MiKE: Spending Money (II)

So, the second part of this long overdue update concerns the actual spending of money. As I mentioned, Serene moved here, and to accommodate our stuff, we had to get some additional furniture. Besides the shelf, we bought a few more items to aid the organization of stuff, like plastic drawer sets, some kitchen stuff for baking (mixing bowl etc), and a desk lamp, 60W maximum, which of course I stuffed with a 29W CFL (125W incandescent brightness equivalent), making it the brightest light in the room. Not many items. Still, the largest purchase was the shelving unit, which is quite insidious - they sell the parts separately, frames, shelf, brace; individually, the items don't seem that expensive, but when it comes together, it all adds up.

The other thing we'd been spending money on was eating out. Since we had to go to the Spadina Avenue (specifically Chinatown) branch of the bank to open our accounts, we found ourselves 'conveniently' drawn to the restaurants there, and we discovered at least 2 more relatively good eating establishments, one serving Hong Kong cuisine with the obligatory HK 'tude, and another serving good Vietnamese beef pho and vermicelli. Both places were quite affordable, with roast duck noodles going at $3.75, and fried rice enough for 3 large eaters at $6.95 or so.

And, since we made at least 2 trips to Chinatown to do the banking thing, and a few more toward Queen Street and Eaton Centre to try to get a good jacket for Serene, we ended up eating out once a day for almost the whole of last week, which also adds up.

And, since we're on the topic of jackets, I'd take the opportunity to exclaim how expensive it can get to acquire a cold wear wardrobe (yes, yes, this is pretty old news). When I came here in late August, some of the mornings and evenings got quite cool, but even so, I found the jackets I brought, a fabric bomber jacket and a boardskiing shell, very adequate. As the seasons changed toward end Autumn and the temperatures got stuck at 10-15ºC, I found, and bought, a rather classic mid thigh length woolen (well, not quite. 85% wool) jacket, and was happy for about a month. Then, temperatures dipped some more, into the 5-10ºC range, and I found a synthetic fill insulated jacket from Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), an outdoor store which serves much of Canada, and that helped for about another month. I've been realizing that the MEC jacket is quite good for when the temperatures are above freezing, but any colder, and the jacket does not provide adequate coverage for my thighs, and no matter how much I tug the tension cords, cold air still seems to seep its way up from under the jacket.

Serene did not have it any much better: all she had in terms of warm clothes was a synthetic fill insulated jacket which we bought in Hanoi for perhaps 10% of the retail price in N. America (and which, by now, had been compressed and lost its ability to loft and trap warming air), a full length trenchcoat from a thrift store which looks a 1/2 size too big, a genuine plastic leather lookalike 3/4 length raincoat like trenchcoat, and many sweaters and vests.

So we both needed something that could help us cope with: snow, -15 to -10 ºC temperatures, and wind. Sound easy? From our (understandably limited) experience, we wanted something that had a hood (Serene wanted something with fur lining, but I was a bit worried that the fur would get into the eyes); had a sturdy and thick cotton shell for abrasion resistance and some measure of windproofness; had some sort of fill insulation; and was 3/4 length - long enough to cover the thigh, but not too long as to restrict motion or get muddy when walking in melted snow-ice.

We spent literally days walking around town, ducking into stores large and small, chain stores, department stores, entrepreneur-run places, looking at different jackets, looking at what people wore, how cold they seemed to be, and eventually, we managed to stumble upon an impressive looking jacket, whose claim to fame was that it was standard issue for the US Antarctic Program. It was expensive. We went back, did some digging around, found a $32 discount coupon (the store celebrated its 32nd anniversary this year), bought Serene's jacket on that coupon, but could not find my jacket till the 26th, boxing day, when, to great joy, there was a 15% discount! What can I say, we were both very happy! and warm!

A shot of us together along Spadina Avenue, looking east. Looks a bit overkill, yes, but you need to know what we were wearing underneath - just a long sleeve t-shirt, that's all, and the temperature that day was about 5ºC.

We figured we needed some really competent jackets because we did not want to spend winter indoors; we'd like to be able to walk outside, and sometimes at a leisurely pace, to pause and take pictures, and not have to rush from heated domicile to heated transport to heated establishment to heated transport to heated domicile. This is us, walking around on Christmas evening:
Christmas here is pretty much like CNY back in sg; there is the reunion pig out on the eve, and then, for the religious, midnight mass at the churches and cathedrals, and then Christmas day itself is much like family visit time. The slight change is that the shopping spree is done on boxing day, where there are seriously good bargains worth waking up early and braving the hangover for.
The harbourfront centre, with the pond now frozen over to serve as skating rink.

The Nathan Phillips Square outside the Parliament House also had a portion converted to skating rink:
Apparently, there is going to be a huge countdown thing happening on the eve. Still wondering if I should go. Generally, we don't like crowds, but then again, this is going to be an interesting experience.

Speaking of crowds, the one at Eaton Centre on boxing day must take the cake for density. There were queues everywhere, security only allowing people to enter once patrons left, and an incredible sense that the place was so packed that they could simply save money and not need to turn on the heating. We did not bring a camera with us that day, but two days later, the crowds were still non-trivial. The stores had expanded the event to the entire week to call it boxing week and a means of driving up sales:

And yes, with understaffed conditions and everybody digging around to find a good bargain, the inevitable result in many stores is chaos:
To be honest, many of the stores did not have really good bargains, they were taking the opportunity to clear stock, (yes yes, all retailers do that) and even at the prices that were on sale, we did not find the items good value for money, they were neither well designed nor look particularly durable. So, we did not feel bad leaving the place empty handed; and in any case, we were not big consumers inured in the shopping culture, nor was there any risk that we could be inducted.

