Persistent Illumination

Hillside in review, briefly:

Friday - seamlessly got to the site and got set up. Kim, Neal and I got ourselves proper passes and permissions after missing the non-existent conflict resolution training, and then got set up in the "quiet" volunteer camping area not too far from the volunteers' private beach. The rule is - party in the "loud" area, sleep in the "quiet" area (and party we did, but that's later). Before it started, we enjoyed the relative calm and quiet of the Guelph Lake Conservation Area.

When the festival opened, I stuck with the collaborative events. Hillside has four active stages: Main Stage, Island Stage, Lake Stage and Sun Stage. Main Stage is a permanent venue - raised by and for Hillside, with such acts as the Barenaked Ladies and the Tragically Hip playing fundraisers there to help support its construction and maintenance.

Three other stages are erected for each festival, though, and due to the wealth of space many "big name" acts often take an hour or so out of their time to sit on stage with four or five other artists and collaborate together musically. Ironically enough, the first such venue of the festival was "Melancholy Melodies" - the MC announced at the start "if anyone in the tent here is happy .... leave." Hillside stays very true to the Blues' place as one of the roots of rock and roll, and I couldn't be happier. Often the Blues acts are my favourite pieces.

Caught a few other performances on Friday night, including a great collaboration with the Toronto violinist who goes under the moniker "Final Fantasy" - what he can do with a violin makes me weep. When the music stopped the party kept going, though, and I was around at the very beginning of the traditional raging bonfire with some 200 people partying around it, all in the special volunteer-only area. Gotta love the Hillside community. Got to bed around 1:30am

Saturday - early morning swim and yoga (my own personal Hillside tradition) followed by touring around a few acts. Then I ran the front gates from 2pm until midnight, mostly clowning around with incoming patrons and busting the teenagers who try and sneak in. Mostly just chatted with an EWB chapter past-president who was serendipitously put on shift with me.

Caught Saturday night headliner Sarah Harmer from across the channel, sweet music but nothing I'm sad about missing in person. I usually shy away from the headliners (Sunday's Feist was nothing to be proud of, for example) and this year was sadly no exception. Only the 2005 Saturday night headliner - The Arcade Fire - has been worth catching in all my Hillside years (and they were FANTASTIC!)

Saturday night was the volunteer appreciation party - thrown just for us, and beer tents open! Also caught the bonfire later that night, and again, bed at 1:30am

Sunday - Sunday Morning Gospel Blues Jam. What can I say? It's a profound experience. Even the busiest person at the festival - the Volunteer Coordinator, who oversees 1100 people and some 70 coordinators all weekend - takes the time out to attend the entire event. Part church, part entertainment but all celebration, the Jam was not to be missed. From traditional hymns like "Wade in the Water" and "This Little Light of Mine" to more biting political pieces, the event was quite moving. It's church, Hillside style - and we wouldn't have it any other way. The range of musical talent onstage was truly overwhelming as well - each singer inspired the audience to gasp "it can't get any better than that," only to be blown away by the next voice. Sarah Harmer, Greg Hoskins and many others took part at the event MCed by Ken Whitely, who could very well be the grandfather of rock and roll (he looks like Santa Claus and is about as compassionate), a man who clearly understands the sacred place that music can hold.

As for the rest of the day, I made sure to stop by the various workshop tents, but nothing caught my eye this year. Drifted by various musical acts, from the Hylozoists' zylophone/cello/violin mix to some hard-core freestyle rap. Again the collaborations caught most of my time and attention, though, and I stuck to the bluesier acts. Also made sure to take part in the great food - Diana Downtown, gelato, organic ice cream, the works. And I of course downed my (single) traditional Hillside beer - my only form of intoxication of the festival - enjoying the fact that Hillside is sponsored by Steamwhistle.

Sunday night, packed up and came home, and am now very very exhausted - but happy. In review, it didn't rain and the ambulances weren't called once (somebody always gets heat stroke) so it was great from an organizational perspective as well. Next year I'll likely be a coordinator, which will be loads of fun.

Oh, and I believe that the devil was at Hillside this year, but I still don't know that I could recognize him in person so I couldn't kick him off the island. Perhaps next year. Fun and business aside, there was that small part of me that remembered who, and how, and where I was last year - it's hard to forget the fact that it has all been ripped away.

