One more cheesy photo for today and we're done for the time being. Why, who is that darkly handsome flâneur on the corner? How continental he is, that winsome devil with his jacket tied so jauntily about his neck. Feel that joie de vivre, that certain je ne sais quoi...oh brother.
You know, I can't believe what a goof I was. The CD-ROM with that Vimy photo on it has a whole bunch of these also; cheesy photos of me thinking "...well...when am I going to be here again?" and hamming it up for the camera. Oh, what a silly, silly boy I was. I have less hair now, my vision is steadily going by the day, and I have known both the touch and the betrayal of a woman, so this goof here almost seems like a complete stranger. Apart from the jacket, I can't even think of where these clothes are now...ah, good times.
Today, April 9 is the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, a defining moment in Canada's history and national identity. I have been to Vimy Ridge twice, in 2001 and 2002 so I thought I'd post this up here. This is my brother and I in front of the memorial at Vimy designed by Walter Allward. This is actually one of the nicer photos as the memorial had been cleaned since the first time I went. It's actually been under renovations recently, set to reopen today for the anniversary, so I'm actually a little curious as to any changes. Vimy was the first time all four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together, and it was a resounding success as the Canadians achieved most of their objectives in hours; objectives that had stymied many others for years prior. However, thanks to some very innovative tactics and a good dose of Canadian ingenuity, we carried the day. This area is, in fact, part of Canada, donated in perpetuity by the grateful French people. It's really a very solemn place; I may be biased being Canadian and a lover of history, but I think you can really feel the weight of memory in places like this. To this day, just behind us around the memorial here large areas of the surrounding countryside are not open to the public due to unexploded munitions, a grim testament to the sheer scale of carnage and destruction nearly a century past now.
Well, this has been a quiet long weekend so far, but I'm not complaining as it's certainly relaxing if nothing else. It's nice to mix it up some, break the comfortable rut of my job up a bit. I was actually the only one around last Thursday, as everyone else either took off early or came down with convenient illnesses like longweekenditis, I suppose. I just realized that I cut it pretty close on the drive in every day. It's an awesome feat of precision timing when you stop and think about it. If someone were to trip me, for example, that would just throw the whole day off and poof! I'd be late. It's like on 24, if Jack Bauer stops to use the bathroom or tie his shoe, oh snap! there goes Los Angeles.
Wow, it's been almost a month since I posted anything new...not that it really matters since it's not as if I have throngs of adoring readers waiting with baited breath in eager anticipation of the latest pearls of wisdom to drip from my lips...but as to the why of it, I guess you could chalk it up to me being busy with various things, mostly insignificant but necessary busywork. The day-to-day minutiae of what I do adds up, and it's not difficult per se, but it's certainly not the most mentally stimulating stuff. I see the best and the worst of human nature in a never-ending cavalcade of absurdity. I guess it all depends upon your perspective, but the pessimist in me sees far more of the latter than the former. There is very little that this exalted student body could do to surprise me these days. It definitely confirms my decision to not become a teacher. If this is the calibre of collegiate people these days, I shudder to think of their secondary age contemporaries...sorry, it's getting a bit old being cooped up indoors. I'm getting as jaded and cynical as some of the older people I work with, although that was never too much of a stretch by any means. Spring fever has bitten me, methinks, and this nicer weather makes me want to take a trip. I'm really not sure where I'd go, but I know what I'd do: wander the earth like Kwai Chang Caine or the Littlest Hobo, righting wrongs and dispensing justice. It doesn't help that the travel commercials are starting to gear up for summer asking you to "experience this" or "discover that". I've been something of a homebody for a few years now, and I feel that old wanderlust stirring. Alas, I'm a bit tied down to my job at the moment, at least for the foreseeable future. But I will make it a point to get out somewhere just as soon as I possibly can.
Anyone who knows me knows I spent a LOT of time in school. The long and short of it is I got sidetracked a few times for various reasons, as one distraction or another reared its insidious head. Some of these distractions were more pleasant than others (at least at the time), but that is neither here nor there. I DID eventually manage to matriculate more than once, and now I've got a neat little pile of credentials and a couple of degrees out of the deal. I might go back at some point, but I'm definitely all schooled out for the time being. Anyway, it recently occurred to me how easily your life can slip into a comfortable rhythm. Anyone who's still in college or university knows what I'm talking about. There's the big drive or flight out in September, whirlwinds of stress and activity until the next thing you know it's midterms with Thanksgiving in there somewhere, then Christmas vacation and New Year's with possibly another drive and/or flight (like, say...oh, to California for argument's sake). Then you come back and try to get back into the groove in time for spring break, and all of a sudden it's finals and summer when you start worrying about a job or other gainful activity to tide you over until it's time to start over again (let's say...herding goats or heck, keeping bees). Rinse and repeat, hopefully not longer than four years. Now that I'm on the other side of the desk as part of the faculty/staff, it's funny how these once-familiar rhythms are no longer meaningful to me. We stay open during breaks, such as the reading week we just had last week, so the sameness of days is striking to me. I mean, there's days with less people and days with more people, but regardless I'm there as a constant fixture like the furniture or potted plants. We also have summer school, so I'm kind of stuck there too. The hours we keep may change, but I'm still kind of tied down. I've tried to look ahead into the immediate future, and I can't imagine when I'll get to take a proper vacation again. On the plus side, I have a solid three day weekend every week. As soon as I get off work on Thursday evenings, I could disappear off the face of the earth until the next Monday afternoon. That's not so bad, I guess.
We've had some really crappy weather lately, although I guess it would all depend upon your perspective. Let's say, instead, that we've had our weekly dose of winter. Last Thursday they actually shut down our school, naturally only an hour after I had arrived...but we still got paid for the day, so that's always a plus. When the weather acts up to that degree, I usually forgo driving and let the bus do all the heavy lifting precisely so that I can avoid ending my life prematurely in a frozen ditch. But even the bus was skidding and sliding around like Brian Boitano, only less gracefully and to a much lesser degree of skill. Visibility was way down as well, maybe ten feet between the sheets of snow. So there were a few dodgy moments there, and admittedly I was not able to nap as peacefully as I would have liked to, which is another perk of the bus. Besides, with this alleged refinery fire taking all the gas off of the market, the less driving we can do the better. Station after station is closed and sealed off in an ever-increasing radius, and it's a little unnerving. Deserted gas stations make me feel all post-apocalyptic, I'm just waiting for the dune buggies loaded with leather bondage fetishists to come storming over the horizon because they want my gas and/or water. Bring it on, I say. I'm prepared for the gas wars. Car tires make decent armour (proof against blunt trauma and low-calibre rounds, you know), and I can jury-rig some spears and rudimentary firearms, although I suspect it will ultimately come down to a question of decent melee weapons.
