Blindsided By A Hippo

A thought on politics

2011-08-28T14:11:00.004-03:00

I was reading an article that my friend Alan tweeted. It questioned if journalists pretending to be political insiders was the best thing. In fact it even suggested that this practice invited the public to be become "cognoscenti of their own bamboozlement." God I love the English language.

Anyway, this got me thinking about a conversation that I had with my father before I left for Europe. He asked me why I wanted to join politics because it had, to him, lost the plot. Politicians today play a very delicate but merciless and brutal game from which there can only be one winner. The idea of "good governance" - one of the founding principles of our country - has apparently been tossed out of the window, and for the most part, I agree. Within a week of Nycole Turmel taking over the NDP leadership, the Conservatives were already starting their now ritualistic and expected attack on her character.

I've always talked about my dream of being the Canadian response to Rahm Emmanuel or Malcolm Tucker, maybe even Josh Lyman. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure anymore because I'm not sure I want to be the guy the guy relies on. I want to be the guy. If I have to be the guy the guy relies on, then let Canada be the one that relies on me. Let the poor, the hungry, the sick rely on me. I want to be the guy. And maybe inspired by Jack Layton, but more so by an ideal that I think Canada can and should be, I want to lead this country. I know I've come to the general consensus that I will either be the Prime Minister or be working for them. Given the choice, I'd take the former. Because then I don't have to fight.

I don't have to fight because I get to determine the political climate, a climate that does not require this parasitic cynicism that has plagued Canadian politics. I don't mind fighting. I know I'd be good at it. I know I'd win. But I'm not sure I agree that that's the best way I can serve my country.

Everyone has tweeted, tattooed, retweeted, posted, commented on Mr Layton's last words to Canada. I cannot help but retype them here because short and sweet, and they carry the sentiment that I hope to one day reintroduce to not just the Canadian political arena, but the global political stage because we need change, and by god we need it now. Merci beaucoup Mr Layton. We may not have agreed on your politics, but we both knew that this Canada can be a better one and while you may not have been able to come good on your promises to the Canadian people, our youth will not let you down. We will not fail our forefathers, our parents, our country, or ourselves. We will make this world a better place. For all. May you rest in Peace.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

Scotland vs Ireland

2011-08-23T06:23:00.004-03:00

I'm not sure why... it could be because of my continuous and what feels like lifelong interactions with Scots... but I have a soft spot for old Caledonia. Anyway, when they lined up to play Ireland, their Channel counterparts, you could sense that this was a huge match. Perhaps not so much for the crowd - only the Kenyan women's team seemed interested in picking sides (they went for the boys in Green) - but for these players.

Ireland raced to an early lead, scoring two quick goals

The Tartan Army, led by this Ginga Ninja embarked on a remarkable comeback

And eventually ran out winners, sparking wild celebrations...

Yup... I managed to sneak over to the Scotland bench and decided to chill there for a little while.

Homeless World Cup Photos - Big Guns

2011-08-23T05:31:00.006-03:00

So it was my goal to see how many teams I could capture at the Homeless World Cup. This being a completely different styled tournament (and much more low-key) than FIFA's colossus every four years, there were plenty of countries on display.

If you want to talk about this on Twitter, use the hashtag HWCParis11.

Right, as always, feel free to click on the photos for larger resolution.

We'll start with England. Always a big favourite at any football tournament, they were the first team that I saw training (I say training because I bumped into the Finnish team at the base of the Eiffel Tower) as I walked down the Champs de Mars.

Next up has to be Team Canada. They had a pretty poor start to the day yesterday, but they recovered in the evening to beat the Koreans 6-2. These photos were from their 11-0 beating at the hands of Nigeria.

Next up is Ireland, who were always a friendly bunch. I've decided to keep photos of their match against Scotland separate. You'll understand why later. Anyway, here they are for now.

Ireland supporting Kenya against Holland

And this funny fella who I named, "Robbie Keane doppleganger"

Mindless meandering through Paris

2011-08-22T12:17:00.013-03:00

I'll start with that young man, who didn't really want anything else other than for a tourist to take a photo of him. Cool stuff.

Anyway...

Who knew that watching a bunch of "bums" kicking a ball around could be so exciting? I have to mention right now that I don't think it's fair to call these men and women "bums". They might have been in a previous life, and it's entirely possible that when they leave Paris, they will return to their unfortunate life, but for this moment, they are athletes, competitors, and representatives of a game that time and time again continues to prove that it can transcend even the most debilitating of problems.

I'm talking about the Homeless World Cup, an extraordinary tournament that brings together homeless people from all corners of the world together for one common purpose: to play, to have fun, to win, to learn, to grow as human beings. I must have spend close to three hours at the Champs de Mars today watching game after game after game, including what was probably the best game of the day: Scotland vs Ireland, with the Bhoys coming out on top 8-6.

Here are some photos from my wandering around Paris. Enjoy. Oh, and feel free to click on the images for larger versions.

The "Inception" bridge!

Just eating my sandwich at the base of this bad boy. Looking splendid, as always.

The École Militaire.

Deciding to go visit ol' N in his tomb.

I have this theory that you should never visit a city on your own. As often as you may have to do things or go places on your own, never travel to a foreign land on your own. Especially not a city like Paris. You need someone to be able to turn to and say "wow". Maybe about them, maybe about what you see before you.

This is a second-coming for me in Paris. I was here last summer with my family and that was a great introduction to the legendary Ville-Lumière. This time, however, I was able to move at my own pace, not exactly tied down by timing constraints. Instead, I did what my body told me to do. And I lasted for about 5 hours on my feet sneaking up and down Paris's cobbled streets. I had to head into Napoleon's tomb though. We didn't get to go in last year, and after convincing the very nice man at the ticket counter that I was English, I got a billet gratuit to go see it.

I think I've found my new hero. Seriously. He lived it large in life and in death. What a crypt. An entire monument dedicated to him and some other things (I didn't have the audio guide so I missed most of the significance, but that did not detract from the impressiveness of the whole building).

Seriously... this is his tomb. He even has 14 ladies constantly looking at him.

And that is the entrance to the crypt. Necessary? Not really. Could have just been a simple hallway to a quiet room in the back. But no. Why not go all out, right?

Another look at the tomb.

And a shot of one of the lovely marble ladies watching over Napeleon's final resting place.

And then just for kicks, he went ahead and had a bronze statue of himself put up there on the second floor. Now I come to think about it, I like the title "Roi de Rome", you know Emperor of the Free World, King of France, and all of that... but that's a lot of marble and bronze versions of myself to go around.

Oh, and just to cap off this day. Thought I'd share. If you're wondering what these people are queuing for (about 150 people here)...

That's for the Abercrombie & Fitch store. Humanity, you marvel me.

Photo gallery of Homeless World Cup (#HWCParis11 on Twitter) to come later.

Every little secret I hide behind

2011-08-02T01:33:00.004-03:00

What if I told you
Jason Walker

There's so much I want to say
But I'm so scared to give away
Every little secret I hide behind
Would you see me differently?
And would that be such a bad thing
I wonder what it would be like
If I told you

Gulliver's Travels

2011-08-02T00:52:00.004-03:00

Black is back. Not in a racist way. I mean Jack Black: the actor that brought us the magic of School of Rock and the hilarity of Tenacious D, a band that my friends and I still listen to as we not-so-gently nurse our beers on a Friday night. His two best movies in High Fidelity and School of Rock are now more than seven years old, and Black has languished in mediocrity for a couple of years now.

His cameo in Tropic Thunder was not enough to steal the limelight from Jay Baruchel's introduction, Robert Downey Jr's Academy Award-nominated performance (I'm still getting over the fact that they nominated him!), Steve Coogan's laugh-inducing antics, and Ben Stiller's careful and at times self-reflective direction of what could just have been another silly movie to a genuinely funny one. Kung Fu Panda was a hit for Black (and one of my favourite animated films), but his voice was not enough to convince me that he'd rediscovered his magic formula. Year One, for example, was an example of a stupid film. Funny at times, but not something you want to see more than once.

I wasn't sure what to expect of Gulliver's Travels, but having seen the trailer before attempting to sit through Big Momma 2 (SERIOUSLY... ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER MADE), I was convinced that this would be something worthwhile to rent. And I think that it definitely turned out to be. I'm trying to figure out a movie with Jason Segel that I haven't enjoyed. Add Billy Connolly, Emily Blunt, and Catherine Tate to the bill, and I can't see exactly why I wouldn't watch this movie!

SPOILER ALERT: I have seen this movie, which means that I will comment about parts of the movie that are actually in the movie... this generally means that if you have not seen the film and don't want it ruined for you, don't read Jonathan Swift, and don't read further.

The film starts off brilliantly and has the right amount of humour to permanently plaster that smile on your face. Plus, the introduction of Amanda Peet (AMANDA PEET!!) makes it that much harder for you to pull your eyes off the screen. I've missed seeing her act since I decided to stop watching re-runs of Studio 60, and it was a delight to see her back. It was so surprise that she was involved in the moments of this film that were spot on. An example springs to mind: early in the movie, Jack Black's character Gulliver (a mailboy) is accompanying Amanda Peet's character Darcy in a lift ride having just been dared to ask her out to lunch. It is delicately awkward and the exchange after the ride of "I forgot something" "Oh yeah, so did I" was just perfect.

The absurdity of Lilliput, captained by the brilliant Chris O'Dowd from The Boat That Rocked, was introduced in style. From the confused "eth" aspects of their speech that O'Dowd and Billy Connolly address later in the movie to the sheer naivety of Lilliputians, the land of little people is a joy. James Cordon's cameo was brilliant. I think his mere presence made me smile. Unfortunately though, as the screenplay's quick-paced whirlwind pace starts to slow, so does the quality of the writing. Perhaps not the words themselves, but certainly of the humour. Don't get me wrong. Black, Segel, and Blunt did well and Black was certainly back to what he does best, but they weren't particularly given much to work with.

As is becoming an unfortunate and growing trend in movies, Gulliver's Travels is soon overtaken by unnecessary special effects that seem to put more focus on trying to make the movie more than it should have been: a good comedy with a less-than-traditional spin on a traditional story. Jonathan Swift will not be impressed with this production, but I'm not sure that Rob Letterman's (the director) version was meant to adhere strictly to the canonical version. That said though, there were times when I did feel that not even the abundance of pop-culture references (I'm a big fan of those, especially ones that I get, so I'll take them any day all day) made up for passages of uninspiring filmography that included Jack Black dangerously slipping back into an all too familiar brand of physical comedy we've come to chuckle at, but barely laugh at anymore.

That said though, I enjoyed Gulliver's Travels. I would rather someone else take a second look at the script and decide to do it again. This feels like a dress rehearsal for a production that could be so much better. But I guess that's what Hollywood has become these days... a spinning wheel of "good enough" movies without bothering to reach that little bit more for "great". Not Raspberry worthy, I don't think - Black was nominated for one, I think - and certainly one to keep in the book case for a rainy day.

2.5-3/5

25 Impressions as Clarence

2011-07-20T22:54:00.002-03:00

I don't think I could ever use Clarence's speech from Richard III as an audition piece anymore after watching this. A master class in impressions by Jim Meskimen. The speech as 25 different celebrities, including Ricky Gervais, Morgan Freeman, George Clooney, and Robert De Niro.

Bravo Mr Meskimen!

Thoughts on "Deathly Hallows" Part 2

2011-07-17T09:59:00.003-03:00

I'm not sure where to start with this, but perhaps I should begin with the epiphany that I had several days ago: one of the best ways to earn money (I'm still working on the actual earning money part) is to watch movies and write reviews for various publications - The Straits Times, Today, the Sunday Times...anyone who will take me. I thought it would be fitting to write my first one about perhaps the most exhilarating movie of the summer so far, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2".

SPOILER WARNING: For those of you who have yet to see Warner Brothers's eighth installment of JK Rowling's Harry Potter franchise, or have yet to read the 786 page marathon that is her seventh and final book to the series, I would suggest you stop here, go to YouTube and watch the trailer for said movie, then go to the cinema to watch it. If you are so inclined to be, well like the very small percentage of humans who, having access to a movie theatre, choose not to watch it, if you read this, I'll ruin the movie for you and you may hate me. Then again, you probably don't care, so I won't.

The movie starts off, literally, where its predecessor left off. Voldemort takes the wand from Dumbledore's tomb, shoots off that giant light into the sky. Snape stands at the edge of a tower at Hogwarts and watches as the students march in through the front doors - he is now Headmaster. And Harry is left where we last saw him, at the Order safehouse by the beach. The three shorts scenes are unspoken and silent bar the score until the music vanishes and we feel the eery nature of the silence at the beach house. The Golden Trio are ready for their next adventure. But they need the help of the creepy (even in the books I thought he was a little...weird, but then again he is a goblin) Griphook and the aging wandmaker, Ollivander. I noted to my brother that the movie is a beautifully crafted trip down memory lane with subtle glimpses and hints of its ancestors from the Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron, and Mike Newell eras. Ollivander is far from the eccentric, intriguing, and "curious, very curious" man that he was in Columbus's "Philosopher's Stone". He is frail, he is tired, he is soft spoken with that timeless dedication to his craft. A disheartening transformation for a character that we missed for six movies.

I'm not sure if Alan Rickman or Ralph Fiennes will pick up nominations for their performances - that much was certainly warranted - but there are Oscars in the bag for the set design team, art direction team, and special effects team. Theatres today are littered with series reboots and David Yates and his crew made damn sure that if anyone else is bold enough to try something of this nature ten, twenty years down the line, they better have a more intimate understanding of JK Rowling's magical world than this lot. As always, the set design and special effects were brilliant. Perhaps one of the best aspects of the movie. And while that may be seen by some as odd (I don't care, for example, where "The Invention of Lying" is set because it is irrelevant), the ultimate suspension of disbelief drives this movie and keeps us hooked. It is just under two hours of action set in wonderfully crafted locations. The pacing of the movie was crucial, and though the purists will not like the deviations from the book, I believe sticking to the page would have detracted from the movie's overall tone and focus on Harry's quest to defeat Voldemort. Scenes such as Aberforth's revelation of his brother's 'dark' past were omitted, though hopefully are explored further in deleted scenes. I'm hoping that, like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, the DVDs come with at least an hour of extended or additional scenes. For now though, we continue alongside Harry. Our first destination: Gringotts.

Helena Bonham Carter has always been an incredible character actor. She's been able to immerse herself completely and unrecognisably in roles. From the fiery, psychotic, and borderline crazy Bellatrix Lestrange, Bonham Carter captures the awkwardness of Emma Watson's Hermione. From the confidence and g-ed up swagger of a lady commanding more power than humanly imaginable, Bonham Carter becomes a girl uncomfortable with her newfound body, struggling to cope with those boots (those boots!!) and the fear that she instills in even the goblins. Perhaps the only thing that completes this is the reverse, when Bellatrix Lestrange becomes Hermione Granger again and we see Emma Watson dressed as the former. (Was it just me or did we see a glimpse of a cleavage shot as the group's fall was halted?) Anyway, we probably see more neck on Watson than we did in the seven films prior. Maybe a boy's dream come true, but I thought the costume suited her. Maybe not the boots (the boots!!), but definitely easy on the eyes. Thank god for Bonham Carter's request to "have the boobs I've always wanted" was granted.

Back to Gringotts. What can I say that hasn't been said about the "Deathly Hallows" set team? It was a delight, and I can only imagine what the adventure would have been like either in 3D or on IMAX.

One thing of note, more so in this movie than previously, are the montages as Harry and Voldemort's minds look at each other. The Slaughter of Gringotts, as I like to call it, was a masterpiece in art. The flashes of green, Ralph Fiennes's anger, Harry's struggle to keep his head above water, death, destruction, and finally Voldemort walking barefoot in the river of blood with Nagini slithering at heel. Chilling to say the least and capped off with a still on Griphook's dead body. My brother and I both agreed that this was David Yates's last attempt to get it right, in more ways than one. The last movie aspect aside, Yates's first stab at Potter was the fifth movie ("Order"). The dialogue, not necessarily his fault - Steve Knowles was not involved, felt choppy and the movie didn't flow quite as well as the book, which was already way too long. In "Half-Blood Prince", there were times when it felt like none of the filmmakers understood the book, choosing to focus more on the Ron/Lavender love affair rather than the central plotline of Harry going through Voldemort's memories to reveal information about the horcruxes - i.e. Marvolo Gaunt's ring and Helga Hufflepuff's cup. The Harry from the book knows more going into the seventh book than he does in the movie and the filmmakers's lack of foresight in the sixth film left them with a colossal job in the "Deathly Hallows" films to make up for it.

I suppose my greatest concerns with the "Deathly Hallows" films stem from their source material. I did not particularly enjoy the seventh book. It was too long, tried to tie up too many loose ends, didn't see Voldemort kill Harry (for good), and above all had the epilogue. My third point there was further emphasised in "Deathly Hallows: Part 2" in Voldemort vs Harry 2.0. Ralph Fiennes was a marvel to watch in this film - he has been since his introduction in "Goblet of Fire". (I have to admit though that GoF is my favourite book, in part because of Rowling's exhausting descriptions of Voldemort's return to power.) For once, I could understand how it was even remotely possible that Harry could defeat the Dark Lord. As each horcrux was destroyed in an ash-filled explosion (again, SFX team!), Fiennes's Voldemort stumbled, uncharacteristically. And as Harry & Co. ticked each horcrux off their list, layer by layer, Voldemort's confidence (read arrogance?) diminished. Powerful he may still have been, but he suddenly looked human. Yet every time the two of them squared off, Harry seemed lucky to barely get away. I have to admit that perhaps one of the best scenes was Voldemort and Harry's duel - not their wand duel (seriously, I'm getting sick of all these Priori Incantatems popping up all over the place. They don't even have the same wands anymore!! It got ridiculous when even MR WEASLEY had one...), but their actual fisticuffs battle during which Voldemort proceeds to kick the living shit out of Harry, including a glorious backhand (which would have been perfected with a harsh "Shut the fuck up" *slap*).

I took particular joy in the scene shown in the trailer where Harry drags Voldemort off the top of a tower. The in-flight battle between them was absolutely delightful as the two of them tried to gauge each others's eyes out. One thing that did not make sense, however (and something that my brother and I realised only after we left the theatre), was Harry's decision to jump off a tower hugging a guy that can evidently fly, when he himself cannot and could easy have plunged to his own demise, thus making Voldemort's task that much simpler. This was one in a number of moments that perplexed me: Voldemort suspends Harry with his clothes, which was visually cool, but fails to strangle him; None of the good guys seem to kill anyone, not least with the Killing Curse (none of them shoot green spells out the end of their wands); Hasn't Cho Chang, who still looks better than Ginny, graduated already?; And the statues seemed absolutely useless - the first giant wiped out half of the first battalion. Thank goodness, though, we were able to satisfy Professor McGonagall's desire to use that spell.

