HowYaGoing?

This week. Where to even start? Probably with the facts. I will warn you all right now, this post is probably going to get a bit philosophical & abstract, aka very weird.

This week Nova Scotia, a place known for being cool, damp, and mostly soggy, caught fire. Thousands were evacuated (some of our friends included), and while miraculously no one died, that doesn't mean everyone escaped unscathed.

Forest fires belong the class of massive catastrophe that makes individuals feel powerless. I suspect the rise of the 24 hour news cycle & social media has only increased this effect. Certainly I spent more time on twitter this week than I have in years. So far, being far away while a large scale disaster occurs has been uncomfortable. I know that if I was at home, there would still be nothing I could do to change things. But being far away and not being able to do anything somehow makes the powerlessness extra potent.

I remember reading or listening to something years ago (potentially in an undergrad psych class) about how we go about ascribing value to things. Whoever was presenting talked about how, in general, we value things that we have a closer physical proximity to as higher than things that are further away. This sounds weird, and I remember immediately thinking it was bull shit. But the more I thought about it, the more it rang true - the milk in my fridge has more value to me than the milk that's still at the store. You can argue that this is because of the investment of the milk in my fridge - I spent time & money to get that milk (or at least Justin did), so of course it holds more value. This is partially true. But if we take something that is omnipresent, like air, the finding still stands. I value the air that's in my house more than the air outside my house. Because at the end of the day, I am primarily responsible and accountable to myself, the physically closer something is to me, the higher its default value.

This concept of proximity based value primarily applies to 'stuff'. There are lots of people I've lived physically far from for many years, and if anything, I value them and the relationship I have with them now more than ever. But what happens when we move physically far from the things and stuff we value? Halifax is the city were Justin & met. Its where the majority of our life together took place. Its Justin's favourite city (I'm not sure I have a favourite). And yes, the forest fires were not near where we lived. And yes, everyone was safe. But our city was suffering, and we weren't there. Maybe this is why this proximity based value rule applies to stuff. You value things that you engage with, that you participate in. How do you participate in a community from half a world away? How do you stay engaged with what is going on in your neighbourhood when your location makes it nearly impossible?

This is why there was so much powerlessness when reading the news about the fires. Because it reminded me that things are changing. Things have changed. We don't live in Halifax right now, and we won't for a few years. And even though we will always love the city, when we go back to it, it will be different than the way we left it, the way we remember it. And that's okay. The same thing happened when we travelled Europe. That time, the city seemed to change for the better. Or maybe it was us that did. Either way, things are happening that we can't control. That's good - we shouldn't be able to control them. But its still scary to realize that life continues on, whether or not you are there to act as a witness.

This brings me very nicely to the second hit we took this week. Our friend Mark died. You might recall the GoFundMe page I posted a few months ago for our friend with cancer. That was for Mark. We knew this was coming. That probably did make it a bit easier. But it still sucks. I think more than we ever have, this week we were missing our friends and family. I spent a lot of this week thinking about how if we were home right now, we would be hanging out in someone's backyard, having a couple drinks and just shooting the shit about Mark.

Justin & I took a day mid-week to just be together. We ate pizza, drank beer, and watched a movie. We often talk about our relationship being a bubble, that separates us from the outside world. That feels especially true this week. We both know what the other person is dealing with, but everyone else around us is totally unaware.

Every culture has its own slight variation of 'how are you'. In Canada, I think we usually use 'how's it going?' In the UK, they ask 'are you okay?' I'm sure the US has their own as well, I just don't know what it is. In Australian, they ask 'HowYaGoin?', said very quickly and as if it was all one word. Now, I understand that this greeting is mostly meant as small talk, and there is no obligation to answer honestly. But I see a decent number of people every day at work. There are only so many times I can be vague about how things are going before I no longer have the energy to gloss over everything. By the end of the week someone (who has excellent friend potential) asked me 'HowYaGoing?' only for me to respond 'My province is on fire and my friend is dead. How are you?' Luckily they took it in stride and it actually ended up being a lovely conversation about life, death and time. Needless to say, its been a week.

On a lighter note, my actual work this week has gone really well. I had a couple of small wins, and my project is really starting to build momentum. I've really been leaning on those wins this week, which is a bit precarious as research is not known for being smooth or reliable to work on.

I would also like to mention that Justin & I have had a quiet couple of weeks as we have settled into life in Australia and found some new routines. We haven't really done much around town since Justin's birthday. Now that we are a bit more established (& starting to meet people), we have quite a few events planned & things coming up. Somehow our June is already starting to fill up with plans, so I should have some fun things to blog about this month.

I will end with a delightful story about what happens to my decision making skills when I am under stress. Part of my strategy for the whole making friends/building healthy support structures/putting yourself out there thing is to sign up for all kinds of university events. Lectures, meet & greets, promo stuff, workshops, whatever. If its free and there is the option of free food/drink, I'm there. So I volunteered to help out with a public lecture about sleep this week. It was aimed at high schoolers (which I didn't realize when I signed up), but I know nothing about the actual science of sleep (yet), so it made for a great introduction. Plus I got to meet a bunch of people in the department, I got a free book about sleep & a giftcard for helping out. And of course, there was free food. They always order waaaaay more food and drinks for these events than they need, and if you hang out long enough and they know you are a grad student, they start insisting you take some home with you. Since becoming a grad student again, I have never left an event empty handed. At this particular event they had these little charcuterie cups that were full of everything you would find on a charcuterie board: meat, cheese, crackers, fruit, nuts, little bit of chocolate. The lecture was in the evening, and I hadn't eaten dinner yet so I was very hungry by the time the food was out. Thinking it was a good idea at the time, I scarfed down a large amount of brie before I realized what I had just done and started feeling the effects of eating too much cheese. This would turn out to not be the only instance during the week of me eating too much cheese in one sitting. Justin's work just added 'Halloumi fries' (aka cheese sticks) to the menu. Of course I went in to meet him for a drink after his Saturday evening shift and ate a whole order of them after already having cheesy pasta for dinner. Apparently, stress makes me eat cheese with reckless abandon.