courage, because if there is anything that freaks me out, it's the idea of disappointing people I love when making them happy (through Taiwanese doo-dads that say, "I was thinking of you! Here is tangible proof!") is so easy. And the actual cost is invisible.

Honestly - is there a need for this?

I don't like harping on about these things. It makes me feel like an asshole. But I think that is the chief point of working on sustainable development: it takes courage to be an asshole and recognize that people (whose opinions you care about) think you are an asshole. In real life.

Lucky me: A test of faith.

the small but mighty

2006-12-11T11:41:00.000+08:00

After the Round Island Race, our lovely canoe had to be retrieved from the yacht club and paddled back to Lamma Island. Fortunately, we picked an unusually lovely day to do it, and you can actually see what Hong Kong looks like when it is not covered in a dense fog of industrial smog and smoke.

Here we are, paddling toward the stern of the iconic "Star Ferry." One of these lovely buggers crossed us as we were sprinting for the finish line in the Round Island Race. My crew let out horrifying wails and curses at the time, and I do believe that Mel actually shouted something nasty at the tourists who were thrilled to take our photo from the deck (and why not; we were clearly crazy people).

Anyway, we were considerably more mellow about their presence on this occasion.

This unusual architectural wonder is the HKG Trade and Convention Centre. I cannot say I am too fond of it from the outside, but inside the views are lovely and it is bright and airy and reminds me of the National Art Gallery in Ottawa a little. Just a little: it's all the glass really.

That is the IFC2 ahead of us. It is really tall. The offices inside are nice. Realistically though? It's a big, boxy willy jutting into the sky. The only comfort I have on days of heavy air pollution is that the dorks who pay ka-jillions for office space in this hunk of steel and glass feel the pain more than the rest of us. Behold: the ka-jillion dollar view of a smog bank!

This was just a little baby container ship, moving very, very slowly. The trick is: you aim directly for the side of the ship; once you get there, the ship has passed you by about 100 meters and you have a clean cut into its wake. Some people in my crew didn't believe that (I don't know why... it's not like I lowered an outboard motor over the back when we went across), but they eventually remembered that I don't kill my crew members for fun or profit.

Yes, I am barking about something or other in the back. I believed this is when I was telling people on the support junk to get their bums off the comfy chaise lounges and take the place of a couple of these folks, who were tired of playing "dodge the ferry."

Afterwards, we beached the canoe and put her away amongst the trees and the bugs; picked up a load of pizzas and beer and just sailed off on the support boat/junk for a few hours. It was lovely and the beer was very good and very cold.

forests, feminists & fooze-ball

2006-12-07T09:44:00.000+08:00

A fantastic and effective campaign from ForestEthics has turned up the heat on that icon of sexist shite, Victoria's Secret:

Two years of research by ForestEthics has found that approximately 25% of the paper in Victoria’s Secret catalogs comes directly from North America’s Great Boreal Forest.
Stretching across Canada from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean, the Great Boreal Forest is part of a green halo of forest encircling the planet. The size of 13 Californias, the Boreal is a gigantic forest – one of the three largest remaining on earth – and is an important regulator of global climate.
“Victoria’s Secret has proven their prowess at marketing unneeded items like diamond-encrusted panties... . Companies like Victoria’s Secret literally have the power to transform the way that we treat critical natural resources like the Great Boreal Forest, protecting them for generations to come,” said Dan Howells of ForestEthics.

It's a sad day when we need to appeal to the conscience of the very twits who purchase the dreck this company fobs off on women and the men who love to gape at boobies; but hey, whatever works, right?

And on that note: I'd like to go on the record, stating that the women's lingerie industry is gross, and Victoria's Secret, as a leading brand (icon, really) makes me heave great gobs of spleen.

From their puke-inducing televised specials (see femm-bots slither down runways covered in glitter and ostrich feathers and sporting rhinestone-encrusted dog-leads in their bum-cracks), to their forest-munching, wank-tastic catalogues that evoke the good old days, when Playboy was a "gentleman's" magazine - that nasty old tart Victoria gives me hives.

Forgive me: I know there are ooodles of women who love Victoria's Secret goodies. And some would argue that any women worth her price in diamonds knows - deep in her heart - that thongs, push-up-bras, toe-cleavage, waxing, facials, bronzing powder and shirt-pressing are the ingredients that will save our planet and make it a much prettier, sexier place.

Obviously, those forest ethics people are all men: because real women are too busy flossing their butts to do much marketing or campaigning.

For more information on ForestEthics and Victoria's Dirty Secret, go here and here.

foozeball discussion postponed till later, when i can think of something to say about it, other than the fact that I meant Whiffle Ball, not foozeball. I get 'em mixed up all the time.

friday at 7:30am - heartbeat accelerating

2006-12-06T12:09:00.000+08:00

Yeah. This Friday, less than 48 hours from now I will enter phase 2 of interview process for much-desired, wonderful position.
Read it here for full details. Or just scroll down. I mean, it's only a few inches below this post anyway.
Yes Nina - that is a Kate and Anna McGarrigle reference. Smart arse.

One more reason to run screaming through the streets

2006-12-05T16:16:00.000+08:00

Money. Too exciting to keep in a safe.
Wealth. What's it to you?
I saw this ad on a billboard this morning on my way to the office. It reminded me of one of the first billboards I saw in Hong Kong when I arrived.
That billboard had only 2 words.

THINK MONEY

When I saw the "think money" billboard, I thought it was funny, if a sad indictment on the 'culture' of HKG.
The ad above, however, actually caused my brain to rupture and I had to mop up the gunge that oozed out my ear with some ineffectual tissue. My cardigan absolutely reeks of burnt brain cells.

it's not about the bike; it's not about the reindeer

2006-12-05T11:37:00.000+08:00

And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh, and 8 tiny reindeer.

Does that make sense? Why are the reindeer tiny? Do you think, perhaps, that they were mouse deer, and not reindeer? That would be cool, and mouse deer would take up much less space and require less food. And if you think eight reindeer can cart Santa's goodies all over the world in a logistics-defying 24 hours (with door-to-door/chimney-to-chimney service), then it's not much of a stretch to think that 8 mouse deer could pull off the same stunt.

Enough of that now.

This public service announcement (PSA) does not require reindeer or mouse deer participation.

A few days ago, a fellow with the code-name Tuco, contacted my blog (shockingly identifying me as a "green blogger" rather than a "professional whiner" which is generally how I identify my oeuvre).

Anyway, this Tuco fellow asked if - as a Canadian Green Blogger - I would have an interest in a cycling petition that he has created to submit to the Canadian Ministry of Environment & Ministry of Finance.

"Hmmmmm" I sez to myself. "I dunna live in Canadia land, but I would surely be pleased as rum-punch to slap the hyperlink of that little bit o' good-guys propaganda."

And so I did. This is mister tuco's blog.

And here is the website for his petition.

And this is why you should support this petition, even though cycling to work in February in Canada is clearly the stuff of crazies (I did it two winters in a row, in Fredericton and Halifax. It was cool):

Because it it good for you.
Because it is good for the environment.
Because it is cold anyway, so you'd might as well get warm in a healthy way.
Because your friends think you're a lunatic in any case.
Because I said so!
Because Mary Walsh signed it.
Because I was on this hour has 22 minutes a million years ago, when Mary Walsh sat next to me at a press conference for the WWF and Prince Philip, and no, I never saw the episode.

WWF means World Wildlife Fed., NOT the World Wrestling Fed. But it would've been cool to wrestle Prince Philip and Mary Walsh and a panda or something.

calling all angels...

2006-12-02T08:20:00.000+08:00

I've decided to break with my "no jinx!" tradition and say for the record that I am currently interviewing for a position I really, really, really want.

There, another tradition of using three useless modifiers in a row to emphasize a point. Ack.

A week or so ago, I was scouring the local want ads in the local "newspaper" when I happened upon an ad that was clearly sent direct from the heavens, for my eyes only. (I wish: apparently many other eyed-persons felt the same way). The position (dare I put it in print?) is for the Development Director, Asia Pacific of Room to Read.

Now, if you haven't heard of Room to Read before now, then you have a treat in store for you. Founded by a rather nice fellow named John Wood, Room to Read is an NGO that funds the development of libraries, computer rooms, local-language books and scholarship funds for children around the world. Look at the site. Go on. Take a look: they are absolutely brilliant.

In six short years, Room to Read has opened more than 3,000 libraries, built hundreds of schools, funded over 2,000 girl's scholarships (identifying the sad fact that it is commonly the girls who are left behind when a poor family needs to "choose" which of their children they can afford to educate; in addition to the fact that one of the chief affects of women's education is that they share their knowledge, hand it down, and seek the same for those around them), funded and published children's books in local languages - in countries like Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal, India, etc. - and has already reached over 2 million children world wide.

In addition to all of this, the group keeps their administrative overhead below 10%, which means that more than 90 cents from every dollar goes directly to the people who need it (as opposed to tweaking the comfortable lifestyle of some executive).

So, I just got off the phone with San Fransisco, having had the first of what I pray are many interviews (it's a lengthy process, they explained).

Here is an image from the RTR website of children in an RTR Library in India.

So I think the group is pretty wonderful. And you should too. And you should donate money to them. It's easy. Go do it now.

By the way, dear close friends, for Christmas this year you are getting charitable donation "cards" that you may spend on one of several charities of your choice. I would like it if you would choose Room to Read, but it's your gift, so I will leave the decision to you.

Anyway, as I've said, this post goes against my tradition of not talking about something I really want, for fear I jinx it. Given what it is that I want, I reckon I can take my chances with the karmic universe this time. Also, even if I don't get the post, it's such a great cause, how could I not still be happy that they are doing their best to fill what is clearly an important post for such a brilliant cause?

When I went through the job prospectus with P, he smirked a fair bit as I read things like, "detail-oriented and extremely organized" and "have a strong work ethic, take initiative, and require minimal direction."

Given the look on his mug, I started protesting: "What? You think I can't be that? Do that? I can do that!"

To which he replied, "It would be great to see you put all your enthusiasm into something other than sport and paddling and school."

Well, fair enough: It would be great being able to put all my enthusiasm behind this, cause enthusiasm I've got. Loads of it. And as for organized and details-oriented... if you haven't cottoned on to my organizational mania, you haven't read many of my posts.

In preparing my cover letter for the post, I started thinking of all the volunteer work I've done over the years. I am ashamed to say, the tally isn't especially high, and I've spent an uncomfortable week wondering why I've been leading such an essentially selfish life (while complaining about my selfish life).

And I came to an awkward conclusion. For some reason, during university and after attending university, I developed this thing about action. The thing seemed to shackle me to inaction. Instead of barrelling ahead with my ideas and plans, as I was wont to do when I was a teenager and the world was mine to change, I started looking at what I thought were social guidelines and "norms" and "plans" in place and wondering where I fit in the grand scheme of things. Should I go with this group? Should I work harder at the office and think more about it? Should I get more educated so that I could have certificates that validated my intentions, my expertise?

It's strange that during my post-secondary education I somehow put a cork in my own ability to do things that I thought were important. Instead, I took all my energy and just worked. I worked through my BAs and I worked hard in school and I worked hard at work, and I got a lot of pleasure out of those things, but I wasn't driving anything. I wasn't in the driver's seat and I wasn't asking to be.

Them a year or so ago, a woman I know and admire and I were talking about bringing an outrigger club to Lamma (sorry - but it's the example I have, not to harp on more about boats). I was saying "yeah, that would be great. People don't have much money, but it would be really good" in this passive, wistful voice.

And she said to me, very matter-of-factly, "well, you just make it happen."

And it was like a bolt out of the blue. That is it. You just make it happen. Because at the end of the day, someone needs to make a decision and make things happen. And once you put things in motion, they take on a life of their own, and thing happen. And it's easy, really.

And I was really surprised that I knew this, at heart, and had somehow forgotten that I knew it and was capable of doing, really, whatever the hell I wanted to do. "Just make it happen" indeed.

And that's how I started the outrigger club on Lamma. I had vague support for the idea at first, but that wasn't really enough, so I kept rallying with the idea, and put cash on the table, and with some help, I made it happen.

Then I enrolled in my MSc for Environmental Management, cause talking and wondering about it wasn't enough.

And now, I will do my best to make this job happen. I have to say, it's rare that I don't get what I really want, but I expect that there are a great many people with experience and talent who are after this post, so I can't get all full of myself on that account. But I do know, I know how to make things happen. I always did. Can't imagine why I ever stopped.

Big things, I mean. Other jobs, other degrees, moving to Asia - those were all decisions that I made, but somehow it felt like I'd drifted from one thing to the other. I'd never really pushed off hard to launch myself into that next thing.

And all the great ideas I've had over the years... I smothered them all in the cradle, because I'd stopped acting and was only thinking and talking and wondering (great if you like being ineffective).

Well no more of that shit. Time to get a move on.

On that note: I have to walk to dog and get my arse down to the ferry to make it to some more outrigger races today.

As for you: please go and donate to Room to Read.

And take a look at their pages about their site events. So the next time you visit me in Asia, after having made a donation, you can go in person to visit the libraries and schools you've helped make.

And read the stats:

+ 2 million books directed to libraries and schools
+ 3,000 libraries
+ 1 million children's lives changed
+ 2,000 girls' scholarships
approx 100 local books published (in 10,000 print runs)
approx 90 computer rooms developed

millions raised in six years, with more than 90% going directly to the kids, schools and communities (for educational development).

The UN has said that it is education that will provide the strongest weapon in fighting poverty. I believe that. Human resilience is one thing (and powerful), but we wouldn't - for instance - have been inspired by Anne Frank if we hadn't read her diary. And for better or for worse, that is what remains and instructs when everything else is gone.

A wing and a prayer

2006-11-28T20:40:00.000+08:00

In an episode which I expect only my mother to relate to, I found myself in the bathroom without any written material present to occupy my souped-up, scuttling brain.

I say that only my mother will understand the difficulty of this situation, because she has confessed to similar feelings of displacement and suffering when cast adrift by a lack of the written word during unoccupied moments.

She too has owned up to reading toothpaste cartons and the directionson shampoo bottles when faced with a lack of more - ah - sophisticated material.

So it was under lack-of-literature duress that I snatched the closest written material I could lay hands on. And this inopportune situation has led to a small find that I feel compelled to share with you, gentle readers:

Meet WHISPER

Double
Perfection - clean
and dry as Dri-Weave WHISPER, soft
as
non-woven with even more petal-like feeling.

Super strong "Instant Clean
Locking Center"
to quickly absorb 6 times gush
and lock it in the center to prevent leakage. The surface remains feeling clean.

Beakthrough Superior Soft Instant Clean
Topsheet Technology
to lighter (sic) the contact
between your skin and the topsheet and you can enjoy softness and comfort with
petal-like-feeling.

Soft
Stretchable Wings
fit
your panty to prevent side movement and feels softer against your
skin.

Till now, I must admit that I hadn't noticed the spectacular petal-feeling of WHISPER. On reflection, however, I must admit that I have been saved by the 6-times GUSH absorption. But does that mean that I can use each WHISPER 6 times?

No, silly rabbits! WHISPER reminds me to change regularly! (Every 6-times gush, I reckon).

Glad that is settled. Best put another magazine in the loo. But hot-damn, Chinese to English translations are fun!

t'was a beautiful day in the neighbourhood

2006-11-27T09:27:00.000+08:00

Yesterday morning, which was a Sunday, I dragged my sorry arse out of bed, gathered a couple of paddles and requisite emergency gear and dressed for paddling. It took an additional 25 minutes to make sure P was up and out the door, since he was also scheduled to paddle, and (as usual) he was 10-15 minutes late, which meant biking to the beach (not a chore, but awkward with boat gear and bad for the bike's gears and lines) with the crazy mutt trotting along behind.

I hate being late. I hate knowing that people are waiting for me, at an event I am responsible for scheduling. I don't know if this is rooted in common courtesy, or if I am merely neurotic, but it drive me crazy when I am late for things, and even crazier when I am late because I've waited for P, who clearly doesn't give a rat's ass that he's triggered my neurosis (oops, who is grouchy on this topic?).

In any case, once on the bike, I put my crankiness away as we whizzed down snake path, which is a long, isolated, beautifully-wooded path running along one of the hillsides' of Lamma.

It was fairly late in the morning - almost 9am - so most of Lamma's animal kingdom should have been awake and should have moved deeper in to avoid dogs and walkers and the sunlight. But as I zipped along, the trees, grasses and shrubs on either side of me kept exploding with bursts of wood pigeons and smaller birds. Toads were still jumping along the path, butterflies drifted by and the whole hillside smelled green and damp and lovely and a faint mist drifted in the trees where the sun hadn't yet reached.

So this morning, I open the papers - HKG and Canada - and read that the green groups in HKG are demanding a full accounting of the emissions of international flights here in HKG. Fair enough, especially since they are estimated as 2-3% of the total emissions in HKG.

Air pollution is - horribly - a growing issue in HKG. The air has become so enfouled that you chew it rather than breath it. Last week, my canoe crew paddled the HKG Round Island Race (for more on that, click here), and once we'd come up the west side of the island, the sky suddenly took on a sickish-shade of grey, and our lungs were filled with acrid, rancid smoke. It smelled like someone was burning a pile of old, wet sneakers about 10 feet away.

After paddling for some 2km in that mess, we came back into Victoria Harbour. Photos from the link above will show you what that looked like, sky-wise. The water there was filthy and full of rather large debris (packing cartons and pallets, Styrofoam boxes, etc), and I noticed, all of a sudden, that a fuzzy film had covered my teeth. Unbelievably gross.

So yeah, I think emissions data and pollution is important here.

As for Team Canada: Oh. My. God.

Who elected those clowns? Stand up and take responsibility for your sins, you lunatics!

Today's Globe and Mail reports:

Five climate-change programs at Agriculture Canada will be shut down. They include:
A $5-million Model Farms program to develop estimates of how much carbon can be removed from the atmosphere through new farming practices;
A $21-million project called the Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Program for Canadian Agriculture, meant to involve farmers in the government's campaign to reduce greenhouse gases;
A $4-million Shelterbelts Enhancement Program that aims to reduce greenhouse gases by encouraging farmers to line their fields with trees to reduce wind and help control snow piles;
A program dealing with manure management and a fifth program dealing with the role of farmers and “future fuels.”
... It is not clear how many other programs are being wound down as part of the government-wide plan. The government estimates that about 10 per cent of Canada's greenhouse gases come from the agricultural sector.

... Last April, the government confirmed it was cancelling at least 15 climate-change programs, arguing they were ineffective. The two most high-profile programs were the One-Tonne Challenge that encouraged individual Canadians to conserve energy and the EnerGuide program for houses that provided incentives for Canadians to retrofit their houses.

Now, to be fair, I think that last year's cancellation of the One-Tonne Challenge and the EnerGuide program was more damning than Harper's cancellation of these (largely) agricultural programs. Frankly speaking, anything that encourages Canadians to use less fuel, conserve natural resources and take personal responsibility for their consumption is a very good thing. Perhaps it was a concern over such self-awareness that conspired to spell the end of these laudable programs. But that is a bit cynical.

Of the agricultural programs, the two look that seem most like a loss to me are the shelter-belt program and the manure-management program (think about what's in your watertable...).

As for agricultural practices helping to reduce carbon emissions... well, if some people think Kyoto sounds unlikely, then my skepticism on this may be matched. Perhaps we could leave a few thousand hectares of forest alone? It would likely cost less.

Also, until consumers begin to pay the real cost of the items we consume, as opposed to the subsidized costs (thank you Canadian tax payers, for subsidizing farmers so that I, too, can eat Big Macs and Wonder Bread at a reduced rate. Yippee!), I don't want to hear it.*

Get thee hence and grow your own veggies (Good work mom and dad!), or buy local organic stuff. And visit an abattoir and see where your bacon comes from (say "hi" to Babe and Wilbur for me).

To some degree, it's easy for me to say all this stuff: I can buy locally-grown veg (though I shudder over the idea of what has been used for fertilizer - chemicals, suspect - ah - "waste"), and I don't own a car and I do take public transit, and I generally participate in activities with a very, very small ecological footprint.

But I would be bummed to give up imported cheeses (emissions - airlines) from subsidized dairy farms (tax-grab, "free trade" angst), or leather shoes (chemicals, tanneries), or diet coke (cannot ennumerate evil chemicals and transport issues).

So yeah, I am a hypocrite. And it is pretty awful. And we keep our lights on too much in the house, and use the fans too often (fans, NOT aircon which is responsible for about 30% of the energy consumed in HKG), and we have 2 computers at home (plus a third broken one). And if I am really honest, I would BORROW books from the library instead of BUYING them all the time. Ooohhhh: the horror.

But you know what? If I were trying to lead by example in this regard, I would ditch as many bad habits as possible. Cause that, I think, is the way forward: everyone walking the talk - one pair of lips and legs at a time.

And what else? Ah: China. If you think that Harper gives a twaddle for human rights in China, you are definitely on CRACK. He's just a politician, chanting from whatever play-book he's using this week.

I knew there was something weird about that super-fast apology for the Chinese head tax... I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And come up with a real environmental policy, will you guys? Yours sucks. So does HKG's. China's is actually pretty good. In real life.

*Don't get me wrong - I am not trying to demonize farmers per se, but I don't for a minute, think that today's farms are anything like the little rural paradise that I remember from my childhood. In those rose-coloured glasses recalled days, the uncles milked the cows in my grandparents' barn; the grandchildren (including me) snuck carrots from the garden for snacks; grandma served fresh cream over the stewed rubarb (from the garden) for dessert; and the root cellar was a dark, scary place where all the winter turnips and spuds were stored. That was sustainable farming and agriculture (which fed, by the skin of their teeth, a family of 12).

someday, when I'm awfully low, and the world is cold, I will feel a glow...

2006-11-16T13:49:00.000+08:00

Well, this is the beta version of blogger, and I can't say it looks that much different from the non-beta version except the commands that had disappeared when I tried to blog from my Mac are back (but then, I am currently using a PC, so the Mac may yet eat the commands again).

P's parents arrived last night from the UK. I was in a crew meeting for the better part of the evening, which meant I didn't get to see them, which was fine, actually, since they were just off a hellish 16 hour flight. Still we met up for lunch today and I proved yet again how obsessive narrow thinking will always bore others. Honestly, you'd think I never did anything but go paddling. I am an inexorable bore.

It is always lovely to see them though, and we see them very rarely unfortunately. Ma and Pa 'P' are extremely sweet people and very laid back (it seems to me). It's clear where P comes from in all of this. They are no-nonsense though, which is great. I've lost considerable patience for fluff over the past few years. I think it's a matter of time: I don't have spare time to spend with daft people; I waste enough time being daft myself.

This morning I had a rather pathetic moment. I was gathering my morning java from pret-a-manger (spare me any lectures; I know it is 50% owned by McDonald's. I feel the pain), when I noticed that the Christmas brie, cranberry and pine-nut sandwiches were back in stock.

pret a manger: say it ain't so.