For all the minor details that, admittedly, we only discovered on the bus ride home from the theatre, there were moments of this film that were a real artist's accomplishment. Lupin and Tonks being slightly out of reach in life and in death. Harry and Ron's look of understanding before Harry walks into his fake death. Snape's memories in the book were brilliantly written, and Steve Knowles's translation onto the page for David Yates to put on the screen was a masterpiece to behold. Alan Rickman has always been a class act, and he was fortunate to be the only person bar JK Rowling to know of Snape's love for Lily Potter before it was revealed, but as Rickman commented, it was crucial to his portrayal of the former Potions professor. The incorporation of prior scenes from the first movie while tying the memories to the sixth and seventh movies gave the series a sense of closure. A closure that I enjoyed more than Harry's storyline, I must admit. I've always had a soft spot for Harry Potter's adult actors - they brought regality to the movies - and Maggie Smith's return to prominence along with cameo appearances from Miriam Margoyles, Emma Thompson, Jim Broadbent, David Bradley (what a treat), Gary Oldman, Sean Biggerstaff (did anyone see him?), Ciaran Hinds (what an addition), Jason Isaacs and Helen McCrory (in a splendid reversal of roles), and Kelly Macdonald (OMG!) remind us just how impressive this series actually is.

I know that I've already listed a number of highlights already, but Matthew Lewis's chilling and impressive rise from pudgy, awkward, bumbling punching bag to hero made this movie. It made the book, even. It was always my hope that when Harry came back to life (ugh), Voldemort would kill him...again (yay), and it would be NEVILLE who finished off the Dark Lord. Now what a surprise that would have been. JK Rowling wrote some incredible books. The jokes aside, she wrote some very spectacular supporting characters that very much made up for the (at times) insufferable eponymous lead. The likes of Severus Snape, Neville Longbottom, Dobby, Sirius Black, and Luna Lovegood were wonders and prove just how much thought she put into this magical world of hers. Rowling has hinted at the inclusion of Minerva McGonagall's backstory in her Pottermore collection. I hope that we see more of Snape's, more of Neville's, and more of Voldemort. Those were the interesting characters. McGonagall: powerful, regal, and maternal. Snape: pained, suffering, and loving. Neville: always in the shadows of the Golden Trio who, like many of us, ignored him. Voldemort: goodness, what isn't great about him? He's bad as shit.

This movie can be described in many ways.
It has taken more in a single day then four of the previous seven Harry Potter films did in their opening weekend.
It maintains a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, an 8.8/10 on IMDb, and 92/100 from professional critics at the Broadcast Film Critics Association, making it the highest rated Harry Potter movie.
Highest grossing midnight opening of all time with US$43.5mil and opening day with $92.1mil in the United States.
Record breaking opening days in 26 countries.
For highest midnight opening of all time, the movie beat the Twilight saga "Eclipse", and for the biggest single day gross of all time, the movie beat the Twilight saga "New Moon". "How satisfying," says my brother.
I believe that this will be the highest grossing Potter film ever, beating the first film from back in 2001 and could be the first Potter film to breach $1bn in worldwide gross.

Those lines tell their own story. And numbers and statistics aside, this is a fantastic movie. My cousins walked out of this with a general consensus of "meh" and I was hard-pressed to hide my disappointment at that. David Yates has done a wonderful job with this film. It's not perfect, but we can't ask for perfection considering various factors, the source material included. I'm not sure if I wanted perfection from any Harry Potter film. To do so would result in seven hour movies and long stretches of dullness. When I watch Harry Potter films, I always hope that the filmmakers have captured the essence of the book. The essence of the urgency and emotional rollercoaster that are Harry & Co's very tumultuous teenage years. The same way our generation has been rocked by the events on and following September 11 a decade ago, Harry and his contemporaries had to deal with the continual threat of Voldemort's chaos. There were parts of these eight movies, this one in particular, that were quite excellent and others that made us cringe (Ginny and Harry's reunion at Hogwarts in this movie behind one of them... scratch that. Most Hinny scenes were cringe-worthy - the "zip me up" scene doesn't get better with time). I wouldn't say that my childhood is over. The same people that said that of this film said that of Toy Story 3 and they'll probably say it again of another coming-of-age, generation defining film. For an ending to a tremendous series though, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" certainly fits the bill.

4.5/5

Mumbai bleeds again

2011-07-13T21:49:00.002-03:00

I had hoped that this would be somewhat cheerier, but somehow people have this knack for doing stupid things and once again my thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Mumbai, the streets for whom are once again filled with their blood. Three explosions rang out in the heart of India's commercial capital during rush hour yesterday, killing twenty one and injuring 113. I can only hope that there will come a time when we can, united as one people, stand up and say no to this kind of intolerance, the point of which I cannot and refuse to understand.

It's not a pretty world out there. Britain's media finds itself in a battle against Parliament that it surely cannot win, especially after "News of the World"'s closure. The US debt continues to soar as neither the White House nor Congress can agree on how to reduce it. More troops have died in Afghanistan, this time French. Political turmoil creates uncertainty and unrest in Malaysia and Thailand. And the Japanese continue their questionable whaling "research" in Antarctic waters. It's not a pretty world out there.

But I suppose things can and will look up. Google+ appears to be a hit, and for the time being seems to be a cleaner version of Facebook. Basically I don't have to see the crap that I don't want to see from people that I barely have/will talk to. It's good. It will hopefully stimulate intellectual conversation (not likely, as the Internet rarely does) or at least some good ol' shenanigans. You know, GIFs and all that.

Anyway, thinking about One Young World. Sounds interesting, if only I can find the 200 words to describe why I want to go. Yup.

ttfn, r.

Only in Singapore...

2011-07-10T22:40:00.004-03:00

Only in Singapore would this ever be considered... to purchase the rights to Lady Gaga's song "Bad Romance" for the 2011 National Day Parade then change the lyrics (apparently not knowing that the rights secured did not include absolutely butchering the song) to a song about the goodie bag provided to all visitors in attendance at NDP 2011 ingeniously named, "Fun Pack Song".

Just when you think I'm shitting you. Give it a listen and feel the blood stream out of your ears.

A busy weekend

2011-07-03T23:04:00.005-03:00

My my, this was a busy weekend.

Sharapova was denied a second Wimbledon title while Novak was granted his first - what a phenomenal six months he's had. 50 wins in 51 games. Wow.

But then Brazil and Argentina went all wonky in the Copa with boring draws that made them look far from the World Cup winners that they should be. My bet is Uruguay for the Copa America this year. They were a joy to watch in South Africa last year and the Forlan/Suarez combo seems to be working for them.

Now, without sounding sexist, I must admit that I've tuned out from the Women's World Cup in Germany. And that's not for any other reason bar the fact that Canada were unceremoniously dumped out following a close loss to Germany in the opener before being properly thumped by the French - who incidentally have become the second team to bare it all (or damn near) to raise awareness for their sport. The photoshoot, coming under the banner of "Is this how we have to dress before you come watch?" (or something to that effect), actually does make sense. And it's not that I don't enjoy the women's game, it's just that I can't bloody watch it anywhere. And the fact that Canada are now out of the tournament.

Back onto the busy weekend that saw Babas pick up 3 points after a well deserved victory on Sunday, clawing back from a sloppy first half that left us trailing by two mediocre (at best) deflected goals. A final score of 5-3 was capped off by a lovely pint of London Pride with the lads.

And just to wrap all of this up by spending my Saturday morning (instead of "celebrating" Canada Day) sweating my balls off at Marina Barrage for the Singapore International Water Festival, which was a lovely event. Definitely a good opportunity to explore the marina area and speak to some people who are helping Singapore look forward in terms of its sustainability potential.

Two news stories to leave you off with.
The first of which is the crazy man who skated and jumped down the Sacre Coeur in Paris.
The second is Julia Gillard's ballsy attempt to shut the tobacco industry out of Australia once and for all. It's going to be one hell of a fight, and I can only hope that if Australia is successful, then other countries follow their impressive example.

ttfn, r.

Humanity at its worst

2011-06-24T05:07:00.005-03:00

I must first warn anyone reading this that if you watch this video, you will witness five minutes of the most heartbreaking footage that portrays humanity at its living worst. I like to think that when Hitler set up his concentration camps, when Stalin established his gulags, and when we were murdering women and children in cold blood before hiding their bodies in the ground, that the Western world fell on its head. We suffered a momentary lapse of sanity, a civilisation-wide concussion, so to speak. I like to think that was of a different era.

And then I see this.

"For every man there is a purpose which he sets up in his life. Let yours be the doing of all good deeds."

At least he shook the ref's hand

2011-06-21T23:39:00.002-03:00

There was a discussion a while ago why I thought the MLS was a joke (aside from Toronto FC's desire to change managers more frequently than I rotate through my underwear collection, and the fact that Vancouver Whitecaps are more likely to find a win than the Canucks are to win the Stanley Cup).

I think I have found my latest reason.

An embarrassment in Zurich

2011-06-20T23:19:00.003-03:00

My anger toward FIFA has subsided and faded ever so slightly by the entertaining news that the province of Nova Scotia has been instructed to provide financial assistance for a couple currently undergoing medical marijuana treatment to grow their own op. For anyone wondering, medical marijuana use has been legal in Canada since 2000. For further reading, this is the BBC Article.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13845963

I'll pause for a second to reflect on the majesty that is my country. Politics aside, it stands for the greatest (perhaps liberal) ideals that define mankind and humanity in the developed world. And that is why I am proud to be Canadian. It is these ideals that not often enough are highlighted in the news. We should be a country synonymous with providing food for the hungry, education for the unlearned, medicine for the sick, homes for the needy, and peace for the bloodthirsty. We should be the shelter for the desolate and the cure for despair. We should be tolerant. We should be firm in our conviction. We should expect the best, both of ourselves and our representatives. We should exemplify the very essence of a democracy, which is to deny barbarism, anarchy, and authoritarianism the chance to rear their ugly heads. We should be a country where no man, woman, nor child shall fear for their safety because our cultures and societies will not tolerate oppression and justice as sought fit will be served. We will personify the Olympian at their best, and charge ourselves with raising global standards. When we disagree, we will talk and listen, and we shall have consensus. And then I'll rule the world. That's usually how most of my daydreams end.

This one involves Sepp Blatter and generally dethroning him in as many glorifying sweeps as possible, including denying Michel Platini his expected coronation in four years. Over the course of the last month, FIFA have embarrassed themselves and single-handedly stripped their credibility from what is left of an archaic system struggling under the weight of its own corruption and inadequacies. (No, I'm not being melodramatic, but it makes for great television.) Jack Warner should not be except from the investigation, and quite frankly Mr Blatter - if you'll let me talk to you directly from your seemingly impregnable fortress at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich - bringing in an 70-year-old tenor is NOT going to solve your transparency issues, nor will Ms Kissinger for that matter. The game is changing. The game is evolving. And yet its governing institution makes the dinosaurs look modern, just ask Diego Maradona. Time to, in very polite terms, piss off. Most of the senior Executive Members should, too. You, Mr Warner, Mr Grondona (who slammed bribing but then told the world the if the English offered the Malvinas back to his homeland, he might have voted to send the World Cup back to Old Blighty), Mr Bin Hammam. How can you go from sponsorship and corruption scandals across your most senior officials to being the only candidate in a farcical election that insults the very essence of democracy itself and then saying that your presidency is legitimate?

Of course we should have delayed the vote! And no the FA should not have spearheaded the last minute attempt to metaphorically cockslap Blatter across the face. They've got about as much credibility as my left buttcheek does on the world stage and have got their own internal issues to deal with (like trying to get along with the rest of the Home Nations for once in their lives), not to mention a team of superstars that can't win shit! Seriously? The Three Lions had to come back from 2-0 down against Switzerland at Wembley? Even without Wayne Rooney? But I digress. The delay should have been called the day that the corruption allegations were made and postponed indefinitely until the resolution of all investigations and inquiries. Otherwise it looks like Blatter (who got off spotless) runs perhaps the most carefully crafted smear campaign against Bin Hammam. Not that I'm taking sides because if Platini ends up running unopposed, I'll be doing my damned best to get my name on that ticket to save football from the cruelest form of humiliation and degradation. (Seriously, I am using a lot of big words tonight, wtf.)

And so I conclude thus by announcing my contingent candidacy (pending a whole shitload of things) for the FIFA Presidency. Yup. Yeah...

I Believe

2011-06-20T10:18:00.001-03:00

I Believe by Ron Pope.

And we're calling out answers we don't know
Calling on friends we thought we lost
We all have to see what we've become

Waiting on chances so far gone
Hoping our answers light the dark
Praying someday soon we'll understand

As we search for the Promised Land...

The wonder of Asia

2011-06-20T02:23:00.005-03:00

The possibilities are limitless. As the Lion City has proved recently, anything is possible in this part of the world. With a 17% growth in the economy in the last fiscal year (seriously, 17%... wtf. Not bad guys!), a major coup in the 2011 elections by dethroning popular Foreign Minister George Yeo, overtaking Las Vegas's gambling intake with only two casinos (seriously, two...wtf. Not bad guys!), and by restoring itself as a stronghold for Asian and world economies, Singapore is a pretty pumpin' place to be right now. Not to mention BeerFest Asia, which I unfortunately didn't get to go to. Damn.

Anyway, I was thinking about what I could be doing this summer, other than saving the planet, as I apparently have decided to do by taking on an internship with Banyan Tree Global Foundation. As any of you paying attention may well know, I've been involved with Grassroot Soccer's student campaign for a couple of years now. Always striving to do something bigger and better with the resources that may or may not be available, I now turn my focus to this part of the world, where the money seems to be right now. Seoul Foreign School seems to be the only international school incapable of raising a substantial amount of money for Grassroot Soccer (and I set the bar at $1000US). Last night I received news that Shanghai American School held their first tournament and raised $5000. Unbelievable. Congratulations, and thank you very much. Their plans next year are to expand to include the middle school. To think that they raised $5000 with the high school alone is a phenomenal feat.

Singapore American School, if I have everything correctly calculated, has raised just over $3000 or pretty close to it, which is good for them. They have a good program set up there and they made some partnerships with the New York Cosmos when they were in town. To think... SAS, GRS, NYC. Unbelievable stuff. And then I finally plucked up the balls to talk to some of my teammates about whether or not ESPZen, the largest organised football league in Singapore, does any charity work. Turns out they might be interested. Thankfully I know some of the people involved in the administrative side (ie those who run the thing), and I'll be looking to see if we can make something happen. Could you imagine: ESPZen, expat businessmen, expat families, football, changing the world, ending AIDS. Blimey that would be one hell of a weekend.

But that's all for now. Message of the day: Don't be Sue.

Missed the point?

2011-06-15T23:17:00.002-03:00

So the 'Nucks have started Luongo in Game 7, which by his rate of concession in this series will probably result in the Bruins lifting the Cup for the first time since '72... no doubt when Don Cherry and his smug face (not to mention persistently terrible taste in loud, ugly suits) was there. Wait, no I just Googled that shit and found out that it wasn't. He joined them on the back of their '72 success.

What prompted me to return to this though, aside from my guilt at waiting almost two weeks between posts - I was never really good at this whole blog thing anyway - was a festering of thoughts related primarily to (Ms? Mrs? Dr? Prof?) Amy Chua's "Tiger Mom" rationale and a response that I read not too long ago... somewhere. The editorial pointed out something very interesting that was complemented by an off that my brother made in an uncommon brotherly heart-to-heart/advice-seeking/frustration-letting-off session that we had after the game last Sunday.

The editorial noted that the Tiger Mom approached completely missed the point of childhood, which was (in addition to its academic and scholarly merits) the crucial time for the development of our social skills. Stuff like reading body language, learning how to interact with people, learning what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. All stuff, the author argues, that are just as important as academic achievement. I'll skip ahead to my brother's off comment, which was in response to my mother's allegations that despite our academic brilliance (thank you), we lack street smarts to get us through life. His response (not anywhere near her or even on the same day for that matter): "How are we supposed to get street smart if we can't even leave the house?" Or something to that effect.

I laughed it off as teenage angst at the time, but then I realised... holy shit, this kid has a point.

I've consistently been outshined by my younger incarnation academically. Don't get my wrong, I score alright, you know, doing well enough to maintain my scholarship and stay on the Dean's List while picking up Academic All-Canadian awards. But my brother is an IB Diploma student averaging 97% going into his senior year in high school with an anticipated IB score of at least 39. Like seriously. Wtf. And he does this while playing the french horn at pretty much every music performance (including APAC), and competing as a two-letter varsity athlete. Seriously. Oh, and he does his share of service work too. As if his scholarship potential wasn't already ridiculous. But put the two of us in the same room at an event where social interaction is imperative, and I know exactly who would come out on top.

That's not to say that my brother is socially incompetent - I sometimes attribute myself with that - but he's not your next socialite. Nor does he, from my interactions with him, like to "mingle" too much. It is perhaps more evident in him than with me, but he likes his small group of friends (of the intellectual elite) and tends to stick to them. Good for him. You see, while I definitely had friends that I loved and cherished, my closest friends were from different groups. We didn't all have this secret club or a handshake or for that matter know each other that well, but these individuals comprised of my closest, inner-most circle. Maybe not all of them knew that they were. I digress.

You see, I managed (by some miracle of... genius, we'll call it) to get by in high school. I wasn't a cool kid, nor was I a loner or a loser for that matter. A dork, definitely, and I certainly learnt how to keep a low profile when I needed to, though at times my ego made that a challenge (still not quite sure what I'm overcompensating for). My social life outside of school, however, was nonexistent. Sure, I played football, I was on the stage, I was writing, but once I got home, unless there was something really urgent that I needed to communicate with the outside world about, I pretty much fell off the map. And I liked it that way. It meant that I didn't have to do the back-and-forth with mother about whether or not I was actually allowed to have friends (ok, it wasn't that bad).

But I missed out, no doubt the same way that my brother is missing out. I was probably intellectually several steps ahead of my peers, and definitely academically near the top of the list, but I had a lot to learn about myself. In college, where the learning curve against stupidity is alarmingly steep, I was at a disadvantage, and I had to use everything in my arsenal to make sure I didn't fall behind. There are no rule books, no written guides, nothing set in stone for social development. You learn what is acceptable through those around you. You learn your limits and how to handle yourself not from a textbook, but by doing stuff. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any other way to learn that. You learn to love by loving. You learn how much it takes you to get drunk and what kind of drunk you are by getting drunk. You learn how to mourn, and how to cope with loss and separation, by losing. And you learn how to get yourself out of shit by thinking... fast. I am thankful of the friends that I made who helped me learn this stuff, a girlfriend who was patient, a best friend who was wise, a roommate who was understanding, and all those others who maybe didn't hold my hand, but made sure I didn't go hurtling off the edge of the cliff.

