Adventures in academic excess

Proposal for 8-page, 10-minute colloquium presentation=400 words. Rational.

Accompanying bibliography=38 sources. IRRATIONAL.

Some day I am going to have to learn how to focus my research. However, that day is obviously not today.

Also, at this point I'm not saying anything that hasn't already been said. Said by one of the profs in my department, to be exact. Dear me.

However I can take solace in the fact that the prof marking this ridiculousness specializes in Victorian Women's Lit. So I'm fairly confident in my ability to say anything about rural Canadian theatre and get away with it.

THIS JUST IN: Rural theatre in Canada started with a travelling troupe of NARWHALES under the direction LOUIS RIEL.

Yep. Academia and I are going to get along fine.

Back from Chicago after the perfect amount of time spent there. We still had some stuff left on the list but I was at my limit of pavement-pounding, museum-ogling, L-train riding urban American goodness. Highlights include: riding the flying raccoon (an airline Zara and I can agree on), various encounters with gruff Chicagoans (man are they gruff), cafe/bar-hopping through North Chicago whilst waiting for Second City to start, argument about Combos over delicious Cajun dinner, winding up in the middle of a kazillion little cheerleaders at Navy Pier (which really ignited my feminist ire). Etc etc.

Now I'm back and ready to work like a fiend for the rest of this break. Getting back to Toronto/Guelph I felt no sense of happiness/relief/home. I am trying to love this place but just can't make a connection to it. I feel the same way towards Vancouver. Maybe I'm just a very black-and-white person, I don't like something at all until I'm head-over-heels for it. Maybe I'm built for rural lands. Maybe living the grad-student life is not conducive to connecting to the community. Maybe maybe maybe. I will continue to ponder this.

For shame Ontario!

One of my profs today started describing a liberal arts college to us, stating, "these don't exist in Canada, only in America."

And I was all, like, "ummmmm, if they don't exist in Canada, then how did I go to one?"

This led to a rather long (and completely off-topic for the course) exchange where he explained to me what exactly a liberal arts college was, and I explained to him that yes, Mount A and St FX and Acadia were indeed that.

But seriously folks. I don't expect a layman off the streets of Ontario to know of these schools, but somebody in academia should know. There aren't that many Canadian universities to keep track of, dudes!

I'm also discovering that nobody in Ontario knows what an Acadian is. Seriously? I learned about them in high school and that was way the hell over in BC. A province as close to the Maritimes as Ontario should definitely be teaching this stuff to their youth.

Okay, enough bitterness. I think I am just run down today and when that happens, I take out my anger on the province. Like railing against whitey, it calms me down.