end of week wonders

this is the end of a long-anticipated weekend, and i am glad with how it has turned out. it has concluded with a home-cooked meal, fewer readings left to do than there were saturday morning, and a general sense of ease.

saturday

on saturday morning i took the commuter rail in to boston to visit a high school friend studying in cambridge, along with several transfer/international students she had met there. the plan was to visit the museum of fine arts or the gardiner museum, but by the time we had assembled, we decided the weather was too nice to ignore and abandoned our plans in favour of wandering outside. we started our meander at the boston commons and public gardens, two idyllic spaces with tourists and locals strolling through at various degrees of patience.

we followed the freedom trail (a red brick line that takes you past many old buildings and boston monuments) for a bit and then detoured toward quincy market for lunch. i had been expecting a farmer's market from the name - having never heard of the place before - but it ended up being a large building filled with lunch-type food vendors and upscale boutiques surrounding it. there were a number of buskers and street performers, and to add to the good cheer, a giant flock of college guys obviously pledging to a fraternity, who one by one would march up to pretty young women with a rose in hand and ask if they would like to go to a party that night. regardless of the response from the embarrassed woman, the whole group would suddenly burst into bleats of "give him a hug!" which made me laugh hysterically for some time...have you ever heard thirty guys yell the same thing before?

when we got tired of the market, we wandered around the back, hoping to find a place to sit down, and bumped into a real market, run by mostly hispanic bostonians, where all the fruit and vegetables were ridiculously inexpensive. i bought a giant eggplant, three boxes of strawberries, and a big bag of grapes for three dollars, while other possible one-dollar options included three pounds of tomatoes, or five nectarines, or a dozen ears of corn. amazing! we wondered why everything was so cheap, hoping the foods were not contaminated, but just too ripe to sell elsewhere. we had a giant fruit dinner on park benches, where we were approached by a man with a camera ('take my photo?') who talked to us about shooting a moose with a bow and arrow in montebello, quebec when he learned we were from canada. sketchy...

the evening ended with a jaunt into chinatown, a rummage through a beautiful used and rare bookstore, and a stroll toward the train station, from which i caught the train into bridgewater, my new (it's becoming) home.


sunday

this has been a quieter day of pondering and reading, catching up on loose ends, and doing odd chores. i left my room with the intent of going to the library, but again was distracted by the beautiful day and walked around the residential neighbourhood south of west campus until i got too warm, and then found a spot in the shade of a big old maple tree to do my readings. [let me add here that i procured a cup of fair trade coffee from the east campus commons caf!! it was blueberry scented...]

the rest of my afternoon was spent devouring books and articles, picking up odds and ends at the cvs, discovering that bridgewater has a second hand book store - i bought the bostonians as a lark - and learning that due to the override at the recent municipal election, bridgewater's one public library is due to close by october. what a shame!

i spoke with some very friendly people working in the cafeteria, learned that botswana has an aids rate of 38 percent while reading my anthropology textbook (and surprised myself by my visceral anger, coming quite close to tears), and cooked up a dinner that was much too salty. all in all, it has been a wholesome weekend and i'm looking forward to the next few days before i head back to ottawa for the weekend.

observation

this is a very academically-oriented place in the world. evidence? the ad sections of many of the newspapers are filled with requests for test subjects for various studies.

home sweet ottawa

this past weekend i went home to ottawa. not that ottawa is where i'm from, but there is an amazingly palpable difference between the united states and canada that i hadn't realized until we hit the tarmac of the ottawa airport and i breathed a giant sigh of 'ah, i'm back.'

i spent the weekend at the killam/fulbright orientation, which was an enlightening and professional three days of events together that allowed us to discuss everything from our upcoming years in each others' countries, to national identity, to hockey plays.

