a price to pay for the road less traveled by?

It's finally over. 3 long years of hard work and sweat... (who am I kidding... only ONE year of hard work and sweat *hehehe*) and I'm more than halfway through my programme. It's over!! Now let me rejoice in the sweet bubble called denial and not think of the steady pace at which I'm edging towards working life.

But as the curtain falls on my undergrad years, I see my friends preparing for their convocation, the culmination of their 3 years of Tim Horton's coffee (or any other drug of choice) at 2 am, furious 20-page paper seasons, honing their ability to survive four days with less than 8 hours of sleep in total and somehow still manage to come up with something coherent about the artful use of rhetoric to obscure a lack of content. In a month's time, they'll be in their graduation garb, waiting for a piece of paper that they exhausted themselves for.

And their family will be on hand to partake in their joy.
The vicarious celebration of an opportunity that wasn't.
The emotional realisation that children do grow up.
The anxious attempt to capture that shaking-hands-with-the-dean moment.

Then I realize I'm not going to have that.

In a country where the education system is built on the principle of education for all, where the very low tuition costs are paid for by taxpayers, education is valued in a different way. A year in a public university in France costs around 350 Euros, of which 180 or so is for socialized health insurance. Our exams are graded on a scale of 20 and 10-12 is a satisfactory grade. I cannot see a McGill student being happy with a C- and there is virtually no way of getting an A in France (or 17/20 - unless of course I'm taking that damn mandatory english course teehee). I still think 85% for an A is friggin' ridiculous.

If you fail a year, you redo it, simple as that. If you're not happy with your course 2 years into the programme, start afresh. If you prefer a technical diploma, just go for it. While I understand that this is probably one of the reasons why I know at least a couple of 30+ year olds still in school after so many years. What I do admire about this mindset though is that there's so much less hemming and hawwing, fewer what if this what if that. Because education is cheap, it is flexible, there is room to navigate and explore till you find your niche (Not that I can exploit this anyway). There is no background talk of wasting your time and wasting your life. So at the end of 3 years, it's not so much an achievement or a milestone as a turning of a page, there is no need for fanfare.

I hope it doesn't disappoint you, Pa and Ma, that there will be no fancy pictures for a yearbook, no formal ceremony, no mortarboard to toss in the air.

A price to pay for the road less traveled by?
It's no price, it's just a circumstance that will make all the difference.

should be doing work but blogging about F1 instead

I haven't been blogging much lately cos I've been saddled by TONS of work (although i know some people who definitely have more than me). I don't have that list of x assignments, y projects and z essays lah... I can only 'boast' 2 essays, 1 term paper and 1 oral presentation only but nevertheless, I can attest to the fact that McGill is no joke. If it is, I don't get it.

Anyway, i just HAD to blog when i saw this on the BBC. Singapore is preparing a bid to host a Formula 1 race! YESSssssss! Just what I've been saying for ages. It's good for tourism, no need to set $1000 entry for Singaporeans and just plain ol' heaven for racing fans like me!

Spanish city Valencia, Greece, Russia and South Africa have also declared their interest in hosting a race. Mexico had also made plans to return to the F1 calendar while an Indian Grand Prix and a second race in the United States had been suggested.

Without knowing any of the actual details regarding race track location and track design for example, I think Singapore will face tough competition in this bid. The FIA has always been eager to decentralizing the Grand Prix, especially since Formula 1 has always been very eurocentric. In the 2000 season, 11 of 17 races were in Europe. The 18 races of the ongoing 2006 season are slightly more dispersed: 4 in Asia/Australia, 3 in the Americas, 2 in the Middle East and 9 in Europe.