Eaton Centre's Christmas tree had Swarovski crystal adornments, making it really glittery:

Elsewhere, it was also very crowded; here is a shot along Dundas Street West, looking eastward:
Doesn't really look like Toronto downtown, eh? First time I saw this, it occurred to me that, minus some cues, this could easily be Hanoi or Hong Kong or somewhere in the PRC.

Serene posing before a grocer. There were many such stores around Chinatown, some of them with less than glowing hygiene standards.

Another shot looking down Dundas Street. I was trying to draw attention to the signboards, but I think the lighting conditions are not ideal:

And the last one for this (long) post. We'd like to think that snow is all beautiful and clean and pretty and white. But the reality of it is that that's probably true, for the first few hours after it falls. Very quickly, especially in cities, dirt takes over, and snow quickly becomes a place where one avoids (especially since that day I saw this guy spit at the snow pile...):


Not too good a way to finish off a post eh? Too bad, all the pretty pictures were used already.

MiKE: Spending Money

So, Serene moved here. She's got a job offer and will have the details worked out soon. Which meant that she and all her stuff needed to be accommodated here. Which meant we needed more horizontal surfaces upon which to put stuff on. Which meant that we needed to get to a cheap-ish furniture shop to get stuff. Which meant Ikea, especially since I had in mind the Ivar shelving unit, being pretty wide, tall, sturdy, deep enough to be useful, but not so deep that it gets in the way. But more of that later.

Her flight was actually cancelled the day it was supposed to fly due to the heavy snowstorm here. She arrived the next day, on a Monday, when snow was still piled really high at the traffic junctions, so there was an interesting obstacle course of sorts to clear. Other pedestrians before us had somewhat cleared a small footpath by stomping down the snow, but that was not wide enough for the suitcase, so we had to carry the bags up and above the snow. Fortunately, it was only across one or two crossings that we had to do this. Even after only a day, the snow was getting quite filthy at some areas, especially those that were highly trafficked. Which made me wonder - where does all this dirt go to normally?

You can see the high contrast between the snow that was just ploughed off the street overnight, and the stuff that the vehicles drive over. Not pretty:

A shot of Serene, 'for scale'... :

Seems like this guy is not about to get his bike out from the snow anytime soon...

I found the little mounds of snow on the steps of the sculpture pretty interesting:

This were the kinds of pavements we had to walk on to get around. This day, we were on our way to the Whole Foods Market, to get coffee (they roast their coffees there daily!) and some other stuff.

Serene came with one large suitcase, one large duffel bag, one laptop bag, and one small duffel bag. At St. Louis, she had a friend help her bring the stuff to the airport; she could not have coped without the help; and then, all that stuff was to be incorporated into the bachelor apartment that I was renting. Amazingly, among the stuff she managed to bring across were a 'memory foam' pillow, and a body pillow; the body pillow as large as two ordinary pillows end-to-end. These were compressed with the aid of gigantic ziploc bags and a vacuum cleaner. Most impressive and voluminous was the comforter that she somehow also managed to squeeze into the suitcase. We spent much of the first day and a half unpacking and arranging stuff in the apartment, straining the limits of whatever storage space that was available in the apartment, watching and hoping that the weak looking shelf in the wardrobe could hold the suitcases that we filled loosely with stuff like the backpacks and some other summer clothing that we would not be using for a while. After managing to squeeze all that stuff into the place, the image that became stuck in my head was that of a anaconda, swallowing a baby hippo whole, and then slowly digesting the hippo till it was no more. We both felt somewhat nostalgic/romantic; the situation reminded us of hostel living again, everything in one room, prompting us to nickname the place hostel room on steroids.

So, on the third day after she came, after a failed second attempt to open a bank account for her (first, we wanted a joint account, and initially wanted to modify mine, but the avenue road branch said we could only do it at the spadina avenue branch where I opened my account; second time, I forgot to bring two acceptable forms of ID), we decided to go to Ikea, which involved taking a long ride to the outskirts of downtown Toronto (Kipling station from Spadina, which is like Jurong West from City Hall), and then taking a free shuttle service to Ikea. When we got there, it was dark (the sun had set at 5), so we were looking around, trying to find the location of the free shuttle pickup location. Kipling station is designed as a bus/train interchange, with the subway tracks at the basement level, and the buses on the ground level. We were thinking at first that the Ikea bus could be at the same bus bays as the other buses, and then realized that it was unlikely, as the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) would probably not share facilities like this, and we could not find any bus bay labelled for the Ikea bus. We tried our luck with the staff at the variety store (which sold sweets, drinks, snacks, magazines, and was stereotypically, run by an Indian family), and got a curt response to 'go down two floors', thought they were joking, as we could not imagine a level below the subway level for buses, but went there anyway, found an exit to a carpark, no sign of a waiting area, went back to the station master, and got a more courteous response to wait at the carpark for the bus.

And we did. In 0ºC weather. With occasional breezes that really got us freezing, and making up our minds to buy more competent gear. There was still no signpost of any sort to indicate that we were at the right place, just 5 or 6 other people waiting at the same place. In my mind I pictured a bright cheery yellow and contrasting blue bus, but when it came, it was a nondescript shuttle that did not even bother to put up a sign to say "Ikea" or something. We boarded, asked the driver if he was indeed driving us to Ikea, got an affirmative, then sat down to defrost.

