Well, so everyone on the Vancouver blogosphere seems to have pulled out the Christmas decorations, so I figured it was time to pull mine. This year I’m starting a bit early because I am not going to be in Vancouver for the whole month of December, so I kinda wanted to show that I had some degree of Christmas spirit in my Vancouver apartment.
Besides, I spend Christmas with my parents and while I decorate my Mom’s house to my liking (and hers, quite obviously), it’s not the same than decorating my own apartment. I haven’t taken pictures of my newly decorated place just yet because I’ve been super busy. Besides, I need to decide whether it’s worth it to put up a few more decorations. I am usually reluctant to clutter my place as it is really tiny. But I guess some stuff in the walls would do the trick.
Suggestions for Christmas decorations that don’t occupy lots of space are most welcome.
November is a month of birthdays. Many of my good friends, my niece, my male best friend from my undergraduate and my late auntie’s birthday are all in November. My best friend in undergrad (LE) has always been very close to me even though we are separated by thousands of miles. He pushed me to try harder, to be better, even if sometimes he was a slacker at school.
Through our friendship, he learned to be sweeter and I learned to be more pragmatical. One of the best ways to remember him is through the song Vogue. I am (as you might have read before) a trained dancer, and I have choreographed many songs before. I put this one together (Vogue) for our undergraduate graduation. LE was the lead (in drag as Madonna), and he did a fabulous job. So I toast to good memories, to his (upcoming) birthday and to our friendship. Gracias amigo 🙂 Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you… Vogue (courtesy of YouTube).
So I am still trying to understand the whole concept of depression, and how stigmatized the idea is. I had been feeling down for the past four or five days, and I seriously thought I was depressed. However, when I read online resources on depression (e.g. Depression.com), I don’t recognize many of the symptoms in my behavioral patterns. I mean, I still socialize as usual, I do some work (maybe not as much as I’d like to, but definitely I do work)… so, really maybe I’m not depressed but just having a bit of S.A.D. and feelings of not being productive.
I tend to feel rather unproductive and blue when the weather is awful (which, in Vancouver, has been pretty much ALL THE TIME). However, when it’s sunny, I have absolutely no problems whatsoever doing work. And this morning, funny how it goes, I simply snapped out of it. I woke up at 7:00am, and started working like usual. Had a few meetings in between (some with former students, some with close friends) and a volleyball game. And I feel pretty good.
The thing is, depression is still stigmatized. The sole mention of the word seems to warrant worry and weariness. But I would argue that when you are depressed, you are at in a prime position to recognize who are your true friends. When my friends heard that I was thinking I was depressed, everyone rallied to give me ‘pick me up’s. I still think that people (myself included) need to be educated about what it means to be depressed. And for those of you who may be afflicted by depression, let me tell you this much: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. There are lots of people out there who suffer from it, and I am pretty sure you can find help if you look for it.
This year has witnessed the publication of an environment-focus full edition of The Vancouver Sun, the bestowing of a Nobel Prize to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and more recently, the publication of a West Ender with the theme: Green. I am sure I am missing on other environmentally-focused publications and events, but just wanted to provide a small sample.
Despite the fact that I do not live in the West End, I religiously read The West Ender because it has lots of interesting articles. Furthermore, I don’t think that there is a Mount-Pleasant-focused newspaper just yet (although admittedly, The Republic of East Vancouver does have some degree of overlap).
Now, the question that lingers in my mind is… are we witnessing a fad or are people really starting to care more for their environment? In a previous post, I indicated that there had been a steady increase in public opinion support for environmental causes and a growing interest in green issues (at some point, environmental issues overtook health as the top concern of Canadians in 2006, if I recall correctly).
So the question is – are we only witnessing a fad or is really environment our top priority? The jury is still out.
In the past few weeks, I’ve been paying more and more attention to small details that just brighten my day. One of the best ways to give myself a “pick me up” is to remember how lucky I am to have the supporting group of friends that I have. A few examples:
L and W took me to brunch at The Nice Cafe. They also brought me flowers for my apartment. On a rainy day, these little details made me feel so much better. It’s also nice to know that my friends can accommodate my quirks (I don’t eat cheese and I enjoy greasy spoon places for brunch).
