Sound judgment

We are most definitely into the realm of 'lasts' now. Today was my last ever Wednesday in Kangiqsujuaq, and this time next week I shall be, weather permitting, well and truly back in the south. Just how much of me will remain in the North? Only time will tell on that one; as I've said before, the North has very much become 'my Canada' over the past four years, and I guess we will have to wait until we get to the end of August and I haven't crammed myself into a Dash-8 or a Twin Otter before we can start to make a judgment.

For the moment I'm still here though, and today we marked International Noise Awareness Day with a number of highly interesting (honestly) in-class activities. Hearing loss is a big issue in these parts, with iPod-induced deafness exacerbated by the roar of skidoos and ATVs (or Hondas, as they're universally referred to here), and I suppose the occasional use of hunting rifles and carving tools doesn't help either.

I was somewhat shocked to witness my students' genuine amazement when they learned that listening to music through headphones at full volume will undoubtedly damage your hearing, but at least their eyes (and ears) have now been opened, and maybe they will now take steps to rectify the situation. Or maybe they'll pay no heed whatsoever; you can take a horse to water...

On a semi-related note, my research for Noise Awareness Day led me to the discovery of a rather fascinating series of recordings. They were made by a man named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville around 150 years ago, and are now regarded as the earliest known recordings of the human voice. Now, it would seem that Scott was only interested in studying the visual properties of sound waves and never intended for these recordings to be played back, which is a bit like studying ice cream by looking at it rather than eating it, but thanks to modern scientific advances we can now finally hear the results of Scott's experiments whilst at the same time enjoying over a thousand flavours of ice cream. You can hear the recordings here.

Oh, and lest I forget, I must report that my students unanimously rejected the lone gunman theory after their investigation into the assassination of JFK. Instead, they believe that there was a conspiracy involving the FBI and Secret Service that possibly went up as high as Vice-President Lyndon Johnson; Oliver Stone and Kevin Costner would be proud. Maybe we'll discuss the Moon landings tomorrow...

Powering down

We had a power cut yesterday - only the second since I've been in Kangiqsujuaq, which isn't bad going as we had them all the time in Inukjuak - but unlike the one we had back in October this one was at night and lasted a fair bit longer. The power went down right at the end of House and I also missed the whole of 24, which was most annoying. I've been recording 24 with the intention of viewing all the episodes en bloc at some future time, but I guess that plan's now scuppered.

It was during this period of total darkness that I realised I don't have a torch - I still find it hard to call torches 'flashlights' - or any candles up here, but thankfully I downloaded the flashlight app for my iPod a little while ago (hey, I said 'flashlight') so I was able to patrol the house whilst listening to music that was guaranteed to be correctly filed and sorted. About an hour later the power came back on, but within ten minutes it went off again, only to come back on after a couple of minutes, after which time it failed again....

After about an hour of this the power finally stopped coming back on, but by this time I had already got fed up and gone to bed. I found it hard to sleep though as I was very aware that my alarm clock probably wouldn't go off in the morning, and this was a situation that I found unduly stressful for some reason (oh for the days of huge wind-up alarm clocks, now only seen in old cartoons or dangling from Flavor Flav's neck). A few hours of spasmodic sleep followed, and it was 3am when I finally became aware that the power was back on; the clock was duly reset, and I am happy to report that I managed to make it to work on time this morning.

Considering the fact that I spent the previous post relaying my tales of boredom, I suppose one could say that at least this week has started with a bit of excitement, but when the only excitement here is an event that stops you watching TV and makes you go to bed early....

M'lud, I rest my case.

The incredible shrinking Jobs

Apple unveiled their long-awaited new product today, and much to the surprise of everybody it wasn't a computer or mp3 player but a device that can actually shrink organic matter to as little as one tenth its original size. CEO Steve Jobs selflessly volunteered to demonstrate the awesome power of the new iShrink on himself and here he is, pictured on stage with his iPod just minutes after using it for the first time:

The iShrink does not ship with the capability to reverse the shrinking process, but apparently if you go to the iTunes store, there's an app for that.

iNeed help

Another weekend has come and gone and, to paraphrase John Lennon, "So this is Sunday, and what have you done?" Well, not a lot, to tell you the truth. I did have a nice breakfast at the new student residence this morning, but I've spent most of my weekend organizing my iTunes folder and have come to the conclusion that I am developing some sort of OCD disorder.

Now, I know that the use of the word 'disorder' just then was redundant as the 'D' in OCD actually stands for 'disorder', but the sentence didn't sound right without it. And did you know that this is an example of RAS syndrome, that is the "redundant use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym in conjunction with the abbreviation itself," like PIN number or ATM machine or HIV virus? RAS stands for 'Redundant Acronym Syndrome', so note the self-referential irony in that the term 'RAS syndrome' is actually itself an example of RAS syndrome.

Oh my, now I've gone cross-eyed.

Where were we before we got lost in that linguistic hall of mirrors? Oh yes - iTunes. I got a new iPod Touch for Christmas, and whilst uploading all my music I made sure that every track had the correct album art, which I think is a reasonable endeavour. I've now gone too far though because I'm now checking the year and genre attached to each song, cross-referencing with Wikipedia as I go, as well as correcting any spelling errors and mis-capitalizations. I have over 7000 songs on my iPod and my plan was to go through one, maybe two letters of the alphabet each day so that I'd have the project finished in a fortnight, but over the last 48 hours I've not been able to stop. I started on Friday evening and I'm now up to the S's already.

Last night in bed I actually got round to listening to the damn thing and noticed that one of my Dave Matthews Band albums was incorrectly listed as a compilation. Did this affect the quality of the music coming through my headphones? No. Could I ignore the error? No again. I had to get up, come downstairs, switch on the laptop and sort it out there and then. At 2 in the morning. I really need help, don't I? There are no psychiatrists this far north though, so in the meantime back to work...The Best Of Sad Cafe - Rock? Don't think so - Soft Rock maybe - and no year; what does Wikipedia say...?

P.S.
Before anyone points it out, I'm fully aware that the fact that I have The Best of Sad Cafe on my iPod is probably more worrying than any form of OCD that I may be developing. I am truly a lost cause.