All posts by jtoh

Celebrations, Working life

My 3-month anniversary at my new job at GrantBook

Last week was my three-month anniversary with my new company, GrantBook. This is significant since 6 months ago I wasn’t even sure if I’d be returning to the workforce. I was in a limbo land, trying to decide between life as a stay-at-home mom (aka SAHM) and that as a working mom.

For a while in the fall of 2014 I entertained the plan of going into the field of mediation. An information session I attended quickly gave me a dose of reality that it would likely take me 5 years and more schooling for it to become a viable career. Without a background in law, counselling or social services, I would be facing a credibility gap once I finished the mandated mediation training and internship hours. Unless you are able to secure a position with a mediation firm, mediators are essentially self-employed entrepreneurs. I recognize that having a credibility gap would make it difficult to recruit business.

And so that plan faded away.

Continue reading My 3-month anniversary at my new job at GrantBook →

Camping, Camping 2015

Food planning – 2015

I think the big lesson learned from last year was I had overestimated the amount of everything I planned for food. Considering how close the Sibbald Point Provincial Park is to a town with a grocery store, there is really no need to bring more food in case we are hungry and need more food.

Here are the menu items that we found really worked with our families last year:

~Jen

Camping, Camping 2015

Camping 2015!

Yes folks, it’s t-minus 4 weeks to our big camping trip for 2015! We are getting excited here in the Toh household. I hope you are too.

Last couple of years I heard some feedback that the planning emails were too long/too many to wade through, so I’m giving this communication format a try. There’ll be a post each about:

  • food planning
  • logistics
  • activities
  • FAQs, and
  • who knows what else.

I’ll update the post as we get more information or in response to questions. You can also leave comments/questions to the relevant post so we don’t have a crazy email thread to weed through.

One big change for this year from last year is that I’m not volunteering to organize food for everyone again. There were a lot of downsides:

  • the amount of work involved to plan and estimate and compile the shopping list is too much for me to handle this year now that I’m working again
  • because our campsite was the main hub, our families were always stuck with doing the final cleanup and packing of leftovers in our cars at night, every night
  • We also felt constantly tethered to our site and needing to have meals ready for certain times because we felt a kind of pressure to ensure food was ready for hungry kids. Also every family ends up having a slightly different schedule so it’s hard to make one food schedule work for everyone.
  • the novelty of having the dutch oven and cooking over the campfire wore off when we realized Tai was the only one comfortable with cooking this way and I had planned too many menu items with this cooking method. He was constantly having to be at the campfire to tend to the charcoal.

In response to that, this year we will host one big group dinner, and then the remaining meals we can have two options: 1) leave each family camp site(s) to arrange their own meals; or 2)have the meal host location and preparation rotate around to others’ campsites- sign up for hosting one meal with one or two other families. Since many of you are arriving on Friday, our twin sites 221 and 224 will host Friday dinner so you won’t have to worry about it this first night. (this is a change from my initial claim of hosting Sat dinner) I’ve assumed breakfasts are all DIY.

Nervous about food planning? Don’t be, I’ll share our camping menu and if you don’t have the camp cooking equipment you can either rent it, or come cook at our site.

So first step: go fill in your meal logistics preference here. (note: you will have to log into the Google Sheet with your email so you can edit the sheet).

~Jen

edited July 7 – clarified group meal rotation

 

Celebrations

Happy 148th Birthday, Canada!

Happy Canada Day, everyone. I do really love this holiday to be unabashedly patriotic, to reflect on the great country it is, and to envision the greater one it could be in the future.

It is by no means a perfect country: the issues facing many of our aboriginal brothers and sisters are chronic, neglected and ignored; the wealth disparity is growing, putting more of our population in dire circumstances; our inaction on environmental issues is frustrating; many public attitudes and government policies are increasingly fear-based; the list can go on for quite a bit further. But let’s leave that to another day to discuss.

I celebrate that our institutions and most of the population recognize that love is love. Even those that don’t personally agree or condone at least refrain from making it a divisive political issue.

I celebrate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and acknowledge important role the courts play in establishing what the Charter means in a practical sense. It is a long, evolving, strenuous process . I’m also thankful for our strong civil service institutions that is the backbone that enables the government to run. It’s boring, and I take it for granted, until I see what happens in other countries where this is not the case.

I celebrate that we’ve decided as a nation that healthcare should be universally available regardless of ability to pay. The model does mean certain individuals need to sacrifice some convenience or exhaustiveness in care, but I’m glad that the majority of us agree that triaging care based on need, and not pay, is the right thing to do.

I love watching a good hockey game. The speed of action and flow of play is so exciting.