As we often do, C, B, J, L and I went for dinner at Kishu Mountain. The sushi was excellent, the company was superb and I was witness to a small little detail that just made my evening. L brought B a page of Canada stickers (as she had just recently written her citizenship test). This is a demonstration that she cares.
I have felt the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder (a mild version) since I first moved to Vancouver, but these past couple of years it has affected me much more. J got me a LiteBook(R) to help me cope with this challenge. Isn’t that sweet?
A few days back, when I was feeling somewhat blue, A took me for crepes to La Bretagne Creperie near Robson. She knows very well how much I enjoy crepes and she took the initiative to bring me there. We shared, as we often do, our crepes, and it was such a great time!
B organized a Diwali party recently and she invited me and insisted that I participated. That helped me a lot because it made me socialize again (this weekend I’ve been quite anti-social, despite the fact that I’ve been playing a lot of volleyball). I know she cares deeply for me, and I really appreciate it.
The list could go on for pages and pages, but this is just a small reminder to myself that I’ve been lucky to be a witness to my friends’ lives. By the same token, I am proud to have them be witnesses to my own life. As someone once said, “count your blessings”.
I went to the second day (November 8th) with a close friend of mine (J), with the excuse of his upcoming birthday. I love Rhizome and embrace all of what it is. Therefore, I always jump at the opportunity to participate in events that are hosted at this cafe.
My experience with the play was good, but there are several reasons for that.
I went to the play with one of my closest friends. Hard to beat a chance to spend time with good friends.
I am a specialist in environmental issues. I know the issues at stake and I am well read and well informed.
I am a former stage actor, and I’ve done experiential theatre before.
I am very analytical in my personality. I am used to over-analyzing issues and deconstructing my thoughts.
It is an interesting experiment and I would encourage people to go to the main performance, 2 Degrees of Adaptation. Right now these are explorations through the language of theatre, so they’re not exactly the final product.
People are asked to share a story and then de-construct the inner motivations behind the interactions amongst characters. As I am a trained actor, I knew what the director wanted from me and from every participant. However, hardly anyone in the audience knew what was expected of them, and thus it took a long time to build the rapport and create the atmosphere that the director wanted.
All this being said, I really enjoyed it because it provided a very different perspective on how to examine the thorny issue of climate change and how to change our own behavioral patterns. These explorations as the director called them are the foundation for a larger ensemble piece called “2 Degrees of Adaptation”. I would sincerely support this project and hopefully they will be able to find the funding that will enable them to bring it to fruition.
November is usually a hard month for me, since (as I have mentioned before), I ended my longest and (at the time) most profound romantic relationship ever at the beginning of a November (not this year but a few years back). This relationship was ended on a very sour note, as my ex cheated on me. It was at the end of this relationship that I first got to use the phrase “If I never see you again, it will be too soon” .
It’s always hard to find a way to just put all that behind me. Some days I feel as though I’ll never think back again about the time when we were together, and some other days I feel as though these ghosts come back to haunt me. How can we be assured that these ghosts are gone for good?
Everyone and their mother (or well, their brother) are on Facebook now. And I’ll admit that I’m happy to sit down with friends who have Facebook and browse through their list of friends with them, and see pictures and all that (out of respect, I wouldn’t really use my friends’ account even if they have allowed me to). But sitting with them and looking at pretty pictures is fun.
After volleyball, two of my team-mates and myself proceeded to hop on the 99 B-line as we live fairly close from each other. At first we were just discussing the reasons why we didn’t want to join Facebook … and then two other young men joined the conversation, and it became really animated. Of course, by the end of it, seven people (us three plus 4 complete strangers) were debating on the value of joining Facebook. And maybe that’s one of the benefits of Facebook. I probably could have asked them “hey can I add you as my friend?”
So the thing is, I am considering the possibility of breaking down and joining Facebook. I am just afraid of its addictive nature (see my post on the Crackbook). I think if I can stay clear until January 2008, I’ll be able to avoid caving to the pressure. So… spill the beans… what are YOUR thoughts on Facebook?
I am sure all of you remember my post on intexticating or Texting Under the Influence (TUI). Well, I’m not the only blogger who has Blogged Under the Influence (BUI). Apparently, this situation arises more often than people would like to believe. Other bloggers have done it even if they think it’s a bad idea.