All of this cannot be learnt by rote memorisation. By god no, it can't. And don't get me wrong, I love my mother (who if you haven't guessed by now is of Chinese origin and surprisingly thinks that Amy Chua is nuts), but there were aspects of my childhood that I definitely would want my kids to experience. The discipline, the order, that's fine. I was pushed and as a result developed a perfectionist attitude that produces excellence. But balance is key. Balance in everything. Not necessarily moderation, but balance. There is a fine line between being a strict parent and being stupid. Or unnecessary. Or detrimental. My mother often flirts with that line, a little too closely for my liking at times, but moments of madness are thankfully a rare occurence for her.

I do look around at my friends and ask if I want their lives. Each time the answer is clear: not a chance in the world. I may have wished certain liberties as a highschooler, as a teenager, but I certainly am no worse off than any of my contemporaries. I can only hope that my brother actually utilises and realises his strengths when he gets to university, or as he finishes high school, because he has the academics part down, and no doubt when we gets to college he'll keep that up. But frosh week, being alone, being responsible for yourself, learning how to handle yourself, just fucking growing up... that's a journey and a half. And to all those children of Tiger Moms/Dads, I wish you all the best.

Final results

2011-05-24T01:57:00.002-03:00

I suppose I do owe both Blackburn and Wolves an apology after the two escaped relegation following their thrilling five-goal encounter at the Molineux. Unfortunately I won't be able to express those same congratulations to Ian Holloway or Alex McLeish, whose teams will be playing in English football's second-tier come August.

Those weren't the most important final numbers this month though. As May draws to a close, I suppose I should unveil the next step for MTA Gets INSPI(RED), a campaign that has changed the way that I operate on campus, and will hopefully change the way our athletes hold themselves. The final numbers are in and this year, the Mt Allison community raised $2584.63, which will provide HIV-prevention education to 172 African youth through Grassroot Soccer's programmes in Zambia. Congratulations MTA! And thank you for your continued support in fighting for an AIDS Free Generation.

I will be contacting GRS's program director in Zambia to work out a partnership between their Zambian operations and the Mt Allison community. The result of which, should hopefully be a piloted project that we can translate for all INSPI(RED) SOCCER schools around the world. In the fall, MTA Gets INSPI(RED) will return with a new fundraising plan, charging $25 for a calendar featuring out athletes and models from this year's photoshoots. The purchase of each calendar will sponsor the HIV-prevention education of a Zambian girl through GRS's programming. As the Zambian operations move toward girl-specific programming, so too will MTA Gets INSPI(RED)'s focus and fundraising efforts.

Beating the drop: Who do you think will go down?

2011-05-21T22:08:00.002-03:00

With West Ham relegated from the English Premier League, up to five clubs are fighting for survival in the country's top flight.

Photo courtesy of BBC Sports

The five clubs in contention, all separated by a meagre one point margin are:
19. Wigan (Roberto Martinez) 39 pts at Stoke
18. Blackpool (Ian Holloway) 39 pts at Manchester United
17. Birmingham (Alex McLeish) 39 pts at Tottenham
16. Wolves (Mick McCarthy) 40 pts vs Blackburn
15. Blackburn (Steve Kean) 40 pts at Wolves

There you have it, the five teams facing the potential drop. Birmingham, who beat Arsenal in the Carling Cup final will play in Europe next year, while Wolves and Blackburn’s encounter could potentially determine which of the two goes down. The BBC has run a fantastic guide on “How to beat the Premier League drop” if any of you are placing bets today.

Here are my dream predictions:
Blackburn and Wolves draw, Blackpool get a result against Manchester United (who might have one eye on the Champions League final against Barcelona, despite Sir Alex Ferguson pledging to field a strong squad. By his standards, the arguably poorest of his 25-man squad could be considered strong by some teams), Birmingham get a result against Spurs (who have been poor despite a 2-0 win against an in-form Liverpool suffering from Kenny Dalgish’s 3-year coronation), and Wigan beat or draw against Stoke (who might still be reeling from their double loss in the FA Cup final an in the league against Manchester City).

This would mean that BLACKBURN and WOLVES go down, with BIRMINGHAM, BLACKPOOL, and WIGAN playing in England’s top flight next year. How realistically this is is up for debate. My heart is telling me that Holloway’s men deserve to stay in the Premier League. At times, they have been among the better teams in the league and Holloway himself is a breath of fresh air (who hasn’t said that?) that I think this league needs. A bit of humour and stirring the waters is always healthy, and his team has provided that. That said, going to Old Trafford, where the newly-crowned champions have not lost this year, and picking up those vital three points is going to be Blackpool’s hardest test yet.

I am also not sure that Blackburn and Wolves will end in a scored draw. One of these will want to win it, and I fancy Wolves to pip it if I had to go for one of them. The Rovers were alright under Sam Allardyce and there was no reason to change management, but for their new Indian owners to go with Steve Kean is a slap in the face. Now, Kean’s not done terribly bad – they are the highest of the five teams fighting against relegation and I fancied them to be done and out by now - but they are a far cry from the Venky’s target of 5th.

I did fancy Birmingham to beat the drop until their apoplectic performance last week during which 11 planks of wood could probably have gotten a better result. They will need to come out all guns blazing and remind us why they won the Carling Cup in such style and why they have consistently been one of our favourite underdogs. Spurs seem in disarray with talk of Redknapp going places, his mind already on the summer and next season, Jermaine Defoe not happy about his sub-spot, and several other players disgruntled. This could be a perfect opportunity for the Blues to capitalise on a match that will mean more than their Carling Cup victory if they get a result.

Lastly, I unfortunately don’t see Wigan beating Stoke, but I said the same thing last week against West Ham, and I had further evidence when the Hammers went 2-0 up. Martinez’s men bounced back though and relegated Avram Grant and his team. Stoke are in form, but Martinez might be able to pull it off again. Fingers crossed for them.

The "Untouchables", a response

2011-05-19T22:04:00.001-03:00

This was written in response to an article that I read on a website that I write for, Soccer Reviews. If you get the chance, go over and check it out: http://soccerreviews.com. You can find all the latest in footballing equipment, news, and reviews.

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I’m sorry, I read that comment up there about why Jordon’s team wasn’t in the Champions League final (Norwich playing in Europe! That will be a glorious day!) and I had to join in this discussion. Not that I particularly agree with how the discussion is turning out in response to Jordon’s “View from the Couch” article titled ‘FCB, Freaking Cry Babies’. You can read the article here.

Let everyone who is a follower of Soccer Reviews know that when we write our articles, we by no means represent the views of the rest of our colleagues unless we explicitly state so. I for one happen to agree with Jordon on several issues, the first of which is that I thought the Champions League semi final between Barcelona and Real Madrid was quite frankly, a disgrace to football. This is not to say that Barcelona don’t deserve to be in the final – they play brilliant football at times – but, like other teams, they are not godsends.

For everyone out there who is complaining about the apparent one-sided nature of this blog post, I think you miss the point in entirety. Perhaps you read the snippets of news without considering the finer points of their arguments. That is not to question our readership, but Jordon raises the point brilliantly: why does Barcelona (from a fan’s perspective or not) receive special treatment both on and off the pitch? I don’t usually watch continental football – the timing isn’t quite right and sometimes they do play dreadful football down in the lower halves of the table – but on this occasion, I had to watch at least one of the El Clasico matches. Having watched the first half of the first leg with my Barcelona-fan friend, I was actually quite unimpressed. It was exactly what I (and the rest of the world for that matter) had predicted: Barcelona would control over 60% of the possession, and Madrid would defend with such discipline, as any Mourinho team is expected to, and try to catch their Catalan rivals on the break.

Then I saw the neatly producted video courtesy of Real Madrid’s official website, detailing Barcelona’s less than perfect simulation record that saw three Madrid players booked and one sent off (and even then, having watched the original footage – what the referee would have seen – I think that a yellow card and a very stern warning would have sufficed, but I supposed that is the difference between English football and its continental varient). Sure, the way that Madrid acted is hardly exemplary. I don’t, for one, agree with Mourinho’s public antics, nor do I think Ronaldo should have publicly criticised Barcelona, UEFA, and the Champions League in one fell swoop. Leak that to the tabloids and let it stay there; don’t state so at a post-match press conference where emotions are still running high. What Madrid in the ensuing days is commendable. They followed the proper procedure and presented their evidence and case to UEFA for further review. I have my own views on FIFA and UEFA that are for another audience at another time.

But let it be clear that neither Jordon nor I (if I have read his article correctly) are criticising Barcelona’s footballing abilities. They are by far one of the best footballing sides out there. And their charity work is commendable. Their affiliation with the Qatar Foundation although heavily criticised has enabled them to clear their debt and continue with their strong partnership with Unicef – Manchester United have done something similar with their sponsorship deals. What we do express our concern about, however, is their antics on the field. Pique and Puyol aside (come one, what centre half isn’t a physical player… I watch John Terry, Nemandja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, Martin Skrtel week in week out, and they are hardly angels. It’s a physical game and they tend to be the most physical players on the pitch), Pedro and Busquets have come under a lot of scrutiny for their play-acting and it is time that they get punished for it. If UEFA was serious about its anti-racism campaign in partnership with FIFA, then Busquets would be suspended for the final. I know that there is a lot of banter on the pitch – I join in on it at times too (ok, quite often), but there are boundaries that you do not cross, and race is one of them. He should be punished.

I suppose my last point has to rest on this Pepe-Alves debate. This is coming from a defender, talking about two defenders, one of which has been somewhat of an idol. Many people are quick to criticise Pepe, and having seen footage of some of his moments of madness, I quite easily join them in saying that he is a nutcase and a half. But for strange reason, I do rate him as a player and will support him. I will also support Dani Alves. I rate him as one of the best fullbacks in the world. He is as solid in a back four as he is going forward, which is becoming a rarity among fullbacks. I’ve always been disappointed in his antics though, and I think that it is things like his latest ‘stunt’ with Pepe that have slowed his progression to becoming one of the greatest defenders in the world. Neither of those players should have to deal with the scrutiny that they get put under, but in all fairness, they do bring it upon themselves. Alves’ feigning of injury (to be hauled off on a stretcher and then jump straight back on the pitch is unacceptable) and Pepe’s reckless behaviour detracts from their footballing abilities and that in itself is disappointing. I understand that it might be the culture, and we don’t all agree with it, but it’s a turn off to watch. It would be so lovely if Barcelona could be both the best footballing team in the world AND not give people the opportunities to showcase the less attractive side of their players.

I remember the first time I saw Steven Gerrard, who I have always admired, despite sporting the wrong colour on Merseyside, dive. It was not a happy feeling and it makes it hard for fans like myself to defend these sorts of actions. Our disappointments and frustrations are tangible and we are given license to express them, equally as much as you, our readership, are. Don’t be so quick to antagonise people like Jordon. We have every right to disagree, but little space for these antics that we are criticising (some spoke of 8 or more players including Valdes surrounding the referee on every decision). I disagreed with Andy Gray and Richard Keys’s comments about Sian Massey, but I still respect them as professionals.

On the way home

2011-05-10T08:25:00.003-03:00

So to anyone out there who could quite possibly be following these rambling muses, I am finally on my way back to Asia, oh Asia. Having started in Sackville way too early this morning, enveloped in darkness and being pissed on like the angels had plumbing problems, I sensed that this was going to be a complicated and somewhat painful journey. The latter certainly proved to be true as the wind decided to blow the trunk cover onto my head. Ouch. But pain soon evaporated following my upgrade shortly before departure. It is always a good sign to start a journey with an upgrade. Few things can go wrong with upgrades. As you can tell, I like upgrades.

Before long (and by that I mean 22 hours from now) I will be back in Asia, Korea to be precise. And for those of you with the same question as Nick - I speak of the southern half of the peninsula, the "good" Korea. I'll be in Singapore this summer, so if anyone's in town, drop us a line. I'm sure I haven't seen the vast majority of anyone I know in at least over a year. Plenty of sunshine, warm weather, office work, and football awaiting us in the tiny island state. I'll do my best to keep you posted. For now, time to sort out this SoccerReviews problem. Have been testing for Umbro and would like to keep the suppliers happy... I must admit that I have been somewhat lax in my postings to that site, particularly since they transitioned to the new, fancy, snazzy website. Check it out: http://www.soccerreviews.com/

Right, till next time.

ttfn, r.

Where I have been...

2011-04-29T10:34:00.002-03:00

So for the two lovely friends that I have that are following this blog - and for anyone else who might have perused my muses over the course of well... what seems like an eon ago now (my last blog post was from 2009!), I have not fallen off a cliff, taken a sailing trip around the world, or anything quite as exciting. In all honesty, I forgot. I forgot about this. I forgot that this even existed! See, this was created, as I think I mentioned in my very first blog post, to get credit for my PHYS 1051 Astronomy class. Turns out I did really well in that class, so I presume this must have worked.

Any hoot, I was over at this wordpress site, which I don't think is quite as friendly as this one over here. That one was very dark, and somewhat morbid, to be honest. It had a black background and once I put in the red and white colours for GRS, it became just really hard to spent much time on. As a result, I'll be transferring all of my blogs over from there to here. Starting with the oldest ones, then moving on. This will appear as the latest, and it will look like I haven't really missed out too much because I think some of those stretch back to the summer of 2010, which isn't too bad. Of course, I haven't really written since the end of March, but consider this the first one of the summer. I do intend to write one once a week, or perhaps once every two weeks depending on how much inspiration I can channel from the neuro synapses to the fingertips.

Till then, à bientôt!

Record breaking!

2011-03-27T00:01:00.000-03:00

If you told me before Saturday night that I would go home that night with $750, enough money to graduate 50 African youth through Grassroot Soccer’s HIV-prevention programming, I probably would have smiled apprehensively. Both soccer teams were not coming out because they had an early start for an away game at SMU the next day, the football team would not be out that night because of strength testing the next day, and the varsity dance team was in Halifax competing for CheerFest. I would not have outright laughed in your face, but I would not have jumped up and down beside you in joy. Perhaps that says something about me. I like a little bit of nerves. Nerves keep you on your feet, and as someone said to me, they’re good because they signify that whatever you’re doing is important.

I meant to write before the party last night, but minute details and a scattered brain got in the way of that. This is probably what I would have said:

100 children is nothing outrageous. There’s absolutely nothing to say that the Mt Allison community cannot reach that target. Essentially what we’re asking for is $1500. $1500 from a school that did not host a tournament. $1500 from a school that is pretty well nonexistent outside the Maritimes and pockets of academic enlightenment across the country. It would put MTA on the map. It wouldn’t be by any stretch of the imagination a leading contributor to Grassroot Soccer’s cause, but 100 kids from us is 100 closer to the 1,000,000 goal by 2014.

Now this has not gone perfectly to plan. It’s been successful, but it’s not been perfect. Maybe that says something about me as well – the perfectionist I think I inherited from my mother and the numerous people I surrounded myself with in high school (girls, I’m looking right at you). Drew would expect no less. He was very much a big dreamer as I was, and we set standards for ourselves. Standards that we’ll have to re-evaluate next weekend in San Diego. Some of the hindrances with this project has perhaps been its slow start. I did not think that this would be such a hit. I think I must have been taken aback by the overwhelming support that this project received, and as a result failed to convert that buzz into either money or outrageous advocacy. Trying to fight with Facilities Management in the fourth week of March to leave your posters up is not exactly what I would call ideal.

On the subject of Facilities Management. I’m going to assume that no one reads this, and probably won’t at least until I graduate, so I can express some of my concerns here. The original idea was to put up the MTA Gets Inspi(RED) posters featuring our varsity athletes on every front door on campus. We’re talking about every academic building, every residence, and every other building. The first round went up on Thursday night. Friday morning, the north side residences had blank doors, the one in the student centre was gone, and Bigelow’s poster had been moved. This is the best part: not only did the custodial staff take it upon themselves to take these posters off the door, but they also took the initiative to dispose these posters. So not only did four go straight into the trash, but they were not reimbursed – not exactly what I would say a very responsible way to use the Geography Department’s philanthropic donations. After 35 minutes with the director of Facilities Management, I am still no clearer on exactly why these went missing and why I can’t stick posters on the front doors of buildings. We are not violating any fire code (you can still see out the window, and we are not obstructing anyone’s path), nor are we really detracting from the aesthetic value of the door. As a student, I personally would prefer to see other students on our doors. If you asked anyone up at the Athletics Dept, you’d think that there was only one varsity athlete at this school. MTA Gets Inspi(RED) brought to prominence other athletes that don’t get the recognition that they maybe deserve, such as our volleyball player, who in my opinion embodies the essence of being a student athlete at this school. But I digress. The compromise that I came to was to keep doing what I’m doing without disturbing their precious doors. God forbid that if I put stuff up on doors (especially now, in the penultimate week of school), other students might get the same brilliant idea… what nobs.

That said, going into the Pond’s night to get Inspi(RED), we are unofficially sitting at 52 kids. Women’s hockey, women’s soccer, Harper Hall, Edwards House, the Politics & IR department, and the academic deans are among our donors, along with individual donors. I pooled $65 in Bigelow House the other day, and am expecting a house donation on top of that. Campbell Hall is trying to fight with their don to donate more money (they want to donate $150, but she wants to only give $50)… we’ll see what the outcome is. Fingers crossed that this night turns out.

You’d find me a much more elated person after Saturday night. Well, even early Sunday morning (late Saturday night), I was smiling like a 5 year old who discovered the wonders of candy. See, despite the relatively slow start, by about 1.15am the pub was packed. I was struggling to walk around and by that point I was knackered. Just pure knackered and several drinks in (obviously taking advantage of the Pond’s $2 drink special for red drinks), which prompted me to put the camera down and just soak in the atmosphere. In one word, the Pond was “pumpin’”. And when I walked out last night, I had $750 in an envelope from the Pond, $20 in my pocket from Evan Scully, and the promise of at least $60 from the badminton team. I’m not sure I have a good analogy to describe the feeling when I wrote ’102′ on the board and crossed it out, signalling that we had broken our 100-child goal.

This afternoon, the Campbell Hall president told me that they had come to a compromise – they would be donating $100 to MTA Gets Inspi(RED). This evening, Hunton’s president reminded me that they have not forgotten about the campaign and are rounding up money to donate. Two more weeks of classes… if we’ve smashed 100 with this much ease, how many kids can we actually sponsor? Next job: contact GRS about setting us up with a community in SA.

MTA gets even more INSPI(RED)!

2011-03-16T23:44:00.000-03:00

When I first started this, it was supposed to be a small idea.

