Act Three

Those of you who check this blog regularly may have noticed that there has been some slowing in the pace of new entries. There are two reasons for this. One, our desktop computer has been in the shop “up on the hoist” for nearly two weeks while we wait on a new motherboard for it. So Pam has no means of accessing the internet while I am out during the day. Two, I’m being squeezed by the end-of-semester clamp. So I don’t have a lot of disposable time to blog.

Unfortunately, the pace of new entries on this blog may not pick up much during the next months. In about 2 weeks, we will be packing up and making the trip to Manitoba to stay for the summer. That means there won’t be quite as much incentive to blog, because many of the people we blog for will be more easily accessible to us. (My apologies in advance to those of you rely on this blog to stay abreast of the developments in our lives. We’ll try to be faithful to you by posting new stuff diligently.)

So I found this quiz about accents on Neither Right Nor Left. Since moving to Massachusetts many locals have tried to identify my accent, two common guesses are French Canadian and British. Whatever the guess it was always decided that my speech was “proper”. To sound like the locals one must say hot as “hat” and sorry as “sarry” (make sure you stretch out that vowel). I was more then curious as to where this quiz would place me, well apparently I speak exactly like I should coming from Manitoba.

So Lowell and I went out to celebrate tonight, not only the 3 passes on his starred paper, but the great reviews from his profs (which I noticed that he omitted telling you in the previous entry). We had a gift certificate to use, so we splurged and went to a very nice restaurant. L, by the way, was such a good boy and allowed us this little luxury, which we haven’t taken since he was born. Really the meal was way more than any meal should cost, way more then any decent human being should pay for a meal. This fact was driven home even further for me as we watched the movie “Blood Diamond”.

As movies go, I enjoyed it. I won’t go into any sort of critique for fear that I would ruin it for any of you who want to still watch it. The basic story revolves around the smuggling of diamonds out of Sierra Leone, which is in the middle of Civil War.

Almost at the end of the movie L cried and I went to nurse him. I was sitting there, not sure how I could be so blessed to be living and raising my child in North America. My life is not adequate to say thanks. I won’t be making any huge difference to the injustices of the world, but I should be conscious about the little part of the world that I can impact.

I’ve blogged, in weeks past, about my Starred Paper. Yesterday I received word that all three of the people on my committee gave the paper a pass. I guess I don’t have to drop out of grad school just yet. Now if only I had the motivation to write my last seminar paper. (Sigh)

I guess I’m attached enough to my homeland to make sure to read Canadian news regularly. Several weeks back, I pointed out some interesting news from Saskatchewan, where some trouble-makers stole some heavy machinery and wreaked havoc on the otherwise peaceful Saskatchewan countryside. Today I draw your attention to a Manitoban story.

A policeman in Killarney was trying to chase down a pickup truck. The truck turned onto a field. The policeman followed. The truck disappeared over the top of a hill. The policeman slowed down, because he didn’t know what was on the other side. Apparently, the escaping miscreants didn’t bother to do the same. When the policeman came over the hill, he saw the truck mired in the middle of a lagoon of hog-manure. The “shit-disturbers” had nowhere to go but back to the waiting officer who then had to transport them back to the station in his cruiser. (The pun was intended–I’m pretty proud of it.) I wonder if anyone was able to get the smell out of the cruiser afterward?

So yesterday I submitted my Starred Paper. Over the last two weeks, I and several of my peers repeatedly threatened to quit grad school. Now that the papers are submitted, we get to wait for the results. Once we get the results, several of us may do more than merely threaten to quit grad school. (Sigh) Anyway, now it’s on to other things…like hosting my inlaws for a week. They’ll be arriving later today. A lot of fun that will be. (My inlaws read this blog and know that I’m kidding…I hope.)