How hard is it to learn how to fire a gun?

No, I'm not about to shoot myself or anything stupid like that. I may be applying for a job with the Canada Border Services Agency, and Firearms Safety Certification is part of it, although they recommend you actually learn how to fire a gun as well as just theoretically learning how to be safe with guns. Which is almost easier said than done in Canada, but what the hey?

Yes, that's right, Canada may, in fact, be arming a lot of its Border officers. With more than pepper spray.

Feel free to email your answers to katcall 42 at hotmail dot com. Put something like "blogger" in the subject line so I don't delete it as spam.

So, due to the wonders of planned obsolescence, my laptop has decided to start falling apart.

All right, it's not that bad, but the 'U' key has popped off and refuses to pop back on properly again (ie: the clips have broken), so every third time I hit u now, the key pops off leaving me with a blank, empty space. And my card reader hasn't been working for a while but I can work around that. The 'u' thing, on the other hand.... Oy.

So I'm meant to be having my laptop shipped off in the next couple of days for repairs - it's either get them done now while they're under warranty or pay through the nose when I get home. I've not been entirely impressed with Toshiba's service to date, but it's this or nothing. I could probably replace the key myself but was kindly told that would probably invalidate the warranty (which expires at the end of Sept, I think). The card reader I can't do - so the slow death of my keyboard has prompted me to finally send it off for repairs.

So I may be posting from computer labs and whining incessantly about how hellish life is without my laptop/dvd player/stereo/television/internet access/communication module.

Just a warning.

It's over. Went up to Edinburgh AGAIN on Tuesday, although this time it was to meet my friend, A, whom I haven't seen in 7 years. We've definitely drifted apart - 12 years of living 3000 km away can do that to you, but it wasn't as awkward as I expected. Yay! We didn't do too much, which was fine - we ended up mostly wandering around on the Tuesday, watching the street performers, which was fine by me!

We went to see Macbeth Re-arisen, which was super! If anyone ever manages to get the chance to go see a production of it, I'd highly recommend it! It wasn't as much of a stretch as I thought it might be ("Macbeth?! Zombies?!"), and I laughed quite a lot before heading back to the U of Edinburgh for the night to sleep. Well, sort of sleep. I never sleep well when I'm away from home.

Wednesday we went to the National Portrait Gallery - saw the zillions of portraits of people, but the best bit was probably the Harry Benson exhibition. Benson is a photojournalist who started taking photos in the 50s and has continued since, and he's managed to be in some incredible places at some amazing times. The photos were awesome. We did the city bus tour, wandered through the Book Festival (meh... probably would have been better if we'd had time to go to the workshops/speakers, but other than that it was just a giant book sale... and I don't have that much money to spend on books at the mo) and the Film Festival (again, nothing on that looked particularly good) and the craft fair outside St. John's church.

Photo is of St. Cuthbert's church, with the Castle in the background.

Thursday we went to Mary King's Close, where the guide was incredibly sexy..., wandered down through Victoria Terrace and Victoria Street to the Grassmarket, up past Heriot school, and back 'round to the Museum of Scotland, where we took the "highlights tour". We spent most of the rest of the day shopping. I forget that some of the High Street stores here aren't available in Canada (seriously, I don't know what I'm going to do without Monsoon - not that I've been able to afford much from there with the Canadian dollar being all crap and such, but I've amused myself browsing on many an occasion... and Next... and Oasis...). I caught the train back to York at 9 p.m., and had an entertaining trip, as an NUFC game must have let out just before we got to Newcastle, and a whole swarm of black and white shirts poured onto the train (most got off at Durham and Darlington, which was nice - glad I didn't have to deal with them!).

Friday, A and her family were meant to be coming to York. She was going to call me when she got here, which shouldn't have been later than 1-ish. I finally called her dad at 4, who said that A and her brother had headed out to the Uni and had apparently misplaced my phone number. Fortunately she had the presence of mind to ask for me at the Porters' lodge, and at about 5 p.m. my landline rang, saying she was here. I showed her around campus (she's considering coming here for an MA in a few years) and the village and we walked back into town for dinner afterwards.

Saturday we started at York Minster. A and her brother were fairly interested in the whole thing, but they're not history geeks like I am. And I'm afraid that if you're not a history geek, York is sort of boring. So I rather imagine that A and H had a bit of a dull time here, to be quite honest, but I did my best. We went to Jorvik afterwards. I warned them it was cheesy, but they seemed to find the cheese funny, so it was all good. Then Amy and I went shopping, and did the walk around the walls of the city - some fantastic photo ops I never would have known about otherwise, like the one on the left - York Minster from the walls of the city. The evening was spent having dinner with her family again and then it was on to the Three Tuns for a couple of pints with A and H.

