Who are babble people? Part 3

16 posts / 0 new

Tue, 2011-06-28 18:07

Catchfire

I just met CMOT Dibbler for coffee yesterday over on Granville Island here in Vancouver, and I enjoyed it so much it occurred to me that we haven't had a thread for a while where babblers had a few words to say about themselves. I thought we might have a thread where babblers get a chance to round out their anonymous handles a bit so we have more to go on than the usual entrenched ideologies, political impermeablities and hackneyed shibboleths (okay that's just me).

Here are some older threads we had along these lines:

Who are babble people?

Who are babble people? Part 2

Babbler's Bio's

I'll go first:

I'm a PhD candidate in English at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. I study and teach early twentieth-century literature. For the last two years I have been volunteerin/teaching humanities as part of a non-credit program offered by UBC to students in compromised social and economic situations, many of whom are residents in Vancouver Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.

I was born in London, Ontario and moved to Montreal when I was twenty, where I lived for almost ten years. Before going back to school in my mid twenties, I worked as a short-order cook and in the lumber industry. I lived in Edinburgh for two years before moving to Vancouver a couple of years ago. I'm in my early-middle thirties, I've been married for a few years and I'm expecting my first child in less than a month. Politically and professionally I consider myself a socialist and a Marxist. I was born to a silver miner's daughter from Timmins and a Kitchener orphan, both of whom became high school teachers and eventually principals. I make beer, I garden, I play bad chess and passable soccer and I am an extraordinary dancer. Both my sisters are professional musicians, which means they are quite poor.

I found babble through Audra's (the first moderator of babble), now-defunct personal website and discussion board, marigoldzine.com. Although I never met her, I used to hang with some of her old friends who introduced me to her website. I joined to ask a question about proportional representation (which I'm sure Wilf Day promptly answered) and never looked back.

Your turn!

Tue, 2011-06-28 19:18

Boom Boom

I'm a former Mob enforcer now retired on disability. I'm from Ottawa. I'm not averse to bending the truth just a bit.

Tue, 2011-06-28 19:18

Glenl

I'm new. I started reading babble during the last election and kind of got hooked on it. I find a lot of the ideas expressed here quite challenging ( in a good way) to my beliefs and assumptions. I'm 55. Started off as an English kid going to a French school and ended up being a French kid going to an English school. My father was French and my mother is Scottish. I've lived in NB, PQ, ON, SK and AB in that order. I've had two careers the first as a design engineer in water resources (dams, floodways, pipelines), the second as a co-founder in a small software business started in 1992 and was an overnight success sometime around 2005. I am mostly retired and the business is being ran and soon to be owned by a bunch of youngsters (mid thirties). I have had a fortunate life. It has also been touched by marital breakdown with a touch of domestic violence (my parents not mine), sexual abuse ( I was abducted and abused for a few hours when I was 12 ). My father was murdered and someone way too young that I loved took their own life. I had colon cancer last year and part of my bowel removed. I have two children and watching them being born remains the emotional high water mark of my life. I spent a few months in Rwanda in 1992 and have never been the same since, it still guides my view of the world. I used to be a guitarist and songwriter, trying to get back into it since I have time on my hands now. Read mostly history with a particular interest in the middle east. Spent my life searching for religion, learned a fair bit about the main ones and very little about god. Have accepted that I'm an atheist and have stopped searching. I believe some of my opinions of life and the world may be a tough fit here, I won't try to covert anyone. I appreciate having my opinions challenged since it's the only way I've found them to grow.

Tue, 2011-06-28 21:26

Freedom 55

Catchfire wrote:
For the last two years I have been volunteerin/teaching humanities as part of a non-credit program offered by UBC to students in compromised social and economic situations, many of whom are residents in Vancouver Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.

Very cool. This is modeled on the Clemente Course in the Humanities, right? I've taken a few courses with Discovery University, which is the Ottawa version that's put on by the University of Ottawa and Saint Paul University.

Tue, 2011-06-28 21:46

Catchfire

That's right, F55. The UBC Hum 101 program was the first of its kind in Canada--it's parted ways with its genesis in many respects. The original version--and many programs still operate like this--privilege "great books," and are based on the idea that classic humanities will "civilize" folk who didn't have the opportunity to be civilized. Our program operates with the belief that students come to the class already with political and cultural knowledge (as you know, "culture is ordinary"), and the humanities are a process and ongoing conversation that all of us, teachers, students, facilitators, go through together. It's a wonderful thing, and I'm very fortunate to be part of it.

