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Aug. 18th, 2013 02:08 pmMy Canada trip has been pretty good so far.
Danae and I left from her place in Chicago on Monday morning. We stopped to get a few snacks like cashews and soda. I drove almost all the way to the Canada border at the Blue Water Bridge. Danae took over to drive through customs and on to Hamilton, Ontario.
First, though, we had to pay the bridge toll. Danae was a little distracted and almost drove through the toll gate without stopping. I think this was understandable, because in the next lane over was a significant distraction! A small SUV with a hatchback was on its way through the toll booth. We were both looking over at it because the hatch was open and fully extended up behind the car. As we waited in line, we wondered whether the driver knew the hatch was open. "I think that bag is about to fall out...." I commented, shortly before the SUV drove ahead out of the booth and the bag I was referring to did just that. The car behind them began honking its horn, trying to get the SUV's attention. It did stop after a few moments, and the driver got out to retrieve the bag. While all that was going on, our turn came up, and we almost drove right on through the booth while watching the spectacle.
After that, it was over the bridge and on to customs. All went smoothly there, though we both got a lot of laughs after the fact about Danae's answer to how the two of knew each other. She described me as her "Boyfriend. Partner. Person."
"So boyfriend-partner-person," asked the customs official, unphased, "what do you do for a living?"
---
It's strange, how fuzzy some memories are already of what we did this week. My head was feeling a bit off for the first couple days. I have a feeling that it had to with what I was eating. My usual habits were disrupted, and I was eating more sugar than normal and less protein. I've been conscious of that the last couple of days and I think eating a bit more thoughtfully has helped. I'm also thinking about using my dad's tester to check my blood sugar once or twice after getting back home. He has juvenile onset diabetes, so I've always been cognizant of an increased risk. I've checked in the past and all has been well, but it wouldn't hurt to check again.
---
So we got in late on Monday and got to bed later. This was problematic for me, since I needed to be up pretty early in order to drive out to northwestern Toronto and the York University campus for my meeting with one of the geography faculty. In fact, when I awoke in the morning, it was only a half-way process for some time. Though she'd decided last night that she was going to sleep in and let me drive myself to the campus, Danae appraised my state and decided that she was going to drive me after all. Having her with was a tremendous help to me. Not just at the point were she got us going the right way after figuring out that my written directions had me going in the wrong direction. I was in a state of high anxiety about my upcoming interview and she was wonderful to talk to and kind of unburden myself a bit with prior to arrival. The fact that I could rest a bit in the car and feel a bit more awake at the end of the trip was a huge help too. In short, Danae is a wonderful girlfriend whose companionship I feel quite fortunate for.
My meeting at York went pretty well. I think I spent an hour or so with the professor I was there to meet, talking about my interests and the York human geography program. I have to admit that I felt rather unprepared for the meeting, or perhaps to be looking at grad schools in general, when she suggested name-after-name of theorists and researchers who I might be interested in reading and I was not familiar with them. But she did give me a good reading list to start on! The politics of York seem oriented toward social justice and and critical of neo-liberalism, which is a good fit for me.
After talking for a while, the professor took me on a brief tour of the geography department. We met another professor along the way who I conversed with briefly as well. She has a lot of experience with GIS systems, and I asked her a few questions on that topic. She pointed me at free online resources from one of the makers of GIS software that provide some training for the public. I'm going to check that out later. I think the whole campus visit was a really good experience, both in term of learning more about the program, seeing the campus, and getting a sense of what this kind of interview process is like.
