Environmentalists Beware

If my life is ever made into a movie, and I am sure it will be once I am famous, the part depicting the fourth year of my university career will need to have some kind of warning screen. I imagine it will read something like this:

WARNING: The following program may be unsuitable for all audiences, especially if you are a tree hugger, David Suzuki or Greenpeace. Many trees were harmed in the production of this semester...well not just harmed...completely and utterly destroyed. Sorry for contributing to global warming, melting the ice caps and ultimately destroying the planet.

So basically my semester can be summarized in one word: papers. I think 20 papers to be exact....totaling somewhere near 125 pages of written word. I know I am not the first or the last person to have to write papers but this is stressing me out and I am coping by complaining. Quite therapeutic. I firmly believe that if environmentalists want to make a difference, they should go after university professors and urge them to resist their uncontrollable urges to assign multiple papers. However, I am not an innocent party in this matter either. Yesterday I handed in my final project for my summer applied study (WOOHOO!!) and let's just say the resulting stack of paper is best described in inches rather than page numbers.

I could go on for some time about my project but since it is difficult to describe and possibly even boring for those who think learning about history is akin to eating dust, it is essentially about compiling primary sources to teach grade five students about Canadian immigration to the West. What I have learned through this process can be boiled down to a single catchy phrase that I will possibly market for bumper stickers: "Go hug an immigrant." (TM) Immigrants not only fundamentally transformed our country, but most of us owe our very existence in this country to immigrants. So if you like living in Canada, go and give a big old hug to the next immigrant you see.

During my research for the project, I came across a lot of interesting documents. Not all of them related to immigration. Here is one from 1979 by a local First Nations artist I found particularly enjoyable

See, historical research really can be fun! Next time I will post court documents for land claims, which I can assure you are as equally fascinating.



P.S. If you want to read something far more interesting than my blog (hard to imagine) check out David's blog. There is a link on the right.