Graduation Day

We had our graduation ceremony yesterday. There isn't much else to say except that we all graduated!

Unfortunately the people who made the day possible - Ena, mom and dad - could only be there in spirit rather than person but you were all in my thoughts!

This is some of us outside before the ceremony:

The ceremony was held in the same room that our welcoming ceremony was held in just after we arrived a year ago, which was fitting. These are a few photos from the ceremony itself:



These are some pictures taken outside after the ceremony with friends:









And this is what my degree looks like:

News Flash for Canadians: We are now mature because we don't hate America as much as we used to

During my web surfing today I came across an article entitled "Canada Grows Up: Canada's Anti-American Hatefest in Ottawa is Finally Over" by Jonathan Kay (http://www.newsweek.com/id/215441?from=rss). Its one of the more obnoxious pieces I've read in a while and I've got a few minutes so I decided to include it in my blog.

The basic idea of the article I don't have a problem with. Clearly Canadians (and pretty much everyone else in the world) like America more now than they did a couple years ago. Equally clearly this is mostly tied to the change in government in the United States (which the author attempts to downplay), though as the author correctly notes there are also other factors at work.

Equally clearly though is the fact that this article was written with a rather smug American reading audience in mind. The underlying assumption the author brings to this change in Canadian attitudes is that "not liking America" equals "immature" and "liking America" equals "mature".

The author begins in the first paragraph by noting that "[i]n 2003, Canada rejected American entreaties to join in the invasion of Iraq, and the Canadian press bristled with shrill attacks on the neocon agenda" as a sort of "exhibit A" of Canada's previous immaturity.

Subsequent events we are to assume have shown how immature Canada's attitudes on the resoundingly successful Iraq war and "neocon agenda" really were. Thank god we are beyond that infantile stage now and will be better prepared to participate in such lucrative opportunities the US offers as they present themselves in the future.

The author tells us that Canada's anti-Americanism is fundamentally based on "envy and fear". No doubt there are elements of both of these in Canadian attitudes towards the US, but but this characterization conveniently allows him to overlook the fact that Canadian policies which ran counter to US wishes were often based on rational choices that benefited Canada. The decision not to participate in the Iraq war is perhaps the best example of this. Whatever emotions Canadians were feeling at the time, the decision was a rational one that allowed the country to avoid participating in one of the biggest policy failures in recent world history. To imply that this decision was driven by Canadian immaturity is simply ludicrous.

My point isn't that Canada has been "mature" all along. Like any country, sometimes we act rationally and sometimes we don't. Rather my point is that classifying a country as "mature" or "immature" based solely on how hostile or friendly its public and government are to the United States is absolutely idiotic.

How to move a 27 inch TV on a bike

This is a step-by-step guide to moving a heavy 27 inch TV from your friend's place to your place which is about 1.5 kms away and on top of a hill using nothing but a little old granny bike.

Step 1: Get a friend to give you a TV and lend you her bike. Remove bike seat. Tie TV to rear rack with string.

Step 2: Push bike up hill with on person pushing handlebars and another person pushing the back and making sure the TV doesn't fall off.

Step 3: Switch positions so you don't get too tired doing the same thing.

Step 4: Re-adjust the position of the TV when it almost falls off.

Step 5: Voila! You now have a 27 inch TV in your living room!

The Last Bike Trip

In addition to seeing the destruction of Sasaguri, we also had a really great day yesterday with everyone. The weather was perfect and we had a lot of fun. These are some pics of our little adventure:

Destruction in Sasaguri

Back in March when I was cycling around I stumbled on Sasaguri, a little town with a bunch of quaint temples that at the time I described as one of the most enjoyable places in Japan I had ever visited (you can see my earlier blog posts about Sasaguri by clicking the "Sasaguri" link on the right).

Yesterday I finally got the chance to take my friends on a group bike trip there - the last bike trip that we'll be able to take together as they are all going home at the end of this week.

Unfortunately what I didn't know was that during the torrential rainfall that happened here a couple months ago a number of powerful landslides struck Sasaguri and devastated some of the most picturesque temples that I had visited in March.