How un-europeanized Bernie Ecclestone will want his F1 kingdom to be, I don't know. But Europe has had a long affair with Formula 1, a long torid affair peppered with triumphs and deaths and raised the population on tyre scraps and fuel vapours. Europe is sure to remain a staple of F1 racing. I would count Valencia out of the race, since Catalunya has been the favoured track for the past 15 years i think, and even so, Jerez would be the hopeful runner-up as it's one of the most popular test tracks around. Greece and Russia, while European, are not Western European, and so stand a chance as the exotic bastard brothers. South Africa may be a strong contender as the only hopeful candidate of the African continent. Mexico and India, I don't really have an opinion as of right now and for USA, I think they prefer their NASCAR and Champ Car Racing to F1, so if FIA adds a second US race, it's purely for the sake of trying to break into the American market.

**to be updated when this #$%@ viro exam is out of the way... prions prions. i love prions. maybe if i keep repeating that, i'll believe it.*

my roomie's girlfriend is a regular genius: episode 2

They Say Good Things Come in Threes

Ever wondered what happens when you leave two eggs in an uncovered pot on the stove for 45 mins by which time all the water evaporates and the eggs burst open?

Wonder no more.


And just when you think it takes real skill to screw up hard-boiled eggs? She does it TWICE - in the same day. And did I mention she did it a third time a week or so later?

I feel SO normal!

swearing to uphold

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.

At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

The room erupted into applause.

(via Pharyngula)

bite-sized portions of instant goodness

Somewhere on St. Denis is Suite 88 Chocolatier.

The chocolates sit in glass display cases, each single piece on a single square white plate. Two chocolate-coated cherries sit in the next case, along with a handful of chocolate-coated cranberries and three delicate chocolate-coated tuiles. It’s all very minimalist: White walls, white plates, beautiful chocolate. It’s so chic that calling it chocolate makes it sound plain and boorish, it’s definitely more chocolat than chocolate.

I love being adventurous with chocolat with new exotic flavours, especially after my trip to Paris and Bruges last spring. There’s a lovely shop, on île St-Louis along the Seine called Cacao et Chocolat, where I was introduced to strange new flavours like cayenne pepper, cardamom and Venezuelan Tonka bean. (What the hell is a tonka bean?? Don't know but I ate it all the same) In Bruges, the locals showed us the path to chocolat mecca, a place called Chocolate Line where I was rewarded with lemongrass and Wasabi flavours. Yeah, Wasabi, mmmm!

So anyway, i was oohing and aahing at the scrumptious sight to behold and resisting the urge to eat the shop from the inside out, when the salesgirl mentioned that a jalapeño flavour was available. And then I knew it: The bar of dark chocolate with jalapeño (jalapeño!) peppers – it just had to be mine.

This kind of chocolat you put whole in your mouth and let the flavour creep in gently and subtly. The dark chocolate itself was quite exquisite, just bitter enough to make for a good dark chocolate, yet sweet enough to draw out the spiciness of the jalapeños. Halfway as you’re savouring the chocolate, the jalapeños kick in, slowly at first then hard and fast progressively until finally all you have in your mouth is this spicy prickly aftertaste. It’s this aftertaste however, that kind of ruined the experience. It felt like a fake chili aftertaste, kind of like how you can tell when powdered chocolate is used in hot chocolates instead of chocolate syrup.

But the highlight of this chocolat expérience were the shooters. You bite the tip off and knock back the shot of liquor inside, before feasting on the lovely outer shell, letting it melt in your mouth while swirling it lightly with the liquor. Bite-sized portions of instant goodness! Mmmmm dee-lee-cious! I had a Soho lychee liquor one, which blended perfectly with the chocolate without either overpowering the other, making it smooth, fruity and chocolate-y all at the same time. It went down so well, it felt completely guiltfree! I’ll definitely be heading back to Suite 88 for more shooters, Absolut vodka, sake and Kahlua at least. I only wish they had more flavours, like Bailey’s, Manzana, Cointreau or champagne.

Here's a picture: It's amazing what Photoshop can do! And of course, I'm trying to be arty farty. Lindt chocolate shavings lying around!

now THIS is sudoku~

Sudoku is so hot now it has its own World Sudoku Championships.
Follow the link, scroll down and try your hand at their sample puzzles! It will blow. your. mind!!

Clique sur le lien et essaie les exemples du championnat sudoku.. C'est un truc de dingue~

preemptive culling

No, I’m not talking about sick birds.

Some time ago, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline each announced positive results for a vaccine that will help protect women against the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV, a DNA virus with over a hundred strains, is more commonly sexually transmitted than one would imagine. In fact, more than 50% of all women will become infected with HPV during their lifetime, but for the most part, these are restricted to benign warts or pass undetected. There are two oncogenic strains however, which are irrefutably responsible for cervical cancer, the second most common form of cancer in women worldwide and kills about 270,000 women a year. Both vaccines are reported to prevent 90% of new infections and ALL persistent infections.

Having a vaccine is a good thing right? Not according to some religious lobby groups.

Their problem with HPV is that it is sexually transmitted, so to prevent infection, vaccination has to be carried out before a girl becomes sexually active.

Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex."
- Bridget Maher, Family Research Council, a Christian lobby group

Since it protects against a sexually transmitted virus at a young age, some conservatives actually think that young lusty females will be encouraged to be indulged in as much pre-marital sex as they want, because ‘Hey! I’m vaccinated!’. What these conservatives advocate is abstinence from sexual activity as the cure for all evils. This is of course, true – in theory. I’m sure these conservatives are thinking to themselves ‘My children are so virtuous, they don’t need vaccination.’.

The truth of the matter is that people are having sex, and we cannot stop them from having sex. Just as was the case for condoms, IUDs, birth control pills and abortion, these measures will surely make it less worrisome to engage in sexual activity and people may find reason to engage in sexual activity but not any more than if such measures weren’t available. An epidemiologist put it nicely: Instead of seeing the HPV vaccine as a green light for sex, why not think of it as a red light for cancer?

What moral precepts allow us to think that the risk of death is a price worth paying to encourage abstinence as the only approach to sex?"
- David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate

Do all these holier-than-thou conservatives feel that it's fair to subject all women to the restraints of their religious beliefs? My cervix is mine to protect, you piece of crap.

My theory:
The US is anticipating more casualties in Iraq and possibly Iran, Palestine, North Korea and any other country that Bush is told he shouldn’t like. The American total male-to-female ratio is already at 0.97 male per female and surely they don’t want to face the problem of too many females.

Solution? Cull the oversexed godless females!

international women's day (aka blog against sexism day)

I would like to think that women today are finally considered free and equal adults. But some people go out of their way to prove me wrong.

South Dakota has banned abortion, effectively ensuring that a bunch of men can control what a woman does with her ova. Several other states are trying to follow suit to build their backward, testosterone-run country. Undoubtedly the work of lobbyists from South Dakotan coathanger corporations.

Human Rights Watch reports that rape victims in Mexico are denied access to legal abortions and subjected to routine humiliation and insult. Of course, that's because women are just asking to be raped, yeah of course.

Even when European women do better in school than men, they will get lower pay and fewer top jobs. Screw school. My A won't beat your C because I have eggs and I might have children, so I'll take my maternity leave, triple the workload of my colleagues and lower productivity.

The UN has actually posted a world classification table of the number of women in parliament. Top on the list? Rwanda. Singapore is at #66 while USA is at #69 and France is at #84. In fact, a grand total of 13 African nations and 6 Middle Eastern countries rank ahead of the US - land of the free! The 6 female heads of state of our time belong to Ireland, Latvia, Finland, Philippines, Liberia and Chile. That's cos we're emotional and thus incapable of rational decision-making. After all, we don't want an actual thinking, feeling person in charge of a nation do we??

When can we live in a world where the mere possession of testicles and a penis cannot justify such disparity?

allez l’OM... on craint dégun~!!

Living in a soccer town is a-mazin'! PSG-OM matches are super high risk. On match days, you do NOT want to be driving a car with Parisian plates or wearing PSG purple and red. Unless you’re itching to get insulted/assaulted/your car wrecked, of course.

This time, Paris had not sold the promised number of tickets to Marseille supporters and furthermore, seated them just beneath the PSG supporters. Outnumbered and vulnerable, the club chairman had refused to send first team regulars to Paris and discouraged supporters from attending the match, fearing that someone would be killed. Riiiight... So instead they sent a side of first team benchwarmers and amateur team (= 5th division) players, because we can’t get the first team regulars killed but hey it’s ok to send sacrificial lambs? Maybe they’ll do the Puss in boots ‘hey look at me I’m so cute and unthreatening’ routine and get away with it?

In any case, this jumble of non-regular first team and 5th div players held the regulars of PSG to a nil-nil DRAW. How about that?!! Even captained by the great Pauleta, PSG fell flat on their faces in front of a bunch of 'minots'!

As you can imagine, Marseille went wild!! The celebrations must have been crazy!! I can see people jumping into le vieux port, flares, horns, smokes, the works! People stormed the train station to welcome their unlikely heroes back, with you guessed it, more flares, horns and smokes!

Aw man, I want to be back to celebrate with them again! J'suis avec vous!!

Moral of the story: Better a small marseillais than a useless parisian.

one flu over the cuckoo's nest

To be added to the list: Niger and Switzerland.

the only thing i do more than cough is pee

I've coughed and sneezed my way through a midterm and 2 papers this week. Imagine trying to write an essay while coughing your lungs out. It's like coughing your brains out. I couldn't string two sentences together without coughing them apart, much less actually formulate a proper thesis on smallpox vaccination or Isaiah Berlin's two concepts of liberty.

So far I've ingested:
4 doses of paracetemol (panadol, efferalgan, doliprane)
20 strepsils
3 mint sweets swiped from the microbiology department
12 tbsp of sea coconut brand cough syrup
8+ bowls of home-brewed herbal chicken soup
6 cups of tea
6 cups of lemon honey water
countless cups of warm water
only noodle soups for the past 4 days already

Ain't that an impressive blend of Western medicine and Chinese old wives' tales?? It certainly explains the title of this post.

my roomie’s girlfriend is a regular genius: episode 1

The One with the Grilled Potatoes

So there’s this bad burnt smell first thing in the morning. My roomie’s girl is trying to cook to impress her man again and she’s ‘grilling potatoes’ to put into soup.

What’s the best way to grill potatoes in your standard modern kitchen?
Oven maybe? Toaster? Dehhhhhh, wrong answer. Something waaaaay better than that.

Well, somehow she figured that normal people grill potatoes by putting them face down directly on the hot plate. No kidding. She cut the potatoes in two and put them face down on the heating element just like that! But of course! So now the hot plate is blackened, the apartment stinks and the potatoes are carcinogenic on one side.

And she puts the potatoes into the soup anyway.

New and improved potato soup! Now with cancer!

a

happy Darwin Day~

February 12 is one of those days where geeks congregate to celebrate their geek holidays. Happy Darwin Day everyone!

Yup, Charles Darwin is 197 years old.
A lot of people think that he was the first to put forward the idea of evolution, or that he was a godless atheist who thought we descended from monkeys and not Adam and Eve. He was neither, but he was the first to propose natural selection as a causal mechanism for evolution. Although he lacked the carbon dating and the genetic tools so readily available today, evidence in favour of evolution has been piling up steadily and still coming at. Today, the scientific community at large validates evolution as a scientific fact.

Yet today, this scientific fact is being challenged as a mere theory by a handful of smartass scientists backed by small groups of ignorant conservative wackeroos who think that they know shit. This is mainly taking place in the USA (where else?) where about 45% of the population believes that God created humans in our present form. That’s 133 million people! Let’s hope scientists find a gene for ignorance, so that we can say ‘oh no they can’t help but be deluded them poor things’. This Creationism/Intelligent Design movement is pissing the heck out of me. It is nothing but religion thinly sheathed as a science-wannabe, no way can this be called a science, no way.

Anyway, I will definitely be posting more about this issue in little bite-sized pieces: The arguments ID proponents have put forward to oppose evolution, why ID cannot be a science, some of the entirely disturbing ways in which Americans are trying to force the Bible as the only science textbook and the recent Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial. (I like to think of it as the Evo vs. Wacko case.)