On Sunday we started out with a sightseeing bus tour of the city, which was more informative than I thought it would be, to be quite honest. Yah learn something new every day, I suppose, and I learned even more new stuff yesterday than I probably normally would have. We then went on to the York Castle Museum... Then did more shopping. Since everything in York closes at 5 on Sundays, we then did a boat tour, on which I learned a few more things and saw some stuff I hadn't seen before, then it was dinner again, and good-bye.

Today's a holiday in the UK, so I'm kicking back, resting my sore tour-guide feet, and then tomorrow it's back to my usual routine.

Hope everyone is well.

I need to get packing.

Three guesses as to where I'm going yet again.*

I'll be back on Friday.








*Hint: I was already there twice this month.

I don't know if everyone feels this way, or whether it's just me, but there is something particularly irksome about the vast majority of streetcorner buskers. I have a very modest amount of musical talent myself (which would probably be helped along if I practiced, but I mostly can't be bothered), and can recognize a talented musician when I hear one.

Hence, most buskers drive me nuts. They're not talented. They can play an instrument, but they don't know what to do with it to give it that special quality and head-snapping, double-take-inducing sound that I really love from musicians. Not only that, but a lot of them sit there sullenly looking like they don't really want to be there. They have no notion of performance. I would be one of these. This is why I haven't taken to singing on streetcorners. I'm good, but I can't connect with people just walking by that way. I have busked once, with hand bells, but that's a novelty that'll get anyone talking (seriously, where have you EVER seen a handbell group on a street corner busking?). But I digress

York is a haven for buskers. On the odd day you can walk by and count 8-10 acts in the city centre alone. Usually they're crap. There's the guy who plays the fiddle with the devil puppet on his knee... the dude who plays the harmonica and makes his dog bark along... the university students that aren't music students but just want some extra cash... The guy who plays nothing but the Beatles... I don't know if he counts as a busker, but the guy who's painted himself entirely purple and looks all windblown is there nearly every day in Stonegate... Oh, look what you can find when you search Flikr!


Today, as I walked through town, there was a kid with a trumpet and his ...[older brother?]... playing the keyboard to accompany him.

I went into Borders to purchase some fun fiction (Love in the Time of Cholera, in case you're interested, is what I walked out with), and emerged to the sound of trumpet. I thought it was the kid again. But, no, my musical spidey-senses were tingling. It wasn't just the sound of one trumpet, it was the sound of several brass instruments. I turned the corner past Betty's, and voilà! - three young men (about my age, and not too shabby-looking either, I must say, and there's something extremely hot about a guy with musical talent... but I digress again) were standing outside Betty's playing. And not just playing - playing well! There were dynamics, subtleties, nuances, emotions... So I sat and listened. Not only were they good musicians, but they also played the crowd quite well.

I know they'll never read this blog, but, hey, if ya do, know I really rather enjoyed myself and wish I could have heard more.

I Am Reading
Baudolino, by Umberto Eco

Having been asked about the axe incident mentioned in the last post, I started to write a loooong comment reply. Then I realized Blogger would just cut off the best bits of my reply, so new post it is!

So, UP, you did not miss any sarcasm. And if you know me from FEP, you can skip this, you've probably heard it a million times.

At work last summer part of my job involved chopping wood so that I could start a fire in my wood-burning stove to do things like.... oh... boil water to make tea. Bake. Heat the house in which I worked.

To chop kindling, one generally takes smaller logs, holds them upright, takes the axe (nope, not hatchet, full-size axe...) and taps at the edge until the axe causes the wood to just sort of sheer off on one side, so you get nice, thin pieces of wood.

This time, whilst chopping kindling it was at 5:30 in the evening when we were all tired and ready to go home... I tapped the admittedly quite narrow stick (but how else are you supposed to get nice, thin kindling?) with the axe a little too hard, the axe chopped the stick a little further than I was expecting. Yes, that's right. It slipped down to where I was holding the stick in my hand, between my index finger and my thumb, until a combination of friction from the wood and me dropping the stick as a reaction to the pain in my index finger stopped its motion.