In my case, my good friend LB was kind enough to invite me over for dinner (pasta with mushrooms) and drinks (vanilla martinis). After 3 martinis, I thought “I should make myself scarce“, so I B-Line’d it home (or at least, I thought so). What would be my surprise when I was abruptly woken up at Rupert Skytrain station “Sir, you are at the Rupert terminus… where are you going?“. I was SO embarrassed that I simply took off.
Skytrained it to Commercial Drive, had two slices of pizza (from different locales) and then walked home. I am still embarrassed about it. Please help me get over this embarrassing feeling. Spill the beans about some time when you got horribly drunk.
I wouldn’t call myself by any stretch a computer geek or even an internet geek. As I’ve indicated before, I started blogging because a very close friend of mine did it to keep me up to date with her comings and goings during the time I wasn’t in Vancouver. Through time, I’ve gained a fondness for both blogging and reading other bloggers’ stuff.
I’ve recently read a nasty comment in regards to my restaurant reviews (those comments do not appear because, hehe, I have enabled comment moderation and really, who wants to read a comment from someone who wants to put you down?). I suppose that comes with the territory. I am by no stretch of the imagination a food critic, but I do eat out a lot and enjoy good food. If a reader disagrees with my review (or a restaurant owner anyhow), they have a space to contact me (respectfully, of course. I’m pretty good at dealing with nasty commenters).
And on the idea of being geeky and liking good food, I found that there is such a thing as the Wiki Cookbook. I love cooking Jambalaya, and I found a recipe for it! Oh the wonders of the Internet.
Back in September (holy smokes how time flies!) I contacted Rebecca and asked her about the Vancouver Blogger Meet-up (VBM). I first read John‘s and Rebecca’s blogs about one or two years ago (not sure) when I read a review of the VBM (written by Rebecca) held at The Whip (on Main and 6th). I’d been really looking forward to attending one of these, particularly since the September one was going to be fairly close to where I live (one short bus ride).
However, this month’s VBM is scheduled on November 8th at 7pm at the Chateau Granville Lounge, and sadly, I can’t attend YET AGAIN! I have volleyball games and there is no chance in hell I can teleport myself to my games on time. Those Star Trek geeks really should get on it and do something about teleporting!
This is getting ridiculous, since I correspond with lots of local bloggers via email and commentary and I haven’t met up with any of them in person (with the exception of Carolina whom I danced with recently at Atlantis and Jark from Beyond Robson, with whom I’ve had a chat and a coffee at Lugz).
Any good romantic will tell you that they’d do “anything for love”. The way I understand it, it means “I’ll be there for you because I love you, and I’ll do everything in my power to sustain our relationship”. The song “I’d Do Anything for Love” by Meat Loaf is sappy and perhaps not my favorite, but it tends to be the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the phrase “anything for love”.
My question is – do we really do anything for love? The reason why I have been thinking about love (and perhaps also feeling blue) is that around this time of the year (but a couple of years ago) my heart was broken. And then the phrase “anything for love” became empty and meaningless. So much for all that ‘love’.
Not one to be jaded, I’ve poured myself into strong friendships and relationships, both with my family and with other people. So, the question is – do we really do anything for love? Or are there limits? What are yours?
If you’ve following the news, the state of Tabasco (in Southern Mexico) has been devastated by continuous rain and hundreds of thousands of people are now homeless. Lots of help is needed, although I really don’t know who to send it to (some bank accounts have been set up in Mexico and I think the US, but I haven’t read anything about the possibility that Canada might send some aid). I’ll inquire in the Mexican Consulate in Vancouver. Or maybe somebody in the Latino community is organizing something.
I would just encourage you to consider the possibility of donating if there’s a way. I really feel very helpless for not being able to do anything for the people in Tabasco. The worst part is the looting. I can’t believe someone would take advantage of their peers’ suffering and disgrace. It irks me to see reports of people taking stuff from abandoned stores and houses. Unbelievable. I despise them so much that I think these people should not be worthy of being called humans.
The following video is footage from people who are actually living in the area, just so that you witness the amount of desolation. I hope we can do something to help them.
Recently (and by that I mean the past few weeks if not months) I have spent a lot of time reflecting on the paradoxes of being a hummingbird. I am capable of doing numerous things in a very short period of time. I speed-read, touch-type at an amazing speed, have photographic memory and seem to have mastered the art of multi-tasking.