In commemoration of Darwin Day, I attended a talk by Dr. Brian Alters, an expert in science education here in McGill who in fact testified in abovementioned case. He was dressed in a burgundy jacket (how special!) and a tie with the Evolution of Man motif (how apt!). *haha* There, I just had to write that down.

Happy Birthday old Charlie boy.
Abraham Lincoln was born on the same day, but February 12 is Darwin Day.
a

ultimate showdown

Where else can you see Godzilla, Optimus Prime, Aaron Carter, Abe Lincoln and many more fun characters together?
Watch the Ultimate Showdown ... of Ultimate Destiny!!
a

just a small box

It was just a small box, a small plastic cubicle with one face open and a base evenly riddled with holes. I think I salvaged the components from the bookshop, the cubicle just a soft plastic casing and the base just one of those cardboard pens stands. The holes were just big enough for a marble to nestle comfortable in it and were marked with numbers.

For a small sum of I don’t know, 10 cents, 20 cents? You could get a marble and flip it into the box from a small distance. It lands on number 5? Oh man, unlucky. You don’t get anything but try again! There are strawberry-shaped erasers waiting to be won!

With the money collected, I would re-invest in new prizes and rack my brains for more fun games. This went on for maybe 3 days and then one day I was told to shut down my little act, because it constituted ‘gambling’.

Would-be gambling addict? Budding entrepreneur? I don’t know if I made any money, or if I even intended to make any money.
I was 11.
a

oh my Muhammed~!

I’ve been wanting to blog about the Muhammed cartoon uproar, but I’m conflicted. I won’t talk too much on it, given the extensive and much more eloquent coverage in the rest of the blogosphere (see Attempts) and the online news community. (see BBC)

The press has been quick to take the freedom of speech line, and European newspapers are rushing to back their Danish counterpart by republishing the cartoons. France Soir ran a frontpage with the headline 'Yes, we have the right to caricaturize God' along with a picture of Jesus, Buddha, Muhammed and Yahweh, with Jesus saying ‘Don’t complain Muhammed, we’ve ALL been caricaturized here!’


It’s not just purely a matter of caricatures and the Muslims too uptight to take a small jest. Islam tradition condemns idolatry and in doing so, advocates aniconism (i.e. no depiction of human beings). And when cartoons not only depict Muhammed but clearly associate him with terrorism, I think the press has hand-delivered Muslims a cause for their outrage. The cartoons are mostly tasteless, especially the most explicit one with Muhammed depicted with a bomb in his turban. It’s not funny. Nor is it clever and I do not see any other message except that Islam advocates violence. Drawing their prophet’s face is already a blasphemy, and labeling him a terrorist as well? This ignorant link does not lend support to a war on terrorism but a war on Islam, which the US and its supporters have vehemently denied.

Freedom of speech is not always compatible with society. You have the right to say what you want, even the most offensive of things. And while there is no reason to have the right to be free from everything one deems offensive (in fact the right to freedom of thought and expression should entail some kind of provocation), there is a need for self-discipline to not needlessly offend everyone, even those uninvolved. A mass boycott of Danish products is hurting by the millions, an innocent bystander whose only fault is its nationality.

I’m not saying that Islam should be insulated from media satirical criticism, but that it could have been done more tastefully and in respect for basic beliefs. Imagine if in the wake of all the priestly pedophilic scandals, one had depicted Jesus with his shaft up some kid, what would have the reaction been like? Or if Abraham and Moses were portrayed in tanks running over Palestinian women and children on the West Bank?

It doesn’t help that Muslim protestors from London, to Syria and Indonesia are reinforcing that crude caricature by openly calling for the deaths of the editors. The fact that the newspaper’s cultural editor commissioned the cartoonists to draw the Prophet as they saw him, already means that a general Western view of Islam is one of terrorism. With slogans like ‘Butcher/Slay/Exterminate/Massacre those who mock Islam’, they do nothing but underscore any gross stereotype. These represent but a small percentage of the international Muslim population. This radical minority is being exploited to substantiate blatant bigotry such as in this article by Steve Muscatello. He uses the example of Kanye West as Jesus on the cover of Rolling Stones magazine as a parallel event of blasphemy to Christianity and says:

When faced with a nearly identical situation, one faith resorted to violence, threats and rage like unruly savages; the other was civil, responding (if at all) with letters to the editor, calls for a boycott and many public denunciations.