Nothing out of the ordinary, but at least something tangible to prove to myself, and to anyone interested, that the campaign was capable of much more than just 3v3 tourneys. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of the tournaments – heck, HKIS has raised over $50,000 in the last four years! But for schools that may not be able to host tournaments, or for schools that may not have the leadership to host a tournament, joining Inspi(RED) Soccer through a “Get Inspi(RED)” campaign could be a way to ease their way into the Grassroot Soccer family.

Of course, MTA Gets Inspi(RED) is a pilot project and not without its scares. First off, we didn’t know if we’d get any response, but positive feedback and a very enthusiastic set of athletes have really helped kick things off. The buzz has grown on campus to the point where we average over a 1000 impressions on our posts in the first 10 hours and over 1700 in the first 14 hours. That’s more than half of our student population! I checked the insights yesterday and we’ve had over 47,000 hits in the last week! This is ridiculous. We’re doing our third photoshoot tomorrow to accommodate for all the clamouring to get involved.

Second – there were no guarantees (after we’d already started the project!) that we’d get (RED)’s blessings. Thankfully they’ve got some sense up at Product (RED) headquarters and have given the green light. With the support of GRS, Product (RED), and the people doing the intermediary stuff at Carnegie, this is actually becoming a reality.

And on top of this, to quell all the frustrations that I’ve personally had over the course of the last two weeks, I’ve finally got draft copies of our posters. They’re going straight to the printer tomorrow once I get the contact info. There are two people that I need to thank in particular for this. The first being Dr Fox up at the Geography Department, who on behalf of the department has become one of MTA Gets Inspi(RED)’s sponsors by offering to print our posters. The second goes to Hannah Kovacs and the rest of the BODIES team to helped her make these wonderful posters. I’ve got 8 so far, with more promised and on the way. Soon these will finally be up around campus! The idea is to have them in such abundance that you can’t go into any building without seeing one of these. We’ll see what Facilities Management and the administration thinks about that. Speaking of the administration – perhaps we’ll have another note about that later.

For now, let’s not get distracted. Mt Allison looks like it will actually cast aside the demons of apathy and get Inspi(RED). 48 hours after issuing the challenge, it looks like we might be somewhere between 10-20% toward our target! The faculty have been informed, the student body have been informed, and the coaching staff at the Athletic Department have been informed. Let’s hope this spreads and it spreads fast. Next step: the support staff.

Last thing, enjoy the poster.

inspi[red]

2011-03-07T23:44:00.000-04:00

MTA gets INSPI(RED)

2011-03-07T23:28:00.000-04:00

Join Mt Allison's fight for an AIDS Free Generation by 2015.

http://www.facebook.com/inspiredmta

Our challenge is to sponsor and fund the education of 100 African youth through Grassroot Soccer’s unique and innovative Skillz programmes.

Challenge accepted.

The right way?

2011-03-05T23:23:00.001-04:00

This was written in response to an opinion article from one of my colleagues over at Soccer Equipment Reviews. The original article can be found here: http://soccerequipmentreviews.com/2011/02/26/view-from-the-couch-keep-football-pure-for-the-future/

I had the good fortune of being a part of a team in my last year in high school that placed tremendous importance on the way we played our football. Thankfully we were gifted with very technically skilled players – to today I am still in awe of many of them. With an average height of 5’9″, there was no way that we were going to be playing like Birmingham did against Arsenal this weekend. Nor did we really have anyone that could pose the kind of aerial threat that frontmen like Alan Shearer or Niall Quinn did during their playing days. As a result, we did what we knew how to do best: keep it simple.

There was nothing elaborate about our play – there would be the odd spark of genius here and there, but for the most part, we played a similar style of football to teams like Arsenal and Barcelona. Not that we tried to emulate them anyway. We just stuck to what we were good at. We pressed high, we worked together, we defended tightly, and we most importantly kept possession. One of the biggest criticisms levelled at the England squad in South Africa last June was its inability to keep possession while either defending or going forward. A Xavi or Iniesta Messrs Lampard and Gerrard do not make.

That ability to keep possession was crucial to the way we played. A number of people have commented on the inability for teams to play more like Arsenal or Barcelona. While I don’t disagree that those teams are entertaining and certainly pleasing on the eye, I don’t think it is fair to label any style of football “pure” or “correct”. At times, our team may have looked like Barcelona (I’ve seen video footage from my last season with them and the season after I left, so I’m not just making it up), but we didn’t do it on purpose. We were certainly aided by a brand new, state-of-the-art artificial field that played more like proper grass pitches than some of the grass pitches I’ve played on. That encouraged us to keep the ball on the ground and to work with it there.

That’s not to say that at times we didn’t play direct football (perhaps what was called “hoofball”). That’s also not to say that that was wrong. It certainly wasn’t as beautiful as one might like – moving the ball from one endline to the other in that speed is exhilarating but not fascinating to watch on the Monday morning review tape – but it was effective. Stoke may not be a particularly exciting team to watch (when they want to be, they can), but they get the job done. In fact they’re even sitting a point above Everton. Birmingham certainly did not outdance Arsenal on Saturday night. They did it with tactical discipline and worked within a structure that fit the players. A number of pundits and commentators have (quite obviously) pointed out Arsenal’s inability to deal with set pieces – the number of goals that set piece lovers such as Stoke and Birmingham have scored on them is shocking. For Birmingham I think it is 6 of the last 8 goals they have scored against Arsenal.

Yes, everybody wants to play like Barcelona. Who wouldn’t? They are exciting. So is Spain. Watching Spain last summer at the World Cup was tantalising. But watching Switzerland hinder their progress was just as riveting. To say that Spain played the “correct” way is wrong. Ideal, perhaps. Even while I was a part of that team, when we changed our tempo and tactical shape to suit the demands of the game, countering in a much more fluid and direct fashion, no one on the team would consider what we were doing “wrong”, least not any less pure. Nor should they. And nor will they. Our 86 goals from 30 games while only conceding 13 gives us some satisfaction that what we did worked. Each team has its own way of playing and to criticise that is a real disappointment for an avid football fan.

Call them boring, yes. Call them stifling, yes. But don’t call them wrong. They’re playing football. They’re scoring goals. They’re winning games. Sometimes. Yes, some teams will be more physical than others – as players we have to deal with that, and we will come across teams that are less physical than us. It always frustrates me when Arsenal fans and players (I’ll pick on them for a bit because they’ve been in the news lately) complain about their opposition’s rugby-style tactics. Then I go read one of Joey Barton’s recent quotes and smile: “If the Arsenal players don’t like being tackled, they should go and play basketball or netball or one of the other games.” Side note: It is ironic that I speak about this because I saw a picture the other day of Jack Wilshere with his arms around Barry Ferguson’s waist in a very rugby-esque tackle.

Photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

The last thing I’ll touch on is Alex P’s “Go get us a goal” comment, which seems to have struck a divisive chord among the readers of Jordon’s article

Having worked with young players (I have coached 8-15 year olds), I do understand the frustration that the author pointed out about the lumping centre half knocking the ball down the end of the field without thinking too much about it. As a coach, I tried to get them to keep the ball on the ground, spreading it to the wings quickly and precisely and using our pace and ability down the flanks to get at opponents. But trying to recreate Ferguson’s Manchester United squad of the mid-90s when the likes of Giggs, Beckham, and Neville patrolled Old Trafford’s sidelines is not the easiest thing to do with nine-year-olds. At least it gets them practicing good habits and thinking though.

That said, there’s no point stifling a player that has the ability to shoot. Granted, not every monster of a centre half has a shooting leg, but if he’s got that good leg (as one of my kids did), then I would encourage him to have a go every now and then. In moderation, it was a good teaching tool. Not only would it give him the confidence to have a pop from the edge of the area, as he would be in a couple of years when he transitioned to a full-sized pitch, but it would give his teammates the opportunity to react to a shot. The basics of following up shots is often lost on youngsters (and even at the varsity level). It is also surprising at the number of players at my level who are afraid to shoot, even in the box! Conditioning players who have the ability to have a pop when it is right can only sharpen another effective tool in their arsenal.

While it is not likely that many kids growing up across the world will grow up learned in the ways of Total Football or Spanish technique, I think that an important point has been raised. Not enough of young players are learning the right things. Instead of worrying about the colour of their socks or the shine of their shoes, they should be focusing on their training ethos, or their concentration. They should want to be Xavi. They should work on what he is good at – keeping possession, vision and a sense of awareness, the ability to pass the ball long and short. The same can be said about defenders who emulate Rio Ferdinand or John Terry (at their physical primes). They should work on what they are good at – positional awareness, defensive discipline, and an solid command of their back four through communication.

Just some thoughts.

Green, the film

2011-03-02T23:20:00.002-04:00

A movie review of Green: the Film

"Her name is Green, she is alone in a world that doesn't belong to her. She is a female orang-utan [sic], victim of deforestation and resource exploitation." Green, the Film

The paradox of palm oil’s promise as a biodiesel for tomorrow is reflected astoundingly in Patrick Rouxel’s 48-minute documentary, Green. Green follows the journey of its eponymous heroine: an oblivious orangutan caught in the crossfire between Mother Nature and our growing consumption demands for wood, paper, and palm oil. Green highlights the various practices used to clear Indonesia’s vibrant rainforest to accommodate the development of palm oil plantations, which will in turn supply our demand for commodities and products such as magazines, cosmetics, and a growing interest in renewable, greener sources of fuel. Green is one of hundreds whose homes are destroyed daily; although she is captured, she is considered lucky – most orangutans and forest dwellers are either extinguished in the deforestation or slaughtered upon capture. The film has no narration and needs none. Its message is clear: the alarmingly rapid decimation of Indonesia’s rainforest and its inhabitants are caused by consumer needs (and greed).

A report released by the United Nations Environmental Programme revealed that “95 per cent of the increased production of palm oil in Malaysia and Indonesia was driven by the growing demand for biodiesel” (UNEP; 2009). How ironic that the fuel labelled as tomorrow’s answer for the shortening supplies of petroleum oil is one of the root causes of major environmental damage. Green does a solid job at tracing the interconnectedness of both the palm oil and timber industries that originated from the Indonesian rainforest. Following a single tree cut down to feed the hardwood demand in countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and the United Kingdom in, the documentary stresses in its unique subtle way that this is not an isolated problem. The perpetuation of consumerism and, to an extent, free market capitalism is one of the driving forces of climate change, global warming, and environmental degradation. These are not local or even regional concerns; they are a global issue that require immediate attention.

While James Cameron captured mankind’s devastating desecration of rainforests in his 2010 CGI spectacle, Avatar, Rouxel’s story not of a fictional world. His Na’vi are orange, shorter, and hairier. And they don’t stand a chance. There are no credits for this film – at least not ones that the average movie-goer would expect. After 48 minutes of a very rude awakening, we are left with a long list of companies and persons directly or indirectly responsible for Indonesia’s deforestation. Included in this are the likes of Export Development Canada, the World Bank, IMF, WTO, the Wilmar Group (Singapore), Johnson & Johnson, Pepsi Co Inc, Kellogg’s, Nestlé, PME Biofeuls (Australia). The internationalised nature of these multinational corporations is compounded by the last line: “And the consumers around the world.” Our passivity and support (albeit often unknowingly) of this industry has encouraged the exploitation of natural resources despite the fragility of the planet’s ability to maintain our excessive lifestyles. This award-winning documentary is a must-see for all, especially for students regardless of discipline.

http://www.greenthefilm.com/?cat=49&lang=en

"Bend it like Burroughs"

2011-03-01T23:08:00.000-04:00

There is nothing like a little bit of flattery to boosts the spirits when you are feeling down.

In an odd encounter with one of The Argosy‘s Features writers (who has had an excellent year writing for the paper), I was both congratulated then interrogated. I don’t like to publicise my travels on behalf of the INSPI(RED) SOCCER campaign and Grassroot Soccer – I tend to keep that close to heart, only informing those that need to know, namely my roommate. (I got in trouble the last time I disappeared with telling him!) So you can imagine the surprise when I read this email congratulating me on my acceptance to the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative University conference. I suppose, now that the secret is out I might as well talk about it.

Last April I was invited (well, I applied and was accepted) to the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) conference at the University of Miami. It was a fantastic – and warm – weekend during which I got to hang out with Ethan Zohn on Saturday while rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kal Penn and Maude Barlow. It was an enlightening opportunity to converse with other people tackling global issues. Most importantly, I think for me, was my encounter with an HIV-positive researcher at UMiami. Granted, she wasn’t from sub-Saharan Africa (she was from Germany), but this was the person that I was working to help. Not her personally, per say, but people like her. People whose lives had been affected by this pandemic.

This year, the Dynamic Duo is joining forces again after a two year hiatus. Most of you may not know the other half of the Dynamic Duo, so I’ll introduce you to him: Drew Mehrmann. We started out together at HKIS and were responsible for expanding the Lose the Shoes concept outside the United States. Actually, now that I’ve read that sentence over it sounds too self-important and makes me uncomfortable, so let me correct myself. We started out together at HKIS and were the first coordinators of HKIS’ barefoot 3v3 soccer tournament. Doesn’t quite have the same ring, but when you throw in that the tournament has raised over $50,000 in the last four years, it makes up for it. (Yes, we’re really proud of that tournament.) In April, we’ll actually see each other for the first time since we graduated in June 2009 when we meet up in San Diego for the 2011 CGI U conference. I’ll be returning as a Commitment Mentor for the ‘Advocacy and Awareness Building’ topic, which puts approximately 35 people under my jurisdiction, including two other GRS-related commitments!

Anyway, with any luck I’ll actually get to meet ol’ Bill this year.

For your entertainment, this is the article from the paper.

And here is the PDF version: Argosy article (Feb 3, 2011)

The hypocrisy of academia

2011-02-26T23:02:00.001-04:00

Published in The Argosy on Feb 10, 2011
http://argosy.mta.ca/?p=1937

I am not sure whether embarrassment that the university’s administration has discredited itself in such spectacular fashion or frustration that not enough people have publicly expressed concern prompted me to write this letter. This school year has transgressed from one shit-show to another with the university playing backs-against-the-wall damage control. The university’s decision to agree with the Board’s ruling (to meet MAFA half way on a three year contract with an annual 2.5 per cent salary increase) and not the dissenting opinion suggests that they were prepared to find the middle road anyway and poses two questions: were the tiring months of negotiations necessary if conciliation was always on the cards, and could the parties not come to this consensus on their own without protracted back-and-forths?

I understand that labour relations begin (and generally end) with the concept of confrontation. However, the futile nature of the negotiations (which should have been confined to the board rooms of Centennial Hall) has leaked unceremoniously into student affairs and has apparently disturbed the student body enough to warrant half a dozen emails from Student Life and our SAC, trying to calm the whispered hysteria. This institution claims to be the finest undergraduate university in the country: the sculpting room of the country’s next generation of innovators, creators, and leaders. Collegiality is supposed to dictate our discussions. Universities are supposed to facilitate dialogue, not encourage demonisation of those with whom you disagree. The irony is laughable.

Imminent graduation is not my greatest concern, and perhaps that is why I really don’t give a crap about the rumblings of a strike. Nor do I expect one. I don’t claim to know MAFA’s next move (for all I know, they might strike in spite of this letter… that would be flattering) but the likelihood of success with a symbolic gesture like job action is increasingly limited and grossly hyperbolised both online and here in The Argosy. Propaganda in the form of carefully constructed mass emails littered with meticulously selected bold words or a cover story – maybe even an inside spread – inciting the faint euphoria of a struggling crisis is easy to fall prey to. But neither of these are as heinously at fault of poor journalism than CBC’s botched attempt to cover the unfolding events. You don’t need a journalism school to know that it is an egregious violation of journalistic ethics to only investigate one side of a multi-faceted story. (And I thought the university was looking to distance itself from the remarks that they were in bed with CBC.)

This brings me to my next point: if this province has a “‘bankrupt,’ ‘stagnating,’ and ‘failing’” economy and wants cuts across the board, then why are we building a new $30 million structure instead of providing our faculty (most of whom do not have professor status, as CBC indicated) with the resources they need? It is evidently not because the Memorial Library has structural problems – enough engineers have confirmed this. It is not because the actors can’t work in the space. We’re actors, we work in the space we’re given. The university understandably wants to advance, and while a new performing and fine arts centre is exciting, it has been a PR fiasco, bringing bad publicity to this institution.

Here’s my thought: our faculty want more money to compensate their increased workloads. Their hours have increased, but the resources to help them do this (such as teaching assistants) have not. So why don’t we put this new building project (whose projected end date is 2016 – when most of my readers will no longer be here) on hold and provide the resources to help our faculty do their job better. Assuming that the average salary for a tenure-track professor here is around $100,000, as CBC implied, the difference in the Board’s recommended salary increase and MAFA’s original request is approximately $2000 per year (which in no way provides worthy cause for strike). Could we not use that money to give them the resources they need? It almost seems too simple, but then again, I guess that is the hypocrisy of academia.

Mounties end season with BANG

2011-02-25T22:56:00.000-04:00

**Transferred from INSPI(RED) SOCCER FC
Originally published in The Argosy on Nov 4, 2010

It was derby weekend all over the footballing world: Tyne-Wear derby in Newcastle, the Second City derby in Birmingham, and the Westmorland derby here in Sackville.

Mount Allison hosted the neighbouring U de M Aigles Bleus knowing that neither of their soccer teams could reach the playoffs.

The women started strongly and confidently against Les Aigles Bleues. Jessica Keating was perhaps the highlight of the Mountes’ back line as she marginalised and eliminated the threat of Moncton’s star winger, Valerie Martin. The evidence of Keating’s sublime performance at right back came when the ineffective Martin was substituted on the hour mark.

Building from the consistency in defence, the Mounties probed forward and reaped the rewards when AUS top scorer Megan Spicer smashed her shot into the top corner from a tight angle.

Les Aigles Bleues fought back though and almost instanty responded when they bundled a free kick past Elissa McCarron’s best efforts. In the final minute of injury time, Moncton found the winning goal when the ball dropped in the box off a corner; they were more than happy to smash it into the back of the next.

Matching their level of performance from Saturday’s trip to St Mary’s, the Men set out with a major point to prove in their last game of the season.

In a rare start, Sackville-born Matt Wheaton was the heart of the Mounties’ midfield and capped off a fine afternoon with a powerful first half strike low into the bottom corner. It was only the second time that the Mounties scored first this season and they celebrated their goal.
They held onto this slender lead magnificently and should have increased their advantage several times when Chris Vizena, Stu McAdam, and Connor McCumber all broke through 1-on-1 only to be foiled by U de M’s goalkeeper.

The inspired combination of Justin Baglole and Tim Boschel on the right hand side proved to be one of the leading factors for the Mounties in a game that they dominated. The two put in their best performances of the season, which earned Boschel a Man of the Match award.

