07 December 2008: I look at the long deferred travel orders and course loading message and am still not convinced they will leave things as they stand. Some part of me expects a last minute change of heart, the rug to be pulled from under my feet one more time. I am also having difficulty getting my head and heart into the Solstice spirit.  I will be away from home and unable to do the things I typically love to do to mark the season.  My children are at that stage in their lives where traditions such as those for Christmas or Solstice  have lost significance.  They are too busy.  I am trying to reconfigure my celebrations to a more personal level but it is hard to give up the traditional family practices, the magic I was happy to work hard to create for my children.  Sometimes it hurts that they do not see how their choices  impact on me, until I think back on how self absorbed I was at the same age.  It has been a pivotal year and the next one proves to be most productive.  I have much to celebrate and am blessed with good friends, good health and good family.  Who could ask for more? 

10 August 2008:  I look in the mirror these days and feel I am looking at some stranger - perhaps some long lost old aunt.  The face is vaguely familiar, but I cannot possibly look so worn and tired.  I feel a little robbed and betrayed by life.  Used up and then tossed aside.  Things are finally starting to turn in my direction at work in many ways, but it is almost as though it is too little and too late.  I am tired, very tired.  As far as the academic world goes, I feel pretty much abandoned there these days too and left to muddle along on my own with the thesis.  The most recent criticism was so irrelevant and disconnected from what I am actually studying that I cannot figure out how to deal with it at all.  My primary advisors are not particularly evident these days.  I recognize that they all have lives and work of their own, but I pay for their advice and guidance and they get paid to provide the same.  Sigh.  I shall simply go forward on my own.  And if I must work and live in solitude, well by golly I will make it a real solitude, a wonderful solitude.  Time to retreat, heal from the hell of the past 6 years and keep to myself until a great deal of my OWN work has been brought forward and closer to completion.

21 July 2008 - I got some surprising feedback from one of my UNBC thesis advisors today.  Surprising and even confusing.  Issues that I thought I had cleared up when I presented the prospectus last fall resurfaced as though not a word of what I said last November had gotten through.  I am at something of a loss.  It has been hard enough to try to focus while the CF keeps trying to take my life apart.  Frankly my first reaction was perilously close to chucking the whole thing and simply pursuing the research on my own.  I get so little feedback and can rarely reach any of my advisors just to talk through ideas. There are times when I wonder what I am paying $1500 per semester for, especially now that I am working exclusively on the thesis (when I am not at work).  I am going to pull back from the thesis for a few weeks, get all the admin stuff done for the CF and then revisit the whole thesis.  And this time, instead of focusing on the formula I was given for the prospectus, I am going to build something that will achieve my objective.  Time to chuck out the "rules" and devise an approach that works.  At this point the most constructive input and feedback is coming from Peter Stoett.  For that at least, I am extremely grateful.

11 July 2008 - Once again academic leave awarded specifically to work on my thesis has been compromised by administrative interference.  It is fascinating that they do this so consistently.  Last year they pulled me off academic leave to go off to do training I was not supposed to do at the time.  This year - well, that has already been chronicled at the justice page of this site.  It's almost as though my pursuit of education poses some kind of threat to a few small minded folks on this base with more authority than rational thought or good judgment.  I am moving this weekend to a much safer apartment overlooking the inner harbour of Victoria - bright and breezy and easy walking distance to work, groceries - everything.  My own personal green plan - with the van reduced to a recreational vehicle of sorts.  Means a fuel savings of about $250 a month.  I am glad I took two weeks off before the academic leave to do most of the packing.  Now if I can just put the unwarranted and highly disruptive distractions from the military out of my mind for a few days I could get some work done on the thesis.

02 July 2008 - I have formatted the thesis, updated the proposal and completed a draft of the intro and a few other chunks.  That's the only apt descriptor right now - chunks.  I suspect it is also the only way I will be able to make much headway, to bite it off in manageable chunks.  Right now I am thinking on, prewriting, pondering the chapter called "Exploration of Terms."  I've borrowed the concept from Peter Stoett, a wonderful writer.  Apologies for the theft but it is such an apt expression.  Especially in the face of my current frustration.  I know what I want to say and can find it supported readily throughout the readings, yet for the work to be taken seriously it seems compelled to seek expression in such pretentious language.  I respect that I am currently writing to an academic audience, but good grief.  Some of the literature I am obliged to wade through is like a maze of arcane language calculated to obfuscate and disguise meaning.  I must find some middle ground.