Ikea Etobicoke, the closest Ikea to downtown Toronto, was surprisingly similar to the one at Alexandra Road, Singapore. Huge blue building, with attached warehouse, two floors, and parking in the basement, the restaurant on the left of the entrance which is, as in Singapore, on the second floor, right next to the kids room department, and the staircase downstairs to the kitchen department. I don't know how much of it is coincidence, but it sure seemed like this was the default template for Ikeas around the world. And on the menu? Meatballs, Salmon, Gravad Lax, and some local food (which in Toronto means stuff like quiche). The food trays were even similar, if not identical, and also the food ordering and payment queue layout. Perhaps the only major difference was that of space. Looking out of Ikea Alexandra's restaurant, one sees Anchorpoint a short distance away. At Etobicoke, one sees the huge parking lot, and beyond it, a very major highway. At the ground floor, where in sg you'd have a small warehouse section where you pick your own boxed furniture, here the warehouse sprawled out at least 3-5 times in floorspace, and had a ceiling about 4 stories tall, and shelving racks meant for forklifts.

We got our stuff, paid up, then lugged the Ivar shelf frame and 5 shelves up the shuttle bus, and through the TTC subway all the way back to our apartment. Setting it up, I had it all almost complete when I realizd that the cross brace was the wrong size; we had to go back and get it changed. The next day, we went there again, and this time, we remembered to bring a camera. Pictures:

A shot of Ikea from within the bus. The front façade looks remarkably clean of snow.

... because it had been shoveled and piled onto a huge mound at the back of the building:

Us having lunch, at the restaurant which cannot help but invoke deja vu:

The landscape outside the station is quite ugly, with electricity pylons and overhead cables everywhere. Still, the colors of the setting sun do manage to rescue the scenery somewhat:

Phew. Long post. This is a result of procrastinating, I guess.

MiKE: So distracting...

So, I'm sitting here, trying to finish my last paper so that I can finally take a break. And I've spent so much time looking out the window; perhaps because it is bright outside, with daylight, even through the thick clouds. But mostly because there is a huge snowstorm going on outside. And it is really interesting to watch. Yes, part of the attraction is due to my having not seen a snowstorm before, but I think the other is that the snowfall is so interesting. It'd be wispy powder one moment, falling gently as if someone were dusting icing sugar from the roof, then I'd hear the whistle of the wind in the tiny gap I left in the window to cool the room down somewhat, and then I'd look out and see the wind whip the snow till the trails fall almost horizontally. Then, the flakes falling would suddenly change size to huge almost pellet-sized chunks, and fall at the speed where one would expect rain to fall. There would be gusts, and amid the large flakes that fall, one would see the snow dust being swept up in vortices accompanying the large flakes, appearing as if there were multiple turbulent air streams outside my window. Suddenly, the wind will stop, and the flakes would all hang in midair, wondering what to do before remembering, cartoon character style, that it was supposed to fall down. All in all, mesmerizing.

And not to mention almost human drama of seeing cars stuck by the side of the road. There was this one car, that parked for a while by the kerb. When he wanted to set off, all he could do was to make his front wheel spin aimlessly in the snow-ice. He kept trying and trying, coming out, desperately pushing the snow away from under the front tyre with his shoes, and some small implement which was evidently unsuitable for the job, until someone offered to lend him a snow shovel, and I watched him clear the snow from in front of the car, pausing once in a while to stuff his frozen fingers into his jacket pockets, then continuing to shovel furiously, pausing to go back into the car to try again, failing to gain traction, shoveling again, and then finally managing to move his car out.

The snowstorm is really heavy, starting yesterday around noon, it was on and off, and got really heavy this morning. Apparently, even Environment Canada has issued warnings, predicting up to 40cm snowfalls over the weekend, windspeed during gusts at up to 90 km/h, and suggestions that it could be the worst storm in this region for 60 years. No kidding; I woke up this morning to see snow lodged between the inner and outer sliding windows, and they had been closed overnight(!):


Looking out, during the heavier snowfall period, it's clear visibility has been seriously obscured:


If i manage to shoot a picture of severe whiteout conditions, I'll post it up here.

The Environment Canada Warning:

Warnings

City of Toronto
11:15 AM EST Sunday 16 December 2007
Winter storm warning for
City of Toronto continued

A major winter storm with heavy snow and blowing snow occurring over all of southern and eastern Ontario.

This is a warning that dangerous winter weather conditions are imminent or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions..Listen for updated statements.



At mid morning a massive winter storm was giving snow and blowing snow to all of southern and eastern Ontario. Some places such as Toronto were also reporting thunder and lightning.

The low responsible for the storm now lies over Lake Erie. It will track slowly eastward across New York state today then accelerate off the northeast tonight.

The snow associated with the storm is forecast to end over the Windsor area this evening, most of southern Ontario during the night, and early Monday morning over extreme eastern Ontario.

Further amounts of 10 to 15 centimetres are expected over most of southern Ontario but with higher amounts likely over portions of Niagara where winds off Lake Ontario will enhance the snowfall.

Over eastern Ontario further amounts of 20 to 30 centimetres are expected.

In the wake of the main storm northwesterly squalls will develop off Lake Huron this evening then continue into Monday morning before weakening. This will delay the end of the stormy conditions over areas to the southeast of Lake Huron until Monday.

MiKE: White Night

This is what happens when it snows at night, there are few vehicles and therefore the snow plough does not need to clear the snow off the road. The road, that is normally black, is now white. Sure, there is dirt, it's a bit brown/black at parts, but it is very interesting to see the normally dark night lit up by the street lamps, and to top it off, have the roads reflect the light so the entire place looks so much brighter and somewhat more cheerful. I know, it is really hard to think that way, because of the cold weather. But right here, in my warm heated apartment, it does feel very comfortable, and the scenery, beautiful:

MiKE: TED videos.

I've been watching these videos for the past day and today. Very interesting. Gives one hope for the future, and alternative ways of considering the world that we live in; different from the world that mass media would like to scare us to be. TED is the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference, which, brings together some of the best minds in the world for an idea exchange.

