Books, Rants and reflections, Storytime

Nostalgia for some books of my childhood

I recently finished rereading Anne of Green Gables. It is E1’s copy of the book we gave her for Christmas, and when I read the first few chapters aloud to her, I got hooked again. In the evenings, as she slept, I borrowed the book to read furtively onward. A smile was likely on my face the whole way through to the end, delighted with the character of Anne and the “scrapes” she got herself into.

It’s also delightful seeing E1 also getting taken up in not only the characters and the story of Anne of Green Gables, but of many of the books she’s reading. I look at her and I see myself at her age. I am nostalgic for the books of my childhood and early teens, and for how they made me feel, the childhood memories they invoke, or the lessons I still keep from them. Here are some of them. (Unfortunately, I am terrible at remembering plot details or character names, so please don’t expect a synopsis of these books!) Continue reading Nostalgia for some books of my childhood →

Celebrations

Welcome to 2016! Happy New Year!

Yes, it is now more than a week since the new year started, but we do not need to be technical about that. The sentiment of hope and optimism for this year still holds true. So Happy New Year! Welcome to 2016!

And in the spirit of optimism, here are some of my goals for this year to resolutely work towards:

  • less Facebook lurking, more actual face time talking (via coffee dates, Skype, group outings, and what not). Because I want to model the behaviour I want for my girls to follow and expect from their friends.
  • make exercise a standard part of my weekly schedule again. It’s been over 9 months since I started working, so I can’t use the excuse of “waiting until my schedule is stabilized” anymore. I’ve definitely noticed a loss of strength.
  • volunteer more: at my girls’ school and in my community
  • read more offline materials. Reading articles online is fine, but the ease in which I can switch to yet another article of completely different context means i often don’t ponder over what I just read, the ideas don’t simmer and percolate as it should.
  • keep writing: aim for at least a blog post every two weeks
  • preserve the memories: finish our family 2015 photobooks before Victoria Day
  • keep pushing myself to grow my experiences and my team contributions in my job, but still holding onto my reduced hours schedule
  • set up the basement office properly. Poor T has to suffer through boxes of random crap strewn about while he gingerly navigates to his office chair.

Sorry for succumbing to the cliche of publicly announcing my resolutions, but I feel the potential for shame and humiliation from my peers is an extra motivator. It worked for Anne of Green Gables, didn’t it? Let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to hold you to the fire for at the end of this year, we can press forward to our goals with the fear of mutual shame. 😉 Happy New Year folks!

~Jen

Storytime

E1- a budding Sherlock Holmes in the house

The days of me thinking that I can fool my girls is clearly in the past now. Here’s a story about E1 – a budding Sherlock Holmes in the house.

Me: “Ooh, girls. I got a text from Daddy and I think Daddy is going to come home with a surprise. I bet you’ll never guess what it is.”

E1: “Oh! Is it another bike?”

Me (chuckling): “No, it’s not another bike. But considering the past few weeks, that’s an excellent guess.” (In reference to the one day at the beginning of November where we came home to find that he has bought a new road bike for himself, and then picked up two girls bikes that were sitting on the curb in the neighbourhood with a “Free” sign on them.)

E2: “Is it dinner?”

Me: “Hmm. Another good guess, especially since we are getting hungry. But no, that’s not it.”

E1: “New winter boots for us?”

Me: “Hmm, we do need to get you those. Sorry that’s not it either. I’m telling you, you’ll never guess what it is.”

The girls kept guessing during the walk home. They were unsuccessful in guessing correctly, as I predicted.

We got inside the house and were taking off our shoes when E1 looks up at me with a spark in her eye. “Wait! You said that Daddy texted you. I can go upstairs and look on the tablet to see what Daddy said to you.” She took off up the stairs. A minute later I hear her talking to E2. “Oh! I think Daddy got a new car!”

Me and E2: “Whaaaaaaaat?” We were shocked for different reasons.

E1: “Yeah, Daddy wrote something about a Lexus, and I think that’s a type of car.”

Me: “Yes…uh, you got it, sweetie! How, um, did you figure it all out?”

E1: “Well, I remember sometimes when we’re on the tablet watching Netflix or playing a game, i sometimes  see the messages you and Daddy send to each other on Hangout. So I tried to find it.”