However, I have also noticed recently that some of my former strengths, for some reason, have abandoned me (or I’ve just shelved them somewhere). You’ll see, I used to be really good at doing “to-do” lists. I had everything organized and tackled my projects one by one. More recently (and I’d say this is maybe in the past few months) I have tended to use the “firefighter” technique, in many ways, just trying to get things done but not with a well laid-out plan.
I realized that in doing this (abandoning strategies that made me successful in the past) was pretty much self-sabotaging. So I’ve decided to go back to my roots, to being my usually-organized, intense, hard-working, strategic self. Not to say I haven’t been working hard, but instead of working harder, I think I could work smarter.
SOME OF THE ROUTINES THAT HAVE MADE ME EFFICIENT (AND THAT I NEEDED TO REMEMBER)
Write down everything in a handbook. An old Chinese proverb reads that the faintest ink was more effective than the best memory. Sure, I do have photographic memory. But I also happen to memorize lots of stuff that probably need reallocation within my brain. So, having a notebook helps you organize your thoughts. It can also serve as a daily planner (I have to do this on Monday, this on Tuesday, this on Wednesday).
Book all your regular appointments on your calendar. I use Google Calendar, but for years I used Outlook Schedule to manage my day-to-day activities. I have volleyball (Saturday and Sunday), church, meetings with friends, everything on my online day planner. And because it’s web-based, I can access it from anywhere.
One paper one time only. I read this strategy somewhere, and I can’t recall where. I try to do this particularly with mail and other personal stuff (like banking, health insurance, etc.) I open an envelope, check its content, and then process immediately. If, for some reason, I can’t process immediately I try to make a note about what I need to do with said piece of mail.
One e-mail, one process. This is something I have needed to work on, again and again. Since I am environmentally-minded, I try not to print e-mails (unless it is absolutely necessary) and instead, write in my handbook whatever I have to do with those e-mails. Other times (when printing out the email) I use both sides, and make notes about the process I need to follow on the actual printout. But I really try hard not to process the same email twice. Once read, I just engage in whatever process needs to be done or make my note and then mark the e-mail as read. This is sometimes a bit of a problem with GMail since it doesn’t hide the e-mails that you’ve read (as our good friend Outlook Express does).
Always keep pen and paper handy. And by handy, I mean carry it with you EVERYWHERE. Even from one room to another. My apartment is tiny (really tiny) and sometimes, in walking from my bedroom to my living room, I get an idea or remember an errand I had to do and forget about it in the back-and-forth between room. That’s not a smart strategy. With the gazillion things I think about every second of my life, I forget some stuff simply because I didn’t write them down in time. So now I carry paper and pen everywhere with me. Jot down even simple short buzzwords. ‘Safeway bread’ may mean “do some grocery shopping at Safeway”. One of my favorite shortcuts is “cc pay” (credit card payment). You can always make extended notes later.
Keep your intensity levels up. This may mean having a cup of tea or coffee right besides you and maintain your focus. I have noticed that if I simply don’t leave my desk until I have my list of things to do sorted out, written down everything I require and then start working on stuff, then I get a lot more accomplished. It’s easy to feel tired, woozy and sleepy, and to cave to the temptation of ‘I’ll just have a short nap‘ and then WOW, you end up sleeping in for two hours or more. What I have used to keep my energy levels up is to continuously drink tea and have a good meal before doing my to-do list. That means that I have enough sugar in my blood stream to work for a long period of time without having to get up and eat some munchies to keep your sugar levels up.
Exercise. This is the hardest part for me at the moment. With the rainy weather, and impossibly cold temperatures outside (remember, I’m not very good in the cold), I can’t run outside. So what I am trying to do (not very successful at the moment) is to go to the gym in the morning.
Create a routine for work. Lately, my routine is as follows:
Sunday night
work on my to-do list for the week, answer e-mails, try to get some work done (easy tasks that I can just cross off my list) so that when I wake up, at least I have finished some small projects.
Monday morning
Print out my weekly and monthly calendars. Try to review if I’ve missed anything on my to-do list and insert where appropriate. The rest of the week proceeds as follows:
During the week:
First thing in the morning:
Open email (all four of them), check if any of those emails are high priority – if they are, answer immediately. If they are not, post-pone (flag or mark as unread).