 There's an other almost ironic frustration.  Beyond the language issue I find myself on the one hand becoming more and more excited as my vision, hypothesis, conceptual understanding (whatever) becomes clearer and more substantive - while on the other - I cannot wait for the bureaucratized aspect of it all to be done.  The annoying distraction of the handful of invasively small minded folks from work, the waiting on some of my advisors, the administrative formalities, the having to rein in ideas as they strain to explode in all directions.  It's all sp petty and mundane.  One of the hardest things of all in this process, much to my surprise, is the intellectual isolation.  Outside of a very small handful of friends who have any grasp at all of what I am trying to do, I have no local, convenient sounding board for the ideas that are tumbling about in the brain cave.  Yet it is so often through articulation and discussion that ideas develop a keen edge and a strong driving argument.  I miss that.  Sigh.

26 June 2008 - The distractions of work have corroded my concentration.  Today I must make every effort to put all of that madness from my mind and focus.  Sadly the reading of the past two weeks has vanished from my beleaguered brain pan.  Today I shall review the multitude of stickies I placed in my books while reading them and dictate to myself the highlights of the identified salient points for transcribing.  Perhaps that mechanical process will act as a kind of ZEN to get my thoughts back on track.

24 June 2008 - I am in the process of migrating my web site, developing my thesis, moving to a new apartment, and still the CF continues to toss unnecessary administrative obstacles across my path.  I grow very weary of this petty foolishness.  I know that my record for strong performance within the organization is good.  All the more so when you consider the constraints of health challenges (now behind me!!!) compounded by an ongoing campaign of abuse and defamation based on unfounded gossip and rumour.  I literally have to overcome this horrific reputation of being a belligerent incompetent with every new position.  I wish that there was some way to gently remind them that I accomplish all that I do in spite of their interference.  Imagine - in addition to work and academic pursuits I am obliged to undo damage done by the CF on a consistent basis, and I am obliged to administer my own stalled career most of the time.  It is unfortunate that an organization with some of the truly fine accomplishments of the CF, and one with as many amazing people as have been historically a part of the organization should continue to be so easily distracted by the gossiping little old ladies of the old boys network.  This appears to be especially true in the navy.  They also do not seem to understand that it is impossible for me to abandon my principles or sanction what I see as illegal, unethical and profoundly wrong conduct within the organization.  They also seem to forget the moral obligations of a commissioned officer with regards to integrity, honour, courage and ethics.  Sigh. I just want to do my job.

18 April 2008 - I have begun the reading recommended by Peter Stoett on Critical Security Studies and Social Constructivism.  I must say, the two subject areas are having a tremendously positive impact on my overall thinking with regards to defining and developing the concept of Strategic Culture.

07 February 2008  -  The grades on my course work are in - finally!  It would appear that I have done well enough to continue on with the thesis.  Now if I only had the time.  The CF in its infinite wisdom has finally decided to load me onto a series of academic courses that are required of all officers.  All are pretty much entry level undergraduate courses, and two of them have relevance as useful background to my own research.  But there is a great deal of repetitive reading and time wasted in the class room on team building projects.  I just want to get on with things. 

    I am also somewhat distracted as I wait for the findings and recommendations on my grievance.  It's been over two years since I filed the grievance, but the issues being grieved have their origins in activities that date back to 2002.  It is gratifying to have received an indication that I may ultimately know some success, but the waiting is very hard. 

    I also find myself pulling back from social contact more and more often.  Until there is some semblance of surety in my career, some consistent direction, I'm reluctant to have much to do with friends and family.  There really is nothing I want to talk about in a social context these days.  The peace of my own company is preferable.  Then there are no difficult questions about all that remains unresolved at work.  I can almost forget that I'm an "I" - an individual distinct from my thoughts and analysis of the concepts I am trying to build.  It's kind of funny.  The psycho babble types within the base health services have said, after one interview for depression, that I am highly narcissistic. I looked that up.  I have no idea how they came to that, but they have used the same label to describe many of us in the CF these days.  Like I said, I'd rather be alone most of the time.  At home or walking about I can achieve such a wonderful space.  It's almost as though I cease to exist, as though I move past being me.  I forget everything about me and revel in observations, thoughts and ideas about the world around me.  It is a contented peaceful feeling to be puttering, lost in thought, on day to day tasks or long walks.  And the thinking is fascinating. 

