I know no one reading this cares, at all, but the final score was Levski 0, Chelsea 2.

To the person who found my blog by googling "How do I avoid doing my thesis" I say: Quit grad school, poppet.

Off to the passport office to stand in line for an hour. It seems criminal on a beautiful day like today. Maybe they could hook up a loudspeaker so that everyone could sit outside with their numbers. How is it that government offices the world over all have the same sunless drab look to them? The passport office has floor to ceiling windows and still it's like entering a mint green, soul crushing cavern.

Bulgaria on my mind

Tomorrow, Levski Sofia will be playing Chelsea. Looks like I'll be able to listen live via BBC5. I just found out that in preparation for accession to the EU (January 2007), Romania has removed its visa requirements for Canadian visitors. Which means I'll be able to visit Romania and Bulgaria as I've always wanted with little diplomatic hassle. One possible spring break trip that is forming in my mind is Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Moldova. I'm so excited to get to Eastern European Capital! And if you happened to call this weekend on a cell phone from Khartoum, no, we won't be leaving before the 21st of December. Most likely a few days into January, so don't fret Julia!

I'm really uncomfortable and would like to move, but the cat is lying on my back and I hesitate to move him from his perch. He's comfortable, and since cuddling is always on his schedule, I have to take what I can get. Ever heard that joke "Dogs have masters, cats have support staff"?

So far, I've gotten at least a half hour of writing done, made some breakfast, gotten two housemates out the door with lunches and umbrellas and listened to The Current. None of the reports were stellar, with the Madrid "models are too skinny" piece coming in at the most boring. I'd have hoped for a piece on the situation in Hungary, or the upcoming trouble in Moldova and Georgia (Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia are all conducting or planning referendums on annexation, which are being sponsored by Moscow political and business interests). Nobody seems to be watching Russia very closely, and Putin, the original KGB hardman, knows it.

Back to work, then on to a bit of cleaning and off to a discussion of Buffy and theology.

So you might think, when you happen across talk of bestiality and shit early in the morning, that the source might be the internet in all its disgusting breadth of possible topics. Nope, it's the (now ex) Chairman of the CBC bringing these edifying topics to the national conversation. Please Mr. Fournier, I just had breakfast!

*I shudder to think about what kind of traffic this post might generate. Behave people!

The state of today, in bullet form

Reading:

*Fleshmarket Close by Ian Rankin (again)
*Coraline by Neil Gaiman
*Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
*Teaching textbooks and the teaching carnival

Writing (or procrastinating on):

*upcoming lectures
*a rather unsuccessful short story
*a series of magazine queries that are moving slowly from thought to action

Thinking:

*"I need more money to get things accomplished this year"
*"The house needs a new roof, do I take the landlord to arbitration, even though I'm planning on moving out soon? Or do I let the guy be a total slumlord and pay through the nose for him to do so in hopes that he won't give me a horrible renter's reference when I try to find my next place?"
*How can I clean the bedroom and my desk without actually having to do anything?"
*Do small dogs really need sweaters?"

Watching:

*Prime Suspect I, the best of them all I think. It's dark and British and brilliant. Helen Mirren's DCI Tennyson is, in my opinion, her best role. She walks into a murder inquiry, midstream, after the death of the bent cop who used to run the show, and fights against the male hostility and outright sabotage of her new "team". The interplay between her naked ambition, her tough-as-nails demeanor, her personal feelings about the case, her home life, and her battle to win over the bunch of lads who've closed ranks against her is fascinating to watch. Despite some rather grim moments, Prime Suspect is also quite masterful in the way it's shot. The cinematography is beautiful.

*Angel Season 2

Current plan:

*Get out of my blasted pyjamas and leave the house for the first time since Saturday night. I am finally over my bout with the flu and a cold, so there's no excuse for not enjoying the bit of sun that is peeking out of the rainclouds right now.

I am always fascinated to read about peoples daily habits. I always enjoy hearing how artists and writers map out their days to make the best use of their time. As someone who rarely stumbles onto blogger these days, and finds it quite difficult to write anything of note when I do, I just have to marvel at the likes of Michael Bérubé who not only writes regularly, but in full, eloquent detail. The man is a prof, book author, commentator, essayist, father and yet he somehow finds the time to write huge, entertaining blog posts. I'm dying to know how he breaks his day down and how many hours of sleep he gets in a night.

A good start to the UEFA championship

Victory over W. Bremen, 2-0. Cards for Lampard, Terry, Drogba and Cole, and some paranoid grumblings from Mourinho. Onwards to meet Barca.

Who you rooting for?

Five years ago, I woke up to the radio and couldn't understand what the announcer was saying. She was crying. I got up, turned on the tv and spent the next few hours watching that one scene over and over. People called me and I called others. "Are you watching this?" "Yeah". "Can you believe it?". Campus wasn't as busy as it would have been normally, and we spent much of the afternoon at the cafe, talking. My classes went on as normal, and my friends and I met up for a meal at the end of the day. Our favourite place, a Lebanese restaurant on Broadway, was dark when we got there. A sign in the window simply said "closed, due to tragedy".

Last night, I watched the scenes again on tv. The CBC aired two excellent documentaries: "The Secret History of 9/11" and "Toxic Legacy". If I had money, I'd buy air time to play these two pieces over and over on every tv network in America. The first shows the complete and utter failure of every level of government in dealing with the threat of hijacked planes being used as weapons. On the day itself, every single communication system and protocol was either ignored, screwed up or non-functional. The complete breakdown of emergency systems could have served as a tragic, but important, lesson in dealing with disaster. The people of the Southern United States have paid with their lives for how little the government learned the lessons of 9/11 and how the bureaucracy of the States is unprepared to help its own citizens in case of large-scale emergency. And how little it cares.

The second documentary had me choking back sadness and fury at the thought of the ongoing human and environmental cost of 9/11. At least 15,000 of the people that GWB called "America's heroes", the first responders and rescue workers who tried desperately to find survivors in the wreckage of the two towers, are too ill from the toxic dust to work, even five years later. Many have died, slowly choking. Fire fighters, big tough guys accustomed to hauling 100 pounds of gear up 20 stories, gasp for breath as they walk to the doctor's office. Cleaners who were sent in to deal with the dust in apartment and office buildings, equipped only with paper masks, gulp 18 different kinds of pills and use nebulizers to stay alive. Manhattan residents who moved back to their apartments after the EPA stated uncategorically that the air was safe to breathe cope with diminished lung capacity and the possibility of cancer. Conspiracy theorists, wake up! The cover-up isn't in how the attacks were pulled off or who set the events into motion, but in how the EPA and the rest of the establishment have handled questions of air quality, clean-up and compensation (which the insurance companies and the City of New York are still fighting against, by the way) since the disaster.

Back to school

I met my class this morning and they're great! There are about 50 smiling, interesting people of all different ages and backgrounds. I talked fast, as I usually do, and made them laugh a couple of times, so I'm feeling pretty good about my new teaching gig. Oh, and I looked hot, rocking a new outfit that I managed to find at the end of a marathon shopping session. There were many tears and recriminations, but I found THE outfit and it was all worth it.

I found my tiny, boiling office (picture a shoebox, then downsize) and had a laugh at the fact that I'm sharing it with three other profs. Luckily, we're all teaching on different days, so it should work for now.

I also got to observe the power of random comments, as I managed to get myself another marking contract, just by making an offhand comment to a colleague about how I would be spending my time in October.

I'm thinking a cup of Lapsang Souchong, a cuddle with the Beast and a bit of Dr. Phil's brand of Texas justice is in order. But only a very small dose, or I'll be telling people to "get real" and "name it to change it" again. Nobody wants that, least of all me. Can you tell? I'm in a good mood today.

Happy back to school everybody!

Things are looking up. Soon, I meet my class for the first time. I finally found something to wear and my syllabus is ready to go. It's nice to be teaching this term. I've gone back to school every year since I was six and I think I'd miss that feeling of excitement and tinge of nervousness.