Quick Reflection (if there ever is such a thing)

Blogging has definitely become sporadic this term, but moreso in the last few weeks. It has felt much longer than the 20 days from my last post and the 25 days from an actual opinion on this blog. Many blogs have actually gone quiet as of late, particularly those in my 'peer review' section. Some have remained strong, others are all but abandoned, while still others have refused to go gentle into that good night.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that this has been a very disappointing four months. It held a lot of promise at the beginning of the year, but like the Paul Martin government (it's like shooting worms at a bait shop these days), it's failed to deliver.

It didn't help to have to end things with Amy, relationship and otherwise. But that apparently was just the beginning of a snowball that was apparently rolling down from the peak of Everest all the way to sea level. The school term's material just didn't generate the interest that it made itself out to be and the workload was defintely greater than expected. Not just the amount but the time required to finish anything was quite surprising. Instead of igniting our hidden passions for planning, it really created contempt in a lot of my classmates and me for our program, with most of us just wanting our term to end. Certainly, most of this deals with personal responsibility, but it seems my year spent a lot of time finishing tasks last-minute, and I don't know if our level of work ethic and intelligence isn't as high as last year or whether we're more apathetic and not as uber-keen as the upper-years. Or is that our failing as a year? Is it required of Masters' candiates to be uber-keeners?

In any case, I've definitely become more jaded and cynical (and thus, quite apathetic) in the last few months. Part personal responsibility and part bad luck/karma/whatever. I worked as hard as I could have but without the karma, nothing got me out of the hole. I've definitely worked harder than in previous terms and yet have little to show for it, academically or in my personal life. Either way, in a few days, I will get a chance to shut down for a day or two and just decompress. This is the first time I've actually been mentally burnt out and it'll be good to do some real reflection.

Hopefully, by then I'll have a job and be posting a bit more regularly. The prospects of no summer income for next year is not helping the stress level or time management side one bit. With the summer comes the start of my thesis research. While I want to be optimistic (the one time I was and looked what happened...) about the summer's progress I'm going to be cautious and hedge my bets, particularly since I'm still working out my methodology. In any case, I'm relying on me having hovered around the bottom long enough that I'll start finding an upward slope. Here's hoping.

On the issues side, there'll definitely be things to talk about, particularly the likelihood of using the title 'Foreign Affairs Minister Stockwell Day' in a conversation and the consequences of some sort of Conservative government on issues such as the Kyoto Accord, same-sex marriage and our newly unveiled (and quickly buried by Sponsorship Scandal news) foreign policy. There should be interesting posts in the summer on my thesis and just Canadian issues in general, so hope you stick around.

P.S. I would like to announce and extend my congratulations to my ex-housemate Katie for winning the Society for Conservation Biology Annual Charity Photo Contest. Hopefully sometime in the next week, I will get her permission to post her absolutely brilliant photo ont this blog.