Conferences are an expected part of the PhD and faculty life, one where you present your work, get feedback from peers, network, get your work/name out there, etc… They’re a good chance to see what else is happening in your field and to meet new people and possible colleagues.

They’re also expensive, which is hard for graduate students. You don’t get paid (though you may be eligible for bursaries or travel grants), you have to fly somewhere and stay in a hotel and costs add up quick. It’s a bit of a catch-22. You have to present to get a job but without a job it’s hard to afford presenting!

This is the first of 3 conferences for me in the next couple of months, spring seems to be the busy conference season in my field. Philadelphia, Vancouver, Toronto. There’s lots of conferences but you have to pick and choose which ones are worth your effort, money and time. All of which are in short supply as a grad student!

Well, I’m off to see the crack in the Liberty Bell, eat Philly Cheesesteaks and walk the hallowed halls of the Ivy League.

Recently, arguments such as this one have been popping up. They say: the binary of trades vs. academic is obsolete in today’s day and age. I hear it from academics, teachers and the like. They say: technology is changing how we view education, school is not rigorous enough and not preparing anyone for academics, we believe in Unschooling anyways, traditional trades are obsolete, trades are now appreciated even more than academics due to high demand, etc…and so forth. The list of reasons is long. Trades vs. academic is seen an old, obsolete model that is no longer relevant.

To which I say: Please look in the mirror. And then look at our schools. Streaming and the academic vs. vocational model is alive and well. Those who say otherwise are the privileged. They are the ones who can cross the boundaries between vocational and academic freely. For others, it is not so easily. They are trapped by schools, trapped in vocational streams because they are ‘poor learners’, ‘misbehaved’, ‘ADHD’, or ‘lack discipline’. They are trapped by the so called ‘achievement gap’ when little thought is given to who defines achievement or to what ends. They are the children of the lower class, the racialized children, those who matter little to the system.

For those with privilege, the White and monied, the boundaries are much more fluid than ever. You can drop out of school to ‘unschool’ and succeed. You can use your trust fund or your buddy’s trust fund to start up a new tech company. You can flunk out of years of university and still have time to succeed in any stream you want.

There are exceptions to the rule. Not all poor & racialized students end up in vocational training. Some succeed in academic streams for various reasons, some excel despite the long odds, some end up in prison, some are ‘pushed out’ (not drop out) of school to fend for themselves.  Those who do succeed are held up as proof that the system is not flawed, that it is actually based on merit rather than race, money, or connections. Just enough get through to hide the glaring proof: a much higher percentage of those who get streamed towards vocational training are the Black kids, the Native kids, the poor kids.

This is more than simply a North American trend, it extends globally as neoliberal globalization spreads its tentacles. Vocational and skills training is seen as the way forward for places such as Africa. Forward into what? Forward into the cheap labor force for Western desires. Forget training Africans in their own knowledges or even in promoting increased and sustainable higher (tertiary) education. It’s best that they use their hands rather than their minds.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with vocational schools or streaming. It’s just that vocational schools receive less funding, have to ‘make do’ with second-hand books, second-hand teachers who, thanks to the system, see themselves as babysitters or animal trainers rather than educators – or teachers who believe in a ‘saving mission’ – and second-hand administrative systems that believe their school is the ‘last shot’ for their students. It’s just that streaming is often pushed on kids who might succeed elsewhere otherwise and studies show these kids tend to be racialized. It’s just that it’s part of a larger system that doesn’t believe certain kids can succeed outside of extraordinary circumstances. Those that achieve are the exception to the rule rather than the norm.

Is the dichotomy of vocational vs. academic obsolete? Only to some. To others, it remains. Studies show that there is an increasing chasm between workers and management, an increasing wealth gap, and no sight of the so called ‘post-racial’. More gaps are being exposed in education: disparity between ‘urban schools’ which are predominantly racialized and suburban schools which are predominantly White, privatized two or three tier education, public vs. private. Division exists, except now, with the belief that such a model no longer matters, it exists under disguise. It is harder to detect, harder to make people notice, harder to initiate change.

