I went to the seminar on the Synergies project, which is basically a government funded organization that is striving to publish Canadian journals and conferences via its different online systems (it has not yet received its funding). The idea is that it works in coordination with a bunch of Universities across the country in order to keep the systems updated. One fellow was quite adamant about stressing the point that the systems should be bilingual. He honestly wouldn't stop talking about it. In any event, the project is run out of the University's libraries, and I may ask them if I can be of any help in digitizing older documents for web presentation.

I met with the Opera kids and we talked about our presentation, which is shaping up to be something quite neat. When you boil it down, we'll each be talking for about 15 minutes, and that will require about 6 or 7 pages of written material (double-spaced). A piece of cake given how much there is to talk about. I'm to have the research done for next Wednesday.

I walked home from Keele station and ate while watching Scrubs (I'm becoming addicted). I was also in the mood for some 90's caliber, pre-9/11 action movie goodness, so I popped in Arlington Road, a movie my sister gave me a few years ago but that I hadn't seen since theatres. It was about as good as I recall, which is, to say, not very. It proceeds at a decent dramatic clip until about the last 30-45 minutes, when the movie dips further and further into the implausible. It was as if the filmmakers' only concern was to build to a chase scene in which they could bury the fact that they had no idea how to wrap up the narrative. Still, it was kind of interesting watching a movie about terrorism in America only a couple of years prior to the hijackings.

I ordered a copy of Visconti's Death in Venice for my essay. Tomorrow I'm hitting up Future Shop and hopefully starting work on my Oni presentation.

I boarded the bus for class this morning but traffic on Keele Street was completely gridlocked. We sat for nearly an hour and had only moved a couple of blocks. I know there was construction work going on, and that must have been coupled with an accident or fire (a fire truck did speed by, sirens blaring). At one point the driver of a Go bus behind us approached the driver of our bus about his mirror, prompting our driver to put the bus in park and GET OUT to check it out. That's when I decided to hike it home.

I took a nap during which FedEx showed up with what I'm assuming is my Eurail pass. What are the chances they'll come back tomorrow before 11 AM? I have a feeling I'll be asking Jay for a lift to their offices. The remainder of my university bursary appeared in the mail a bit later.

I did return to campus later on for African-Canadian Lit. We watched a film called Rude, which had an involving story and was great in that Canadian production kind of way. Afterwards I tried doing some research on Death in Venice at Robarts, but I couldn't concentrate, so I headed home after about 45 minutes. I used to be able to get a lot of work done at the library at Carleton, but I find Robarts a kind of tricky place to study. The desks are always too open to traffic, and the cleaning staff often decides to buffer the floor with this loud machine right in the middle of the day. I need to find a better study hole.

I walked home from Keele station, poked a bit at some more stuff on Thomas Mann and watched a few episodes of Scrubs (I really dig Zach Braff). Tomorrow I'm meeting with the Death in Venice group for a bit. Before that I'm attending a seminar on making Canadian journals available for online research. More on that after I find out exactly what it entails.

To-Due List:

Tuesday, November 20th: Presentation on Ghettostocracy - African-Canadian Lit
Friday, November 23rd: Bibliographical description exercise - Bibliography
Tuesday, November 27th: Presentation on final project - Touch of Evil
Friday, November 30th: CCA grant proposal
Monday, December 3rd: Presentation on Death in Venice - Opera
Monday, December 10th: Final research paper (max. 15 pages) - Opera
Monday, December 10th: Editorial exercise - Bibliography
Monday, December 10th: Critical reflection paper - Bibliography
Friday, December 14th: Final project - Touch of Evil
Monday, January 7th: Final research paper (max. 14 pages) - African-Canadian Lit

It makes me feel a bit better laying it all out like that. I've been feeling a little overwhelmed tonight.

After Opera class I walked home from Keele station and watched a making-of featurette on The Sound of Music while eating dinner. I almost finished my film readings, taking a break to crack open Scrubs Season 6. Lots of material on castration anxiety, fetishistic scopophilia and the female lack (in the readings, not on Scrubs). Tomorrow I'll be working on all things Thomas Mann.

I'm missing Ottawa today. Winter is coming. I love those deep winter nights when the sky is pitch black and the streets are lit up with lamps reflecting off freshly fallen snow. The world is enveloped in near silence as no one is out braving the roads. You breathe in and the air is so cold it forms a taste in the back of your throat and hurls itself down into your lungs. You take a step and the ground tightens. The feeling overcomes you that miles away there is something running in your direction, but it will never catch up, and you will never look it in the eye. There is only the quiet and the clouds that exit your mouth and hang for a moment before disappearing completely.