Three of the most boring things in the world to hear people talk about are their dreams, their ailments, and their children. (YMMV--and for some those last two are the same thing. Hiyo!) Thanks to the more or less unanimous opinion of every person I've dated, you've been spared the third today, so I'll just have to double down on the first two. Me and my wisdom teeth, after the break.
Showing posts with label bus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bus. Show all posts
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Lost in Transit-ions
I needed to a university-related meeting today, which was held at one of the downtown tech hubs. In theory, I fully approve of the hub meetings. It gets the department associated with cutting edge movements in tech, and gets us out and into the community, a constant necessity for an academic department. In practice... well, the hub is 10 km from my house, and 7.5 from campus. Now, granted, I'm already on campus, so that's a reduction in transit time right there. But I still have to travel on the bus from campus to hub, and then back again to teach my class. Even at a conservative estimate, that's over an hour of transit time, and bus transit time at that, which, subjectively speaking, is much longer than normal time. Any time I go for such a meeting, I'm essentially giving up half the work day for it. Now, I'm not complaining against the meeting/associated project in the slightest. My participation there is killing multiple birds with the proverbial stone: I'm getting involved in digital projects, which is a career development goal; I'm getting experience in group projects, which is a professional expansion goal; and I'm thinking creatively in ways neither the dissertation nor blog quite hits, which was unexpected (me being jaded and such), but welcome.
I just wish it was a little closer.
At today's session, I showed up a half hour early (another peril of being dependent on bus schedules), and went to a nearby coffee shop. After the meeting, I was left with an extra bit of refuse to dispose of. There were garbage cans all over the place, but... No, I thought. No, we will recycle this discarded coffee cup. We will be part of the solution! And so, I slipped it into my bookbag's side pouch. (And sidenote: is it odd that a business-tech space doesn't have any recycling oriented capabilities? Perhaps it's evidence that business doesn't care about carbon footprints. Or a metaphor for how a focus on the virtual and electronic blinds us to the excesses and materiality of the Real. Or maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.) I didn't have much luck in the downtown area, either, and time was marching on, so I decide to hurry up and catch my bus, and worry about it on campus, where recycling locations are many and plentiful. But now I'm hurrying to make the bus, and cross the street before the light changes. Half way across, I feel, physically feel, the empty cup slide out of its pouch and hit the ground. I debated briefly, then decided that retrieving cup might be an act of good karma, but it wouldn't be an act of good sense. So I abandoned it to its fate. The real kicker is that the bus drove right past that street after I got on it, so I got to see the cup one last time, rolling forlornly back and forth. So in my desire to recycle, I went from depositing the cup in a proper garbage can to abandoning it in the street.
I am not part of the solution. I am the problem.
Last: The bus trip itself was significantly long enough for a reflection on bus etiquette. In our transit system, the bus seats are two per side of the aisle. And I have nothing but contempt for people who strain to occupy two seats (with a bag, or something) while others are standing. Yes, I understand that it's mildly uncomfortable to sit with the bag on your lap. And yes, it's always a game of personal space Russian roulette when you go on the bus. But frankly, I think that anyone who chooses (or, all right, is forced into choosing) public transit has an implicit social contract to be considerate of others while in that public space. Of course, the seat mate issue does bring with it a myriad of challenges. Such as, in my case, the complicated negotiations that must occur when the person with the window seat must get off the bus before the aisle seat person, as in my case. There's a number of visual clues you can offer, ranging from sitting up in a very expectant manner to physically standing up and plowing through, space be damned. In this particular case, I merely glanced at my fellow passenger. He glanced back, stood up, and I nodded appreciatively as I exited. A silent simpatico of social solicitude.
If Foucault really wanted to understand power relations, he should have spent more time on a bus. (This is my equivalent of all those academic papers on airline travel. Write what you know.)
Later Days.
I just wish it was a little closer.
