Saturday, January 30, 2010

one of my favorite things to do of all time, as I'm sure others can attest as well, is to people watch. Perhaps because it distracts me from what I should actually be doing at the moment, like reading a sociology textbook that I have yet to open. But needless to say, there is something overwhelmingly satisfying about watching others go about their day. At the moment I am sitting in a coffee shop with many others who I know nothing about. Yet, for some reason we were all brought to this very place at this exact moment. Its funny how we can know absolutely nothing about each other but somehow something can connect us, in some way. In this case, a cup of coffee, or a cup of tea, but when I look around there seems to be more conversation going on then actual coffee/tea drinking. I took a sociology class a couple semesters ago that studied the concept of popular culture. Through the course we studied the concept of "going out for coffee" and what it actually means. When discussing, we concluded that going out for coffee isn't so much about the subject of coffee anymore but rather the subject of company and conversation. In conjunction, being a popular culture class and all, we also discussed how coffe itself has been completely transformed into a commodity and how it has been branded to negotiate and re-negotiate meaning through the different settings it situates. Take Tim Hortons and Starbucks for example. The two companies both acquire most of their capital dollars on selling the steaming black liquid that we all stand far too long in line for. However, the feeling you get when you step into the two places is completely different. If you walk into a Tim Hortons you are provided with an image of employees in beige khaki uniforms, brown and white painted walls and the smell of comfort baked cooking. Time Hortons embodies the comforts of home - a feeling of warmth and a place where you always know what you are going to get when you order it. It provides a traditional, simple menu and easy decision process for the customer. Starbucks on the other hand is very much the opposite of all Tim Hortons embodies. Starbucks offers th consumer an upscale, trendy environment with more choices on the menu than one should have. It has turned coffee into what seems to be, an individualistic experience where consumers can customize and create their own drinks, original to their own tastes - non fat, fat, soy, skim, sugar free, half foam, no foam... and the list goes on. Both Tim Hortons and Starbucks have successfully created two seperate environments for their consumers to sip their steaming cups in whichever environment they choose and both have branded cofee in two seperate and distinctful ways. Whichever place the consumer chooses to fill his/her cup is up to them, but what is important to keep in mind in all of this is that we shouldn't be blinded by the label of the coffee we are drinking. We should take into consideration where the coffee itself actually comes from. I am not going to get into a "drink fair trade" coffee lecture here, even though I feel it is extremely important to do so wen you can, but we should just know that there is a far greater story behind the cup of coffee we are drinking rather than just the label. This relates to my favorite part, of what I said at the beginning before I went of on this random tangent, of people watching which is that behind everyone's outer shell there is a past, a history, an experience and a story that I know aboslutely nothing about. We all share a common characteristic in that we all have a past , we all have a story and while each of our stories are different, they are extremely important to who we are. I feel, this is why we should never judge each other because we never truly know where anyone came from and what is defined in their past. All we can do is wonder where they are headed after they walk away from the moment that brought us together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGsAwBCzkhc

love this song at the moment - and pls note i did not create the video...

Friday, January 29, 2010


one of my favourite quotes by ee cummings i found painted on a wall in victoria..pretty much made my day. :)

good day sunshine



I still remember the first time I picked up my first cd that introduced me and made me appreciate the music world more than ever before. I must have been around 15 at the time when I was about to enter the world of crazy, psychotic boxing day shoppers at the mall... I remember running into HMV and picking up a copy of coldplays , A Rush of Blood to the Head. Although, I'm pretty sure it wasn't on sale, I couldn't leave without it. I bought it, brought it home and popped it into the cd player. I listened to that cd over, and over and over. If I went out of the house I brought it with me in my red discman and would listen to it, despite every time it skipped a beat. I remember the feeling that cd gave me and each song spoke to me in a different way. The songs changed the way I viewed the world at that moment. A walk down the street could turn into something completely different and I would be transcended into an entirely new world at just the push of a button. It has been since that moment that music has become my escape. When my world around me seems in complete dissaray it has been to music that I turn to to make everything just stop for a couple minutes. Music takes me to a place where only I exist, where everything else around me seems so insignificant and for just a moment it's only me and a song. It's funny how a certain song can take you back to a time and bring back a feeling that existed so long ago. Like scent, certain songs, have the ability to rewind your life and bring you back to a significant moment in the past. Music has spoken to me in more ways than anything ever has and allows me to find the words when I can't find them myself. Music has and still continues to be my escape from the world and the sounds of coldplay bring me back to a place where I was just a girl discovering a world that would ulitimately change my own.