After the interview, Danae drove around the York campus a bit so I could have a better sense of both the campus itself and it's environs. It's in Toronto proper, but fairly far out from the city center. It does seem as though a subway extension is being built to it, so that would be a huge plus for me. It's not a deal-breaker if I have to go somewhere more suburban, but I very much want to do grad school in a big city environment, or at least have the city accessible without having to use a car. We stopped at the HVAC plant because I am me. *grins*
---
On the way back to her parents' place, Danae and I stopped for all you can eat sushi at a place she knows in Toronto. While eating, we talked for a while about what direction I want to go in for my academic career. It helped me realize that I need to spend some time thinking about three primary items: the research topics I'm interested in, the methodologies I'd prefer to use to address those topics, and the ultimate goals for my research. Having a more solid grasp on all three of those things will help me figure out whether anthropology, geography, or something else is the best fit for my ambitions. I'm still a little fuzzy on topics, other than knowing I want to look at urban space and place through time and people's relationships to it. On methodology, I'm interested in qualitative approaches over quantitative ones, but I still need to read a lot of theory and method. As far as goals, I want to promote social justice and reduce inequalities. I see anthropology and geography both as ways to potentially accomplish those things.
---
On Wednesday, Danae's parents took she and I out for dinner. We met her brother and his fiancé in Toronto for food at a place that her dad said made the best pizza he'd ever eaten in his life. High praise! Unfortunately, I'd only ordered the "Canadian burger", in an attempt to have the full-on Canadian experience. The food was tasty, and it was nice to see Danae's brother and his partner again.
Prior to food, and largely for my benefit I think, we drove down to the harbor area of Toronto for a few photographs, and then stopped at the Distillery District. Though I didn't know much about it at the time, said district was the largest distillery in the world in the late 19th century. The district contains the largest collection of Victorian-era architecture in North America, and is much larger than I realized while I was there. I'd very much like to go back and see more of it. I shot a number of photographs during the half-hour or so I was there, and would love to look around more. Danae, meanwhile, had bought me some wonderful chili-infused dark-chocolate from one of the boutique-type shops in the area. Much of it has been converted to upscale retail, and it seems to be a popular place for enjoying a stroll while shopping for various delicacies. (The chocolate my sweetie picked for me was wonderful, and I've been slowly consuming it since.)
---
On Saturday, Danae and I drove around Hamilton a bit. The city is built on the Niagara Escarpment, and has portions both above and below the cliff. I'd walked up a (very long!) set of stairs to the top on my last visit, but Danae wanted to show me how pretty the passes are that the roads connecting the two portions are built through. Unfortunately, the road she really wanted to take me on was closed. But we still had a nice time driving around up on "the mountain." At the top, we even found some abandoned hospital buildings along a street called Sanatorium Road. The buildings didn't look old enough to be from an operating sanatorium, but some quick Googling indicates that they are in fact near the site the road is named for, a tuberculosis sanatorium built in 1906. We spent a little while photographing the closed-up buildings before driving back to the city.
We drove through the campus of McMaster University, a college in the town of Hamilton itself where I've looked at programs. Some of the architecture there was interesting. One building in particular, a '70s brutalist concrete edifice with curved banks of windows that seemed to protrude from the building like the sides of old buses, caught my eye. Just before leaving the campus, we found ourselves at a wooded area where three deer wandered the grounds! I got out of the car and stalked with with my camera, getting a few photographs of them relatively up close. One of them was notably limping, and we felt a bit bad for it.
Now, when cross-posting between here and other social media platforms, I usually just copy and past the same block of text between all of them. There may be a few things that I'm not going to do that with though. Largely, issues that are likely to be oversharing for the extended family who've friended me elsewhere. So I won't write there about how, before going back to a wonderful dinner courtesy of Danae's mother, we stopped into a fetish and toy shop we'd seen while driving earlier. ( More on that behind the cut if you're so inclined. )
And that brings me mostly up to the present. Most of the time otherwise unaccounted for has been spent either working on a jigsaw puzzle with Danae, working on my November presentation for the AAA conference, or editing photographs. I also spent one evening playing Apples to Apples with Danae and her mother, and yesterday night playing a game of Touch of Evil with Danae. I'm feeling a bit of anxiety this trip in general about the presentation, but I'm trying to kick it out of the space in my head that it's squatting in so I can enjoy a very calm, relaxing, happy vacation with my girlfriend and her family. It's only the third time I've had the chance to be around her mother and father. They're really great people who go out of their way to take care of both of us, and I want to spend some time with them while I'm here too, and not just hide in the guest bedroom and work on stuff.
