get your vote on

BC had a provincial election the other night. it was interesting in a depressing kind of way.

we had a "get your vote on" critical mass, which i attended as the voting fairy:


despite all our efforts, there was only a 41% voter turnout, which is shockingly low, i think.

chicory's human, my roommate (who i am going to christian Mr. Fix-It), and i went to a pub on the drive to watch the election results come in. we bullied the bartender into switching one of the tellies over from the hockey (luckily the canucks just got booted out of the finals, or there would have been a riot) and steadily sank lower and lower on our barstools as the right wing Liberal party got more and more seats.

there was also a vote on the table about bringing in a preferential voting system instead of keeping the "first past the post" system BC currently has, and that was soundly defeated as well. the greens got 8% of the votes this time and not one seat.

i like the fact that none of this was my fault, though. it's relaxing. we were the only three people in the bar interested in the election. chicory's human tried to engage the waitress in discussion on the topic. "i'm an american!" she says. "so am i! *she's* australian! he's the only one here who can actually vote!" chicory's human says, pointing at mr. fix-it. "i tried," he replies.

more bloody knitting

look! i made socks!

and see how well my garden is growing! strawberry flowers!

hahahaha!

it was cass' bday on the weekend (happy birthday, cassandra!). my household had drinkies and a big cooked breakfast and yesterday we all went on a big ride to steveston. it was about 40k there and back, beautiful sunny day. here we all are spread out along the richmond dyke:


now i'm still pottering on with job hunting, reading and departmental politics. it's quite fun in a gentle way.

it's raining again.

fan-squeeing is not okay

ah, nanaimo, land of nanaimo bars. nanaimo bars are. . . no, actually. i'm not going to tell you. there's a recipe here. you must discover the artery-clogging goodness for yourself.

i had another conference last weekend. this was a children's literature conference, and i was talking about a local book banning incident, which took six years of court cases to end up with Asha's Mums still not allowed in the kindergarten. you can find some information about it on wiki. wait for my article to be published to read the rest!

the conference was pretty sweet. my talk went well, and i learnt some interesting things from other people's presentations. but, BUT, i got to hang out with one of kidlitcrit idols! and i went to dinner with both guest speakers! and *didn't* say "i've read all your books! eeeee!" which was very restrained compared to other people at the conference who brought their books to sign. anyways. yes. exciting.

nanaimo itself is pretty dull. the locals call it "land of the box store". it's kind of like bacchus marsh or something, except situated on a stunning BC coastline, with little islands dotted all around, and a distant view of the snow-capped mountains on the mainland.


it's also cherry-blossom-time again:


i took an extra day after the conference and went for a bike ride round gabriola, island of nature and back to the land style hippies.


it was a really nice bike ride. gentle rolling hills, huge trees, fresh salty air. it only took two hours, and i took it slow. everytime i stopped i saw something beautiful. i saw deers and fawns, sheep and lambs, great fluffy alpacas, bald eagles, lots of northern goshawks (beautiful big birds of prey with speckled wings), several great blue herons flapping up from dams, their long legs dangling behind them, a northern flicker (a kind of woodpecker) and american robins everywhere.


everyone's all friendly on the islands (even nanimo, which is on vancouver island). cars shared the road with me, and i had lots of rather intimate chats with people on the ferries and in coffee shops and on street corners.


on the ferry back from gabriola i saw three white sided dolphins leaping out of the water, very close. it was stunning.

wholesome pursuits

my new household has a communal garden out back, with our friends who live in the apartment upstairs (who need names. hmm. . .) we had two work parties with lots of friends to dig up two big beds, and dig in compost we trucked out from the city dump in ladner (buzzards circling above the rubbish). lots of worms!

now the beds have teeny tiny seedlings sprouting all over, from the seeds eleanor and i put in weeks ago. it's been lovely and warm, so we're tag teaming daily watering. expect more photos as things get bigger and greener.

the garden is one of my main pleasures at the moment. it's so simple and rewarding.

i also have the usual things in pots, including 18 tiny tomato plants on my desk and this bag of strawberries in the planter grot and ddd sent me for christmas:


they've got much bigger since i took this photo, as has the rhubarb:


also in the wholesome activity vein is the dog agility trails i've been attending with pantimalion, and her dog, lyra. here's lyra whizzing through one of the tunnels:


lyra has speed but no focus, but the two of them have a grand time running round the agility track. i enjoy watching them and meeting all the other lovely dogs that attend these things, including a huge beardie with a topknot.

lyra in slow-mo, being loved on by cassandra:


now i'm off to the island for the weekend. i'm going to take my bike and work on getting my calf muscles back.

