An Afterthought

"Does this mean we have to kill Edmonton before we understand what it truly is?" said Raymond. […]

"Some things don't need to be understood, professor."

(Todd Babiak, The Garneau Block. Toronto. Emblem editions: McClelland & Stewart 2007, p. 227)

End of story. End of blog.

Good bye, Canada. I received my emergency passport an hour ago. I'm leaving Edmonton tomorrow via Calgary. Won't make any further predictions, though.

Waiting …

My carelessness or letting chaos into my life (see entry January 29) gives me some more days in Edmonton. I can't do anything but wait at the moment. My application forms for a new passport have been sent to Ottawa so there is nothing to be done before the new passport arrives. I went to the newly renovated Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) near Churchill Square and had a look at the controversial Degas exhibition of dancers and horses, called "Figures in Motion". I was quite fascinated by a modern installation on the second floor of the museum, called The Murder of Crows. This installation consists mainly of chairs and loudspeakers, and you hear a voice through a gramophone retelling three dreams or rather nightmares. Words and silences are combined with different kinds of music and noises. Fascinating! Then I went to Churchill Square, took some photos (the one you can see is called "Lunch break") and went window shopping, which ended in actually buying two books, a new PJ, a T-shirt and a pair of shoes. Ridiculous, I know, but it cheered me up. Home by LRT. Sandwiches as lunch. Meanwhile my wife and son have arrived in NY, where they went to Fatty Crab - a place at Upper West Side that offers Malaysian 'inspired cuisine', where customers eat with their hands. Central Park, Broadway, Times Square ... you name it. I wish I were there.

P.S. Today I heard their flight to Frankfurt has been cancelled. Hard luck. Once you let chaos into your life ...

End of story?

After my talk on Wednesday I flew with my family to Calgary from where we took a shuttle to our hotel at Banff. This is a lovely place to go to. We had a look around town (the only incorporated municipality within Banff National Park), had drinks in the hotel bar, went swimming in the hotel pool and rented skis. On the next day we drove to Lake Louise (actually, a lake that is named after Queen Victoria's daughter), which is also a famous ski area in the Rockies. It was a fantastic day: blue skies, sun, perfect snow. Skiing was simply awesome. We regretted that we could not stay any longer. But we had to go back on the Saturday. And then at the airport, I discovered that I had lost my passport. F***'s sake! With two non-photo IDs West Jet allowed me on board the plane to Edmonton. My family left this morning for Montreal. I am still here waiting for an answer from the Austrian Embassy in Ottawa, which I phoned and informed on arrival.

P.S. The final straw came at 3.30 AM: — fire alarm. We had to evacuate HUB Mall in the middle of the night. The temperature was -16°.

P.P.S. Информация о Банффе по-русски: kanada.turne.com.ua/resort/banff

Final talk

Today I gave my final speech in the Senate Chamber on "Silences in Russian". There were fewer people present than at my talk for the Department of Linguistics. But they were interested in the subject and asked a lot of questions after my talk. Some came up with intriguing topics for a new project, such as The History of Silence. Afterwards, we went to Earls near campus. The Ukrainian-Russian-Polish-Austrian group enjoyed some very good food and excellent Australian wine. I am glad that my academic duties are over now, so to speak, and I and my family will enjoy two days in the Rockies. We are off to Banff tomorrow morning.

WEM

Yesterday my family and I went to West Edmonton Mall which used to be the biggest shopping mall in the world. Now it ranks fifth but it is still impressive. Bigger ones have been built in China (2), in the Philippines, and in Singapore. In WEM you find Galaxyland, Waterpark, Sea lions rock, Columbus' Santa Maria, an ice rink as big as a football stadium, and hundreds of shops and restaurants ... So we had a Chinese-Italian-North American meal. I got myself a new suitcase, although my old one has lasted for over thirty years but it is a bit inconvenient now as it has no wheels. Our son went crazy at Footlocker and Urban Outfitters ...
In one of these shops my son recommended I buy the Tee shirt you see in the photo. But I opted for a UoA T-shirt instead.

Psycholinguistics

Today Dr Patrick Bolger (left) showed me round the Centre for Comparative Psycholinguistics in the Arts Building and gave me and my family (who arrived yesterday) an exquisite 90-minute lecture on his work as an applied psycholinguist. We were told which experimentation goes on (such as eye-tracking movements, ERP (event-related brain perception) and which data are collected. Psycholinguistics at the UoA is concerned with "language processing in real time"; the centre not only analyses English but also minority languages of Western Canada. Students get a good impression of how research in linguistics is conducted (experiment protocols, lexical decision methods etc.). Even my son was impressed by Patrick's talk and now considers psycholinguistics as an option for his studies. (Well, this is what he said. There is still some time to decide this.)