Montreal 2006, Alaska 2005: 4 Jan 2006
Bonjour! Happy New Year!
A friend of mine here in Montreal was remarking that he is a totally different person when with his family in Saskatchewan versus when here at graduate school. (I correctly spelled "Saskatchewan" on my first try in that last sentence. Clear indication that I've been in Canada long enough to absorb such things.)
After flying for twelve hours from Alaska to Montreal it is easy to imagine how an entire community of split personalities could develop in our contemporary society. In a mere twelve hours any of us can get from one place where scores of people know us in a particular way, to another place where our lives are completely different.
In Alaska I'm surrounded by family, lifelong family friends and people from high school with whom I mutually pretend not to recognize. Here in Montreal no one knows anything about my life except what I choose to tell them. No one I know here has met anyone I know there.
While I don't want to describe my self as two different people, one in Alaska, and one in Montreal, it does mostly seem like I live two different lives. What makes it stranger is that I easily slip into habitual living in either place.
Heading home from school today I stopped and watched as a man with a mid-back length mohawk had his hair blown dry by his salon stylist. The hair treatment didn't consist of anything intricate or advanced like spiking that mid-back length hair into the sky. But it did consist of using a round brush, a special tip on the blow dryer, and putting incredible sheen in the hair. Who knew "rebellion" could be so beautiful?
Montreal has a hair salon on almost every corner. Many corners have two. I'm told that no hair dresser in Quebec has to have any formal training or licensing. If you can get people to pay you for cutting their hair, you're welcome to. I'm also told that as a result the "mafia" launders their money through salons.
Anchorage has no mafia that I've heard of though there is a wealth of women with hair blown dry to a crust, and men with perhaps no hair washing at all.
Rachel and I flew to Alaska for our winter holiday. We spent almost a month there doing things like watching the five hours of daylight pass over the mountains in a mix of colors. It's almost perpetual sunrise/sunset in Anchorage during the shortest days of the year (the shortest being around 5 hours and 15 minutes). As a result we get around forty five minutes of straight yellow sun and a delicate glow during the rest of it. The sky is often colored in brilliant pink or apricot as the sun hugs the horizon.
A bald eagle flew over head one day by my parents house. And several moose populated the back yard chewing their cud. We ate moose meat lasagna for Christmas dinner and moose bone soup, and moose meat spaghetti several other nights. Our other Alaskan cuisine meals consisted of fried smelts (little candle shaped fish), reindeer sausage, and pounds upon pounds of fresh Alaskan king crab.
During our stay, Rachel was introduced to one of the things Alaska and Canada have in common--Hockey. Justin, the man that I'm dating who lives in Alaska (and does wash his hair), and I took Rachel to see the Alaska Aces play the Victoria King Salmon in a minor league ECHL hockey game. The Aces are such a popular team that it took the entire first period just to get the thirty feet from the front door of the arena to our seats inside. Prior to the game I wasn't sure Rachel had ever heard of hockey but when I asked her if she knew what it was she replied, "Yes. It's when those guys skate real hard to get that thing away from some other guys and into the net." She must have learned it at school.
Now back in Montreal things are slowly ramping up for the new semester that has already started. Most people seem to be working on dragging themselves out of the turn of the new year still. This semester I'll be teaching Intro to Philosophy II working on arguments for and against the existence of God, Free Will versus Determinism, and Knowledge. I'll also be taking courses in MetaLogic, Spinoza's metaphysics, and Husserl's description of time-consciousness. And call me crazy but I'm going to audit a class on Kant's Transcendental Deduction (B) from his First Critique too. I discovered from last semester that I seem to do better in school when I have too much to do. My Spinoza professor described this to me today as me "enjoying pain."
I hope the rest of you enjoy Joy and have lots of it. May you have a wonderful year.
With much love,
Elaine
A friend of mine here in Montreal was remarking that he is a totally different person when with his family in Saskatchewan versus when here at graduate school. (I correctly spelled "Saskatchewan" on my first try in that last sentence. Clear indication that I've been in Canada long enough to absorb such things.)
After flying for twelve hours from Alaska to Montreal it is easy to imagine how an entire community of split personalities could develop in our contemporary society. In a mere twelve hours any of us can get from one place where scores of people know us in a particular way, to another place where our lives are completely different.
In Alaska I'm surrounded by family, lifelong family friends and people from high school with whom I mutually pretend not to recognize. Here in Montreal no one knows anything about my life except what I choose to tell them. No one I know here has met anyone I know there.
While I don't want to describe my self as two different people, one in Alaska, and one in Montreal, it does mostly seem like I live two different lives. What makes it stranger is that I easily slip into habitual living in either place.
Heading home from school today I stopped and watched as a man with a mid-back length mohawk had his hair blown dry by his salon stylist. The hair treatment didn't consist of anything intricate or advanced like spiking that mid-back length hair into the sky. But it did consist of using a round brush, a special tip on the blow dryer, and putting incredible sheen in the hair. Who knew "rebellion" could be so beautiful?
Montreal has a hair salon on almost every corner. Many corners have two. I'm told that no hair dresser in Quebec has to have any formal training or licensing. If you can get people to pay you for cutting their hair, you're welcome to. I'm also told that as a result the "mafia" launders their money through salons.
Anchorage has no mafia that I've heard of though there is a wealth of women with hair blown dry to a crust, and men with perhaps no hair washing at all.
Rachel and I flew to Alaska for our winter holiday. We spent almost a month there doing things like watching the five hours of daylight pass over the mountains in a mix of colors. It's almost perpetual sunrise/sunset in Anchorage during the shortest days of the year (the shortest being around 5 hours and 15 minutes). As a result we get around forty five minutes of straight yellow sun and a delicate glow during the rest of it. The sky is often colored in brilliant pink or apricot as the sun hugs the horizon.
A bald eagle flew over head one day by my parents house. And several moose populated the back yard chewing their cud. We ate moose meat lasagna for Christmas dinner and moose bone soup, and moose meat spaghetti several other nights. Our other Alaskan cuisine meals consisted of fried smelts (little candle shaped fish), reindeer sausage, and pounds upon pounds of fresh Alaskan king crab.
During our stay, Rachel was introduced to one of the things Alaska and Canada have in common--Hockey. Justin, the man that I'm dating who lives in Alaska (and does wash his hair), and I took Rachel to see the Alaska Aces play the Victoria King Salmon in a minor league ECHL hockey game. The Aces are such a popular team that it took the entire first period just to get the thirty feet from the front door of the arena to our seats inside. Prior to the game I wasn't sure Rachel had ever heard of hockey but when I asked her if she knew what it was she replied, "Yes. It's when those guys skate real hard to get that thing away from some other guys and into the net." She must have learned it at school.
Now back in Montreal things are slowly ramping up for the new semester that has already started. Most people seem to be working on dragging themselves out of the turn of the new year still. This semester I'll be teaching Intro to Philosophy II working on arguments for and against the existence of God, Free Will versus Determinism, and Knowledge. I'll also be taking courses in MetaLogic, Spinoza's metaphysics, and Husserl's description of time-consciousness. And call me crazy but I'm going to audit a class on Kant's Transcendental Deduction (B) from his First Critique too. I discovered from last semester that I seem to do better in school when I have too much to do. My Spinoza professor described this to me today as me "enjoying pain."
I hope the rest of you enjoy Joy and have lots of it. May you have a wonderful year.
With much love,
Elaine
posted by hawkbrwn at 8:34 p.m.
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