Unholy Moses at Thou Shall Not Suck provides a nice stinging reply that lays bare for to see the ignorance that fuels this bigotry. He points out that radical Christians have had their fair share of violence, bombing abortion clinics and calling for the assasination of other world leaders. How is he is to say that Islam resorts to violence while Christianity is civil? There are Muslims, in Muslim and non-Muslim countries alike, who have called upon their fellowmen to take a step back and examine their religion and its image around the world. Sure they're offended too, but they're not torching embassies.

In short, while self-censorship is a counter-intuitive general solution, the European press should have considered the intimate level at which they were offending people with a set of crude and pointless drawings, crude and pointless being the key words. As a Muslim McGill student wrote in to the school paper, imagine the extreme disgust and humiliation if you were to parade your entire extended family naked along the busiest street in town. You can offend but be respectful. On the other hand, Muslims have to forward their own positive message to counter the general sinister picture in which Islam has been portrayed by the 'tyranny of the minority'.



I wonder though, isn't this picture a more appropriate look at today's world? And it isn't even the least bit satirical.

potential damage, actual stupidity

Some guy is suing Apple for potential hearing loss, saying that iPods are ‘not safe to use’. Not even actual hearing loss ok, but for potential hearing loss.

That’s like suing McDonald’s for potential obesity.
Or suing Ferrari for potential speed-related accidents.

Apple is not forcing you to expose your ears to 115 decibels.
McDonald’s is not forcing you to supersize you.
Ferrari is not forcing you to pull a Schumacher on your regular roads.

It’s ironic that today’s society demands more freedom for their own actions, yet cannot be responsible enough to choose actions that suit their own well-being. Just because you can do these things doesn’t mean you should do them. And if you choose to do them anyway, you bloody take responsibility for it. Don’t tell me you don’t know better, that iPods don’t have sufficient labeling to warn people blah blah blah. Isn't it common sense to not listen to music at full blast? The discomfort of your ears would clearly tell you that you shouldn't do it and if you ignore your body's response, then screw you. You damaged your own ears.

Sadly, people are compensating for their lack of common sense with trigger-happy litigation.
Maybe one day it'll be possible to sue these people for potential dilution of the gene pool?
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day 2 of cny, it's 7am and i'm delirious

The other night I dreamt that a python bit me on my butt.
Which pissed me off cos that’s a scientifically inaccurate dream.
Because pythons rarely bite.
Which pissed me off cos that was the most geeky thing I could have ever say the moment when I woke up.

Anyway.
It’s been a rough week. I fell victim to the gastric flu bug, same old same old.
Bedridden and nothing but soup for 3 days.
But I’m all better now (thanks to you), ready to devour the box of lovely new year goodies that my wonderful parents send me every year.
Gong xi fa cai everyone!

The year of the dog opened with a whimper.
Essay due, quiz the following day, missed lectures to catch up on...
So how did I spend my first day of CNY?
I pulled my first-ever all-nighter (yay me!), writing about how George Orwell’s 1984 depicts a liberal dystopia against the account of liberalism of Judith Shklar.
Shklar Schmlar…
I don’t like that essay of hers, it’s unstructured and misleading and yet, she’s the prof’s hero.
Bah.
1984 is a good read though, highly recommended!!

Now the question is
Do I go to prop my eyelids up with matches, go to class in 1 hour’s time and snooze through Wainberg?
Or do I snooze at home and screw too-busy-to-offer-me-a-lab-position Wainberg?

when montreal freezes over

You know how roads are slightly convex so that runoff can drain properly into the sewers? Think that, but completely iced over.