Danae and I left from her place in Chicago on Monday morning. We stopped to get a few snacks like cashews and soda. I drove almost all the way to the Canada border at the Blue Water Bridge. Danae took over to drive through customs and on to Hamilton, Ontario.
First, though, we had to pay the bridge toll. Danae was a little distracted and almost drove through the toll gate without stopping. I think this was understandable, because in the next lane over was a significant distraction! A small SUV with a hatchback was on its way through the toll booth. We were both looking over at it because the hatch was open and fully extended up behind the car. As we waited in line, we wondered whether the driver knew the hatch was open. "I think that bag is about to fall out...." I commented, shortly before the SUV drove ahead out of the booth and the bag I was referring to did just that. The car behind them began honking its horn, trying to get the SUV's attention. It did stop after a few moments, and the driver got out to retrieve the bag. While all that was going on, our turn came up, and we almost drove right on through the booth while watching the spectacle.
After that, it was over the bridge and on to customs. All went smoothly there, though we both got a lot of laughs after the fact about Danae's answer to how the two of knew each other. She described me as her "Boyfriend. Partner. Person."
"So boyfriend-partner-person," asked the customs official, unphased, "what do you do for a living?"
---
It's strange, how fuzzy some memories are already of what we did this week. My head was feeling a bit off for the first couple days. I have a feeling that it had to with what I was eating. My usual habits were disrupted, and I was eating more sugar than normal and less protein. I've been conscious of that the last couple of days and I think eating a bit more thoughtfully has helped. I'm also thinking about using my dad's tester to check my blood sugar once or twice after getting back home. He has juvenile onset diabetes, so I've always been cognizant of an increased risk. I've checked in the past and all has been well, but it wouldn't hurt to check again.
---
So we got in late on Monday and got to bed later. This was problematic for me, since I needed to be up pretty early in order to drive out to northwestern Toronto and the York University campus for my meeting with one of the geography faculty. In fact, when I awoke in the morning, it was only a half-way process for some time. Though she'd decided last night that she was going to sleep in and let me drive myself to the campus, Danae appraised my state and decided that she was going to drive me after all. Having her with was a tremendous help to me. Not just at the point were she got us going the right way after figuring out that my written directions had me going in the wrong direction. I was in a state of high anxiety about my upcoming interview and she was wonderful to talk to and kind of unburden myself a bit with prior to arrival. The fact that I could rest a bit in the car and feel a bit more awake at the end of the trip was a huge help too. In short, Danae is a wonderful girlfriend whose companionship I feel quite fortunate for.
My meeting at York went pretty well. I think I spent an hour or so with the professor I was there to meet, talking about my interests and the York human geography program. I have to admit that I felt rather unprepared for the meeting, or perhaps to be looking at grad schools in general, when she suggested name-after-name of theorists and researchers who I might be interested in reading and I was not familiar with them. But she did give me a good reading list to start on! The politics of York seem oriented toward social justice and and critical of neo-liberalism, which is a good fit for me.
After talking for a while, the professor took me on a brief tour of the geography department. We met another professor along the way who I conversed with briefly as well. She has a lot of experience with GIS systems, and I asked her a few questions on that topic. She pointed me at free online resources from one of the makers of GIS software that provide some training for the public. I'm going to check that out later. I think the whole campus visit was a really good experience, both in term of learning more about the program, seeing the campus, and getting a sense of what this kind of interview process is like.
