Walking In a Winter Waterloo!

Am reading like mad to keep up with courses, but it’s all going very well. I am deeply immersed in my last three major projects of my first term in PhD.

I have one seminar to deliver on Rastafarianism, which has turned into a pretty inflammatory argument about how the divide between blacks and Jews is more like a sibling rivalry than anything else. (What the hell? You may as well rock a boat or two, huh?) I also have two major papers; one is on the politics of Jewish authorship (that is, the debate on whether Jewish scholars have more right than Gentile scholars to interpret and teach Jewish history… If I say only Jews should do it, do you think that may free up some university positions for me when I graduate?) The second paper is on liberating Judaism from the confines of the definition of “religion” applied from the post-Enlightenment, Christian context.

So, basically, Jews are just displaced Africans, who have more rights over their history than do Christians, as the latter apply neo-colonial and hegemonic limitations on our formerly Hebraic mindsets and have twisted us into bad imitations of themselves…

Oh, brother. I even make myself ill. Oh well, you gotta rage against something, I guess. Still, every odd assertion I make, and every mad-social-scientist-type hypothesis I put forward makes me feel alive, and confirms for me one glorious truth: I AM NOT AT MCMASTER!!!!

Frankly, I feel great!

On that note, it is (finally) really snowing here now, so I am pleased. Can we make “O Canada” a winterfest song? That was what was rolling through my head when I took my walk earlier. Snow falling through pine trees, all lit up by soft purple street lights… Screw free health care as part of our identity tool kit. As long as we have snow, I will really “get” Canada, man.

So, yeah, I am fine, although clearly exhausted of any form of articulation for any thought that doesn’t have to do with school. I’m getting tired, but all is well. I continue to forge stronger and warmer bonds with my new fellow students here, and I am starting to gain a rep as a passionate and politically-charged scholar.

(Yes, I said politically charged… Not sure where that came from, but friends have told me that those who don’t know me very well think I’m some sort of radical. This I am clearly not, as I am sure that radicals don’t wear bright blue mitties knitted by their aunty Florence. Just a guess there.)

For the Christmas holidays (so-called), we will have at least two guests at some point: Catherine will most likely come for four or five days (unless we can convince her to move here – fingers crossed), and our friend Sio will be entrusting her poodle Lumper to us for at least three days. (No, that name isn’t a typo… I may have to convince him his rights are being abused by that moniker.)

So we have things to get through in the next couple of weeks, but also things to look forward to.

YAY, snow! YAY, mitties! YAY, poodles!

(I think I have finally lost my mind.)


PS. Kwanzaa and Chanukah fall on the same days this year, so I'd say around Dec 15th is the prime time to invest in candles.