Here are some of the ones that I liked, including this, with special relevance to education, which I think should be required viewing for all educators:

MiKE: Sushi, or, what to do when you're lazy and hungry

So I've been lazy. My groceries ran out on Friday, so I could not really cook 'proper' meals; at least, I am out of vegetables. But it's not as if I've not left the apartment at all; I have been to the AC on Friday and this morning. But, I did not feel like tasting my cooking for some time, at least, not the same stuff I've been preparing.

So I've been having Papa Ceo's Pizza, which comes in slices so large, they are enough for 1.5 meals. And at $4, they are quite decently priced too. I've written about their pizzas in a previous post.

Anyway, after the second half of the slice today, I still felt hungry. I had two more bags of chips in my cabinet, but I did not want to have that as I did not want that salty taste in the mouth for the rest of the evening. So I procrastinated, and got more hungry, and then got a brainwave. I still had rice, and nori, and eggs.

So I prepared Tamago rolls! And I stuffed myself on them. Pretty hearty meal, if a bit boring. I think I might buy some fresh salmon or tuna the next time I get to the Whole Foods Market... Here they look:

MiKE: Winter is not always grey

So I went to OISE yesterday. Nothing unusual, except that classes had ended; I still have papers to submit, but I went for a social event (read: free food and entertainment). Woke up yesterday to a bright blue sky, perfectly cloudless, and yet, cold. Like, -2˚C kind of cold. The sun did not help much. I think the maximum temperature was not more than 5˚C or so.

I walked to OISE along the usual route, this time armed with a camera that I told myself quite many times already that I should carry, because there had been previous days where it had been pretty. Like yesterday. So, as I've said, there has been snow, lots of it. And as you can see, this is what happens to it: it gets ploughed off the road, and sidewalks, and forms a untidy little mound that separates the sidewalk from the road, such that crossing the street is only practical at designated crossings. Also, you can see that, yes, perhaps the first snow may be clean, white and 'pure' (with what's in the air, one cannot be too sure these days), but quickly, within a week, the snow becomes filthy. See the following picture. No, it's not soil, it's all snow, albeit with much muck:


Walking past this mound, I come across again, this sculpture, the one I encounter everyday. I really wonder what the name of it is, and what the person is trying to do...


Another shot of the mound of snow that separates the road and sidewalk. If you're observant, the street I'm along is actually Bloor West, the perpendicular one is St. George; I'm standing right outside the Bata Shoe Museum, and OISE is the overexposed building in the background:


A shot of the university marker, with the Robarts library in the distance, on the right corner of the frame:


The Varsity Blues, the stadium, where a game was going on in -2˚C weather. It was barely 8 minutes or so, but by this time, standing outside the OISE building and looking east, my right hand had been frozen; it was so cold. For those who know, you can see the Michael Lee-Chin crystal addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, and of course, everyone can appreciate the brilliant azure sky:


This is a shot, looking westward, from the 10th floor (out of 12) of OISE building, in a room where we usually have our classes. Once again, a beautiful sunset, this one at 5:00 pm.

Forgive the blurring; these were the artifacts from shooting out a pretty dirty window.

MiKE: Overnight snowfall

Last night, or rather, this early morning, the snow fell again. Since the last snow I reported about slightly more than a week ago, the snow had been receding and melting. With this week's forecast temperatures not exceeding 5˚C, I think it is safe to say that the snow that fell will stick around for a while. Take a look:


Once again, this is looking out my window, east across Spadina Avenue, with the concrete tunnel for the streetcars. One thing that I'd bring attention to, is the depth of snow - as you can see from the cars that have been parked overnight, the snow is at least 5cm deep, and at that side of Spadina Avenue, somehow, the pavement has not been cleared. Think about it this way: the cars you see are parked along a road. There is now no distinction between road and pavement; the snow is at least as deep as the height of the curb. Interestingly enough, Spadina Avenue, a medium density North-South road for downtown Toronto, is very quiet this morning; car density has dropped from the usual 5 cars per minute (or so) at this time I'm writing (11am) to about 1 car every 5 minutes (or so) (okay I may be exaggerating somewhat, but the density is really low, ok!). And they are driving very.slowly. I saw a car drive out of the side road (along the street where the cars were parked), and it was moving so slowly. I guess it has to be so for safety's sake - at one point I think I noticed the drive wheel spin when it lost grip on snow.

Interesting.

And oh yes am I glad that I went to Sanko yesterday and not procrastinated till today or even later.

MiKE: Shopping at Sanko

Sanko Supermarket is a Japanese grocer with pretty decent Japanese stuff that one would expect to find in any Japanese city (Having seen a few in Hokkaido and Tohoku, I'd think my judgment's right on this). Nothing particularly special, I guess, if one were to be in Japan. Sanko is located at 730 Queen Street West. It is along a semi busy street together with a motorcycle leather specialty shop (think Harley Davidson), and a place called Miss Demeanor, where, on my way back, I was about to comment to myself that the lingerie clad mannequins in the window looked surprisingly real. Until they started to move..

Well, back to my story. So, I am now convinced that I must go out everyday and brave the cold and get some exercise; even if it is to the conventional grocers just round the corner on Bloor West. And I had been noticing that my soy sauce was diminishing quite quickly. So I thought to go and get some, from Sanko, because I tried one particular soy sauce in sg (this one from Meidi-Ya, Liang Court) - some Usukuchi Soy Sauce, and I liked it. Very light and versatile. The interesting digression I have here is that we found out about Meidi-Ya onboard the CX flight back to singapore from Tokyo - there was a Japanese program informing visitors of places to visit; and it was mentioned).