    This is neither the time nor the place to expand much on the ideas that tumble about in my mind.  I have too much work to do.  But it is clear that everything is so very connected.  All too often, however, things seem to go wrong in human history, in day to day life, in relationships, because of fear and misunderstanding, of ourselves, of those around us and because of ignorance of the linkages that flow under the surface of human experience.  There used to be a TV show called Connections. It was wonderful.  It explored all those seemingly unrelated discoveries in human history that combined or accumulated to trigger massive change.  Fascinating. 

    We as a species appear to stand on a kind of pivotal threshold as we fight our way into the 21st Century.  We are more than ready for a paradigm shift, but what shape will it take?  Can a handful of people influence the direction or the basic nature of that shift?  At the end of the day, if you decide you cannot make a difference and so don't bother to try, you are guaranteed to make no difference.  But if you either believe that your efforts can move a single blade of grass enough to nudge the path of human history or believe that you can't afford to miss the possibility by quitting, then anything is possible.  Isn't it?

25 January 2008 - It has been some time since I have had the luxury of a few hours to myself to enjoy random reflection.  The joys of multi-tasking I suppose.  The course work for the MA is done and the bulk of the readings have been collected.  I need to make a few minor adjustments to the thesis prospectus and then can begin to read.  It is interesting to listen to the feedback that comes in on my little project.  For the most part the concept is sufficiently foreign to folks that it requires some explaining.  My own faculty advisors have confessed they are not qualified to advise.  There is also, however, a fascinating and delightful flavour of excitement from a growing number.  A few see the task as far too large, but I think that if I take my time and am both careful and methodical I will be able to keep the quantity of data from overwhelming and be able  to elicit the quality of data I need to uncover and define the essence of the concept of Strategic Culture.  I think that taking a conceptual approach instead of a state specific approach will also be quite helpful.  The biggest struggle right now, beyond finding the time outside my commitments to the military, is trying to identify a theoretical context.  It has been sometime since I REALLY devoted much time to that area of study and much has evolved since.  I understand the advise to undertake this contextual framework for the concept, but it will require a degree of theoretical reading and analysis before I can get to the more specific readings.  Frustrating, but necessary both in terms of credibility for the MA thesis (how unfortunate to be told that no-one ever reads an MA thesis besides your faculty advisors and long suffering friends and family) and in terms of plans to go on to a PhD someplace interesting.  I would love to teach too.  So much to do and so little time.  Onward and upward.

21 January 2008 - I have been course loaded on the Naval Officers Professional Military Education serial which will wrap up by 04 April.  It is a purely academic program that focuses on Canada, Canadian political and military history and Military ethics.  I am quite enjoying the courses so far but find myself with the threat of a return to CAP before the course is concluded.  This is problematic in so far as my grievance appears close to positive resolution - which may preclude me wearing an army uniform at all, let alone ever having to return to CFB Gagetown to do CAP. 

    They tell me I have a reputation for not finishing work.  This is particularly frustrating when I look back at the number of courses I have been pulled off weeks and even days short of completion, or the number of large projects I have been assigned for which I have had to write veritable SOP's simply because I was pulled off prematurely.  My professional development reports, if anyone ever bothered to read them, all indicate that I have an excellent track record for completion of taskings, in spite of being yanked around and bounced from office to office for over 5 years while patiently trying to use the military grievance process to achieve some modicum of justice.  Phooey.

10 December 2006 - The first semester of my MA is complete.  I have the results of one course back (successful) but do not anticipate word back on the second course for several weeks yet.  Paper returns were never prompt or much critiqued so I am not holding my breath.  If it was successful, great.  If not?  Simplifies some aspects of life but would be otherwise disappointing.