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Dude, I am TIRED.

Simon's back from Africa, and sounding very pumped about his trip.

Phil will be here next Friday. He will then be teaching me calculus!

There will be no yoga studio at the Seagram Lofts. Not that they weren't beautiful, but the floor layout wasn't quite right to run a studio out of. It would be a beautiful place to live, though - anybody got $300 grand to spare? :)

Out of energy. May take a nap. :)

So I am honestly, truly, actually looking for a place to open up a yoga studio in Waterloo. Well, not just me, but myself and a few people I've met with similar interests. Current plan is to rent a house somewhere near uptown and actually have the yoga studio in-house.

So I'm thinking, why rent? Why not just buy the house, pay a bit more in the mortgage but get your money back when you sell it.

And why a house? Why not here? (Be sure to look at all the photos!)

I'm in the Daily Bulletin again. That is, I'm published in the Daily Bulletin again. Wouldn't want to be in the DB myself, not for anything lately.

** SPOILER ALERT!! Do not read if you have not seen Superman Returns yet. This is a serious spoiler, I'm not kidding around here!! **

Sure, lots of others are raving about how cool it would be to be able to stop a bullet with your eye, just like the new Superman did. But what really made the movie for me was the moment when the little kid kills the badguy with a piano. A little kid. Kills a badguy. With a PIANO. I think that may very well be the best killing-of-a-badguy that I've ever seen in a movie, ever. Do NOT mess with Superman's girlfriend, much less the mother of his child!

Otherwise, it was an interesting approach at an iconic American figure. After having suddenly disappeared for years, the symbolization of "truth, justice and the American way" has returned to Metropolis (unabashedly played by New York City) to inspire, save and lead humanity. This is quite telling in the moment when the newly-returned Clark Kent flips through TV channels and sees disaster around the world. Yet even in the face of finding out his girlfriend had left him, he still tirelessly goes out to "get" the bad guys. This could have been a very moving theme for our current times, though I feel that potentially pertinent messages were rather glossed over.

I have a few fundamental problems with this movie, above and beyond the fact that Supe's CLOTHES seem also to come from Krypton (ie, they're bulletproof, what's up with that?). Despite one shamelessly montaged evening of worldwide activity, the Man of Steel focuses rather exclusively on the good old U.S. of A. He's not spending as much time stopping missiles in the Middle East as he is stopping convenience store robberies in Brooklyn. This helps the movie avoid some of the more pressing problems in the world today. I'm not sure the word "terrorism" was even in the movie.

Next, of course, is the suggestion that only Superman can solve so many of the problems that plague us. Lois Lane's Why the world doesn't need Superman is put in a negative light, a brainchild of darker thoughts and times. Rather, the movie says, yup, we need Superman. No sense in empowering people to save themselves - let Supe do it.

The movie also ignores the fact that all of the more serious problems he faced in it were caused by his own planet's intervention on Earth. No Krypton intervention = no crystals, no blackout, no plane falling from the sky, no island sprouting up in the Atlantic, no alien technology for Lex Luthor ... you get the picture. Even the Simpsons got that message, if you remember the end of the Australia episode. Superman seems to spend the most time dealing with problems that his very existence causes. Perhaps his vacation wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Criticisms aside, though, I loved the movie and I still love Superman. He is an American icon and you can bet I had a Superman lunchbox as a kid.

I spent the day at the beach today.

My littlest brother is on safari in Africa.

My sister and her partner are on vacation for ten days in San Francisco (mostly on my dime, I should add).

Phil is in Edmonton, but he will be coming to Waterloo for another summer wedding soon.

Matt is at home with family in Michigan.

My parents recently got back from Shanghai.

My dad has encouraged me to try and get my master's thesis published. It's a good idea.

I was already asked to volunteer with an organization at UW before I had even handed in my acceptance of their grad school offer. (EWB, of course)

I'm likely going to help Management Sciences put on orientation activities during the fall, which is relatively unprecedented. For them, of course, not for me. ;)

I've heard back from one of my future classmates, who says that job prospects for us look quite good.

I started my morning yoga teaching sessions with Shad Valley today. 7am start time, and we'll be going three days a week from here on in.

