Today the controversy on the news is… were the allied forces bombing civilians during WWII? (Read this and more to the point this) Well, they bombed my Mum while she was in kindergarten. I’ve heard the stories. She remembers it clearly — and who wouldn’t? The air raid sirens. Running for the shelters. The planes in the sky. Bombs falling and exploding near where she lived.
They bombed most of my WWII dissertation participants, who were all children at the time.
My uncle’s memories of the Japanese bombing of Malaysia are interestingly similar: planes overhead, explosions, air raid sirens, …). The real point being that bombing from 30,000 ft in the air is indiscriminate. It does not matter who is dropping those bombs, or why. Especially to civilians on the ground who are inevitably forced to run for their lives and find shelter regardless of who is dropping those bombs or why they are being dropped.
To hear that Canadian veterans are in denial is shocking & hurtful to the many innocent Eastern Europeans and Asians who were bombed during WWII and whose families now live in Canada. Our War Museum should be telling the history from more than one point of view. Including, and especially, the rarely heard civilian point of view.
I think Margaret MacMillian said it well on CBC Radio One when she said, “This is a museum, not a war memorial.”
Well, in the end I saved calculus girl from her fancy mathematics by admitting that I probably won’t defend until the end of the first term, so that I therefore owe them term 1-graduate completion grant. I did my own simple mathematics. And tonight, via the miracles of online banking, I paid enough of my fee to satisfy Student Accounts. I don’t know if the other two deparments I had to contact will be satisfied, but I figure they don’t control the ROSI system.
Some people waste their hard earned $$ on cars. Others buy homes. Me? I’m paying for a PhD… over and over and over again. If there is not some serious movement on the part of my committee in the next month, they are in serious trouble. I have been ABD since Dec. 2003. I’ve been patient. I’ve done every thing they’ve asked. I’ve even been nice about it all. Well, you know what? Enough is Enough. This year, I want my money’s worth. 
The inability of bureaucracies to implement their own policies never ceases to amaze me.
About 2 weeks ago +/-, I received my fees invoice from UofT for year six of my headache. After I got over the shock of the fees increase, I set about trying to figure out how to pay the least amount possible.
Students near defense are allowed to pay on a month-by-month basis. (some long time readers might remember how that turned out last year) Student Accounts is supposed to publish a chart telling you how much to pay in which month. OK. So, this year, the fees schedule for final year students is not posted.
So I emailed student accounts, who tells me to ask the school of graduate studies and/or it will be up on the accounts website at the end of sept (one full month after their own deadline for fees payment). The SGS student handbook (pg.8) tells me that the fees schedule should be on the fees website (click here). So, I send the link to the policy back to fees but also write SGS, where their stellar advice is to simply pay the full amount and they will reimburse me if I’m entitled later. Um, that doesn’t work as it means they get the interest on my $$. No response from student accounts. Meanwhile, I email student services in my dept. who manages our awards (no, nothing can be done at UofT by one office) because I am eligible for a graduate completion grant this year. So, I want to know, how much is it, because I don’t want to overpay & do they perhaps know about the fees schedule? Um, No, they respond. But I need to pay $200 to get on the system. That seems inordinately low and is completely out of line with the advice I got from the other two departments involved in my fees.
So, I weigh all this contradictory gobbledygook and decide to pay one term minus the amount of the completion grant. Just as I decide this, the student acct’s dept gets another student to email me with a long explanation although she talks around why the fees schedule is not yet posted, and then asks me to send her my expected date of graduation so she can calculate for me how much $ I need to pay. I hope she is studying calculus.
This makes my head hurt.
Look! My Mum left a comment on my blog! It only took her 5 years to get up the guts to do it… and when she did, she taught herself how to do it! I realise that making a comment on a blog is not rocket science to most of you, but my Mum’s a senior. 
At this rate, I give her 5 years to start blogging herself. It’d be cool. She travels a lot and takes a lot of digital pictures. Oh, and one thing she’s not lacking in is opinions. 
Today is the last day of Pride Week in Ottawa. And being Ottawa, the sunday festivities started off with church. The bells have just been rung loudly (& to think some people complain about the Muslim Muezzin!) telling me that it’s over. The parade starts at 1pm! I think I’ll try to be there, partly so I can compare it with the extravaganza which takes place in TO at the end of June every year. I’m expecting it to be less naked simply because Ottawa is like that & because the route takes them past parliament hill. I guess I also want to go because I was so horrified by the signs of open violent homophobia in the community, about which I wrote a few months ago.
It still bothers me that I live in a country which has legalised gay marriage, and yet they are still burning the newspaper boxes!
Edit I was right. More clothing.
I found an Ottawa Blogger who blogs solely about things to do here About Ottawa. It’s not that active, tbh, and that makes me wonder if it’s a reflection of the limited number of things to do here in the Nation’s Capital.
Anyway, if you know of any other Ottawa bloggers, leave me a comment so I can put them all together in one place.
xo CG.
The golden rod is in full bloom and i’m miserable. I wake up in the middle of the night with itchy pallete, throat, and inner ear! My right ear hurt like a pin was in it for the last 48 hours! A bit better this afternoon/evening, but now the itching is starting up again.
Last weekend I went to the boondocks t visit a friend of mine & passed field after field of golden rod. Hello! Stop it!
The over the counter meds are NOT working. I don’t know what to do!!!
Someone gave me a Samovar for a present! My Great-Grandma used to talk about how she preferred tea from a samovar. I have a tiny model of one made out of copper. *And* I have my Grandfather’s silver teaglass holder — which probably matched a samovar at some point.
Central Asians also use them and there were many for sale in the market in Quetta, for some reason, no one ever served me tea from a samovar there. I nearly bought one in Quetta, but thought it was a bit big and heavy an object to bother with. I’ve basically regretted the decision eversince then.
Anyway, I’ve got a samovar now. It’s on top of one of my shelves. It’s brass. It’s old. It’s great. It’s too bad we’re not allowed to bbq in this building, or else I could fire her up and see how she works.
Life & Times sent me an email ages ago asking for my snail mail addy because she wanted to send me a postcard from away. So, I obliged. But as the days slipped by on her annual junket, postcard didn’t arrive. She was away for about 6wks-2months… she’s been home for a week & today I opened my mailbox & low & behold!
Postcard!!!!
Thanks so much!! It was worth waiting for!!!
xo xo xo xo CG