"Oh," I thought to myself, with a shade more happiness than that hour of the morning warrants, "it's that time of year again! The brie and cranberry and pine-nut sandwiches are back. Well that is nice."

OK: can you think of anything more pathetic than that? I am marking time with brie, cranberry and pine-nut sandwiches, while there are NORMAL people in the world, watching their kids get taller, or their mutual funds amass, or moss grow on tree-trunks. I mean, can anything be as utterly depressing as realizing you track time via fast-food counter seasonal offerings?

Whatever - it's what I had for breakfast: half a brie sandwich. This is mainly because I am sick to death of pret yogurt, muffins, mixed fruit salads (sold at obscene rates), juices and other assorted breakfast bits.

And I ate the sandwich, which is a fair bit more food than I've been able to chuck down my throat in any single sitting over the past week or two (other than Frito-lay plain potato chips, natch).

Anyway, I bought a new calendar at lunch time. It shows images from the American Architectural Foundation. They are pretty pictures.

So hopefully, late November will come to represent something like a scarlet salt-box house in Venice, Italy, rather than my mediocre lunch in 2007. Here's hoping anyway.

sea sick

2006-11-15T13:42:00.000+08:00

This is one of the headlands of Shek O in Hong Kong. Around this area are Big Wave Bay (guess why it's named that?) and Cape D-Aguilar, which gets even bigger swells when the ocean starts a-rolling and the wind is whistling along.

Last Sunday, as noted in my "b" is for blister entry, my crew went out to move our boat from Stanley to Causeway Bay, which is where our race begins this coming Sunday.

This was, alas, not accomplished in full because of various foul ups and problems involving large seas and people who were not ready or accustomed to the situation. I will allow myself a moment of smugness to note that my own paddlers were - overall - ready, willing and able to do the course. Smug isn't a nice quality in people, but I am ready to forgive myself as preparations and concerns about this race have been chewing out my stomach lining for the past 6 weeks, so gaining a little bit of confidence in my crew is no bad thing.

For the race itself, our crew will paddle around the whole of Hong Kong Island, through various high-traffic areas - past loading bays and ferry terminals and ferry docks etc., etc. - and make our way back to Causeway Bay in a clock-wise rotation.

Here is a handy map of Hong Kong, with the island at the bottom:

The east side of the island can get very strong winds (in fact, in the north east they are considering a 5km squared wind farm to capitalize on this). So the eastern side of the race course is likely to be pretty bouncy.

I reckon there is about 8km of rough paddling from the east side, which is a definite challenge, but one I am increasingly positive about. (Not uncautious, just positive).

Still, signs like this will always remind me of what we are in for.

Included in our preparations have been the following:

1) Several 26-km practices accompanied by a speed boat to perform sea-changes (the race has a crew of 10, which means that 4 paddlers are always out of the boat, refueling in order to get back into the canoe in a relief rotation. The speedboat drops the paddlers in the ocean, ideally 100 feet away from the canoe; the canoe steers toward them where they grab the side and climb in while currently-seated paddler rolls out on the other side of the canoe. These paddlers are then picked up by the speedboat and they have the opportunity to rest and refuel until the next change).

2) Insurance policies for the boat, to cover 3rd party liability.

3) The aquisition of:
- A VHF marine radio to receive and transmit alerts and announcements
- SOLAS approved whistles (!!!)
- Signal mirrors
- First-aid kits (we had)
- Marine flares (we had)
- Throw/tow ropes (we had)
- spare rigging, duct tape, buckets, bailing buckets, paddles, kives/scissors, vinegar (for jelly fish burns)
- 6-10 personal flotation devices (we had)
- Spray skirts on the boat (we had)

4) And we've had swim tests and change-tests (the ability to get in a moving canoe - it's not easy), and have had to hire countless boats for escorts and endless amounts of personal gear (appropriate paddle shirts, hydration packs, race-food and fluid replacements).

5) And don't even get me started on the logistics.

The race is in 3 days. I have 4 captains (2 for the escort boat and 2 for the canoe), one emergency person certified to jump-start hearts and more, and two men with Master's at Sea certification.

We've studied traffic separation schemes, regulations for (traffic) safety at sea and basic morse for emergency signals.

I DEFY the world to find a person more anal than I am.

Holy shit though: I am getting really excited about all this stuff, even if I do want to puke all day long.

"B" is for Blister

2006-11-12T07:00:00.000+08:00

It's 6:54am on a Sunday.

We paddled 26km yesterday, and will paddle roughly the same again today in order to simply get out boats TO the marina where we start the Hong Kong Round Island Race for next Sunday.

The Round Island Race is 26 miles - or more accurately, about 44km.

Yesterday, we had to cross the main shipping channel in order to get to Stanley main beach. I've never been responsible for a boat under these circumstances and had hired a speed boat to come with us in the event of some extraordinary danger (in which case, we would have either jumped in and sped away, or perhaps had tried to tow the boat out. More likely the former, since you don't waste any time when a container ship is bearing down on you.

Anyway, we crossed behind a relatively small container ship, which is still as big as a city block, and went directly into her wake. (This is necessary as another ship is exactly 5 minutes behind the first. These are the busiest shipping lanes in the world).

I looked up and a WALL of water was headed straight for us. It had to be three meters tall.

And I thought, "holy shit."

The canoe (bless the canoes!) sliced neatly over the top, with nary a shimmer, and rumbled down the side into the second wave, with my crew hollering and yahooing and somebody screaming in the front: "Now THAT is what I'm talking about!"

Fuckin' A.

That's all I can think of to say.

And my hands look like meat.

Gotta go catch my ferry.

My oh my, what a wonderful day!

2006-10-26T15:04:00.000+08:00

Or it would be, if I could see it!

This wonderful chart shows you (the lucky reader) the air quality in Hong Kong today. If you are really interested, you can check out the HKG Environmental Department's Website on air quality right here: http://www.epd-asg.gov.hk/eindex.php.
She's a beaut, I'm telling ya.

For those who don't know, "Respirable suspended particulates" are those groovy bits of "suspended" gunge that fill the air with stuff that looks like mist, or fog, or smoke from a forest fire or something cheerful like that.

This (if you can read it) is what Respirable Suspended Particulates" are made of:

Not exactly frogs and snails and puppy-dog tails, is it? The really good part is that Hong Kong measures its RSPs in chunks of 10 micrometers, instead of the 2.5 micrometers that everyone else seems to prefer. While seeing air pollution is bad, breathing in smaller amounts of this stuff is far worse.

The smaller (less visible) the particulates, the more dangerous they are to the lungs, charging mob-like towards your alveoli (That there is a science word, meaning tiny lung bits at the ends of the bronchial tubes and such) and setting up camp for future days of gasping, choking, respiratory problems, not to mention the big C.

So that 10 micrometer thing is a pretty nasty red-herring, no?

What this means to the average Hong Kong citizen is that visibility is limited along with your lung-capacity.

So, the sky is a dingy-white, kinda like when you pour milk-bath in the tub. Except, today, the sun is shining. I can tell, cause there is a golden glow cutting through the smog. It kinda warms the cockles of my heart, even as it starves the oxygen-dependent muscles of my body.

Needless to say, I guess, the lack of visibility has led to a very disappointing fall this year in Honkers. Usually, we look forward to the humidity drop, when we stop perspiring en masse and finally get to enjoy the heat of the sun under blue skies beside dappled green hills and glinting-glassy sky-scrapers. Ooooh - it's a veritable dreamland of wealth and futuristic architecture and silky breezes.

Not this year, alas. Instead, people are reconsidering face masks to reduce their air-quality related migraines, stomach aches and sinus headaches.

I did a general search on Nexis the other day (cause I can), and discovered that in the past month, there have been no less than 96 articles written on the air pollution problems in Hong Kong. Special note: there are several days left to the month.

Unfortunately, when Hong Kong was returned to the PRC, we got: "One Country, Two Systems." It would have been a far greater thing to have "One Country, Two Ventilation Systems."

But all of this blathering about Hong Kong leads me to a point that has been really bothering me lately: Canada.

Are you listening Canada?

Canada, you are seriously pissing me off (not all of you, just the noisy buggers). Every day I read the Globe and Mail online, particularly the environmental stuff, and everyday I read the comments from other readers in the letters section.

I do this because I am a masochist. (No, really: if you hate yourself, read the Globe and Mail's letters sections; it would send Pollyanna postal.)

I am consistently horrified and ashamed of the HARPER government's disgraceful "stance" on the environment, mortified that HARPER wouldn't at least back the ban on deep-sea trawling; offended by Rona Ambrose's role as the mouthpiece for, and her blind adherence to, HARPER's criminal idiocy; and - last but not least - I am traumatized by the overwhelming response from countless Canadians, who support this continued denial of Global Warming, fossil fuel depletion, and numerous other calamities.

It's a bummer alright.

Adding insult to injury: Is recent news, my hometown of Canadia-land shall soon have, not one Oil Refinery of Gigantic proportions, but TWO!

Not just a nuclear power plant, but now an LNG refinery!

And not only will we have these scary, blinky, expensive, emissions-spewing behemoths, but they will look real pretty next to the Pulp and Paper mills we've got as well.

Did I mention all this wonderful stuff is parked on the shores of the Bay of Fundy? Home of the fastest, highest-rising tides in the universe - or galaxy - or whatever?

Dude, when that shit blows up or something, it's gonna be soooo cooool. I am already planning what to do with my extra arms.

Failing that, I have a nice plastic surgeon all lined up to help with the skin grafts that will be required by all those I love and hold dear. Reversing blindness might be a little tougher, but with all the money these businesses will bring to my home town, I just KNOW that Canada's excellent medicare system, and our well-staffed hospitals can manage.

I can't wait to get back to Canada! It totally beats the pants of smoggy skies in Hong Kong. I mean, I can totally see why all those folks who write to the Globe and Mail bitch about China. After all, those starving rural Chinese people may not have electricity, or water, or cars, or computers, or more than one pair of pants or anything, but they DO have cows or waterbuffalos!

And cows or waterbuffalos FART. And FARTS are METHANE, which isn't CO2, but it's smelly and green-housey. So as you can see, the Chinese are TOTALLY screwing up our planet, the rat-bastards.

No, it's not the Alberta Oil Sands, or the Irving Oil Refinery/ies, or the coal-burning power companies, or the pulp and paper mills; it's the Chinese farting waterbuffalos, and some dudes who own factories in Shenzhen (shhhhhh: more than a few of them are Canadian, but they are making pots of money on cheap Chinese labor, tax benefits, and low environmental standards, so it's ok).

Thank GOD we don't pull that shit in Canada, and we've got, like, lotsa trees and stuff.

All charms have flown - and other disconnected fancies

2006-10-11T14:10:00.000+08:00

No, not dead yet, nor dying - though I've been in a right stew for the past month or more.

Following a typical brilliant visit to Canadia land, where the skies are blue and the clouds are purple and orange and golden and crimson and every other colour imaginable at sunset (I spent large portions of the holiday looking out at the sky as we drove from province to province, repeating "look at that sky! My GOD, look at the sky!" Yes, it was inspired phrasing.), i had the misfortune of injuring my back.

That hurt a lot. Very, very much. There was screaming, and crying, and more screaming, and morphine, and very odd doctors in the ER who liked to tell poop jokes, and more drugs and anti-inflamatories, and more screaming, and finally muscle relaxants, and a couple more poop jokes thrown in for good measure. After that there was lots of hobbling and drugs and I looked like this:

I did have a little more flesh on my bones, largely owing to copious amounts of Cheeze-Whiz on toast and my mother's delicious cookies and cooking.

