Of Popular Culture and Monoliths

I decided to take it easy today and so I ventured out for a leisurely walk,  I still have my backpack on me, but I unloaded most of the stuff so the thing weighed probably no more than 10 pounds.  As I said, it was to be a leisurely walk.  And no particular route in mind either.

Anyway, since Ottawa is a capital city, there are lots of embassies around.  Some are quite grand and imposing (e.g. the US Embassy or the UK High Commission).  Some are no more than a random brick house somewhere (e.g. Egypt or Mali).  Still some are impressive but not imposing (e.g. France or Japan).  By the way, if you were wondering, fellow Commonwealth countries don't have embassies, but instead have high commissions.  Same thing, different label.  As I was walking, I thought, hey, let's take some pictures.  So today I give you a first instalment (for all I know, the only).

There was no wind, so you probably can't see the flag.  But it's Russia.  Quite monolithic, if you ask me.

Can you see the "logo" at the front entrance?  It's the Chinese Embassy.  A very large compound.  I almost expected to see some PLA troops patrolling the perimeter.

And this is the Saudi Arabia Embassy.  I wish Ottawa would rename the street Khashoggi Street or something.  But alas.

I thought I'd just give you three today.  Why these three?  Well, I came upon them during my walk today.  As to whether there are commonalities among these governments, I will let you be the judge.  Not to keen to disappear...

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On a side note (here's the popular culture part of today's post), I was at a stop light, and some guy behind me said to his friend: "He's going to kill me, he's a US Colonial Marine!"  Haha.  I turned around, and he looked at me and said "you're not going to kill me, are you?"  Now I don't know if he was being funny, but for all I know he didn't understand the popular culture connection.  Maybe he thought I was one of those military wanna-bes.  Either way, I just walked on.  Not my job to educate him on popular culture...  :)

Picture of the patch on my backpack shown below.  Do you know the popular culture reference?

Ok, well, till next time.  Maybe I will take more embassy pictures and share them.  After all, I do need some distraction over a three hour walk!  Take good care, friends.  Be safe.

Chance Encounter

About an hour and a half into my walk yesterday, as I was melting in the 34 degree Celcius (~95 F) heat, I saw a fellow traveler heading towards me.  Moving out on to the bike lane to keep our social distance, I looked at him and smiled.  He smiled back.  Then he said something to me.

At this point I had to take off my earphones to hear him.  Still keeping our distance (I'm guessing we were ten feet apart at this point), we both stopped.  He was just making small talk.  "Hot enough for ya?"  that sort of thing.  Nice chap.  Young.  Like my sons' age.   Well, we ended up chatting for maybe ten minutes.  He was 27, graduated from UOttawa last year with a degree in business (he must have started late), and so on.

The conversation was not enlightening, but humans need that, don't we?  We are social animals.  So sometimes even total strangers can bring "social" back into our lives.  And I realized something in the process.  Polonius was right.  "Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment," he had said to Laertes.  Sometimes, the little act of stopping to listen to what someone wants to talk about makes the world a better place. And that second part, don't you agree that the world would be much better place if we do "reserve thy judgment"?  Shakespeare's my hero, folks, as you well know.

The stranger?  I didn't even know his name.  Chances are I will never see him again, nor he me.  But in these times of isolation, it was ten minutes well spent.  We are all in this together, aren't we?

Anyway, that train of thought got me into a literary frame of mind.  Later in the evening I was reminded of one my favourite poems.  Something by Auden, of course (as you may ALSO know, Auden's my favourite poet).  Appropriately, it's titled "As I Walked Out One Evening."  Well, my chance encounter didn't happen in the evening, but you get the picture.

If you are interested in the poem in its entirety, I encourage you to look it up.  It's a very good one, and hugely meaningful.  But I would like to quote a few lines from the latter part of the poem for you, as follows:

'O look, look in the mirror,
   O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
   Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
   As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
   With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
   The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
   And the deep river ran on.

I first read this poem when I was 16, and to this day it remains one of my all time favourites. You really need to read the whole thing, but even these last few lines they resonate so much with me.  And it's not just before I am entering this period of "late, late in the evening."  It resonated with me when I was 16.

Anyway, so much for these voices of rumination.  Time to begin another routinized and listless day.  And the deep river runs on. 

Registration Done!

The system was a bit slow this morning with massive sign-ons.  I did manage to get a schedule together though, and at least I have registered for courses.  These are likely not the final version, since I do have a tendency to keep searching etc.  But, as promised, here's what I signed up for:

Fall:

The Cold War
Greek Mythology
General Public Law
Greek Philosophy
Religion, spirituality, and secularism


Winter:

FDR presidency
Legal Theory and Social Sciences
History of East Asia from 1600
The World's Languages
International Relations and Global Politics


Quite a mix bag, eh?  Well, let's see what changes I will make to this before school starts.

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I haven't been volunteering at the Mission since this virus outbreak.  It's probably not a good idea, since it's a confined space and I'm "older."  But they probably could use the help these days.  Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

In summers I tend to do a lot of reading.  So far, this has been a listless summer, however.  It's hard to focus on reading.  Apart from burning hours with my rucking and working out at home, I have been doing a series of online mini courses from Harvard X.  It's free if I just audit and don't want a certificate (which I don't).  They are great.  Last year I did a course on Hamlet and one on Start Trek.  So far this summer, I've been very active with it, having completed almost 10 of their China History and Civilization courses (will finish the last one this week, I think).

I highly recommend Harvard X.  They pull together the intellectual pool from their faculty, and you can learn from these world class experts on subjects, all for free.  If you are interested,  you can find them on edx.org

They (actually MIT in this case) has come up with Star Trek parts II and III.  Might do them after this.  Will let you know!

As for reading, well, as I said, it's been very slow.  So far, I have re-read The Stand (appropriately), The British Empire, Shakespeare on Tyrants, and a book on Social Demography.  What have you been reading so far?  Anything interesting?

What Degree to Pursue?

Nowadays one has nothing but time.  So I've been thinking (again) about life after this degree which will be done in a year.  At least that's the plan.  I will get a Bachelor of Arts.  Pretty cool.  Never had one before.  Then what else?

As you may recall, I have a few options.  I can try a MA in Sociology, or a MEd.  I can opt for another undergrad degree, and there I have two choices as well.  Just found out that I can do a Bachelor of Social Sciences with minors in sociology and something else (maybe history and perhaps law).  I can also do another Bachelor of Arts with minors in the same things.

Undergrad sounds more fun.  So I guess it just comes down to whether I want a degree from Social Science or Arts.  I know, these are really minor things.  But, seriously, folks, what the hell else is there for me to mull over?

I like the Faculty of Arts.  The people there (the admin folks) are usually very nice and personable.  At the Faculty of Social Sciences, they are more corporate.  Less friendly.  Both are just undergraduate degrees, but I have never had a Bachelor of Social Sciences before... :)

Essentially I've written off the idea of doing a Master's.  What's the point?  Yeah, so my fellow students will be a bit older.  But really, is it going to be that much different for me to sit with a bunch of 20 year-olds versus a bunch of 24 year-olds?  I think not.  Either way I am older than their parents...

Any thoughts?

Oh well, good to have one more thing to occupy my mind. 

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BTW, thanks to those who were kind enough to give me some feedback on courses.  I register next Tuesday at 8.  I will post my course selections after I have registered.  And we can see how they jibe with your suggestions then!

Time to pick courses again

My date to register for courses in Fall and Winter is a week from today.  So soon already!

Because of credits they gave me, I can, if I choose to, take eight courses in the coming academic year and graduate in May of 2021.

What I'll do after that is something still on my mind, and something I have written about before.  At this point, I think my two top choices are either an MA in sociology, or a Bachelor of Social Science.  Anyway, I don't have to decide now, and I think I'll sit on that one for a little bit.  If any of you wants to share your thoughts, please send me a comment.  I'd love to hear what you think I should do.

Back to course selection.  There are so many things I want to take.  Isn't it wonderful that there's so much knowledge out there to be learned?  Seriously.  And now I have the time to do it, it's a real gift.  Well, sometimes writing exams and term papers get a bit much, but they actually help to internalize the learning.  It's all good.