It actually bled quite a lot. I was impressed. Thank god for those aprons we all wore all the time when doing domestic things. Mine became quite stained (thank god for Shout!), although if you didn't know where to look, you'd never have guessed (dark plaid... good for concealing blood). I learned that I'm mostly OK with the sight of my own blood, although after about 5 minutes I really did need to sit down.

It was quite humourous, actually, the reactions that everyone had. J immediately tried to get me to put her chickweed grease on it (um, no.) but I did let her wash it out with some herbal antiseptic she'd made. B was slightly more helpful and went for the First Aid Kit.

Interestingly enough, it took my supervisor an HOUR to get to me to fill out all the accident report forms and the like. I was thoroughly unimpressed.

I probably would have been fine, but every time I tried to un-bandage it, it would start bleeding again, so after calling my friend S in tears (she and I were supposed to meet for dinner that night, I was really quite upset that I wasn't going to be able to make it), I drove myself to the ER (yup, drove MYSELF... by the time I'd filled out those forms everyone else had left for the night) where I waited from about 7:30 until well after midnight to have the edges of my cut glued together - it was probably just as well I'd driven myself. Such is the Canadian medical system at the mo (see why I cancelled dinner instead of just postponing?). I got home to my 'rents place sometime between 1:30 and 2 in the morning. And had to get up for work the next day. Wee!

And you've not had fun until you've attempted to cover up modern bandaging and one of those stupid plastic finger condom things (not allowed to get the glue 'stitches' wet!) so that your injury looks historically accurately bandaged. The little bits of canvas on my hand looked FILTHY and DISGUSTING by the end of the day.

And that is all.

So I've figured out how to make my camera do in-focus closeups.

Amazing what reading the manual can teach you, eh?

I tried to take a pic of the scar on my finger from where I chopped myself with the axe, but I need to work on contrast before I manage to get a decent picture of that.

Instead, I decided to take a nice, detailed picture of one of the smallest objects I own. My I present my high school graduation ring.




Now if only I had better lighting...

**Please note that if you read this on Sunday, I've now added some photos below, due to the amazing awesomeness of "change date/time" of posts on blogger.**

My Saturday night was spent up in Edinburgh.

I met a friend, K, at about 5 p.m. We grabbed coffee at Starbucks, sat down on the curb on the Royal Mile, and chatted for a while, and she told me that she needed to be off to meet her boyfriend's parents. They were going to have dinner, then go see her boyfriend's show at the Fringe. She asked what I was up to until the tattoo began, and I told her not much, probably find a pub somewhere for dinner, maybe sit and read for a while, get a good spot in the queue... And I was promptly invited out for dinner at the Sheep Heid pub/inn in Duddingston, and to see as much of D's (the boyfriend's) show as possible.

That pub was INCREDIBLE! If you visited the website, it dates from at least 1360, which is great (the Golden Fleece, York's oldest known, is only from 1503), and it's small, cute and quaint inside. I fell in love and could have wandered around just staring at the photographs and knick-knacks all over the place.

D's parents were lovely, full of questions, conversation... And they wouldn't let me pay for my dinner! They said that they'd recently been in Canada and that they'd paid for almost none of their meals, the hospitality was that fantastic, and that there was no way they weren't going to return the favour, in spite of my protests.

A quick walk away was Duddingston Kirk Gardens (Ed. Fringe Venue 121 - absolutely flippin' beautiful!), where D was performing the role of Antonio in The Tempest. I only got to see the first half before I had to leave (where else but in Britain do you get a "tea tent" at intermission?!), and someone told me as I was running away "but you'll not find out how it ends!". I looked the man straight in the eye, smiled, and said "somehow, I think I'll figure it out...".

Took a cab from Duddingston to the Royal Mile.

I got there, and was faced with this:

Yup. See all those people? They lead up the Royal Mile from as far back as St. Gile's cathedral all the way up to the Castle. I'm always amazed at the logistics of the whole thing - they manage to get thousands of people onto the Esplanade and seated in about 45 minutes. It's incredible.

So. The tattoo. The core is military, with pipes and drums. I was having some issues with my camera, so I'm afraid the video has no sound (boo!!!!!! Boo-urns!!!!!). The best acts were probably the New Zealand Army Band for comic value (I don't know any other group of grown men in military uniform that will put down their instruments and dance around flapping their arms like ballerinas while the rest of the band plays excerpts from Swan Lake), while for impressive technical skill and 'holy shit that's awesome' value, the "Top Secret Drum Corps" from Switzerland were the best. Seriously, click on that link and watch the video - they're fucking amazing!

So then I took some video with my camera, to give you an idea of what I was watching...

