Today was my ninth (and final) trip over the Atlantic Ocean in one year’s time.

This is not something to be proud of.

I’m tired. And I’m pretty sure I have the faint outline of “Air Canada” imprinted on the back of my ass from sitting on their seat cushions.

1. June 14th, 2007: En Route to Kenya

2. July 15th, 2007: To Ottawa

3. July 21st, 2007: To England (Conference)

4. July 29th, 2007: To Ottawa

5. September 20th, 2007: To England

6. December 24th, 2007: To Ottawa (Christmas)

7. December 31st, 2007: To England

8. June 29th, 2008: To Ottawa (Summer)

9. July 7th, 2008: To England

That was, by the way, a joke. You don’t get monogrammed seat cushions unless you fly first class.

Living in university residence and on the college mailing list, you tend to be privy to quite a few interesting e-mails. E-mails written out of anger, however, tend to be divided into two categories: laundry rage (when someone steals your slot) and kitchen/food rage (when someone leaves mess or steals your food or kitchenware).

These e-mails also provide an interesting idea of cultural differences. Here’s two. The rambling, passive aggressive one is written by a British doctoral student regarding stolen kitchenware. The short, concise one is written by an American Marshall scholar from Los Angeles.

Enjoy.

From: The British Scholar
To: Everybody
Date: Sometime in June
Subject: Beware of Vanishing Objects

My 8 inch Wusthof-Trident Chef’s Knife, which I’ve owned since my restaurant days, seems to have disappeared from my carry-all in the North Wing Ground floor kitchen during the last week. Aside from the obvious sentimental value, its loss would be bearable had not my 10 inch Chef’s knife disappeared from the Martin Ground floor kitchen 3 days ago. Now we seem to be left with flimsy serrated knives which, if utilised to cut anything substantial, like say a butternut squash, will most likely snap and take out someone’s eye (and, of course, chopping anything is now out of the question).

I should also note that my toaster disappeared from our kitchen 2 weeks ago, and my industrial food processor sometime in Michaelmas–not to mention the loss of roughly 10 roasting pans in the last 2 years.

(1) If any of you have said items could you please return them

and,

(2) Is anyone else experiencing the same type of kitchen related separation anxiety?

Balliol MCR……effortlessly superior, or merely dirtbags?

It’s up to you.

- [The Brit]

From: The American Scholar
To: Everybody
Date: Sometime in June
Subject: Ice cream theft

To whoever helped themselves to my entire carton of ice cream in the Dellal ground floor kitchen — I hope you enjoyed it immensely. Because when I find you, I am going to remove your face.

- [The American]

Lately, as you can probably tell, I’ve been trying to revive some inter-blog discussion. Which is, as you’ve also probably guessed, another way of shoveling my own writing responsibilities onto other fellow bloggers.

This time around, we’re going to turn to NYCWD, our esteemed blogger from New York City.

First, the basics:

Postdoctoral Researcher (aka Postdoc)
A postdoc is, in simplest terms, a freshly minted doctor who, now having completed the last vestige of educational hand-holding, finds himself or herself completely bewildered by the frightening prospect of getting a ‘real’ job…you know…out there. So instead, he or she undertakes a few more years of educational hand-holding before being finally booted out — to sink or swim.

You know how some undergrads do a Master’s because they’re not sure what else to do? And some (clearly deluded) Master’s do a Ph.D. because they’re still not sure? Yeah. It’s the same with a Postdoc. It cushions the blow of landing a fully-fledged job in academia or (god forbid) industry.

It’s like academic procrastination, but with a fancy title and a shit salary.

But in a few years, this final stage of academic procrastination will be a reality for me. I’ll be an honest-to-god doctor (not the kind who helps people, mind you), and I’ll have to decide where to do my postdoc.

The three options are: (1) Stay here, (2) Return to the Motherland, or (3) Head to America.

Of course, the logic is, at least if I do (3) and not (1), I’ll avoid the dirty looks I get in England when I whip out my pseudo-American accent ( “It’s Canadian asshole.”)

Okay, so if it comes down to the States, there are a few possibilities. One of them is in New York.

Which, I’ll be honest, scares me.

Having grown up in a city of 850,000 which I can only describe as ‘perfect’, and now relocated to a city of 150,000 which I’ll describe as ‘crowded’, it blows my mind to even consider one day living (albeit temporarily) in a city that — properly equipped — can probably invade Canada. Christ.

It’s not like I’ve never been to New York. I have. A long time ago. I remember it as being dirty, humongous, and way, way too much for my little pee-brain to handle.

And let’s be honest, the portrayal of New York students on TV (e.g. Felicity) isn’t comforting. There, the characters are always pebbles of sand on an all-expansive beach, living in teensy dorms, and performing sexual favours in dark alleys just to keep up with the rent (I forget which episode that was).

So where does my future lie? Is there a place for me in America? In New York City?

Or will it be too much for me to handle?

That is the question I pass off to NYCWD and my dear readers.

It was a while ago. I never got around to posting a picture.

What can I say? I was young, naive, carefree, hopeless.

But she just wasn’t that into me.

An amazing thing happened today as I made my way to the supermarket: It snowed.

Of course, having been brought up in the harsh Canadian climate, this wasn’t all that exciting for me. After all, as young lad, I was often forced to leave my warm igloo wearing nothing but my earmuffs, snow shoes, and thermo-heated undies, trudge over treacherous mountains and fend off ferocious polar bears — just to get to school.

No, the exciting thing for me was to bear witness to the Oxonian reaction to snow. Little kids sticking out their tongues and twirling and dancing among the snowflakes; couples huddling closer together and hopelessly trying to avoid the onslaught using their umbrellas; and best of all, the huge crowd of citizens huddled at the entrance of the nearest shopping mall — waiting for the ‘ferocious’ storm to pass.

In fact, it was so amusing to see people actually take shelter that I couldn’t help but turn around and snap a picture.

And then, 15 minutes later, it was all over; little puddles on the ground remaining as the only traces of what had happened earlier.

Meanwhile, back home in Ottawa…