I am writing this letter to you today in regards to your article published today in the National Post, titled “Welcome to the University of Victoria, a.k.a. Che Guevara U”.

In this article you make some fantastic claims, including: claiming a lecture by a UVic history prof “could have been written by Fidel Castro”, that teaching at UVic equates to “ideological indoctrination”, and calling the university a “moral dead zone”. All of this because someone dared disagree with your Zionist beliefs.

The only biographical information that is included with the article is that you were a former Mossad agent and you claim UVic is anti-American and anti-Zionist (are these the same things?). It is rather ironic that you, of all people, are lambasting a university for indoctrination. Israel, Mossad and Zionism have been notable bastions of one-sided thinking, using their beliefs to oppress, demonize, and contain people through apartheid state mechanisms and doctrinal beliefs.

Actually, I don’t completely disagree with your thinking that the speech given was ideological – in fact, all knowledge is ideological. Nothing is impartial despite how you would like to frame your particular type of knowledge. You are hiding behind a belief in rational, empirical detachment that believes in a universal norm – something that colonizers and oppressors have been doing for centuries. You believe that international law is just that – international – when, in reality, it is not universal but simply more imposed ideological beliefs. You claim that the UN has sanctioned the Gaza blockade but do you know that international law once also saw apartheid South Africa and its tactics as legitimate? History has not looked too kindly on South Africa and, I imagine, you can already see how history will look on Israel.

Perhaps this is what scares you – a  history that is no longer controlled by the elite who buttress it with a fictional intellectualism. All knowledge is political – history included. ‘His Story’ has always been told and controlled through people like you – people of power and privilege. When people speak truth to that power, it’s scary. It disrupts the narratives that you have created, narratives which see Israel as democratic and anchored in human rights.

You claim the University of Victoria and its scholars (many of whom I know and admire) are engaging in “ivory-tower intellectual onanism”. I find this ironic because the ‘ivory tower’ is exactly what you are arguing for – you want knowledge that is not political, that is not ideological, that is not engaged with the realities on ‘the ground’. You want knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

I’ll be honest, even though I was an English major (at UVic) and am now a PhD student, I still had to look up the word ‘onanism’. It’s a word of Hebrew origin (from the biblical story of Onan) that means ‘masturbation’. Intellectual masturbation. Not surprisingly, you even hide your critiques under a cloak of intellectualism and ‘Ivory tower-ism’ that is undecipherable to most. In the story, Onan ‘spills his seed’ and Yahweh kills him for his wickedness. Not surprisingly, you believe God is on your side in this disagreement. History (your worst nemesis) also has a lot to say about the many who also believed God was on their side (see:  slavery, the very conflict you reference in Nigeria, Spanish Inquisition & many more)

You see, despite your best attempts you cannot control the history that gets told. You would like to see Zionism as righteous and just, others will tell otherwise. You would like to discredit the University of Victoria as ideological but you only highlight your very own  ideological bent. I too am ideological, choosing to use this letter as a chance to tell a different story, to challenge your your ideas of a universalized notion of truth and justice.

Universities are places of knowledge, all types of knowledge – not just those that fit your position. The very fact that you were there to ‘balance’ the previous speaker is proof that UVic is doing their job in presenting differing opinions. Unfortunately, you allowed your beliefs to blind you to this and, instead, took to the pages of the National Post to take part in your own ‘Ivory Tower intellectual onanism’.

Signed,

A UVic graduate

I’m the first to admit that I’m no expert on Egyptian politics nor Egyptian football, merely paying a passing interest to global football as Canada has little of note in that arena. So this article is more about the coverage of the event rather than the event itself. ‘Africa is a Country’ has some good primer reading from Sophia Azeb (@brownisthecolor) on politics and football in Egypt, here and here. The sum of it: Al Ahly began as a political organization before it was a football organization and still, to this day, has very political leanings that are seen as revolutionary.