Swiss Drummers:

Projections on the Castle:

The cast performing "Can you Feel the Love Tonight?"

The cast:

The lone piper:

So, this morning UK Police, Scotland Yard and MI-5 managed to foil an alleged terror plot to blow up half a dozen planes on the way from the UK to the States.

I have nothing really to say about the political implications, the international relations, etc. You can read about what's going on at

BBC News (United Kingdom)

CNN News (United States)

CBC News (Canada)

After reading all this, my biggest concern became this (and I'm sorry that my brain is so selfish and me-centred, but perhaps that's my way of dealing with this sort of thing):

If the new security measures continue through October 19, how the hell am I going to get my laptop home? I'm not about to trust it to a baggage handler at Heathrow, then some at Calgary, then one at Edmonton. No. Uh-uh. I've seen what they do to bags. No way. I may have to send it via DHL - I still have the box and padding from when I had to send it away for repairs.

Concern number two would be how I'm going to spend 8 hours on a flight without a book to read.

I'm such a bad person.

I Am Reading
Academically: Not a damn thing. Although I should really work on a paragraph of my dissertation. In fact, I think that's what I'll do now.
For Fun: Victorian London (Liza Picard).
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: Um... dunno... 6 or 7 (they're not all actually on my window sill at the moment)

So...

Like I said, my supervisor more or less liked my first draft of my dissertation. Yay! The problem is, however, that I don't know whether he hasn't pointed out all sorts of flaws because he just can't be bothered or whether it's because he actually thinks it's good. Or whether he thinks it's as good as my work is going to get. Either way, I don't have that much in the way of editing to do, so I've been sitting here with nothing to do most of the time.

I ordered a complete Seasons 1-7 DVD set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that still hasn't arrived (and if it hasn't by the end of the week, I'm cancelling the order - it's money that I could use on something else if the DVDs aren't going to be around - I've been waiting a month already because it was on back order... stupid Region coding... My laptop will only play me Region 1 DVDs so I can't just walk into HMV and buy something here. Frustrating!).

I've worked on some transcriptions for a genealogy project. In 1678, after St Paul's burned down, a whole bunch of parishes all over the UK got together and said, hey, let's have everyone contribute a few shillings to rebuilding St. Paul's.... and so there are lists of these donations, but they're all handwritten in 17th century handwriting - like this one:

So we've been transcribing them and uploading them onto the internet for other family history researchers to take a look at and use as a resource. But even that hasn't been taking up too much of my time, as I've only had a few parishes to tackle.

If you think you might have ancestors from Devon, UK, at the parish of Beaford from around 1678, their names might be on that list...

But, anyway...

I'm still volunteering a day a week at the Minster Library, so that consumes my Mondays, at least.

None of the clubs or anything are still running on campus, what with all of the undergrads gone home, so I have no more bells to play, and I can't even take an aerobics class without walking 45 minutes to get there, and that sort of defeats the purpose... I might as well just walk for 45 minutes. In that regard, I can't wait to get back to Edmonton.

I've been cross-stitching as well, but the problem is that I usually cross-stitch whilst watching TV or a movie or something... but I've not got a TV and I've watched all my DVDs, like, 5 times. I was told I should post some 'completed' shots... So here you go:

The first one is "Twilight Angel" by Dimensions Gold Collection. She's cute, she's fun, and she made me hate French knots even more than I already did.

The second one is an initial 'D' from the Book of Kells (now in Trinity College library in Dublin. Both are on aida, as I'm still getting over my fear of linens and the like. I have on the go a wedding present for my friend A who's getting married on September long weekend (it's so not going to be finished in time...) and one that a friend T sent me after she visited a few weekends ago as a thank-you gift. I'm going to owe her rather more bigtime soon enough, as she's going to be proofreading my dissertation for me and letting me come visit her in Cambridge later on this year. I'm looking forward to it!

I've also got a crochet sweater on the go, but I'm having a bitch of a time with the neckline, so i might give up for a bit (I've ripped it out three times already and don't really want to have to rip it out again).

So, yeah, if I'm not blogging very often it's 'cuz, as I mentioned a few posts ago... I've not got a lot to say. I'm taking boring to a whole new level these days.

You can almost hear the Celine Dion in the background, can't you...? The song they used for that god awful Air Canada commercial? Yeah, yeah, that one. *shudder*.

