I know I've been away for awhile, but I don't have the energy to 'splain what I've been up to. Maybe tomorrow. Okay, probably not tomorrow either. Stop pressuring me.
Anyway, I just stopped by to fly the flag of equality. Take a gander at this headline ...
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CALIFORNIA'S TOP COURT ISSUES HISTORIC RULING IN SUPPORT OF GAY MARRIAGE!
Thursday May 15, 2008 -- Today, California's top court issued an historic ruling in support of gay marriage. "We are thrilled by this amazing victory that ensures deserving legal equality for ALL Californians." said Rodney Scott, President of Christopher Street West, producer of Los Angeles LGBT PRIDE.
As written by Chief Justice Ron George for the court's majority, "Our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation."
For more on this story: see NYT here
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That's right. Cali's the second state in the Union to officially recognize same-sex marriage. I wonder what affect this news will have on this weekend's Pride parade down in Long Beach. I'm actually going to try and attend this year, thanks to a suggestion from a chica over on LJ. The parade's on Sunday morning, but instead of driving down to LBC and spending a shockingly large amount of gas -- we're up to $3.85 per gallon here in VN -- I'm heading down on the subway. I still haven't planned my entire trip yet, but essentially, I'm gonna hop on the blue line, watch the parade, browse the boulevard, meet up with a buddy for lunch, then ride the rail back to the Valley. :-) I'm really looking forward to it.
Of course, I plan to take photos, but you know me. I probably won't post them until September. :-P
Sooo I know I promised to read 50 books this year, and I AM well on my
way but have been lax on updating. Here are my most recent reads:
#11 Livia by Anthony Barrett -- a wonderful biography about Augustus Caesar's wife, Livia.
#12 Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges -- This book is on the favorite list of many literary-minded friends and I have to admit that I just don't see why it's so brilliant overall. Maybe I'm the one that's not so brilliant, sigh.
#13 The Game by A.S. Byatt -- It was just ok. Nothing of the brilliance that Possession had. Overall I felt like it was rather a let down. But I bought it second hand for about $2 so I suppose it evens out.
#14 Salem Falls -- Jodi Picoult -- Better by far than The Game but still, just OK. I picked it up at the airport in Oakland in a shop that had a terrible selection of books. She has done some work with Grub Street in the past so I tend to want to patronize authors connected with one of my favorite organizations. It's an easy read but the whole teen witchy thing felt cliched.
#15 The Witch of Portobello -- Paulo Cohelo who, according to the book flap, is one of the most beloved writers of our time (he is?). So I haven't read the Alchemist yet, don't sue me. At any rate, this book was also a fast-paced read but I did find that the ending rather fell flat for me as some great "literary" fiction has a tendency to do. Again, maybe I just don't have an overall affinity for the esoteric? What I liked about this book was the style--not a single bit of it was told from the POV of the main character but instead, through a series of interviews of everyone that knew her.
#16 The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay -- I really liked this book partially because it was about books and about a bookstore and because the characters are so strange and peculiar. Despite the oddness of the cast, the book is very accessible and reads quickly. Definitely recommend.
#17 The Collected Poems of Carl Sandburg -- Ahhh just plain wonderfulness. I often read poetry to Joe before we go to sleep at night. When you read poetry aloud to someone who isn't much of a reader, you realize that accessiblilty is of the utmost importance. I was struck by how many of his poems, now 100 years old in many cases are still so very relevant, fluid and modern even today.
I'm also halfway through Aldous Huxley's The Island, partway through Margaret Atwood's The Tent and sigh of sighs, only about 400 pages into War and Peace. I like the Peace portion a lot but the War portions tend to drag on for me. And I can't figure out how late 18th Russia had so many damn princes and princesses...they seem to be everywhere you turn around!
Having a younger sister was lucky for me. Not only was she a willing listener, she believed every word I said - just like I believed every word my teachers said. And just like my teachers I sometimes spoke the biggest load nonsense. It was fun to tell my sister interesting facts with even more interesting embellishments. “The things we see” I once told her “are actually refracted upside down on the retina at the back of the eye, but our brains turn it the right way around for us”. True. “Baboons, also see inverted images, but unlike us their brains are not smart enough to turn the image around. So they see everything upside down”. Not true.
At university I was a tutor for a couple of years in Art History and Visual Communication and it was during this time that I had my 15 minutes of fame. My classes usually went well, word got around and in time there were so many people attending my lessons I felt like the lecturer. I would have given the tutorials for free at the time, just for the sake of it. It was fun.
After I graduated I decided to do some travelling. One of the first jobs that caught my eye was teaching English as a foreign language in far flung places in the world. It paid more than 10 times what I had ever earned before and I figured that it would look better on my resume than bartending in London or working on a kibbutz in Israel (two other options). Little did I know what a quagmire ESL teaching would prove to be or how hard it would be to extricate myself from it… The only way to make it count as CV-worthy experience ultimately was to go into proper teaching, which is precisely what I did.
Now I find myself teaching Art and Design at a lovely school in the Eastern Cape. All in all it is a fine job but it is not quite as enjoyable as I had expected it to be. The kids are neither as talented nor as interested in art as I had imagined them to be, which is draining. I have less time to make my own art than I thought I would have. Teachers in general and Art teachers specifically are not accorded much respect in South Africa and everyone knows that we earn an appallingly low wage. So the question posed to me today is certainly warranted: why teach?
I tried to answer the question honestly. I am teacher because it is a job that allows me to be my own boss, to set my own rules and be in control of my work environment. Art is important to me, which makes sharing my knowledge and skills in it feel important too. Teaching is one of the few jobs that comes with three months of paid vacation, it is a job that keeps me fit because I am always on my feet, and perhaps most significantly, I am rather good at being a teacher, which is gratifying.
