perceptions

After winning the Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series at the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) awards, Chandra Wilson ended her speech with,

And last but not least, just to be able to take this thing home to my girls, in particular, and hold it in front of them and say, “Look, with this skin and this nose, and this height, and these arms,” you know, “I’m here!”

I have always believed that you are as good as you perceive yourself, now there are people who can say it out loud for everyone else to hear! I know it can change many lives, so all the power to them, tell the world you don't care if others think you are fat or ugly just do what you have to do ...

documentary

In the past there have been many documentaries trying to reflect life in Iran. I think due to its complicated structure the assignment has been difficult for many. This is a rather new report which I think to some extent reflects at least the life of the lower to middle class and highlights some important issues.

superpower

If you could choose to have a superpower what would it be? Would you want to fly or would you be very strong or would something else be more attractive? It seemed a simple question when I asked myself that, but I can't seem to decide ...

Iraq

Bush is pushing more troops into Iraq while Denmark and even Britain are pulling their troops out! See, now it's such a big mess that they can't even decide what to do. It's no longer a matter of steering in a direction, but more like pulling a wild card! I feel so bad for the people who were caught in the middle of all this ...

familiar

I have worked with my supervisor for about 5 years now. Today he came in with no beard! It was a surprise to us all; it just didn't feel I was talking to the person I had known for all these years! And when everything went wrong with webcasting today's seminar, I had no choice other than to blame him shaving his beard!

drum

If one thing I share with my grandfather the love for cultures; so I am buying him an African drum as a souvenir ... I still have to figure out exactly where the drum comes from but it sure sounds great ...

my love story

I was engaged a very long time ago; a time when I really wouldn't have understood the decision I was making. It was the first thing that me and my mom couldn't agree on. It seemed to me that I would be missing out on such a great chance for happiness and I just couldn't figure why mom wasn't on board. She said, then, what I would say to someone in that position now, wait honey, there is no rush!

Anyway, as with any other story life went on after him. I almost slipped on the same stone once after that, but this time me was there to save me ... through all of this I have been looking to find a definition of love, something that can help me understand the whys...

I guess to know what love is to you, you need to know yourself pretty well and then you need a certain level of maturity to figure what makes your heart feel happy. If you find answers, you can hopefully find a person with whom you can share your weaknesses, someone who you run to when you feel down and pathetic. Someone who will make you feel good again, strong enough to face the whole wide world ... yes, that is love means to me these days ... maybe in a while I'll come back and change my definition ...

commencement

So how do you know what is the right path to choose to get the result that you desire? And the honest answer is this. You won’t. And accepting that greatly eases the anxiety of your life experience.

I was not exceptional here, and am not now. I was mediocre here. And I’m not saying aim low. Not everybody can wander around in an alcoholic haze and then at 40 just, you know, decide to be president. You’ve got to really work hard to try to…I was actually referring to my father.

When I left William and Mary I was shell-shocked. Because when you’re in college it’s very clear what you have to do to succeed. And I imagine here everybody knows exactly the number of credits they needed to graduate, where they had to buckle down, which introductory psychology class would pad out the schedule. You knew what you had to do to get to this college and to graduate from it. But the unfortunate, yet truly exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective. The paths are infinite and the results uncertain. And it can be maddening to those that go here, especially here, because your strength has always been achievement. So if there’s any real advice I can give you it’s this.

College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don’t worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency which I imagine, after going through the program here, is quite strong…although I’m sure downloading illegal files…but, nah, that’s a different story.

- Jon Stewart, 2004 (full speach)

political acts

I though that Steven Harper was sneaky, but I never thought he would act as he sneaky as he has. Think of how he reacted in regards with the Kyoto protocol, Afghanistan, the World Aids Conference ... and most important of all, the scandal that kicked the Liberals out of power! Although he hasn't been directly related to the scandal, neither has any other Tory, the Conservatives are the only people who benefited from this. This Steve guy still worries me!

bad in-style

If the 70's and 80's were the days for "bad boys" the last few years have been time for the "bad girls". Have you noticed how Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Britney Spears and the like are constantly in the news? And these are the role models for youth ... will there ever be a time when "good" is in style?

withdrawn

One of my friends brought up a really good point at a meeting,

• Remember how we got more than a 1000 people out to our meeting and it got no media coverage?
• Yeah.
• The recent CFS-organized so called demonstration to reduce tuition didn't even get half as many students and it was all over the headlines for 2 days.
  

I later thought to myself that this CFS-run tuition reduction campaign has been going on for at least a couple of years that I know of, and like all the other CFS projects is just an excuse to spend money. They haven't done a thing in so many years.

And then I thought of how the very smaller group of lobbyists which started out at UBC and never made a claim of the sort the stupid CFS makes has so far got a lot more than them done, at least for graduate students ... after going through all of this and remembering the struggles we had with the media and all back home, it just came to me, it's the same, everywhere. The media are looking for something that looks catchy, makes a good headline, it doesn't really matter if it's hollow, it just needs to bring attention to them!

Last night I was flipping the local newspaper and again the same thing. The rather old story that SFU will be changing its logo was in the paper, the same paper that never even mentioned a word on the months of work that went into impeaching the SFSS directors, our issues with the bank that holds our money or even the ruling of the courts. I am sure that the SGM and the ongoing campaign for graduate autonomy will affect SFU students far more than the crosses on the logo!

As a result of all of this I've been watching and reading a lot less of the news lately, I don't care any more. I guess this will go on for a while and then I'll forget about it and fall into the fake world the media has created around me again ...

heaven

This a child's description of heaven, it's simple and beautiful as you'd expect:

... heaven is what you die knowing you love; it's just that love all around you ...

I guess we've all wondered what heaven is and then at a point thought, I can't imagine any further ...

bulletproof

This is a really sad song but I don't know why it makes me feel so calm.

Tell me one more time again just like I didn't hear you
Like I don't know what's going through your mind, I do
I play the same game too
I know it's hard to stop
Even when you want to

Now the moon lights up your face and I can see you're crying
You never liked me to see you cry, it's true
I've done some crying too
You know, the hardest part about it
Is trying to hide it from you

Well it would be great to be so strong
I never needed anybody else to get along
But we're so scared of the silence and the tricks that we use
O, we're careful and we're cunning, but we're easily bruised
I don't want to lie about it, I'm not bulletproof

Well I finally found the way to hide from all your glances
Til the waiting game we play is through
I can, but what's the use
When all I really want to do is hide out with you?

- Blue Rodeo (Bulletproof)

i get away everytime!

The tendency of a group of experts to reinforce one another's conviction that they are doing everything right, the tendency to let pressure to confirm conform suppress self-criticism within the group - this is what Iring Janis identified as the great danger of "groupthink" in terms of political decision makers such as Kennedy's advisers before the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion ...

They did, of course, ignore the safety rules. But in doing so they did not neglect anything or do anything accidentally. Rather they were of the opinion that the safety rules were designed much too narrowly for an experienced team. This conviction is not limited exclusively to the operators of atomic reactors. Any factory worker who cuts corners, every automobile driver who spurns a seat belt suffers from the same flattering delusion.


- The Logic of Failure

reliable

I babysat for a friend on the weekend; and although I was paying extreme attention to what I was doing and I was almost sure that even the parents wouldn't be as careful as I was I kept thinking, no way I would leave my baby with someone who isn't family. More than ever I wondered how some people leave their children with strangers ... and then I thought, will my sensitivities change as I age and will bringing up a kid become more and more difficult?

injustice

I went up to the bus driver and said: If it ever happens in your life that someone kicks you when you're down, remember today and what you did to that old lady.

You're probably wondering what he did. First of all he closed the door in her face. She pushed her hand through so it got stuck in the door. Instead of opening the door immediately he waited to see if she would pull her hand out and change her mind about getting on the bus. Since she didn't pull her hand out he had to open the door; she got in and he started grumping about the can-filled garbage bags she had.

At the stop where she wanted to get off, he told her that she should go through the back door. Obviously it was impossible for her to get through with all the things she was carrying. She struggled. A young girl got up to help but she couldn't do anything either. A middle aged lady got up, picked up the old woman's cart and went to the front. She looked the driver in the eye and very affirmatively said: Open the door! He opened the door without saying a word.

The lady uploaded the cart and the big garbage bag and then helped the old lady down the steps. As she sat back down on her seat she said: She was just an old woman for God's sake!

In response to my comment the driver started to explain that it was garbage and he didn't want it on his bus and even if it were me carrying the garbage he wouldn't have let me in. I shook my head at him and got off the bus. I know he knows that he would have given me the same smile and greeting even if I were carrying a big black garbage bag. He probably would have got off and helped me with the bags ...

so they say

God only made so many perfect heads; the rest He had to cover with hair.