But then, I had just paid my credit card bill, and it would take at least a couple of days before the credit line was reinstated. So I thought to sleep on it. After the nap, I awoke to see the last rays of the sun setting, and I resolved to go out before the sun fully set. Donning on the layers, I looked forward to a walking workout to keep the blood flowing and to help the sore muscles from yesterday's workout, and of course, mentally created my shopping list, and worked out that I probably could pay a bit of cash and the rest by Visa, calculating that I could spend about $40.

On the way there, I was struck by just how cold it was, and how useless plain old wool was against cold and wind. It seemed like the cold air just passed through the fibers as if it were a sieve. I guess the button down front did not help. By the time I got to Sanko, my nose was dripping (anybody know why it does that?) and my cheeks were numb. Went in, was glad to defrost but was apprehensive about going back, laden with stuff. For the moment, I ignored the cold, reveled in the goods laid out before me, and found the bottle of sauce that I was looking for - the exact same one that I got in sg! I must have gotten a bit carried away; between two sizes, it was cheaper to get the larger size; in many cases it was a dollar more (out of base price $3-4 for double the amount). Picked up what I thought I could carry in the bag alone (No way was I going to be carrying plastic bags even with gloved hands), and then went to the counter to pay. The bill came up to $55.17

I tried $20 cash + Visa; the transaction was not approved. $40 + visa, not approved. Sighing, and sheepish that I was holding back the queue, I handed over my last $20 bill, got change and then left. Walked home, at as fast a pace as I could, reached back in about 35 minutes, and was tired and glad that I made it, once more with a cold, dripping nose, and numb cheeks. Just for the record, Google maps counts the distance as about 3km one way, so I got in about 6km of a pretty fast walk today, all in 0˚C weather. I am so pleased with myself. And to top it off; here is my haul:

Back row: Japanese mayonnaise, Wasabe, Bulldog sauce, Usukuchi soy sauce, Japanese rice toppings, seaweed mat (*50 sheets!*)
Front: Yaki soba noodles, frozen edamame, shelled and in pod, and gummy sweets.

Ahhh, life's little luxuries.

MiKE: more AC adventures

This time I am quite certain that I did 12 laps, in 11:47. I was monitoring the timing with each lap, making sure that each lap time had the second counter less than the 12 o'clock position, which means that each lap was less than a minute. I did get a little demoralized and slowed down at the beginning of lap 9 though - I realized that I had 4 more laps including the one that I was starting on, and I think I actually took a full minute to do that lap.

After the 2.4km run, I did a bit of weights for upper body exercise, and then I climbed onto the elliptical trainer. I got it figured out - I was thinking about it since the last time I was running on the track. It appeared that the trainers were not connected to any power supply, which meant that the electronics was probably driven by the pedal motion converted into electricity via a dynamo. I started pedalling, and the electronics came to life. That much is pretty plausible - it is not hard to design very low power electronics, but then I still cannot figure out how the device is able to adjust the resistance.

On the trainer, I maintained an approximately 150 pace cadence at a 150 heart rate for 15 minutes, though I wonder how precise the heart rate monitor is, which measures by two sensors at the handgrips.

Today though, I did not go have pizza, instead I shopped at Bloor Superfresh, and had dinner at home instead. Just as well: tomorrow morning there will be water disruption, so I guess I have to eat out for lunch.

MiKE: 11:39 for 2.4km?

So, I've been going to the AC, because, without spending a fortune on warmers, it would be impossible to run in this kind of weather. The AC, Athletic Centre, has a 200m indoor track, a 50m pool, gym equipment (including an elliptical runner which *gasp* I could not (yet) figure out), and, quite importantly a steam room, which, unfortunately, smells of stale sweat and grime, but is nonetheless welcome because its a steam room!

I've been running, and previous to this, I've timed myself at up to 12:24 for a 2.4km run - the passing standard for IPPT at my age category would be 12:00 (i think). Today, i timed myself, and as the title says, i got a 11:39. I have a analogue stopwatch, so when i first stopped timing, I was quite disappointed, as I thought I had pushed myself reasonably hard. Then, i looked closely and realized that it was 11:39, instead of 12:39, and then i felt happy again, and promised to reward myself with a slice of pizza from Papa Ceo's. Did some weights, went to the steam room, bought the pizza, came home, showered, ate, and then I started to have doubts about the timing.

You see, it is quite hard to keep track of the lap count - with a 200m track, I have to count 12 laps, and somehow, I always mess up on laps 3-7, I think because my body feels most shocked that I am actually running, and it feels the most difficult, and I have not gotten into the rhythm of the run yet. So I know that I do a 200m lap in about a minute or so, and so, if I were to add a minute to the timing, to make about 12:45 or so for my 2.4km timing, it would seem more reasonable, given that I don't think my fitness can improve so dramatically so soon.

But then again, I was running quite much harder than my previous occassions. And I have had experiences, in sg at least, where i manage to cut a lot off my timing by a few practice sessions. So I am now not so sure either way. I guess the only way to settle it is to go run again soon. Sigh. Does anybody know of a low tech (not throw-money-at-the-problem style) solution to lap counting? I know a pedometer or a Nike+iPod could probably do the trick, but like i said, i really don't want to spend money on this.

Anyway, here is a picture of the pizza. This place is one of those mom-and-pop places run by an italian looking (?? no, he did not grab his crotch as he was speaking to me) guy who names all his pizzas with the names of famous italians; what i remembered was Luciano Pavarotti, Al Pacino, the Godfather, the Terminator(?); err, there were more, but I did not remember them. Me, I bought a Roberto Begnini, a vegetarian pizza with basil, eggplant, mushroom, and tomato slices:


Good stuff, and cheap for the amount of food; pizza pizza, a pizza chain (duh) sells their pizza for about the same price $3.50, but theirs is smaller, and has so much less ingredients. I think I have found another food place that I would go to again. :)

MiKE: U.S. thanksgiving holiday

Serene came over, as i mentioned in the previous post, for a precious 4 days.

so, as every good grad student does, we cheerfully stopped working for those 4 days, went out for walks every day, ate out, and allowed ourselves a kind of lifestyle that resembled what was normal when we were in singapore, and not the life?-what-life? chained-to-the-desk-must-finish-all-these-readings-before-class! mode that has become 'normal' during the last 3 months.

