Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

The next stage

I am moving on to Washington DC either tonight or first thing tomorrow.

There are masses of things left to see in NOLA, but the pace of exploration so far combined with staying in a hostel are wearing me down. For me, at least, staying in hostels is not altogether sustainable. I tend to get more stressed and tired with each passing day.

It’s a one day bus journey to Washington, so it may be best to start at 9pm and go through the night, rather than spending a somewhat more restful night in a dormitory before heading to the bus station at 6:00am.

I am still looking for decent affordable accommodation in Washington, so suggestions would be appreciated.

Maple Leaf Bar / The Krewe of Oak

This has been a crazy evening. Everything I said before about the exceptional friendliness of NOLA deserves to be amplified.

A chance encounter led to a long night of excellent free music at a place I would never have found on my own or through a guidebook. I am invited back to the same place tomorrow for the Rebirth Brass Band.

At nearly 3am, my hostel is still a hive of activity. I should try to sleep, however.

First impressions of NOLA

I have only been here 24 hours, but New Orleans (henceforth NOLA, as posting from iPhone) has displaced Dublin as the friendliest place I have visited.

Near my hostel, three random people asked me to take their photos, then warned me not to show the camera in that neighbourhood after dark.

I have already made a start into exploring local cuisine. Tonight, I am going to see live music on Frenchman Street. In addition to being friendly, NOLA seems very affordable in terms of food, accommodation, and transport. You can get an all-day bus and streetcar pass for $3.

It is hot here but not too humid and everywhere is air conditioned, including the brightly pleasant streetcars running up Canal Street.

If anyone knows any locals who might show me sights beyond the Lonely Planet collection, that would be amazing. Email is the only real way to reach me, as I float from WiFi island to WiFi island.

Six more hours in Toronto

I dropped by Toronto and saw Rebecca’s play, which was thought provoking and well done. It is quite something to watch giant symbolic puppets fight to trombone accompaniment in the middle of Dufferin Grove Park.

Now, I have a 30 day ticket for unlimited Greyhound travel and a bus to Detroit to catch at 1:00am. With the unlimited ticket, I need to line up and get a new ticket at each city. That is a pain, but I think this will be a cheaper way to do Toronto to New Orleans to Washington to Ottawa to Toronto. I wish I had bought the unlimited ticket in Ottawa this morning. I would have saved myself $75.

The route to New Orleans runs through Detroit, Nashville, and Atlanta.

Will anyone be around downtown Toronto tonight between now and 1:00am?

#movingtotoronto Farewell to Ottawa

With my Beaver Barracks apartment fully packed, I am leaving Ottawa tomorrow. In parting, I would like to thank all the people who made my four years in Ottawa such a worthwhile and pleasant experience. That includes everyone who I have worked with as well as my friends. I will miss caffeinated meetups, spring cycling along bike paths, and Tuesday night trivia.

I would especially like to thank Lauren, Andrea, Mehrzad, and Evey. I am incredibly glad to have gotten to know you all here, and appreciative of all of your friendship and generosity during my time here. You will all have to come visit Toronto, once I am set up with an apartment there.

I wish it were possible to move without adding distance between myself and friends. You will all be deeply missed.

#movingtotoronto How am I still packing?

Packing has become a task that seems to involve odd metaphysical complexities.

For days and days now, I have been packing and packing. Boxes get filled and added to the pile in the corner. Papers are sorted and then either filed or discarded. Closets are cleared. Food is eaten, packed (for stuff that has unusual value per unit weight and/or volume), given away, or discarded. Books are stacked and packed and tucked away, and then new caches of previously forgotten books are discovered and given the same treatment.

And yet, through all of this, there always seems to be the same amount of packing left to do. Back on August 5th, I was supposedly 50% packed. That number still seems basically right six days later, despite having spent more of the intervening time packing than doing anything else.

Hopefully today will be the day when 50% mysteriously and near-instantaneously becomes 100%, when I can throw a few critical items into a suitcase, and when I can get on the bus to Toronto/New Orleans/Washington D.C.

#movingtotoronto 50% packed

Six months after the last time I moved (with much very appreciated assistance from Andrea, Mehrzad, and Lauren), I am packing everything up again.

I guess my life in the Beaver Barracks will never involve the stage between when you have unpacked everything from moving in and when you start packing it up again to leave. Some boxes that have remained packed since I moved in are just being added straight to the ‘moving out’ pile.

I wish my scheme for an international storage services company had already been implemented by someone.

Two plans

On the morning of September 12th, I need to be in Toronto.

Between now and then, however, I actually don’t have any firm commitments. This raises the question of how to spend the time.

Plan 1: Safe and responsible

Move and apply to doctoral programs

I need to move to Toronto and applications to doctoral programs for the fall of 2012 are due this fall. I could stay in Ottawa and put together a research proposal. I could chase down people to serve as references. I could visit Toronto to look at apartments, choose one, and ship my things over.

I could also work on the great many semi-complete tasks that tend to get buried underneath trivial day-to-day stuff while I am working.

Plan 2: More adventurous

Explore

I could also push the moving stuff into the smallest amount of time possible and get myself a 30-day unlimited Greyhound ticket. I could go to New York City on my way to New Orleans. I could take photos, visit the campuses of schools I might apply to, and take advantage of the longest unstructured span of time I have had since Oxford.

Lately, I have been feeling a bit untethered and uncertain about what I should do with myself. I am dispirited by the way recent efforts to drive action on climate change have failed so completely in North America in recent years. Having some time spent in solitary travel could allow me to think things through, and perhaps reach a sense of clarity about how I should spend the next few years.

This would probably mean pushing back doctoral applications, but it might be unreasonable to aim for this fall anyhow. I need to write the GRE and do a pile of work. I am also not totally sure if a doctorate is really what I want to do.

So, readers, which plan do you endorse? Do you have other ideas?

One element that is common to both plans is my intention to go to Washington D.C. for the Stop the Pipeline Sit-In being organized by Bill McKibben, James Hansen, and others. As well as being a good opportunity to see climate change activism in person, it could provide some contacts and empirical data for subsequent academic work.