And most newsworthy of all is Neal's news piece: The ethics of news and sex

All in all, life is pretty good.

Yes, the deed is done. Jeff Henry may now be an Arts major, but I will be enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering for at least a year.

Straight from the Dean's Message:

"We connect research to education: Waterloo Engineering is not a training school, teaching students out of textbooks written by someone else. We wrote the textbooks."

I love it.

More news to follow.

Last night I spent at the Jane Bond, just on a spur of the moment. Drank a few and chatted a bit with my oldest Waterloo friend, Jill, and one of her co-workers. Meaghan Johnson showed up and we sat and chatted at the bar for quite some time. Topics covered ranged from yoga teacher training to the shifting of perspectives in the US about world politics. It was, suffice to say, a very good time, one of the best I've had at my old haunting ground in a good long while.

Today I met with Anastasia and Paul for a very brief lunchtime meeting. Nothing like turning the world upside down in a heartbeat. Turns out both my living accommodations and my practice location might be closely integrated: we all may live together at a place that will feature an in-house yoga studio, where we will all be teaching. Yes, if that's true, I may have a very interesting year coming up.

Tomorrow morning I will be turning in my acceptance for the offer of admission to graduate studies in UW's Management Sciences program. Nothing like waiting until the very last day to drop it off, but I wanted to go for the auspicious date of the 14th to make this serious committment. OK, I'm not actually superstitious, I was going to drop off the acceptance today but ran out of time as I was in a meeting with Matt Erickson.

I have already been in touch with all of my professors for the management sciences classes. Economic concepts for management promises to take it easy on us economic greeners (and I *heart* game theory); I'm a bit apprehensive about the math involved in Principles of Operations Research; and I have no qualms about taking what the professor reports as an introductory version of Organizational Theory and Behaviour. I'm also going to try and add in my first-year calculus and algebra courses on top of that workload.

So yes, I have started Over-Extenders Anonymous up again. Because I'm going to need it. :)

I will also likely serve as the head TA for the ECON 220: Principles of Entrepreneurship class *or* as a TA/RA for the MBET 611: Applied Business Leadership Skills class. I may be the founding editor-in-chief of a twice-per-term publication extolling the virtues of UW's entrepreneurial organizations, activities and ventures. (After all, I would have to pay for grad school somehow.)

Oh, and I'll be teaching sunrise yoga for the Shad Valley participants three times a week until the end of July. That's right - 6:30am yoga sessions for the rest of the month. Hoo-rah!

There will be two more viewings of Thank You for Smoking - once for Meagan and Shelly, both coming in from out of town, and once with Jeff and Kate. And I am definitely not missing Snakes on a Plane next month, because even if it sucks completely (and we all know it will, that's the idea right?) I have almost peed my pants laughing at some of the humourous SoaP culture that has sprung up on the internet. And I will definitely stand up and cheer when Samuel L. Jackson delivers the line "There are motherf%&!ing snakes on this motherf!@#ing plane!!"

As I write this, I realize that I'm not leaving a lot of time in my schedule for dating, unless she likes yoga, political satire and watching Samuel L. Jackson take a taser to CGI snakes mid-strike. Hmmmm....not that I don't recognize my reasons for my neglect, but I may have to reschedule a bit.

Well, it's clearly the craziest outcome of the game that I've ever heard of! And I don't mean because he got a house - it's because he got to be on stage with Alice Cooper.

Though there always is that urban legend about the frosh team that came back with a Mac truck, up from a penny. Not sure I believe that one, though.

• Kipling, Saskatchewan
  
• One Red Paperclip
  

Have I mentioned, by the way, that I have a coffee mug that I'd like to trade ya?

In just under two hours, the World Cup Championship game will start. I am most wholeheartedly cheering for Italy.

On Friday, I sent an e-mail to extended family (on my mom's side) cheering for Italy. My mom's father's side is Italian. I received some expectedly colourful responses:

Uncle Bob: "VIVE LA FRANCE!!! C'est NOUS qui vainquerons!!!"
(My mom's sadly deluded little brother lives in Toulousse, France)

Aunt Toni: "Watch this: Andiamo a Berlino a riprenderci la coppa" (video clip attached of Italy beating Germany in the semi-finals)
(My mom's incredibly accurate second youngest sister lives in Sicily)

Cousin Chris: "Italy beat Australia so I'm obviously rooting for France. They play better soccer anyways."
(Chris, despite having been raised in the USA, was born in Australia. When asked why he didn't thus want Italy to win, on the rationale that it's best to lose to a stronger team (World Cup champs-to-be, no less), his motive was plain and simple: vengeance.)

