Reframing idea: the Spaghetti Northern

Good grades, bad grades, ugly grades: all have arrived already and the job is to press onward, retain as much as possible, and really learn, ensuring that I get a B average in the process so that I may graduate.  The stated objective of the program is to take the student out of existing comfort zones and it has accomplished that in many ways; there's so much to take in with the new city and the learning that it's hard to turn off the switch.  Even surfing the Internet only packs more information into the Tokyo subway of the mind - I can look outside at the time and temperature on the Manulife Financial building just a few blocks north, which seems to be the closest I'll get to meditating anytime in the near future.

I'm off in a flash to finally get the box for the amplifier that John purchased ten days ago, and perhaps visit an appliance store in the event that I can't obtain a free box.  Then, I study macro- and micro-economics for the mid-term exam, complexity science, and organizational behavior.  Then, tomorrow morning, I team up with another student to do the written analysis for a quantitative-methods assignment that's worth 45% of our grade.  All of the huge numbers aren't really a stressor; knowning that there aren't many chances to shine through and affect a grade is where that comes in.  At least it's not law school, where one test at the end of a semester is the only shot a person has.

And it's amazing how much the Internet has changed formal education.  Half of my textbooks have "exclusive" online reference, half of the textbooks themselves are functionally useless in that they don't match up well with the covered material, and in times of difficulty, people ask one another their opinions rather than strugging in a vacuum.  It's not far off base from the world of work, I suppose.

Any romantic notions about self-betterment have largely been dispelled, but one person notably described my effort as "heroic", which continues to be inspiring.  As I try to bottle that feeling and all of the other emotions and thoughts that swirl around this effort, I give thanks for my fiancee, with whom I've been exploring this new place (we went on a "haunted Toronto" walk around the city this past Thursday, which was a great treat) and who has done wonders to help me adjust to the new hat that I wear as a graduate student.

And hey, if I ever feel too hemmed in, I can always look up Illuminati conspiracies online, or something - some things are simply guaranteed to restore harmony to my view and remind me that yes, I am paying attention to and focusing on the right things.

Nobody's ever said "ch-ch-ch-changes" before, right?

Not posting as much and definitely not journaling as I had been prior to the move.  Looking back, journaling served its purpose for me in restoring my ability to write concisely again and also in dealing with prolonged unemployment and family struggles, but with both of those things in the rear-view mirror, I need to stay away from writing until I can find a way to do so without recalling either or both of those.

(Fortunately, I have graduate school to attend to.)

A big surprise was not only being one of the few Americans in the program, but the sheer volume of people with engineering backgrounds.  Initially I thought of it as people looking to burnish technical skills with more business-strategy abilities, but in talking with a couple of students recently, it's even more pragmatic than that: Americans have long used India as a poster child for outsourced jobs, for people paid a fraction of what Americans were paid to do the same work.  But guess what?  The race to the bottom is never over in the modern era, as work that once would be outsourced to India is now finding workers even cheaper and hungrier in places like Thailand and Bangladesh.

I have a lot of work to do to keep pace, but I appreciate the energy it takes.  Besides, I wouldn't be in graduate school if I was simply paying $60,000 in tuition over two years to confirm things I already know.  I'd be more irritated if I *wasn't* getting enough work to do for that kind of money.

I think about my new life adjustment and contrast it to the current American political season and the bald-faced insanity just stupefies me.  Canadian news seems almost quaint by comparison, even with the Toronto mayoral election coming up at the end of October.  Nobody's freaking out about a mosque being built in NYC and there's no Sharron Angle or Carl Paladino or Christine O'Donnell to make people's heads spin; the candidates here just concerned with cutting costs and how to pay for things, and none of them have any real answers that I can detect.  Did I mention that September 11th came and went up here, and it was barely mentioned in the media, and discussed by none of my classmates?  I feel like I'm catching up on a lifetime of enforced ignorance, and it's not like I wasn't raised right or anything - I was raised to question and think, but sometimes you just have to get out of the petri dish to see it properly, no matter what the cost.

Back to catching up on my Financial Accounting reading, and hopefully off to another corn maize about an hour north of Toronto, a way to recap my engagement on 9/19/09 at Sever's.  Plus, it's Canadian Thanksgiving weekend and Jen is excited to make a pot roast tonight, for which we already have all the ingredients.

Life is different, and life is good!

Zip, zoom, read, WOW.

Have been gladly blown away by school for the most part.  So much reading to do all of the time, so much to jam into so little time.  It's like a rocketship that I'm glad to ride, and meet hundreds of new people, some of whom will likely become good friends into the future.

Jen and I will shortly head out for one of those events that only truly big cities seem to have the chutzpah to pull off.  It'll be her first time on the TTC subway, finally - all of the rides are free this evening and they're having a special all-night subway schedule for people to want to take in as many of the art installations as they can.  Oh, and it's barely 50 degrees out, so I get to break out my new coat I purchased today, which on clearance in Toronto costs as much as it would have at full price in Minneapolis.  The law of supply and demand with 5 million people-plus, I suppose, but I'm still proud of the score.

I've also started a daily photo blog here that an old friend inspired just yesterday, and will be adding things that I find in this new place as a collection of experiences.  There are so many new ways to see things; I've somehow been blessed to have the opportnuity to challenge my conventions and intend to make the most of this.

Off we go for art, sweet corn, and poutine!