The Summer of Weddings

My first wedding of the summer, was in early July for my friends Murph and Nicole. It was a beautiful wedding and I had the great honour to stand in for him as his best man. Stratford is a truly charming town, and myself and the rest of the wedding party enjoyed chasing swans in the park.




The following weekend, I went to Ottawa for Joel and Denise's wedding. There's nothing wrong with a good half-Indian, half-white wedding, especially because they give me a chance to wear my truly great kurta pajama.





Finally, in early August, I hit up St. Catherine's for Nathan and Jenn's wedding. It was a grand time, with some pretty rippin' food. As per usual, some new dance moves were invented on the floor. Kudos to Ben Joliffe in this department.






Not the most exciting blog, but it needed to be made.

Parry Sound Adventures

I recently had the opportunity to go visit Julia's place and family in Parry Sound. It was great! Parry Sound is a beautiful area of Ontario, placed in a labyrinthine interchange of rocky, wooded land and the deep, blue waters of Georgian Bay. It's an outdoorsperson's paradise. The town itself is smaller, but nice. Julia's family was, of course, very nice and hospitable. It was a fun time, with good food, great people, and, later on, a very nice cottage on Georgian Bay.

As much as I could talk about many things that we did, it was my introduction to kayaking which was particularly memorable. As Julia is a kayak instructor, and I had never kayaked before, I wanted to get out on the waters as soon as we got to the cottage. After a brief lesson on shore, we took to the waters on a beautiful day. Naturally, I was awesome at kayaking and got the hang of it quickly. On the way to a bridge we were trying to reach, I saw an island which had flowers growing on it. I told her to go ahead of me, and that I would catch up. Suspicious that I was going to relieve myself, she did not hesitate to make a break for it. I got the contraband and set to get back into my boat, noting how clever I was. As I am used to canoes, I braced my hands on the gunwhales while getting in and proceeded to flip the kayak. After doing this a second time, I called her back to give me a hand and took notice of the fact that my foot was stinging. She laughed at me, and when I got back on land, I noticed my foot was bleeding, with the middle toe cut to the point where I could see the white tendons inside. When we got back to the cottage, Julia's dad, a physician, cleaned out my foot and stitched it up on the back deck. Without anaesthetic. It hurt, but being a male, I was thrilled to have the experience and feel kind of tough.

Lesson learned? I hate zebra mussels.

Lord of the Rings

On the following weekend, just over two weeks ago, I was able to do my small part to help my buddy, Ethan Park, get engaged to his sweetheart, Janette Doerksen. Although I did little more than show up, hobble over to the Eaton centre with Ben and Steph to deliver a clue in a scavenger hunt, and eat and drink at the victory party, I like to think that I did my small part to pay tribute to the great relationship between Ethan and Janette. Looking forward to the wedding guys!

Renfrew

Upon finishing my Master's degree, I took off for Ottawa with several family members. It was pleasant. From there, I had the pleasure of visiting my friend Jess's place near Renfrew, Ontario, with several friends. Jess, I must admit, has a pretty swinging life near the Quebec border. Her backyard literally backs onto an idyllic little river which is navigable by canoe and surrounded by beautiful green woods. The river itself is less than a half mile from the place where it empties into the rather larger Ottawa river, the last defence from Quebec.

Naismith and I naturally decided to canoe up the river as far as we could. Before long we encountered a set of rapids where the river dropped a few feet; it was nothing too serious, but still promised adventure. Always thinking clearly, I got out of the canoe, put on a PFD, and launched myself into the middle of the current some ways down, keeping my legs in front of me to protect myself from unseen rocks. It turned out to be quite a hit, and we occupied ourselves for a good time, progressing to the more intense side of the river. I got a little banged up, but we had a blast. We had noticed that the river seemed somewhat polluted, though, and when Naismith noticed that his throat felt really weird, we decided it was time to head 'er back.

All in all, it was a great weekend, with great people. Jess and her father modelled hospitality, which was no surprise, even when Naismith and I insisted on cranking up the country music. As sorry as we were to leave the place, the drive back was pretty great. As I went to high school in Western Ontario, driving through the Ottawa valley was a new experience for me. At one point in time, we ended up on a logging road, watching pavement disappear into gravel, which gave way to dirt roads, which eventually disappeared into the brush. We did, however, get back alive, which is always a plus.

End of an Era

After a long absence from blogging, I am getting back into the swing of things. There's a lot to catch up on, so I'll spread the updates over the next few days...

