In the past year I have come across more mental health campaigns than I have in the past 5 years. In our hyper-connected times we are able to communicate daily with people all over the world, so it’s no surprise that we’re beginning to tackle widespread issues. There are two issues that prevent people living...
I was lucky enough to catch Vancouver Opera‘s final matinee performance of ‘The Barber of Seville’ (or Il Barbiere di Siviglia as it was originally called). This was my second time at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for a Vancouver Opera production, the first was for a showing of ‘La Traviata’. My interest in opera was...
Deep Cove, located in North Vancouver, is my new home, and a veritable paradise. Driving down Mt. Seymour, before I turn left and shortly arrive at my front door, I can see a pine tree-covered mountain just across an ocean-fed cove. It’s breathtaking and evokes that sublime feeling that those 18th-century English romantics were always...
Hastings Street is a paraoxical street that runs through the middle of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. The office where I work is located on Hastings Street just east of Cambie. When I told my father where I would be working, and what I knew about the area, he told me that the street has been...
This is the first chapter of what will eventually become more chapters. This is part of my desire to write more fiction. I would absolutely love any criticism or thoughts about this chapter. I don’t know where this is headed yet but I’m excited to begin. *** “Fuck,” I muttered sharply without moving. It was...
I have always loved fiction. I prefer to read it and I used to prefer to write it. As a kid I loved going to the second floor of my local library during the long summer days and getting comfortable in a bay window with Harriet the Spy, Peter Pan and the Swiss Family Robinson....
On January 3rd of this year I took my first ever one-way flight away from Toronto. Five short hours later I landed in what I was going to call my home from now on: Vancouver. There’s a special type of excitement that accompanies moving to another city. I had visited Vancouver twice in 2011 to...
On December 1st of last year I was let go from my (dream) job as community manager at a startup called Kik Interactive. I love being a community manager and I absolutely adored all the people that I worked with, so being let go hurt a lot. But, I could faintly see the silver-lining that...
It’s been 5 months since I tossed my last cigarette, and vowed to stop drinking and smoking weed all the time. Since then I have went whole weekends without a hangover, ran a 5K and excelled in my professional life. I get a lot of questions about not being a drinker so I just want...
The idea of “knowing thyself” is often taken for granted. We think that knowing our selves is an instinct or a reflex and requires no effort. Just by being ourselves we must know who we are. But, our actions can be motivated by thoughts and feelings that influence us unconsciously, without us ever explicitly knowing...
For a long time I have been focusing on happiness. I want it for myself and I want to spread it all over the world. But is happiness enough? No, we want to flourish. *** I previously wrote about Martin Seligman’s TED talk on positive psychology. He talks about the importance of positive emotion, engagement...
Sometimes we do things for the right reasons and sometimes we do them for the wrong reasons. *** I used to be addicted to smoking. For the past 10 years (since I was 13) I smoked pretty much non-stop and wasn’t able to quit for more than 4 months, and that was just once. I...
“Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.” – Stephen Dedalus Um everything? Have you seen the book? It’s 700 pages of epic stream of consciousness that is simultaneously impossible to put down and extremely difficult to continue. This book taught me a lot over the 6 months that...
Insecurities have a tricky ability of existing outside of conscious awareness. Most times the thoughts associated with my insecurities were so ridiculous that if I were consciously aware of them I wouldn’t be able to believe that I truly felt that way. I was a university student who maintained high marks with ease and throughout...
Long distance relationships can be tough. So come up with fun ways to do things together. Technology enables us to see each other’s faces a lot more often now, which is a very good thing for a LDR. First you will the other person that you want to watch the movie with on the phone...
Learned happiness is just as achievable as learned helplessness. Thanks Seligman! I absolutely have to share this amazing TED talk given by world-renown positive psychologist Martin Seligman. Seligman discusses the state of psychology today and where he hopes that it is headed. Seligman is famous in the psychology world mainly for his work with depressed populations,...
Because they’re old news. You’re not always going to feel jealous about every suitor’s previous conquests because not all suitors are created equal. For some, you will never care enough to even gather details about their past. Those are purely ‘of the moment’ relationships and do not require an intense amount of emotional involvement. What...
As well as the definitive guide to all the benefits you will reap from your amazing feat. I’m going to go through the things that you must do in order to not only quit smoking, but also to feel amazing about it and not gain any weight. Oh, and no mood swings because we all...
Oh forgotten blog. You’re never really forgotten are you? As part of my mission to increase my productivity tenfold I will be posting all my piccy pics here for your viewing pleasure. I won’t be bothered to write a whole lot because I will be using all my textual brain power on my other blog....
I recently got back from a wonderful trip to Vancouver. My boytoy lives in Surrey now doing a wonderful job as a a Project Manager at a digital newspaper company. The combination of the mountains and the water does wonders for the soul! I had the time of my life there – but it’s not...
I am obsessed with animated shows and movies of every genre. Animation is like imagination – there are very little boundaries except for ones that are self-imposed. There’s only so much visual innovation that you can create in a sitcom with real-life people. I even think that there is more creative licence when it comes...
Sorry that I have Loose Morals, I’m Unequivocal To you. Recently I have been coming across the word ‘slut’ a lot. The first thing that happened was I came across some friends and a male called a couple of females ‘sluts’. Now, I saw that they were not wearing pants, and I know that they’re...
I have quite an interesting relationship with my sister. She’s pretty amazing – she dropped out of university because she knew it wasn’t for her. Obviously people don’t look too kindly upon university drop-outs. I’m sure she got plenty of smug looks from do-nothing, insignificant people when she decided to go to a school that...
This is not a definitive list, nor is it exhaustive. It’s not a tired reiteration of what many woman have heard before. I will not tell you to wear sexy lingerie everyday because it will make your boyfriend want you. Picture this: a young woman going to work in the middle of summer with the...
