Below are the 14 most recent journal entries recorded in Nick's LiveJournal:

Thursday, March 9th, 2006
5:05 am	Italy! Notice that I'm up at 5 this morning. Just finished my economics commentary, one of many anticlimactic duties that prevent me from becoming hysterical about my impending departure for Italy. For yes, Nick is going to Italy. As a total travel virgin, this is like intergalactic travel to me. I'm been going back and forth between Brampton and Montreal for a few years, with some stopeovers in Ottawa. Went to Winnipeg once when I was three. So given the history of my journeying, the eternal city resting on seven hills has the dreamlike status of Andromeda beyond the Milky Way. If I have internet access in Italy I'll keep "you" posted. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, March 3rd, 2006
8:39 pm	Jungian memory Jungian psychology is generally viewed to be a quack science, but for the sake of doing something while my laundry brews, I'm going to express an interested attitude on the subject. Its tenet of ancestral memory holds that individuals may have knowledge, recollections, or motives inherited from their ancestors. When I read about Canadian and European history, I feel differently from the way I do about other epics. I feel like I "remember" the Middle Ages, because that's "us," and it's like "I" was there. It feels critically important, and as if it's mere review of something the memory of which I carry with me. Of course, while I am the biological child of Rome, I've also grown up within the same cultural sphere as my genetic origin. Of course the Renaissance feels like a memory; I've been enjoying its results all my life. Of course the colonial past feels like inherent knowledge, I've been studying it for years. My own experience thus creates a problem for me as a researcher. I wonder then: does Canadian history feel like memory to someone who is within the culture as much as I am, but has a foreign ancestral genesis? Similarly, does that foreign history feel like memory to someone to whom its modern product is alien? Does the Chinese adoptee feel a tug between Canadian identity and Cathayan origins? Would that exacerbated simply by societal prejudices or is it natural to apart from a land without grandparents? As a person with two ethnic backgrounds, Franco- and Anglo-Quebecer, though, I do have some experience with roots ambiguity. I don't think I could ever be so integrated into one side of my background that I could renounce the other completely. Mind you, this is slightly different from the questions posed above, which explore the contrast between biological and cultural roots. In my case, however, I experience both aspects of identity but with different sets of identity itself. So frankly, I think it's only responsible for my interest, but it can't give me answers to the central inquiry in this dissertation. (Comment on this)
Monday, February 20th, 2006
11:10 pm	High Schools as City-States I had this fantasy this afternoon of Brampton's housing dissolving into fields, so that local high schools could form independent societies as towns and villages. Mainly I just want to build a city wall around campus, complete with gates and towers. It would make for some very impressive imagery. While we're at it we can use one of the east fields to build an acropolis with temples to our gods. Some of those fields could be put to good use, once divided into streets and blocks. We could till the nearby soil, and maybe conquer some neighbouring high school-city-states. Subject them to our tyranny. Impose an empire. That sort of thing. As long I can give some direction to the flegling people. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 18th, 2006
1:40 pm	Black History Month Guess what. There's a Black History Month display at TFSS' library. In the middle of all these books about the wonders of being black, there's Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men". You could argue that the subtitle "and other sorry excuses for the state of the nation" means that it's an appropriate thing to put in the display, but realistically, passersby will only glance at the large lettering. This is no accident, and it's grossely offensive. What little respect I had for this "black history" (?) is gone now. It says a lot about a racial group if they need to have any event, let alone a whole month, to tell themselves that they're worthy people. Can't we all just live our lives without being told how important it is that traffic lights were invented by a man of this-or-that race? "Where is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?" - Saul Bellow (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 10th, 2006
10:42 pm	Why won't livejournal let me indent paragraphs?! I can't write under this heinous tyranny! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
10:18 pm	Our Constitution Rules PDG yesterday. Political Discussion Group, for those who aren't in the know. It was a very educational experience, meaning that it was my first real-life confrontation of the enemies of constitutional democracy. What happened is the convo degenerated into an argument about same-sex marriage (everything is always about ssm, as I'm sure you've found). Certain people may not be taken seriously, meaning that they alternate between Atheism, Judaism, Socialism and rightist populism. They like others, such as Sonam Cheema, would submit issues of civil rights to a popular vote, as if the people's whim were a legitimate dictator of human rights within society. I wanted to know which of Sonam's rights are trampled on by ssm, and she just says that it's "in my society" and that her "voice should be heard" as a result. Apparently, the premise is that if a marriage occurs anywhere in her society, she should have a say in it. WTF? I said no, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms forbids discrimination based on gender (therefore, I can marry whomever regardless of my sex). They asked if the Charter knows better that the people, and, drumroll please: ***>>> Our Constitution DOES know better than the people.<<<*** Why, Sonam, do we have this Constitution? Is it decorative? Is it merely a series of passive suggestions that we may or may not follow in our legal code, according to endless referenda revoking rights for people whose kisses are icky? No! It is to protect all citizens from the agents of theocracy. If I marry a dude, you can scream and cry and call me a hellbound faggot but under no circumstances may you revoke my human rights! Amritsar is NOT the governerial overlord of our Confederation. We are governed by a parliament elected by and for the People, who are empowered by their constituents up to the limits imposed by our Charter. Then I took the bus home. It occurred to me that as a Constitutional Democrat, I'm ahead of my time. Then I imagined the Enlightenment, and I think I may now have a clue* about the hopelessness people must have felt, or at least the impression that they had of the revolutionary nature of what to them was self-evident. Because it is. It's self-evident. Even, if you can believe this, inalienable. * Might as well say pre-emptively that I am NOT equating myself to Benjamin Franklin, for all you who think you're channeling the spirit of T.S. Eliot. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, February 3rd, 2006
7:20 pm	I feel sick. Being an I.B. certificate student means that I'm taking academic biology. My one academic course. And I feel like trash for it. No amount of finger-wagging can make me take this course seriously, by which I mean that I treat it as a mindless little job to be dealt with, much like knitting. "A lot of material"? Excuse me? In the Ontario curriculum? Hardly. Especially when you have time to spend an entire hour humouring childish gangstaz and desperately trying to be 34 again. Perhaps I'll buy a colouring book to give myself something to do in academic bio class, day after day. I know that I'll get cracks about this post, if certain people find out about it. (Comment on this)
Friday, January 6th, 2006
9:33 pm	Literature 2005 As a way of making my LJ veer away from my petty life, I'm going to do a 2005 partial recap/review. Which I really should have done in December, but I've only thought of it now. The recap shall be a mention of some pieces of literature that were read by me in 2005. Madame Bovary * * * * * (five stars) I love this novel. I love watching her sink into her ridiculous world of silly fantasies and hating her ridiculous life without seeing it properly. Mainly because I AM Emma Bovary. Suburbia is my Yonville, and rare trips to Toronto are my Vaubyessard. There are so many paralells between her little life and mine, that I should write an essay outlining how I was born to live Flaubert's work. It's embarassing, but at the same time I love having great literature dedicated to emotions I know so well. Will Nick eat arsenic? Stay tuned! The Egyptian * * * * * By Mika Waltari, the greatest Finnish writer of the twentieth century. Published in 1949 and set in Egypt during the eighteenth dynasty and mainly the reign of Akhnaton. Phenomenal. "Brings Ancient Egypt alive," the reviewers might say, but pish pish. This timeless masterpiece is so much more than its setting (although together with 'I, Claudius' it is THE historical novel). Even without the richness of its themes, the very text itself is delicious, for the style is imitative of ancient texts. Very depressing, as well. I remember bemoaning the fact that I had chosen summer as the time to read an epic novel of suffering and disappointment. Neither thirty-three centuries nor a thousand more can change humanity's cycle of generations born only to become wicked; those who survive into old age only becoming hardened and resigned. This encourages my impression that I, like Sinuhe the Egyptian, am only one in an enormous crowd of people charging about in a mad chaos. As if I needed a book to tell me that (am I too young to read truth so miserable?). The House of the Spirits * * * * I love this Latin American Magic Realism. Some people complain about an author stating so explicitly what will happen later on in the novel, but I like it. It makes me wonder about how this would be used in real life, and how a single sentence could be thrown in to describe any of our eventual fates. I highly recommend that these pieces be read by others. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, January 2nd, 2006
