In the episode, which is called Physical Education, the main storyline involves one of the character’s discomfort when his gym teacher tells the class they must wear shorts in order to participate in the college’s “Billards” class.

And like a lot of the brilliant episodes, it involves a terrific musical montage at the end, culminating in…well, you just have to watch.

Spoilers!

The show is centred upon a group of seven students: Jeff, the lawyer and arguably the main character; Brita, the aimless twenty-something activist; Pierce, the old buffoon; Troy, the former high-school star athlete; Abed, the pop-culture guru; Shirley, the recently divorced mother; and Annie, the repressed Jewish high-school dropout.

The show has a lot of heart and even more pop culture references. It’s quite zany and is just a laugh riot.

A long trailer about the show

Somewhere out there…

Destiny.

That’s the word they used to describe Sidney Crosby’s magical overtime goal in the final Canada vs. USA hockey game of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

This was a final watched by over 80% of Canadians (according to CTV) and that’s an gargantuan figure. In my post, I’d estimated 15 million. No way did I anticipate the enormous 27 million of Canada’s 33 million population.

It was the perfect ending to a brilliant Olympics for Canada. The gold medal of arguably, the most important event of the Olympics, between rivals Canada and USA, won in overtime by Canada’s most famous and beloved (active) hockey player; the man who held the hopes of an entire nation.

Now sometimes, we say things like “destiny” and “fate” as a literary device—a half-joke, uttered with a coy smile and a wink.

“It was destiny for us to meet, baby”.

For Crosby and his golden moment, I don’t think this was the case. People truly believe he was destined to take that shot. It was fate that he scored.

Was it?

Destiny is an exceedingly strange concept.

Let me put things into context: Crosby was hardly the dominant player in the tournament at that point. Hardly, the dominant player on the Canadian team or even on his line (that honour arguably belonged to Jarome Iginla, who finished the tournament as the leading scorer with five goals). While I watching the game, the British commentators were commenting on Crosby’s slightly disappointing performance throughout the tournament.

Now statistically…logicially…rationally, my hopes were on Jarome Iginla or Dany Heatley (another tournament leader) scoring the goal for Canada.

But Crosby scored. And this, they say, was destiny.

Now suppose that he didn’t.

Suppose that one of the other Canadians scored. Or God forbid, one of the Americans. Had this happened, destiny would have never come up. That’s one of the strange aspects of ideas like fate and destiny: On the one hand, it’s a truly romantic concept when it works out—it’s destiny that brings two soul mates together, destiny when a dream is fulfilled, and destiny when Canada’s biggest hope scores the biggest goal in the biggest game.

But when things don’t work out, then is it still destiny that moves the hand of God? How do you know your destiny isn’t to spend your life wallowing in self-pity, working menial jobs, and leading a generally shitty life?

Did the Americans know that they were destined to lose the game? Was it the American goaltender’s destiny to let the puck slip by?

The truth is, for most people, it doesn’t matter.

I can assure you that Crosby wasn’t thinking about destiny when he scored that goal. He was fighting tooth and nail to get past that defender. He was focused on doing everything he could to score that winning goal. The tens of thousands of hours that he’d spent practicing as a youngster had led up to that one moment. Within Crosby—within him—it was hard work that garnered that goal.

Not some pre-destined fact.

The truth is that this discussion about destiny is nothing more than a discussion about the merits of philosophical determinism versus non-determinism*. Are there such things as destiny and fate? Are we destined, like Crosby, to have singular moments where the Universe aligns in our favour as if the Gods had planned it all along?

My point is that it doesn’t matter. All that matters is what we do within ourselves. And so, like Crosby, we all have to bide our time and do what we can when our moment arrives. When we get that pass and when all that stands before us and victory is a six-foot tall goaltender. What happens afterwards is destiny. What happens afterwards is for the philosophers to discuss.

But during the act and in the present?

What happens in the moment belongs entirely to us.

* And philosophical determinism is linked to free-will. Do we have free-will? Was the American goaltender Ryan Miller destined to let that puck slide by and thus devoid of the will to prevent it?

OK Go, by the way, is the American band that won a Grammy for their music video, Here It Goes Again, in which they sang the song while dancing on treadmills.

Anybody who doesn’t comprehend how important hockey is to Canadians simply needs to watch this commercial.

The Canada vs. USA game which happened earlier in the non-elimination rounds attracted over 10 million Canadian television viewers. That’s almost a third of the population. This game will almost certainly smash that record. How high could it go? 12 million? 15 million?

There’s a hilarious soundbite on the video montage here where a Canadian couple are interviewed at a Canadian hockey game.

“Better than your wedding day?” the BBC interviewer asks.

The wife and husband hesitates for a moment, then they both shrug and go, “Yeeeaaaahh!”

Okay. Puck drops off in two minutes.

Canada versus Russia.

There’s just so much history between the two nations and their hockey—most of it stemming from the Cold War and what happened in 1972.

Yesterday, when Canada played Germany, something like 10 million Canadians were watching the game. That’s like a third of the nation. And even for someone like me, who’s not normally a big hockey fan—it’s hard not stay up and watch this game, with heart and soul rooting for my home team.

Let’s go Canada!

“Why do you wear such baggy tops?” I asked, holding her gray top to my chest so I could measure.

“Are you kidding? D’you know how tiny that would look on you?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Try it on.”

“No.”

“Just to see.”

“No.”

“It’ll be funny.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I sighed dramatically.

“First it’s a little innocent, ‘Try this on. It’ll be funny!’. Next, it’ll be, ‘You’d look hilarious in a skirt. Let’s just see.’ And then before you know it, our little game will involve high heels, hot pants, and a camera. That’s one slippery slope. I ain’t playin’.”

And so now, hopefully the reason why I took my blog offline since November 2009 will become abundantly clear. I suppose I just couldn’t risk any of the potential hiring committees googling me, only to find out about the time I…

…Well, you can go to the archives and dig up whatever dirt you like, I s’pose.

Applications for the 2010 year were–I was told–one of the most competitive in decades (because of the American economy); a lot of schools had cut back on the number of positions they were offering; sometimes from three or four, to maybe only one or two. So when you take in account the fact that there were only a handful of positions at the top institutions, you see how lucky I was to have received multiple offers to choose from. In the end, however, it came down to two.

My two final choices were so different in benefits that I decided choosing one over the other might one day lead me to two different careers.

The first choice was the safer one. I was offered an Assistant Professorship (non-tenured) at a leading research institution. There, I’d be working on a subject I’m rather familiar with. It’d be comfortable and I’d be happy.

The second choice (Princeton’s) was the riskier one. I’d be moving to a mathematics department which—let’s face facts—has a non-existant applied group, and I’d be doing something I know absolutely nothing about (at least for the moment). But I also realized that this option would lead to bigger payoffs in the future. I’d be a better mathematician, having dabbled in a wider range of disciplines.

Comfort and stability? Or big risk and big rewards?

In the end, it was an easy decision.

After all, when have I ever sought comfort and stability?

That’s for suckers, yo.

The temporary closure is for personal reasons. But it’s nothing bad, so don’t worry.

As always, e-mail me if you want to chat. S’not like I’m lonely or anything…