My students nodded their understanding but after the class I caught the tail end of one of them saying how unimaginable it would be to finally be done with schooling only top return as a teacher. What a waste of freedom that seems to them.
I wonder if they are right.
Last year I considered working as a sales representative in Taiwan at the same company my wife works at but I rejected a job offer there because it seemed far too boring. Teaching art on the other hand has not been all that exciting either. What made it seem worthwhile was the belief that my students find my classes enjoyable and worthwhile – that I am making a positive impact on their lives. Today I realised that even my best classes are not enough to keep my students wishing they could be somewhere else, and that has affected me rather adversely. It really made teaching seem thankless on every level.
I suddenly find myself willing to reconsider a new line of work, amongst people my own age in the ‘outside world’ dealing with just about the only thing that matters to everyone – money.
I have settled into taking care of my lil' milk monster. I even have some free time to nap today!
If anyone ask me how is motherhood, I would tell the person, it's not easy as it looks. I don't think I had felt the maternal instinct right away after I had given birth. It may be due to the pain and exhaustion. I remembered first seeing Alex's photos taken by hubb, thinking "Is this really my son? He looks weird! Oh he has my flat nose!" When I first laid my eyes on him, I thought, "Wow, he's so tiny". He's not so tiny now and I kinda miss he being so small (easier to handle mah).
The one moment when I clearly felt the bond between both of us was a few days after the confinement period. I was holding him, and this sudden gush of love came from within and I almost teared looking at him. Quite an awwww moment really. Of coz Alex wouldn't care less for my gush of love, he would rather have gush of milk... heh.
Now I can't stop kissing the little fella. He doesn't seem to mind, coz he hasn't smack me with his mitten cladded hands. I wish he would smile more at me, coz he's such a serious baby.
Anyway the purpose of this post is to really showcase the current backdrop on my desktop. I think he looks hilarious and so darn cute. *biased mummy* :D Check out the new photos here at FB.
1) Gas prices. I am so so glad that this doesn't directly affect me. Every news program seems to have at least one story about how high prices have become (and they are much higher in Canada than the US, now and always), but since we walk or take metro everywhere, gas prices just don't figure into my daily life. Yeah, yeah, I know they're reflected in the cost of things generally, but yesterday I started thinking that the fact that I don't have a car, that I don't need to worry about auto insurance, gas prices, maintenance, parking means that I can spend that money traveling. Or on something I'd rather have.
I totally get the fact that in much of rural North America having a car is a must: I grew up in an area where every single person needed their own car: both parents and all teenagers in our house (at one point, we had five cars parked outside our house). But in a city, come on! Cars are ugly. Parking lots are really ugly (and actually decrease property values since no one wants to live next door to one). Cars kill people (some guy died the other day four blocks away, hit on his bike while riding down Mont-Royal). Why do people love them so much? Maybe it's just something I've never really understood: the love of the car, since while I do enjoy a road trip now and again, I never miss that day to day driving (to work, to the store).
2) House hunting. We found the coolest place a few blocks away. Price is OK. Amazing old building with wrought iron & wood staircase, on the second floor, two bedrooms and two balconies (one in front, one in back). Typical Montreal walk-up: long, skinny apartment with a front room, living room in the middle, bedrooms on either side, and kitchen in the back. It's cute, though. Best thing is location: literally two blocks from the metro station but on a quiet intersection lined with towering maple trees: a block from Avenue Mont-Royal, two blocks from Laurier and two big parks. But. But but but. It makes me nervous. We could afford it, but it'd mean seriously tightening for 6 months or a year. Maybe longer. It'd mean scraping the bottom of the barrel (and slightly scrambling) for the downpayment. I know it'd be worth it and there is no way from an investment point of view that this place wouldn't pay off. But. Why did I wake up and 3am this morning, my heart racing, thinking of all that debt hanging over me (just the IDEA of all that debt, to be precise)? Why did I put my tshirt and shoes and walk over there at 5.30, standing on the corner just looking at the place? Mmmmm. Not sure if we're ready for this...one more year would be ideal. But...does it really work that way? Don't people just "grab" a place when they see one they really really like, even if the timing's not 100% perfect?
It has been almost a year since the closure was announced. People have forgotten about the matter. Well, I know coz of the few times I mentioned what I do before I became a stay-at-home-mother, people stared blankly at me... Heh. I know some of my ex-colleagues still haven't quite let go of the unjust feelings. It takes time to heal, but what matter is we have all move on in life in our own way. I know for sure that I can close this chapter of my life and continue my walk stronger than ever.
Sushi does wonders to improve a foul temper. And I even got a lesson in the difference between roes.
And the second time I've been carded in CO.
I was really this very seasonal and cutesy article about ice cream trucks and how they are already out in full force and in heated competition for all the fat diabetic kids out there--and it's only spring! But then I read this part:
There have been harsh words, hurt feelings and even bloodshed between competitors. In 2004, a couple in their 60s who owned and operated two ice cream trucks were ambushed in the Bronx and beaten with an oversized wrench. The motive, the police said, was the couple’s ice cream route. A rival ice cream salesman was charged with assault and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
While disputes between drivers of ice cream trucks rarely become that violent, they can be cutthroat.
Um, WTF? An old couple who sold ice cream to kids were each bludgeoned with a wrench over ice cream truck territory issues?? I mean, I hope this is one of those things that is restricted to New York City where space is limited so that it leads to gang wars and fighting, but man. Makes me think twice about running after the ice cream truck. I'm not sure if I want to be served ice cream by a psychopath.