I admit feeling a burst of pride every time I find out about a contribution of note that was done by a Canadian.

I love many of the stereotypically Canadian foods: poutine, Caesar drinks, Tim Hortons coffee for long drives, Coffee Crisps, Swiss Chalet, butter tarts, Montreal bagels. I also love that here in multicultural Greater Toronto Area, I have access to authentic foods from all over the world.

Most of all, today I want to celebrate that it doesn’t matter if you’re born a boy or a girl, you have the same opportunities to pursue an education, any career in any field, to have the sole agency to make decisions about your body, to vote and hold property…in general, to have the freedom to make choices. I look at the bright eyes of my two daughters and I’m just so thankful that in this country, they have the privilege, opportunity and resources to pursue whatever ambitions they have.

Happy Canada Day.

Jeneral findings

Jeneral finds of the week: 2015-06-29

Obama and Amazing Grace, what’s keeping America (and in a growing way Canada) so bitterly divided on so many fronts, the US Supreme Court ruling that love is love, and figure skating as an X Game event? These are my Jeneral Finds of the week (or rather, month): 2015-06-29

  • Please, make the time and effort to watch the entirety of President Obama’s eulogy of Rev. Clementa Pinckney, one of the 9 fatal victims of the massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina 8 days earlier on June 17, 2015. It is tempting to skip straight to the end when Obama sings a portion of “Amazing Grace”. But have patience, it is even more moving and significant when you have the full weight of Obama’s speech leading up to it. He not only celebrates and honours the lives lost, he urges a rallying cry to continue the work to fight against the prejudices and racism both overt and subtle. There’s a brilliant cadence in his delivery, and marks him as one of this generation’s noted orators.  [su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDXMoO9ABFE” width=”480″ height=”300″] (here’s a great discussion on why Obama’s use of grace as a central theme is so powerful)
  • Two opinion pieces that emerged after this tragedy serves up thought-provoking ideas on the root causes for such continued and visceral divisions in contemporary American society. Anti-intellectualism is Killing America from David Niose argues that “[s]ocial dysfunction can be traced to the abandonment of reason”. A direct response from Ravi Chandra posits that No, Self-Centeredness is Killing America: A lack of empathy is at the root of our ills. I think the truth lies in the combination of the two.
  • Congratulations USA on your Supreme Court ruling that the US Constitution to guarantee same-sex marriages as a right! The timing could not have been any more perfect, to coincide with Gay Pride celebrations all over, including here in Toronto. We’re glad you’ve seen the light!
  • On a lighter note, I just heard today about a new figure skating competition form that is exclusively based on the jumps, and will take on more of an X-Games vibe. Meet “Freezer Aerials“! (that’s a terrible name though, it should find a new moniker). The purist in me scoffs at the idea, but I realize skating needs to evolve for the sport to survive and attract an audience outside of the ardent fan. I just hope they don’t get to the point where skaters have their own theme songs they enter the arena in.

~Jen

<–previous find of the week

Rants and reflections

Psst, happy belated father’s day!

Psst, hey Dad–I know Father’s day for this year has already passed, but I wanted to say a few things in tribute anyway.

Thanks for being giving of your love, thoughtful guidance, and just your continued presence in my life. I’ve always felt loved and cherished. And trusted. There’s a vague conversation I recall that we had in my early teens where you conveyed you had a base level of trust in me due to how you and mom raised me in the 13 years prior. It was now up to my actions  whether I continue to build on that trust and enjoy the privileges that holds, or not. Of course wanting to be a good, responsible daughter, I was happy to oblige along the path of good, responsible behaviour, and get access to the car when I got my license at age 16. 🙂

My earliest memories of you ask have to do with you playing joyfully with us. Unlike a lot of men of your generation, I think you really enjoyed interacting with me and my brother as children, something I see echoing now when you are with my daughters, your grandchildren. From the day they were born you had such an ease with them, even as tiny infants. With your playfulness, they always greet your arrival with glee. However, you are just as firm in your disciplinary principles with them as you were with me. If they are behaving badly, you let them know what is expected of them and follow up with discipline if they still persist. I appreciate that consistency, as opposed to totally spoiling the grandchildren as many grandparents are aught to do.

I know you are not a man entirely comfortable with talk and banter; you hate being on the phone, and no one will ever accuse you of talking their ear off. But you do occasionally serve me some well-thought out words. I have a vivid memory of the advice/parting words you had for me when you dropped me off at university, a province away from home.

