Daily updates – Page 112 – a sibilant intake of breath

How to look like a bike thief / fool

You will need:

Fairly heavy steel-framed bicycle
Rear tire so badly blown out the wheel won’t turn
Dark suit and tie
Oxford scholar’s gown
Backpack full of revision notes

To prepare, generate such a rupture in such a bicycle. Ideally, this should occur while you are en route to somewhere about 1000m away, with just enough time left to finish cycling there. Lock said bike to a fence at point X, approximately 1000m from your home.

At some later point, attend a high table dinner in your college, wearing the suit and robe. While walking home, decide that it is time to bring back your bike, despite how it cannot be rolled. Do this despite being (a) highly improperly dressed for the activity and (b) already burdened with a sack full of books and binders.

Alternate between carrying the bike over one shoulder and rolling it forwards on the front wheel, holding the seat post at shoulder level. Make sure to do this at night, in a city with the highest rate of bicycle theft in England.

Surprisingly, two police cars rolled right past me while I was in the middle of performing this awkward, uncomfortable, and suspicious voyage. They didn’t even slow down – probably because they were smart enough to realize that anyone stealing a bicycle would not move it in such a stupid way.

The question now is whether I should put in the time to buy a new tube, remove the rear wheel, replace the tube, inflate it, and re-assemble the bike this weekend, or whether I should wait until after exams. Fixing it would waste more time. Leaving it alone would make it even more foolish to have carried it home.

Whatever is decided for tomorrow, it is back to revision for me now.

Lonely evening video

My brother Mica has a new video up. This is the first one he has made that uses original music, produced by his friend Matt Mackay. This video is a lot more sedate than most of those he has produced.

Please feel free to leave comments on his site.

Entering the last captive weekend

The process of revision continues. Later tonight, I am planning to write a practice exam for history, if only to get the feel of writing three one hour timed essays in a row. First, I need to finish getting through some more of my notes. Even without reading anything other than the notes I have made on assigned readings and seminars, I have thousands of pages of text to deal with.

At least I have proven surprisingly capable of shifting my sleep schedule so that I am up and ambling around – if not exactly thinking at my sharpest – before 9:00am. Once again, I apologize for being uninteresting for a while. Once exams finish on Wednesday, I will try to write something more compelling here.

PS. While cycling up South Parks Road this evening, the rear tire on my bicycle seems to have exploded. The inner tube has torn along one of the seams, leaving a gash several inches long. A few patches and some rubber cement will not be enough to correct things, this time.

High school history

In the course of revising for the history exam, I have found myself looking over notes from my last year of high school. In many ways, they are ideal. I have a six page document that highlights the key features of alliances in the inter-war period in bullet form. We see dates, participants, major purposes, and outcomes, all without the need to wade through hundreds of pages of academic text. Something similar is true of the timeline of Cold War leaders that we all had to make.

I actually wish I had my paper notes from the class, in addition to my typed assignments. I remember having to memorize dozens of little quotations and hundreds of key terms. In terms of the amount of teaching time devoted to each subject, the class was significantly more comprehensive than our history seminars here. Of course, the level of discussion here was enormously higher, and the expectations in terms of argumentation and analysis are equivalently greater. All the same, having a few solid pellets of birdshot in one’s general blast of knowledge makes it seem and feel rather more substantial. It is also good to be acutely reminded of how hopelessly ignorant one was with respect to certain things, seven years in the past. Without such comparison, it is too easy to slip into the belief that you have always had your present understandings and views.

Climate change and the G8 meeting

Who would have thought – three or four years ago – that climate change would become the central focus of a G8 meeting? While the situation certainly demonstrates the problems that remain to be overcome (both American unwillingness to accept emission caps and the need to incorporate large and rapidly developing economies like India and China into such a system), the level of attention being directed at the problem is very welcome.

The sad fact is that Canada has the worst record of any G8 state, when it comes to the gap between our Kyoto commitment and our present level of emissions. For a state that prides itself on being a responsible global citizen, this is hardly a position that is tenable in the long term.

When Canada ratified Kyoto, we committed ourselves to emissions 6% below the 1990 level, achieved by 2012. At present, Canadian emissions are about 26% over. The United States, by contrast, is only about 16% above 1990 levels. The only G8 state on track to meet its commitment because of policy efforts is Britain. Germany has cut emissions, but not yet by as much as they pledged. Russia has much lower emissions, but it is on account of the collapse of their economy after 1989, rather than any self-restraint. Indeed, Russia ends up in the odd position of being able to sell credits for emissions that would never have occurred anyhow (the so-called ‘hot air’).

Global emissions continue to grow at a rate even higher than the most pessimistic option modeled by the IPCC. Indian and Chinese emissions are each up by about 100% since 1990. Everyone need to do better. Hopefully, the ongoing gathering of political energy will make that come to pass.

[Update: 7 June 2007] Unsurprisingly, the G8 seem to be developing a fairly toothless joint statement on climate change.

The early bird… cannot think

I have been trying to wake up early so as to acclimatize before my 9:30am exams next week. Of course, the transition to early rising has the effect of making my brain feel as though it is slowly sinking through honey for most of the day: hardly the best state in which to be going over all this material. In the end, however, the relative value of being awake and thinking at the time the exams are written (and not just running on the jittering energy of sheer terror) is probably greater than that of greater reading comprehension during the revision period.

PS. The general copyright on the blog, wiki, and my photography has been updated to a more current Creative Commons license. See the projects page for more details.

[Reactants] → [Products]

[Three people with lung or tracheal infections] + [Fourteen hours together in a minibus] → [Runny nose] + [Acutely sore throat] + [Nasty headache] + [Joint pain]

I hope my application of liquids, ibuprofen, ginger, and sleep will dispel the latter combination before exams come any closer.

Lakeland photos II

Once you reach a peak, a bit of a rest is surely in order. Actually, Rob and Sarah were ill during the whole trip, so their fellwalking demonstrated particular persistence.

Walkers atop Wetherlam.

The hiking boot: noble symbol of our determination.

Which isn’t to say we never take them off…

If you can shear a sheep, you can arm wrestle two humans at once and win.

Haemodynamically responsive

Back from the Lakes

The weekend in Lakeland was most enjoyable. We spent Saturday and Sunday walking, each time going around a horseshoe of peaks. Saturday, it was the Coniston horseshoe, starting with the Old Man. That day involved some enjoyable scrambling, a bit of actual rock climbing (for those who cared to try), and a brief nighttime rescue operation. Thankfully, those we set out to find met us on the road back from where we were heading to look for them. Sunday, we did the Kentmere Horseshoe, starting with Yoke.

The walking was atypical of the club for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I had never previously spent a day with them in which it did not rain significantly. Neither day of this trip involved any rain at all. Secondly, this was distinctly less strenuous than Snowdonia, which was distinctly less strenuous than Scotland. I rather enjoyed the drama of steep slopes and narrow, windy ridges during the previous two trips. Of course, there is something to be said for sheep-speckled tranquility as well.

In terms of company, this trip met the high expectations I had of the Walking Club. There is always a fascinating mixture of people from different fields – from theology to comparative literature to medicine – and they tend to get along in a very spontaneous way, even when they have not met before.

Photos and such to follow. For now, I need to get some sleep.