Goalkeeper and captain Travis Sandberg also had a good afternoon and on his last career AUS game, earned himself a career first clean sheet.

Neither of the soccer Mounties may have made the playoffs this season, but they will have been proud of their final outing this weekend. We have heard numerous excuses: the players are not good enough, the coaching staff don’t know what they’re doing, our pitch is rubbish… I could go on. To do so, however, would deny the team the credit they deserve.

Last year, teams came to Sackville and brushed the Mounties aside. This year, they have come and have been pushed to their very limits; we have competed, battled, and more than held our own.

It might be too early still to talk about next season, but the Mounties now know that they are no longer the whipping dogs of this league. They are by no means ordinary, but they are missing that little something to make them extraordinary. Assignment for the year: find it. Use it. Exploit it.

Our Ladies, having occupied the bottom of the AUS standings for so many years, are still new at this game of earning points. They will learn and as with this year, will definitely push themselves even closer to that playoff position. I am of the belief that if our boys could find just one win, they would instantly find the confidence and mental strength to go out there and tear the AUS apart. They did that this weekend. They were unlucky to come away with no results from the game against St Mary’s on Saturday but they came out all guns blazing against Moncton and proved that they are keen on ridding themselves of this “nearly-men” title.

We’ll see what the winter and next fall brings.

Sunday’s match was the last AUS game for Sara Laking, Allie MacLean, Kat Fraser, Elissa McCarron, Justin Baglole, Travis Sandberg, and Adam Brown.

1, 2, 3, GO!

2011-02-25T22:55:00.000-04:00

**Transferred from INSPI(RED) SOCCER FC. Originally written on November 1, 2010

I have been fortunate to stay connected to the soccer teams this season; the players have been generous to keep me in their thoughts and provide this unique insight to their adventures this term.

On Saturday, I spent part of the night with them. As much as I wanted to join the girls in their celebrations after they stole a precious point from Cape Breton, the forlorn figures of the men had me thinking twice.

So many times this season, I have watched my former teammates perform like gladiators on the pitch and make teams like nationally-ranked St FX look very ordinary. For all their hard work and battling spirit, they have not been rewarded. Don’t get me wrong – this year has been an astronomical step up from last season – but what they would have given to also be celebrating a point or victory last Saturday.

Too often though, the Men have conceded early and struggled to pull themselves back.

We have heard numerous excuses: the boys are not good enough, the coaching staff don’t know what they’re doing, our pitch is rubbish… I could go on. To do so, however, would deny the team the credit they deserve.

They will need a mathematical or any other sort of miracle to book themselves a trip to Wolfville for the playoffs in November. Last year, teams came to Sackville and brushed the Mounties aside. This year, they have come and have been pushed to their very limits; we have competed, battled, and more than held our own.

That will likely come as little consolation to senior players like Adam Brown, Travis Sandberg, and Justin Baglole, who know that they only have three games left this season (and possibly in their MTA career) to find that last elusive win. They certainly have the skill to do so. Whether they have the willpower is another issue.

I am of the belief that if the boys could find just one win, they would instantly capture the confidence and mental strength to go out and tear the AUS apart. All they need is that one win, though.

There are three games left in the season before we start thinking about next fall. Let’s see what this week can produce.

Hopefully come Sunday, the Ladies will be celebrating a huge accomplishment and massive step forward for the program. As Jessica Keating said last week, it is possible. It is very possible for the Ladies to reach the playoffs. Last year they won their first game in four years; the goal this year will be to reach the Promised Land for the first time in over six years.

And should they, these goddesses will have more than deserved their reward. They have marveled in every way, from the leadership of Elissa McCarron, to the defensive frugality of Shipp, MacLean, Dunham, and Keating, or the dynamism, elegance, and poise of Kat Fraser and Hil Hamilton. Let us not forget either the lethal Megan Spicer (AUS top scorer) and her crew goal-grabbers.

They can be sure that this fan will be praying for their success and good luck this week. They are in action at Moncton on Wednesday, in Halifax on Friday, and finally back home to Sackville on Sunday.

Solid weekend for Mounties

2011-02-25T22:51:00.000-04:00

Originally published in Sackville Tribune Post on Oct 27, 2010

**Transferred from INSPI(RED) SOCCER FC

After another mixed bag of results against UPEI in midweek, the Soccer Mounties were back in action on MacAuley Field last Saturday.

Cold, windy, and occasionally sprinkled with unwelcome rain, the Mounties battled against Cape Breton University. Their tangerine opponents always prove to be formidable opponents, but Barry Cooper’s charges were ready to put the Capers to the test.

The Lady Mounties struggled to get a hold of the game in the first half as they fought against the wind. The Capers confirmed their early dominance with a goal half way through the period when the CBU forward rose highest on a corner and powered her header onto the underside of the crossbar and across the line.

It was only the 9^th goal that the Ladies have conceded this year and they took the setback well in their stride to see out the half in the ascendancy. Their hard work finally paid off when Zayah Romilowych’s perfectly placed shot curled into the bottom corner.

This was a point that the Ladies more than welcomed. The draw moves them even closer to the final playoff spot and provides that much needed momentum going into the final week of the season.

Inspired, as they often are by their female counterparts, Marcus Greenlaw and his bruising crew dove head first into the ensuing encounter, unintimidated by their orange-clad opponents.

Any plans to snatch points from CBU soon took a massive blow when Travis Sandberg unfortunately slipped and failed to stop a Caper free-kick.

As they always do, the Mounties bounced back and pushed forward. Chris Vizena and Tim Boschel provided the speed and width on the wings, but all too often, Connor McCumber found himself left on his own to deal with CBU’s centre halfs.

The introduction of Kyle Reade on the hour mark gave the Men a much needed injection of pace and for a short spell, the Mounties barraged the Capers’ goal.

It was a second Cape Breton set piece, however, that drove the final nail into the coffin of the Men’s playoff hopes. Sandberg atoned for his earlier slip when he acrobatically leapt to push the free-kick onto the crossbar. The Mounties were caught ball watching though and an unmarked Caper tapped home the rebound.

The Mounties go into their final week knowing that they need to salvage at least a point from their remaining games if they are to do their hard work this season any justice. They are at home again on Sunday against U de M.

Judge gives grim ruling

2010-10-20T22:47:00.000-03:00

**Transferred from INSPI(RED) SOCCER FC

Frustrating. Disappointing. Undeserving. Perhaps some of the words to describe the Men’s soccer season thus far. “Our season has not been going quite the way we hoped it would,” explained vice-captain Justin “Judge” Baglole after Sunday’s defeat to the UNB Varsity Reds.

The home loss was yet another example of an excellent start by the Mounties, only to concede first and struggle to find a way back. “We end up conceding when we shouldn’t,” Baglole commented, “and it is hard always having to battle from behind.”

With only one win this season, despite spirited and impressive outings against teams like St FX, UPEI, and Dalhousie, the Men have a colossal task ahead of them if they are to reach that last playoff spot.

To have the slightest shot, they will need to win four of their remaining five games, “Which isn’t impossible if you look at our schedule,” said Baglole, “but it will be no easy task.” No easy task could be an understatement as the Men will need nothing short of a “miracle”, as midfield dynamo Pat Burtt lamented.

Not to make the playoffs would be a disappointment to the Men, considering the strength of the team. “I think this may be the strongest squad I have been a part of in my four years here,” Baglole noted. Baglole, now into his final year at Mount Allison, is egging for a last grab at the prize. And he knows exactly what he and his crew of gladiators need going into the final stitch.

“We need to improve on our consistency. We need to put together a full 90 minutes of mistake-free soccer.”

They know it, we know it. We’ll be anticipating a tremendous push in the next couple of weeks. They too play Cape Breton on Saturday here on MacAuley Field.

Keating shooting for playoffs

2010-10-20T22:45:00.000-03:00

**Transferred from INSPI(RED) SOCCER FC

“1 down, 5 to go”, Elissa McCarron’s status read after an incredulous victory over UNB last Sunday. That is the Ladies’ second win in a row. With two games in hand and only three points from a playoff spot, those involved with the women’s team are buzzing with cautious optimism.

“The general feeling is on the team is an incredible desire [and] belief,” said defender Jessica Keating. Keating, a Battersea native, has enjoyed a very successful second season in Sackville. A string of confident performances earned her an Athlete of the Week award earlier this month. “I personally haven’t done the math, but I believe we’ll make [the playoffs].”

The accomplishment would end a barren spell stretching back at least six years. “We’ve got skill,” Keating said, “and it’s not just about Megan [Spicer] doing things right, though we love that! It’s Elissa [McCarron]‘s solid presence, Trissa [Dunham]‘s crunching tackles, Emma [Young]‘s sublime touch, Hil [Hamilton]‘s control of the air, Sara [Laking]‘s holding the ball up in the front […] the feeling around the camp is good.”

It will no doubt get even better if they do book a trip to Wolfville for that playoff tournament. As McCarron indicated though, there are still five games left in the season – five games that the Ladies need to win. There is no doubt that this playoff chatter is growing.

“We play so well and are able to compete with the ‘top’ teams,” Keating noted. She, and her teammates, however, are keeping herself rooted in the principles that have brought the Ladies this far. “We like talking about this kind of stuff a lot; we’ve got to prove our talk on the pitch.” Best of luck ladies. Their next game is against Cape Breton on Saturday.

Mixed results for Mounties

2010-10-17T22:42:00.000-03:00

**Transferred from INSPI(RED) SOCCER FC

After their game was postpones on Friday night due to inclement weather, the soccer Mounties were back in action on Sunday night against the UNB Varsity Reds.

Following their convincing demolition of Memorial in their last match, the Lady Mounties raced to a 2-0 lead before the hour mark. Kat Fraser opened the scoring from the spot in the 17th minute after forward Megan Spicer was brought down in the box.

Defender Trissa Dunham scored her “first goal… ever” short after the restart when she bundled a Spicer corner over the line. UNB responded in the 72nd minute with their goal of their own to provide an eventful last quarter of an hour.

Spicer capped off a magnificent display with a brace in the last ten minutes to give the garnet goddesses a comfortably 4-1 victory over their Fredericton opponents.

Inspired by their female counterparts, Roy Chineh’s gladiators burst into life in the following men’s match. The first half unsurprisingly became a fiery encounter between the two teams. Tackles few across the pitch as the game flowed from end to end. It was certainly exciting, despite the lack of goals.

Both the Mounties and the Varsity Reds seemed to run out of steam in the second half as the tempo of the game dropped significantly. The change from intense to lacklustre proved to the downfall of the Mounties. A momentary lapse in concentration at the back gifted UNB the simplest of tap ins. Chasing the game, the Mounties found themselves caught out again with 15 minutes left to go. a bullet of a shot from the top of the box beat goalkeeper Travis Sandberg as the Varsity Reds took a comfortable 2-0 lead.

Despite their best efforts, the Men could not find a way back into the game.

Crace cracker earns Mounties point

2010-10-03T22:38:00.000-03:00

**Transferred from INSPI(RED) SOCCER FC

Score lines can be very deceiving. To the layman, a 3-1 loss to UPEI is a crushing defeat. Truth be told, it probably was, mentally. But not physically. Not on the field. On the field, a far superior Mount Allison men’s team made their islander opponents look ordinary. The same way they bossed St FX around, and the same way they made little work of Dalhousie, Alex Zscheile and company looked the better team during Saturday’s encounter on MacAuley Field.

It is, however, becoming an unnerving habit for Barry Cooper’s men to concede early and unnecessary goals. As they did in Antigonish and again against the Tigers last weekend, sloppy defending left the Mounties trailing early in the first half. Bewilderment was perhaps the most accurate way to describe the players’ reactions. Not even the knowledgeable Adam Brown could explain what happened.

Most concerning was the back four’s helplessness in preventing the second goal. Five minutes from the half, the Panthers doubled the damage. Despite throwing their bodies in the way, goalkeeper Travis Sandberg and defenders Femi Adegbidi and Brown could not stop UPEI’s rebound from creeping into the net.

Uncharacteristically, the back four looked shaken. They did not deserve to be 2-0 down; the Mounties matched their opponents. Yet, they would have a colossal mountain to climb in the second half.

The Men’s response was near perfect. The ever-dynamic Pat Burtt came even more alive after the restart. He was everywhere, harassing his Panthers nemeses. The reward for his hard work came ten minutes into the second half when he rifled a shot from a close angle into the roof of the net. Suddenly the Mounties were back. Missing for most of the first half, the team pounded their visitors with Stuart McAdam, Marcus Greenlaw, and Connor McCumber all coming close. Even the adventurous Adegbidi managed to have four pops at goal.

None of those came to fruition though and after another mix up at the back, MTA gifted their opponents a lifeline. For UPEI, the goal effectively sealed their victory, albeit unwarranted, considering they were not the better team. Such is the sport, however, and the Mounties should have learnt better when they hosted the Memorial University Seahawks the next day.

But for the fourth time in a row, the Mounties conceded an early goal against the run of play. Their ‘bouncebackability’ tested yet again, the Men rose to the occasion and this time, the speedy Chris Vizena delivered. His dragged shot found its way through the crowd of red Memorial players and into the back of the net for his first AUS goal.

It is becoming frustrating to watch these Men in Gold throw away their hard work in the space of one twelve second breakaway. Dominating for the remainder of the first half and plenty of the second, the Mounties were caught in possession and in a swift play, they found themselves behind for the second time that afternoon. There is a certain aura around Adrian Crace that spell dependency on the pitch. With the versatility to play either in defence or up front, Crace joined McCumber up front. He was Mount Allison’s saviour on Sunday afternoon. Presented with the perfect opportunity 25 yards out, Crace stepped up and struck a thunderbolt of a free-kick low into the bottom corner.

There is still plenty of work to do at the back, Roy Chineh’s Golden Gladiators, just like their female teammates, picked up points this weekend and that surely can do nothing but boost confidence heading into next weekend’s challenges.

Spicer rocks Seahawks

2010-10-03T22:33:00.000-03:00

**Transferred from INSPI(RED) SOCCER FC

What a contrasting weekend for the Lady Mounties. Saturday’s rain clouds spelt danger for both teams and it was the Panthers from UPEI that leapt to action, striking twice in the opening ten minutes. The bizarre rush of events left even the keenest supporting scratching their head. How the Ladies got themselves stuck in such a mire without being tested will probably remain a mystery. Their valiant efforts to repent for their early mistakes, though, were evident.

For eighty minutes, they more than matched their opponents, pushing the abilities of the second-placed Panthers.

Replacing the hard-tackling Hilary Hamilton, who failed a late fitness test, in the centre of midfield was Kentville-native Emma Young. Young, often played in wider positions, has been largely aloof this season, but on Saturday, she gave glimpses of her enormous talent. Her dazzling footwork, along with Kat Fraser’s exceptional vision, oft unlocked the Panther’s defence. Fraser, the Mounties’ midfield maestro, spread the ball left and right, while her crossing caused all sorts of problems.

Alas, Kate Crawford’s Golden Goddesses could not score.

On this Sunday morning, the rain was not falling, and what a glorious day it was. It took the deadly Megan Spicer all of 135 seconds for her to finish off Memorial University’s Seahawks. By the end of the third minute, the Ladies were 2-0 up. It was perhaps the luck they needed to get their season back on track.

Aided by their two goal cushion, the Mounties cruised for the remainder of the first half, focusing on their strength in possession. Trissa Dunham was, unsurprisingly, in top form again. Her partnership with powerhouse Allie MacLean is proving to be the conference’s finest. Also in good form were fullbacks Jessica Keating and Katie Shipp. Keating, who comfortably quashed UPEI’s star player on Saturday, was once again stellar on the right. Solid and reliable as ever was Shipp, whose strength on the left made easy work of Memorial’s best efforts.

Comfortably controlling the game, head coach Barry Cooper took the opportunity to utilise his squad’s strength in depth. Making her home debut for MTA was goalkeeper Robin Bessemer. She was kept relatively unworried thanks to Megan Spicer’s third goal of the afternoon. Completing her hat-trick, the Sussex striker’s cross-cum-shot from the goal line looped into the top corner.

It was not too long ago that Elissa McCarron was ranked the 5th best goalkeeper in the CIS. Sunday’s clean sheet, her sixth of the season, places her back among the top 10 goalkeepers in the country. Enjoying her fourth year in Sackville, McCarron’s leadership has helped pull the Ladies back into contention for their first play-off spot in four years.

Next week will be crucial for the Mounties’ push as they climb up the table. They are in Charlottetown on Friday, then back on MacAuley Field on Sunday afternoon.

Tigers on MacAuley

2010-09-28T22:23:00.001-03:00

**Transferred from INSPI(RED) SOCCER FC

It was not the ideal situation for Mount Allison’s Mounties. Fresh from their loss to St FX, homebred hero, Connor McCumber and company were eager to rediscover their winning ways against Dalhousie’s Tigers.

Back to a familiar 4-4-2 formation, the Mounties came out guns blazing. Throughout the opening half, head coach Barry Cooper’s charges harassed their opponents and fought valiantly. The story of the Mounties season so far revolves around their costly mistakes. Sunday was no different.

In an uncharacteristic mistake on the right flank, the Tigers pounced on a loose ball and despite a mad flurry of tackles in the box, Dal forward Jordan Mannix managed to squeeze his shot under the body of goalkeeper Travis Sandberg.

Yet again, the Mounties found themselves chasing the game.

Not unlike Saturday’s encounter with St FX, they responded impeccably. Not a single Dalhousie player had the time or space to play the ball, and a patchy surface allowed the Mounties to get in and nip the ball from their opponents. Steely and resolved, MTA started from the back and pressed, searching for that equalising goal.

Surely it had to come. The threat of such players like McCumber, Pat Burtt, and Stuart McAdam is enough to unsettle any defence. Like previous matches, however, the Mounties failed to turn possession into goals. The Mounties midfield seemed to be everywhere, winning challenges and creating opportunities. Chance after chance went begging.

This attacking forage continued deep into the second half. The Mounties were relentless in their pressure. Even winger Chris Vizena, who had a solid day out on the left, could only force a save from the Tigers ‘keeping. The equalising goal remained aloof to the Mounties.

That is where MTA left themselves open to the counter. Having pushed Adrian Crace up front, leaving only three at the back, a hurried clearance from Sandberg landed at the feet of a Tigers player. Outnumbered, the Mounties could not stop Andrew Hutchinson from effectively ending the match with his goal, deep into stoppage time.

Captain Travis Sandberg’s reaction read it all. Surrounded by four of his players, either on the floor or with heads bowed, Sandberg let loose a roar of pain. They had come so close. Close just was not good enough this time.

