Environmentalist, Spawn of the BC Ministry of Forests

One day when I was in Grade 4, I came home from school with one of those colouring posters that shows a slice of forest ecology; here's an owl, here's a tree, here's a deer... In the lower corner of my poster was a logger. When I showed my mother my completed artwork, she said to me of the loggers "Your daddy builds the roads for those loggers." Thus, a piece of colouring homework provided the initial site for ongoing, sublimated feelings of guilty shame in my father and I.

My mother had no sooner uttered those words than I began a righteous tirade. I confronted my father, as much as it could be said I did so considering in Grade 4 my head barely reached his belt. I chastised him for allowing foresters into the forest to cut down the trees and indignantly asked him if he knew that he was damaging the forest ecosystem and ruining the environment. My father put in for a transfer to Highways later that week.

He didn't stay for long and my burgeoning environmentalism seemed to pass like a mere fancy, distracted as I was by things like ballet lessons, baseball and the transition of moving mid-school year. But as it turns out, when we each get stripped down to our core values my dad truly loves his job and believes in the purpose set for him by the Ministry of Forests and I am inevitably seduced by the call of conservationism.

Odd as it may sound, this schism of ideology doesn't hurt our relationship. In fact it has virtually no explicit influence on us at all. Our divergent and opposed beliefs work upon us by far more implicit venues. We are affected by a mutually held guilt that our beliefs let the other person down. The only evidence of its effects rests in two instances. In the story I have just told you, my dad felt he was somehow not living up to the person his daughter expected him to be and attempted to change. Over the past weekend, we negotiated the same dynamic.

The past year has been quite a trial for me in terms of career and life goals, the result of which has been a switch for me from studying Victorian Literaure to pursuing a career in environmental and animal studies (academic or otherwise). One of the catalysing factors for this change was a class I took on the fetishization of the West Coast forest. To make a long story short, I was lucky enough to present my final paper from that course at this year's ASLE conference, where it and I was embraced with open arms. I now have to offers for publishing, an invitation to join ALECC and a network of people in the field of literature and the environment to contact about future plans. David Suzuki was in the audience when I presented my paper.

Afterwards, I phoned my dad and shared my success with him. With a mixture of pride and embarassment on both sides, he congratulated me and told me to be happy with what I have accomplished. But not without calling David Suzuki a forestry basher and asking me if I told everyone that logging was evil and we should stop all human infringement on the forest. I said "No, I think we should log it all [it being the Pine Beetle forest], start processing our own lumber instead of shipping it to Japan or the States, and allow for natural burn-off." Then my dad was truly proud of me. We seem to have found some sort of common ground, united by pragmatic acceptance that it is in the best interest of all stakeholders to come up with the best possible forest management practice. The forestry industry doesn't want to dessimate the forest - that would be the end of their existence. And as far as conservation goes, I'm not a traditional conservationist. I do not believe that no forest management is the best forest management and I also don't think that preventing human use of the forest is a feesible option. I don't think this new position would have been inhabitable to me without the emotional tension underpinning my childhood. Perhaps it has helped pave the way for a new avenue of environmental education - for lack of a better phrase, conservational/environmental pragmatism.

Birding gone astray

So, I decided to take up birding a few weeks ago. I bought a Smithsonian guidebook to North American birds. It came with a cd of excellent bird calls that shows a pic of the bird on your mp3 player. They make excellent alarm noises for those of you who have ipod alarm clocks.
Anyhow - listening to the weird noises bluejays make (sound like misty bells) it occurred to me that they should be used as elements of some sort of musical endeavor.

Todd plays guitar and is into atmospheric stuff and I'm hoping that bass guitars aren't hard to transition to from violins.

There may or may not be more to follow.

Mid-Career Crisis

Seven years of post-secondary education in English and Philosophy. Where will it really get me? I know I'm good at it, but that doesn't mean I'll get a job at the end. If I do, it may not be the kind of gainful employment necessary to pay off the massive amount of student debt accrued getting that employment.

This is the basic concern of just about every graduate student I know. At least in the Humanities. But what is to be done? Also like the other grad students I know, I have contemplated other career options - I have even gotten as far as coming up with careers I may even be passionate about (though theory and reality don't always match up, like when I first realised that being a prof meant no 9-5 hours). My naivete aside, other problems appear.

A part of me desperately wants to work for Environment Canada or Canada Wildlife Service. I blame my newfound interest in ecocriticism and resurgence of a longstanding infatuation with ecological/wildlife concerns. Sounds fine, except that the logistics of retraining are ridiculous.

I am in debt, so I can't pay for retraining. I'm 26, so being unemployed into my 30's is pretty intimidating. I've delayed entry to the labour force for so long that employers may hesitate to hire me. I've earned 3 degrees so employers may hesitate to hire me. My skills are so applicable to every job that no one asks explicitly for them, thus very few job applications seem to apply. My skills are so applicable that they are simultaneously without specific application, so few job applications seem to apply.

The biggest problem though is that there is no right answer. I am left facing a choice that affects every portion of my life and there is no advice, no epiphany, no knowledge to be had over what I should do and what I shouldn't. I almost went and had my tea leaves read to see if a complete stranger (and possibly grifter) had any insights into my career options that may have eluded me.

I hear the biological clock ticking. It has nothing to do with babies and everything to do with education, money, seniority and retirement packages.

Environmentalism and Animal Welfare: Mututally Exclusive?