After the interview, Danae drove around the York campus a bit so I could have a better sense of both the campus itself and it's environs. It's in Toronto proper, but fairly far out from the city center. It does seem as though a subway extension is being built to it, so that would be a huge plus for me. It's not a deal-breaker if I have to go somewhere more suburban, but I very much want to do grad school in a big city environment, or at least have the city accessible without having to use a car. We stopped at the HVAC plant because I am me. *grins*
---
On the way back to her parents' place, Danae and I stopped for all you can eat sushi at a place she knows in Toronto. While eating, we talked for a while about what direction I want to go in for my academic career. It helped me realize that I need to spend some time thinking about three primary items: the research topics I'm interested in, the methodologies I'd prefer to use to address those topics, and the ultimate goals for my research. Having a more solid grasp on all three of those things will help me figure out whether anthropology, geography, or something else is the best fit for my ambitions. I'm still a little fuzzy on topics, other than knowing I want to look at urban space and place through time and people's relationships to it. On methodology, I'm interested in qualitative approaches over quantitative ones, but I still need to read a lot of theory and method. As far as goals, I want to promote social justice and reduce inequalities. I see anthropology and geography both as ways to potentially accomplish those things.
---
On Wednesday, Danae's parents took she and I out for dinner. We met her brother and his fiancé in Toronto for food at a place that her dad said made the best pizza he'd ever eaten in his life. High praise! Unfortunately, I'd only ordered the "Canadian burger", in an attempt to have the full-on Canadian experience. The food was tasty, and it was nice to see Danae's brother and his partner again.
Prior to food, and largely for my benefit I think, we drove down to the harbor area of Toronto for a few photographs, and then stopped at the Distillery District. Though I didn't know much about it at the time, said district was the largest distillery in the world in the late 19th century. The district contains the largest collection of Victorian-era architecture in North America, and is much larger than I realized while I was there. I'd very much like to go back and see more of it. I shot a number of photographs during the half-hour or so I was there, and would love to look around more. Danae, meanwhile, had bought me some wonderful chili-infused dark-chocolate from one of the boutique-type shops in the area. Much of it has been converted to upscale retail, and it seems to be a popular place for enjoying a stroll while shopping for various delicacies. (The chocolate my sweetie picked for me was wonderful, and I've been slowly consuming it since.)
---
On Saturday, Danae and I drove around Hamilton a bit. The city is built on the Niagara Escarpment, and has portions both above and below the cliff. I'd walked up a (very long!) set of stairs to the top on my last visit, but Danae wanted to show me how pretty the passes are that the roads connecting the two portions are built through. Unfortunately, the road she really wanted to take me on was closed. But we still had a nice time driving around up on "the mountain." At the top, we even found some abandoned hospital buildings along a street called Sanatorium Road. The buildings didn't look old enough to be from an operating sanatorium, but some quick Googling indicates that they are in fact near the site the road is named for, a tuberculosis sanatorium built in 1906. We spent a little while photographing the closed-up buildings before driving back to the city.
We drove through the campus of McMaster University, a college in the town of Hamilton itself where I've looked at programs. Some of the architecture there was interesting. One building in particular, a '70s brutalist concrete edifice with curved banks of windows that seemed to protrude from the building like the sides of old buses, caught my eye. Just before leaving the campus, we found ourselves at a wooded area where three deer wandered the grounds! I got out of the car and stalked with with my camera, getting a few photographs of them relatively up close. One of them was notably limping, and we felt a bit bad for it.
Now, when cross-posting between here and other social media platforms, I usually just copy and past the same block of text between all of them. There may be a few things that I'm not going to do that with though. Largely, issues that are likely to be oversharing for the extended family who've friended me elsewhere. So I won't write there about how, before going back to a wonderful dinner courtesy of Danae's mother, we stopped into a fetish and toy shop we'd seen while driving earlier. ( More on that behind the cut if you're so inclined. )
And that brings me mostly up to the present. Most of the time otherwise unaccounted for has been spent either working on a jigsaw puzzle with Danae, working on my November presentation for the AAA conference, or editing photographs. I also spent one evening playing Apples to Apples with Danae and her mother, and yesterday night playing a game of Touch of Evil with Danae. I'm feeling a bit of anxiety this trip in general about the presentation, but I'm trying to kick it out of the space in my head that it's squatting in so I can enjoy a very calm, relaxing, happy vacation with my girlfriend and her family. It's only the third time I've had the chance to be around her mother and father. They're really great people who go out of their way to take care of both of us, and I want to spend some time with them while I'm here too, and not just hide in the guest bedroom and work on stuff.
