So, it seems I've got myself into running for the Wilfrid Laurier University Students' Union Board of Directors (WLUSU BOD for the uninitiated). It's a strange feeling, steeling yourself for utter humiliation in front of your peers while at the same time resigning yourself to their collective political will...

wait... "collective political will". I've been told I have to be more careful about sounding too "intellectual". Which pisses me off, of course, given that this is a UNIVERSITY, not some backwater Town Council where people might be expected to be wary of some high-falutin' know-it-all city-boy. Crap. How dare I use phrases like "corporate-institutional paradigm" in my platform?

So much for the value of my $15,000/yr university-nurtured vocabulary. But I'm not bitter.

[momentary vitals]
  mood - dizzy
  track - none
  text - todays Toronto Star; highbrow, I know . . .

Stupid sickness. I'm congested, the right side of my face is puffy, I can't breathe through my nose, or hear through my right ear. But yeah, no complaints. . .

I really, really want to see Ararat, the Atom Egoyan film about the Armenian genocide. He and the composer that did the flim's score were at WLU last night, discussing it. If there was any doubt about his genius (Atom's, I mean, not to slight the other fellow), it seems - - so say the critics - - that this film dispels it. It hasn't opened in the local indie film house, though that's cool because if it had, I wouldn't be able to HEAR it...

[momentary vitals]
  mood - ILL (and not even in the beastie-boy, hip hop good-kinda way)
  track - none, I can't hear
  text - none, I can't concentrate

I'll be going to the New Democratic Party's national leadership convention at the end of the month, and I'm really, really looking forward to it. I'm a little frightened, though - - what if we, the delegates (along with the membership, since for the first time it's a "one member, one vote" balloting process) manage to select as leader someone other than Jack Layton? Personally, I'm a Ducasse supporter -- though I know he's got a snowball's change of hell at winning the leadership thanks to his age -- and, while I do think that all the other candidates (with the possible exception of Bev Meslo, about whom I know very little) would make great cabinet ministers, I strongly doubt that anyone other than Layton has the capacity to engage the public, nationally, in a way that would revive the party. They're just too . . . boring.

Okay, END BORING DOMESTIC POLITICAL RANT. Over and out.

Sick. Like. A. Dog.

Fucking school. I get back here, and the evil students have brought all manner of disgusting diseases from the far reaches of the land, and spewed their germs all over me. My throat is swollen, I can hardly breathe/talk/think, and the prospect of a three hour night class is looming after a three hour desk-work shift here (room-full-'o-printers).

My opinions on the "War on Iraq" have shifted a lot in the last few hours. Before, I was entirely opposed to US intervention there - - to me, it largely smacks of imperialist intervention for crass, obvious, and repulsively economic reasons; however, having read a few articles in Foreign Affairs (be careful with that magazine/quasi-journal; it'll change your mind, and that's scary given that the vast majority of it's advertisers are OIL COMPANIES and pharmaceutical firms) by Arab scholars who feel that, though the US is clearly doing it for the wrong reasons, a "regime change" (ack) is in the best interests of the region. Iraq, they say, given it's relatively high degree of secular-oriented social structures, is an ideal candidate for liberal-democratic social reforms the likes of which the Gulf region has never before seen.

Sure, maybe. But I don't see anyone in the region (let alone the US itself) getting past the greed-factor and actually passively acquiescing (let alone actively promoting) such sweeping changes. Then again, in the two years I've been a subscriber, FA has a pretty good track record in terms of predicting such things. Time will tell.

[momentary vitals]
  mood - sick like a dawg
  track - Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Walkabout"
  text - Setting up a moral system; basic assumptions and basic principles - Jacques Thiroux

This blog is turning out to put the emphasis on the 'semi' part of 'semi-daily'. Meh.

Marks are finally up for last term - - and the verdict is... A average! I'm not entirely sure exactly what combination of skill, luck, black magic and (unconscious) brown-nosing is responsible for that, but I'm grateful nonetheless.

As obvious and corny as it sounds, I missed school a lot more than I realized. There's some guilt associated with it, by which I mean that the place I've called 'home' for 16 years now seems only like a distraction, an interlude between stints at my real home, Waterloo. I'm starting to feel like I belong here so much so that I'm (only vaguely) considering grad school at UW, but doing that would be stupid. After all, I'd much rather take advantage of the opportunity to live elsewhere [an elsewhere of my own choosing, no less] for the two years or so it'll take to get my MA, rather than remain settled. I've my whole life to "settle in"; for now, I think I'd best roam around a little.

Of course, implicit in all of that is the presumption that my marks will remain sufficient to justify even applying to grad schools, let alone GOOD ones. This is Greg exercising his newfound acceptance of showing (well, discussing at least) ambition without too too much shame.

Speaking of shame: I enjoy this site far, far more than seems healthy.

[momentary vitals]
  mood - silly, optimistic
  track - Bad Religion, "Supersonic"
  text - A course package for Int'l Relations