Thankfully, 2 out of 3 courses are done, there is one last session to attend next tuesday, and then 2.2 papers (one of them i count as 0.2 of the others) to submit, and then i can start on the backlog of work that i have to do as my GA duty, and then i can finally call it a holiday.

Anyway, here are some pictures we took during the short time out we had; on Sunday, we though to try to make it to the islands; as it was a bright and sunny day, with some clouds at the horizons toward the evening. Strangely enough, there was nobody at the quay; seemed like the islands at this time of year did not seem popular; in fact, the ferry to Centre Island was discontinued till April. So, we just walked around the quay instead, and took these pictures:



And then we decided to walk to St. Lawrence market, and found it closed on Sunday... In any case, we managed to catch a shot of this building. I am almost certain it has a grand sounding name or something, but I am not aware of it. Peeking out the corner of the tall building on the left, is of course, the even taller CN Tower. We thought to go to the islands to watch the sun set. I guess we got a free alternative instead:

MiKE: It's snowing!

So, on Wednesday afternoon, talking to some locals, I heard the rumour that there was going to be up to 20cm of snow that night, and also on Thursday. I spent most of the evening awake, till about 3am, waiting for Serene to arrive - she was hitching a ride with her friend who drove up, and was supposed to arrive around midnight. More on that later; but in the meantime, it was a cold and rainy night - in fact, it had been raining for about the whole of Wednesday, a incessant drizzle that was not impossible to walk through, but at times increased in intensity, especially after the sun set at the very early time of 5pm these days.

I got her position reports via sms, and learnt that she was being held up by jams before the border, and also at the crossing itself. Apparently, what was planned to be a 12 hour journey turned out to be closer to 18 hours total travel time. I'll let her tell her side of the story recounting the trip, but as for me, I was staying awake, finishing a draft for submission, and then watching episodes of South Park.

By the time she arrived, it was after 2am, and I did not envy her - for some reason they had to leave the windows cracked open a bit or else the windscreen would mist up, so as a result, she arrived here practically an ice cube.

The next morning, when we awoke, I took a look out the window to find this:
The rain had turned to snow overnight, and because my outer window was ajar, it had blown in and almost jammed the window. It was still snowing when we woke up. Looking out, we saw this:
For people who have been following this blog, you should remember how this looked like when it was still sunny and the trees were still fully green; it was an amazing sight - the snowflakes falling were so light and being blown by the breeze in all directions.

When the snowfall lightened somewhat, the brightness went up a bit, and the view cleaned itself up:

And then we decided to go out for a walk, even though it was still snowing, albeit lightly. We wanted to go to the MEC Store - Mountain Equipment Co-op sells good outdoor stuff, and we walked the 1.5 km or so after lunch at a Japanese restaurant along Bloor Street.

Along the way, we decided to stop and take a picture:
and we walked on, went to MEC, bought something, and then promptly returned it even before leaving the store as it seemed that the product was not working as well as advertised. Sigh. We walked home, empty handed, in medium snowfall, in the dark.

This post is very boring. I need to write more, but not for now... Feeling sleepy and tired, and I thought to just post these pictures up first, and then maybe talk more later.

MiKE: It's raining ice!

Yeah yeah, i know, it's quite a common thing. But then, this is only the second time I've seen it; the first time was here too, but I did not manage to get a good shot of the ice. Here it is:



Not terribly large; as you can see, the characters 901/1 are about font size 9 or 10. Interesting sound they make when the land on the window sills.

PBS documentary on ID

for those who don't know, ID is intelligent design, which is what the creationists came up with when they were frustrated in their attempts to indoctrinate children in schools in the US.

PBS Nova made a documentary about this, and I find it excellent.

The link is: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/program.html

ReNe: a few pretty colors

Sorry, looks a little washed out as St Louis is very sunny.

ReNe: running in the fall

Went for a run today, the first since the weather suddenly turned cold (that is, <15 deg C).

It was complicated. I had to *plan*. Now that sun sets at around 5:20, I'd have to be back home and start running at 4+. I don't have many days that end that early, actually, the only day I can be back home by 4 is Wed. Then, there was the matter of clothing.

I don't have any cold weather running gear from Singapore, of course, though I recently got a microfleece vest from the thrift shop. With the back pockets, it was obviously meant for cycling. But no pants. So, clad only in shorts, a lyrca long-sleeve and microfleece vest, I ventured out in about 12C weather.

It wasn't so bad; the running actually kept me warm enough, though extremities like ears, nose and toes felt frozen. Interestingly enough, the areas exposed to the cold wind (back of hands, front of thighs) turned reddish after a while, then subsided. The microfleece vest did an excellent job in protecting my front from the wind. There were quite a number of people out running at the park today, and I noticed that I was one of the least warmly dressed. About half wore pants of some sort and the other half wore basketball shorts (nobody here, it seems, wear running shorts). Some had sweaters on, about half had a beanie cap or something with ear flaps, which I think is an excellent idea, and some had gloves, which I also think is an excellent idea.