Heartbreak at home to Tigers

2010-09-28T22:15:00.000-03:00

**Transferred from INSPI(RED) SOCCER FC

If Saturday was any indication of how well the Lady Mounties could perform, then Sunday should have been a classic match. Home, now, after their trip to Antigonish, Mount Allison hosted Dalhousie’s Tigers. From frustration to heartbreak, the Ladies suffered perhaps the most agonising end to their winless weekend.

Fresh from what head coach Barry Cooper called “an epic encounter” the day before, the Lady Mounties braced themselves for the Tigers offense. Held together by the steeliness of central midfield pair Hilary Hamilton and Kat Fraser, who are fast becoming some of the league’s strongest players, the Mounties repelled attack after attack.

Leading the line today was Sussex’s Megan Spicer. Spicer, now in her second year playing for the Mounties, was constantly threatening in the opening half and her hard work was rewarded when she broke free of the Dalhousie defence and buried her shot in the bottom corner.

Never was a goal so deserved.

For all the effort, heart, and drive, the Mounties finally had their first goal of the season and led the match.

It was a lead they would maintain for the rest of the half. Their miserly attitude at the back, however, could not prevent them from conceding only their second goal of the season.

Five minutes after the restart, Dalhousie’s Kate Macdonald was given enough space and time to slide her shot passed Elissa McCarron’s valiant efforts.

Suddenly it was game on. Both teams came alive, with the goalkeepers put hard to work. McCarron’s cat-like reflexes kept the Dalhousie barrage at bay, while at the other end, Tigers ‘keeper, Taryn McKenna was pushed to her limits by the Mounties forwards.

Maybe the Ladies would have been happy with a draw. Today was not that day.

A bizarre refereeing decision allowed Dalhousie to take not one, but two, improper corners, the second of which resulted in a goal. The second, inswinging, corner was met by the head of a Mounties defender, but only as far as Kate Macdonald, who was hunting for her second goal. As the Mounties failed to closer her down, she curled her shot into the far corner of the Mount Allison goal, past the disbelieving crowd of gold-clad Ladies. MacAuley Field fell quiet, but for the cheers of the Dalhousie players.

With less than five minutes left on the clock, the Mounties won themselves a penalty. Having conceded one begrudgingly yesterday, this was the perfect chance to redeem themselves and earn a more than deserved point. Tigers goalkeeper Taryn McKenna had other ideas when she got down well to deny the excellent Kat Fraser.

Heartbreak. It is the only word to describe their weekend. Coaches Crawford and Cooper must be impressed with the performances that they saw from their charges. As it stands however, the Lady Mounties still remain in the bottom three of the table with only three points from the season.

My Day With The Mounties

2010-09-27T11:59:00.000-03:00

**Transferred from inspiredfc.wordpress.com

How do you tell a team that conceded four goals that they played well? How do you tell a team that suffered their second straight defeat that they played inspired soccer? That they were true gladiators out there? That they made me proud to me a Mountie and have them represent us? I didn't. I should have, though. The men in garnet, for prolonged periods of time on Saturday, were vastly superior to their hosts.

Let's rewind eight hours to the start of my day with the soccer Mounties.

I was an oddly dressed, grey-clad figure in a sea of garnet and black. The mass before me was the Mount Allison soccer team: the men, the women, and everything in between. Our destination: Antigonish.

We had barely turned onto Park Street before the back of the bus fell quiet; most of the lads were now either sleeping or tapped into their music. The Ladies, in contrast, were alive and chatting (the odd one catching up on some reading). Maybe it was just me trying to draw something from the fog, but today seemed a good day for Sara Laking and co. to break their goalscoring duck. The coaching trio of Crawford, Cooper, and Chineh were certainly relaxed, joking at the front of the bus.

As 10:30am strolled around, once again the now familiar stream of garnet filed back onto the bus, rejuvenated by their temporary invasion of Masstown Market. Suddenly the dreariness that floated between the seats was replaced by an energized buzz. Strange scents wandered past me as the team trooped back to their seats. I could smell everything from the cinnamon of Trissa Dunham's monstrous scones in the seat next to me, to the roast of Tim Boschel and Alex Topolniski's chick at the back of the bus. (That's right… they bought a WHOLE chicken.)

Antigonish, here we come.

When I woke from my nap, an hour later, the imposing red bricks of St FX surrounded us. Sure, we could easily have trudged off the bus, trapped in our weary stet, but head coach Barry Cooper was not done.

Charged with the task of lifting two teams to greater heights, he challenged his men to show courage in the face of adversity. To the ladies, Cooper encouraged. He encouraged their good form, their strengths, and their class. The rest was in the hands of his players, to whom he asked: "Shall we rock and roll?"

We finally did kick off, albeit half an hour late. It seems to be only in the AUS that a match official can be picked from relative obscurity to oversee a university-level game. No matter. We didn't let it affect us too much.

Perhaps it is true that the Ladies were overpowered, outmuscled, and suffered a physical beating. But they were never outclassed by their Xaverian opponents. Over run at times in the midfield, the dynamic duo of Hilary Hamilton and the ever delightful Kat Fraser ran endlessly, harrying their opponents and causing problems all over the pitch. Fraser even looped a left-footed free kick onto the crossbar (her third time this season).

The return of Marlon Smith up front added an extra dimension to the Mountie attack. On more tha one occasion, Smith's pace and aerial strength threatened the X-Women.

I seem to be running out of words to describe the marvel that is the Ladies' defensive unit. Today, they were all on top form. Katie Shipp's presence on the left provided both familiarity and balance to the back four. At the heart of the defence and everything good the Mounties did today: the unbeatable Allie MacLean and the fierce Trissa Dunham. Last week's Athlete of the Week, Jessica Keating was switched to her preferred right sided position and twice saved her team with goal line clearances. Combining brilliantly, the four plus 'keeper Elissa McCarron were nothing short of invincible.

Then that piercing screech of the referee's whistle erupted, ten minutes from time. It was prompted by a half-hearted cry from the X-Women, a call that should not have been entertained. If this (easily ball to hand) was given, then surely the Ladies had legitimate claims to not one but THREE penalties.

These garnet goddesses had finally bled; suddenly, whispers of their mortality surfaced. Their seemingly impregnable defensive wall had been breached from twelve yards in the cruellest fashion. What a disappointing end to what head coach Barry Cooper called, "an epic encounter".

Facing confident and talented hosts, Alex Zscheile's crew had to be at their best. And boy they were. So great was their performance that, at times, the Mounties made the X-Men look like amateurs. It was visibly frustrating, then, to the players on and off the field when the Mounties allowed an untracked St FX forward the opportunity to nick a goal. Down and trailing the game, the Men never let their heads drop.

Having switched to a new formation, MTA's dominance in the midfield allowed key players like Stuart McAdam and Pat Burtt the time and space to get on the ball. With Burtt and McAdam menacing on the edge of the box while the ever powerful and threatening Connor McCumber led the line, it seemed inevitable that the team wold bounce back.

And they did, in style.

Their good work was finally rewarded shortly after the restart when a flowing move across the field ended up at McAdam's feet in the far left corner. A master on the ball, McAdam's perfectly weighted cross presented Tim Boschel a glorious chance that he would not miss. He powered his header past the X-Men goalkeeper to level the scores. Now the Mounties were in the ascendency.

Unfortunately, like most good things, MTA's high tempo game ran out of steam. The next half hour was a painful one for the Mounties. St FX, at this point the livelier of the teams, continued to push, exploiting the gaps in a brave but tiring MTA defines. It was no surprise then that the X-Men still found three more goals.

The bus ride home was sombre, unsurprisingly. Until about an hour outside of Sackville when Justin Baglole and Elissa McCarron woke the bus for some extravagant performances by this year's new faces, including: Ryogo Kanda, Kyle Reade, Marcus Greenlaw, Melanie Wagar, Robin Bessemer, and Caroline Whidden. Also performing were the ever inspiring barbershop quartet of Femi Adegbidi, Chris Vizena, Pat Burtt, and Alex Topolniski.

The entertainment was perhaps a necessary cheer up for both teams, who suffered a heartbreaking weekend. Head coach Cooper noted later that night that today's performance was easily the Ladies' best showing since he took charge of them a year ago. You'll find very few who could disagree with him. I certainly don't. I would even say that this was the Men's best performance that I'd seen from them in the last two years.

They'll drop their heads, no doubt because of the scoreline, but I hope they find a way to lift it again. Four inspired run outs by the Mounties this weekend ended without a win. It did, though, end in an Athlete of the Week award for Kat Fraser, and the foundations for greatness. They are at home on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. I hope the rest of you can come out and support them and watch just truly how far both teams have come.

A New Life

2010-09-23T11:31:00.000-03:00

**Transferred from inspiredfc.wordpress.com

For the last four years, I have always identified myself, among other things, as a varsity athlete. I was proud to play my sport and even prouder to play for my school. This year, I will not play for my school and it will be perhaps the toughest test of my mental strength. The temptation to allow the disappointment to consume me is overwhelming - so much so that it has become boring. It would too easy. Learning from past experience, wallowing in your own misery gets you nowhere. It throws you into a hole that is a bitch to get out of and by the time you do manage to drag yourself out, you're too exhausted to do anything else. So let's not. Let's not fall prey to a disease that plagues too many, destroying the little hope they have left and sucking from them even the smallest fight.

Instead, let's right stronger. And maybe next year, if the fire is back - if the passion can be rekindled - then I'll return stronger, fitter, and with that burning desire that dominated my summer season and previous seasons. I've paused to contemplate very briefly about the consequences of this decision that had been made for me. At first I was indifferent. Disappointment doesn't even describe the feeling. I felt blank. Neither overjoyed nor saddened, simply... indifferent. And then it made sense: there were more positives than negatives because of this decision. I had a fantastic season this summer and reached the peak of my physical condition - perhaps the fittest I'd been since my senior year and the best that my body felt after an injury-plagued season last year. Perhaps I peaked too soon and was starting to suffer from burnout. I had dedicated my life to the sport all through high school, training three times a week with matches on the weekend and coaching on top of that. That lifestyle (with some alterations) continued straight into my first year of university. My varsity status consumed me. It dictated my schedule and actions.

When I came back this summer, I didn't come to Sackville to play soccer (as I did last year); I came back for Bigelow. I came back to study. I came back for my friends.

I will not wear the garnet and gold of Mount Allison this year, but I am by no means distancing myself from the team or the program. I have and will always be their number one fan. This year I will cover them for the school paper, hopefully providing a different angle compared to the previously bleak sports write-ups. Today, I have been invited to train with the team. It will be a good indication on where I stand. I have been away from the set up for a couple of weeks now. Perhaps I am ready to be back and involved. Perhaps I am not ready to be thrust back into the competitive nature of the AUS. Time will tell. This weekend, I will travel with them to Antigonish when they play St FX. It will be an exciting day. What a day. Once more, I have the opportunity to relive the wonder that is an away game. Maybe, with some luck and fortune, I may even get to play the role of manager - a position that I have recently desired. In an odd way, it is the backbone of a team, except no one ever notices it.

It took me way too long to write this, but I've finally found the words. Now, on for another good year.

McCarron Saves the Day - MTA Soccer

2010-09-20T11:28:00.002-03:00

**Transferred from inspiredfc.wordpress.com

Lady Mounties struggle to find first win

The sun came out to shine, garnet and gold filled the bleachers; the stage was set for midfield battler Hilary Hamilton and and the rest of her undefeated team to claim their first win this weekend at the season home opener.

Missing four players due to injury, including Marlon Smith (ankle) and Katie Shipp (ill), coaches Kate Crawford and Barry Cooper had to shuffle the pack moments before kick off. The absences seemed to affect the Ladies as they started the first half flatly against the St Mary's Huskies.

Buoyed from their strong performance against Acadia two days earlier, MTA steadied their course and pushed forward. The infectious confidence spread from the powerful Allie MacLean and the reliable Trissa Dunham, egging the team on - driving them toward the St Mary's goal.

However, if a lack of clinical finishing cost them against Acadia, then the odd absence of firepower up front did not help the Mountie cause on Sunday. Even the direct and often threatening running of Megan Spicer created few chances. Tightly marshalled by an organised Huskies back line, Spicer and her strike partner, Sara Laking, struggled to test the St Mary's goalkeeper. When the Mounties did find the front two, they left them stranded in the final third.

Frustration grew. The Ladies conceded fouls across the park, including an uncharacteristic moment of aggression by Jessica Keating, which warranted a talking to by the referee.

While MTA failed to break the deadlock at the far end of MacAuley, a bizarre lapse of concentration at the other almost gifted the Huskies three points. A communication blunder allowed the ball to drop at the feet of a SMU player, who gladly stroked it toward the top corner.

It should have been a goal.

The ball seemed to hang, suspended in the air, crawling toward the back of the net. Stomachs dropped. Then, out of nowhere, in a flash of gold, Elissa McCarron leapt into the air and with cat-like reflexes tipped the ball over the crossbar. From slow motion to fast forward as the Mounties had to contain a pounding from the St Mary's attack force.

Woken from their second half daze by McCarron's excellent save, the Ladies grouped and a period of inspired backs against the wall defending kept the Huskies at bay. Eventually, the Ladies pushed their way out of their defending third, aided by the outlet that the tenacious Danica Lundy provided by switching to the right flank. Lundy's industrious workrate during the last quarter of an hour, supported by Lyndsey Adams, almost created something out of nothing as the Mounties caught a sniff of the Huskies goal deep into injury time.

The scoreline remained goalless, however.

It is a third clean sheet for the Ladies. But it is also another blank slate of goals. One can only wonder how much longer Hamilton's tireless running, or Kat Fraser's grace, or even Emma Young's quick feet will suffice. There is no doubt that masterminds Crawford and Cooper have plenty of talent in their squad. We're just waiting for their season to take off. We're hoping that they will announce their presence in the new season with so big a bang as to unleash all heal and wrath on their AUS counterparts, and with that a flurry of goals. Only time will tell.

Mounties Collapse At Home Opener - MTA Soccer

2010-09-20T11:05:00.003-03:00

**Transferred from inspiredfc.wordpress.com

Injuries deepen wounds
The Mounties were outclassed on Sunday afternoon when St Mary's fearsome Huskies visited Sackville. Despite growing from strength to strength, on this occasion the men conceded five goals, leaving their scintillating form from Friday night's comprehensive beating of Acadia's Axemen a faint, distant memory.
In all honesty, the Mounties did not play poorly. But they did make mistakes - very costly mistakes. As the clouds started to form over MacAuley Field minutes after kick off, a wonder strike from outside the box screamed past ‘keeper Travis Sandberg's best efforts. Before they could establish themselves in the game, Pat Burtt and the rest of the golden gladiators under Barry Cooper's charge found themselves a goal down.
Minutes later, the Men almost pulled themselves level. Home hero Connor McCumber pulled clear of his marker and lofted a delicately weighted cross to the far post, where an on-rushing Chris Vizena could not direct his effort goal-ward. The action flowed from end to end and perhaps against the run of play, St Mary's doubled the deficit. Unnecessary confusion in the box allowed the Huskies to bundle the ball across the line.
It took the most unusual source, however, in full back Adam Brown for the Men to find their lone goal of the game. Ten minutes after he was seen hanging his head in disappointment as the ball rolled into the MTA net, Brown was a sight of pure elation. Standing comfortably on the halfway line with time and space, he chested the ball and volleyed it back toured the SMU goal. The shot, which he protests was intentional ("Oh, it was a shot. I shot that," Brown said after the game), dipped over the Huskie goalkeeper and in. Game on.
After Brown's goal - an early contender for goal of the season - the team was rejuvenated: hassling their opponents, bossing the midfield, and dictating the tempo of the game. Yet they didn’t threaten the St Mary's 'keeper and as half time arrived, their hopes of recovery disappeared. An unnecessary and untidy tackle in the penalty area provided St Mary's the chance to regain their two-goal advantage; it was a chance they took gladly from the spot.
The second half promised to be a better one, but in reality was disappointing. Injuries forced the Mounties to change their shape with Connor McCumber, Adrian Crace, and Adam Brown all forced off with shin, foot, and ankle knocks respectively. The Men were losing the midfield battle even before Pat Burtt was substituted, but the loss of his athleticism in the middle of the park was evident as not even Marcus Greenlaw's battling spirit could prevent St Mary's from finding two more goals.
It was a bruising result - it still is. It brings back memories of the heavy defeats inflicted upon the Mounties from last season. "Last year we had too many games like this," said head coach, Barry Cooper. "I thought that had gone; I may not have been right." It will be back to the training ground for Cooper and his Barmy Army. Teams like St Mary's, first in the AUS, have can inflict serious damage when given the opportunity to capitalize on opponents’ mistakes, which was the story of the game.
Perhaps it was a case of them losing confidence in themselves; their quality of possession and strength in depth should place them in the same ranks as their higher-profile opponents. "They were good," Cooper said after the game, "and we were not good enough." Whether or not they choose to be the resolute side that they know they can be, we shall have to wait and see. Next weekend's double-header at St FX and then at home against Dalhousie will provide the perfect test. Both are strong teams. What will the Men's response from their SMU experience be?

A Positive Start - MTA Soccer

2010-09-13T10:59:00.000-03:00

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On the back of three consecutive wins by Mount Allison sports teams (both rugby teams dispatched Kings's best efforts, while the football team cruised to their first win in two years against rivals StFX on Saturday), confidence was brimming in Sackville in the anticipation that the Mounties could pull off a clean sweep over the weekend.

Those hopes rested on men and women's soccer teams, who travelled to Fredericton to challenge UNB in their season opener.

The women kicked off the first of two games in cloudy conditions at Chapman Field and started brightly - nothing of a surprise considering their promising pre-season campaign. It has been strength to strength for the Lady Mounties, led by the domineering presence of goalkeeper and captain, Elissa McCarron, along with centre back Allie MacLean, the team's MVP from last season. Together, the team quickly settled into the rhythm of the game, moving the ball around comfortably in a tight first half that produced only one half chance when forward Megan Spicer's dragged a snap shot wide from the edge of the area.

As the game opened up in the second half, it was again the Mounties that looked the most threatening as they pushed for all three points with Kat Fraser coming close twice. Given time and space outside the box, the midfielder drilled her shot onto the crossbar. And in those frantic final minutes, with UNB panicking, Fraser yet again let loose twenty yards out. The Varsity Reds keeper just managed to get a glove on it, forcing the ball onto the underside of the crossbar. With the glut of chances at one end, the Lady Mounties denied UNB even so much as a sniff at goal, with MacLean and her defensive partner, Trissa Dunham (who earned herself a Player of the Match award), in imperious form.

It was a signal of intent from the Mounties, who so famously broke their scoring duck last season with a flurry of goals early in the season. On this Saturday, however, the ladies could not find the back of the net. They know how to score and they have the players to do so - as evident in their 6-0 preseason demolition of a Maine university. From this weekend's performance, they have set the standard for this season and we can only imagine that it is a matter of time before they start banging in the goals.