On my return to the various Isles of Honkers, I was feeling raw and tired (imagine the skeleton above flying economy calls for 20 hours. T'was grim). Still, I did manage to hobble into the office the following day, after a pointless consultation with the village idiot at the medical clinic on Lamma - and I made it through a few more days before I caved in and went to see a physiotherapist.

My hairdresser is the person who convinced me to go. Bless him and his sculpting wax.

Non-sequitur: now I know that lots of women have a wonderful time chatting about stuff with their hairdressers, but until now, I've NEVER had a hairdresser who could comment on much more than the weather and the foibles of various riff-raff in People Magazine. My new hairdresser is/was a jock. We talk about sports. We talk about canoes. He understands my fanaticism, and vigorously suggested I get myself sorted out before I ruin my sports season entirely. He is worth every inflated cent I pay him to trim my short hair.
End of non-sequitur.

And so, having spent a couple of weeks getting physio, I was cleared to get back in the boats! A blessing to be sure, as my aggravation levels had soared and everyone within spitting distance was in physical danger.

So, it is all well and good that I am on the mend, and will likely soon look like this person (except this is a man, and I don't want to be a man. Also, sadly, I am blandly caucasion; not beautifully dark like this fellow):

Now that I am healed - more or less - I've turned my attention to other things, such as my overwhelmingly, mind-boggling, soul-suckingly boring and useless career.

I decided I needed a change.

At first, a change did seem to be in the making. There was a new position in the company for an safety, security, and environmental officer. Now those words were right up my street. After all, I've just begun my MSc in Environmental Management, and hey-presto: it would've/could've/ should've been a perfect match.

Things did look promising, but ultimately, my company decided I was "over qualified" for the position. "Over qualified" is code for "we don't want to give you a raise, and we are hoping to underpay the person who does this job, so fuggedaboutit."

As of 11:30pm yesterday, I began my serious hunt for a new work environment. Preferably with a fat paycheck and long holidays and fascinating requirements. And I would like that on a silver platter, delivered by a buff man in a toga named Gabriel. Delivered tomorrow. Thanks.

The truly horrible thing about being truly dissatisfied with one's work is that you become poisonous. Everyone at the office is your enemy, because the friend of your enemy is your enemy (ssociative guilt). And the dirty truth is that I've always liked to work. I've never looked down the road and thought, "gee, I'd like to retire at 45." I've never really given any thought to retirement at all. I've always assumed that I'd want to work until I simply couldn't anymore.

Such a naive concept.

So I am boiling up a stew of escape plans, and dreaming of relative freedom from the cube, and hoping that it will be journalism I re-enter, because at the end of the day, it's the most fun I've had working. Even when it was painful, journalism was better than the cube.

(Incidentally, blue cubes damage the spine... my doctor said so).

Meanwhile, I read and read and READ. I read several newspapers each day; at least one novel or book on stuff (science, history, biography), I've inhaled countless magazines and I've found dozens of new websites.

And I've managed to redecorate the house, replaster walls and paint, and make it to all my MSc lectures and to the various meetings for boat things. And I coach the team as much possible, which is usually three times a week.

So I am busy, but my skull is whirling with conflicted emotions and concerns and blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile, P is in India, preparing to launch a new magazine for his company (he's a publisher of B2B magazines - la di da). I'm not really jealous that he gets to do the jaunts - apart from the air miles, but I do miss the compelling waft of new challenges. And I am jealous of his enthusiasm.

I cannot remember why this fragment of Keat's poem "Lamia" came back to me today... but it struck some chord.

Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of
cold philosophy?

There was
an awful rainbow once
in heaven:

We know her woof, her texture;
she is given
In the dull catalogue
of common things.

Philosophy will
clip an angels wings
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air,
and gnomed mine...
Unweave a rainbow.

Perhaps it is owing to all my disquiet over Canada's shameful, greedy and cowardly approach to environmental actions this month. Perhaps it is because I am casting about for something to add a little intellectual fun to my life these days, and the dull catalogue of common things has left me too sore of late.

And perhaps, I've just been feeling a little Lamia-like lately: pinning hopes on something that is almost in reach, but constantly under threat.

And of course, there was the "scarlet pain" of the back injury.

Actually, I made that last point up, because I had loved the line "she writhed about, convulsed with scarlet pain" the first time I read it in "Lamia". The association, at the time was with a variety of women monsters in text... Mermaids, Lamias, melusinas, etc.

Of course, my writhing wasn't scarlet and glamorous. It was ugly and frustrating, all the more so for being pedestrian.

It was like suffering a migraine (which those who suffer migraines know, is like no other pain in the world because the apocalypse is commencing within your skull.) Migrains are hell on earth, yet when you speak to the doctor about it, he or she merely says "hmmmm, yesssss, but after all: a migraine is really just a bad headache."

A bad headache cured through self immolation.
Or by laying down in front of a steamroller.
That's all. No biggie.

got them text-book-buying blues

2006-08-15T09:30:00.000+08:00

Well, it's done. I am formally a paid, registered Master of Science student at the University of Hong Kong. Imagine that.

10 years of university (not all consecutive) already under my belt, and I have decided to throw some more money down the higher-education pipes, in addition to two more years of my life. But what the hey? I am a student again, and now, after 3 degrees in the Arts, I am a science student.

Take THAT high-school chemistry class (best remembered for some guy who used to drool phlegm onto his notebook and entertain himself by playing with his spittle. Dire).

So I went haring up to the university yesterday to file the last of my registration forms (everything else has been done online, so this was my first trip to the campus).

The science faculty reception area looked like one of Dante's "too boring to mention" circles of hell for clerks: Desks were jammed everywhere with toppling piles of paper between them and cardboard boxed bristling with grungy-looking calendars for BSc students.

Having attended three universities, I'd never seen anything like the chaos of paper and dust and frustrated/cranky looks that comprised that room. Note to self: save copies of EVERYTHING, since losing something in the Faculty of Science looks like the last word in academic self-destruction.

The campus bookstore was only marginally better, but none of the professors had ordered any books for the classes (which start in three weeks!). So, pissed off that I would have nothing to read in advance, I toodled on through the aisles, checking out ecology texts and fisheries-management books etc.

It appeared that many of them were used, and when I looked at the price on the back, this seemed to confirm my opinion. So there I was, merrily snatching up ARMFULS of books to take away with me, when I looked more closely at the prices.

They were in US dollars and Pounds Sterling.
Not Hong Kong dollars (which is, respectively, 1/8th and 1/12th of the other two currencies). So much for student discounts!

But that is all dull stuff. The real reason I am writing this post, is that it was orientation week at Hong Kong University. Boy, did that look like a good time!

What I recall from my orientation/frosh week at the University of Ottawa, a million years ago, is that nothing happened.

They tried, god bless them: somebody filled a giant "kiddie pool" full of jello in hopes that there would be jello-wrestling in the quad. Sadly, the jello never set, so there was some kind of slime-dipping instead. That was about the extent of "U of O" wildness.

But at Hong Kong U (HKU), there were hundreds of Hong Kong youth, standing in long lines, facing each other (performing what appeared to be one of those hand-slapping games) and shouting out the school song with the zeal of fresh religious converts.

They were chanting in English, but that only made it weirder.

I only went to music camp, so my opportunities for chanting were all channelled into music - other than those enforced Sunday School days, which I fully resented in any case.

This HKU orientation fervour was rather depressing. Here were a bunch of teens who appeared to be sucked into some kind of pseudo USA football-university-team-spirit-arrives-in-China mania.

But then, the idea of a group of people who attend an institution (that was allegedly built to broaden their minds and make them questions established formalities,) standing around chanting, doesn't sit well with me at all.

So I am here to say: "Hong Kong U, I don't love you.
I won't be loyal forever. Nor will I sing songs in your praise. Even if I think you are really great (which I rather doubt)."

And one last thing: I intend to be a royal pain in the ass. That is what maturity is for; you finally know enough to demand the full value of what you are paying for. So you'd better learn me something great, you crazy, chanting weirdos.

jungle book rock

2006-08-02T15:23:00.000+08:00

Have you met my newest flat-mate? Or should I say yard-mate?

That little darling above is a juvenile cobra. P and Moka and I arrived home last night (in the gloomy gloomy dark) to discover the little sweetie with his head buried under a flowerput, searching for snack-toads on our front step.

Now, when I say little, I am being very cool; he was just shy a metre in length. By the way, the (Latin?) name for cobra is naja naja.

Moka-the-canine-genius stood on the snake's tail and heaved big snuffly noises at his head (evidentially unsure of what death smelled like).

I called away the fool dog, then began squealling in my sexiest, hand-stuck-in-the door voice: "P! There's a snake in the garden!"

And I rushed inside and locked the door behind me.

As I yelled "get rid of it!" P (to his enormous credit) mildly asked if there was a broom handy and requested that I switch on some additional light.

P then placed the broom on our guest's body to see what it would do. I stuck my head out the door to watch.

And what would you do if you were a cobra? You would perform that amazing, terrifying trick, where you lift your head and flare your hood; just like you do in horror movies and on snake-hunter TV shows.

It was pretty cool.

It was too cool: P and I have decided to stop watching snake-hunter TV programs, because our automatic reaction (on watching the cool cobra-hood trick) was to try to pick the cobra up and see what else it would do.

We watch a lot of nature documentaries on TV; for a moment there, we almost believed that we were qualified snake handlers.

Fortunately, our instinct for life, rather than bad TV, kicked in and P "swept" the young cobra away from the house.

6 feet away.

I felt much safer.

All day today, P and I have been independently researching cobra characteristics. We have discovered that our friend was likely a juvie "King Cobra". I have always resented the monarchy. Here I am, paying tax so that cobra can swan around at Eton and munch scones with clotted cream and toad jelly.

Or, it could have been a "common cobra": the venom-spitting, evil, nasty, lots-of-people-dead kind. Mind, Cobras don't want to bite people. But if you give them a reason - say - letting your dog stomp on them, or brooming them away from the toads in your flower pots... well, "buh-bye."

In any event, I have decided that I like cobras best under these two circumstances: In my soup or in a bottle.

On a happier note: we had a lovely Japanese food dinner before we arrived home to snakeville.

On an environmentally/ecologically friendly note: We didn't kill the cobra, but it sure as hell seemed like a good idea at the time.

What will I do if it grows up, develops a garden toad-addiction problem and breaks into my house?

Sure, he's only a prince today, but tomorrow he'll be king.

do you hear what I hear?

2006-07-29T13:20:00.000+08:00

Likely not. I hear the Dixie Chicks at the moment: Taking the Long Way. It sounds pretty fantasic, but then I've always been a sucker for politically and lyrically savvy women's music, particularly if it's melodic.

A busy and somehow quiet week: It seems business is all part of the day. Run to do this; organize that; paddle here; jump there. Apply apply apply. It's part of every day, and I don't mind. Sometimes I do feel a bit like a dog chasing its tail, and like a dog chasing its tail I have my reasons, even if they aren't apparent even to myself all the time.

What seems predominant in my life these days is that so many of my friends are either in the last trimester of their pregnancy, or they've already hatched their little ones. Overwhelmingly, these women are friends my own age or a couple of years older. Generally, it's their first baby. It's all a bit strange to see the stampede towards childbearing. A whole world of biological clocks' alarms rang and holy hell: babies galore.

For my own part, I have always wanted kids, but not in a very "interested" way. I've never pursued the desire. I've never made plans. At most - and this is a big most - I had a talk with my doctor recently about my reproductive health care. It was an expensive conversation, since we then proceeded to do every test under the sun to discover if all of my parts are in good nick.

I am still waiting for the reports, but I am happy to report that mammograms are not the terrifying and miserable ordeal that I've been told they are for years. I'd take one over a pap smear any day (who, after all, really likes a car-jack shoved up their vagina?), and I've enjoyed those special moments for years. Ah, the pleasure of the warm speculum.

On that happy note, my series of colds, ear infections and stomach ailments have finally wound down and I am feeling rather healthy again. Sore, from paddling and sitting in the blue cube (save me from the cube!), but otherwise fine.

I am not as fit as usual. My legs are not great: I haven't been running. My arms are still strong, and my back and stomach and such... but I feel half-fit. I feel like I should be walking on my hands, since my arms feel stronger than my legs. Silly.

I have been accepted into a new Master of Science however, and that feels like an exciting challenge ahead. I will study environmental management, which makes me happy and I feel like I am back on some path to doing something meaningful with myself. I hate working for a corporation. I hate its mandate. Helping people make money and protecting their interests in that regard just feels creepy, and everyday I look around and wonder, "How did I get here?"

More than that, I wonder how anyone else can stand it, let alone like it. It feels like some weird mousetrap that hundreds of people have ambled into, without a blessed clue as to why; just a whiff of cheese leading them on. (Maybe that was the inspiration behind that god-awful title Who Moved My Cheese...).

And what do I have to fill my days? Boats, of course. Last Sunday, a group of us did an easy paddle out to one of the beaches in the late afternoon, and I just walked along this short strip of shoreline and watched everyone lounging about: we'd paddled a few kilometers and would paddle a few back. It was sunny and beautifully clear and the mountain overhead was so beautiful and green. And I was so grateful that I'd accomplished this thing.

I'd broken my bank to get those boats, and chased and arranged to get them to Lamma, and ordered paddles and bought gear and carried most of it on my back (not the boats) - and there it was: people I love to spend my time with, relaxing on the beach after a wonderful session on the water, and we all felt great. And we were there because I'd blessedly managed to pursue this thing. These boats. That day. The sport and the rush and the push to get good at it and go out and work on the water.

It was a wonderful feeling, and I felt rather full of beans over my own happiness and feeling of accomplishment, but on whatever small scale an accomplishment it was: I was still bloody happy.

So tonight I head out to a baby shower. I will be one of only a couple of non-mommies there. Mind you: I can sleep on my stomach, so whatever the weirdness to come, that feels like a luxury!

That and all the coffee I consume.

What a babblesome nothing entry. Someday I will write something worth reading, but then - it's friends who read this. Apologies, but feel gratefull it wasn't an email; you might feel obligated to respond.

oooooohhhh Canada

2006-07-02T10:50:00.000+08:00

In Hong Kong, there is the amusing misconception that Canada Day is actually June 30. This is because there are many, many Chinese Canadians in Hong Kong who like to celebrate Canada Day, BUT July First also happens to be "Hand-over Day" of Hong Kong back to China, making July 1 the official holiday celebrating Hong Kong's Birthday and re-unification with China.
When it comes to birthdays, nobody wants to share.

Therefore, I was rather amused this year when so many people asked me why I wasn't celebrating Canada Day on June 30th. Naturally, I told them they were all ignorant buffoons, who had bought into the local birthday lies.

They really didn't care.

As for the real Canada Day and Hand-Over day, I celebrated that by earning myself another first-class blister on my ass for paddling all day in the Sai Kung Summer Vigor races.

This is generally considered a "fun race" for our team, though nothing seems like much fun when you have to catch a 6:40am ferry to get your (as yet, unmarked) ass to the race area by 7:45.

The Lamma Ladies separated into two teams: young vs old / tiger vs dragons. The young part is especially amusing as the separating age was 37! Take THAT creeping middle age. Be-gone!

It was by turns sunny and rainy, hot and coolish, and the water was clear. The boat lanes were good - there wasn't much wind to drive us around the start line, which has been trouble in previous years, since Sai Kung is open to the winds and boats are often pushed into each other when it blows across the start line.

The tigers placed second in every one of their races, while the dragons chewed up the course with a 4th, 3rd and 1st place showing. Overall, we ended up even for points (the races were awarded on points) but since we had lower scores, we placed 4th across the board. The mixed teams also fought rather hard, but fell short of a medal as well. The men limped through the races, barely motivated enough to cross the finish line. It's hard for the men, since the competition is usually extremely high, and they have been - at best - a middling team this season. They try though.

So it's a calm, sunny day today and I am taking the canoes out at 3pm. THAT should be an adventure, since I have a guest steersman, who's never really steered a canoe before, and has paddled once. He is a very talented dragon boat steersman though, so hopefully we won't suffer any disasters! (reminds me that I will need additional bailers today!

Moka is throwing me despairing looks, since we've only had one short jaunt to the village this morning (to buy washing powder). Nowhere near enough time to get rid of the poop he likely stockpiled yesterday when he was in the house all day. He is SO GOOD. I fully expected and deserved a puddle, at least, when we got home. Nothing! He must have crossed his little legs all day.

I've sent my application into HKU for their environmental studies program. I am anxious to hear what the level of applicants is, and will be disappointed if I don't make the cut. I glanced at local environment jobs online today, and was reassured to see several that looked interesting in Hong Kong. I would rather work in Canada or the USA or someplace new, but it's good to see there is employment in the field here, in the heartland of "screw nature for a buck" Asia.

In other news: my baby brother is expecting. At least, that was the last word on the matter. Have to call my family today, as I am lacking his phone number. That is because I am a really shitty big sister.

My sister sounds well, and my other brother hasn't sent me a note in MONTHS. I suspect this is because I realized that I still hadn't mailed his Christmas presents in February, when I discovered them behind the shelf where they'd been placed to mail on my last trip to the post office for x-mas. Well, they are still here, I will have to deliver them in person! (someday).

Sooo, I should get off the computer and off may arse and work on my OC1 body. Time to fix the boat so that I can take it out with the crews now.

And, I need to just move around. It is broiling hot today. I think I have enough 60+ sunblock to see me through the afternoon. Last week's session gave me hideous burns on the sides of my face (where my hat did NOT protect me). Raccoon face isn't so pretty. The squint marks that were white between the burns did tell me what my face would look like in 20 years. Basically, like a woman who spent way too much time in the sun and on the water. There are worse things, I think.

in my bedroom - it made me scream

2006-06-22T13:16:00.000+08:00

There we were, Moka and I. Innocently getting ready for bed. He was already to leap onto P's side (in his absense, Moka sleeps on P's side of the bed instead of next to my feet when P is home); I was ready to find that ratty old nightdress I wear when I fear that I might need to leap out of bed and race out the door in the event of a "P is not at home" emergency.

When what did we spy, creeping with high speed towards the doorway? THIS:

Now lest you think this is one of those garden-variety 1.5 inch ugly centipedes, let me share the horrifying truth. This was a 10 inch centipede, notable for its rather vicious nature and poisonous bite. So poisonous, in fact, that they are renown for their ability to kill cats.

They are carnivorous 'burrowers' (which means they especially like your bed-linens)that feast on mice and roaches and other small critters and what else? ... oh yes, and they are near-indestructable.

My helper and dog walker, M, found one outside the house one sunny day (considerably bigger) and she took a sharp-edged shovel and started grounding it into the body of the beast; effectively trying to bisect the little monster. It took her 10 minutes of grinding and stomping and grinding before that freak gave up the ghost.

Lacking a long steel-edged shovel, I sought out the monster's hiding space, ran downstairs for the Baygone "super-duper roach killer of doom," famous for its "Insta-Kill" abilities, and started to spray.

In three seconds, the centipede (shall we just call him Satan's minion, or "SM"?), reared his powerful head with it's poisonous pinches, and roared away, headed to the bedroom again (it had snuck into the hall), with me and Moka and the Baygone in hot pursuit.

Spraying that poisonous gas like my life depended on it (and it might have), and screaming, "DIE, DIE!" or "NOT UNDER THE BED YOU DISGUSTING BASTARD!!!", we chased Satan's minion towards the bed, and caught him as he finally started to succumb to the poison.

For a full five minutes, that brute squirmed and I sprayed. Moka sneezed and I wheezed. The air was sweet and vile.

When it finally lay still, I wasn't trusting the evils of chemical killers and went to find one of P's giant shoes so that I could smash the corpse into further submission. Then I went to the loo, and gathered a giant wad of TP to scoop SM's corpse up before flushing his ghastly remains down the toilet.

Then I sprayed every nook and cranny of the upstairs rooms; under every surface (especially the bed) and along each and every door frame and wall.

I also unmade the bed and shook every article out, searching the pillows for any monsters hidden in their casings. Finally, once my heart rate fell below 165, I washed my face and resumed getting ready for bed.

Moka huddled next to me, and we kept the fan on full blast, in an effort not to succumb to the Baygone fumes as well. We woke, alive, unbitten and groggy, and I had a headache. Moka was keen to get outside. For damned good reason.

the moon in june makes me mope like a loon

2006-06-20T13:37:00.000+08:00

If loons mope that is. They actually seem like pretty mopey birds; forever diving away and sneaking off through the water to hide from people.

Well that could be me, I suppose.

It is Tuesday, but it feels like Thursday. Like I've been sat in the blue cube already for four days and desperately need a break from the air-conned atmosphere. Like the sky isn't ever going to stay clear, unless I can go outside and keep an eye on it and tell it not to get so hazy, or dark, or depressed-looking.

I am craving Canada. I am craving Canada like a junkie craves junk. All I want to do it get on a plane and high-tail it back to someplace where walking on the grass is not considered an act of madness or inspired bravery. I want to be able to lean against a tree and not worry about a horrid 20-inch centipede creeping down my back and poisoning me with its vicious pinchers. I want to take my dog for a long walk and not worry about him getting heat exhaustion.

I want to go for a swim in really, really, really clean water (even though I know that there is a relatively limited supply of that in Canada, just as there is everywhere. At least it won't have human turds floating in it as you paddle through).

I am a little - or a lot - blue, and I think I might be suffering an early mid-life crisis, or at least my annual morbid desire to read poetry that doesn't make me barf.

So there is a little spew to bring my friends and neighbours up to date on all my crankiness of late.

So I will enumerate the things that I like going on:

(1) My boats

I spend an obscene amount of time in my boats - outrigger canoes that is - which I love. Sometimes it is very tiring, which can be difficult. Sometimes I get a little cranky, hauling enough gear to outfit 12 paddlers, on my back to the beach alone. Snap lashes, bailers, safety equipment, water, gatorade (for me), 8-10 paddles, life vests, inner-tube rubbers for fastening the boats together, first aid kits, pelican boxes, specially-marine-police-friendly phones, alert horns, etc, etc. In the heat, these weigh a lot. And after every practice, it all has to be washed down in fresh water so that the salt and the crap from the sea doesn't corrode anything. It's a labour of love, no doubt about that, but sometimes there is more labour than I would like.

Still - there is love. Being on the water with my crews, and paddling around Lamma... well there is nothing like it. And when we pull into a specially-clean beach and all have a little swim and sit and chatter for 15 minutes; that is pretty fantastic too.

(2) My other boats

My dragon boat team had a spectacular year. Personally, it was the first year that I was captain, and I felt like some demented high-school teacher who, on the one hand, was necessary to provide guidance and structure and get administrative things done and make sure people were in the right place at the right time; but on the other hand, had a hard time separating church from state and feeling - perhaps - too personally invested in everyone's feelings. I felt good about caring so much, but had to work very hard to reign in the possibility for gross disappointment in the event that things should go very wrong.

To whit: our team was almost disqualified from a race for having (accidentally) smashed into another boat. The almost is important, since it didn't happen. But while I stood on the referees stand and argued our case, I was absolutely terrified that we would be cut. Just massive, cold waves of horror kept washing over me, because I feared the team would be so disappointed. And you know? They would have been fine. But I was approaching it like we'd just missed our one shot at the holy grail, instead of a relatively innocuous race. Damned silly behaviour, I have to say.

In any case, after that weird episode, I didn't have to worry about it anymore because my team was absolutely fantastic. We won three gold cups. (A local fisherman's race, our international races, AND the much bemoaned and demented Stanley Cup race this year. Bemoaned because we missed it last year and I had been shattered at the time.)

Yeah - I need to get out more.

(3) My dear, dear friend C is coming to visit me in July.

Her company is like a kiss. She is one of the most energetic, kind, intelligent, cool and out-and-out groovy people I've ever known (and distinctly, specially, Canuck) and I am absolutely thrilled that she is coming.

(4) I am applying for another Master Degree, in Environmental Management.

I am excited about learning again. I loved university (god knows, I spent more than enough time there!), though I am a little wary of Hong Kong University standards and hope that rote learning isn't accepted practice here. How horrible that would be.

(5) I have a BIG pile of books I am reading my way through.

Some of them are on the environment - this is nothing new, I've been reading piles of books on the environment and biological diversity over the past couple of years - and some of them are beautiful novels, which I've missed a great deal lately, and a couple of them are feminist theory and stories, which I've also missed.

(6) Last night I had dinner with a couple of people I really like, and enjoyed the conversation.

It didn't have anything to do with boats.
I really miss having interesting coversations with people. How to expand on a statement that sounds that stupid? I don't know. It seems that people, as adults, tend to talk about their jobs or their hobbies. I hate my job (because I've reached the conclusion that I HATE business, and have absolutely no right - business, as it were - working for a corporation when I would far rather dance on the graves of the kind of multinationals that I allegedly serve). I love my hobbies, but thus far, the only one I get to really share with other people is the boats.

I miss talking about books and art (with a small "a" since I am really not especially culturally aware or intelligent) and music. I miss my friends from my BA, who always seemed more creative and interesting than most of the people I met after that degree (save a couple - If you read this, I hope you know who you are).

I really miss talking about politics, but in truth, I don't feel invested in, or cleave to HKG politics, so I don't want to talk about local politics...

Over all, I am a very silly woman. But then, I think mid-life crisis' are very silly too.

So of late, I read a lot, I mope a lot, a boat a lot - and I seem to eat a lot of junk food (salt and vinegar crisps, for some reason).

But you know, I needed to get that off my chest.

What I'd really like is a little rest. I'd love a few weeks off to wallow at home, listening to music and doing mundane, household things, and reading in the sun, and playing with the dog and drinking coffee.

I'd adore a month at home, so I could spend time with my family. I'd adore 6 months in Canada, so I could figure out if what I miss is as good as I think it is, or if I am still just a nostalgic twit.

I'd like a vitamin B shot, so that I could get off my arse and APPLY myself to something with more enthusiasm. The real kind, that has me wake up smiling in the morning, instead of groaning and twisting my way out of the sheets to slouch off to the shower, or coffee maker. Whatever need is greater.

that time again

2006-04-28T11:07:00.000+08:00

This was a photo of a bad weather scan. Now it is words, to remind you a bad weather scan was here.

Well now: doesn't this look familiar? Hong Kong's skies have darkened once again and we look forward to a month of grey days and rain rain rain.

It's not all bad though: I've got a race-trip to Boracay, departing on May 11th and ideally returning on May 17th! Boo-wah!

In other news: My dear friend S and I recently returned from the riot-ravaged land of Nepal, where the king is a loon and his soldiers are in competition for "human rights violators of the year" awards.

Did this affect (I almost wrote "impact" there - proof of the degeneration of my grey matter, brought on by blue-cubism... and I ain't yammering about Picasso here) my long-awaited, dreamed of, glorious trip to see the Annapurna Range.

You bet your sweet ass it did. But I still got pictures and will post them in due time.

In other news, much of my writing time (not swallowed up by the office) is spent here: Lamma Ladies.

You may visit. It's nice there and has one helluva a colour scheme.

N[a]K: I miss you. Thought about you lots in Nepal. You would have loved it.

still life and the enervated armadillo

2006-04-27T13:45:00.000+08:00

In a Station of the Metro
Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

It's long been one of my favourites. One of those bubbles of lucidity that barely surface as you walk a street with blind eyes that see only, only, - the ripple of waves under the steel girders of the bridge; a child's barette next to the sewer grate; pink daisies whored in plastic at the corner shop. It makes sense and there it is, percolating in your mind for moments - maybe more.

Williams on the other hand:

The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

haunts me. What depends on the wheelbarrow? What could depend on it? Not wood piles or gravel or weeds from the vegetable garden. No: Instead there is some conspiracy here: the white chicken; the rain water glazing a poison-cherry-red instrument.

It holds against a foe. A cornerstone of the yard that, once rusting or fallen over or stolen from the garden, erases a whole life (connecting the chicken, the rain, the grass, the garden the woodlot, the country/suburban house). Ceasing. Blank.

You might be wondering why I haven't written much lately? Wonder no more.

ghosts in my machine

2006-03-08T14:37:00.000+08:00

I missed being a witness to one of Hong Kong's finest traditions: beating the devil.

At least, "Beating the Devil" is what the South China Morning Post calls it. I like to call it the results of crazy spitefulness, inter-office politics and the vicious infighting typical to Hong Kong businesspeople.

The SCMP reports that Beating the Devil is this:

Shouted curses and the sound of shoes banging on cement echoed around Wan Chai yesterday as crowds gathered for the traditional practice of "beating the devil" to take revenge on their enemies.
For $50 a pop, ritual performers battered paper effigies of workplace enemies while shouting appropriate imprecations. While the practice appeals to older women, growing numbers of young people have adopted it in recent years.

and more comments:

Mrs Kam has been working as a ritual performer for five years since losing her job. Accompanied by her daughters, who helped prepare incense and paper images, the elderly woman said: "I have back pain and my wrists hurt too, as I haven't stopped beating paper images all day!"
Her elder daughter said: "Business is quite good. We thought only older women would come, but I have seen many young people asking my mother to beat and curse detestable colleagues."

I can assure Mrs Kam and her lovely daughters that there are plenty of young people who want to heap coalson the heads of their enemies.

A few years ago, my colleague Simon (who is a lovely fellow) took me to Wanchai to show me the whole Devil-beating ceremony.

What really happens is that a select group of older ladies, professionals who are well-versed in cursing folklore, are hired to place specific curses on the enemies of their clientele.

There are many props that go with this ceremony. These include:

- paper tigers
- raw fat to stuff the "tiger's mouth" (so your enemy cannot curse you back)
- paper dolls (representing the enemy)
- sheets of curses for the enemy and prayers for the client
- rice or beans - meaningless, but good props that give clientele the feeling that they are getting their money's worth
- candles (to torch the works)
- A shoes to beat the paper dolls that represent the enemy while the professional curser chants her curses.

This is a rather remarkable spectacle: it takes place under a bridge in Wanchai (ghosts like to life under bridges and near dark alleys and darkened walls), which is crowded with anxious and flinty-eyed folks patiently waiting to curse their foes.

The lady who does the cursing performs a totally unsubtle ceremony. It culminates in her beating the paper dolls and chanting things like:

- "I curse your legs, so that they are broken and you can't walk"
- "I curse your stomach, so you are sick and cannot get up"
- "I curse your mouth, so you cannot speak"
- "I curse your head, so you get a tumor and die"
- "I curse your arms, so they are broken in a horrible accident."

This is a ceremony that evokes the worst karma in the history of the world. Of this, I am sure.

When Simon and I went to see the ceremony, he asked me if I wanted to curse anyone. I have to admit, it scared me to even imagine such a thing.

Who could wish such malevolence into the world?

How could anyone think that offering curses to the winds wouldn't result in a return of that same spirit; that the curser would ultimately destroy his or her own happiness?

It seems a little like some depraved idiot is standing there screaming, "an eye for an eye!" just before plucking out both of his own.

It's a poultry thing

2006-02-14T13:19:00.000+08:00

Pity Chicken Little, Loosie-Goosie and their friends. Hong Kong has enforced its ban on home-reared (backyard) poultry, on today – on Valentine’s Day.

This has left some Hong Kong Citizens very upset. Read the SCMP for instance:

Tearful owners surrendered their backyard poultry to government officers yesterday, saying they could not bear to carry out the cull themselves.
Lau Sau-fung, who has been raising poultry for nearly 20 years, wept after her six baby geese and two chickens were seized by Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department officers, as a new law banning backyard poultry took effect.
"They are my beloved children. These geese were just a few weeks old and the youngest was born only five days ago," said Ms Lau, 60, who lives in Man Uk Pin, Shataukok.

On Lamma Island, there are several small backyard coops for chickens and roosters. In fact, on the of the most distinctive qualities of Lamma is the crow of the timing-impaired rooster that lives near Hung Shing Ye Beach (previously crowing at 5am, 5:45, 6:00, 6:15, 6:22, etc., etc.; until someone gives it a boot… well, up ‘til today).

No more birds.

In some ways, I have to admit that this is a bit of a relief. While out for a run the other morning, my OGDE made great sport of chasing a flock of birds that were feasting on chicken feed in a coop in one of the villages. Quite apart from calling my dog off; I was struck by the obvious: wild birds infect domestic birds because they chase their food supply. Duh.

So bye-bye roosters and chickens; bye-bye Geese. So long roast pigeons.

And where the hell am I going to get my fresh eggs now? I am NOT going back to pasteurized eggs. They’re foul. (NOTE: I did not write “fowl”. Feel free to thank me by sending American cash dollars. Please do not send anything else American. Montreal Bagels are good to send too.)

In other news, Marathon Medics are urging runners over 45 to get tested by a physician before they run. Five thousand people reported to medics during the Sunday (Feb 12) Standard Charter HKG Marathon this year.

That is 14% of the 35,000+ running in the marathon.

Still:

Amateur Athletics Association president William Ko Wai-lim defended the medical supervision provided for the three events as adequate and attributed the surge in injuries this year not to the difficulty of the course or pollution…
Mr Ko said the Environmental Protection Department had notified the HKAAA shortly before the start of the event that the air pollution index was just below 100, which was acceptable for the race.

But does that include the exhaust fumes that people breath when running through the cross-harbour tunnel I ask you?

Of the 22 people taken to hospital, 13 had been discharged by yesterday afternoon, seven could not be contacted, while two remained in a critical condition.

My guess is that most people only drank water, if they drank enough at all. The sun was out and it was a lovely day (breezy) for a run. But the sun is a killer if you aren’t used to it.

Finally: Dragon Boat season has begun. Lamma Ladies are back in the boats and ready for the new season. I am pretty much peeing my pants in gleeful anticipation of this year’s races. Lamma's genius paddler site here.

I've been busy and a BAD blogger

2006-02-10T14:29:00.000+08:00

But as you can see: I've had just cause.

To see more of my "vivid" fixation, click here and here. (The latter "here" may be time sensitive and you might need to scroll. I can always update later!).

kow-tow to the bow-wow

2006-02-02T13:52:00.000+08:00

People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They have a deep sense of loyalty, are honest, and inspire other people's confidence because they know how to keep secrets. But Dog People are somewhat selfish, terribly stubborn, and eccentric. They care little for wealth, yet somehow always seem to have money. They can be cold emotionally and sometimes distant at parties. They can find fault with many things and are noted for their sharp tongues. Dog people make good leaders. They are compatible with those born in the Years of the Horse, Tiger, and Rabbit.