This kid blows my mind. Critical thinking skills = +20. Thinking back, I look all the pieces of information she assembled in that 7-year old brain of hers:

  1. Realized guessing blindly was not getting her anywhere, so she thought of an alternative method to get more clues.
  2. Picked up during our conversation the information that Daddy sent me a text message
  3. Remembered that she has seen our text messages on the tablets at home, in addition to our phones
  4. Remembered the name of the app that holds our messages, and how to find it on the tablet.
  5. Somehow remembered that Lexus is a manufacturer of cars, even though noone in our family, or our extended family, owns one (until now, that is).

So she’s on a good track to becoming a world-renowned  consulting detective, right? Or a super spy? I just hope she uses her powers for good, and not evil.

~Jen

Dance, Reviews

National Ballet of Canada Review: The Winter’s Tale

How does someone get into a state of mind where the seed of jealousy can take root even if it is completely unwarranted? Once the seed is planted, is there anyway to stop it growing, or will it inevitably destroy the very thing you love? Then if you are the wronged one and had your love destroyed by the one you loved, would you forgive him/her if (s)he repented painfully over the years? And would you so easily accept strangers into your heart as family if all you knew was a family of a different home? These were some of the questions I’m still pondering after watching this terrific ballet adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. (Here is the synopsis of the story, as structured for this ballet. )

If you like theatre and dance, even if you’re not particularly fond of ballet, you really must to go see the National Ballet of Canada’s co-production with The Royal Ballet of The Winter’s Tale as choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. The current run by the National Ballet of Canada is over today, but it surely will make a comeback in the seasons to come. It would be crazy for NBOC to not immediately remount a production as successful as this one, after such a short one-week run. There are many things to commend about this production, but the one thing that is apparent is how conscious Wheeldon is to what would attract new audiences to story ballets. Just as in Alice in Wonderland, the theatricality, production design, and music are really designed to entice the audience to pay attention to the truly wonderful dancing on stage.

Choreography

There are many outstanding choreographic moments in this show that I’ll remember. A few off the top of my head:

  • The Act 1 duets between Leontes and Hermione, where the same motif is repeated, but getting progressively more sinister and violent from his part as the act progresses.
  • The solo of Leontes as the jealousy takes hold. The movement is twisted, tortured
  • Hermione’s solo during her trial is beautiful, lyrical, and so lonely as she pleads her innocence.
  • The amazing group peasant dances in Act 2.  There is so much joy and exuberance in these sequences that it made me smile the whole while through it. There are so many different shapes and lines made, with very interesting body shapes and movements, that it’s just visually stunning. It’s really a shame that music continues moving so much that there isn’t any slight pauses in the music or the dancing to allow invite the audience to applaud. (I know, we can applaud at any time, but our Toronto matinee audience is generally shy and overly polite…and I don’t feel brave enough to start the applause myself)
  • The really unique positioning in the pas de deux with Perdita and Florizel. In a weird way, I would make the analogy that her body was positioned as if he was holding her like a french horn, with her torso curled up, her head being mouthpiece, and her semi-split legs being the bell of the horn, if the bell was longer and reached up to go across his shoulders. It’s a visual I’ll not forget.

Dance Performances

November 21, 2pm cast:

  • Leontes – Evan McKie
  • Hermione – Jurgita Dronina
  • Perdita – Rui Huang
  • Paulina – Svetlana Lunkina
  • Polixenes – Brendan Saye
  • Florizel – Skylar Campbell

I believe this was my first real chance to see Evan McKie dancing in a lead role since he joined NBOC. Each production typically has multiple casts, so the luck of which cast performed on Saturday afternoons (our season tickets), combined with his injuries in the last couple of years, made this an exciting performance for me. He definitely did not disappoint. Leontes is not a showy technical role, but it’s a showy dramatic acting role. Physically embodying the jealousy eating at him bit by bit until his outlook and his physical bearing is twisted. In his performance there was palatable tension and emotion on stage, especially in the separate duets he has with Hermione and Paulina.