So, I got on the train, made it up to Durham, then the train stopped. I was worried. A train in front of us had broken down and was waiting for a tow. I was a little concerned. I gave myself a shitload of time to get from Waverly to the consulate (ie: about an hour for a walk that only takes 15-20 mins), but was nonetheless concerned. The last bloody thing I needed after all the fucking hassle to set this damn thing up was to have my train be late and me miss or have to reschedule the bloody thing. Luckily the delay was minimal, and I made it to the consulate with a ton of time to spare.

I was stuck in a small room (although they fed my sparkling mineral water!) that was unbelievably FREEZING! I curled up in the chair and I'm sure the people that walked by wondered who the hell I was and what I was doing huddled in a little ball in their office room. Esp. since I decided to be all classy and stuff and was wearing nice officy-business-y clothes in spite of the fact that the peeps in Canada definitely couldn't see me (you never know, could have been a video conference... it's happened before...). Then, they were late. Not too long, but late nonetheless. The phone call came about 10 after 3. It was fairly straightforward, the set of questions, although when they asked about a tough decision I'd worked through and how I did it, I foolishly decided to use the example of coming to England for my masters. I nearly started bawling in the middle of the interview, as I'm homesick to begin with, and describing the trouble I had leaving everyone behind to come over to this random country where I knew no one, etc... Oops. And this was right after I'd had to tell them how capable I was of being a cold bitch (yup, seriously... "sometimes the things we do are hard, heart-wrenching, but we have to do them anyway. Can you give us an example of a time when you've had to do something that was extremely hard, even though you might not have wanted to...?"

I'd prepared kick-ass answers for 'what is your greatest strength' and 'what is your greatest weakness', and they didn't ask. Argh!

But anyway. It was over by 4 p.m., including my questions about the selection process (which has changed since I last worked for the department), so I wandered around a bit, had dinner, and am now on the train back home to York. Yay WiFi! Yay GNER!

I Am Reading
Academically: My dissertation
For Fun: Suite Francaise/Plain Truth (by Jodi Picoult - I didn't bring Suite with me on the train so bought Plain Truth at Waterstones.
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: Unchanged

Went to see The Breakup in the cinema this evening. It was bad.

But, it got me out of my room and doing something other than thinking about the bloody fucking goddamn piece of shit interview tomorrow that suddenly has me unbelievably fucking nervous.

Now that I really think about it, this is only the third job I've really had to make an effort to get.

Dairy Queen - didn't even have to interview. Boss just asked her other staff what they thought of me (small town!) and I got the job.

Government - my parents both worked in the department in question. The interviewers knew me, and the interview was a formality. After the first summer I didn't need to interview again for the next two.

Alto section lead - My voice teacher knew I needed cash and offered me the position.

Admin Assistant pt. 1 - lived with my boss. Not in THAT sense. She lived down the hall from me in Residence.

Floor Coordinator - knew the people hiring me from the admin asst. job.

Visitor Services - this one I actually had to interview for with strangers.

Park Host - Boss-to-be was one of my VS coworkers. We could barely keep straight faces during the 'interview'.

Academic Guidance - strangers.

Admin Asst. pt. 2 - knew the people hiring me from my floor coordinator and admin asst. pt. 1 days. They'd practically begged me to apply when they heard I was interested.

Historical Interpreter - went through an interview as a mere formality - it was the same people who'd hired me two summers earlier as Visitor Services.

Volunteer Coordination Assistant - was asked to take the position by HI bosses, who knew I was looking for extra hours/cash for this whole going to school in England thing.

So, anyway, I really need to stop feeling sick to my stomach, suck it up, realize I'm completely competent and can do this job with the proper training (I almost did it summer #3 in government), know that if I don't get the job it isn't the end of the world and I can always be a barista at Second Cup, praying that the other job I applied for comes through for me (competition doesn't close until December 31, though, so I likely won't hear before then).

You may get another frantic "oh dear god I'm going to cry" post from me tomorrow as I'm taking the laptop to hopefully do some work on the dissertation on the train, and GNER has apparently equipped a bunch of its trains with WiFi.

Otherwise, wish me luck. And now I think I need to find some gravol or something similar, because I'm REALLY feeling nervous...

I Am Reading
You expect me to read when I'm this nervous? You're fucking kidding me, right? Fine, fine...
Academically: My dissertation - "Something snazzy here: Religion, authority and the public execution in Tudor England"
For Fun: Suite Française encore. Je pense que quand je retourne au Canada je vais essayer de trouver un version français... c'est très bon, ce que j'ai deja lu...
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: 6. Again with the skimming for pertinent information rather than the actual reading.