Tue, 2011-06-28 21:56

Papal Bull

Quote:

I'm 19 (can't, but I can tie it!), I am from the 'Shwa. Starting in September Toronto will become my permanent new home for multiple years. I am looking forward to this change. I go to the University of Toronto and am drifting in the aether wondering what I should do education wise. I'm going through this quarter-life crisis as one of my friends called it (remarked that I'm a 40 year old neurotic nature trapped in a 19 year old's maturity). I'm also having a giant internal dialogue about my beliefs - religious and political. My dreams include: not returning to Oshawa, going into politics (unlikely), writing, eventually becoming a stuffy and particularly argyle sweater wearing professor, actually getting the timing right when asking a girl out. I also want to meet the Biker Mice from Mars one day.

Wow, reading this was really weird. 5 years ago. Damn. Not much has changed except that I flunked out of university and then got a useless college diploma and moved back to Oshawa because I can't hold down a job. Depressing.

Tue, 2011-06-28 22:07

Catchfire

Pfft. By 24 I had already flunked out of university twice. You've got some work to do, PB. Did you at least meet the BMfM?

Tue, 2011-06-28 22:18

Papal Bull

Not yet...not yet.

Well, I have, but I assume that it was a side-effect of whatever I assume I may or may not have been 'on'. I mean...dreaming. Dreaming.

edit: also, I do wear a really good argyle + tweed blazer combo.

Tue, 2011-06-28 22:25

Maysie

Papal Bull, in the intervening years you've done tequila shots with Maysie. Very few people can say this. Soon, you'll be able to put that on your resume.

Tue, 2011-06-28 23:35

#10

Freedom 55

Catchfire wrote:

Our program operates with the belief that students come to the class already with political and cultural knowledge (as you know, "culture is ordinary"), and the humanities are a process and ongoing conversation that all of us, teachers, students, facilitators, go through together.

That sounds closer to how ours operates too.

Wed, 2011-06-29 11:56

#11

Sven

Catchfire wrote:

...I'm expecting my first child in less than a month...

Congratulations!

Wed, 2011-06-29 11:57

#12

Sven

Papal Bull wrote:

...and then got a useless college diploma...

What was your degree in?

Wed, 2011-06-29 12:40

#13

Northern Shoveler Northern Shoveler's picture

Papal Bull wrote:

Wow, reading this was really weird. 5 years ago. Damn. Not much has changed except that I flunked out of university and then got a useless college diploma and moved back to Oshawa because I can't hold down a job. Depressing.

I went to university when I was 20 for one year and enjoyed the scene while getting abysmal marks in everything except blowing smoke rings. I decided that I hated it as much as I had hated high school. I went back to being a miner until I got a surface blasting ticket and started building logging roads. In my mid twenties I got lucky and was able to join the Carpenter's Union and apprenticed with the Campbell River Local.

When my union livelihood disappeared in the Bennett years and EI ceased to be a program helpful to seasonal workers I went back to university, first at night school for a year and then full time for four years at U of S. I decided working non-union would only lead to a series of short jobs because the "open shop" companies only like rat unions like CLAC and real trade unionists don't last unless they shut their mouths. I graduated with two degrees at age 42. I then had a great career advocating on behalf of workers until I retired. Papal Bull trust me when I say you have lots of time to figure out where your passions lay and to act on them.

In 6 days I will have the first of my knees done and I hope that within a year I will be able to start my "retirement" career, trying to awaken our apolitical youth.

Wed, 2011-06-29 13:07

#14

Caissa

Amazing what you can find in these old threads. I never knew Lawrence day, a Canadian chess IM had been a master here. Even more interesting was that Jeff House had declined to play in a blindfold simultaneous exhibition against Sammy Reshevsky. Wow!

Thu, 2011-06-30 13:17

#15

Boom Boom

Back in the good old days when you could realistically expect a student grant to supplement your student loan, I drifted through two community colleges and two universities. Took me a really, really long time to discern what I wanted to do. My second college journey was a course designed to help discern my vocation. I doubt anyone could afford to this nowadays.

Thu, 2011-06-30 13:36

#16

Tommy_Paine

I started off in the family buisness, corset making a main stay of the day, one might say. Then I self educated myself, and wrote some pretty inflamatory rhetoric against tyranny, which had a happy ending. Tried my best to export the same ideas in Europe, but you know Europe. Almost got my head cut off for my troubles. And my bones are lost to posterity, with no final resting place which is cool enough for a athiest. It's just calcium, after all.

Well, that's not me, but a finger nail sketch of the life of my moniker. Which is funny, because if there ever was a job I'd want in the 18th century, corset maker would be high on the list. Maybe specialize in a line which just looked good and didn't cause lasting bodily harm. And, I think in the face of tyranny I could do okay writting inspirational rhetoric. I think, when I'm at my best, I've done that here. And, I'm an auto didact.

Ask me about SW Ont geology. I dare you. And, I think I know a little bit about a lot of things.

I'm on the left but I think there's been the odd Robbespierre here over the years who surely would have had my head, if given the chance.

And I am, like Paine, an athiest, and could care less about what happens to my bones.