At today's session, I showed up a half hour early (another peril of being dependent on bus schedules), and went to a nearby coffee shop. After the meeting, I was left with an extra bit of refuse to dispose of. There were garbage cans all over the place, but... No, I thought. No, we will recycle this discarded coffee cup. We will be part of the solution! And so, I slipped it into my bookbag's side pouch. (And sidenote: is it odd that a business-tech space doesn't have any recycling oriented capabilities? Perhaps it's evidence that business doesn't care about carbon footprints. Or a metaphor for how a focus on the virtual and electronic blinds us to the excesses and materiality of the Real. Or maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.) I didn't have much luck in the downtown area, either, and time was marching on, so I decide to hurry up and catch my bus, and worry about it on campus, where recycling locations are many and plentiful. But now I'm hurrying to make the bus, and cross the street before the light changes. Half way across, I feel, physically feel, the empty cup slide out of its pouch and hit the ground. I debated briefly, then decided that retrieving cup might be an act of good karma, but it wouldn't be an act of good sense. So I abandoned it to its fate. The real kicker is that the bus drove right past that street after I got on it, so I got to see the cup one last time, rolling forlornly back and forth. So in my desire to recycle, I went from depositing the cup in a proper garbage can to abandoning it in the street.
I am not part of the solution. I am the problem.
Last: The bus trip itself was significantly long enough for a reflection on bus etiquette. In our transit system, the bus seats are two per side of the aisle. And I have nothing but contempt for people who strain to occupy two seats (with a bag, or something) while others are standing. Yes, I understand that it's mildly uncomfortable to sit with the bag on your lap. And yes, it's always a game of personal space Russian roulette when you go on the bus. But frankly, I think that anyone who chooses (or, all right, is forced into choosing) public transit has an implicit social contract to be considerate of others while in that public space. Of course, the seat mate issue does bring with it a myriad of challenges. Such as, in my case, the complicated negotiations that must occur when the person with the window seat must get off the bus before the aisle seat person, as in my case. There's a number of visual clues you can offer, ranging from sitting up in a very expectant manner to physically standing up and plowing through, space be damned. In this particular case, I merely glanced at my fellow passenger. He glanced back, stood up, and I nodded appreciatively as I exited. A silent simpatico of social solicitude.
If Foucault really wanted to understand power relations, he should have spent more time on a bus. (This is my equivalent of all those academic papers on airline travel. Write what you know.)
Later Days.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Montreal Conference Part I: Never Leave Home Without It. Or just never leave home.
After some internal debate, I've decided to break the post into two parts. One concerning the travel, one concerning the conference. This is the travel one.
Remember when I said that hate traveling and get really paranoid about things going wrong? Well, it's not so much paranoia anymore when everything really does go wrong. The first big hurdle was my own fault. Due to the incredible levels of paranoia aforementioned, I got to the bus stop for the first leg of my trip three hours early. So I went to the coffee shop for a quick meal and a bit of reading time. A friend came in, and joined me. He asked what I was reading, and I replied that it was a book by Nick Montfort (Twisty Little Passages), and that he was one of the speakers at the conference. I went to pull out the program, when I realized that I didn't have it. Or my tickets. Or my paper. Or my map. Instead of any of that useful stuff, I had accidentally grabbed the wrong pile of papers from my office--I was going to the conference armed only with my professor's notes on my dissertation proposal. It has its own uses, but those tended not to apply to my current situation.
I quickly recounted my situation to my colleague, and he offered to drive me back to campus to retrieve my lost papers. (Imagine that scene with him being a lot more saint-like, and me being a lot more "crazy-panicked.") At the time, I couldn't remember whether my papers where in my office or at home, so he drove me to the office, with a promise to wait outside to see if he'd be needed to drive me home instead. I got to my office, and realized that I didn't actually have my keys with me, save my house key. Deciding that the beatified friend had done enough for my well-being, I lie through my teeth and tell him I have my papers. He drives away, and I take off running to the English department to beg the administrative assistant for the spare key. It's 4:30 on a Friday, so I catch her just as she's leaving. But catch her I do, and so I finally get back into my office and retrieve my missing papers. Then I catch a town bus back to the Greyhound bus terminal, and spend the next hour in the rain waiting for the bus. Fun.
I went over this in such great detail because it all hinged on so many different factors, any one of which could have spelled doom or averted everything. If only I had double-checked the papers, nothing would have happened. Counterwise, if that friend hadn't come in and asked about the book, I never would have noticed the papers missing. If he hadn't had a car, I would have been up the creak. If I had brought my keys, I wouldn't have had to rely on the slim chance that the administrator hadn't left yet. It's all a complex web of coincidences and random events. Remember when I said I practically live in a sitcom? This is why I say things like that.
I considered myself seven kinds of idiot for not backing up everything I needed. My friend took a more sympathetic view, pointing out that this sort of emergency was just the reason that I had shown up three hours early. History will tell who is right.