Since I only need eight more courses to graduate, I think four per semester.  But there are so many things to choose from!  Here are my tentative choices for each semester.  A lot of them.  Let me know what you think.  I mean it.  I'd love to hear from you!

FALL:

Greek Mythology
General Public law
Roman Republic
US History 1750-1877
Europe 16-18 Century
The Vietnam Wars
The Cold War
The 1st World War
Sociology of Food and Eating
Social Psychology
Canadian Politics
International Relations



WINTER:

Anthropology of popular culture
Early Roman Empire
Europe 20th Century
FDR presidency
WW2
Sociology of work and organization
The World of Languages
Legal Theory and Social Sciences
Canadian Politics and/or International Relations (if I don't take them in Fall)


Knowing me, what do you think I should take?
Oh, and notice how I didn't include Principles of Marketing there?



Look forward to hearing from any of you!

Introspection

With lockdown and social distance in place, I've been taking very long walks daily.  As some of you may remember, I've been loading up my backpack and rucking along merrily.  Merrily, that was, until one day I decided I'd "attack" this bridge thing with its incline and quick marched up it over to the other side and back.  Four times.  Oh, I felt fine then, but damn if I didn't hurt myself in the process.

Anyway, since brevity is the soul of wit, I've had to lay off these kinds of self-inflicted tortures for a while.  So, I've been lightening the load, now to no more than 20-25 pounds, and on days when I do go to that hilly bridge, I only do it once or twice, and never race up it anymore.

Why am I telling you this?  No clue.  But it does bear some relevance to the topic today.  Introspection.  My walks generally go between 2 and 2.5 hours, so I have tons of time to reflect on things.  And sometimes these thoughts are inspired by a song I happened to hear on my playlist while taking these walks.

This morning I started thinking about younger days.  Older folks do that, in case you're wondering.  And older folks who are alone do that even more.  So there I was, thinking how my life was so different once upon a time.  Good times and bad.  Successes and failures.  And that's when this funny feeling hit me.

Easily, people lament how things were so much better before.  How young and energetic in one's youth.  How life was filled with promises and hope.  And how it has all gone to shit once you got to a certain stage of life.

Easily so.  But it's all bull.

I was having these exact thoughts, as I laboured an hour into my walk, that yes indeed, wasn't I much stronger and fitter then?  Didn't I once have a good career going?  Didn't I experience love and hope?

That's when the bull starts.  It's the frame of reference we choose to use as the base, isn't it?  Shit, I remember yes, once upon a time, I was seriously fit.  But then, hell, once upon a time I was seriously unfit.  When I was 12 years old I weighed 180 pounds.  When I was 15 I hit 230.  My waist was 42 inches.  It's what we choose to compare the present with, isn't it?

Yes, I had a good career at one point.  But I also had shit times.  When I returned to Canada in '85, after a pretty happy time with a multinational, I couldn't find a job for four months.  I was either over-qualified or I didn't have enough Canadian experience.  Great.  So I delivered Chinese food for those four months.  Yes, six years after my MBA I was delivering fucking Chinese food.

You see what I'm getting at?

It's easy to despair and say how bad things are, or why is this shit happening to me, and so on.  Sure, we all have down days.  The world treats us badly, we'd like to think.  I am the most unfortunate person in the world.

That's all bull.

No matter how bad you feel, you probably had it worse before.  And even if you didn't, I'm sure someone else is having it worse.  It's all in perspective.  Think not of how things were better before.  Think about how shitty things were, too.  And perhaps then one might realize that, hey, life ain't so bad.

This is no insight, of course.  I am preaching to any of you.  I just wanted to share with you my thoughts.  I have not been in the best of moods lately, for reasons obvious and some not so obvious.  But today's walk awakened this framing perspective in me, and I feel much better by it.

And the song I was listening to?  "Yesterday when I was young."

Summer is here.  The air con is humming.  I have time.  I have energy.  Life is grand!

See you next time!

Best Hair Day!

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