I was also really curious and excited to see newly joined principle dancer Jurgita Dronina as Hermione. She played Hermione with assurance and yet lightness. Her solo at her trial was one obvious highlight; she executed that difficult choreography flawlessly so you didn’t even realize how difficult it was. The other big highlight for me was her duets with McKie as her desperation of the situation grows. The emotion and drama between them were very realistic.

Svetlana Lunkina as Paulina just made me even more of a fan of hers. There’s something about her arms that’s just mesmerizing. And she then has the serious acting chops to portray a woman with all these conflicting feelings: anger and despair toward the man who caused the death of beloved Hermione and her children, and indirectly her husband, but also the sense of duty to continue to serve her master of the kingdom she belongs to.

I only wished the same assuredness of these principle dancers would have rubbed off more on the dancers playing Perdita (the lost princess 16 years later) and Florizel (the prince she falls in love with). The choreography for them in the second act is tremendously difficult, that is for sure, and the audience could tell of the effort involved. You could see that Rui Huang was absolutely concentrating on the steps, but that meant the acting of the part of the young lover was sacrificed. There wasn’t any chemistry between her and Skylar Campbell as Prince Florizel. Things like reacting to each other’s touch, or small body language nuances that demonstrated that she was aware of where he was on stage regardless of whether she was looking at him or not…those were missing. The kisses felt choreographed, instead of a natural thing for these two characters to do. Because I couldn’t believe in the two of them as lovers, it really eroded the magic from the first act.

Production notes

  • The original music by Joby Talbot really helped tell the story, in particular where bits of discordant tones creep into the main melody to signal the change in Leontes’ inner mind. It was definitely clear that this is the same composer as Alice in Wonderland though. There were hints of that score throughout this production—the use of mallet instruments, the kind of wormy sound of the oboe or clarinet paired with the violins. I thought the violin solo in Act 3 as Leontes mourns at Hermione’s grave was absolutely beautiful and I was disappointed that it was so short. I would have loved to have that bit extended. The Act 2 peasant dances were also able to be so joyous because of the great music.
  • The sets and props really helped set the tone between the stark and austere realms of Sicilia, and the warm brightness of Bohemia. The silk effects to convey the rough seas, the sail of the boat, and the bear that attacks Antigonus (as per the famous stage direction of Shakespeare) were brilliant. And the grand tree that is the centerpiece of the second act really is impressive as it spans the entire width of the stage, adorned with hanging jewels and doodads.
  • There were parts of the third act that seemed truncated. For example, when Perdita is revealed to be the lost daughter, how her adoptive father and brother react was kind of skipped over. If there was a reconciliation or apology sought from Polixenes to his son Florizel, then I missed it. And after the wedding scene, it cut really abruptly to the statue gallery. I would have liked another few bars of music for the action on the stage to better transition to that location.
  • The costuming was gorgeous throughout. The detail and the flow of the fabric particularly for the ladies dresses were just outstanding. The only slight distraction was how the purple silk dress worn by Perdita really shows all the sweat. You’d think they would have remembered that from the Alice in Wonderland.

Overall, the story has really been translated amazingly well for the dance stage. The plot line is quite clear, there is lots of drama and action, and really great solo roles for the company dancers. I’m really looking forward to seeing it again the next time they put it on, and keen to see other casts perform the same roles.

What an amazing start to the 2015-16 season!

~Jen

Jeneral findings

Jeneral finds of the week: 2015-10-25

What a week it’s been. The federal election and Trudeau leading the Liberals to a surprising majority government. The unfortunate focus on his looks afterwards, but at least there is one being clever about it. The Blue Jays. And a duck comic that speaks real truths about the parenting experience—the Jeneral finds this week: 2015-10-25

