Damkeeping, August 2023
Various shenaniganry from the last few days that is not otterssential, but WHO CARES.
ICYMI! If you missed my conversation with Tejashree Murugan for Significant Otters, you can read it here.
This is Ottavia Paluch and you’re reading Things You Otter Know.
You’re getting this post later in the day because I’ve noticed that my numbers were about the same when I posted something later in the afternoon and I’m curious as to when exactly during the day do these emails strike you as most enticing.
Although, as I write this, it is 1:04 pm, and I am trying to get this thing written quickly because I have a meeting with Jared in less than an hour as of writing, and then I have to walk over to the other side of campus to meet with my boss who is not the Dean but who works at the Dean’s Office (I swear I am not in trouble! I have never plagiarized in my life! There is more to this story that I will tell you about later!)
But as of right now I am typing this from an empty corner of the third floor of Deerfield Hall here on the UTM campus. I didn’t realize until recently how much I like Deerfield. I haven’t had a single class here and I’ve never really bothered to check it out, even though it’s perfectly adjacent to my favourite building on campus, the MN building. (Which is actually formally known as Maanjiwe nendamowinan. The more you know.)
I am specifically spending more time in Deerfield while I’m still here for summer classes especially because it is the summer and so literally no one is here. Normally this is where my psychology friends spend a lot of time. Playing with rats in laboratories, I assume.
Also important to note as I type this is that I packed a really good lunch. (A Korean BBQ lettuce wrap but without the lettuce. It is so good. Thanks go out to my dad.)
Now! I shouldn’t really call this a Damkeeping post because I don’t think there’s anything, like, super pressing I have to mention this time around. But! There is much less important and very fun stuff to address on this post-Civic Holiday day! Call it Civic Holiday II: The Otter Strikes Back.
The Civic Holiday!
I must first of all mention something I just found out, which is that the Civic Holiday is an especially Canadian thing. Americans have a Labour Day just like us but nothing Civic. Wonder what’s up with that.
Honestly, I don’t even know why the Civic Holiday is a thing. I’m just glad it gave me a long weekend. Thanks, Trudeau.
Speaking of Trudeau!
Tru-d’oh!
Oh my god, did you hear about him separating with his wife last week?! It’s bonkers.
I have most of the big Canadian news media apps on my phone and they were all buzzing within seconds of each other to tell me the exact same newsworthy thing.
Canadian Conservative Twitter™️ (I refuse to call Elon’s Lair “X”) is of course very pleased about this news. The only thing they do all day is pray for Justin’s downfall, which… fair.
Like, I try to stay partisan here, but at this point into Justin’s tenure as Prime Minister, I totally get it.
In fact, more so now that ever before, because the political science courses I’ve been taking this summer have opened my eyes to some incredible drama that past Prime Ministers have stirred up, Pierre Trudeau and his son included.
It feels like every week there’s a scandal going on. Now, I should mention that the bar for “scandal” here in Canada is INCREDIBLY low compared to the States. The ones you hear about in the news, the ones the NYT covers, those are the reaaaaaal bad ones.
I almost feel bad for Justin in a way because since Parliament isn’t in session right now all the attention is on him separating from his wife.
The media will likely never tell us the truth behind what happened but the people have been SPECULATING.
The aforementioned Canadian Conservative Twitter™️ (really just big Stans of our Official Opposition leader, Pierre Polievre) have done the most speculating. There was a tweet that made me laugh about Justin having an affair with his Cabinet’s Minister of..Foreign Affairs. *ba dum tss*
See, that’s genuinely clever! And just look at this photo of him with our real-life actual Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly:
Like, I can see where they’re coming from! This is a clever joke AND it actually has a morsel of truth behind it!
But THEN there are OTHER idiots on Twitter saying that he’s making out with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. I would explain this in greater detail but 1) Canadian politics is not worth your reading leisure time, and 2) this joke is not worth your time.
HowEVER! Here is something that is definelty worth your time:
The latest Significant Otters!
I linked it above and I’m going to link it again HERE.
I really don’t need to be promoting it this hard. It’s dropped off in terms of stats and all that, as all my posts do, but it hit 200 views in barely over a DAY. That is a big deal for this tiny Subsatck! Plus, I love SO and I love Tejashree.
If you go back a little further in the archives you’ll find…
THIS mess of a post that I put together on the train!
Which is nowhere near as important to promote but hey, I write these things and I should be able to yell about them on mY VERY OWN BLOG, OKAY?!
Plus, if you give it your time, you may catch…
A few typos!
This was perhaps the funniest thing of the last week for me. I couldn’t believe that THIS is what you took away from that mess of a post.
Because, as you know, I’m honestly thrilled if even ONE of the 160-something of you tell me that you enjoyed the latest post or whatever. You know how much it makes my entire life, I’ve said that a million times.
But I swear to god I had at least five different messages about the pleTHORA of typos I made in that post. I will highlight a few here, the first two of which were initially spotted by my friend Jay:
It honestly would not be a piece of Ottavia Paluch’s writing if it didn’t have a typo in it.
Like, have you seen my texts?? I used to be SO grammatically correct in my texts when I first started texting. I had about inch worth of personality back then which probably explains why I did that. It took me a long time to embrace real texting, or really the modern wave of it that is full of lowercase letter and a lack of typo correction.
I also had a few readers asking me about two things:
1. My hangout with June!
It was WONDERFUL. June is a wonderful and funny and smart human being whom I cannot believe is real and not some figment of my internet imagination. We talked about our lives and loving Toronto and We went to this pizza spot in the Annex called Gigi’s that was INCREDIBLE. She showed me around this BMV nearby that sold SO much Margaret Atwood. I had no idea what to get but June got all about love, the bell hooks classic.
And then we got ice cream at Metro (this was RIGHT before the strike, and on that note go Metro workers I hope you get the deal you deserve!!) and we walked over to this little park June loves and ate it there and it was so platonic and nice.
2. My two papers!
So here’s the deal: I haven’t gotten my marks back for either of them. I have a feeling I did not do great on both, but whatever. They took up so much of my life that my life instantly felt twice as spacious once I got them off my plate. Thank you for asking about that, whoever you were. (I’ve already forgotten.)
I think that’s everything but I bet as soon as I send this out I’m going to remember that I forgot something.
The next little bit!
Now that this summer term’s ending and the fall term doesn’t start for another month (thank god) I’m turning my attention to a few things:
The rest of my work-study job term (more on that in about a…month?)
Applying for ANOTHER million work-study jobs for the next academic year (fall-winter) when the portal opens up on the 16th (I will likely tell you about this in a month or so as well)
My exam next week
My text next week
All the wicked stuff happening with Jared and the team at FM! Which you will probably not hear about till early next year, but it’s fine. I promise it will be worth the wait. I love the team and I love what we do. Few things in my life give me as great of a joy or fulfillment or purpose. We are THAT COOL.
Writing a gazillion posts for this Substack, some of which will be out in the next few weeks
TAYLOR SWIFT IS COMING TO TORONTO IN A YEAR AND A HALF AND I NEED TICKETS LIKE I NEED AIR.
I will be back later this week with a more coherent and connected rant. Probably Friday or something. We’ll see. I would tell you what it’s going to be about Been a good day for me. Hope yours was good too.
🦦 —O— 🦦