Convocation

First of all, I must congratulate my very best friend Matt on receiving his Masters of Arts in history. He's now the frontrunner out of all my friends in the academic prestige category.

I attended his convocation ceremony and several things struck me. When honorary degree recipients are asked to address the graduands, they should not use it as their personal platform to vent. David Schindler today (or yesterday afternoon, I guess) went on this nowhere rant about the evils of capitalism, George Bush, America, etc., etc. While I respect him immensely as an aquatic ecologist, I was most disappointed in failing to use this opportunity to inspire the graduands. Instead, he probably turned more people off on his cause against climate change, US foreign policy, etc than gain them.

Seeing my first year physics TA and my first year calculus teacher receive their PhDs once again reminded me about how long I have been in Kingston for my university career. As such, it always makes me introspective about what I've accomplished and what I've gained here (it also doesn't help that the news lately has been dreadfully dull such that I've to post about the trivial matters that is my life). While I've certainly grown in some respects, there are still areas where improvements can be made.

So there are now officially six months left in my tenure at Queen's. It'll be interesting to see what this place has left to offer me. At the very least, it'd be nice for me to be able to answer these three questions...