Hot damn!

So the topic’s been changed for the lecture I'm giving on Monday. It’s now… wait for it… Canadian television! Woohoo! Sure I can talk about film and make it interesting, but Canadian tv gets me gesturing excitedly. I've only got an hour, which isn’t nearly long enough, but I suppose that’s why MISC gave me an entire course next semester. As an added bonus, anything I say could make its way onto the quiz the students have at the end of next week, which is one of the things that still startles me about teaching – seeing my own words spit back in short answer form. The students also have an essay due in two weeks, which means I'm now constantly fielding questions that up the intrigue about the kinds of things they’ll be writing on. So far it looks like I'm getting one on Tim Hortons and one on Canadian Bacon.
My own writing is taking awhile to come together. I haven’t been able to keep my mind focused enough to get more than three or four pages a day. It’s frustrating, knowing I'm coming up on a semester with no time for my own research, and I'm afraid I won’t have a substantive draft of my first chapter before that happens. To try and clear out even a handful of the cobwebs I'm thinking of taking off next weekend for a quick and dirty trip to Hogtown. The liminal space of the train often gives me a greater sense of perspective, not to mention the therapy of a late night out and long lazy morning in with dear old friends. I haven’t left Montreal since last Xmas, and while I love this city I could really use a day or two somewhere ghostless.
What a completely unenlightening post. Blah blah minor and irrelevant excitements, blah blah allusions to emotions, blah blah. I do have thoughts about important things like the midterm elections, like Parc Ave and patrimoine, like the fascinatingly honest Canadian Armed Forces ads on tv lately. But like I said: unfocused brain. It’s spent all day trying to be cogent and will spend all evening catching up on course material for seminars the next morning. It needs a break.