I am slowly turning the chaos of boxes in my little apartment into some semblance of what I will be able to call home.  It was wonderful to spend the three months at UNBC exercising the brain pan.  I am not completely sure what the Canadian Forces has in mind for me at this point, but I will write to the Dean and request a leave of absence for the winter semester so that I am freed up to do my Common Army Phase of training in Gagetown starting at the end of January.  I still have to find a research methodology course somewhere in Victoria for the spring too (There is one at Royal Roads University that looks promising - a part of their MA in Human Security and Peacebuilding).  The other remaining required course is to be directed studies, but I am not really sure of a subject yet.  Thesis prospectus in May?  Final paper and defence next fall, or early winter?  The time at UNBC has not only been stimulating, it has provided valuable time to think about how best to spend the next 40 years or so of my life.  (I am an optimist and expect to be around for quite a while yet!)  I very much want to go on to do a PhD as I am very excited by the possibilities in further developing a comparative means of Strategic Culture Analysis.  I think, however, that I shall back off and watch the circus around me for a while, concentrate on getting as fit as I can  and re-cultivate a heavy reading habit.  It will be interesting to see what the universe has in mind.  She does, after all, always knows what She is about!

16 November 2006 - I have but one major paper left to do, as well as a peer review of my classmates for one course.  I am very much looking forward to a final get together with my new found friends and classmates here at UNBC on the 24th.  They are delightful and wonderfully bright people.  One or two are even my own age!  I hope we can keep in touch.  I will miss them all.

In less than 10 days I will see my children in Vancouver.  I had great fun getting their Christmas packages ready.  I love Christmas, always have.  Even when I have it all to myself, I have never lost a sense of great hope and optimism through every midwinter season.  It is hard to focus on this last paper.  I have a stack of books that I WANT to read, an apartment to finally unpack and organize back in Victoria and I just want to go home.  Already I am getting organized for the trip back.  Some packing is done, a new wiper blade for the rear window of the van, and strategizing for the transfer of internet and cel phone service back to Victoria.  Soon.  Soon.  But somehow not soon enough.

04 November 2006  -  I am approaching the end of the first semester in my masters program.  On the plus side, I have a much better idea of what it is I must do and how to begin.  The ending?  Who knows - it is down a long and demanding road.  I am both frustrated and saddened, however, by all the good minds I have encountered, here and elsewhere, that seem to have gotten so walled up in the ivory tower of theory that they have forgotten reality.  I hope I can avoid that. 

Theory is good as a means of understanding, as a tool of analysis.  But when theory becomes the end in and of itself, when it loses sight of its purpose, to work towards a better human society, it loses its legitimacy.  We have governments and armies to enhance our shared security, our mutual well-being.  We have industry and technology to make life better.  Yet we seem to hate one another more and more.  The west is trapped in a frenzied spiral of compulsive consumption and the rest despise our determination to share the addiction. 

We on this beautiful planet have such a wonderful cultural diversity, and we are capable of such incredible things, but in our fear and ignorance we forget the common human bonds and perpetually rip each other apart.  We are locked in a zero sum game when a non-zero sum game is so very possible.  For those who believe and see the possible, we must find one another, share ideas and build the means to achieve the possible.

13 October 2006

I have a paper to write for the symposium in Kingston.  I know what I want to write, have my facts, references and such all lined up and I really want to write it NOW.  The drain, however, of ongoing conflicts at work, being without a home for so long, (let alone a decent work space and all my references) and a sense of almost complete isolation from my peers here at the university is taking a toll.  I have the blues and want to pack up my things and leave, almost every day.  I KNOW what I want to research, build, develop and am weary of having to jump through hoops, again.  Patience, I must have patience.  Someday I will be in a position to set up a perfect nest in moderate isolation where I can do, think, read, indulge the muse again, and write . . . and hike, and kayak, and camp, and travel . . . but not just yet.  dammit.

04 October 2006 - It's not about what - it's about WHY . . .

While ploughing through the course readings on Human Security I had an epiphany on a definition for security – whether it is individual, state or state system or global

 “Security is determined by the ability of an individual, organization, or state to control access to the means of ensuring physical and psychological well-being/survival”

 If you cannot control your access to food, water, shelter, physical or psychological integrity, then your security has been either removed or compromised by a diminishing of that control or the threat of diminishing that control.  All else can fit under that common denominator.  Health, environmental degradation, brutality, displacement, poverty.  If you cannot control the means to nourish/hydrate yourself, protect yourself from physical or psychological harm, or shelter yourself, then you do not have the essentials of security.  “Yourself” would include your children as an individual.  This applies to a state as well, because if a state loses control of the means to ensure its physical and ideological (psychological) well-being/survival its security has been compromised.  9/11 compromised US perceptions of National and Individual security as they have never been challenged before – on their own turf – and introduced an unprecedented vulnerability.  A vulnerability that is all to familiar to much of the rest of the world. 

 This significantly overcomes the need to specify all the variables that might be included in a definition of security.  It’s not the elements that are key – it’s the loss of control of the means to access what you perceive to be essential to your well being.  This allows the definition sufficient flexibility to take into account strategic cultural perception variables of those elements.  It all boils down to a loss or compromising of control of the means to take care of yourself – as an individual, or as a state. 

26 September 2006

I feel very adrift.  Had a very apt image drift through my thoughts as I ambled from the gym to the van. There are two large concrete planters overflowing with bright nasturtiums.  I’ve always loved those flowers, perhaps because they are so strongly reminiscent of a happy childhood.  Mom grew them in the garden and gathered the seeds every fall to replant in the spring.  There were fat little seeds all over the concrete and my first inclination was to gather some to plant in my garden at home.  But I have no garden and I have no home.  It made me think of the powerful impact of that condition on people who are not only without a home, they have no shelter whatsoever, are often at risk of physical harm, and have little or no food or water. If I find myself periodically paralysed because I am adrift but in moderate comfort.  How completely without focus or drive must these people be?  It is unfathomable.  I cannot even begin to get a sense of what life must be like for them.  As we sit in class theorizing about international politics, what moves who, and where it is likely to go, I must not forget that we are talking about people - living, dying, people.  There is no point in trying to attach moralistic or humane purpose to the actions of states, or to a state system, or to the corporations and international organisations that plan, strategize and deliberate around, and are indifferent to, this very human component.  Instead we must attach the the success of the state to the well being of the individual.  It's ironic to me that the state, which purportedly evolved out of shared human interest and a fundamental coming together in communities for security is now becoming a threat to that very human security.

And academe is not much better.  Folks too easily get caught up in their own wisdom path and seem to lose sight of why they took up study in the first place.  Or maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I am too idealistic.  Have they all come here out of self advancement?  Innocent curiosity?  Lack of anything better to do?  I have no idea.  I know my purpose, and must constantly remind myself that the current living and working situation will pass. But I have offered myself that counsel so very many times.  I long to develop far enough in one direction so that I can simply function, earn my keep to all external intents and purposes, in that capacity and may otherwise retreat from human interaction.  I am blessed with good friends and great kids, but I so long for extended periods of solitude.  Time to think, make, create, produce and just be – far, far, far away from everything and everyone.

22 September 2006 - All is back to normal in the hit frequency.  Mixed feelings.  A recurring reaction to my research, as I suppose that's what it really is - folks seem to have a hard time getting their heads around the concept of Strategic Culture as a stand alone, let alone Comparative Strategic Culture Analysis.  They start rambling down the path of Culture and how difficult it is to define.  Not nearly as broad a theme as far as I can see.  Oh well.  I'll have to work on that.  There remains the tendency for specific disciplines to view it from the perspective of that discipline - hey - from their comparative strategic culture!  Much work to do.  I love it, it keeps me up nights and wakes me early in the morning, and there is no clear end in sight - but I love it.  Hmmm - sort of like parenting on a good day or parenting anytime with fundamentally great kids - like mine.  I've come up with a creative project as a break from thinking.  I want to build a globe of faces - people I have known, friends, family, and faces I find that bear some connection to my own background.  My human globe.  It will be interesting and a pleasant break from idea crunching and reading, reading, reading, reading, and more reading.  Someday I will even get around to a little real writing.  Not quite there yet.  Baby steps - little papers - simple ideas.  Have to find some of those!