I'm used to running in the heat, but running in the cold brings all sorts of new sensations. After a while, the body core warms up, so that's fine, but as mentioned, the end bits like toes gets progressively colder and colder, which started to hinder my gait. You know the sensation of trying to walk when your feet has gone to sleep? It's a little like that, though not the same; you can't feel *exactly* where your feet are, particularly at the toes. Another complication is the extremely dry air. When I first got here, I always felt parched after a run, now I'm more used to it, though the weather has become much drier lately. Humidity levels outdoors hovers in the low thirties, even high twenties, right now. What this means is that I'm glad I don't have a habit of breathing through my mouth when I run. The cold, dry air also means that I get home *quite* dry after a longish workout (40 minutes?), something I find rather unsettling. I mean, even in an air-conditioned gym, after 20 minutes, I start to sweat a little.

I could exercise indoors at the gym on medical campus, but it's really much nicer to run at Forest Park. I stay about two and a half blocks down from the biggest city park in the US, and right now, the fall foliage is starting to really come in. It's all very lovely.

It's not only about the changing colors of the foliage. St Louis is really a very sunny city, and the skies are often, literally, cornflower blue, stretching cloudless horizon to horizon. Since St Louis is sub-urban, often, there are not many tall buildings that would interrupt your view as well.In contrast, Singapore has a dense cloud cover; perhaps one view might be cloudless, but if you turn around, you'd probably see a cloud. Days that are truly cloudless are very, very rare. Here in the Mid West, it's the other way around. The blue of the skies look different as well, a lighter, cleaner blue. And when the greens, yellows and reds of the trees are backdropped against such a clear blue, it's truly gorgeous.

MiKE: The heights of procrastination

I've been procrastinating. Here is a shot of my kitchenette, with everything unwashed. All of them used in preparation of 3 meals. Part of it has got to do with not wanting to use the detergent, which, contrary to its labelling, is quite hard on the hands. Mostly though, I am feeling just plain lazy.

On another note, Daylight Savings time has ended, so the clocks have been pushed back to standard GMT-5 (no wonder i got so confused when i first arrived and found out that toronto time was SGT-12). Which feels good, for now, feels like I have just gained another hour to complete my assignments.

MiKE: I am a Macho Marxist

Ok, some somewhat serious academic stuff here, needs some contextualizing, if you don't understand, never mind... This post is more a personal brain dump. If you get what's going, great, please comment. I'd appreciate it.


In Curriculum as Gendered Text, Pinar (1998) discusses the oedipal conflict, and gives a re-interpretation of the reproduction-resistance dialectic in use by curricula theorists. In summary, his contention is that such theorizing is not substantively changing the political consequences of curriculum; changes are limited only to the content of curriculum. "The conversation of father may change but not his position at the dinner table". Some other choice quotes:

The over determination of the male ego makes the ambiguity of paternity intolerable. He compensates for its inferential character by claiming "first cause", the origin of creation. He further compensates with an excessive interest in kinship patterns (i.e. the lines of reproduction). In this sense, the recent interest on the left in reproductive theories of curriculum are patriarchal in nature [...] it is the nascent patriarchy of the aspiring son, not the mature and established patriarchy of the father. (p. 227)

Hocquenghem (1978) reminds us that the concept of homosexual did not exist prior to the 19th century. The capacity and desire to sleep with a same-sexed person was presumed to exist to lesser or greater extent in everyone, hence the scope and intensity of efforts to prohibit th expression of such desire. During the latter part of the 19th century, a medicalization of the socially deviant began to occur. That is, medical terms became employed to describe the culturally marginal and socially deviant. The medicalization of the social terrain served the political and economic interests of cultural homogeneity, which accompanied industrialization and bureaucratization. By assigning such labels as homosexual, which indicated illness, the medical and legal communities could identify, prosecute, and punish, under the guise of providing "helping services," whose whose lives were viewed as intolerably outside the mainstream. (p. 229)

The lie is that there is homosexual desire. Following Deleuze and Guattari (1977), Hocquenghem insists that there is only desire. The polymorphous perversity, as Freud would have it, of infancy, becomes codified into genital sexuality. The story of oedipus is in this regard the story of the production of "heterosexuals," and the eradication, however unsuccessful, of homosexuals. Adrienne Rich (1980) describes heterosexuality as "compulsory," and as such "needs to be recognized and studied as a political institution". Politically, it reinforces the position of the father and guarantees its reproduction. Contemporary forms of heterosexuality tend to be phallocentric. For the male, the phallus is the sign of his power as a man. Successfully socialized heterosexual women experience "penis envy" and desire its incorporation. Although the phallus is the occasion for a man's pride or shame, he does not sexualize it. It is as if that which a woman desires is unworthy to be desired by him. He scorns the homsexual's interest in fellatio and anal intercourse. In a phallocentric culture, few homosexuals escape the fascination with the phallus; they concretize the heterosexual's fascination with its abstraction: power. Both groups reify their existence; both fail to see how the existence of the each relies on the existence of the other.

Men's (and many women's fascination with the traditional masculine ideal (i.e. the macho man) is not without some merit. This ideal is comprised of several admirable traits, such as courage and strength. However, we must acknowledge that these qualities are the socially fortunate outcomes of oedipus; often as not the macho man utilizes his strength and courage to rob, rape, and kill. In both prototypes, these characteristics are not chosen but conditioned; they result from repressing the pre-oedipal identification with the mother and resisting semisuccessfully the authority of the father. His "manliness," that discernible way of being in his body, tends to come at the expense of being in his mind and heart. His maternal repression--the more macho he is the more complete the repression is--makes him clumsy interpersonally, primitive intellectually, and a Neanderthal emotionally.