Dearly beloved: Kung Hei Fat Choi!

My year of the dog began spectacularly, by dragging P off to Stanley in order to open my paddling season officially. Since he hasn't left me for a simpering couch potato, we may assume that all went well.

Some of you may have guessed that I had died, or been swallowed by a giant squid, or locked in the cupboard for the past month. None of the above is true. Strangely, I have merely been insanely busy doing god only knows what. Making arrangements for the upcoming dragon boat season; purchasing new outrigger canoes to begin a team on spitting quadruped island; arranging races for my first outrigger team, blah blah blah. I don't know how or why, but I am overrun with stuff - all this and I am only training a fraction of the time I did all last year. What gives?

Anyway, the Chinese New Year Weekend (4 days! Wooohoooo!) was a blessed relief. Paddled Saturday, ran Sunday; paddled Monday, ran Tuesday. Weather was glorious (unheard of sun and warm temperatures) and the mood relaxed. The rest of the time was spent eating and drinking and laying about on the sofa watching the first season of The West Wing. This was a gift from my beloved MCK, who was here at X-mas and obviously aghast at my ignorance of such great television (never thought I would align those two words).

Mind you, all the commander-in-chief blather and pseudo philosophizing and bad orchestral dramatics (a la Rob Reiner or Speilburg... not sure what's worse) is DREADFUL, but what can you do. It's a small price to pay, sez I. Besides, it would be impossible to watch a whole TV program and NOT spend at least 30% of my time heckling and jeering.

Dog People are somewhat selfish, terribly stubborn, and eccentric.

In other news: my toilet seat is broken.

Yes, this may sound like an insignificant deal to you (with your un-broken toilet seats), but unfortunately, my helper threw away the shards (???!) of the broken seat and now, if I want to pee, I either crouch over COLD PORCELAIN, or I run downstairs to the manky toilet where I keep all my sports gear (usually damp) and the cat box (usually damp) to use the loo there.

This is not a comfortable option.

And why is it worth mentioning? you ask me. Why don't i just haul ass and buy a new seat?

Good question! Now let's try the Socratic method on you:

WHY IN GOD'S NAME ARE ALL THE HARDWARE AND BATHROOM SHOPS IN HONG KONG CLOSED FOR AN ENTIRE TWO WEEKS OVER CHINESE NEW YEAR?????

I mean really, isn't there anyone else out there with a missing/broken toilet seat?

I will leave you with that pleasant thought.

Happy New Year Doggy people. Please take care of your toilet seats. Good night.

we all need a little nap

2005-12-30T14:05:00.000+08:00

Today, the South China Morning Post delivered a rather sad little story, amongst the rest of the dross that masquerades as news, about mainland Chinese School children.

When I first moved to Hong Kong, I was struck by how late the children stayed up. It is nothing to see toddlers pushing toys up and down the roads of Lamma at all hours of the night (11pm, 12:30am), in fairly high spirits. It's a stark contrast, of course, to the 7pm bedtime most kidlets I knew had imposed on them as children.

If these little peas were allowed to sleep in, the practice might make sense. After all, most parents here work astoundingly late hours, so having a few late night hours with your child could be a precious commodity that they want to enjoy. But no: these little squirts are also up at the crack of dawn; bleary-eyed with fatigue and rumpled in their tiny school uniforms and GIANT backpacks for pre-pre-pre kindergarten (where 3-year-olds go to learn advanced calculus).

Personally, I think its cruel, but the socio-economic realities of China seem to make it necessary, for those parents who want their kids to get the hell off the farm, as it were. That, of course, is no joke. The farm is a death trap. Or a life trap. Regard it any way you choose.

Exhaustion and stress takes its toll however, and as the Post reported, some 30 MILLION school-age kids are suffering from psychological problems because of the stress. What do you think the first clue was? Kids throwing themselves off buildings in droves because they got B's in History instead of the requisite A+ that might have earned them a spot at college?

But here is the Post:

About 30 million school-aged children on the mainland are weighed down by psychological problems - and the number is growing, a study has found.

Authors of the report estimate that 20 per cent to 30 per cent of primary and secondary school students faced pressure over their studies, work, money and personal relationships, and did not have the skills to deal with emotional challenges.

The study, the China Youth Development Report, was compiled by the China Youth and Children Studies Centre and the Communist Youth League.

E Liran, a Beijing ninth-grader studying for senior high-school entrance exams, said the pressure of the tests made some students emotionally fragile.

"Some girls, who didn't cry that much when they were in the seventh and eighth grades, now easily break into tears over little things," she said. "Everybody fears not being able to get into a good high school."

She said the pressure was made worse by the fact their future would be decided by one examination - a test teachers described as a monumental event.

Now, as you may have noticed, there was that line "some girls who DIDN'T CRY THAT MUCH..." but whose account? How much do you have to cry to be enough? What is "that much"? and what are they crying for?

I'll tell you: they are crying cause they got 4 hours' sleep if they were lucky, between school, homework, secondary lessons, cram schools and whatever social engagements their families have rigged up. The girls are crying either because they have got fat from eating McDonald's and are now social outcasts, or because they are anorexics stricken with the germs of the HKG/China beauty myth and haven't the bloody energy to say - out loud - that they are miserable.

Or they are crying cause the battering in their cell phones has died.

I don't know.

What I do know is that all the kids in the above photo are ASLEEP in the DAYTIME and they are very YOUNG.

Sleeping kids in the daytime en mass. That is totally unnatural. And on their little desks.

Something evil is happening in China. Something very very wrong indeed.

Hey, Bungalow Bill, What did you kill?

2005-12-19T12:06:00.000+08:00

A week in HKG in review:

Monday: felt crappy. Security dudes everywhere. left work at 5pm

Tuesday: felt crappy. Went to airport to meet friends. City eerie and silent.
Tuesday afternoon: home sick - sms with colleague; riots outside my office.

Wednesday: Security dudes everywhere. Still at office. Peer out window hourly in hopes fresh violence sends us home early. Selfish to the core.

Thursday: not not much happening. office posts notice to leave early in the event that violence could erupt. Sprint from office to run into press-corps pals. They announce violence has erupted outside my office. Pissed off I missed it.

Friday: Security dudes everywhere. Notice from office HR that police clearly have matters in hand. Look out the window and do quick tally.
1,000 police in riot gear.
75-90 protestors looking really really cold.
Go home on time.

Saturday: Stay home and cook for masses. Security dudes nowhere on my little island. Riots break out all through the main areas of HKG island. Department of homeland security text messages to all HKG citizens urging them to stay the hell away from riot areas. No problem with that.

Sunday: Less rioting. Sit on sofa all day watching bad british dramas (now twitching from withdrawal) and eating chocolate mints. Saw ass enlarge before my very eyes. Didn't give a damn.

Monday: security dudes still around. Area around office looks like the morning after a big rock concert blew through. Braindead from TV over-indulgence.

WTO Outcome: lots of people in lockup. 70 people (at least) injured. HKG smug about amazing HKG police force in riot gear. Unfair fight as they seemed to outnumber the crowd.

Subsidies: some will go. US jerking off rest of nations with cotton subsidies. More Africans will starve and Korean farmers will likely think twice before jumping in Victoria Harbour. It was freezing and that water is VILE.

Finale: I like Chloe shoes. Do they make boots?

wto fever

2005-12-12T08:34:00.000+08:00

Hong Kong is all a-muddle this week, as the wto kicks off within 50 metres of my office tomorrow.

the past week has seen some strange developments: there is utility-grade screens/chicken wire strung from every building, creating shields between the possibly protesting public (who will undoubtedly be incensed by the site of all of these tedious office buildings and launch home-made Korean-farmer grenades into the lobbies), barriers have been erected on the streets nearby, and my office has developed a 3-tier alert system.

This means that my past two mornings have begun with sms messages on my phone at 6:30am, explaining whether the Wanchai locale is suffering a code green, yellow or red.

bring on code yellow, I say!

the police have reported the mass-sale of gas masks in hardware shops and the government is expecting some 1,500 Korean farmers alone at this protest. There are apparently 3,000 journalists in the press corps, 10,000 protestors en route, and god only knows how many actual delegates.

it sounds like it will all make for a rather fascinating week.

the photo atop (stolen) is from the South China Morning Post and illustrates a "peaceable" demonstration that took place on Sunday. The WTO proper doesn't begin until Tuesday... and here I am sandwiched in on the Monday: looking out the window at the grey sky and wondering if anything will actually happen.

It would be alarming if something were to happen, since it seems the the HKG police are spectacularly underprepared for such an event. Here in HKG, you have to file notice with the police - that is, apply - to protest. Otherwise, you are conducting an "unlawful" protest (apparently civil disobedience rates about as high as monarchy in HKG) and can and will be summarily arrested.

There is a blacklist of some 300 protestors at the airport, and unless they swim here (which I personally think couldn't be that hard), chances are that we will have a fairly quiet week.

but as noted: HKG isn't known for its practice in dealing with rowdy crowds. The local law enforcement tend to get wide-eyed and itchy-fingered when a rock concert starts humming in the local exhibition centres, so screaming, red-faced protestors from Korea, Indonesia or Southeast Asia likely won't be taken with equanimity.

Outside my office window is a sports ground that has been prepped to "hold" the thousands of protestors that are coming. Why they should want to sit in the drafty grounds of a sports field when they could descend on pubs of Wanchai is beyond me, but I am sure wiser skulls than my own have thought this matter through and come to the convincing decision that it'll be way more fun that getting hammered in a girly bar.

Frankly, if I were a wto protest organizer, i'd get my little gang into said girlie bars and try to convince them to march on the scene in their horrid little show-girl costumes and demand fair and equal payment.

mind you: their clientele is largely representatives of western nations, so HKG has little to do with their unfortunate career opportunities. Maybe we should get them tickets to Washington, Ottawa, Berlin, Paris, London and Rome and have them protest there?

Well - that's just the Wanchai beer girls. As for everyone else.... I guess they get the drafty park and to admire all the office bird-cages that have been constructed in their honour.

taxi tempo

2005-12-03T08:54:00.000+08:00

taxi view at the end of the work day.

sometimes, HKG lights are lovely. sometimes, they are just lights.

lil photo essay

2005-12-01T00:23:00.001+08:00

In the taxi tonight on the way home to the ferry, i remembered that my phone was good for all sorts of crap.

chance would be a fine thing

2005-11-27T18:06:00.000+08:00

Well well well - it all seems to come together on one weekend.

Saturday morning, I roused P out of bed by 8am - no small feat, let me tell you. But with a limited amount of grumbling, he clambered into the bathroom to lean up against the shower wall and allow the water to sluice over him long enough to be cognizant that I was hauling his "I wanna sleep in" ass over to the VRC club to pick up my new baby.

We were there by 11 (ferry + bus ride) and met C, who was selling my leetle boat to me. After stumbling about the boat house for awhile and working hard to retrieve bits of the OC that had been "borrowed" by other paddlers, we got all the gear together. One of the two sets of iakos had gone missing, which was rather sneaky of the borrower. It's hard to get parts for these babies. And for a good look at my leetle boat, check out this - to see my new darling.

The trick was, I had decided to take leetle boat home to Lamma via a sampan, which would save me from paddling across the shipping lanes in a boat I was totally unfamiliar with, on my own. (Wise choice if I do say so myself).

Leetle boat is about 6 metres long (20 feet) and it was interesting manhandling her about the sampan, but it was a gorgeous day out on the harbour. By the time we docked at Lamma pier and got her back ashore, I was standing on the dock wondering my I felt all shaky and my legs were vibrating. It took awhile for me to realize that it was just sheer excitement.