Now, I haven't had the chance to really suss out this apparent irreconcilable difference between holding the two ideologies of environmentalism and animal rights/welfare. However, it occurred to me that it may be terribly difficult to enact certain desires of each without embodying hypocrisy.

Taken to an extreme, certain environmental tenets proclaims a necessity for "returning to the earth". That is, we ought to forsake (as much as is possible) the artificialities of human existence. By artificialities I do not mean, like Thoreau, that we should extract ourselves from society. Society in and of itself is integral and beneficial to human existence. It has also been documented in innumerable animal congregations and thus cannot be called singularly human. I mean instead that we move away from man-made things and embrace naturally found resources to facilitate our lives. Evidence of this mindset is most prominently found in advertising - because it work; a rash of consumables with "90%+ all natural ingredients" like make-up and cleaning products have hit the market in the last ten years. Think of it as putting our lifestyles on a whole food/marcobiotic diet.

Here's where things start to get muddy. In many ways, synthetics have come to replace the natural resources that we used to use and that many would have us return to. Specifically, synthetics are often used to replace animal-derived products. Although part of this shift has to do with the excitement and lure of science and progress, part of it has to do with an increased awareness of item production and the role of animals as consumables. Companies hoping to "ethically" cash in on pro-animal sentiment advertise animal free products and testing. Instead, synthetics are used to replace the animal-derivatives.

So if we fully reject synthetics, animals (more fully) resume their role as consumables. If we swear off animal consumption, synthetics abound. Is there any way to happily inhabit both ideologies simultaneously?

A brief aside

In the wake of a recent rash of romantic devastation (not my own, but rather of those who are dear to me), I dwell on a single question: What is the difference between a life partner and a marriage partner? Surely it's one of those square/rectangle relationships; a marriage partner should be a life partner but a life partner may not be a marriage partner.

Regret that can only be enabled by Relief

Last month, I made the decision to take next year off of school. This will be my first official break since summer 2002, which so far has constituted my only semester off school since - ever really. The decision came at the end of a harrowing year that tried my resilience to criticism and poor timing to its very core. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to continue in academia with my wits even tenuously intact then I must take the time off.
I will no longer be attempting to balance all of the following things this semester as a result:
1) Practicing for and conquering the GRE
2) Crafting the best interdisciplinary/multimedia SSHRC proposal in the history of forever
3) Tracking down flighty profs for vital and glowing references
4) Writing PhD applications of such quality that acceptance to any program I desire is ensured (and funded)
5) Working 170 hours per semester for the University (the ancillary services quarter, not academic)
6) Submitting my best written essays to date for Victorian Serialized Fiction and Forest Fetish classes
7) Being the absolute best student teacher yet to grace the pedagogy class at UVIC
8) Maintaining a loving and supportive overseas relationship
9) Socialising, exercising and other things that generally contribute to good mental health.

Instead, I have the luxury of only balancing numbers 5-9. At first there was a feeling of relief. I see that I was trying to spread myself too thinly - even I can only do so much. However, thanks to the revivifying effects of VISAWUS and SCMLA, I now look back on my decision with immense sadness. I was oh-so-excited to submit my applications and pitch my ideas to the SSHRC and PhD committees and now have to wait. I have made all these lovely connections with the academic community that I am concerned may fall by the wayside sometime during this hiatus. Most difficult to remember is that I couldn't afford to feel regret if I hadn't made this choice. There is no way that, under that kind of pressure my semester was presenting, I could have completed all of these tasks to the best of my ability and expectations. In fact, I would have failed spectacularly in all ways and, what's more, I would have ruined my opportunity to do better and try again. Who would have supported me after that supernova of dissappointment? Would I have been able to rise from the flames? I think not.

On the upside, Todd's family is buying a new apartment for him (which means maybe we can get a dog). In the meantime, I will keep my wallet closed in hopes of taking the dog training program and keep my eyes open for opportunities to build my academic CV. A job for next year would be pretty awesome too....

What AM I doing with my life?

This is the question that plagues me. It doesn't get easier now that I have to summarize it to all the people I am reconnecting with. It doesn't get easier when I have a totally distorted view of my life. To me, it seems like I am frozen in time - still slaving away at school just like I have been doing for the last 8 years. That's because when people ask "What did you do this weekend?" the answer is invariably "homework" or "I can't remember." Don't get excited. The reason I can't remember is not because I was out partying. It's because between working at home and doing school work there is nothing to distinguish one day from the next.

That's the usual response. However, it is high time I remember that there is a lot happening:
a) I am finishing my third university degree - that's right - third
b) I have broken into my academic field with a major idea that has been well received at all the conferences I've been to so far (three)
c) I am presenting a paper at a professional conference in Texas this coming week
d) I just had my first paper published
e) I am volunteering at the SPCA
f) I've decided to take next year off before going on to a PhD program to pursue other interests, including animal welfare and wildlife conservation
g) I've made a conscious effort to allow myself a social life this year, rectifying the cloistering effect of last year
f) I have revivified a number of old and meaningful friendships
g) my current employment is extremely fulfilling and pays more than the other jobs I had applied for this year
h) my employment over the summer for Oxford University Press added an impressive notch on my academic belt and the position with the summer camp made a significant contribution to a community
i) I have reconnected with my artistic inclinations, resulting in some exceedingly beautiful images and potential projects

I think that the risk people run in any occupation in life is forgetting that they are more than just what they do. Being the sum of your actions means being the sum of ALL your actions - not just the actions that take up the majority of your time, working towards one long term goal. This is certainly the error that I have made.