On a not so CliC note.  The past few weeks have been jammed packed.  The 18^th to the 24^th was the Tromsø International Film Festival, and it was amazing.  When discussing with a friend how many movies I should buy in a pass, the thought of watching ten movies in a week was a little overwhelming – five, five will be enough.  Not so much.  As soon as I got the catalog of movies I had picked my five and wished I had more, but its always good to show a little self control sometimes so I kept it to five.  My movie selection was a fairly dark repertoire, and I think last week and this week I have only finally gotten over being spooked and no longer check under my bed for infected zombie humans or cannibals.  A couple times walking home alone after midnight after seeing a scary movie I really doubted my intelligence.  Two movies that I would recommend are “The Road” and “Pontypool”.  “The Road” is a post apocalyptic movie about a father and son surviving through horrific conditions.  It is an amazing movie, but is very difficult to watch and not for the faint of heart.  “Pontypool” is definitely a new take on the zombie thriller with a touch of comedy and intellect – I still don’t quite “get it”. 

The week after that was Arctic Frontiers held at the University of Tromsø.  I was a volunteer for the technical support group for a few days and got to see some of the background chaos of conferences.  The majority of my volunteering time was spent doing two awkward jobs of telling people when their time was running out and getting a microphone to people who had questions after talks.   For the Science section of the conference there was six parallel session going at once for two of the days if I remember correctly.  The session that I volunteered for and sat in on was two of the marine biodiversity days - all very interesting talks.  The amazing bonus of volunteering for the conference was the being able to attend the social events in the evening throughout the week.  Amazing dinners, solar system and outer space inspired movies, and a photo exhibit.  Amazing food!  Anyone who knows me knows how much I love food and that the way to my heart is through my stomach.   Its amazing though the things you discover about yourself when put in the situation to socialize with so many different people from all walks of life.  I was maintaining conversations with an ambassador and business executives.  Social events at conferences are key – and you learn a lot about your confidence and capabilities during them.  And boy did it feel amazing when someone asked me about my CANADIAN accent – your in my good books after that. 

Then the past week I spent in Jokkmokk, Sweden, with my fellow CliC interns.  Tromsø hadn’t any snow by then, so driving into Sweden and staying in a city with piles of snow just reminded me of home and did amazing things for my spirit.  There was an historical market for a few days which was amazing to experience, and I definitely fell in love with a beautiful pair of skis – although my bank account could not possibly afford them.  The Winter Conference was nice to be a part of, and I was able to learn more about the Sami culture.  I am both a pessimist and an optimist at times, and so when talking about COP 15 and “Solutions” for Climate Change I often have mixed feelings.  In my own opinion, which is neither right nor wrong, I have never liked the phrase “solutions for climate change”.  To the extent that I understand it, I do not think that climate change is something that we can solve, but more something that we will adapt to.  We will or will not make changes to match the changing climate.  We cannot undo it, but perhaps learn to live with it.  Humans have caused problems, and now there are consequences, and we panic to make changes.  The more pessimist side of me knows that the world will move on without us (if that should be the case) – the Earth has been going/living long (long does not quite express this true extent of time) before humans.  But the optimist in me still believes that one person can make a change.  The changes you make in your home and, when I think of my young cousins, what you can teach children does matter.  When I am at home and my dad is bagging the recycling and getting ready to bring it into town, every time he mumbles “Will this milk jug save the world…I doubt it.”  Making him glad about recycling is like pulling teeth, but he still does it and it makes me smile every time.