a pseudo-birthday picnic

exactly one week ago i turned 27 years young…

it’s crazy how fast time flies in retrospect – time is a fascinating concept – but i’ll leave that essay for another time

i am sure that i have oversold my fear of aging in birthdays past, but this year, my perceptions have somehow shifted with the changing tides in my life

@ 27 years young perhaps i have finally reached a level of maturity in thinking that has evaded my being and kept me “innocent” for better or worse through the 26 years prior

it is an enlightening feeling – now if only i can reach the same level of maturity in doing, my life will be complete, ha!

along with my newfound maturity has been a desire to keep things low-key and mellow – while i still hummed and huhhed about whether i should throw that “let’s go to a dive bar, listen to jukebox tunes, and down a couple shots of tequila” – the inner voice advised me against that notion and i cancelled that Facebook invite before it was too late – for that, i must thank the fate-keepers

instead, i awoke Friday morning to a weather forecast that was quite contrary to that originally predicted (24 degrees and sunny as opposed to thunderstorms) and decided on the spur of the moment that a pseudo birthday picnic was what my heart truly desired

a short message to those nearest and dearest to me later, i was formulating menu plans for an evening picnic dinner @ Dufferin Grove Park

of course, my original lofty picnic goals were brought down to common ground by a lack of time – but, i couldn’t have asked for a better outcome

we had a wonderful time, yummy food, and for myself – i now have a wonderful 27th birthday memoir

what it means to be shameless

too much debauchery too little sleep pretty much sums up my weekend

also too many erratic hours spent at the lab – think between 3 – 5 am in the mornings – but i did catch toronto’s first snow fall of the season because of this AND it means that i don’t get to miss out on life

because i am jam packing my life these days, i have become much more adept at speed working – like throwing together a lab meeting in 3 hours – sure i might have had a bit of panic attack prior and regretted spending the previous evening listening to some band at Tranzac but hey the important point is that i pulled through

because if nothing else, i am responsible, for realz

what else – i shamelessly decided to pretend to be an artist this weekend and put my work on “display” at a very small scale, very amateur exhibit. see propaganda below.

as expected, everyone else’s stuff was way more artsy, but hey, it made me happy and at the end of the day that’s all that matters!

intervention, innovasion, inspiration

Tonight marked the official launch and screening of the ground-breaking documentary Filmmaker-in-Residence, and yours truly was lucky enough to be in attendance.

For those of you who have yet to hear of this amazing project, I highly recommend that you check out their website: http://filmmakerinresidence.nfb.ca/

Funded by the National Film Board of Canada in association with St. Michael’s Hospital, this collection of 7 interventionist collaborative media projects has truly opened my eyes to the power of creativity in fueling social action. Touching on a broad range of health-care subjects, such as AIDS in Malawi, the health of the homeless, suicide prevention, and mental illnesses, each segment of the film is built around a community based program focused on challenging perceptions and driving change.

What makes this documentary stand out from the rest is the fact that it truly empowered change, not just after the fact through its impact on those who watched the film, but during the actual process itself. By allowing all those involved with the project to provide feedback, the transformation of the lives of individuals was in conjunction with the development of the film.

I am in deep admiration of all the individuals who dared to share their stories so courageously through the lens of a camera, allowing their identities to be put in the spotlight, so that they could give a face and a voice to the problems that the general public usually look at through their middle-class perspective. If only the media could always be so positive.

One thing that really rung out loud to me was the reminder that no matter what profession we undertake, we all have a responsibility to the communities which we serve and in which we live. And while I had unconsciously fallen into an almost yuppie like existence of contentedness and social apathy, I find myself on a path towards rejuvenating the aspirations of my youth. And examples such as this are truly inspirational.

lee’s you have quite the palace

how to go about conducting an impulsive avtivity…

1) Browse Eye Weekly’s T.O. Do List

2) Find yourself compelled to go listen to a band that you have never heard of before – The Wooden Sky – because you discover you are a sucker for country-like crooning and sweaty banjo/guitar strumming

3) Despite fears of a sold-out show, prod yourself with reassurances of “what’s one more little girl?”, and bike over to Lee’s Palace

4) Infiltrate the premises – yes!