Well, the sweet day finally arrived a few weeks ago when I handed in the last paper of my degree! I now have my M.A. all but officially. The feeling of relief has been palpable, and it is still sinking in, as I have been on the road so much since that happened. I'm glad I got to do my degree here at Queen's, but by the end, school was beginning to feel like some sort of P.O.W. camp.

It's been a real pleasure celebrating being done with my classmates, as many of them move back to their parts of the country. As good as it is to be done, I have had good times with many of you people.

Godspeed.

A Bad Dream?

I don't know if I will ever forgive the CBC.

If you are in Canada and you are reading this, you will know what I am talking about. This week, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation failed to renew the rights to the iconic "Hockey Song" (you may know it just as the "Hockey Night in Canada Theme"). I thought that perhaps the whole ordeal was a gig by the CBC to renegotiate the rights in a more favourable arrangement. Instead, I turned on the TV this morning to watch the sports highlights on TSN, only to hear the "Hockey Song" repeated endlessly and triumphantly as proof of their victory in snatching the rights to the song. It was surreal, like seeing your mom walking around holding hands with some guy she met at the gym. It just wasn't right.

I'm just so shaken up that I don't know what to say or how to say it, so I'm turning to the readers of the blogosphere for comfort.

Back to the issue...

I can't blame TSN for what they did. I only know that CBC's consistently deteriorating reputation in my eyes took a further, huge dive. To the litany of their sloppy journalism, highly partisan, though publicly funded, coverage, and their insistence on producing cloyingly saccharine, formulaic imitations of "Anne of Green Gables" throughout my childhood (anyone remember "Emily of New Moon"?), the CBC has discarded what can reasonably as a Canadian institution. HNIC is probably one of the only reasons why many people even want to keep the CBC.

Of course, I can't say I'm all that surprised. The strong commitment of Canadian crown corporations to mediocrity and bungling inefficiency is as much an embarassing Canadian institution as our insistence on continuing to give them money.

I am switching to the CTV for my Canadian news coverage.

Miscellany

Life, as always, has been a bit of a hodge-podge lately. I've been considering blogging about various ideas I've gotten from experiences I've had, such as psychopathy and alternative societies (inspired by a recent visit to a prison musuem). But I'm not feeling that inspired or motivated to write a really thought-provoking article right now, so those will have to wait. I will merely do that thing which I somewhat loathe myself for doing -- describing recent events. Unfortunately, there isn't really a grand story at work here, not that I can see.

Springtime in Kingston has been beautiful. The tulips are out, the breeze is refreshing, and I enjoy the occasional downpour as I drift off to sleep at night. Spring has brought with it morning jogs by Lake Ontario, legendary soccer games in City Park, and one of the greatest glories of summer -- the BBQ. There is something beautiful about ending up on somebody's roof at night, with a BBQ below, watching the city spread beneath you.

The highlight of the last week was, of course, having my good buddies Ethan and Ben come for the long Victoria Day weekend. It really was an ideal weekend, centred around the finer things of life -- food and drink. Of course, acquainting guests with Kingston is always a pleasure, as she is a city with a lot to offer, with charming architecture, warm pubs, and probably the greatest dessert in the world, which you will have to ask me personally to have revealed to you.

Life, although containing certain unknowns, holds real pleasures for me these days which I am loathe to overlook and not enjoy. Although there is much I look forward to in the future, it would be a sin not to smell the flowers, go down by the lake and feel the breeze on one's skin, talk with good friends, drain a cold glass to the bottom, or get all sweaty in soccer. And be thankful. So I remind myself.

Welcome!

There really isn't any original way to introduce a blog, so I'll just say that I'm Steven Adam, and this is my blog.

I've contemplated having a blog for quite some time now, as the idea of having people drinking coffee and wasting time reading my thoughts appeals to the narcissist in me. But as much as it was conceived by self-indulgence, and gestated over the long months of grad school, it was born of the advent of Spring Semester in Kingston, when my life has become suddenly empty and distinctly in-between. Although I obtained a houseplant (thank you, Julia) and amused myself for a day by cleaning and organized, the tedium of separated waiting didn't seem so bad when I thought about committing even the most mundane of my thoughts to the interweb, where anyone and everyone could read them.

So here, in all its glory, you will find my thoughts. Some may be poignant and thougtful, as I meditate on life. Some may be ridiculous. At times, you will encounter organized thoughts, at other times, the narrative of an event in my day which really struck me. I am also considering starting up a separate blog for theological and philosophical musings, which take up a good deal of my gray matter. When this happens, I will let you know.

Please read and leave witty comments.