Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

Term two, week three

This is going to be a busy week.

I have a few deferred midterms to grade before teaching tomorrow’s tutorials – for which I also need to redo the readings and devise an enhanced random selection system for student presentations. I will also have office hours and a lecture which I should attend, along with a club event that may be of some interest.

Tuesday we have a 350 meeting, for which I should be working on refining our divestment PowerPoint presentation and advancing logistical preparations for the Presidents’ Day trip to Washington D.C.. I also have my ‘incomplete conquests’ class, for which three books and a chapter have been assigned (topic: the Treaty of Niagara). There is also an ‘EcoFair’ at OISE, where Toronto 350.org will have a booth.

Wednesday I have my self-deception course. We will be discussing Freud’s “The future of an illusion” and Becker’s “Human nature and the heroic; The terror of death; Human character as a vital lie”.

I have a paper due for my core PhD seminar in Canadian politics on Thursday, on the topic: “Have Canadian political scientists devoted too much attention to issues of responsible government to the detriment of analysis of other important questions about Parliament?” For this seminar, there are seven chapters of reading assigned, along with four scholarly articles.

In amongst all this, I need to work on preparing and selling prints for my camera repair fund; work on the major term papers for my Canadian politics classes; figure out a way to pay my second term tuition and Massey fees; respond to 128 emails; track down some comprehensive examinations in Canadian politics from previous years; send various thank you cards; sort notes from last term; and generally advance miscellaneous projects and discharge various obligations.

Wednesday mornings are for self-deception

Today was the first seminar of Jordan Peterson’s Self-Deception course, and it was quite something.

The man is a gifted speaker, and devoted most of the class to describing a process for writing well and the importance of doing so. The course assignment is unusual: three successive drafts on the same topic, first of three, then six, then nine pages. After each round, students are to be provided with comments.

Strictly speaking, I am not allowed to take the class (as a non-psychology student). My plan is to keep doing the readings and showing up, with the aim of writing the assignment as well. Grades and course credits don’t really matter for me at this point, so it won’t make much difference if I can ultimately convince him to let me into the course or not.

Starting winter term 2013

The winter term begins today. I am continuing with the Canadian politics PhD seminar from last term, as well as the international relations course where I am working as a teaching assistant. I am picking up a new Canadian politics course taught by Peter Russell called: “Canada in Question – a Country Founded on Incomplete Conquests“.

I am also hoping to audit Jordan Peterson’s psychology course: “Self-Deception: A Comprehensive Analysis” and perhaps continue to drop in on some of Nick Mount’s “Literature for Our Time” lectures.

Body, lens, and battery grip damaged

Maya Goldenberg playing the piano in the Massey College dining hall

Moments after this photo was taken, my tripod slipped and my 5D Mk II, complete with battery grip and 24-70 f/2.8L lens crashed violently into the wooden floor.

The front of the lens is smashed, and the camera no longer connects properly to the battery grip. The lens also creaks a bit when zooming and focusing, though a very preliminary assessment suggests that it can still autofocus.

I will be taking the whole assembly to Henry’s tomorrow so that they can send it off to Canon for repair. I have no idea how much the repair will cost – or if any issues will remain with the body, grip, or lens once the repairs are done.

During the next month or so, I will try to sell some affordable prints in order to pay some of the repair cost.

Santa soliciting Shell divestment petition signatures

Today, we collected more than 200 petition signatures calling on the University of Toronto to sell their stock in Shell:

I am thoroughly appreciative to the Toronto 350.org volunteers who organized the whole event and then pulled it off today.

We will be building up our divestment campaign by seeking more signatures, including from campus groups and prominent alumni.

Both those associated with the University of Toronto and outside sympathizers are asked and encouraged to sign our petition. We are hoping to get thousands of names on it before we present it to the president of the university.

Conference on Enbridge Line 9 today

Today I am attending a conference on opposing Enbridge’s plan to reverse their Line 9 pipeline in order to carry diluted bitumen from the oil sands to Montreal.

I will be posting detailed notes on the Toronto 350.org planning forum.

If you are in Toronto and have some time before 5pm, I recommend coming out. It is happening in Sidney Smith Hall at the University of Toronto, at 100 St. George Street. This is a five minute walk from the St. George subway station.

Writing advice for undergraduates

I am in the middle of grading stacks of undergraduate essays. If I could give one piece of advice to the students, it would be that they should read their essays aloud to themselves when preparing the final version.

For each sentence, they should ask:

  1. What is the argument I am trying to make with this sentence?
  2. Do I make my point clearly?
  3. Is there any way I can make the sentence simpler or more specific?

Most essays I have looked at have included sentences that no person would leave unchanged after reading them aloud. All the essays have featured sentences that are unnecessarily convoluted or too vague to express much of anything.

Particularly when your essay is destined to end up in a stack to be assessed by a grad student teaching assistant, it is essential to make sure that your sentences are comprehensible and advance the overall argument you are making.