Uncle Teo: "Berlin, Germany; June 24, 2006; 11:42 PM. After the Mexico-Argentina game the FIFA decided that the 2006 World Cup was cancelled." (fake press release follows)
(Uncle Teo, though it's been more than a decade that he's been a prof at UC Santa Barbara, was born in Mexico)

Mom: "Your mother's side has as quite a bit of German in it too. Your Grandmother's maiden name was Kraus. May the best team win!"
(My mom, after having raised five children, is diplomatic by nature (read: she's a fence-sitter). She is correct, though: I am glad the Germans won against Portugal yesterday)

Brother Philip: "I am a big crybaby who calls the other teams names when Germany does not win. Thus, I will be cheering for France"
(Philip has been sitting in front of a computer for too many years of his life and lacks a grasp on reality)

VIVA ITALIA!!!!

In yet another weekend of "I manage to keep myself busy without having made any plans:"

- drank beer and played trivia with Neal on Thursday night
- Movie night at a friend's on Friday night. They do monthly get-togethers with varying themes. Friday's theme: vengeance. At first I thought it might be cathartic, but we watched Payback (silly) and Oldboy (deeply, deeply, deeply disturbing - don't ever see it). Otherwise it was good company, though.
- went to IKEA's summer sale (Burlington) on Saturday morning with Michelle. It was HUUUUUUUGE!
- Saturday afternoon nap. Better pleasures in life? Few.
- dropped in on the Waterloo Jazz Fest. Stuck around to hear some crooners, it was a good time. Had the briefest of conversations with an old ESQ workmate as I walked out the front gates. The conversation went like this:

"Andrew! How are you?"
"Fine, thanks"
"Really? Are you sure?"
...

What kind of question is that? I could guess, but I didn't stop to ask what it meant.

In life, I've discovered that there are a few things that I really have a knack for. For better and for worse, I've been reconfirming lately that standardized tests are one of those things.

Practicing for the Graduate Record Examinations (GREs), I've been taking some random practice tests and quizzes online. Turns out they're not that dissimilar from the SATs, thus my initial practice scores have been pretty high. Now that GREs are on computer-based testing, I may just take the tests sooner rather than later, just to get it over with. With the GMATs (business school grad tests) I'm in the same boat, with the exception of one particular type of question that I haven't seemed to be able to master.

Now, this may sound nice, but it's not. International standardized tests like the GRE are reviewed rigourously and repeatedly by expert test-makers. This makes them very nice for us test-taking geeks, especially if we've worked to understand how they're written. But when it comes to actually taking tests in a university setting, those tests are often not so scrupulously reviewed by their makers - sometimes a mix of grad students and professors. There is a huge difference between taking a test made by experts and one made by novices - especially when you're conditioned to the former. Let's just say I learned THAT one the hard way. Know what I mean, Vern?

Speaking of grad school, though, I am on the edge of my time limit to announce whether or not I'd like to accept my offer of admission to UW's Masters of Management Sciences program. After a discussion with the professor who will likely be my thesis co-advisor, I'm leaning much more closely to "yes." No small part of this is due to the fact that I've learned that the MBET program (indeed, the whole CBET) was moved to the Faculty of Engineering at UW as of May 1, 2006. Since both my areas of interest will both be in the same department, it will be that much easier for me to do cross-over work (and get funding for TAships and research projects). All the fun of the MBET at the price of regular grad school, w00t. Which, I might add, will end up being cheaper than my arts undergrad.

(Why worry about the GREs/GMATs then? Well, there is life after grad school, after all. And it just may be ... more grad school! Currently eyeing MPP / MPA programs both at home and abroad. If I can finish the MMSc/MASc degree in a year (completely possible) then I may move directly on to more school from there.)

Caught up with Sarah Lewis for coffee at some ridiculously early hour this morning. It was great, I haven't seen her in a long time. She's considering a long-term placement overseas with EWB ... a whole year abroad. I applaud her bravery!

At work, I made a presentation about the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) for all staff members and corporate partners. Yet another piece of (federal) government legislation with which I am becoming increasingly familiar. Plus it was nice to have the lot of us sit around and find the flaws in the policy ... surprisingly easy, to be honest.

Last night I taught yoga at Atlas again, this time at the new space in downtown Kitchener. It was an interesting experience, with the room quite unfinished, but I think we did the best we could with what we had. It was nice to teach for those I knew, as well - Julia, Michelle, Meagan.

Afterwards I cooked dinner for Meagan and we caught up on old times, mostly her planting experiences from this summer. Her legs were still a bit scarred up, but healing quickly. It was a great pleasure to hang out with someone so well grounded. We later took a walk to campus and through uptown, just generally reminiscing and catching up. She's off to Queen's for physio school in the fall, and it was interesting to see the world through the eyes of an over-extender who has truly cut the cord from UW.

Speaking of OEA, one student senator recently asked if he could bring the club back to life. I provided him with the proper documentation, being sure to include my name on the membership list as an alumnus.

Amazing brain repairs itself!

Now that's my kind of story! And to think, it was a few scant years ago (during the NIMH's "Decade of the Brain," no less) that we still thought that once brain cells die, they're gone for good.

We've since learned that brain cells can regenerate, of course, but this is the first case I've ever heard of of somebody just waking up suddenly out of a "minimally conscious state" and being able to speak fluently after a very short three day time period.

Happy Independence Day, indeed!

Today I'm learning all about the Wikimedia Foundation, the people who run the free on-line dictionary Wikipedia. By "learning all about" I mean that I'm reviewing their organizational structure, bylaws, corporate history and upcoming Wikimania 2006. That's right - Wikimania 2006. Online information geek heaven. And it's at Harvard. wOOt!

I have two main personal e-mail accounts, one that predates the dawn of mass e-mail spam and one that was created afterwards. The care with which I guarded the earlier e-mail address, then, was much less than that which I afforded the newer. The earlier account ended up on its fair share of subscription lists and posts, the later account has been given out to none except the most trusted sources (eg, close friends, personal banking).

The difference shows greatly. On the newer account, I received a total of eighteen (18) spam messages for the month of June. Yes, fewer than twenty spam messages in an entire month. On the older account, however, I received two hundred and forty-six (246) spam messages in the first two days of July alone. Quite the difference.

I have another new e-mail account that I now use for registrations and subscriptions online. In this account, 197 messages were caught in the spam filter last month - but 308 more that ended up directly in my inbox.

Good luck to my little brother Simon, who heads to Africa this week on safari. Though the trip comes as part of his degree in wildlife biology, he's much more focused on photography and will be taking a fair amount of both still shots and video footage. I look forward to seeing both.

Otherwise, it's been a quiet weekend. Neal and I toured the Cambridge Architecture school on Friday morning, quite interesting and the students tried to convince me to enrol for a second degree as a mature student. Pictures from our trip can be found here.

Then, back on main campus, I met with the Dean of Arts before lunch (it was his last day as dean and we had a few important issues to discuss), caught lunch with Neal at Mel's, and then wandered back to campus where I helped out with Shad Valley prep (2006 season starts today) and met with Professor Barbara Bulman-Fleming on an issue relating to the recently-formed ad-hoc Academic Integrity committee. As I'm planning my future, it doesn't escape me to take note of the type of environment I choose to spend my holiday in.

And then I caught some of the Italy-Ukraine World Cup quarterfinal. I decided then to start cheering for Italia, no small part due to my own heritage. It's only a fortunate coincidence that both England and Brazil were bumped out since then...

Yesterday was a write-off, a complete lazy day, which was wonderful. Wandered by the Canada Day celebrations in the afternoon and ended up at a Moogk-Soulis family dinner. Afterwards, we played a quick game of Carcassone (I won again) and headed out to the fireworks. They always exhaust me completely, for some reason, so then it was home to bed.

Today it's been equally lazy, spending the morning reviewing the Criminal Code of Canada especially as it relates to Libel, Criminal Negligence and Criminal Harassment. No plans yet for the rest of the day...