One day you will look back on this time and realize it’s the best time of your life. You may not have much money. No car. No good food. You will be far from your family, home and all your current friends. Your school work is going to be harder than you’ve ever had to work for and you might be stressed about that and exams. But it will be one of the best times of your life, so enjoy it while it is happening. ~my dad, on the pathway leading to the earth sciences building at the University of Waterloo, September 1996

How right you were, dad.

Without really realizing it or intending to, I now realize that T has many of the same qualities that you have. You set the bar of how a man, husband and father should act. Through your actions, support of my ventures and attitudes towards my achievements, I believe you to be a quiet feminist. (you do joke that you were trained so by your sisters) T meets that standard head on, and I thank my lucky stars every night when I retire to bed that I have his hand to hold onto. (Psst, T,  I’ll write your Father’s Day tribute next year. *smirk*)

And even though I may laugh now at how you and mom have turned into hippies now in your retirement, instead of with the times in your youth, I always deeply respect you.

Thanks Dad for being a wonderful Dad. I love you very much.

~Jen

Jeneral findings

Jeneral finds of the week: 2015-05-31

This week’s finds: the grace of mastering code debugging, mental health, and a commencement speech that is staying with me. 2015-05-31

  • If you’re not a developer and don’t know what debugging other people’s code is like, this particular post “An Arrival” describes the process with particular poetic elegance, using the analogy of going on an archeological dig quite effectively.  The writer is someone who is a newer code developer, and building on her skills and experience.
  • The Globe is doing an excellent in-depth series on mental health, “Open Minds”. I have members of my family with mental illness and so it’s always encouraging to see more public discussion taking place about this. This personal account from one of the Globe’s business reporters really affected me, as he is a similar age as me with a young family:  “Niall McGee didn’t believe in depression—until cancer medication put him in a suicidal spiral“
  • It’s graduation time across the land, and celebrity commencement speeches are in the news. This lead me to read for the first time the 2005 commencement speech by David Foster Wallace. A powerful read that is still making me muse. “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.” —This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life. 

~Jen

Dance

National Ballet of Canada Review: Ratmansky and Côté

Performance: May 30 matinee

Being & Nothingness world premiere

Choreographed by Guillaume Côté, started off as a solo commissioned by Greta Hodgkinson a couple of years ago, before being expanded for this season into a larger work. The piano music by Phillip Glass was quite a perfect fit for the piece.

Greta was as incredible as she was in the first time I saw this. Grappling with loneliness, questioning meaning, and the anxiety of confronting your being – it was all demonstrated here, in here “duet” with the light bulb.

The set was stark, pulled back and up without any backdrops or curtains. The main curtain pulled up several minutes before the start of the show, and showed Greta sitting at the edge of a bed staring out into the house even with the house lights up. Lying on the bed was Felix Paquet, and you wondered whether he was her lover in the piece, but it turns out he was just sharing the space until his vignette. Other set elements included a door, a sink, a window, a chair and a rug, a phone – all would have a dance vignette interacting with these props. Continue reading National Ballet of Canada Review: Ratmansky and Côté →

Celebrations

Little joys: May 2015

I think I need a little reminder of some the little joys I’ve experienced this month. More than just the smiles and amusements from things in my FB feed. It’s a balm against the negative news, fear and frustrating experiences I’ve encountered in the last few weeks. It’s something Janice had me do during our sessions together, to just explicitly and deliberately recognize the good things in life. It’s a habit I’m trying to get ingrained into doing, instead of always focusing on trying to fix the negative and problems at hand. So here goes. Continue reading Little joys: May 2015 →

Storytime

Bananas got no bones! Or, my trip to St. Vincent

I’m going to set the mood for this trip down memory lane by playing the song that featured heavily on the soundtrack to our trip. It was a big hit and we would break out singing it repeatedly:

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXvMT_mVbqw” width=”480″ height=”300″ autoplay=”no”]

It was August, 1998. I just finished my hazy, languorous summer term that most U Waterloo coop students know affectionately as “2B”, and I was in a Caribbean island that I had no knowledge of just 2 months earlier. My travelling mates were my close friend and roommate C, and a newish friend S that I’d only met 3 months earlier. S asked us in June, “Hey, you want to come to St. Vincent with me after the term is done?” C and I looked at each other, shrugged, and said “Sure, why not?”

[Aside – one of the most wonderful thing about the university experience is how quickly deep relationships can form. Lots of free time + collective stress periods of papers and exams + frequent social events + a generally more open attitude to connecting with new people + relative isolation from the rest of the world = great friends!]

Somehow one of us got the brilliant idea to join a guided hiking trip up the extinct La Soufriere volcano. Continue reading Bananas got no bones! Or, my trip to St. Vincent →