This is a picture I took of one of the temples back in March, note the little statue of a seated Buddha behind the red thing:


This is that same statue yesterday, fished from the rubble. All the temple buildings that had surrounded it were completely destroyed:

These are 3 more pictures of the same temple that I took in March, it was a really beautiful little place:
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And three more pictures of what it looks like today:



This is another temple that was hit badly by the landslides:




This was really quite tragic as this little road into the mountains was one of the prettiest places I've found in my travels. Actually, I should say that it was quite tragic as two people were killed in that landslide which, in addition to wiping out the temple buildings, also destroyed a house. I hope they'll be able to rebuild.

OH SHIT OH SHIT A GIANT SPIDER IS IN OUR KITCHEN OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT...

This is my new spider story.

If you were to ask me the exact moment I lost my enthusiasm for living in a cute little place nestled in a wooded hillside surrounded by the calls of nature I would say "September 9, 2009 at approximately 9:34 PM".

At that moment I was calmly washing the dishes in our new apartment when suddenly this massive dark blur shoots out from behind the microwave and onto the wall behind the sink directly in front of me. It was this HUGE spider. This picture doesn't quite capture its size. Basically it was roughly the size of my hand with the fingers completely outstretched. Definitely big enough to completely cover my face if it chose to jump on it.

"HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT F##K F##K F##K" I calmly stated in a voice loud enough to wake the neighborhood.

Ena was preparing a bath and asked "What is the matter?"

"HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT" I calmly answered.

Not quite understanding my meaning Ena came to have a look for herself.

"HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT" she observed, seeming to agree with my assessment.

"I told you."

We stood there frozen in terror looking at the giant spider on the wall. My hands were covered with soap suds and I had a spoon I had been washing in my hand.

I slowly approached the sink making the universal sign for "Don't you f@#king go jumping on my face" and gently placed the spoon on the edge.

"What should we do?" Ena asked.

"Wait here, I gotta go get something." I replied.

"Don't you be leaving me here with this thing while you go get the camera, this is serious." She said. She knows me too well.

"I'll just be a second, let me know if it goes anywhere" I said and abandoned my wife with a giant spider in order to go get the camera.

Returning I took a few snaps of the thing as it slowly moved along the wall.

Giving the camera to Ena I said "here, use the movie mode and film me trying to kill this thing. It'll be awesome."

She looked at me like I was insane so I dropped the idea. YouTube users will have to look elsewhere for entertainment tonight.

Retiring to the front foyer I picked up one of my sneakers to use as a weapon. When I got back to the kitchen the spider was in a corner, making it very difficult to get a clean shot.

The waiting game began.

After a standoff that lasted a couple of minutes the spider made a move. I struck.

And missed.

"HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT" I howled as the spider started running around the kitchen like a chicken with its head cut off.

Eventually the spider landed in the sink, which it had some difficulty getting traction on and could not climb out of.

"Big mistake, pal" I said with a cocky grin and nonchalantly flipped on the faucet, intending to drown the spider.

Perhaps the adrenaline was affecting my brain because of course the water just immediately started going down the drain without posing even the remotest threat of drowning to the spider.

It was at that moment that I discovered that this was a spider that had the ability to JUMP, which it demonstrated for me by starting to jump like crazy around the sink.

"HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT" I screamed, beating a hasty retreat from what I estimated to be the spider's jump zone.

It was at that moment that I just started blindly smashing my sneaker at random into the sink - not really caring how many dishes I smashed - until eventually one of my blows landed clean and true. The spider was no more.

Thesis Defence Day

Today me and all of my classmates had our public thesis defence. We basically had to make a short presentation followed by questioning by two professors. It was massively stressful but we all got through it all right.

After finishing all I could think about was how sad I was that it was the last time we'd all be together at school. Over the course of the past year I've really bonded with everyone and made some really close friends so its going to be hard to say goodbye when everyone goes back to their home countries in 10 days. I took a few pictures during the day of us having our last day on campus together to remember them by.

A big group of us outside our building with Professor Pejovic:

Inside the study room where we spent our days and nights studying, surfing the net and chatting. Some of us virtually lived in this room:

In the lounge outside the study room where we ate lunch together everyday between classes:

Buying the 370 yen bento outside the faculty building: