I am listening to Russian folk songs on Voice of Russia, the English language international service, which is broadcast on CBC Overnight. It is folk music from each of Russia's geographical regions. I have so far enjoyed that from the North the most, which is sung by women. What I'm noticing is that the music sort of reflects the regions from which it comes. For instance, that northern music sounds full of longing and sadness. It was traditionally sung by women together as they did their chores and kept house. It sounds like the kind of music you'd sing in the middle of the dark winter when the men had gone out hunting. It is dark and haunting. And then there's the Cossack music, which is sung by both men and women, which sounds more like dramatic, windswept, hot and dusty fields, which is kind of like the steppes the Cossacks inhabited. Now, I'm generalising here, quite a bit, as they're really only playing one or two songs from each region, but presumably, they're playing those songs that are characteristic of the areas. Anyway, I think it's an interesting show. Often the Russian broadcast is quite dry and news-heavy, but this is quite different.

In other news, my car was scratched up by some asshole. I cannot afford to have it sanded and repainted, so I am first going to talk to a colleague who has a friend that does body work on cars. If he can't do anything with it, I'm going to go into Canadian Tire and buy some "Rally Blue" paint, which the man at Kia is a fair match. Whoever did the scratches managed to slightly dent the metal, too, which makes me quite upset. Usually up here, people drive with busted windshields. Not quite six months in, with just shy of 5000km on her, this happens. I'd call my insurance, but I think that the deductible will be almost as much as the repair cost anyway. So, I'll see if my co-worker can hook me up.

I don't have much else to say. Allow me to offer these salient facts: Yesterday was the anniversary of the Kent State University shooting. We recently had another college shooting in the news, but instead of troopers, it was a disturbed student. Not the same at all, but still terrible. There is a Mumps outbreak spreading across Canada, which follows on the same thread, because it started on a school campus down East. No shootings, though.