So after the riots, while the Western media was titling all their articles and updates as “soccer violence”, almost uniformly all Egyptian and Arab commentators went deeper and called it political, realizing that what had happened was very complexly tied into the tensions post-Mubarak and with the current Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) which is currently ruling.  Sophia Azeb, on her Twitter account, quickly summed it up in one of her first tweets post-event:

She followed that up with:

I only post her take on events as they are representative, while the exact cause of the attacks is likely complex and unknowable in the minutes after, commentators from the area uniformly saw it as something beyond “soccer violence”, something politically motivated.

The Western media, though, was loathe to catch on and it made me curious as to why. A local beat writer, whose beat is not Egyptian politics, sports, global politics, or even any type of politics at all, went so far as to publicly question a Egyptian columnist on Twitter, asking with a sense of knowing better:

Isn’t there a chance that part of the problem was just sports fans acting stupid/violent?

It took me back, what reason would we have to doubt local accounts? And then I realized that it was our Whiteness kicking in. Our frame of reference for violence on the pitch is drunken young males fighting for the sake of fighting – so we transpose that onto Egypt because, on the surface, it looks similar. Our view must be right. I want to say that those involved in Egypt don’t have the luxury of fighting for fighting’s sake (a particularly White luxury) and know the meaning of true struggle, the realities of a real fight.

I’m still mulling over why the narrative of “soccer violence” in Egypt is more compelling to Western media – whose agenda does this serve? I certainly don’t have the answers on this one. I want to see some of the local commentators put together a great piece outlining the competing interests that culminated on the pitch – I’d love to read it. What I don’t want to read more of is the Western media jockeys and their opinions.

Edit: Since I’ve posted, a couple of good analysis have been posted here and here – check them out!

Kristof is the winner of two prestigious Pulitzer Prizes and championed as a relentless human rights crusader, bringing the difficult issues to America and the world through his writing in the New York Times. He writes stories which personalize the larger issues such as war and poverty, bringing a human face to tragedy. The problem is that this human face is most often White and not black or brown or any other color. His stories show the face of the proverbial White hero, more often than not, rather than the face of those who actually bear the brunt of the tragedy and those who spearhead the actual daily resistance on the ground.

What is the problem here? There are many. His centering of White heroes erases or at least obscures the histories of survival, resistance , triumph and heroes of the places he covers (as well argued here). The centering of White faces hides those other faces who are actually doing the heavy lifting, who are living the solutions. Beyond that, his articles often portray Africa (and the other locales he covers) within the typical colonial tropes: uncivilized, violent, backwards, etc… Within these places, bad things such as rape, imprisonment and war happen on a daily basis and the only answer is Whiteness, White intervention, and international (White) law and order. His writing falls perfectly in line with the tradition of Kipling’s ‘White man’s burden’, where the savages must be saved from their own selves by well meaning White folk – The civilizing mission.

Kristof is more than aware of these critiques and he has a handy answer in his pocket.

On of his recent articles, on jailed Swedish journalists in Ethiopia, highlights the reoccurring problem: despite acknowledging that the Ethiopian regime of Meles Zenawi (who was also in power when we were there and has been for almost 17 years) regularly jails Ethiopian journalists with no hope of release, the story focuses on two Swedish journalists whose only offense is “courage”. Yes, fine Kristof, they are the courageous ones, rather than those who you don’t mention… I digress. In light of this story, I asked him a question on Twitter:

He was kind enough to respond:

Unfortunately, this is a common line and one he’s used before, his main line of defense which he expounds on in an article here. The reasoning goes like this:

White people only care about White people and the only way to save Black people is to get White people to care about them, so to save Black people we need to talk about White people.

While the premise  of “White people only care about white people” is one I might argue myself, the rest is based on a colonial logic that Black people (or other racialized bodies) need White people to save them. In reality, ‘saving’ Black people has nothing to do with garnering White attention and centering White ‘saviors’ in your story only serves to recenter Whiteness (defined as a system of domination) which only further oppresses and marginalizes Africans and others in his stories.

