Axworthy and the Stinker

Today, former Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lloyd Axworthy gave a talk on Human Security, emphasizing the "Right to Protect" (R2P). Nothing new. Besides, his talk was a bit boring because he lost his talking points and he had a bad cold. Still, I respect the guy for his achievements. Oh yes, about half of the fifty people in attendance were Canadians.

The venue was the "Senate Chamber" of the Knowles Building. This particular senate chamber is cool because the seats are arranged in a circle, with two or three rows. There was a very very beautiful girl (who happens to be my girlfriend) sitting in the seat across from me, but a bald, chunky Aussie researcher at my department was sitting in front of her, so it was hard to check her out during the talk. Hard if I didn't want the Aussie researcher thinking that I'm into him.

The most memorable thing about this talk was the guy sitting next to me, a guy also named Kenneth (and also a Canadian) who recently earned his PhD from the Centre of Asian Studies. Ken sat beside me when he saw that the seat was empty. Don't ask me why my girlfriend didn't sit beside me. Anyway, this guy, a big and tall fat guy, had terrible terrible body odour, and he kept doing annoying things: he took off his glasses and rubbed his oily face, picked his ears, coughed without covering his mouth, and scratched his head. All I could think about was that I probably had to shake this guy's hand afterwards. What's worse was that he borrowed my pen. Afterwards, all I could think about was the oil from his face on my pen. If I weren't such a cheapo, I would have binned the pen right away.

Ken's a nice guy, but Three Strikes is Three Strikes. Actually, that's FIVE Strikes.

KC, you were there, sitting right behind me. Was I visibly frustrated?