19 September 2006 - Interesting note to self - my little web site seems to be drawing more hits.  Originally, when I first set it up and saw that my meta-tags were a meta failure, I could easily tell when someone I had given the coordinates to went for a look-see.  Recently I am finding a periodic jump in hits that has no direct relationship to my referrals.  I doubt that the meta tags have much to do with it, but will see what a Google turns up.

17 September 2006 - This afternoon I walked down to the little green space next to the river near where I am living this fall.  It was a steep wooded descent to the river itself, but both sides of the river bank below, in either direction appeared to be home to industry in one way or another, so it didn't seem worth the descent.  Perhaps I will go back another time before the snow comes.  I miss the ocean. 

This town is an interesting human microcosm.  Recycling is very limited, town planning a recent phenomenon and folks seem content to focus on what is in their own immediate future, within their local region.  Friendly enough, but short sighted and isolationist to a high degree.  There is a growing cultural element making gradual headway, but they are in the decided minority from what I have seen so far.  This is hardly a unique situation for a smallish industrial town.  One might hope, with the advanced state of communication technology, that there would be a stronger trend towards thinking globally and acting locally.  Technology here, however, seems dedicated to snowmobiles, computer and X-box games, power tools, and rifle scopes. Perhaps the growth of the university and the local community college will broaden interests in the years ahead.  Ten and a half weeks until I go home and have all my research resources at hand.

11 September 2006 - 5 years since 9/11.  The more I read the more I realize that I have to read and the more I have to think about until my brain is a kaleidoscope of cascading ideas and concepts.  I would be discouraged except that I am quite enjoying it.  I doubt that I will ever be seriously considered as much more than a featherweight "Janey come lately" in the upper echelons of the hallowed halls of Academe, but that would not be my objective in arriving at this starting point in the first place.  My ultimate target audience is the ordinary working Canadian. . . or American  . . . military, civilian, entrepreneur, politico . . . or anyone whose brain could use a nudge out of the short term, self serving mundane of day to day survival.

08 September 2006 - The end of the first week is clutter-clattering to its close.  I am exhausted and my brain feels like it's sparking and smoking as wiring gets too close packed or runs too hot from overload.  A part of me feels like this was all some great mistake.  Another part of me longs to reach a state of internal equilibrium where I can relax, focus and let the learning unfold at a sustainable pace.  Oh for a disc drive at the back of my skull.  I would input data until I had maxed out storage and then process like mad.  For now I feel very adrift and far from home, even though home these days is wherever I am.  It is hard to fight the impulse to give free reign to ideas as one stimulus after another sets a new cascade in process.  I am reminded of one of the Martian Chronicles, the one about the young Martian who could assume the appearance of whoever those proximate most wanted to see.  He eventually died from being pulled in so many directions/identities at once.  I hope my own fate will be of a gentler nature.

04 September 2006 - I am here in Prince George at last and ready to commence classes tomorrow.  I am also a year older as of today.  Always a good time for reflection.  I have long seen my birthday as a wonderful acknowledgement of the fact that I am.  Given that I am very happy with who and what and how I am, this has always seemed a good thing to celebrate, in the company of friends or in a day spent doing something special just for me.  The recent self-imposed challenge of struggling to define my personal strategic culture has helped to remind me of the unique elements of my background that have brought me to here and now.  It's peculiar how differently folks recognize or ignore their birthdays.  I can't imagine ignoring the anniversary of the day you came into human, socially interactive existence.  What could there be in someone's personal background that would create such a negative attitude to your own existence?  Hmmm.

23 August 2006 - 10 days to go

The mundane frustrations of day to day bureaucratic and administrative madness threaten to overwhelm.  Talk about the best laid plans going awry.  On a more positive note, the van has been serviced for the trip, the move to a smaller apartment happens this weekend and final permissions to travel and study have been secured.  Course books are all received and packed and the rest of the house is almost packed.  It will be such a relief to finally be on the road north. 