This is not a new problem, people have been writing about Africa like this for decades. The early explorers and missionaries to Africa, the Mortons and Livingstones, were equally lauded for their commitment to the savages and far off places full of savages. For Kristof, he carries on a long lineage of those who like to see Africa as the ‘dark continent’ or, as Kristof puts it, ‘a sucking vortex with no heart’.

Want to read more? There’s a great longer article by Kathryn Mathers here.

Attawapiskat has been in the news in Canada quite frequently, an Indigenous community that, through some challenges and systemic abuse, happened to catch the media and government’s eye. There are other communities in similar situations but they have not captured the national attention. I wrote briefly, earlier, some of my thoughts on the issue.

The issue, it is largely thought, had been handled poorly by the current Conservative Canadian government, in particular the current Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, John Duncan. Many Indigenous leaders were rightfully upset and, as a response, Prime Minister Stephen Harper invited any chief who wanted to come, to a meeting in Ottawa to discuss Indigenous issues in Canada. This was trumpeted as a move to show how much Harper valued Indigenous leadership and governance, how he recognized the important role leaders play in Indigenous communities and nations, and how he recognized the importance of the issues facing these communities.

To no one’s real surprise, news leaked earlier this week that Harper would not in fact attend much of the meeting, he would let his juniors take care of it – after all, he was Prime Minister and had lots of things to busy himself with. Many Indigenous leaders called him for the fraud he is but others, including National Chief Atleo, still believed the meetings were an important step and change could happen.

Today, after a brief meeting with the chiefs, many were shocked to hear Prime Minister Harper tell them to ‘contact their MPs’ if they had concerns – after all, he said, he was Prime Minister and couldn’t focus on these issues himself, with a whole country to run. So much for valuing Indigenous sovereignty and Indigenous leaders. What had they traveled to Ottawa for, besides a photo-op?

I am shocked at the brazenness at which Prime Minister Harper plays his political games, openly disdaining Indigenous issues, brushing them off as ‘fringe’ and not worthy of his time. He opens his mouth to speak of the respect he has for Indigenous leaders only to show them the back of his hand. I am also shocked at the leadership that openly accepts such treatment. This is not every leader, many have spoken out against Harper and his antics, but when a man invites you for a meeting only to decline to attend and to tell you that he doesn’t care to hear your words – you don’t turn around and praise him.

And yet, I am also not shocked. This is part of a long history of White Canadian leaders who have led Indigenous leaders into believing that they meant well. From the treaties until now, it has happened time and again. It’s part of the colonial nature of Canada. It’s time for everyone to stop allowing the Canadian government to shirk their responsibilities, to pretend like there is no real issue to be resolved, and to take Indigenous leadership seriously. Otherwise, this won’t be the last incident in a long line of colonialism against Indigenous people.

Much like Phillips (1996) sees adventure stories, documentaries can be seen as spaces that map ideas in ways that are “imaginatively accessible and appealing” (p. 12) while furthering White, imperial discourses of domination and oppression.  In following the history of the documentary and its rise to prominence in the 1920s and 1930s as a tool of national ideology (Nichols, 2001), it can be clearly seen how, as a space, it has been imbued with specific agendas which have remained hidden through its construction as a ‘detached’ medium of observation, a way of seeing what is ‘real’ and ‘truthful’. In contrast to the fiction of Hollywood movies, documentaries have been positioned as ‘fact’, real life and true representations.  As such, the construction of documentaries is intricately tied into Western spaces of power which have built themselves on Cartesian, Western logic, establishing themselves as sole arbitrators of valid knowledge. The documentary is not simply a discursive or imagined space but a physical manifestation, a space that confines and represents bodies and identities in particular ways.