We brought her up the house to keep overnight, where she sat in the garden, looking rather dejected.

P went off to two barbecues for friends that are leaving HKG for other parts of the world. One family we know are headed to Phuket, Thailand; where they have built a house. The other family is moving to Macau to pursue a brilliant job offer there.

They had all lived on Lamma a long time and were both good friends of P. I know them more casually and like them very much, but I opted to stay home and moon over leetle boat and prune the scary front garden.

And I have figured out what my other flowering trees are: jasmin and - get this - pomengranite!!! Who the hell has a pomengranite tree? I am now awaiting Persephone who will undoubtedly arrive and warn me off them.

Anyway, after pruning the many trees and unwinding and killing a vicious ivy that was trying (and mostly succeeding) to throttle the life out of the jasmin and hibiscus, I had the garden looking lovely (to me anyway). Every time I moved one of the potted plants that we had put in the garden, I would be surprised to find a minimum of two toads that had been hiding in the drain holes at the bottom of the pots. Fortunately, I was wearing gloves (they are seriously unattractive little toads) and was able to move them all to new locations.

There has been a plague of toads on Lamma this year, which has me worried that we may have a plague of snakes next year. In any case, there were no snakes dozing in the leaf fall of the garden, and I was grateful.

This morning I was up early and rigged little boat in the garden. This made carrying her back to the harbour (down a hill - about 3/4 kilometre) very very hard, and P - who had to help me - very very grouchy.

Really though, anything would have made him grouchy this morning. He was still drunk when he got up. I have never smelled anyone quite so rank as he was last night. His hands, in particular, smelled like he'd dipped them in the sewers and had then rinsed them - repeatedly - in beer.

He'd also flipped over the handle bars of his bike last night, but was so drunk that he fell like a rag doll and barely has a scratch. This all makes P sound like quite a drunk, but HKG is nothing if not a den of alcoholics, and P drinks very little. I can't even begin to describe the things I've done drunk, because if I did, someone who still has the security videos might find me. If I were a hotel manager, I would definitely press charges for what I did ...

Anyway, leetle boat was on the water where she belonged, and P slumped off home to watch the football. I had her out for all of 20 strokes when I realized that I had her rigger way to high and I would be huli-ing every 10 seconds if I kept on the way she was. So I brought her back in to shore and rigger her again. And I was right: I looked like a complete arse.

What's worse, is Yung Shue Wan harbour is a cess pit at low tide (which it was) and the air and shore looked and smelled rank.

20 minutes later (cause it took that long), I had wrestled her back into shape, and she was riding steady. I pushed out and paddled out through the harbour, left at the power station, and paddled on to Hung Shing Ye beach. It was a long paddle for a first trip alone.

I'd decided to wear my life vest - though I felt like a weenie when I put it on. But I was grateful once I was out in the shipping lanes. I was too close to shore to be in danger of any traffic. This didn't prevent a small container vessel from getting on the horn and blasting me with some kind of chatter for five minutes. I've no idea what they were thinking, since I was nowhere near them.

The wind beat in my face the whole way, and I lost and had to retrieve my hat. Even so, my lips are a little sunburnt. Still, there is nothing more brilliant than being out there.

My girlfriend U is excited to take her out for a ride as well.

Unfortunately, storage is an issue on lamma. So after having lunch, P and I went back to the shore with a new tarp to cover leetle boat and protect her from the weather. We slung ropes from the trees to make her a hammock. I couldn't leave her on the ground; she's so fragile (carbon fiber body) that if any comes even close to standing on her she's stave in within seconds.

But she is so sweet and fast! I made great time around, despite the wind, and although the ama popped up throughout, she never flipped me, and I am grateful. As it was, I was saltstained and smelly all morning. But now she is washed and all her parts are WD-40'd and she is safe, I pray. The ama and iakos are stored at my friend S's, as she lives closer to the beach. I cannot keep the gear together. In the event that some MOFO tries to take her, they aren't getting far.

The aren't getting ANYWHERE. But she looks like she could be a surfski or a kayak to any idiot who didn't know better.

So once she was settled, we came home and FINALLY rigged up the modem for wireless, and so this long long post is brought to you by my other baby: the imac.

We have no idea how we finally got her to connect, but she is up and running and has located to other servers nearby. I guess it's stolen net time all over the place around here. Pretty cool. Very cool really.

And that is all.

And now I have to play online. I am just too excited to write any more.

I am sure when I read this tomorrow, I will realize how awful this post is. Tonight - well what the hell.

fiery diatribe batteries not included

2005-11-26T08:12:00.000+08:00

It has been brought to my attention that post 'found out' has raised some concerns that this may become an entirely xanaxed, shit-eating-grin wearing paeon to all things fluffy and happy.

Not so.

I assure you. Everything sucks - yeah - all of it. really. i am pissed.

Sorry: it's 8:15am on a Saturday, and I think I might be getting my boat in 3 hours, unless something cocks up.

That totally doesn't suck.

I haven't done much sport the past few weeks and it shows. I need the boat before my renegade ass mutates and decides to take over and render my legs useless. The horror.

Running tomorrow - because I promised a friend I would help her train for the rough bits of her first Action Asia challenge.

That weird photo above? It's the end of last June's AA Challenge. They set up a stupid rope maze to climb through at the end. I was so annoyed by that race (My time was 8 hours) that I would have cheerfully hung the organizers with it if i'd had the energy to unravel the maze and hunt them down.

So tomorrow is coasteering and running - I think we'll leave the bikes alone - and maybe some scrambling.

Quite apart from my bum knee, that should be good.

I will have to rage another day.

consolation thursday

2005-11-24T13:15:00.000+08:00

As I was making my way to the ferry this morning, listening to old Neil Diamond favourites on my phone/walkman and generally sighing and moaning over having to go to work, again, a little boy came rattling past me on his bicycle.

This kid, who is very cute, has a teeny little bike, made almost entirely of hard plastic, with very noisy training wheels.

He drives that thing like a kamikazee pilot, circa 1944, exhibiting both a deranged and touching enthusiasm for this limited burst of freedom.

This morning, he rode off the path, over the edge of the concrete side-walk, and crashed his bike into some soft - but deep - swamp grass.

As I came upon him, he was standing there, all 2-foot 3 inches of him, with his bottom lip buttoned over the top and his face a picture of unhappiness and betrayal.

It was sooooo cute. Don't you love it when kids are miserable like that? Made me feel tons better about heading to the office.

I. Am. Joking.

He was pretty cute though.

home: sick

2005-11-21T10:51:00.000+08:00

Revoltingly cute family members: my bro (right) his fabuloso
woman, and my adorable nephew (not their child)

Yes, I have taken the morning off because a) I am feeling rather run-down and b) because I slept past my alarm. "B" was the motivating factor. If you have to be late, you might as well be productive and do work at home before going to the office. So while I didn't get any additional sleep, i did get organized for the week ahead.

These photos are taken from the summer - mainly. The shot above is fuzzy, but that is because I was gettind used to the new camera on my ridiculous phone.

This one below, is of my karate club in Canada (you can tell by the Canadian and Japanese flags - observant, aren't we?). And the white-haired dude in the centre is my dear friend Kurt, whom I usually visit when I am home.

This interesting close up is P. His nose looks kinda big here, but really - it's the camera angle.

And this is the fishermen's jetty in the harbour of Lamma Island. It wasn't an especially nice day. There was a haze all over HKG and it affected the colour of the air and sky here on Lamma. Still, it's a decent representation of how the harbour looks when the fishermen are getting themselves organized. Again, all of these shots were taken with the phone on a rather low resolution, so they are not especially clear.

I will be heading off, down the hill momentarily, to drag my sorry carcass into the office. We are getting our ethernet connections up and running this evening, which means - ideally - that my mac and I will be online soon.

It's lovely to have the machine, but my you feel limited when you cannot access the Net. I feel like a guilty parent using the old PC to do anything. Mind, I need a decent office chair as well. The one I have at my desk now is lovely and decorative (Chinese antique), but absolutely useless for lumbar support.

Now, since I am wearing ridiculously high heels, I had better head off early, lest I tumble down the hill. I have a decent book to read on the ferry. During my last week of sheer exhaustion, I read 4 junk novels: 3 mysteries and one chick book. They were fabulous! Crap for the brain. Soemtimes, the television is your worst nightmare and it requires as much patience to try to find something that doesn't drive you bat-shit with it inanity as it would to write a television series yourself.

One final message: to all my dear, SICK friends in Canada (for real sick, not knackered and weary sick like me) please take care. And cook all poultry products thoroughly. And wash your hands lots!

And maybe you should stay away from your kids... they sound awfully germy to me.

found out!

2005-11-20T02:24:00.000+08:00

I spent a lovely afternoon paddling in Discovery Bay today with a mixed selection of outrigger paddlers from Hong Kong. It was considered a 'friendly' race, which rather remarkably it was.

There were about 50 of us (individual paddlers, not clubs) there, and we were seperate into two teams: a red team and a white team. I was rather pleased to see my 'national colours' used thus.

Originally, I was a little bummed out as most of my teammates were on the red team (admittedly, a much better colour for me) whereas I was on the white team (with a couple of the guys from my club and B, who is a lovely woman).

But the white team won the day, and winning always cheers me up. I am absolutely pathetic really; beating an 8-year-old at chess would cheer me up. I need a new, non-competitive hobby.

But that is not the real news. The real news is that my paddle-mate and friend C - from my club - has found this blog and, not suprisingly, recognized it as mine.

Now I totally do not mind that C has found her way to my less-than-sophiticated blog (by the way - the name is mine, just not one anyone knows me by), but it does make me worry that other people, paddlers specifically, from clubs I may not admire excessively have as well.

So I have editing to do. You'll be lucky if you can find some the snarks that formerly graced these 'pages' before. I may also remove some of my fatuous earlier comments just to keep from being too mortified by the fact that i get so far up my own arse at times.

Anyway, in a brilliant bit of tit-for-tat for my readers at home, here is C's page: http://these-fragments.blogspot.com/

And because I am THAT nosey, I've discovered three things about C that I absolutely didn't previously know:

She seems to have a shoe fetish
She reads a tremendous amount on world events (which made me feel very frivolous indeed)
She's an Auden fan! (and possibly Ted Hughes...)

Rather cool list, methinks.

It was lovely being on the water today. The final race was a relay, with the entire crew switching boats every 500 metres (2,500 metres total). Great fun racing in and out of the water to turn those crews around as fast as possible.

It was a very mellow and fun day, marred only slightly by arriving home and seeing P plunked upon the sofa, watching the footie and working his way through a very good bottle of red wine. He was tired and wanted a day of "rest", but I must admit that watching my partner "rest" so often leaves me exhausted for patience.

To be fair, I LIKE having my own thing. I LIKE having my own life that is - strictly - filled with my own interests. But I do wish that he did more stuff. Other than go to work, that is.

That is an obscenely unfair statement, but i do get frustrated.

I think, more than anything else, that it is the enthusiasm in hobbies and sports and projects that I miss. But hey: I don't jump for joy when he wants to go hang in the pub and watch rugby now do I? (Actually, I feel very self-righteous about not wanting to hang out in the pub... den of smelly old farts - and some good friends, mind you, who are not smelly - or not very smelly).

Enough bitching.

Here is some good stuff:

This is the Po Wat Templye in Bangkok, Thailand, and these tablets are from the hall where they monks taught medicine, specifically massage.

Not exactly Grey's Anatomy, but more than sufficient.

And this little darling is a temple dragon (mystical animal-critter thingee). I thought he looked remarkably like Moka, my Ogde. Except for maybe the coif.

The tail, legs and body are all his though.