For his more civilized variations, the physical is abstracted onto the social and intellectual. Boots and jeans are traded for three-piece suits (at least during the day), and his manliness is determined not by his muscle and phallus size, but bu the size of his bank account, stock portfolio, and corporate position. He trades physical strength for acumen and shrewdness, and the macho man's narcissistic experience of himself as body is now mediated through the bodies of the women with whom he sleeps. These characterological prototypes are crude but common. Perhaps less common and less crude are academic variations, including one version we might call, not entirely for mischief's sake, the macho Marxist. Hos body and probably his bank account have been exchanged for a long list of publications, physical strength and corporate shrewdness for tough logic, witty asides, and a virtuoso knowledge of Marx, Gramsci, and Bourdieu. He vanquishes his oedipal foe not with his fists or by outpositioning him corporately, but via skillful argumentation and cogent denunciations of revisionist and obscurantist tendencies in opponents' positions. The macho Marxist substitutes dialectical materialism for the crass kind, the terminal smile of the young executive "on the make" for the suffering frown and angry scorn of the wounded but resisting activist. The content of the personality and of the social relations that express and sustain it differs for each version of man. However, the structure of the personality and its social relations (competitiveness, aggressiveness, exhibitionism) does not. Each is interested in the phallus, his own and/or others; rather, each is interested in its abstracted social form: power. Each aggrandizes his own while diminishing his opponents; after the battle all tend to retreat to the nurse and lover for solace or celebration.




Pinar, W. F. (1998). Understanding curriculum as gender text : Notes on reproduction, resistance, and male-male relations. In Pinar, W. F. (Ed.), Queer theory in education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

ReNe: mac failing on me...

Argh. I think I will have to boot to Windows after I post this.

Occasionally a program will hang, but as that used to be rare, I thought nothing of it. However, programs have been hanging a lot more frequently. Also, I have noticed a definite slow-down in many system processes and I often see the spinning beachball...

I think this system is in need of a complete re-install, but I'm reluctant to do so now as I really don't have the time to be stressing if something goes wrong, or even if everything goes right, the time to install the array of programs and configure the system. I guess having a 'backup' system in the form of windows is also tempting.

Even as I speak, gmail refuses to log in and just shows a white page... I'm starting to think I've extremely bad karma with computers; today, my Linux box in the lab utterly failed. It had been giving problems over the past few weeks, with seemingly random problems with paths and system permissions, and yesterday there was a moment of screen panic when I rebooted... lines flashing by, basically screaming 'error', and today, the machine just died, refusing to boot into X windows.

Well, time to log out. I haven't used Windows since leaving Singapore, except for the occasional Acrobat file that needed editing. Feels like I'm bailing ship, and that the ship's slowly starting to sink...

glug glug

ReNe: so freaking dry

So it's been cool recently, temperatures hovering around 15C. That's nice.

What's not so nice is that the humidity has plummeted as well. It's about 30+% relative humidity now, and this brings up problems I guess I would have to get used to. Previously, I had travelled during winter but that was only for a short period of time; I could suffer dry skin knowing I would be back in humid Singapore shortly.

Now, I guess I have to ramp up my skin care routine. My apartment looks a little messy, with open pans and containers of water in the corners. Even though I have a heater, I hadn't used it yet because it's extremely drying -- instead, I simply put on more clothing. I don't know... what's an environmentally friendly, and yet tasteful way to humidify a room?

And the really irritating thing? Carpeted floor... the number of times I've been shocked after walking across it... I even get a shock when I touch running water from a tap.

MiKE: a better pic.

Ok, I admit, I saw this site, and was inspired to take a similar picture.

Evidently, I don't have as much skill and equipment as that guy. Canon EOS5D? EF17-40L? wow. And he does a lot of photoshopping too, to increase the visual appeal.

Here is a stolen picture, which I hope I do not get prosecuted for copyright reasons on the grounds of fair use:

MiKE: Some more beautiful pics...

Seems like my life here has settled into a rather monotonous, if somewhat stressful, routine. As in, study, study, sit back and relax a bit, study, go for classes, study, study, buy groceries, study, study... you get the idea. Oh, but don't be misled into thinking that I am in some sort of prison or something. I don't know where I read it, or who wrote it, but I am pretty sure that one very famous prisoner has ever written to the effect that his body could be imprisoned, but never his mind. The corollary, of course, is for people to be thinking - if one were to be in a cage, even a gilded one, could one know it?

So once in a while, when the body feels cooped up too much (I am not in a jail, anyway) I give myself a treat by going out to a meal. This time, I went to Sai Gon Palace; yes, it is the place I blogged about in the first week when I was here in Toronto. But what to do? It serves really good Vietnamese food. For people who would visit me, I would bring you here for a meal. Well, something's gotta be right - they have been in business for more than 15 years (cannot remember the year i saw on the signboard). They are on Spadina avenue, and walking south from my apartment, I will pass by this interesting junction with College street:


And after that meal, since the weather was turning cold, I had decided to go get a 'car jacket' from the Gap; the gap sells clothes which are on a relative budget for the boutique-ness they represent. In other words, they are much like G2000/U2 or maybe even Esprit, but somewhat cheaper than the latter. I got a woolen jacket that stretches up to mid thigh, though not quite yet a trenchcoat, for about $150. Yes, it is expensive (I think), but I am thinking that some times, we have to spend the money - because we cannot take it with us, if you know what I mean.

The Gap store is on Bloor Street, east of OISE, about 1 km or so. Given the nature of city traffic, many people walk around downtown. I know I do, it gives me my cardio workout; and it is not the slow saunter that people living in tropical singapore are used to, due to the effort to try not to perspire. Here, people do fast walks, in a bid to warm up as much as possible; and even so, I often get overtaken by people. On the walk back with my new car jacket and feeling warm except for my neck and face, I caught sight of this and just had to take a picture:

This is Bloor Street, looking west to the sunset. In the distance along the road is a church, which was in the picture in the previous post, but at a closer distance. The tall building on the left side of the road is just opposite OISE.

It is in moments like these that remind us, that we are not imprisoned.