Read blogs and news. Post comments on blogs.
Off to shower.
Breakfast (big breakfast, I don’t do well with small breakfast – coffee and a muffin? Please! I am a firm believer that breakfast is the most important meal of the day).
Head into the office (or when I am working from home, dive into work).
Check to-do list and proceed with tasks.
Around mid-afternoon:
Check e-mail again to see if something has come up.
If nothing comes up, head for lunch. With my diet, I used to eat six times a day. Right now I can’t do that, so I am working on the following: big breakfast, big lunch, very light dinner.
Early evening
I am really bad right after lunch (in regards to ability to think/write), so if I can, I schedule meetings with colleagues/friends/former students.
When I feel unproductive, I just read or blog.
Dinner is usually around 7. And lately I try to eat light. My commute is long so I try to get a nap on the bus.
Late night
This is actually my best writing and working time, so if I can, I put
in a few hours of work at night, even if that delays my breakfast until say 10 am. I can do lots of work late at night (as I am doing now).
What I generally tend to do on the weekends is play sports and hang out with friends, but I also try to put in a few hours of work. Although sometimes it’s important to just take a night off or a day off. My hope is that in the future, I’ll be able to just do a 9-5 kind of work-life. I am not sure that’ll happen, but I’ll try.
You are probably wondering how can I have the nerve to write a restaurant review after my recent post on the execrablecrime against a TransLink bus driver on Halloween night. However, it is my belief that even when negative things happen, we ought to focus on the good and the positive. And I did find one positive thing about this weekend. I found a place for GREAT Indian food, both for take-out and in-restaurant dining.
Swagat Tandoori Restaurant is located pretty much in beautiful English Bay, around the corner from Denman and Davie. I had been trying to come here as their lunch and dinner buffet special seems totally worth it and inexpensive ($10.95 for all-you-can-eat Indian for dinner – sweet deal!) Anyhow, J and I were walking by and we thought “oh well, since you want to try it, why not buy some take-out”.
Let me tell you, two people ate and I still took food home! The place is neat, the owner is sweet and the food is OMG to-die-for. Very good food, I had the butter chicken with rice and vegetables and I swear I can’t stop eating this food until I am completely full. The portions are generous and I look forward to a continued consumption of food from Swagat Tandoori.
They do delivery within the West End (if I recall correctly) and dinner for two is totally a sweet deal at $ 24+tax.
So I was perusing the Metro Vancouver newspaper (I have been working from home so I hadn’t read the Friday edition) and I found out about this short story: a female bus driver got attacked on Commercial and Napier (by no means the most dangerous area of the city, in my humble opinion) by two people (apparently in costume). These people then proceeded to torch the bus. I have a bit of an extended description from the CTV website.
This event (and similar occurrences) have me extremely upset and enraged. Who do these kids think they are? And are they going to escape justice? What are we doing to ensure the safety in our streets? What the heck is happening in this world-class, “Most Livable City”? Yeah, right… world-class – NOT.
So, I’m going to try and test my theory about collective action and viral internet behavior. I want to ask if somebody saw something on that night. There must be more witnesses, or someone who knows the perpetrators of this attacks. In a way, I am trying to see if by using the Internet and blogging, I can do something to help bring these people to justice. Didn’t anybody take a photograph of these women while the driver was being attacked? I mean, for crying out loud, everyone and their mother have a cell phone with camera now (except me, of course, since I don’t even have a cell phone at the moment!).
A couple of months ago or so, a photograph of someone who took pictures of himself with a stolen camera surfaced on the Internet and soon thereafter, the story took a life of its own, and (I am hoping) helped in a way get closer to solving the theft. I want to see if my blog post inspires other bloggers to ask for help in identifying the attackers of this bus driver, and to see what we can do to ensure that they are punished.
Think about it – according to the story, the female bus driver was trying to offer Halloween candy and in return, she gets attacked?! And to worry you even more, the Vancouver Sun offers a list of all the incidents of that night. If you feel safe around your neighbourhood, I’d recommend that you read this. Stealing iPods on 36th and Wallace? (the Southlands, Dunbar area – posh and allegedly safe). All of a sudden I feel so safe in this city… NOT.