So, I've been doing a lot of thinking over the past couple weeks and well, I guess you could say a lot of analyzing and or over analyzing of my life to date. With this whole catastrophe in Haiti that has left so many innocent people in complete dissaray, it got me thinking about where I am in my life. I know that probably sounds impeccably selfish to be thinking about myself when so many people are suffering. I have and still do think about those poor souls in Haiti left to suffice and adapt to the catastrophic environment that has become apart of their everday. I wish so badly that there was so much more I could do for them, other than donating money through a website, but truth be told I can't. I'm no doctor or medical professional but if I was I'd probably be on the next plane if I had the chance, or at least I'd like to think I would be. But I'm not and I don't. All i can do now is hope that someday the hopes. dreams and lives of the Haitian people will be restored to a greater being, that they can and will rise above all this and not be defined by what has been doomed upon them. that they will find the courage and strength to build an environment that restores hope in the land and a will in the people to carry on in their everyday. I believe that this can happen and I believe that this will happen, someday. But for now, today, i am here analyzing my own life and where I stand. What crossed my mind when watching the coverage of the reports on Haiti and seeing the bodies laying motionless in the crumbled town was, would I be satisfied with where I am in my life to date, if something so tragic were to happen to me tomorrow? What would I miss the most and what would I cling to if I knew that my entire world was about to crumble before my eyes? I'll be twenty three in March, and currently I have been in school for about seventeen years of my life. woooooopeeee.... Now, don't get me wrong, I am so fortunate to be in school and I know that there are so many, too many, people out there in the world, girls especially, who are not afforded the privilege to education. So by no means am I bitter, it has been my choice to study in post secondary education, in hopes that someday I can become a teacher and afford children the opportunity to learn. However, being stuck behind books for the past five years really hasn't left me with much room to explore the world. I work during the summer months to be able to afford school and rent, so my entire post highschool time has been spent working and studying. While has been my choice and I know I will be thankful for it in the long run, I have watched so many people pack their bags to travel and explore the world and I admit that I am totally jealous and bitter. It has been a dream of mine since I was young to travel to all those places on a map that no one knows anything about. The places that when you put your finger on a globe to stop it from spinning, you never even knew that place existed until that moment. Places that don't get two minute advertisements on telivison and posters in store windows. I want to go to the places that can educate me in ways that I have never even thought imaginable - education that you can't get out of a textbook. So, while I was thinking about my life and if something like the eartquake in Haiti were to happen here tomorrow - that would be my one regret. That I never took the chance to just put my life on hold for a month and discover a world completely unknown to me. I have always said one day after school is done and out fo the way, I'll pack my bags and discover the world, one day. But what if that one day never came? What if the people in Haiti were thinking this very same thing when their entire life just stopped. Everything they had ever known came crashing down upon them and all their hopes and all their dreams for the future got smashed by crashing buildings and crumbling concrete. I know it isn't feasible for me to pack my bags and hop on a flight to LaLa land but I jus thtink that sometimes we are too seroius in what needs to be done and waht we have to do in order to do something else. I know I am making complete generalizations here so for that I am sorry. But we tend to live our lives on such a schedule and agenda that sometimes we can never truly stop and enjoy life and live in the now. We need to put the cell phones down, stop texting during dinner and coffee with a friend and just simply enjoy the moment. After I was sitting here analyzing my life and wondering if I would be happy with what I have accomplished to date and what regrets I would have if something so catastrophic were to happen to me tomorrow, I realized that if this whole catastrophe has taught me anything it's that we, I, need to stop analyzing and over analyzing everything in my life. I need to stop living on such an agenda of events and stop taking life so seriously. We need to have more fun once in a while and laugh with each other a hell of a lot more often because if everything were to be taken away from us tomorrow we would live with far to much regret if we didnt laugh at the small things in life. We need to stop living in the past and for the future and start living in the present. We need to take a moment out of our day to just, well, breathe and enjoy the company of the people around us. Because at the end of the day when all is said and done, it's not the cars or the shoes, or the clothes that you cling on to, it's the people in your life that surround you and fill you with joy and happiness. That make you laugh and smile when you're having a hard day and that no matter what never leave your side. Because life isn't about schedules or agendas or regrets, It's about people and love and laughter and happiness. It's about right now. It's about the moments that we share with people, even if they are just for a moment. So while i regret that I haven't travelled more and taken more chances, I know that if something so catastrophic were to happen to our environment tomorrow, I would be surrounded by people that I love and care about and that means more to me than anything else ever could.

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