After seven weeks of holidays, visiting family, days on the beach and evenings on the patio, and the random bonfire, I have to say, it is good to be home. Of course I miss my sister and her family (who graciously houses my family every summer) but after a while, I miss the city.
Now that we are home, it is time to get serious – I start my PhD in a few short weeks, and am looking forward to learning a new field, new cannons and new ideas. It will also be nice to have a new direction to blog in.
Last night, after dinner, I opened up my fortune cookie and it said:
“You function best when you can apply your sense of organization and structure”
How apropos 😉
Well, after much rambling yesterday, I have decided to continue on with my vacation. There will be plenty of time (like 10 months!) to be in the city, and summer vacation only lasts so long. As a good friend told me last night, I would be a little crazy to come home before I absolutely had to – most people try to extend their holidays, not cut them short. (Perhaps having a second day with a decent internet connection has changed my mood as well – who knows heh)
But since I am sticking around for 17 more days, I figure I must get some of the work done that I have had on my play since I left Montreal. The book review that I am writing for RCCS is almost done – if anyone is interested in helping me edit it (only 1,000 wrds) please let me know – the two people who usually edit are currently MIA. I have to write a wrap up report for a project that I started eons ago (a reminder why it is important to get everything done all at once – so hard to get back into the headspace of the research no matter how much I read over the material. And finally, sitting on my bedside table, collecting dust is Derrida’s Of Grammatology, which I FINALLY got through the translators preface last night! Now if it can stop being sunny out, maybe I will get some work done!
*could I have found a cheezier title… maybe… if I thought hard enough about it.
It has been a pretty good summer so far. I cannot believe it is the first of August already though. Decision time is upon me – when to go home, formally end ‘summer vacation’ and get back to ‘work’…
I have had very little access to the internet over the last 5 weeks (it is harder than you think to find an open wireless connection out in the country!). It has been a mixed blessing. We all talk about ‘getting away from it all’ and ‘recharging our (mental) batteries’ but how much is too much? I have come to realize that without a steady connection, after about a week I start to feel anxiety and an urge to go home, back to the city where I am garanteed my own secure network, whether in my office or out on my back balcony – but if all else fails, there is always one of many free wireless networks to connect to (usually institutional ones – i promise). Not that I need to be online all the time, but just knowing that it is there if I need it… If I get into an argument over the definition of something, having google at my fingertips … If I am hired for an impromptu few hours of reference mining, then I can turn the computer on, open a beer and search at my leisure. Instead, I have been chained to my sister’s 10 hours of dial-up /mo. on her IBM pc purchased in 1997 (nary an upgrade to speak of to boot!).
But is it really just about my being able to connect when I want to? As much as I hate to admit it, I think its a bit more egocentric than that… I miss being able to check my email a few times a day. I miss feeling like I am in the loop (cannot believe that I havent turned on trillian in over a month!!). And it is not simply lacking internet that makes me feel this way… I think…
Being away for the summer can be rejuvenating, but it can also be alienating. It’s funny, because a good friend of mine, who stays in the city all summer, always talks about feeling like she is missing something when we all go away for the summer. Ironically enough, I feel the same way when I am gone. Not to take anything away from the incredibly wonderful time I get to spend on the east coast. Seeing my family, swimming in the ocean, having regular bonfires and marvelling at the stars (and how clearly we can see them) while laying on the grassy hill behind my sister’s house is nothing to balk at. And to be able to do it for 5-7 weeks a year, complaining would just be downright rude – but if I could only have my cake and eat it too…private jet?? teletransportation?? or maybe just a nice high-speed internet connection at my disposal, the line between summer and the city might not seem a thousand kilometers away (well, 1,011 kms to be exact!).
As summer vacation rolls by (a bit too quickly for my liking), my internet access has been alot more intermittent than anticipated. So far, only minimal work-related reading has been done (need to finish up that review for the Galloway book). I have been shamelessly eating up fiction books as if they were going out of print – knowing that come this fall, fiction-reading will be a faint memory. If I can clear my plate of current projects by the end of the month, I should be able to start my PhD with a clean slate and fresh direction.
Heading off to the wonderful east coast of Canada for holidays with my family. Should have some internet connection along the way – but will be AFK most of the month of July.
Enjoy the sun!
From WOXY.com – if their trials and tribulations have not been enough with funding and support – the next axe may be the final one, all across the board of internet radio stations.
The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger. Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!).To protest these rates and encourage you to take action and contact your Congressional representatives, WOXY.com is taking part in the Day of Silence by silencing both our main channel and WOXY Vintage for today. Don’t fret, the rock returns at Midnight EDT this evening.Please call your Congressional Representatives today to ensure the future of Internet radio. Click this link for instructions how. For more background and information, check out KurtHanson.com and SaveNetRadio.org.
CALL YOUR CONGRESSPERSON NOW TO ASK THEM TO CO-SPONSOR H.R. 2060 THE INTERNET RADIO EQUALITY ACT, INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES JAY INSLEE (D-WA) AND DONALD MANZULLO (R-IL)Toll-free Capitol Hill switchboard numbers:
1 (800) 828 – 0498 . 1 (800) 459 – 1887 . 1 (800) 614 – 2803
1 (866) 340 – 9281 . 1 (866) 338 – 1015 . 1 (877) 851 – 6437
As I sit here on yet another night, contemplating Facebook suicide, I am struck with strong feelings of unwanted nostalgia. So much of my Facebook experience has been about ghosts from my life (lives) past resurfacing; from early childhood friends to old party friends and extended family I haven’t spoken to in at least 10 years. I find myself wanting to look up people I have – up to this point – had no interest in ever contacting again; and I must admit – I am not happy with this feeling at all.
As I prepare to click the “deactivate account” button, deleting personal information, likes and dislikes, quotes and notes – I struggle with the desire to broaden this false sense of a personal network contrasted with the desire to walk away from it all – if only for the reason of a lack of ability to define its purpose in my life. For all of my personal disdain of it, I cannot seem to hit the button. Is it the fear of missing out on something? The fear of being ‘network-less’? Is my Facebook profile nothing more than a hyper-personalized version of my blog – where my friends can see who each other are (if they even care)?
For all of the talk (academic and otherwise) surrounding the importance and/or (ir)relevance of social networking sites like FaceBook, all I can think of is that it is really a space of absolute (impersonal) voyeurism in a most acceptable (although not perfect) form. A space created by the subject, yearning for people to look in on their little slice of constructed selves. A space where you can ‘bump’ into (while searching for) old acquaintances and new colleagues without the pretense of a reunion or conference. A purely narcissistic space where I believe (wish?) people care what Kelly is doing 3 times a day.
I am very happy to say that I have just received an email informing me that I have been accepted to Universite de Montreal’s newly minted PhD en “études cinématographiques“. I will be working with Dr. Bernard Perron as my primary advisor. Working with Dr. Perron, I will be able to continue on a Game Studies trajectory, and remain in a close and productive academic community that I have been a part of for the last few years. I barely have the words at the moment to describe how happy I am.
This morning was my MA Convocation ceremony from Concordia University (Montreal, QC) – although about 3 hours long (4 if you count having to be there an hour early), the ceremony was nice, and the air was not too hot. My mother travelled from Nova Scotia to be here for it, and woke me up with a great graduation card. In the front it looks like this:
The eyes are actual googly eyes stuck onto the card! …. And inside it says: Congratulations, Brainiac!
You can find the card here, along with other great cards and gifts.
kellyboudreauphd.ca