10:41 pm	New Year Hear those railway bells jingle-ing, jing jing jingle-ing too! Come on, it's lovely weather for a train ride together with you! I'm back. I made it to Montreal, and was back withing 24 hours. It was a strange experience in accelerrated living. How rare that everyone manage to show up! How strange for ME to be there, unlike in '05 and '04! Decidedly, it's a different ambience when all the cousins grow up. Maybe kinda sad. I wonder what all the kiddies looked like from an adult perspective, since I was one of them back in the day. They've started bringing boy/girlfriends now, too ("Enchanté" *kiss* *smooch*). Combined with the way I sit quietly and speak softly, this is the part where I notice what a tight-assed anglo-saxon the Ontario years have turned me into. To my genuine surprise and horror, to be sure. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I think we can all learn from this only to bed our own kind, in order to prevent cultural hybrid children from being born. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 31st, 2005
8:12 pm	Famine Never mind this. It's just me whining to myself: Last time I believe my mother when she says there's plenty food in the house. I open the freezer in search of bread, and what do I fing? A baggie containing three coconut macaroons, which apparently need to be preserved for all time. No bread. Communal kitchens are a disaster; how can I plan meals when food comes in these phases of abundance and scarcity? How can a sane parent expect kids to eat one or two food groups for a whole week? This is my excuse for being skinny. I can't afford my own pantry. Oh, and thank you A&P for enriching my life with Achy Breaky Heart. Another shooting in Toronto. I'm actually becoming concerned. I can't bring myself to care if gangstaz slaughter each other, but if only they could set a time and an isolated room for it so that those of us with lives don't have to be shot. My condolences. On a positive note, I've been writing my world lit paper. Piece of cake. It usually is, when you're the type of person who farts literary analysis. The trick part is keeping under 1500 words. (Comment on this)
Friday, December 30th, 2005
1:49 am	My Hermit Cave They're gone! My family have left, and I'm rid of them for a few days. So I immediately put on some music and made pancakes. The whole concept of walking into a residential room without being criticized for existing is absurd to me. The house is now my meditative monastery. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 26th, 2005
6:57 pm	At Sasha's request, I find it necessary to comment on "the loot I bagged". I wouldn't have, because I'm above such crassness, but here we go. I was given an atlas of world history! Yay! Even though it's sometimes inaccurate, it provides such fascinating maps as those indicating which German principalities became Lutheran, Scipio's campaign against Carthage and the spread of the Black Death. Clearly, an indispensable resource. There's also the Lemony Snicket calendar that had to come from Scotland due to copyrights in North America (damn capitalism!) and that Icelandic chocolate bar (gott... gott... gott). I advise people to have parents who are pilots; it makes gift reception an enriching experience. Not that I'd say no to other stuff. Sasha, you shouldn't feel that you're intruding. More like competing. Additionally, it must be said that the Fisher family wasn't added exclusively out of its coolness; I needed Sasha to provide their usernames. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 25th, 2005
7:27 pm	We're not done yet Merry godless xmas from Nick! Let us celebrate evergreens! You know, I recieved a card from a fundie who reminded me what this is "all about in the first place". I certainly do. I must remember to thank her for reminding me of the civilization we had in the Roman world before her sect hijacked all of our culture. Well, now that it's 7 in the evening, merry second day of xmas everyone. We've still got 11 to go, so brace yourself. Who am I kidding; you're probably taking your tree down tomorrow, unless you're as waspy as I am at Christmastime. It's not Christmas without figgy pudding and butter cookies. Just ask me for some recipes. You (my adoring audience) must forgive the inanity of this post, since it is after all this of all days in the long calenday of the year. My livejournal is for me anyway. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 22nd, 2005
8:42 pm	First Post Well, well, looks who's online. I know you were all dying for me to come online anyway. So here I am. With not much to say, mind you, but that may or may not remain the same, according to my momentary whim. We'll see how it goes as time progresses. I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire today. It seems very short, but then again, they had to cut out almost everything to squish it into a movie. It seems like a whole year of Hogwarts happened in a week! I'm not a potter nut by the way; this just happens to be something that happened today. It's all just so predictable. Of course Harry has to win, of course he has to be the best, of course there has to be an evil rival school with its ugly, militaristic students. Anyway. I'll probably be better later. (2 Comments |Comment on this)