i found myself consistently counting my blessings throughout the proceedings, finding myself amid fascinating people, with diverse interests, talents, and immense knowledge. yet amid these wonderfully academic people (i hesitate to say academics because it seems to put unnecessary borders around personalities) i found a wonderful down-to-earth and level-headed outlook on life, not to mention some great senses of humour! on our last evening together, i sat amid a group of american fulbright scholars and students ranging in age from bushy-tailed to experienced, and listened as insightful and warm conversation washed over me. this was our way of unwinding after a very fun game of hockey had transpired earlier that evening, and we were the crowd eager to continue our conversations, but not inspired to do so at the local pub. several times i came very close to tears, overwhelmed as i was by the situation i found myself in. how privileged i have been throughout my life to end up where i am right now. what amazing people i have met through my travels. wonder where the next twenty years will take me?

boston arrival

when we first arrived in boston, en route to bridgewater, we as a family collectively took these photographs. each of them tells a different story.



interesting statement under the neon lights. it says "god bless america"




two kinds of oil at one rest stop.




canadian beer advertised in boston!




down at the wharves (who knew this was the plural of wharf?)




i was proud of this canadian-american connection, since this is the purpose of my visit here, even if it was just decor at a restaurant.




a beauteous flower outside of a small shop in cambridge.




the lovely scenery.




i was, and am still, impressed by the presence of american flags everywhere. on people's homes, outside of shops, on buildings, probably even tatooed in places i can't see. this was the giantest one i have seen so far.




finally, the stereotype of america in a photograph. i hope to discover that this is completely untrue, unfair, and unamerican. we shall see...

classes

yesterday i was in class from the early hours of the morning until sundown and reached my room exhausted at the end of the day, but only because of the stormy weather. (twice I had reached classes soaked to the skin as I hadn't realized it was going to rain and did not bring an umbrella with me in the morning.) i love my classes! let me sort of recap my day:

my first class was "global indigenous peoples" in which we discussed the basic methods and features of anthropology in order to get us ready to talk about this article: Body Rituals of the Nacirema, which is quite funny and worth a read. i really enjoyed the professor's discussion of walking through a mall in the phillipines (she is from senegal) and watching as things came to a standstill around her with everyone turning to look at her, a blatant foreigner. i guess when you do fieldwork, you need to accustom yourself to the idea of being the odd one out in your new surroundings. i certainly felt that way sometimes in kenya, but getting close to the people you are working with changes that feeling of being different really fast until sometimes you forget that you look a different way.

my second class was "consumer psychology" and i am so glad to have found this class at this school! for a society that consumes endless amounts of things, the western world spends little time criticizing this behaviour. advertisements try to make us fantasize urgent needs out of our wants, and psychologists have now conducted studies that prove there is a dark side to this american dream! i have a textbook that elaborates how materialism causes unhappiness and unhappiness causes materialism. and this returning thought arose again yesterday: there are enough resources on the planet to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate every single person. it's a great frustration to me that if this is a possibility, it is not at once a reality!

my third class of the day was "environmental and consumer health," a fantastic elaboration on consumer psychology with an ecological bent. i sat through this class close to tears, as the professor elaborated all of the horrible things we are doing to our planet, but i'm tempted to say this was a renewing and important experience to have had. with a fresh rage about the destruction of the earth and its resources, i can better apply myself to my own small changes and talking to others about theirs. some human beliefs that contribute to environmental problems are:
- that man is the most important species and should have dominion over nature
- that any harm we do, we can undo
- that our individual and collective impact on the environment will result in imperceptible changes
- that natural resources are free and inexhaustible
- that the environment has a nearly infinite capacity to assimilate toxic discharges and waste

also, here is an incredible comparison of our current priorities...every year,
$14 billion is spent on ocean cruises
$15 billion on perfumes
$18 billion on makeup
$17 billion on pet food
$11 billion on ice cream in Europe alone!

compare this to the cost to make some vital changes
$12 billion for reproductive health care
$19 billion to eliminate hunger and malnutrition
$5 billion for universal literacy
$10 billion to provide clean drinking water for all
$ 1.3 billion to immunize every child

staggering, isn't it? and if this hasn't moved you enough, think to the seventh generation, as some of the first people living in this country do, considering what ramifications your actions will have on your grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren.