5) Annoy everyone with your giant backpack stuffed with bike helmet and lunch box – remember this is impulsive so of course you did not have a chance to go home and drop off your stuff

6) Retreat to the side benches where, in the darkness, you are quite sure that your giant backpack doubles as your concert buddy

7) Get mistaken as a music journalist because you are simply a nerd who likes to take notes about the bands – while a let-down for all parties involved, it makes for random chit chat with strangers

8) Find yourself engaged in conversation with the only elderly couple in the venue – not surprising since you have long become used to elderly people gravitating towards you like moths to a streetlamp because a) you are actually a 50 year old trapped in the body of a 25 year old or b) you must epitomize homeliness

9) Surprise bonus – they are the parents of one of The Wooden Sky boys! – they are delightful and clearly very proud of their son

10) Have a wondrous evening at one of the best shows you’ve been to in a while !

From my notes:

Brian Borchert: sleepy eyed, mellow heartache w/ a dash of willowy rockstar

Hooded Fang: (I’m in love – by far my favorite band of the night) eclectic mix of cool-looking individuals with a mish-mash of instruments spewing upbeat indie pop, goes down like a shot of whisky – smooth and toasty

The Wooden Sky: vibrant alternative country crooners, capable of both fun and silly and soulful and true, energy levels reminescent of an entire tribe of natives at a pow-wow, did an amazing four song encore!

…maybe one day when I become a better cello player I will actually work up the nerve to ask if I can be a part of Hooded Fang. With that said, I am going to go and practice on my instrument right now!

Tiananmen: 20 Years Later

Reflections on China’s changing civil society, global relationships and worldview

At the expense of the progress of my thesis, but to the benefit of my worldview, one of my favorite activities of late has been to attend panel discussions, seminars and lectures on a variety of subjects outside my expertise but that are of interest to me.

Close to my heart and yet still a complete mystery to me, the events that occurred on June 4^th, 1989 is a topic that my parents have always avoided talking to me about. We were not in China at the time, as both my parents were then enrolled as graduate students at the University of Connecticut. I have vague recollections of being a small child amidst a mass of adults marching in protest down the streets, with a bandana tied around my head – but the story for me, ends there. And for most of the rest of the world, asides from the highly recognizable image of the man in front of the tanks, the Tiananmen incidence has largely been forgotten. Of course, this is exactly what the Chinese Communist Party wanted.

But what have we lost when we forget the lessons from our past?

My general sense is that the modern day Chinese suffer from “disillusionment” but whether this is because they are suppressed or whether this is a personal choice that they have made is unclear to me.

Importantly, if we merely forge on through the aftermath of an event and do not try to learn something from it,is it not akin to avoidance of important problems, and does it not mean that these problems will just recur at some point in time?

And yet, people have just moved on – and surprisingly, most chinese have come out of the event with an even greater nationalism then previously held. Growing up as a third culture kid, my personal culture doesn’t quite fit in with any of the places that I have spent time in. I deeply value my ancestry and historical roots but I definitely do not consider myself in sync with the modern Chinese youth. Yet, when one of the speakers mentioned that the new kind of nationalism emerging in China is based on confidence (due to economic success) and victimization (due to the belief that the rest of the world is against them), I immediately grasped what he was saying. Why? Because these two qualities were definitely the exact ones emphasized in the lessons that my parents have tried to teach me over the years – except in this case confidence (due to personal success) and victimization (due to the belief that you cannot rely on anyone but yourself). And although I have fought against these ideas to some extent, these lessons have caused me to become strongly individualistic. Funny isn’t it, because nationalism is at its core the melding together of people within a nation,but their separation from the rest of the world. Neither of which is ideal.

I guess China and me both have something to work on.