It's been interesting to balance the reading of articles on comparative strategic culture with various efforts to explain the subject with friends and associates.  From the macro to the micro and back again.  It's providing sometimes unexpected but interesting insights and epiphanies.  Those lovely little "Aha" moments.  Some folks understand my objective right away while others get that blank stare that indicates a cloud of words just went right past them without having any impact whatsoever.  What seems to work best, ironically, is to put the concept in terms that best relate to their own "strategic culture".  For instance, in trying to explain the notion to an individual in the auto repair business, I suggested that there appeared to be distinct differences in vehicles manufactured, for example, by Germany and those manufactured by Japan.  Differences motivated perhaps by a combination of different domestic driving requirements and different national self-images and cultural priorities.  The individual agreed, gave the matter some thought from that perspective and enjoyed their own brief "Aha" moment.  Their experience with the origin specific characteristics of automobiles clarified things somewhat.

I believe I will rediscover games of strategy like chess.  There may be additional insights there. 

16 August 2006 - 16 days to go

I can't believe there is so little time left - and so much still to do.  I sorted my books today, what to take, what to leave behind.  It's not as though I will be abandoning those left behind, but one becomes accustomed to ready access to favourite resources.  Granted, it's only for three months, and once begun, it will pass so quickly.  Interesting note to self:  As I sort and select and cull I can't help thinking in terms of self profiling.  Why do I make the choices I make for this adventure?  There are the obvious reasons, like why I take the dictionary or the thesaurus.  Sometimes I wish I could take everything, to create a safe familiar environment so that I could just burrow in and think.  Then the thought of the mental stimulation represented by a break from all that is known and comfortable pops into my mind.  It has intriguing possibilities.  The plan is, after all, to stretch and grow the brain somewhat.  Have I become so wedded to why I am that I can't break out into a new direction?  Are we all that bound by why we are?  Is a nation?  If a strategic culture is so dysfunctional or stagnant that it will ultimately lead a nation into a dead end or an inescapably deep rut, what does it take to initiate viable, sustainable, change? Once again I stumble in to something like cognitive psychotherapy for the state!

09 August 2006 - 22 days to go

Packing is begun and arrangements have been made to donate surplus belongings to charity - this seemed an ideal time to downsize and simplify.  I've begun to organize the available course material and skim some of the assigned reading.  Ideas are crawling over each other like a litter of puppies in a basket.

07 August 2006 - 24 days to go

It has been a most productive long weekend, but I need a couple more to be ready in time.  The end of this month, however, may find me more organized than I have ever been before.  Shocking!

It's been a time of serious number crunching too, as I am obliged to make 2 months pay to cover 3 months of living, in two places at once, while paying tuition and books.  I feel like I am becoming my own parent!  On the bright side, I do have those two months of pay.  Where is this going?  Well, when one steps back a moment and considers that far too many of the inhabitants on this planet feel lucky to have a roof over their head and enough to eat day by day, my whining over a short term stint of living well on a restricted budget seems ridiculous.  It's all relative.  In any event, the numbers just squeak by if I walk or ride my bike everywhere, and don't eat.  Failing that, there's plastic, with a quick financial recovery in the months following my return to work. 

I remain so very excited! 

06 August 2006 - I am packing and sorting in preparation for the drive up to Prince George.  I am excited about what lies ahead, about the possibilities that lie hidden in what I am determined to undertake.  Every day I see more and more violent evidence of miscommunication, fear, anger and plain old fashioned ignorance.  It's at the local level, the regional level, the national and the global level.  Everywhere.  It's ironic that now, when we have such remarkable tools of near instant communication, we seem to have abandoned the capacity to listen and the ability to clearly express ourselves.

Perhaps it seems arrogant to think an ordinary middle aged woman like myself could, somehow, someway, build on an idea until it has enough substance and utility to make a difference.  But if every one was to think that way, if every step towards change was discarded because it seemed too big, too hard, or even just a foolish a waste of time, I suspect we would still be picking fleas off one another in a cave somewhere, terrified of the dark.

If, on the other hand, any one person, even me, can devise some means of achieving better understanding; and even if only a handful of people put it to good use, then the course of the future just might be nudged a hair in a new and better direction.  Not a shift apparent in the immediate future, but any sailor can tell you that if you are even a degree off course when you set out on a journey, you can miss a whole continent on the other side of a big enough ocean.

So I won't despair at the magnitude of the undertaking, I'll just take it one comfortable step at a time until I get there.  Who knows what I will uncover along the way?