You know how at the traffic lights, the pavement slopes off gently to meet the asphalt? Think that, but completely iced over.
In fact think ANYthing whatsoever, but iced over.

Welcome to the Winter Wonderland from hell!
The Disney on Ice of the Dark Side!!!

Ok I exaggerate. (I can’t help it! It’s the Marseille in me)
Today, freezing rain pummeled down on this wintry city.


Just a quick explanation without getting too geeky on you:
Freezing rain is snow that hits a warm front and melts into water droplets, which then pass through a cold front and is supercooled, such that it freezes on impact.

Every drop that hit was instant ice.
Roads were iced over.
Pavements were iced over.
Highways were iced over.
With all this ice, even the gentlest slope became a treacherous nightmare.


It was hell getting to school. Some roads had to be closed off in the morning; on others, firemen had to string ropes across so that people could tow themselves across. Cars had no traction whatsoever and since the university area is essentially on a hill, this meant that cars were frantically spinning their wheels, not to gain any ground in the process but to simply avoid slipping backwards down the hill and crashing into the other fellow behind him. People were falling left right centre front and back, from the simple ones who catch themselves just in time to the dramatic all-out belly-up cartoon flop! If you didn’t break your neck while going up the hill, no worries you’ll get a chance to break it again when you go down.

Considering that going to school under these circumstances might literally kill you? You’d expect that McGill has been around long enough to realize that students who break their necks in trying to get to classes that they didn’t cancel isn’t such a good idea after all. But no, not a single email from the school or a word on their website. My 9.30 a.m. class was not cancelled at all, never mind the fact that it was in a building on the upper more sloping parts of campus. People actually risked their necks to get there, and well the prof was stuck in traffic on the way there (doh!). So everyone had to slide their way back down to Lower Campus for absolutely nothing. Don’t worry about me – I skipped that class obviously.

Montreal is crazy.
Within a span of 5 days, we went from a toasty 6°C to a deathly -30°C, to snow, to freezing rain.

As one friend put it, the weather here is SO PMS-mood-swingy.

Ennis Del Mar-ism

If you’ve already watched Brokeback Mountain, you’ll know what I mean by Ennis Del Mar-ism.

It's not about cowboys, it’s not about gays, it’s not about whether homosexuality is right or wrong or left or right.
Or top or bottom for that matter.

Now I assure you I’m not one of those desperately-in-love-with-Jake Gyllenhaal types. Sue me but I think he’s ugly. Yet there’s a certain something in his character Jack Twist’s doe-eyed look that enthralled me. His eyes searched the depth of Ennis’ soul, willing him to understand that sometimes you have to take a leap.

Jack Twist is that sliver of optimism waving wildly, trying to cling onto our attention for more than just that fleeting moment.
To say 'somewhere someday somehow things will work out'.
But the voice of realism obscures him, in the way Ennis systematically turns away from hope and towards denial, letting the one good thing he had slip from his grasp.

It’s about that mechanical rationality, which tells us that we’re making the right choice, we ARE, even as we feel our hearts tremble and shrivel in sorrow.
We believe in procedural logic, in the mechanistic evaluation of pros and cons and sweep away the emotions we deem transient and inevitable.

I think we all are Ennis Del Mar in some way.
At each forkroad, we are invariably more tempted to pick the one that is ‘right’, that either yields more apparent benefit or procures less suffering. Instead of reaching for dreams, we’re content to trudge along and play it safe.

Three years ago, I came to such a forkroad, a path leading to Washington University and one leading to Université de la Méditerranée. The former had a greater sense of familiarity and opportunity, the latter a thrill and hesitation of unknown adventure. Frankly speaking, during my first year in France, I did question my decision and sometimes I still do, especially when I worry about becoming irrelevant in today’s society of Harvard and Cambridge graduates. But there are no regrets, only pride, that I took the offbeat path.

Today, there are more decisions to be made, and I risk turning away from an important part of my life because I’m afraid of facing my fear of incapability.

Go away Ennis Del Mar.
When you know you have a good thing, the stupidest you can do is to let it go.