So if you have any information, please contact the Vancouver Police and/or TransLink. I am in no way associated with either, but I can’t tolerate more events like these happening in our supposed-to-be-safe city. Citizens need to do something about this. At least, this is my contribution. I am outraged and I want to help in any way I can.
Very thoughtful discussions by Nomade Moderne, Paul Hillsdon and Rebecca Bollwitt have analyzed Google Transit. As I am running off to volleyball and (in the process) started tinkering with Google Transit, I have noticed one thing: it doesn’t provide ‘best routes’. I think the algorithm needs to be improved, because to get me to Jericho Gym, the bus sent me first to downtown Vancouver and then had me take the 4 UBC going west. I have discovered a much faster way to get there: 99 B-Line to Sasamat and 10th and then walk down.
It’s funny – we’ve created verbs out of things that have become a routine in our lives. For example, I often hear myself and other friends say “oh don’t worry, I’ll just BLine it to your place“. The implication of course is “oh don’t worry, I’ll just take the 99 B-Line to your place”. I also have heard people indicate “I’ll skytrain it to Main Street and will see you there“. This mains of course, that the person will take the Skytrain from wherever he/she is to Main Street/Science world. These expressions, I call Vancouverisms.
I am curious to know if you’ve heard another Vancouverism. There must be other phrases that are typical of our beautiful, rainy city.
This year I feel so much more prepared for the rainy and cold season. Thanks to J, I have a LiteBook in case I’m depressed (seasonal affective disorder). I have several caps, rain jacket, gloves, toques, scarves, and winter jackets. I think this is important for everyone. However, I wonder – what can we do to help those in need during this winter season? Suggestions appreciated.
A few weeks back, I wasn’t “feeling it”. It was almost painful to try and come up with content. Recently, I’ve regained an interest in blogging and I feel free to post whatever comes to my mind instead of trying to come up with something that will be interesting and relevant (though I admit that I very much like some of my own posts).
Do fellow bloggers feel a responsibility to post content? Sometimes I’d rather not write instead of being inane, but then again, I guess it all comes down to what we want our blog to accomplish. In my case, it’s a repository of restaurant/bar/coffee/music reviews, a place to remind me of upcoming events and also an opportunity to share my thoughts with the world and see if some of those words have an impact.
So, I do feel somewhat compelled and responsible of posting interesting content. But I’ll still forgive myself if I am not all that coherent sometimes 🙂
This weekend is crazy. Even though I’ve been feeling under the weather, I’ve already managed to do dinner with C, B, J and another friend of them, JM. It was really nice, B gave me her recipe for a ma po chicken that was amazing. C and B really spoil me rotten, I admit it. And J has started to open up more, so we can actually joke around each other.
Had the chance to do brunch with JH who is an adorable young woman. During our conversations we reflected on how much do people know someone and how much people think they know us. I think I’m pretty transparent, so whomever thinks he/she knows me, chances are he or she does indeed know me. However, I am not sure that’s the case with everyone. We discussed the possibility that some people may think they know you better than they indeed really know you. What do you dear readers think?
On another quick thought, Paul, Keith and Erija have kindly commented that my blog already has a voice. It’s an interesting thought… I am not sure what the voice is, really… but I like the idea 🙂
Third quick thought – an interesting trend I’ve noticed in some seasoned bloggers is a tendency to post three essays in a row. I don’t generally do that, sometimes I do blog a lot sometimes I can’t write for the life of me. But I’m curious to hear what you think about my blog’s voice.
I’ve seen many of my fellow blogger friends write about Google Transit, and they do a better job at discussing it than I do, so I what I’ll do is just do some link love to their blogs: Miss604 at her Metroblog site, Paul Hillsdon, and Nomade Moderne. I did play around with Google Transit and it actually designed a better route than the normal Translink system for my commute to work.
I know for a fact some of you use Safari to read my blog. I recently found out that it doesn’t look as pretty on IE as it does on Firefox. Since I don’t have Safari, I would like to ask how my blog looks… ok, not ok?
