As Canada Day wraps up, I will say that, despite it not completely living up to the hype (no country does as far as I can tell), it is better here than the other places I lived, namely the US and the UK. Both of these countries seem in terminal decline (and both have performed thoroughly poorly during this pandemic, precisely because both countries have elected charlatans and emboldened political parties that literally do not believe in the merits of good governance), though whether Canada can escape that fate (being so closely tied to both) is an open question. I could get even more political, but there really isn't any point. I'm sorry for those that are stuck in very badly run countries (just as I feel badly about the Hong Kongers who are being trapped in Hong Kong by China), but there is nothing I can do as an individual about fixing the ills of the world. I took the opening to come to Canada when it came available (and encouraged others to do the same), and haven't regretted it even a little bit.* After giving the matter more thought, I will be applying for Canadian citizenship this fall, which takes about a year to process, so I'll have time to study up on my Canadian history (I have a couple of biographies of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, though I realize he isn't the only important figure of the last 50 years...). While there are a lot of hoops (for citizenship as well as permanent residency), it is actually possible to assemble the packages and apply without a lawyer getting involved, which I would in no way recommend for those going through this process in the States (where an immigration lawyer really is essential). I'll go the dual citizenship route for a while, though I'd say it is somewhat likely that I'll renounce US citizenship at some point (despite even more paperwork and large "exit fees") but I'm not in that much of a hurry to do so.
So what did I do to celebrate today? Mostly I tried not to work, even though it will mean I have to play catch up on Thurs. I did cook a casserole for dinner, and I took my son for a bike ride (we have to make a fairly long trip to find an open bank branch tomorrow, so I thought getting him some additional road experience would be good). I read a bit of Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and started
Arriaga's The Night Buffalo. I fooled around with the iPod some more, swapping out a couple of jazz CDs for Paul Simon's Graceland, the rest of The Joshua Tree tracks and a handful of songs by The Jam. I'll probably leave the iPod alone for a while now. I had made a huge push and actually published 6 book reviews yesterday, and I did spend the morning tweaking them, though they were actually generally in pretty good shape. (I'm still on the fence about signing up for the 14th Canadian Challenge, though I still have most of the books on this
list to review, plus a bunch of poetry collections from Brick Books.) That's basically all I can recall doing, so I definitely achieved my goal of not actually working. It's been a long but not particularly busy day, and I probably should just head for bed now.
* I actually paused and spent a fair bit of time looking for the classic "The City" strip by Derf (about liberals fleeing to Canada after the election of W, and got sucked into Derf's
blog and reading a bunch of the actual strips
here. The blog has a pretty fascinating 3 post history of The City and the long, sad decline of alternative papers. This probably only really resonates with Gen X'ers who grew up with a vibrant alternative press with lots of cutting edge comix. Anyway, it is taking longer than I expected to track it down, but at some point I'll circle back and add it to this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment