A Few Quick Notes 124

-The temperature has been somewhat higher for the past few days. It was so hot this morning that I was sitting on the balcony reading my paper in a tee-shirt and shorts. Actually, I heard that the expected high is to be 25. Unfortunately, these high temperatures are to be accompanied by severe thunderstorms starting this afternoon.

-In cataloging class on Wednesday 10 Library of Congress schedules were presented by members of the class. I was responsible for presenting on D-DJ, general history and European history.

Prior to the presentations it had been made clear to us that we would be timed and have an absolute maximum of ten minutes. Within several minutes of the commencement of the first presentation it became very clear that we were being time, a beeping noise kept coming from a timer in front of the professor. It was clear that this beeping meant something, but exactly what was not immediately clear. My sense, and I believe that the rest of the class felt the same way, was that the beeps were bad and likely an indicator of the 10 minute mark.

While I was giving my presentation I thought that I was on pace for an 8 minute presentation, which is where I wanted to be. I heard my first beep, thinking that I had already reached 10 minutes, and sped up, covering the rest of the presentation in about a minute.

As we learned afterwards, the beeping indicated 5 minutes, meaning that I was basically on pace and could have comfortably finished all I needed to say without fear of going over time. Hopefully this new knowledge will lead to a smoother round of presentations in two weeks when we get the next batch of 10 (when I will presenting the J, or Political Science, schedule).

-Shortly after I moved to Montreal last August I bought a multi-pack of cheap knives. With a cutting board and sharpening rod the whole package came in at less than $10. Not surprisingly, these weren’t really the best knives in the world, actually they were barely passable as knives.

This year I decided that I would take a step forward and buy a good, or at least passable, knife. I ended up with a $20 Ikea knife, with which I have been generally quite pleased. When I first opened the knife I read the care instructions and learned that the knife should not be kept sharp with a stainless steel sharpener, but with a ceramic sharpener. The problem this presented is that my knife sharpener is entirely stainless steel, and therefore not suitable for the job.

While I could tell this would be a slight inconvenience, I didn’t think it would be all that bad. I would just head out and pick up a ceramic knife sharpener at the next opportunity.

As it turned out, that next opportunity was yesterday. While at a kitchen store I learned that while knife sharpeners are expensive, ceramic knife sharpeners are obscenely expensive. They wanted $54 for a ceramic knife sharpener, something that was a little outside of my spending range (though I might have been suckered in for $40).

Maybe I will see about getting something at Lee Valley while I am in Halifax. They seem to have such sharpeners for only about $23.

-The previous note would suggest that I am heading to Halifax. I will be heading out on Saturday and returning on Wednesday. The reason for the trip is to attend Neil’s convocation ceremony.

-A few days ago I was hired as a research assistant for a project at McGill. Aside from the work being more in my area of interest, I will also be able to drop my Thursday night busing shift. Though for all of my loyal fans, I will continue to bus on Friday nights.

-While heading to school yesterday I noticed a TV truck outside a local chain coffee shop. On my way back from school, I noticed more TV trucks and protestors. Though I did not know it until I approached them, they were protesting the lack of French on the chain’s signs. It is interesting to note that a brief story on the protest appeared in today’s Globe and Main.

-It appears that today McGill will be starting a very large fundraising drive. To commence the drive they have erected a massive series of tents on the playing fields in front of the McLennan library. My thought was that if a university can afford to set up a tent village for a week maybe they don’t need hundreds of millions of dollars. Or if they do need hundreds of millions of dollars maybe they shouldn’t set up a tent city (particularly when I am using library resources that are 20 years out of date).