And my travel woes don't end there! My bus had connections at Toronto and Ottawa on the way to Montreal. About twenty minutes from the Ottawa terminal, the bus's transmission blows. The driver, not wanting to admit defeat, crawls at 10 k on the highway for a kilometer or two, before a passenger points out that he's endangering our lives. So he pulls over, and I have to split a cab with a guy who knew exactly where the bus terminal was (lucky) and a teenager who admitted upfront that he'd been drinking from a flask the last six hours, and he's really ready to party, man. (Less lucky). I get to the terminal just as the next bus is pulling out, and rush onto the bus. So it ended well enough, I guess, but it wasn't exactly a fun thing to add to a 9 hour bus trip.
And then I got to Montreal, at 4:30 am. I had 4 hours till the conference actually started. Not enough time to warrant getting a hotel room, too much time to do anything useful. All I had to do was get to the conference. And once again, I had reason to be grateful for extra, redundant time built into my schedule.
This is a map of the route from the Greyhound Terminal to the conference:
View Larger Map
It's a straight line. All I have to do is head south. So of course, I head north. Let this be a tip for would-be tourists: north of 505 Boulevard de Maisonneuve is not the most scenic area of Montreal. I stepped over two different hobos sleeping on the sidewalk, and walked very quickly by what looked like a pack of wild dogs. After I passed the third "massage parlor," I decided that discretion was the better part of getting the hell out of there, and fled south. Conference located almost immediately after.
Then, finally, going home, my train is delayed an hour because the signal relay had suffered water damage. At one point, we were slowly going backwards for about five straight minutes. They did a good job making up for lost time, but I'm still 20 minutes late for my connection. Luckily for me, the decision was made to hold my connection back until my train got there. (It is somewhat less lucky for anyone who was traveling from Toronto to Kitchener straight last night.) So one train trip/taxi ride later, I was home at 12 am.
Incidentally, the one part of my transportation that seemed to go smoothly was the cab transits. The cabbies were well-tipped for that distinction.
Moral of this story: I don't know. Plan ahead? Except I did plan ahead, which was why I was three hours early. So... plan ahead in different, better ways. Not that that helps with public transportation breakdowns. So I guess the moral is to take things in stride. I just wish it stopped feeling like I need to take things in sprint.
Later Days.
Remember when I said that hate traveling and get really paranoid about things going wrong? Well, it's not so much paranoia anymore when everything really does go wrong. The first big hurdle was my own fault. Due to the incredible levels of paranoia aforementioned, I got to the bus stop for the first leg of my trip three hours early. So I went to the coffee shop for a quick meal and a bit of reading time. A friend came in, and joined me. He asked what I was reading, and I replied that it was a book by Nick Montfort (Twisty Little Passages), and that he was one of the speakers at the conference. I went to pull out the program, when I realized that I didn't have it. Or my tickets. Or my paper. Or my map. Instead of any of that useful stuff, I had accidentally grabbed the wrong pile of papers from my office--I was going to the conference armed only with my professor's notes on my dissertation proposal. It has its own uses, but those tended not to apply to my current situation.
I quickly recounted my situation to my colleague, and he offered to drive me back to campus to retrieve my lost papers. (Imagine that scene with him being a lot more saint-like, and me being a lot more "crazy-panicked.") At the time, I couldn't remember whether my papers where in my office or at home, so he drove me to the office, with a promise to wait outside to see if he'd be needed to drive me home instead. I got to my office, and realized that I didn't actually have my keys with me, save my house key. Deciding that the beatified friend had done enough for my well-being, I lie through my teeth and tell him I have my papers. He drives away, and I take off running to the English department to beg the administrative assistant for the spare key. It's 4:30 on a Friday, so I catch her just as she's leaving. But catch her I do, and so I finally get back into my office and retrieve my missing papers. Then I catch a town bus back to the Greyhound bus terminal, and spend the next hour in the rain waiting for the bus. Fun.
I went over this in such great detail because it all hinged on so many different factors, any one of which could have spelled doom or averted everything. If only I had double-checked the papers, nothing would have happened. Counterwise, if that friend hadn't come in and asked about the book, I never would have noticed the papers missing. If he hadn't had a car, I would have been up the creak. If I had brought my keys, I wouldn't have had to rely on the slim chance that the administrator hadn't left yet. It's all a complex web of coincidences and random events. Remember when I said I practically live in a sitcom? This is why I say things like that.
I considered myself seven kinds of idiot for not backing up everything I needed. My friend took a more sympathetic view, pointing out that this sort of emergency was just the reason that I had shown up three hours early. History will tell who is right.