my fourth class of the day was "nutrition" which is a nice formal way to pursue a longstanding interest of mine. it is a class filled with mostly physical education and health education majors, which is great because they are a bunch that is already quite knowledgeable about the subject.

finally at the end of the day i had my first ceramics class! it is super long (almost 5 hours) but time passes quickly and i think it will be quite therapeutic. i am taking this class in the evening, with a lively bunch of women and a down to earth professor named ron mello (a name that suits him well). last night we spent our class touring the studio and working on pinch pots. everything they do is high fire stoneware, and i am looking forward to learning how to mix glazes, reconstitute clay, and play around with my imagination to produce interesting things. we are encouraged to come in to do work at any hour of the day, which is lovely; i will have a retreat if anything else gets too crazy. it's really nice to be taking pottery; i feel like it gives me a connection to the earth, to history, to my own family a little bit more, and will offer me a chance to be artistic in a way that i normally am not.

today i have many odds and ends to do as i get ready to - believe it or not - go to ottawa early thursday morning. the killam foundation is having a killam/fulbright conference over this weekend and i'm going to be able to meet some of the other folks who are similarly settling into new colleges and universities here and in canada. i look forward to posting some photographs sometime next week!

p.s. i'm thrilled to have received so many comments on my posts! thank you so much; they make the writing a breeze.

things to learn

today i spent some time wandering campus and the town of bridgewater, trying to orient myself in this new place. i had heard there was a yoga studio in town, but after walking over, i discovered it has moved 2 miles down the road, just a tad too far away to get easily on foot in time for the class i was planning to go to. maybe i'll try again tomorrow.

it strikes me that bridgewater state college is much like glendon, in that it is a school that is rather self-contained. most people pack up and go home on the weekends; i saw many students leave east hall this afternoon with laundry bags and not much else. we are just a little bit removed from the major city (glendon from toronto, bridgewater from boston) and when i mention the name of either of the colleges, not many people know what i'm talking about. :D

i'm finding myself conducting somewhat of an anthropological study of american culture, looking into everything in a very different light, searching for differences and similarities. one thing i've realized is that i've become accustomed to a rather progressive community of people - people who are concerned about turning out lights, walking or taking public transit whenever possible, and generally living healthy. i haven't quite found that group of people here yet; i was surprised to discover that the "better bean" coffee shop has never heard of fair trade coffee before. it also came as a bit of a shock that most residence students also have cars and live only about half an hour away from the college. most lunches i have seen people eating are some combination of pizza, burgers, french fries, and tacos, although i'm hoping this is not really the case but just what happens to stick out to me this first week.

in other strange observations, i keep hearing music blasting out of cars and dorm rooms that i associate with kibera, where i spent two months of my summer teaching journalism. it's bizarre to come from a slum to a posh college and to connect them through song. amazing how time and space can be so condensed by something so simple.

and they're off

when i first arrived at bridgewater state college (bsc) i found a book in the library that i had been unable to find almost anywhere else; the diaries of adam and eve by mark twain. it is a shortish book and i took from it two delicious pearls of wisdom as follows:

how little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it - eve

it was against my principles, but i find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed - adam

* * *

as of today i have officially begun all of my classes here, and so far they are looking great. the professors are welcoming, the topics are incredibly well-suited to me, and after standing in a very long line at the bookstore, i have acquired the books that i have to get through before the end of the semester.

i am taking a consumer psychology class, in which the overriding theme is that material goods cannot buy you happiness. or, more eloquently put:

you can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy - eric hoffer

i think this is going to be a great year

settling

just before i head to bed on my first night in bridgewater, i think i should post to say that i have made it here in one piece, i have found my room, located a 'connect card' that lets me into places of food, of sleep, and of books, met my lovely roommates, attended an exchange student orientation where i met the two other canadians, been to a campus bbq, and even sat on a bench in the shade of some big trees to devour a book i have been searching for for ages and finally found here at the library.

it has been a whirlwind journey to get here, and i have many stories that need to be accompanied by some photographs, soon to come.

good night!