The Ladies usually are a hard act to follow for the men's team, led this year by goalkeeper Travis Sandberg, and despite conceding early in the game, the Sandberg & Co. did not disappoint. The encounter against UNB was always likely to be a fast and furious affair that last year failed to produce goals. Within two minutes of this weekend's second match on UNB's Chapman Field, the Mounties found themselves a goal down. A loss of concentration at the back gave UNB a corner and a resulting goal.

UNB upped the tempo and perhaps in years past, the floodgates might have opened. But not this year. The visitors contained the rush excellently, with the impressive Alex Zscheile and Adrian Crace at the heart of the defence. So composed was their handling of the situation that they enabled the Mounties to catch their opponents on the counter attack. Breaking on the left, Chris Vizena rounded his marker on the outside and crossed low into the penalty area. Who better to be on the end of that cross than hometown hero and Mount Allison 2009 Rookie of the Year, Pat Burtt. Burtt raced to tap in his first AUS goal, levelling the scores.

Finally, the Mounties settled into the game. The back four grew in confidence and started to use the ball wisely, allowing the midfield to dictate the flow of the match.

Some say it is the beauty of the game, others call it a curse. All it takes is one slip in concentration, one lapse in judgement and you could find yourself chasing the game. Just as the Men were starting to look comfortable, a poor header off a long throw gifted UNB with a chance they could not miss. And they did not miss, throwing the Mounties back into the mire they found themselves in at the beginning of the game. Minutes before half time, MTA was chasing the game again.

Once again, the Mounties rallied together, battling the entire second half. The half was fast and at time senseless, with few chances at either end. Perhaps the closest the Men came was when Connor McCumber - dangerous throughout the match - broke clear and knocked the ball hopefully to the far post, where an outstretched Chris Vizena could not make contact. It was a chance for both the winger and the team to earn a most deserved point. But not this weekend.

This weekend, the Men in garnet will have to settle with disappointment. The disappointment in knowing they deserved a point - they more than deserved a point. They battled hard, they created, they challenged. They proved to themselves that they are capable of competing with their competition. They came out in the second half a goal down but played with "purpose and strength of character", said head coach, Barry Cooper. The Mounties team ethic has made them very hard to score against, but two mistakes cost them dearly today.

"What we hoped for was two wins," said Cooper after the match, "which did not happen to day. Yet the feeling [today] is positive." It was a positive start this weekend for the Mounties, despite not yielding the results they wanted. Next weekend will present two big tasks at hand. The Ladies can most certainly continue from where they left off this weekend while the Men will have to learn from these mistakes and play with the same steely determination next weekend.

The Mounties travel to Acadia on Friday (17 September) and host St Mary's on Sunday (19 September) at MacAuley Field.

Mad As Hell!

2010-09-03T10:57:00.001-03:00

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NB: Embedding of YouTube video did not transfer over, so just click on the link.

I saw this ad on TV about two weeks ago. It was random, it was compelling, it was shocking. It's not always that you see Jeremy Irons on TV - the last time I saw a good actor in a captivating commercial was Gary Oldman's "All the World's a Stage" Nokia ad. This, however, was powerful.

Watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l57fmIup9Q
Video: Youtube

Get mad. Get mad as hell. And let the world know. One in six billion people live in chronic hunger. 50,000 children die of hunger every day.

Go visit the Food and Agricultural Organisation's "1 Billion Hungry" website and sign the petition. By signing it, you "find it unacceptable that close to one billion people are chronically hungry. Through the United Nations, we call upon governments to make the elimination of hunger their top priority until that goal is reached." The petition will be delivered to the United Nations in October/November 2010.

That's the Smell of Diesel, Boys

2010-09-02T10:56:00.001-03:00

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NB: This note was written earlier in the summer and may be dated.
Warning: Contains explicit language.

Not exactly. That was part of the colossal oil spill that lined Singapore's eastern coast earlier this summer. How I didn't put tow and two together is puzzling, but when at a yacht club, it is not uncommon to smell the faint odour of diesel. Except that I should have noticed that I was easily 250m out on a jetty and the smell was closer to a rank stink. That's what happens when your observational skills and deductive reasoning go on holiday with you. That's also what happens when two large ships collide. The collision left over 60 tonnes of oil-filled sand on the East Coast, threatening the vulnerable Cheh Jawa wetlands. The clean up required over thousands of NEA and NParks volunteers before the area was reopened to the public. One can only imagine what the conditions were like in the Gulf of Mexico.

That we are well into the 21st century and the so-called "post modern" age yet still have this heavy dependance on oil is unbelievable. How does one stand by an industry that is slowly killing our planet? Perhaps I should address that question to several members of the US Congress and to the provincial governments of tar sands hosts, Alberta, and drill-happy Newfoundland. Perhaps the European Union should refocus their debt-ridden and broken economy on the sustainability of the Euro instead of worrying about our seal cull. Maybe the international, particularly Asian-Pacific, community should address Japan's annual whale hunt. They do as much scientific research as Stalin did at his gulags.

I digress.

But maybe I don't... to much. When you go to class for four months, you are bound to pick up something. That something is clear: there is a problem. In our search for progress, we are killing our planet. There is an even bigger problem in that not enough of us are doing anything about it. Not enough of us know how. The fate of humanity is tied; it has to be. Bound by our common goal and desires, we now find ourselves in the business of survival. The survival of our way of life, of those that live with us, and of our planet. That business is growing, but not fast enough. How dire does our situation need to be for us to act? Does it take an oil-covered Gulf of Mexico to ban offshore drilling? Does it take forty million orphans to fight AIDS? Does it take landfills the size of small countries to start recycling?

It's frustrating not having the answers and not being able to ask those that know because they are too busy hiding their balance sheets from the Auditor-General. It's frustrating to watch your country abandon Africa as your leaders politicise the Governor-General, compromising and undermining her ability to represent our country. It's frustrating watching an expressionless Secretary-General walk through the motions and yet children still go to bed hungry, they still don't go to school, and they are still dying of curable and preventable diseases. It's frustrating being in a room of several hundred students with different solutions but the same goal and no one wants to link these ideas together. It's frustrating walking along the boardwalk late at night and the leaked oil on the water is darker than the sky.

It's frustrating living in the 21st century. It's frustrating being barred by bureaucracy. It's frustrating reading the meaningless scribbles on the front page as yet another cynic bitches about fruit selection at meal hall. And yet we have to keep living it.

In "The Trotsky" (great movie, btw), they ask the question: BOREDOM or APATHY? I'm still struggling to find our answer. The important thing, though, is that it is OUR answer. Due respect, but it doesn't matter what gets Mr Lewis out of bed in the morning. This world isn't his anymore. It is ours. It is ours and we are doing fuck all. Every day should be Lights Out. Every month should be C3. Our campuses should be free of plastic bottles. Landfills should be driven from existence, not our flora and fauna. children should be in schools. Our excess food should be in food banks.

Take a deep breath, boys: that is the smell of us doing fuck all. And yes, it gets frustrating after a while. But we keep going. We keep going.

350,000... and counting

2010-08-19T10:55:00.000-03:00

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Grassroot Soccer's goal was and is to graduate 1,000,000 children between the ages of 12-18 through their unique and innovative Skillz curriculum by 2014. It was announced earlier in the week that we have officially hit the 350,000 mark. More than a third of the way! And still counting!

It's Working!

2010-08-14T10:54:00.001-03:00

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I don't know why it has taken me this long to get this out there on the interweb, but IT'S WORKING. Today I have two news stories, both of which are fantastic news:

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Reuters reported earlier this summer that HIV prevalence rates have decreased in 16 of the 25 most affected countries.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66C1KW20100713

The statement, released by the United Nations AIDS programme said that young people are leading a "revolution" in driving down the HIV prevalence rates. They are doing this by having safer sex and fewer partners.

In 2001, Botswana, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, and Zimbabwe agreed to reduce the HIV prevalence by 25% in 2010. They have achieved this goal, and a further group of countries, including Burundi, Lesotho, Rwanda, Swaziland, the Bahamas, and Haiti are "like to achieve" this target too.

It's working. Slowly, but surely. We're getting there. The "prevention revolution", as the UN AIDS programme calls it, is starting to take shape. The United Nations counts approximately 5 million HIV positive 15-24 year olds. If there is to be any chance of eradicating this disease, it must and will come from these people. There is still plenty of work for the rest of the population though. The UN is urging the governments of these countries to step up their sexual education programmes, access to HIV testing, and the availability of preventative methods such as condoms.

There are still an estimated 33.4 million people living worldwide currently living with HIV/AIDS - the vast majority of whom are in Africa. We still have a lot of work to do. But with prevalence rates in countries like Kenya dropping 60% between 2000 and 2005, maybe we can take a second to smile at our efforts. We're getting there.

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The second peace of good news comes from the GRS office in South Africa. Coxswain Social Investment released a new study back in July that finds "football programs [sic] are uniquely successful in preventing the spread of HIV".

http://www.grassrootsoccer.org/2010/07/19/study-finds-football-programs-are-successful-in-preventing-the-spread-of-hiv/

With World Cup fever slowly starting to fade across the world, and in Africa, the study found that football-based programmes really are making a difference in prevention. The key discovery was the link between these programmes and "profound behavior [sic] changes", which is crucial to prevention.

Half of all new infections in sub-Saharan Africa are between the ages of 15-24. The appeal and popularity of football allows for easy access to young Africans - those most at risk. More than two-thirds of HIV-positive people live in Africa. Prevention services only reach 20% of those who need it globally. If this is our way of making sure that the services and education reaches those who require it the most, then we are surely on the right path. It won't be an easily solution, but 1,000,000 youth by 2014 is the target.

Who Will Turn Off the Tap?

2010-08-05T10:52:00.001-03:00

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It’s surprising how powerful imagery can be. It’s charming too, in a sick, convoluted way. It’s been more than a year since I interviewed Lyn Lusi, co-founder of Heal Africa, and I can’t forget the one question she asked me: who will turn off the tap?

Let me take you back to that fascinating hour I spent with her in the lounge of the HKIS Maths Department. I was young and ambitious (sure... times have changed) and as EIC of the high school newspaper, I saw a frontpage story in Lyn Lusi’s visit to the school. She was in town for the week, keynoting at the Service Summit on Friday. Somehow I managed to get hold of her afterschool.

The woman across from me was is a pioneer in Africa. Working primarily in the central region, which for so long has been ravaged by civil war, Mrs Lusi and her team at Heal Africa are rebuilding lives. Lives of children, families, and most importantly, the women. Literally rebuilding. Rebuilding and repairing women’s bodies after unearthly mutilation, particularly to the genitalia. Heal Africa are the answer to humanity at its worst.

But the Lusis can only do this for so long. Eventually someone is going to have to take over. All they are doing is “mopping up”. That’s when I asked her what our role was; what bit-part did our generation have to play in the grand masterpiece that is history’s continuous timeline of tragedies? Where did we fit in? I don’t think anyone’s answered that question quite as effectively as Mrs Lusi. Not even President Bill Clinton could give me a 10-words-or-less answer and he talked for three days straight.

“Who is going to turn off the tap?”

It didn’t mean anything at the time but I am constantly reminded of the colossal task we have before us. Every dripping tap screams of betrayal, of broken or unkept promises, of abandonment, and I can’t help but ask: how did we forget the rest of the world? Why don’t we care until it’s too late?

We spent the last 30 years debating climate change. We spent the last 30 years debating HIV/AIDS. Now we are seeing the consequences of ineffective debate. 13 hectares of forest have disappeared in the last century. In that time, the sea levels have risen 25 cm. 11 of the 15 largest cities -- 70% of the world’s population -- lives at sea level. If Greenland melts, thank god I canoe. HIV/AIDS is now a full-blown global pandemic. It has claimed the lives of 34 million people, orphaning children, destroying families, and forcing entire counties to their knees.

We don’t have another 30 years to keep debating. we don’t even have another 10. In the next decade, the fate of our planet will be decided.

I never published the interview with Mrs Lusi. It took me this long to find the words, to find the urgency. The generations before us have been mopping up the mess left behind by disbelief and inaction. All they have done is mop up the mess. Nobody turned off the tap. We cannot afford to leave behind more than 85% of the world’s population. The fate of humanity is tied; it has to be. The day we forget that, we’re in trouble. I said earlier that we are the generation who will inherit and inherently change the world. If our generation does not turn off the tap, who will?

The Story of the 21st Century

2010-07-01T10:49:00.001-03:00

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In November 2007 (early in my junior year of high school), I started working with an organisation called Grassroot Soccer -- an organisation based in southern Africa that uses the power of football to fight HIV/AIDS. Now as the international director of their Lose the Shoes campaign, grassroots fundraising and awareness, my job is to develop and expand the campaign. Since the first LTS tournament at Dartmouth University in 2006, the campaign has raised over US$250,000 and helped graduate over 300,000 children through Grassroot Soccer’s educational Skillz curriculum. The campaign has now involved over 100 schools in 27 states and 8 countries and is continuously growing, actively engaging and empowering students to personally get involved in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Unfortunately, this disease is but one of the problems we face today. Water shortage, climate change, deforestation, illiteracy, widespread poverty. The list goes on. Never before has student collaboration, leadership, and empowerment been so important in educational institutions. Students alone cannot hope to solve anything if we do not create the opportunity. And we need to hope. Hope is why we find solutions. Initiatives such as the Lose the Shoes concept are how we find them.

There is no denying that student input and leadership is a must. Our teachers and administrators: they are the generation whose role it has been to guide. I am indebted to my very talented teachers past and present who have helped me form the connection between intellectual enquiry and this grassroots campaign that has become a large part of my life.

You and I: we are the generation that will change the world. Whether we choose to accept the state of the world left to us, or defy the conditions of our inheritance and move to radically alter the way we live so we may sustain this planet, we will change the world. It’s too late to be a pessimist.

And we don’t need to be. We have solutions; they are up here, out there. The greatest resource we have is the combination of the human mind and education. Sure, we won’t meet our UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015, but we’re getting there. Four out of five children today have access to education -- that’s the highest in the history of humanity! By the end of 2014, Grassroot Soccer will have provided one million boys and girls with the skills, the tools, and the education to live HIV-free. Who knows how many millions more they in turn will educate...

They are the future of Africa. They are the future of an AIDS-free world. And they, like us, are the future of our planet. It’s too late to be a pessimist. The story of the 21st century will be our fight against hunger, poverty, disease, and the severe consequences of climate change. The ending is ours to write and history will judge us by our response to this challenge. We must be ready to be global leaders. We must be ready to put ourselves at the forefront of this fight... a fight we quite frankly cannot afford to lose.

I'm in Miami, b*tch!

2010-05-18T10:46:00.000-03:00

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Damn straight, I was in Miami.

It was on business though. Armed with a box of stickers, annual reports, and a yellow t-shirt (you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to get one of those), I embarked on my whatseemedlikeaneverending roundtrip to the Sunshine State for the CGI U 2010 Meeting.

The Clinton Global Initiative University was launched by President Bill Clinton in 2007 to “engage the next generation of global leaders on college campuses around the world”. It is based on the Clinton Global Initiative, which brings together world leaders to take action on global challenges. This year’s meeting was held at the University of Miami in Coral Gables. Building on the success of Grassroot Soccer’s Lose the Shoes campaign, my commitment to action for the 2010 CGI U meeting was to combat HIV/AIDS through the power of football.

NB: This trip was sponsored by the Campbell-Verduyn Fund, Global Leadership Fund, SAC Academic Enrichment Fund, MTA Geography Department.

I’m reading the Final Report for the funding and I won’t share that with you... they’re all too boring. I will start with the “experts” of notable mention that I bumped into while I was there: President Bill Clinton (42nd President of the United States), Regina Benjamin (Surgeon General of the United States), Jay Parkinson (founder, the Future Well), Joseph Lekuton (MP, Kenya National Assembly), Ethan Zohn (co-founder, Grassroot Soccer), Maude Barlow (national chairperson, Council of Canadians), Andy Revkin (Dot Earth blogger, The New York Times), and Marta Echavarria (founding director, EcoDecision).

Sure, there were others, but those are the ones, as I said, that were either highlights of the speaker experience, or were speakers that I had the opportunity to engage with. I need to mention Ethan Zohn, who is (to a large extent) my boss. When Drew and I first started with Grassroot Soccer three years ago, Ethan was our hero. I think in many ways, for me at least, he still is. He had found a way to take a sport that we were deeply passionate and involved in and used it to save lives and change the world. He twice battled cancer successfully, won Survivor Africa (apparently Beth is a huge fan), and is the co-founder of Grassroot Soccer. This was the man I wanted to be: athlete, philanthropist, genius, visionary. I guess one could say that he’s a kind of hero. And I got his autograph and a picture with him, hehe... that reminds me, if I ever get that picture back. Hmm...

So that was my first taste of what it meant to collaborate with a mass number of students in an attempt to change the world. Some of them know what they’re doing. Some, like me, are already involved with organisations and have a foot in the door. Others are starting out new and I wish them the best of luck. We’ll see if the dynamic duo (Drew, in the off chance that you read this, I’m in if you’re in) will make an appearance at the CGI U 2011 Meeting.

: CGI U 2010 Class Picture

Let's Begin

2010-05-17T10:44:00.002-03:00

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It only feels right that this is where I begin. Jay Parkinson, founder of Future Well, inspired me to keep an account of my crackpot ideas in university. While vehemently against blogs and tweets in high school, I have learnt (largely through the help of a term-long Astronomy assignment) that it is surprisingly easy to crank out 2000 words on one of these. Alan, you were right. English paper, not so much. WordPress, more than enough.

Copenhagen looms...

2009-11-24T19:08:00.002-04:00

I need a space to talk about Copenhagen. I don't think I have yet. I am using simple sentences because a conference or summit such as the one next month generally starts me off on a long-winded and quite offensive (depending who you are) rant about world leaders and their inability to do anything as a collective whole. Well, sometimes it is just about their inability to do anything right.

But before I start that, I need to mention a major breakthrough for astrophysics. The operation of the Large Hardon Collider (a 27km tunnel the runs under the border between France and Switzerland) signalled "the start of a fantastic era of physics", according to Atlas spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti. Engineers working the machine managed to successfully smash proton beams together in the machine on Monday. This is supposed to be the first step to proving or working and developing on the Big Bang Theory. Good luck!

