robson square

this isn't as bad as it gets, but it's pretty bad. this paper is worse than the one i wrote on mussolini this summer. i felt my C on that was unfair. this paper is, however, better than the one i wrote for geog 265 - canadian cities in 2002. that was a bad paper. i left about five unfinished sentences in it.

at this point, my only concern is to finish the fucking paper and, hence, this semester. is this the wall? maybe, but i don't think so. i'm capable of doing this, it's just a lack of motivation that's keeping me down. i think i'll get through my degree without hitting the wall. after that it's easy. (hah!) i'd like to stop writing papers. i'll take an exam any day. but i don't want to write another paper.

my only excuse is a self-destructive streak paired with the pressure of high expectations - my prof noted on my draft, "i am expecting an A paper from you; don't let me down!" so of course i have. what now? at least 1000 more words. before 12 noon today. it's possible that i simply won't sleep. which is great, considering my presidential debate scheduled for 12:30. at least i have 30 minutes with my handlers for coaching and preparation. what did kerry say that killed him? "global test"? yeah. i won't say that. reagan had some killer lines back in the day, though. it's morning in america. remember how nixon resigned before he was impeached? yeah. that was smart. nixon always was underestimated. i used to be, once upon a time. now i'm this big asshole. another reason that this will be my actual last campaign. fuck this shit.

it's morning in america.

what we had to do

+ tonight i made soup while listening to veda hille records. we met friends at breakfast. last week i went to the courthouse and i'll be going again tomorrow. my iPod died buy i resurrected it by slapping it hard and dropping it on a table, so i named it "Spock." the snow completely floors me, every year - i love everything about it, now that i have boots to wear!

+ in retrospect it all seems obvious, but i'm proud to have predicted dion's victory. we had an envelope stuffing party at my MLA's office thursday night, and i called it for dion. adrian was less convinced, citing ignatieff's lead and doubting kennedy's ability to deliver his 905 delegates to the race's only french guy. the globe and mail mapped out 8 potential strategies the other day, posing two winning scenarios for each of the top four candiates. dion rode the "leapfrog" perfectly. i also felt that whoever received the martha hall-findlay endorsement would be in a very strong position. it's the symbolism.

i'm a history student. we create/recreate/uncreate narratives - it's what we do, and this weekend was an incredible narrative. steady eddie sealed it. and by 'it' i mean the narrative, which he highlighted in his acceptance speech by proclaiming "good guys do finish first!" and they did. steady ed stelmach, premier of alberta. part of the narrative is a lesson on how poorly we'll be able to adapt to different electoral systems. 30% means abolutely fuck all in a majoritarian system if you can't pull it up to 50%+1. ignatieff played his hand for the last two months as if he only needed 10% more to go over the top. well, he played that campaign to a tee, and got his 10%, but if it doesn't get you to 50%, it's not worth showing up for. you'd think his rent-a-machine would have had a program for that. or, maybe they did but it just couldn't compute. if you alienate 60% of your electorate, you're dead in a two-person race.

but back to steady ed stelmach. i think we need to spend more time on how well these two campaigns mirrored each other. dinning = ignatieff. surreally, morton = rae. and the guys who weren't assholes won, essentially because they aren't assholes. this is what you get with preferential voting - personality-based politics that favours nice guys.

to be horribly honest, though, i was secretly rooting for ignatieff and morton, just to see some wild crazy ego stunts erupt! once again, canadian politics goes in the least-interesting direction. dion and stelmach. but seriously, a leadership debate between dion, harper, and layton is going to be the geekiest wonk-fest ever, as long as layton lets his inner poli-sci professor come back out.

+ when i hear the tragically hip, "fireworks", i remember coming back from whidby island, and kevin saying to amanda 'come on, you turn off the hockey game and now you're turning off the song about hockey too?'