I'm finally getting around to posting on a couple of newsworthy items (at least they are for me).
First, I achieved a minor milestone last week (well, almost two weeks ago, but who's counting) of having gone over 1,000 kilometers in the course of my daily commute to work. I have an odometer on my bike, which I attached a couple of weeks after I started my commute, so I have racked up maybe 100 km more than what it registered. No matter, it was kind of neat to see the numbers tick over from 999 to 1000.
The other event is that we welcomed today a 3-year old, chocolate point Siamese cat named "Joey" into our family. He's a real cutie, and once he calms down enough for me to take some pictures, I'll post some in my blog.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
RIP: Bamse 926 and Severus Snape
I was shocked to learn this morning that one of the people I have regularly played Raven Shield with and chatted with over Ventrilo has died.
This person, whom I got to know as "Bamse" (which I learned today means "bear" in Norwegian) had been pretty much a fixture for the past year in the RvS clan to which I belong. I had gotten used to hearing his low, gravelly voice greeting me and other clan members as we joined the Ventrilo channel before we would begin gaming. In-game, I would greet him as "my socialist friend" given that the Norwegian and Canadian forms of government tend to be more left-leaning than the government of the American players who host the clan server. He would even invite me on occasion to come onto the Red side as if to reinforce the appearance of socialist solidarity and to tease our American friends. It might have been lost on everyone else, but I had the feeling Bamse and I shared that little bit of fun.
His death hit me all the harder as I biked home from work today. I had zoned out climbing a hill and I started thinking how unfair it was that Bamse was gone. Now, I didn't know much about his personal life, but I couldn't help but get the feeling from the time I had spent listening to him on comms that, sure, he had his share of warts, but that he was fundamentally a good person - and that if the opportunity had presented itself I would have met him in person, if only to get the measure of the man.
It saddens me greatly that I will not have the opportunity to hear him again and to know more of him. His death pushed me to ask the usual meaning-of-life and why-are-we-here questions, and I really hate when that happens, because my thinking ends up in why-can't-we-all-get-along and why-can't-people-see-that-other-people-are-important questions, then I get angry and disappointed and frustrated with humanity and my life, and I'd rather go live on a desert isle... And a fat lot of good that kind of thinking does, anyway. Sigh. It's just that Bamse's death is so damn tragic.
So Bamse, wherever you are, resquiat in pace, brother.
I guess what made it worse still was that I had read, and re-read, and re-re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I have to say that when I got to the end of the chapter entitled "The Elder Wand" and read through "The Prince's Tale," I cried. Really cried. Imagine, a 52-year old man, crying because a character in a kid's book dies.
Well, for anyone who know the Harry Potter series, Severus Snape is one of the least likeable characters. Even before the book came out, I was sure that Snape would not survive the series, but the way that JKR filled in the backstory on Snape took me completely by surprise, and made Snape, in my mind at least, someone for which I felt deeply. I felt anger at the way Snape had been treated by many of the main characters, but most of all, I was angry at the way life had treated him - how his childhood and the bullying had shaped his personality, or at least in the way that he would react to situations. For sure, Snape tread down the wrong path, but in the end his heart was in the right place and he was redeemed by his love for Lily. I guess I feel that kind of anger against life for the way Snape was dealt a crappy hand. I can't help but think that if circumstances were different, the outcome would have been quite different. I think of the scene where Dumbledore says to Snape: "Sometimes I think we Sort too soon." This leaves Snape looking "stricken." What if Snape had been sorted into Griffyndor?
So I'm left struggling with the same issue for Bamse and Snape. I grieve for both, and I'm angry at the injustice of seeing the lives of good men that come to a premature end.
I'll miss them both.
This person, whom I got to know as "Bamse" (which I learned today means "bear" in Norwegian) had been pretty much a fixture for the past year in the RvS clan to which I belong. I had gotten used to hearing his low, gravelly voice greeting me and other clan members as we joined the Ventrilo channel before we would begin gaming. In-game, I would greet him as "my socialist friend" given that the Norwegian and Canadian forms of government tend to be more left-leaning than the government of the American players who host the clan server. He would even invite me on occasion to come onto the Red side as if to reinforce the appearance of socialist solidarity and to tease our American friends. It might have been lost on everyone else, but I had the feeling Bamse and I shared that little bit of fun.
