What I realized over the past few days

A lot of people don’t fact check before they post comments. They complain about how things are a waste of money or time without checking if extra money or how much time was spent. Journalists some times make up things and confuse their imagination with reality. Creative license is so different from fiction writing… 

I was watching the Space Oddity video filmed from space and reading the comments and ignorance really puts some things into perspective. Some people write whole articles while running with one central false assumption. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but when I see a paper, I expect that their journalists are respected enough or respect their own reputation enough to check facts, you know?

Filed under: Uncategorized, life, random

Lead by example?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/stop-teasing-trudeau-grade-5-kids-tell-harper/article11977592/

I don’t know what the research says but if you’re growing up in an environment where you’re shown the leaders of your country says bullying is okay, I start wondering how the kids are going to be affected. Good for them for standing up!

Maybe they look at the example and get so upset/disgusted by it that they dedicate their lives to living it the opposite way? Let’s hope.

I cannot stand attack ads. You can feed someone for a year with that money. Stop spreading hate.

Filed under: Uncategorized, example, leaders

I want to describe it for you

It’s something like this:
first you see it.
start breathing fast
and then you’re almost trying to escape
Get it away from me.
you might start screaming, almost uncontrollably
you feel like you’re being embarrassing
maybe
but you don’t slash can’t slash don’t want to stop
because if you do, they won’t stop bothering you
the screams keep them away

my personal nightmares
I keep screaming and I’m afraid
My instincts tell me to keep going
but my reasoning tells me to stop
—
My reaction to feet. It’s been a part of my life for many years and sometimes as much as I want to be rid of it, I think I might miss it. It might be the only “unique” thing about me. You ever get that? You want to blend in, but you want to be different?

My desire to blend in in social settings keep me from reacting strongly in public. I get an unshakable, uncomfortable feeling, but I deal with it. This is what I tell myself to remind me that I’m in control.

Filed under: feelings, health, phobia

I just watched the best TED talk

Every time I hear a talk like this, I get so inspired into action.

It’s scary telling strangers how to act. You have to somehow be tactful and help them understand why the issue is so important to you. I remember many years ago, I was on a teen forum and someone was using language that shouldn’t be used. She attacked me for calling her out and I replied. And I kept replying. But each time I waited for a response, I was scared to read it. The thread was getting a number of views but no one backed me up. Eventually the other girl backed down and then suddenly people started agreeing with me. You know what I really like about this talk? The fact that he says it’s the bystanders that need to stand up.

Bullying and discrimination shouldn’t be allowed or accepted. I get so angry when people tell me that the culture’s this way or that and that’s just the way it’s going to be. Nothing is more inspiring than trying to change the way people think, trying to make people’s lives free from emotional and physical danger.

When I was younger I had this idea that I would study really hard and get a really good job and then become a motivational speaker. Somehow I thought getting a degree had to be a precursor to getting people to take me seriously. I really look up to people who dedicate their lives to changing opinions and making the small-minded more open. I have so much respect for this man. It’s so beautiful to see someone in a privileged background use his position to advocate for others.

Anyway, here’s the talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KTvSfeCRxe8#action=share Please watch it and share it.

Filed under: Uncategorized, gender, important, issues, life, TED talk

pigeon hole

Sometimes I feel like they’re trying to tell us
we can only have one interest
What are you majoring in? Will you do a minor?
Are you going to get a Masters? A PhD?
Will you be an expert in just that?

How’s your volunteer experience
relevant to your career?
Don’t waste time on things
not relevant to your studies

But what if you’re interested in everything?
What then

—
I’ve always like volunteering and using my leisure time reading blogs about people, travel, fashion, green spaces, and cultural differences. This is what I’m interested in. It bothers me when someone tells me to only spend my time focusing on my major or how to further my career. We get one life, you know? I’m not going to spend all of it focused on one thing. We have enough time to do it all.

Although if you think about it, everything can be related back to psychology anyway. People’s behaviour, reducing stress through travel, interacting with others in green spaces, and more human behaviour.

I am terrified of getting older and growing more conservative.

Filed under: Uncategorized, passions

LinkedIn summary

Really what I want to put that would describe me at the moment is
young, motivated, managing extreme temperatures of Canada, in a love-hate relationship with rain, sudoku seeking, wordsearch loving, tv watching, all loving, sometimes optimistic, laughaholic, relaxed non-smiling face, food loving

20 something year old who wants to change the world.

I need to think of something for real. I can describe other people, but to think of myself as something that can be summed up in a sentence? Ouch.

Filed under: Uncategorized, network

I spent awhile choosing the perfect frames online

and then found out BC is the only province that allows online retailers to make glasses with prescription.

Filed under: Uncategorized

when you try to remember something and hours later it pops up

We were watching a webcast today, one that featured Tony Clement. I knew he did something that really bothered me and I knew it had something to do with public health but I could not figure it out. I was also convinced that I’d blogged about it because I remember how angry I was when I first learned about it. I couldn’t find it on my WordPress,  so here goes

Despite all the evidence, he’d wanted to close Insite in Vancouver. No wait, that wasn’t it. He wanted to close it I think so he’d gotten this research done about the site and when the results were so positive, tried to cover them up. Basically it was something along the lines of the government not having our best interests at heart.  For those of you who are unaware of what Insite is,  it’s a safe injection site for users of drugs. Disease can get spread and people can die when they use old needles, dirty ones that someone with an infectious disease may have used. They’re so desperate for the high, they don’t wait for a new needle (sorry the right word for it isn’t coming to mind) to come along. By providing a safe place for people to shoot up, as counter-intuitive as it is, it’s actually saving lives. The word was syringes. The site also has people there making sure users don’t overdose.

Anyway, I was barely listening to the talk because I could not get rid of a gutfeeling that he did something I really didn’t like. I also realized that politicians have this gift for repeating cliches and giving long-winded answers that don’t really answer questions, or don’t provide new knowledge or inspire new ideas. Not for me anyhow. It’s kind of like watching a bad movie. That’s just my experience though.

This isn’t about the minister in general.  I’m sure he’s a good guy. This is just about how people waste resources and tell lies when they could be off doing something more productive or helpful. I mean, they got the report done with tax dollars,  tried to shy it from our eyes,  and proceeded to recommend the opposite of what evidence supported.

Filed under: in my opinion

Thoughts as I walked to nowhere

DECEPTION

When you pour water from a plastic bottle
into a glass,
who are you trying to kid?
What are your intentions?
We know
you’re not eco-friendly.

Double the waste
the water
the plastic
the cleaning.

SUN

the family smells like sunscreen
the baby’s in the stroller trying to get out
they look like the perfect family
they smell like one too

It’s spring in Montreal but it smells and feels like summer.

Filed under: Uncategorized, love, random

Reflections: Montreal events and public space

This weekend I attended a few free events of the Blue Met Festival, mainly situated at Hotel 10 in Montreal. This is a beautiful place. Maybe one day, after I return to Vancouver, I’ll take a vacation in Montreal and stay here–modern/chic/marble/nice lighting/pink logo-ed wonderful. I took some notes for the, how else should I put it, noteworthy points.

Playwrights Guild of Canada: 40th Anniversary Retrospection:

• When I asked why the attendees or most plays are either young or old, and less frequently the in between, Rahul Varma commented on how people want to watch people that represent them. I can’t agree more. Have the young people on the stage, have some people of minorities carry bigger parts. (On a related note, this reminds me of the Spoken Poetry Cho Chang Youtube video.) I think if they knew the answer, there’d be more “in betweens” attending their events though. Personally I think people who don’t seek the events don’t ever know about them. I’m constantly on tourism sites and I look at newspaper ads, free and very accessible sources, but whenever I bring up events with my friends they haven’t heard of the event. Like when I saw a giant ferris wheel in the middle of downtown for Montreal en Lumiere. Sometimes students just don’t have the time, I suppose.
• Johanna Nutter said that for the French, it’s engrained in their culture that they attend plays no matter their age. “Live theatre is a responsibility” and they’ve got to protect their culture and support their own. I’m pretty sure these are her words. Anyway, I’ve found that there are more plays and opportunities to see them in Montreal. In my first month in the city, I found free plays to attend (create a new habit attracting people who love free…). In Vancouver, the only plays I heard about were at the local school drama productions or very expensive theatre troupes. Back to Johanna’s point. I do feel like it’s a responsibility, though a very enjoyable one, to go out and support any young Asian female that I see in the public sphere. But for me, instead of supporting this long-standing cultural event, it’s supporting the growth of Asians in portrayed in the public arts or in media. I also enjoy immensely these sorts of events. Stay in and watch TV vs. attend an event that someone’s spent hours/days/months/years toiling over to plan and put on.
• (This is how I feel about voting too. If someone cares so much about a subject that they’ll dedicate their lives to it, it’s worthwhile discovering or paying some attention to.) Apathy is not cute.
• Maybe I’m not their target audience, but I think they’d rather see a full house than an empty seat. I found that for most of the events,
• I actually almost left the venue because I was intimidated by all the older, more sophisticatedly dressed attendees. I went all the way there so I went in. Always, always, always. I have gone to places and been too shy to go into the room. I just need that nudge, you know? Granted, the staff paid me no attention or hello so that kind of got me rethinking it
• Sometimes I wonder if they won’t want me there because I’m not their target audience, because they assume I won’t contribute to their paid events, or if I’m not dressed the part. I found out about the event via 24hrs newspaper (every Friday is best to look through the ads for events) and the library (BANQ is superb for picking up flyers of city events aka taxpayer-funded events!) so I assumed it’d be people of all ages attending. I also saw the book with the full schedule at Indigo.
• It was sunny but I still don’t understand why there was a lack of younger people. Besides my friends that I’d brought the day before, I saw 1 couple today that was in the same 20-something age range. C’est tout! I was surprised. Maybe they were in the other events or caught up in finals…
•  Sometimes I’m at events with a “multicultural” attendance but I have to remind myself to see multicultural in a different way. Like when there’s a large group of Caucasians, they’re of European descent but I forget how they’re probably from different countries within the continent. For me, I can’t tell the difference from their facial features, choice of words, or whatever else creates any differences, and in my mind I tend to categorize them all as the people that make up the “majority” of Canada.
• The host Stephen Orlov said something I really liked. The playwrights didn’t carve their own path. You don’t do that when foundations for your industry don’t exist. You carve your own doorway.

The number 1 thing Montreal beats Vancouver for is their plethora of public spaces and the public’s willingness to congregate everywhere. You’ll see people at the park, the swings that are placed by Place des arts just because, the steps by the metro, the fountains by Place des arts, and the terrasses. Amazing place to grow a family and ensure they value culture, family time, and hellos from strangers.

swings
Music comes from the colourful part on top

so many families
It got busier later

Free salsa lessons at the metro (subway) station

Playing in fountains

Yesterday, there was a lovely poetry session. I’ve never been one to understand poetry so much that I’m inclined to buy a collection of them in a book. But it happened. Julie Bruck was reading her poems from her latest collection and her topics were so relateable, but written in such a unique perspective and read in a such a soothing voice, I was sitting there thinking, “She didn’t even need to be introduced as a winner of all those awards or an author of all those poems published in reputable pieces. Her works speaks for itself.” There was one other one that I really liked. Stephanie Bolster wrote about animals in zoos. Again, it was so nice to hear about commonplace things in such a unique perspective. I didn’t realize poets researched. I don’t know why but I always thought poets just wrote whatever they felt, no fact-checking required (sorry for my ignorance) and when she said that she went to zoos around the world, it made me pause a bit.

Anyway, that concludes my weekend. I was going to post the pictures on Facebook but I realized I never caption them or write down all my thoughts there. The focal point is always the photos and never my thoughts. So that’s all!

Filed under: life, Montreal, blue met, life, literary festival, montreal