Within discursive and physical spaces, identities can be mapped in particular ways. Documentaries work in similar ways to map and construct spaces of ‘objectivity’. Kirby (1996) argues that, “Part of the function of mapping, it would seem, is to ensure that the relationship between knower and known remains unidirectional. The ‘mapper’ should be able to master his environment, occupy a secure and superior relationship to it, without it affecting him in return” (p. 48). This is similar to the documentary space whose purpose is still very didactic.

The documentary functions as an educational tool, revealing images and messages that were once unknown to the audience. The filmmaker is at once teacher, producer and cartographer, producing the knowledge, mapping out what and how much is to be revealed and, subsequently, known, and then instructing or disciplining the audience. In this process, as Kirby (1996) notes, “The cartographer removes himself from the actual landscape… he describes it as much as possible as if he were not there” (p.48). The filmmaker is not in the frame but decides what is. The frame is an excellent metaphor for this documentary space, bounding what is seen, focusing on certain things to the exclusion of others.

Documentaries a social space also works in conjunction with Lefebvre’s (1991) ideas of how space is stripped of any recognition of its social construction through the “illusion of transparency” (p. 27). Through this illusion, space is seen as innocent and value-free, allowing any action to be possible within that space. This illusion ignores the reality that representation of any sort is a political act that is historically and socially contextualized, contingent on imaginary boundaries and performative gazes. Documentaries act as a sort of ethnographic space that “retain an emphasis on convincing itself and multiple audiences that the gaze of the [documentary] is universal, unsituated, neutral” (Wahab, 2005, p.30). Much like in early anthropology and ethnology, the documentary provides a sort of participant-observer relationship, a space for the “Other” to be seen and, subsequently, disciplined in a sort of Foucaldian panopticon gaze. Authorial control is given to the filmmakers to construct a ‘reality’ from other’s realities and in the construction of the documentary space, is able to control and restrict what is possible; as Rosaldo posits (1986), “The narrator invokes the will to truth in order to suppress the… equally present will to power” (p.81).

The idea of the author of a space also creates some room for discussion of documentaries as type of space. Hezekiah (1994) in her study of two Caribbean documentaries examines instances of creation within the film in terms of art and monument as spaces but misses the fact that the documentary itself acts a sort of monumental space. She argues that “Monuments are fundamentally not only about memorials, testimonials and histories but also about shaping and reshaping our relationship to space” (p.61) and that in the act of creation, “The emphasis is on re-inserting oneself into the historical in order to assume some agency in the present” (p.62).  Documentaries function in similar ways by allowing the filmographer the ability to move in and out of the frame and, subsequently, of history with impunity, for the purpose of didactic propaganda. Hook (2005) also details how monuments have an “imbued presence” that acts as larger than the self, in a “sense of de-corporealized surveillance” (p. 699). The documentary also acts in this way, as a larger than life presence which disciplines Black bodies through the surveillant gaze. The documentary space is a surveillant, disciplinarian, colonial space.

The definitiveness of this claim also needs to brook challenges and interrogation. Is the documentary necessarily a colonial space or is the colonial dominance dependant on who the filmmaker is, on whose gaze is highlighted? Does the documentary always privilege the White gaze? In a similar vein, in imagining history through such a space as the documentary, what voices are privileged? While a full reckoning of these questions are beyond the scope of this post, there must be recognition of them and the challenges that need to be dealt with in looking at the documentary as a racialized, disciplinarian space. Some of the possible avenues to explore will be: Who has access to documentary production? Does the audience affect how the space is produced? How does the camera and the frame allow or discipline certain types of images and portrayals of history? As historical representation, what relationship does the documentary have to collective remembrance?

References

Hezekiah, G. (1994). Imagining the Caribbean: Two television documentaries. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)/University of Toronto (UT), Toronto, Canada.

Hook, D. (2005). Monumental space and the uncanny. Geoforum, 36, 688-704.

Kirby, K. M. (1996) “Re: Mapping Subjectivity: Carthographic vision and the limits of politics.” In N. Duncan (ed.) BodySpace: destabilizing geographies of gender and sexuality, (pp. 45-55). New York: Routledge.

Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space [trans. D. Nicholson-Smith]. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Nichols, B. (2001). Documentary film and the modernist avante garde. Critical Inquiry, 27(4), 580-610.

Phillips, R. (1997). Mapping men and empire: A geography of adventure. New York: Routledge.

Rosaldo, R. (1986). From the door of his tent: The fieldworker and the inquisitor. In J. Clifford and G. Marcus (Eds.), Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography, (pp.77-97). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Wahab, A. (2005). Consuming narratives: Questioning authority and the politics of representation in social science research. In G.J.S. Dei and G.S. Johal (Eds.), Critical issues in anti-racist research methodologies, (pp. 29-52). New York: Peter Lang.

For me, these are the top 5 pubs in Toronto for grabbing a craft beer:

1. Bar Volo

My very first beer memories of Toronto involve Bar Volo, and owner Ralph Morana (and sons) have made sure they they remain top in my mind. A small venue clad in dark wood and decked out with a great summer patio, Volo has made it their primary mission to carry the best beer that Ontario and beyond has to offer. Beyond that, they have been drivers and innovators in the market: from promoting and holding the highly successful Cask Days which champions cask beer, to importing great new Canadian and US beer, to bringing in the best of the world to their bar. Seats can be hard to find on a busy day but Volo’s warm owners and high quality are the standard bearers for the city, province, and maybe even the country. Their selection is immense (bottles, on tap, and multiple regular casks), their commitment to local brewers unquestioned, they host great events, they’ve taken great steps to growing the local beer scene as a whole, and now – they’re even brewing their own beers! Ask Ralph or one of his sons, who work with him in what is a family business, for a recommendation and you’ll get a quick glimpse of how much craft beer matters to them. If, for some reason, you have only one hour to drink beer in Toronto, you are best served to spend it here – good luck on deciding which beer to drink though!

2. The Only Cafe

In European drinking environs, the idea of the ‘the local’ is king – a pub for the ‘average man’ to relax in, where you’re comfortable to unwind after a long day with a pint and friends. This is The Only Cafe for me. Despite its ‘far flung’ East-end location (which is actually close to my place) and unassuming, eclectic spot, The Only delivers with 24 tap offerings focused on local craft beer (and now a regular cask offering!). There’s always a table for me to work with the laptop, the staff are friendly and more than willing to get to know you, and great beer is always on tap. Often their pints are well priced (though climbing), the music is eclectic and jamming, and the two beer fridges are filled with bottled offerings if nothing on tap suits you. I’ve heard it called, “that hippy place in the East” but don’t let that deter you – pubs are for being unpretentious and laid back, and hippies are best at this!

3. C’Est What

A massive basement pub right in the heart of Toronto – this is the throwback, the pub that was doing craft beer and blazing the trail before it was hip. C’Est What completely focuses on Ontario and they always have a wide array of local taps and casks on. It’s cozy, live music often graces their doors and, being next to historic St. Lawrence Market, it’s in a great location for a pint or two after wandering through the market. It’s annual cask events are not to be missed; you can try samples usually for $1 each (no cover), which allows you to try a lot of different things. I don’t get here nearly enough but, when I do, I’m not disappointed.

4. The Burger Bar

When you stop and think about it, it’s really quite amazing what owner Brock Shepard has done with this Kensington location in such a short period of time. He’s established himself as a top notch craft beer stop, serves a regular cask offering, and now has his own brand on-tap around the city and coming soon in bottles, Augusta Ale. His place has an old-timey saloon feel, complete with red checkered table cloths, rough-hewn wood, old Westerns playing on the lone TV, and a great wood bar to sidle up to. The burgers are made in house and I rec0mmend the brunch burger – beef topped with a fried egg, bacon and maple syrup; had with a pint of coffee stout and you have a weekend brunch of champions!

5. Victory Cafe

Though this place had has its ups and down, this is the epitome of a ‘local’ – mixed crowds devoid of beer nerds; nachos, wings and other typical pub food for snacking; and a feel that makes you wish for a cold winter night just so you can open the door to a blast of warm air and crowd noise, and belly up to the bar or crowd into a small booth with good friends. Upstairs and down, patio in the summer, wonderful Mirvish location, craft on tap and on cask – if I wasn’t an east-ender this could easily be my go-to pub.

Each of these are dedicated craft beer places and more than a place to get the newest, rarest offering – though, many of them do that as well. Beyond the hype, these are the places you want to settle into for a ‘session’ with friends. As always, it’s my personal, subjective rating

January

We went to visit my parents in Calgary with all the Ritskes siblings and new additions. Instead of a Christmas time get together and traveling when everything is crazy, we were all able to make a January rendezvous. My first publication hit the bookshelves, a chapter in a really great reader on Indigenous philosophies and education. I remember as a child dreaming about being a writer or a journalist and, while this wasn’t quite what I dreamed about as a child, it was pretty neat to see my name in print.

February

It was the so called ‘Arab Spring’ and I wrote a series of posts examining the protests, especially how they related to women and feminism. I also joined a massive online discussion around the ethics of giving used items to ‘developing’ countries, which saw my blog get the most traffic I’ve seen to date. I continued my work with the Family Care Office and thought on how to balance graduate studies with a family – no easy task and one I’m still working on!

March

I started a new job at the Office of Teaching Support (while still working my other, going to school and having a family – I told you I was still working on balance!) I was also officially accepted in the PhD program which was both exciting and daunting.

April

A big month. I finished my Master’s degree (and celebrated!) And then, the high of the year – my son Asher was born!

May

My high was followed by the low (isn’t that often the case?) of a herniated disc which has plagued me for 7 months until, in January, hopefully surgery will fix that. Oh, and my birthday!

June

The birds that had nested outside our window grew up and flew away – Daija (and I!) had loved seeing them. My co-edited book was released! It had been a massive, consuming project and there was great relief/release in seeing it come out; and another first – seeing my name on the cover of a book. I went to a conference in Saskatoon where I got to meet up with an old high school friend – which was neat.

July

I celebrated a year on WordPress – which I love by the way. Nolana and the kids went home for a few weeks – great timing for them because we had a killer heat wave when they were gone when the humidex hit the mid 40′s C.

August

After much talk about how I was going to do it – I did it. I started homebrewing my own beer. The first beer was a pale ale and that it was drinkable (and actually pretty tasty) was a major success. My mom came out to visit and we hit up St. Jacob’s market where I bought ingredients for 14 liters of salsa which I made and canned – and still had leftovers! I had been wanting to do more canning/preserving this year and I followed through with this goal.

September

I began my PhD. Like I had time for anything else!

October

More school. More homebrewing (and drinking it!). More canning. And more sore backs. A month of more – except for time.

Also, Occupy Toronto began and I was skeptical. And Ghaddafi met his downfall and I linked it to Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden’s demises as examples in the US ‘War on Terror’.

November

My dad visited. Toronto voted to start an Africentric high school which brought out the critics. I made some spent grain granola with ‘leftovers’ from brewing. With all the homebrewing, cooking with beer, etc… I need to start a little B&B or something with an attached ‘nano-brewery’ and little store selling things. It’s a winning idea – who wants to fund me?

December

I started a new blogging project around teaching and learning in higher education. The Christmas season approached and it didn’t feel like it here as it rained all month and I worked right until 4pm Christmas Eve (freelance work might sound exciting but it just means you work in your free time. Not exciting.) The academic journal I am working on beginning is coming to fruition (2012 baby!) and I mused on the goals of publishing in academia. I made an amazing beer related Christmas breakfast and Christmas beer (see: November). I stopped and reflected on my year – realizing how many things changed and happened – and how blessed I was, in so many ways.

To a good 2012.