In a former life, I used to be a well-trained salsa dancer. Even to the point where I taught the stuff. Four years ago, my heart was broken and I completely quit salsa. I have danced again on and off with a few friends, but never to the level that I used to. Thus my reluctance to go salsa dancing. I don’t enjoy dancing when I know my level is not where I want it to be. The same used to happen with volleyball, although I’ve been playing fairly competitive in the last couple of months.
My good friend S re-ignited the spark by offering me a free ticket to Atlantis Night Club (on Richards and Drake). I didn’t even want to go, but she was so kind and thoughtful that it was almost a sin for me to say no. Thus I went just for a short while. I have learned a few things about myself through this short foray into salsa.
a). I still hate cliques. The salsa ‘scene’ in Vancouver is filled with cliques. I admit that it may have appeared as though I belonged to one when I danced competitively, but truthfully I was never active part of any. Nevertheless, I could recognize many faces (and I am sure they recognized me as well). It was sort of strange. I bumped into people that I knew from before, some of them were friends (very few), some were former dance partners (eek) and a few others were simply members of the cliques I mentioned whom I saw at dance practices. Awkward.
b). I still got *it*. My skills are by and large nowhere where they used to be, and I am not as good a dancer anymore, but I could see flashes of my former self throughout the night. Granted, it was very helpful that I bumped into my friend Carolina. She is a very good dancer, and I really enjoyed the chance to talk to her and share a few tunes. I am sure that if I were to get back into dancing, I would be able to dance competitively again. I don’t have the time right now, nor the energy (nor the money — dancing does require investment!) but I figure that in the future I’ll be able to do it.
c). I am still passionate about dancing and about salsa. I could not tell you how many times I have asked myself whether it is worth it for me to get back into dancing salsa. My professional life is leading me down a completely different road, and thus I am not sure that I can invest the time, money and energy to get up to speed. But the passion is still there.
d). I am very lucky with regards to my friendships. Carolina and I had only talked through our respective blogs, yet the minute we met on the dance floor, we immediately connected. It was like we knew each other for decades. And she’s a really good salsa dancer, so we had a really good time. I hope we can hang out more in the very near future.
Volleyball is my passion. So is dancing. Sometimes, I have sacrificed my passions for the sake of my professional development. However, I really look forward to a future where I can pursue these passions freely. It won’t be long before that 🙂
As a former actor (I say former since I haven’t really done much acting in Canada in the past few years), I am always looking forward to events that showcase local theatrical talent. This is one of those opportunities, and it combines many of my personal interests.
Are you worried about climate change? Do you want to learn more and educate yourself about the challenges Canada and British Columbia are facing? What better way to learn than through non-orthodox methods? Going to see a play seems like a very non-orthodox way to learn about the climate change debate.
2o of Fear and Desire: A Theatrical Inquiry into Climate Change is being put on by Headlines Theatre, hosted by Rhizome Cafe and hopefully will be well attended. It will take place on November 8th, 9th and 10th at 7 pm. Admission is by donation.
From Headlines Theatre’s website we can read a description of the performance:
The play will tell a story in which characters are struggling with the complex issues emerging from climate change. [Headlines Theatre]
I am always amazed by great, innovative and non-orthodox ideas. I will be going to the play and probably will write a review, but you should seriously consider attending. The more I read about the kind of work that Headlines Theatre is doing, the more impressed I am. This is clearly well thought out and intends to have an impact on people’s lives.
One of the things I found more exciting about this project is that they have done a variety of other work, including examining the issue of crystal meth addiction, immigration, racism, bullying, etc. Had I known a few years ago about Headlines Theatre, I probably would have gotten involved myself. Not that it’s too late though!
UPDATE – I just remembered that I have volleyball on Thursday November 8th, so the only day I can attend is November 9th, so with no further ado, if you want to join me, you’ll have to show up on the 9th… 🙂
I love sushi, despite the negative memories I have of some Tokyo-based freelance writer [Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named]. I speak the language (very little at the moment, but it can come back any time), and I have lovely Japanese friends. Therefore, I always jump with joy at the opportunity to try new sushi restaurants.
This is not a post on “where you can find sushi in Vancouver” (I don’t have the time to create this type of blog post, though I’d encourage you to go and check my restaurant reviews – some fairly good sushi places include Kaide, Kishu Mountain, Tanpopo, to name a few). No, this post is actually intended to rave about another witty review post, published a couple of months ago in The Georgia Straight.