And my travel woes don't end there! My bus had connections at Toronto and Ottawa on the way to Montreal. About twenty minutes from the Ottawa terminal, the bus's transmission blows. The driver, not wanting to admit defeat, crawls at 10 k on the highway for a kilometer or two, before a passenger points out that he's endangering our lives. So he pulls over, and I have to split a cab with a guy who knew exactly where the bus terminal was (lucky) and a teenager who admitted upfront that he'd been drinking from a flask the last six hours, and he's really ready to party, man. (Less lucky). I get to the terminal just as the next bus is pulling out, and rush onto the bus. So it ended well enough, I guess, but it wasn't exactly a fun thing to add to a 9 hour bus trip.
And then I got to Montreal, at 4:30 am. I had 4 hours till the conference actually started. Not enough time to warrant getting a hotel room, too much time to do anything useful. All I had to do was get to the conference. And once again, I had reason to be grateful for extra, redundant time built into my schedule.
This is a map of the route from the Greyhound Terminal to the conference:
View Larger Map
It's a straight line. All I have to do is head south. So of course, I head north. Let this be a tip for would-be tourists: north of 505 Boulevard de Maisonneuve is not the most scenic area of Montreal. I stepped over two different hobos sleeping on the sidewalk, and walked very quickly by what looked like a pack of wild dogs. After I passed the third "massage parlor," I decided that discretion was the better part of getting the hell out of there, and fled south. Conference located almost immediately after.
Then, finally, going home, my train is delayed an hour because the signal relay had suffered water damage. At one point, we were slowly going backwards for about five straight minutes. They did a good job making up for lost time, but I'm still 20 minutes late for my connection. Luckily for me, the decision was made to hold my connection back until my train got there. (It is somewhat less lucky for anyone who was traveling from Toronto to Kitchener straight last night.) So one train trip/taxi ride later, I was home at 12 am.
Incidentally, the one part of my transportation that seemed to go smoothly was the cab transits. The cabbies were well-tipped for that distinction.
Moral of this story: I don't know. Plan ahead? Except I did plan ahead, which was why I was three hours early. So... plan ahead in different, better ways. Not that that helps with public transportation breakdowns. So I guess the moral is to take things in stride. I just wish it stopped feeling like I need to take things in sprint.
Later Days.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Stuff I'm Doing
The basic remit of The Simpsons is to present a familiar, common experience in the backdrop of some outlandish premise. While the show has mixed up that balance a bit in recent years (ex) Bart sells secrets to the Chinese government because Homer won't buy him a new bike), back in the day, when it did things right, it felt very familiar. In Season 9 Episode 24, "Lost Our Lisa," Lisa is taken down a peg when she realizes that, despite her precautions to the contrary, she has inadvertently gotten on the wrong bus. The show really does a good job portraying her growing anxiety as she realizes she's desperately lost.
Today, I realized the same thing.
It started with getting metaphorically lost. Today, I did something I do very, very rarely: I went to the mall to try on some new clothes. Specifically, new jogging shorts. At the beginning of this jogging season, I had three pairs of jogging shorts, each a few years old. The first two succumbed rather quickly to holes and tears. The last pair persevered, briefly, but finally the holes (and smells--don't use a single pair of running shorts, folks) convinced me it was time to face my nemesis.
And nemesis it is. The mall is the Moby Dick to my Ahab, and like Ahab, I responded by staying away from it at all costs. (Okay, I never read Moby Dick.) I hate traveling out of my way to get there. I hate depending on strangers for help with shoes and changes rooms. I hate looking at myself in the mirror and deciding whether these clothes suited my personality, and then having to decide what my personality was and whether I had one. Really, every shopping experience is an existential crisis waiting to happen.
But I went. Reluctantly, sluggishly, I went. I walked through the grocery store, and bought Portobello Burgers (which they don't sell at the closer grocery store, than you very much, Sobeys). I went to the GameStop and pointedly did NOT buy a game (which took a lot of the willpower I'd reserved for the clothes, sadly). And then, armed with my $100 gift certificate (thanks for the birthday present folks! Even if it was for the 2010 birthday. Did I mention I really avoid shopping?), I stormed in, bought two pairs of shorts, and left. I don't want to talk about prices, because 1) It's Sportcheck and 2) I think I overpaid, but let's just say there's not much of that giftcard left.
And then I had to take a bus back to the University, in which case I felt literally lost. Taking buses is still a new experience for me. September 2010 marked the first time I had a proper bus pass, and I still look at them with suspicion. I mean, pay money to get somewhere you can get with your own two feet? That's some racket, buddy. But at the same time, I recognize that they supply me with a mobility that even the bike doesn't. Coming out from the mall, I didn't know which bus to take. I'd taken the express line there, but I was fairly sure it didn't go back the same way (which, thinking on it now, is ridiculous; I know that express route, and it absolutely goes back that way). And the 9, my next safe bet, wasn't coming for another half hour. So, I got on to an unknown bus, the 31 line and hoped for the best.
I was reading for the first few minutes, so I didn't actually notice until a good way into the ride that I had no idea where I was. The street signs were unfamiliar, the streets foreign, and the people on the bus weren't students (most of my bus rides are to and from the university. Including this one, since the university is a bus hub. So I'm used to mostly seeing students for fellow passengers.) I felt like I'd stepped out from the world I knew into one I didn't. I thought I was working inside a system I knew, a system I had mastered, but I was faced with the realization that the world was more complex than I knew, that the city I thought I had understood had layers that were beyond my experience. I felt humbled, and disturbed. I felt lost. In short, and I'm not too proud to say this, I felt like a spikey-haired, yellow-skinned eight year old.
And then the bus turned up into a street I knew, and then we pulled up to the university, and I got on another bus and went home.
Sadly, the happy ending is rarely the narratively interesting turn.
Later Days.
Today, I realized the same thing.
It started with getting metaphorically lost. Today, I did something I do very, very rarely: I went to the mall to try on some new clothes. Specifically, new jogging shorts. At the beginning of this jogging season, I had three pairs of jogging shorts, each a few years old. The first two succumbed rather quickly to holes and tears. The last pair persevered, briefly, but finally the holes (and smells--don't use a single pair of running shorts, folks) convinced me it was time to face my nemesis.
And nemesis it is. The mall is the Moby Dick to my Ahab, and like Ahab, I responded by staying away from it at all costs. (Okay, I never read Moby Dick.) I hate traveling out of my way to get there. I hate depending on strangers for help with shoes and changes rooms. I hate looking at myself in the mirror and deciding whether these clothes suited my personality, and then having to decide what my personality was and whether I had one. Really, every shopping experience is an existential crisis waiting to happen.
But I went. Reluctantly, sluggishly, I went. I walked through the grocery store, and bought Portobello Burgers (which they don't sell at the closer grocery store, than you very much, Sobeys). I went to the GameStop and pointedly did NOT buy a game (which took a lot of the willpower I'd reserved for the clothes, sadly). And then, armed with my $100 gift certificate (thanks for the birthday present folks! Even if it was for the 2010 birthday. Did I mention I really avoid shopping?), I stormed in, bought two pairs of shorts, and left. I don't want to talk about prices, because 1) It's Sportcheck and 2) I think I overpaid, but let's just say there's not much of that giftcard left.
And then I had to take a bus back to the University, in which case I felt literally lost. Taking buses is still a new experience for me. September 2010 marked the first time I had a proper bus pass, and I still look at them with suspicion. I mean, pay money to get somewhere you can get with your own two feet? That's some racket, buddy. But at the same time, I recognize that they supply me with a mobility that even the bike doesn't. Coming out from the mall, I didn't know which bus to take. I'd taken the express line there, but I was fairly sure it didn't go back the same way (which, thinking on it now, is ridiculous; I know that express route, and it absolutely goes back that way). And the 9, my next safe bet, wasn't coming for another half hour. So, I got on to an unknown bus, the 31 line and hoped for the best.
I was reading for the first few minutes, so I didn't actually notice until a good way into the ride that I had no idea where I was. The street signs were unfamiliar, the streets foreign, and the people on the bus weren't students (most of my bus rides are to and from the university. Including this one, since the university is a bus hub. So I'm used to mostly seeing students for fellow passengers.) I felt like I'd stepped out from the world I knew into one I didn't. I thought I was working inside a system I knew, a system I had mastered, but I was faced with the realization that the world was more complex than I knew, that the city I thought I had understood had layers that were beyond my experience. I felt humbled, and disturbed. I felt lost. In short, and I'm not too proud to say this, I felt like a spikey-haired, yellow-skinned eight year old.
And then the bus turned up into a street I knew, and then we pulled up to the university, and I got on another bus and went home.
Sadly, the happy ending is rarely the narratively interesting turn.
Later Days.
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