His death hit me all the harder as I biked home from work today. I had zoned out climbing a hill and I started thinking how unfair it was that Bamse was gone. Now, I didn't know much about his personal life, but I couldn't help but get the feeling from the time I had spent listening to him on comms that, sure, he had his share of warts, but that he was fundamentally a good person - and that if the opportunity had presented itself I would have met him in person, if only to get the measure of the man.
It saddens me greatly that I will not have the opportunity to hear him again and to know more of him. His death pushed me to ask the usual meaning-of-life and why-are-we-here questions, and I really hate when that happens, because my thinking ends up in why-can't-we-all-get-along and why-can't-people-see-that-other-people-are-important questions, then I get angry and disappointed and frustrated with humanity and my life, and I'd rather go live on a desert isle... And a fat lot of good that kind of thinking does, anyway. Sigh. It's just that Bamse's death is so damn tragic.
So Bamse, wherever you are, resquiat in pace, brother.
I guess what made it worse still was that I had read, and re-read, and re-re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I have to say that when I got to the end of the chapter entitled "The Elder Wand" and read through "The Prince's Tale," I cried. Really cried. Imagine, a 52-year old man, crying because a character in a kid's book dies.
Well, for anyone who know the Harry Potter series, Severus Snape is one of the least likeable characters. Even before the book came out, I was sure that Snape would not survive the series, but the way that JKR filled in the backstory on Snape took me completely by surprise, and made Snape, in my mind at least, someone for which I felt deeply. I felt anger at the way Snape had been treated by many of the main characters, but most of all, I was angry at the way life had treated him - how his childhood and the bullying had shaped his personality, or at least in the way that he would react to situations. For sure, Snape tread down the wrong path, but in the end his heart was in the right place and he was redeemed by his love for Lily. I guess I feel that kind of anger against life for the way Snape was dealt a crappy hand. I can't help but think that if circumstances were different, the outcome would have been quite different. I think of the scene where Dumbledore says to Snape: "Sometimes I think we Sort too soon." This leaves Snape looking "stricken." What if Snape had been sorted into Griffyndor?
So I'm left struggling with the same issue for Bamse and Snape. I grieve for both, and I'm angry at the injustice of seeing the lives of good men that come to a premature end.
I'll miss them both.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
On the road...
I'm blogging from my first-ever series of site visits to some Quebec universities: Rimouski, Sherbrooke, Laval... I enjoy it, but the schedule is EXHAUSTING. At the end of a 2 hour visit (1 hour presentation, Q&As) I'm emotionally drained and I've had to drive for at least 3 hours a day for the past 3 days... thankfully, my last day is tomorrow (Laval), and I can look forward to a 5-hour drive home. Ugh.
I've become painfully aware of my lack of intimate familiarity (as opposed to nodding acquantance) of our postgraduate scholarships - our briefing notes are excellent, but it seems too much to cram into my small brain in so little time...
Anyway, I'm looking forward to administering my own committee competition. I'll finally be able to translate abstract information on our programs and integrate it into some concrete experience.
D'autre part, ça été toute une expérience de parler et de travailler complètement en français depuis quelques jours. D'une part, j'ai dû m'habituer à un environnement où l'anglais était complètement absent, et d'apprendre à communiquer uniquement dans une langue... mais dautre part, j'ai été surpris à comment rapidement je me suis ajusté à travailler dans l'absence de l'anglais. Intéressant.
Anyway, there's been lots more going on in my life, and I hope that I'll have the time to write about it later on.
I've become painfully aware of my lack of intimate familiarity (as opposed to nodding acquantance) of our postgraduate scholarships - our briefing notes are excellent, but it seems too much to cram into my small brain in so little time...
Anyway, I'm looking forward to administering my own committee competition. I'll finally be able to translate abstract information on our programs and integrate it into some concrete experience.
D'autre part, ça été toute une expérience de parler et de travailler complètement en français depuis quelques jours. D'une part, j'ai dû m'habituer à un environnement où l'anglais était complètement absent, et d'apprendre à communiquer uniquement dans une langue... mais dautre part, j'ai été surpris à comment rapidement je me suis ajusté à travailler dans l'absence de l'anglais. Intéressant.
Anyway, there's been lots more going on in my life, and I hope that I'll have the time to write about it later on.
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