Back to Copenhagen. There is maybe not too much fact based in this little paragraph; in fact there will probably be just more of the opinion of an 18 year old boy sitting in his dorm room on a Tuesday evening. The UK's weather service predicts that unless we have an exceptionally cold spell between now and year end, this year will be in the top five warmest years since we started keeping records 150 years ago. The Met Office also reported that the last decade (despite the slight stall in temperature rise) have been in the warmest 15 years on record. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8377128.stm) The East Antarctic ice sheet may be losing mass. I remember reading something earlier in the year or perhaps last year that a large chunk of the Antarctic ice sheet had broken off because of the rising temperatures. Scientists involved in the surveying and study of the eastern sheet were surprised because this was supposed to be the more stable side of Antarctica. Nasa's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) mission has been studying East Antarctica for the last three years and report that since 2006, the ice sheet has been losing 57 billion tonnes per year. If the ice sheet were to melt, sea levels would rise easily 50m. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8371773.stm) And lastly, climate has been cited as a factor behind the conflict in Darfur according to the BBC. The fighting in the southern region of Sudan has forced more than two million people from their homes. Combine this with the 200,000 deaths and a severe lack of rain, and researchers are starting to find the connection between conflict and temperature. Warm years seem to raise the probability of conflict by up to 50% and "food seems to be the reason why." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8375949.stm)

That did not take me very much time to compile; a quick reading of the headlines that first caught my eye on the BBC's Science & Environment page. So my thoughts naturally turn to the Copenhagen summit, which is supposed to be Kyoto 2.0. This summit is supposed to be our answer to climate change. This summit is supposed to be our collective effort to (sorry for the melodrama) save our planet. This summit is supposed to be our opportunity to show that we are prepared to be a leader in the world. And by we, I could be referring to any country or individual. To point the finger directly at Prime Minister Harper and his crew would be putting too much pressure on him and perhaps putting him in too bright a spotlight for my liking. The Tories have announced their "climate plan" and the US has just announced that they will announce their "climate target". So why is it that when a man such as Stephen Lewis, who dedicated his life to saving this planet one child at a time, comes to our campus speaks about the Copenhagen summit, he simply says that it will accomplish nothing. Why is it that news agencies are hoping world leaders will show? Why is this summit is only featured in a side column on page 24 and not on the front page of every newspaper in the world? Why is no one taking this seriously? Why bother having the summit if all we are going to say at the end is "better luck next time boys"? Maybe that's just me and my naivety asking the questions that someone else has already taken the time to answer. Hopefully it isn't. And who knows, someone may decide to pull the rabbit out of the hat and walk away from Copenhagen knowing that they accomplished something. All we can do now is pay loose attention and keep the fingers crossed.

Leonids tonight!

2009-11-16T21:34:00.002-04:00

The countdown begins. Apparently there will be a lot of people there... not entirely sure where they will be, but I presume they will be somewhere dark and congregating in the masses. Might fancy my chances at the bottom of the hill between MacAuley and Park - I seem to have relatively good luck there. Not to mention there will be no aerial obstruction and very little light pollution from anything. Sometimes I wonder why I give my secrets away like this. Ok, that's enough from me about my secret star gazing locations.

Big news that I learnt on my way to meal hall the other day - they found water on the Moon! Even significant amounts of water. Last month, Nasa smashed a probe into the Moon's south pole in the hope that the impact would kick up some ice. One researcher described the amount of ice kicked up as the equivalent of "a dozen two-gallon buckets" of water. Apparently the probe dug a 20-30m wide hole. Sounds pretty cool except that the article on the BBC did not say where they were going with this. This is definitely a huge advancement and another stellar object that we can add to the H2O list.

People are wanting to go eat, which I think is absurd. It is quite early for a late night snack, but considering that I do want to get out in time for the Leonids, I should probably go now. Nasa launched the space shuttle Atlantis today - great success. Love the little part about the million microscopic worms. In other news I think I may be able to pass the little night lab tomorrow night. I know what my five preset ones will be... ok well it will be from a variety of: Ursa majoris, Polaris, Altair, Deneb, Cygnus, Aguila, Vega, Pegasus/Andromeda. Or the Pleiades because I can find that without trying. Alternatively, in the northern sky I can also find Cepheus and Cassiopeia. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck. Now off to meal hall.

Going one way... then the other

2009-11-09T21:39:00.002-04:00

While Nasa and Esa are going one way, it appears that the Maldives is going the other way. I don't actually have that much to write about this week because as much as I've been trying to pay attention to the stars, I have to say that I haven't noticed anything extraordinary. I have noticed however that it is getting a lot darker a lot sooner. I'm sure there is a very astronomical explanation for this, but it escapes me... perhaps it is due to the fact that Earth's axis is on a tilt and as a result, during this time of our orbit, the Southern Hemisphere gets slightly more direct sunlight. Wonder what it must be like in Iqaluit...

Back to the news. Nasa and Esa, the respective American and European space agencies, have come together in a "letter of intent" that ties their Mars programmes. Esa already has a Mars project planned for 2018 that will look for life on the planet. The project will have satellites in orbit of the Red Planet by 2016 - the first landers will not reach the surface of Mars for another two years after the initial orbital project. As part of the agreement, Nasa will provide the launch rockets for the two projects, which could see a network of landers on Mars by the end of 2018. The goal is to bring soil back from Mars for testing in laboratories on Earth. Professor David Southwood, Esa's director of science and robotics says this of the Mars project: "It will be a challenge but we think we know how to do it."

Over to the sunny side of the world: the Maldives. It is currently the lowest lying country in the world and seriously in danger of going under(water) should the sea levels continue to rise. Toward the end of October, President Mohamed Nasheen held an underwater cabinet meeting to bring attention to the climate issue. It appears that this tiny country in the middle of the Indian Ocean is taking the lead in the fight against climate change. The Maldives is currently hosting a high-level two-day conference with countries deemed at serious risk from climate change. In President Nasheen's latest outburst, he attacked G8 countries for their failure to combat climate change - a claim that does not come without cause - even the optimists are not so optimistic about the Copenhagen Summit in December. 2C may not seem like a big difference, but it would (to quote the President himself) be disastrous to the Maldives. "We would lose the coral reefs... melt Greenland, and... my country would be on death row."

I've been to this beautiful country. Perhaps I am one of the fortunate ones that have. The joke of 'oh go see the Maldives now because in 10 years there won't be one to see!' may be funny now. Try again in 10 years. The tallest point in Male only stands at 2.1m above sea level. It doesn't take much to raise the sea levels that much. Mr Nasheed said that "I cannot accept this." I don't think we should either.

Coming into November

2009-11-03T20:24:00.002-04:00

Lots of exciting astronomical events coming up in the next little while or so; or at least plenty to report on in the news. To start off, I thought I'd talk about local news. Mt A's latest efforts to fight global climate change is well underway. A fortnight ago close to 200 students formed a '350' on MacAuley to... well, pose for a picture. This picture will theoretically be "signed, sealed, delivered" to the world leaders. (Always thought that last part was a bit ambiguous and almost made this effort yet another one of those that gets lost in the mail) We are told that this picture will be hand delivered to who I presume will be our prime minister, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper. Dunno what he's going to do about it, but apparently he'll get the picture. With the Copenhagen Summit fast approaching, activists (I guess I've just become one now through participation in the '350' call-to-action) are working over time to make sure that the world leaders actually DO SOMETHING in Copenhagen come the end of the year. Kyoto has - for lack of a better word - failed, making this summit ever so much more important. We could (dum dum dum) end up like Venus if nothing happens! We may even turn upside down! Imagine that. And... keep imagining.

Also in local news is the Leonid Meteor Shower 2009. Yes, it is an official Facebook event with close to 50,000 confirmed attending guests, with another 9,000 maybe attending and close to another 30,000 still yet to respond. So in short, this is a big thing. On November 17th, Earth will pass through the 1466 Stream and as a result we will see a bunch of meteors burning up in our night sky. Supposed to be really really good for peeps living in central and eastern Asia. We'll get a good show up here in North America too so watch out for it!

Back to 'real' news (the ones that big people write about): Nasa did successfully launch their Ares 1-X rocket, but unfortunately upon reentry, it damaged one of its boosters. The rocket fell back into the ocean on Wednesday and the impact caused a giant dent in one of the boosters. Nasa says the damage was caused due to a failure in the parachute system. Bob Ess, the mission manager, isn't too worried though because the booster was never meant to be used a second time. "The parachute thing was like, 'Hey, look at that'," Ess said. "We're not worried about that." Guess if they're not we should be.

Meanwhile, the Europeans have put in another two communications satellites into orbit this week with their successful Ariane mission. There is also another interesting story about a record-breaking stellar blast that I haven't quite finished reading yet (or understood), but I'll leave you with it.

"The Hunter"

2009-10-27T16:55:00.002-03:00

There was talk I believe in one of the study session labs that "The Hunter" of the night sky would be showing his face one of these days. I am quite confident that it was him in the sky right about the Wallie two nights ago. I didn't check again last night... or it might have been last night; there is no guarantee, but I'm pretty sure it was Sunday night - that is what university weekends do to you. The days just seem to fly by. In fact today doesn't even feel like Tuesday.

Back to Orion: having grown up on or around the equator, having this fella in the night sky was a sign of reassurance. It was one of those things that I could count on being there every single night. Well, at least the nights that I was consciously looking for him. Seeing as that is the only constellation I can recognise in the night sky (unless I've told you otherwise, then believe those constellations for what I told you they were...), it was always important to be able to find him.

Living in the northern hemisphere (or at least this far north of the Tropics) is a new concept to me. All of a sudden certain stars will no longer be visible during certain times of the year, Orion included. So to be able to see him on Sunday night was a huge revelation and a sign of relief. Nothing entirely astronomically revealing or insightful, but it was on the subject of astronomy and I thought I'd share.

As usual, something from the news. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8327824.stm

Turns out that the weather is once again going to be Nasa's antagonist. I remember over the summer when they were trying to launch their shuttle off into space (the one with the Canadian astronaut) that they were delayed for something like two weeks before the weather was clear enough. Last time I posted I said that Nasa were trying to launch a new 100m tall rocket prototype; now they have to delay because of high winds in Florida. Oh how we are limited by the simplest of mother nature's efforts. The new launch is a four-hour window in the next two days. This is not the first problem that this rocket has had pre-launch (they had a cover tangled the other day) but hopefully it will be the last. Speaking of the weather - fingers crossed that the weather man isn't lying this time and maybe, just maybe the weather will be perfect this week. That means that MacAuley may just fix up before Saturday's game.

A Break from the Madness

2009-10-21T11:53:00.002-03:00

You'd be surprised at how draining midterms can be. It really is! A week and a half of nights spent in the library pouring over books, notes, trying to figure out what the little scribble in the margin is, is quite taxing on the mind and body. That explains the slight lag in updation (yes, that is a word. Yes, there is a possibility I might have made it up.) Nevertheless, there were a couple of headlines and stories that I thought I'd share with you.

Haven't really had a chance to look up at the sky recently, but I have noticed, in the fleeting glances toward the heavens that the moon has disappeared again. I'm pretty sure, having done the moon observation lab that it will reappear above MacAuley some time in the next couple of days, which is reassuring. It was not funning running around campus trying to find it the first time. Speaking of campus and the academia, Cambridge University has announced Stephen Hawking's replacement. Hawking, who was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics - one of the most prestigious academic positions in the world - taught his last class on September 30. This new man, Professor Michael Green, will start on the first of November. He is a leading member of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the university and is known for his string theory: "the idea that the fundamental building blocks of space and time are tiny vibrating strings." (BBC) Green becomes the 18th person elected to this position, a professorship that dates back to 1663 and also includes Isaac Newton as its past tenants.

Nasa is doing something really cool with a really cool rocket that looks like this:

But I'm not going to waste time with that because there was another interesting headline in the Earth News section. Apparently, according to researchers in Scotland (University of Edinburgh), trees in Britain grow in some cosmic pattern. They even grow faster when "high levels of cosmic radiation arrive from space." (BBC) Sigrid Dengel, a postgrad researcher at the university's Institute of Atmospheric and Environmental science said that, "The relation of the rings to the solar cycle was much stronger than to any climatological factors." Weird, I know! Maybe there is truth to the saying that the trees are reaching for the stars. And here I was thinking that the coolest part of astronomy was being able to lie in the middle of a field pinpointing stars and constellations in the night sky. Now we can link trees and extra-terrestrial beings. Coooool. Here is the link for those of you that might have a greater astrophysical mind than me and are interested: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8311000/8311373.stm

Thanksgiving

2009-10-12T13:58:00.003-03:00

I realise that I was supposed to post every Sunday but I must admit that the hype surrounding yesterday's home made turkey dinner in res and then the resulting turkey itself made for a rather unproductive evening.

Found some interesting things this past week. First of all, I think it was not last night but the night before (so Saturday) when we had an absolutely abysmal day in terms of weather. It was cloudy, drizzling, and not altogether pretty. It was however warmer, so one cannot complain too much. That night however, on a long (and cold) walk out to the bridge, I happened to look up randomly and noticed that all the clouds had cleared and that the stars were out in their absolute glory. Makes me smile for some silly reason every time I see stars so it wasn't a surprise that I smiled then too. And considering the fact that we hadn't seen the night sky (other than a mixture of bleh) for the last couple of days, it was good to get some stargazing under the belt.

Some news closer to home, Cirque do Soleil founder, Monsieur Laliberte made it up to space and back down this week. Here we have a picture of the space capsule parachuting back down to earth. Laliberte spent the last week up at the International Space Station after blasting off at the end of September from Kazakhstan. Apparently it cost him close to $35m to go into space and the completion of his trip makes him the 7th private individual to make the trip up to the ISS. On the note of the ISS, I was wondering if that was the bright blinking star in the sky the other night when I did manage to get a clear viewing. I know for a fact that it wasn't a plane but no idea if it was the ISS or not. We'll get there soon though!

Two interesting news articles on the BBC about recent discoveries or announcements. For one, the European Space Agency (Esa) has agreed to push its Mars mission back to 2018, so unfortunately we won't be heading out there in our continued search for life till then... kind of scary. I could be in the latter half of my mid-twenties by the time we leave on that voyage. And that's without guarantee we'll even see the little green people! Over on Stateside, Nasa did crash two unmanned probes into the Moon. (Emphasis on the unmanned part of that sentence... though it might have made for more interesting discoveries when scouring up the crash data.) this was their attempt to detect water-ice, I believe. Apparently how it worked was that the first probe would do a nose dive (strategically and carefully calculated of course) into the Moon's south pole, kicking up something like 350 tonnes of debris to an altitude upwards of 10km. The second probe would then see what the first probe kicked up. If we do find water up there, then that'll potentially end the water shortage that is inevitably going to hit the headlines in about oh.... 25 years? Nasa wants to send people to the Moon in 2020, so it would be good if they could actually bring home some good news. Unfortunately, this $79m project does not appear to have produced any major breakthroughs - the first probe did not create quite the dust plume that it was expected to, so they're going back to "carefully look at the date to see what it says," says Dr Anthony Colaprete, principle investigator of the mission. Don't mean to sound skeptical because I can imagine that if they do find something, it will be a massive breakthrough in space exploration, but good luck.

Thought I would end this one with just a curious article that I found on the main page the other day. Gave it a read and was quite intrigued. Maybe we're not exactly as doomed as we think. Or are we? Enjoy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

Jupiter: King of the Planets

2009-10-04T13:03:00.006-03:00

I think Sundays are a good day to post up my astronomical adventures for the week.

Saw this in the news the other day and thought that I would just share.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8284650.stm

It's a pretty interesting article with some very beautiful pictures. Actually this picture:

came from the multi-billion euro project that is the Herschel Space Observatory. According to the BBC, Herschel "has the largest mirror ever put on an orbiting telescope". Launched in May, it is the flagship project of the European Space Agency. Apparently what we are seeing in this picture are a bunch of clouds that are collapsing to eventually form into new stars. Pretty cool.

Also found this picture while going through my pictures from this summer. I believe this is in Baddeck, or just outside Baddeck. It is my only successful picture (with a simple digital camera) of anything in the night sky. Usually I can't get anything right.

I don't actually know what that star in the bottom of the picture is (I'm not quite there yet) but it was an interesting discovery to see that I actually found something that I hadn't intended on shooting. There are also a couple of pictures of the sunset in Sackville that I may post at the end of the entry. Actually, because this would be a great transition, we will just assume that the little dot in the bottom of this picture is Jupiter. NB: I understand that this may be completely incorrect, so forgive me. Thanks.

I saw Jupiter this week :D Finally. After about... oh I would say four failed attempts, finally I got my 60 seconds of fascination and joy. I was actually surprised at what I was looking at. It wasn't at all what I was expecting. Of course, I wasn't expecting anything like this:

because that would have just been insane and incredibly cool. Actually what I saw was quite similar to this picture, courtesy of AstronomyOnline.org. And in fact, I finally found out what the last moon was called. I'd spent the majority of the last two weeks meaning to ask at some point either in class or in the labs what the fourth one was called because I knew Ganymede, Europa, and Io... but it was that last one that eluded me so. Finally I have it! Callisto. Sweet. That's all for this one.

Star Gazing

2009-09-20T23:32:00.004-03:00

Probably quite a late time to post my first astronomy blog but a fitting date. If you can find someone - or you can go alone if you like - there is a great spot down on Park for just laying back and looking up. Don't have to do anything, the stars do all the work for you; that is, if my memory serves me right, they're also moving.

Coming from a place like Hong Kong, stars are a rarity. There were really only two memorable moments when I can recall ever seeing anything quite as spectacular:

1) Deep sea fishing after dinner in the Maldives. After sunset, Orion stuck out and so did Venus and Jupiter (everything is kind of there to see at the equator; I'm still getting over the fact that I may not be able to see Orion in the night sky). About an hour later the Milky Way showed its full glory, and by the time the boat stopped, I lost it in the number of stars in the sky. Not quite the night sky that I saw... but it is more or less the typical night sky in the Maldives plus or minus a couple of stars.

2) Sleeping outside at Nominingue. Go two and a half hours north of Montreal and you're really in the boonies. The nearest light pollution is from Tremblant (so practically non-existent) and the only light we could actually see came from the fire. Saw my first shooting star there - don't think I was paying attention in the Maldives because I probably could've seen one - and made a wish. Don't remember if it came true or not though...

So when a kid like me who didn't grow up on stars finally sees stars, and thanks to a first year class can point out the Milky Way, it's something special.

Thought that I would just share that. Also saw three shooting stars. Not too sure about the second one but the first and third were definite shooting stars. Pretty awesome. And legit. Think my head was pointing toward Lansdowne so I think that was... east-ish? Still trying to get over the concept of moving 3D to 2D, but it'll come.

Again, not exactly what I saw... but you get the jist.

Smithy speaks the truth

2009-09-09T11:03:00.003-03:00

Thought that I would start off with something rather amusing but at the same time quite true considering the circumstances that we were all facing last June.

Ironically, good luck to Don Capello's boys in white tonight when they take on Slaven Bilic's... I can't think of an appropriate nickname for them right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-LmeHkROk