and eat salad and go to bed early and knit socks for my grandmother and read _pilgrim's progress_ and wash behind my ears and

pamplemouse oui oui?

ah, montreal, land of bagels. i had a grad conference a month or so ago, and took a five hour flight out east.


it's a very european city, kind of like paris or amsterdam (being the last european cities i've visited), except chockers with canadians, which is kind of weird. most everybody speaks french, and usually english as well. i think i could live there, but i think i'd have to learn french first.



i stayed with some friends of friends, who turned out to be funky academic queers, so we drank a lot of wine, played with the dog and talked shop. they were great!


all the staircases are outside, all twisty and slippery and beautiful. you can still see snow on the ground, but it wasn't too too cold when i was there.


i spent two days wandering the city, drinking very good coffee and buying nice clothes, and two days at the conference, listening to lots of english nerds talk about dracula and 18th century novels and victorian prostitution laws and film adaptions and science fiction novels. i'd forgotten how historical english lit is, and also how much of it i'm familiar with. it was very relaxing to be in that environment.


bike lane separated from traffic! so simple! so safe! there was also very sweet public sculpture, which made me happy.

knitting is kool

why won't the paparazzi leave me alone???

look - fishy tail!

i think the red mitts were a success. . .

ah, so cold and damp

so, i gather it's been a wee bit warm in australia, a bit toasty, a bit sweaty. it's five degrees and raining here. . . *stretches*

it even snowed earlier in the week:

i am toasty and stylish in my hat, mitts and scarf by jt!

i'm into week four of "spring" semester. my classes are okay. one is a hard core theory class where we talk about hermeneutics, mostly. i'm enjoying that a lot. the other is about visual culture studies, which is kind of driving me batty, but still has potential. last week i was so frustrated i nearly knitted a whole mitten!

(one pair for cass, one pair for me.)

i finally got off my bum and started doing PD stuff. i got two papers accepted for conferences! i'm giving two presentations at uni next week! i got a comic published! i'm knitting a hat shaped like a fish!


that's really it for my news. i spend a lot of time making To Do lists and muttering "knit three, knit two together." oh, and six feet under. did i tell you i discovered six feet under? droooool . . .

lots of v.g. maillove recently, including these snazzy valve-caps from DDD, which totally match the colour scheme of my bike:

soon the streets will be ice-free enough to ride, soon, my pretties. . .

australian christmas

nanny and nyx


campsite

visitor to campsite! (i have shown this photo to some canadian friends - they think it is fascinating and exotic)

cousin and puppy


photos from grot (or jt via grot?). thankyou!

[if anyone is uncomfortable with an image being on the net let me know and i will take it down.]

solstice, christmas, snow

finally got round to putting up some of my many speccy christmas photos - we had a white christmas! it was very beautiful and very cold and very difficult to get around (iced up sidewalks + cars bogged + buses cancelled/delayed).


oh, just before christmas was winter solstice. i went to a lantern festival at the local community centre. they had a flaming torch in the snow, and we stood around it singing winter songs, with the falling snow making our song sheets all soggy.


there was also a labyrinth made from candle-lamps, which one walked through very slowly, all the way in and all the way out. it was incredibly beautiful, and the whole night made me feel good about the world and the winter.


cass and i went to an orphan christmas at winifred's place, which was fun. lots of food, lots of bubbly, lots of presents. cass got a harmonica in the chris cringle. sweeeet.


the best kind of christmas present. . .


also there was a cute gus dog!


the view from the bus stop the next morning, mountains in the distance.

and cass with her stash!

we spent christmas day hanging out with some of cass' mates. some of the pretty things we saw on the walk there:




we spent boxing day doing *nothing*, which was perfect! it was snowing heavily and i was forced to valiantly snowshoe down to the shops:


the end!

hiking is nice

pantalaimon and i went hiking near deep cove today. the mainland has been deep in fog for the last three days, but up high on the mountains it was sunny, with glorious views:

if you look closely you can see hunks of frozen water in the bay.

not much else news. i have some new picturebooks and i knitted a pair of mittens. they are RED.

this is what i do with my time now

the pink ones are for nanny (ssssssh!) and the stripey ones are for me, as they are my first effort and a little lumpy as a consequence. knitting socks is very satisfying. i enjoy turning the heel.

so uni started again. i'm tired! i'm also sick again (booooooooring), which isn't helping the tired. my classes seem okay so far, and it's very nice to see my uni friends again. my little posse went out for brunch on the weekend, and bitched. it was sweet. i have a gilbert and sullivan play and a jug band concert to attend now (we're a talented bunch).