  • This past Monday night, the Liberals and Justin Trudeau won a majority government in the federal election. It was a better result than I could have hoped for, when my hopes were pinned on merely getting Harper out of government. But just as I took umbrage at the objectifying of Belinda Stronach when she became an elected MP in 2004, I am really irked with the glut of worldwide headlines and social media shares about Justin Trudeau’s looks. How is the world supposed to take the leader of our country seriously if all the ink being written on him comes in the celebrity and lifestyle sections of the news? We need to keep the focus on the policies he’s pledged during the campaign. But still…this piece by Tabatha Southey is hilarious if you want to get all the *wink, wink, nudge, nudge* about his physical appearance out of your system, once and for all. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/note-to-world-please-stop-ogling-our-new-prime-minister/article26951125/  Sample innuendo: “I’ll bet that’s a right honourable member.”
  • The Blue Jays’ playoff run ended, but it was a thrilling, joyous ride while it was happening. Though our hearts were broken by the result, it was better to love this team and lose, than never to love at all, right? We are so proud of how the team worked hard and kept it oh-so-close until the very last out.  A big hurray, high five, and a tip of the hat to the team that truly made the city #comeTOgether.
  • Has the author of this comic strip www.fowllanguagecomics.com  been spying on my household? Because he speaks the hilarious truth, man. This listicle picks 15 great ones to share in one page http://www.upworthy.com/15-hilarious-parenting-comics-that-are-almost-too-real?g=4.

~Jen

<–previous finds of the week

Rants and reflections

A plea for unsure voters during Election 2015

Since the election 2015 campaign was called, I have started, and restarted, this post again and again. It is no secret that many of the policies, and certainly Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party modus operandi infuriates me to no end. And I am truly afraid that the results that will unfold later today will show another Conservative majority government.

I’ve had some conversations over the past couple of weeks that have really disheartened me. Several friends and acquaintances admitted sheepishly that they don’t follow politics, don’t understand what the issues are, and thus don’t know who to vote for. They get there is a lot of antagonism about the Conservative party, and are frankly put off by their negative advertising, politicking and inflammatory issues they are invoking during this time (e.g. the niqab, old-stock Canadians). However, they don’t know what to do about it, and I fear there are way more Canadians out there who fall into this boat. They are therefore afraid to cast a ballot because they think an uninformed vote is somehow less worthy.

Then my greatest fear is that they won’t vote at all, and there will be no change in the governing party, and we will slip further away from the ideals I had assumed would always be a part of Canadian government. Showing up to open and honest debate by all representatives. The ability for journalists to question the Prime Minister and Ministers. Policies to be made based on data where possible, and not merely on rhetoric. These are just a few examples, I could go on all day about the many examples.

Your vote is greatly important, in more ways than I have the energy to get into here. So, if you are one of my friends and acquaintances who don’t want to vote Conservative but still don’t know who to vote for, please refer to this site to support whichever candidate in your riding is most likely to beat the Conservative candidate: http://www.votetogether.ca/

And if you are actually still open to voting Conservative because of you might agree with policy, please don’t. The ends don’t justify the means. Consider how this party has been implementing the policy and (mis)informing its citizens—it’s right out of George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

And then tomorrow, after the election results are in, we can have a more thorough discussion to bring you up to speed on the other issues. I might be ranting though…there’s been a lot that’s made me mad over the years.

~Jen

 

Jeneral findings

Jeneral finds of the week: 2015-10-17

The Blue Jays, a great resource to up your presentation slide creation skills, a thoughtful explainer from a woman who traditionally votes Conservative and why she isn’t this election, and how efforts for inclusion will ultimately make Canada more successful – on this week’s Jeneral finds, 2015-10-17

  • Yes! The love affair continues!! On Wednesday the Blue Jays did the statistically improbable and beat the Texas Rangers 6 to 3 in the 5th and deciding game of the ALDS playoff series (after they had lost the first two games of the series). The city has just lost its mind. The thing that will be remembered is the crazy 7th inning. This piece by Cathal Kelly in the G&M sums up the game perfectly, “The Blue Jays have finally broken Toronto’s sports curse“. Yesterday’s result in the series opener against Kansas City wasn’t what fans were looking for (a 0-5 loss), but there’s still lots of baseball to go yet. Go Jays!

  • “Slidedoc (n.) a visual document, developed in presentation software, that is intended to be read and referenced instead of projected”. This term is coined by Nancy Duarte, and I am oddly gratified to now have a more appropriate term to describe what I generate at work for half my days. This free online resource/ebook created by Nancy Duarte is wonderful, and I am inspired to follow these principles to generate more useful and visually appealing slidedocs going forward. I highly recommend this for anyone who generates a lot of content-heavy work via presentation slides (aka slide jockeys).

  • This is a great post by an Albertan who traditionally votes Conservative, but is not for this election. “Lord help me, I just voted for a Trudeau”. May this resonate with other traditionally Conservative voters.
  • I am such a fan of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi. I’ve been impressed with every encounter I’ve had with him via the media – he’s able to communicate in full paragraphs instead of merely soundbites. This piece in the Globe and Mail is an excerpt from a speech he gave earlier this fall, “Divided, Canada stands to lose what makes it great“. He starts with his own personal story as part of an immigrant Ismaili family and how the community’s acts of inclusion helped make him a successful today. This is in contrast to the divisive policies that are being spouted today to help “protect us” from radicalized Muslim youth. Such a worthwhile read, and inspires me to be optimistic and try to make my own small difference. This is what a great leader *should* do. So evaluate if the leader of the party you are voting for on Oct 19 does the same for you.

~Jen

<–previous finds of the week

Celebrations

Let’s Go Blue Jays!

“Let’s Go Blue Jays! Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap!”

A confession: my love affair with the Blue Jays has been brief, to date. I’ll be the first to admit, while I know all the rules of the sport, I haven’t been a baseball fan through the years. I’ve been to a handful of Blue Jays games at the Skydome in years past, when the team was mediocre and the crowds even more so. I found the games long and dull, and wished I could be watching hockey instead.

And yet now I find myself jumping on the bandwagon happily into a love affair with the Jays. A late summer-to-fall fling, as it were. I’m even checking to on the scores while I’m picking up my children from daycare, or waiting for their extra-curricular activity to finish. Two years ago I would be hard-pressed to name more than two players. Now, I recognize the names in entire lineup and if pressed, might even be able to put them in their batting order.

Why?

I am happy to give my heart over because of the energy and collective excitement through the whole city is taking over. It’s so exciting and fun to see so many people in the city and other parts of the country rally behind something positive, and so why wouldn’t I want to join in on that? This could be a seminal sports moment in Toronto; I want to participate in and experience it whatever the result, not just read about it in the news.

Even more so, I want and hope for this to be a good news story for those of my friends and family who *are* actually long-time Blue Jays baseball fans. Baseball fans with unrequited playoff dreams.

There are those, like my husband, who were committed fans in their youth. They loved and played the game in the park and imagined recreating the highlight plays from the world championship Jays from the ’92 and ’93. However, twenty-two years of being stood up at the playoff date have made them cynical and bitter, to defend against the pain in their hearts. This is further compounded by the collective playoff futility of all the Toronto’s professional sports teams.

Through August and September as the Blue Jays were having an incredible run, you could see the cynicism and bitterness start to melt away, and they were excited again for the game. Each game.

Then there are my dear friends who are the hard-core fans. They watch the Jays games, listen to the sports talk, and they follow what’s happening with the other teams in the league. They have never wavered in their love of the Blue Jays. They open their hearts at the start of every season with the optimism of making the playoffs by October. And for twenty-two years, they’ve had their heart broken each season. But they brush it off and then look forward to spring training next year. They are those few brave souls amongst us who love deeply and freely and continualy, without reservations, even when they get hurt time and time again.

Well, this year, I sure am crossing my fingers that their love will finally be reciprocated and the Blue Jays win the World Series.

But first they have to win Game 5 tomorrow against Texas. Let’s Go Blue Jays! #‎ComeTogether‬

Rants and reflections

The Many Things I Am Thankful For

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, everyone!

It’s been a gorgeous holiday weekend this Thanksgiving 2015 in Toronto, at least in terms of the weather. There are many things to be thankful for, and I really enjoy having a specific holiday to ask us to stop our busy lives for a while and reflect on this.

I am thankful for having family and friends that we can gather together for a large meal and actually enjoy each others’ company. I am thankful that we do have access to food and drink in abundance, and are not worrying about how to put the next meal on the table.

I am thankful for my general good physical and mental health, and that of my family and close friends.

I am thankful for my husband and my daughters E1 and E2, and the abundance of little joys they bring me each day. (and so I overlook the little annoyances, haha!)

I am thankful that I live in a country that has strong institutions and underlying belief in democracy. For all my disagreements with the policies and functioning of the current political party governing our country, I have no fear that they would ignore the election results and try to maintain power, leading us towards either a dictatorship or civil war. Could this be because we are actually a constitutional monarchy? Perhaps…you may discuss this amongst yourselves.

I am thankful that after my leave from work last year, I was able to find my way to land in a great place for this next phase of my working career.

I am thankful for those monthly pizza lunches at school where I can take a one-day break from having to make and pack their school lunch! And I am thankful for a good working dishwasher to wash all these snack and lunch containers in addition to our home dishes. (I shudder to think what would happen to my marriage if we had to resort to the old days of using rock-paper-scissors to determine who would hand-wash that day’s dishes)

Then there are these long-form articles that I’ve encountered in recent months that have really stayed with me…and made me very thankful that I am not facing these same impossible choices:

  • Whether they are refugees or economic migrants, the basic choice is basically the same: whether leaving home to voluntarily face the dangers of human smuggling is a better choice than staying at home.  “Menaced by gangs, El Salvador’s children are running for their lives“, Stephanie Nolen in The Globe and Mail, Aug 29, 2015, is one such example. The hundreds of thousands others trying to migrate to Europe is another, and there are headlines nearly daily on the situation.
  • Before reading this piece, I had no real understanding of why there was a section in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for Mobility Rights, which includes the right to move anywhere within our country. This story is jaw-dropping—what educated and middle-class income earners would choose to have their families live in subterranean, makeshift, mouldy housing?  I understand I have a truly privileged life, considering what these people will endure for the hope of building a better future for their children. “The ‘Ant Tribe’ of China” by Doug Saunders in The Globe and Mail, Aug 21, 2015.
  • In “Syria’s Climate Conflict“, by Audrey Quinn and Jackie Roche, the cartoon succinctly explains how climate change helped spark a bloody civil war. I am thankful that I live in an area where the effects of climate change not yet caused dramatic changes to our society, but I do want our government to take action to address this now.
  • And along those lines, I’m thankful I live in an area with access to fresh water. The ongoing California drought is nothing short of jaw-dropping.

And lastly – I’m thankful for the opportunity to keep speaking my mind. Cheers!

Jeneral findings

Jeneral finds of the week: 2015-10-06

The real reason many women struggle to advance their careers, on losing the love of your life, a profile of a potential Prime Minister of Canada, and the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics, in this week’s Jeneral finds: 2015-10-06

  • It has always felt so unfair to me how our society doesn’t properly value those who care for others and teach others – nurses, teachers, caregivers. Instead we place higher value to those who “make things” and generate value (aka money) – business people, engineers, professional athletes. What I didn’t realize was how this frame of mind also systematically hinders women in the workplace even in those “making things” and “generating value” careers.  “Caregiver discrimination penalizes women at all income levels“, an excerpt from Ann-Marie Slaughter’s Unfinished Business. Identifying and recognizing the issue is the first step, but what is great about this piece is it also provides ideas on how to move forward. Between this piece by Slaughter and her prior writings, I’ve really come to admire her.
  • Close friends of my parents had their 40-year-old son-in-law pass away suddenly this weekend, leaving his wife and three young children. I can’t even imagine the grief and shock their family must be going through; I went and hugged my husband and held on a little longer than usual. I was also brought back to this truly moving post from Sheryl Sandberg earlier this year, a month after her husband Dave Goldberg also died suddenly. Would that we all have the same type of support in our times of need.
  • In the shadow of the upcoming election, Ian Brown continues to deliver outstanding writing in his in-depth profile of Justin Trudeau in the Globe (unfortunately it may be behind a paywall). It is a long read, but I’ve been yearning for more context and depth in the media coverage of the election, and this delivers on this front.
  • Physics friends celebrate! Canadian Arthur B. McDonald is the 2015 Nobel prize co-winner in Physics! Along with Takaaki Kajita, they were awarded for their contributions to experiments demonstrating that subatomic particles called neutrinos change identities, also known as “flavours.” The neutrinos transform themselves between three types: electron-type, muon-type and tau-type. The metamorphosis requires that neutrinos have mass, dispelling the long-held notion that they were massless. Cool that something I have vague memories learning about in Physics classes are newsworthy again. =)

~Jen

<–Prior finds of the week