7 days, 7 Photos (Day 3)

It is harder to choose one photo that defines your day/self. I've only taken three today of different things, but I can come up with meanings for all of them that correspond to both my day and my life in general. I can narrow it down to two. I'm just going to use both because they oppose and correspond with each other, and I dislike following arbitrary rules.

Photo #1 It's Complicated

This is the UC building at U of T and is not an original subject at all. This building, like all old, fancy looking buildings, has been photographed to death. It's a popular spot for engagement shots, fashion photos, and the often awkward and hilarious faculty photos that professors use for book jackets and faculty websites. It's pretty. I'm not really fond of this building. I prefer Harthouse, which is actually behind it. Harthouse is also pretty and it seems less pretentious somehow. There's things to do in Harthouse aside from class. They have coffee that is easy to locate, and alcohol. The library in Harthouse is probably the warmest, most comfortable room in the world. It might actually be the portal to heaven. I love it there. I've spent time exploring the building and it feels familiar and comforting. UC is not familiar or comforting. It's like Hogwarts without the magic; I am sure that things move around when I am not looking. I once got lost and found my way to this weird empty hallway on the third floor and there was nothing, but a folder of maps pinned to the wall. The maps weren't helpful. There is a coffee shop in UC, but it closed down for several months and has only recently re-opened under a new name. This isn't because people don't want to buy coffee in the UC building, it's because they don't know how to get there. Actually, most people don't know they have a coffee shop. They should give free coffee as a prize for successfully finding the place, a free muffin if you manage to find it twice. There is an art gallery in UC, very few students seem to know about this, or the library, which I have yet to locate. I know generally where it is. I'll get to the point. The UC building is frustrating. Pretty on the outside, but complicated, and full of twists and turns on the inside. This is how I feel about my education at U of T at the moment; it sometimes feels both cold and daunting. It is large, and complex, and it leaves you trapped in a labyrinth to figure it out for yourself, but it looks good on the outside. A degree from U of T means something. That sounds pretentious, and it is. That's the point. It's pretty on the outside, and complicated when you're inside of it. That's not to say it isn't worth it in the end. I spent some time with one of my favorite profs today and got probably the best writing advice I have ever gotten. Revision is important. It was much more detailed and specific than that. He pointed out specific things to look for in revision; Starting points like little threads to pull. U of T does have a lot of incredible profs to go with the extra prestige of their graduation seal on a diploma. I almost feel guilty because I'm not going to revise this. I'm lazy. It was a useful lesson in terms of assignments that I will be graded on and maybe one day I will start revising everything I write but not today. Moving on to the next photo, which is related to my frustration towards university.

Photo #2 Distractions

Sometimes I get anxious. I want to do well. I hope to go to grad school, and it can feel like my entire future and all of my dreams rest on the outcome of a single assignment. One bad grade could ruin my life. On a certain level, I know I'm being dramatic, but when I develop anxiety about an assignment I have a hard time talking myself down. I'm an imperfect person. Anyways, when this happens, I tend become overwhelmed with the pressure and, ironically, will do anything I can to not think about or deal with the assignment. Sometimes I simply drop the class. If that isn't an option there is a possibility I will hand the assignment in late. In my first year I put an assignment off for 2 months after the due date because I started having panic attacks when I tried to write it and would cope through distractions. An understanding professor helped me out of that mess and gave me some much needed perspective. I've gotten better at handling it. It's not the end of the world. I still put things off until the last minute though, which is why I don't revise. (I'm going to start revising! I hope. Update! I'm sort of revising right now.) When I feel anxious about a paper or a test, I will sometimes latch onto the first distraction I can find. This might mean playing sudoku of bejeweled all day, every day, for days on end. It might mean obsessively cleaning my house and sorting through my belongings. More often it means latching on to a subject and obsessing about it until I have learned everything I can. If only I could latch on to what I'm supposed to be focused on. Sometimes I can, but usually it's something unrelated. Like Jian Ghomeshi and that whole situation. That story broke right around the time I had two papers due, and a few midterms to study for, and it was interesting and evolved rapidly. What was terrible for a lot of people, was distracting for me. It was a relief to think about. I learned way too much about the scandal, and Ghomeshi in general. Luckily I've been able to use it this semester to build a few assignments because I am taking Sociology courses and can apply what I didn't need to learn to a number of different topics. Unfortunately, once I am interested in a topic I become hyper-focused on it and anything related to it, which is why I took a picture of the Shad poster. Shad is the new host of Q. I am probably one of the few people who became a fan of Q after the Ghomeshi scandal and I have all sorts of complicated feelings and thoughts about all of that, which I am not going to get into right now. I can say that I feel good about Shad being the new host. It feels right. It feels like the show will continue and evolve and continue to be great. It was just a distraction though, for me. A way to focus my energy on something that was low stakes, something my future didn't depend on. A healthier approach would be to focus that energy on my education and try to learn instead of achieve. I'm working on it.

7 Days -- 7 Photos (Day 2, Monday)

This photo actually represents a lot of things for me. George Elliot Clarke is one of my favorite Canadian poets. I once wrote an essay about the way he uses line breaks and punctuation in his poem "Casualties" to emphasize the emotional impact he is trying to get across. I first became interested in politics when I was 15 and a teacher lent me a VHS (no, really) of Pierre Elliott Trudeau's funeral. Justin's speech was incredibly moving and heartbreaking and I ended up becoming fascinated with his father, a man who inspired such a huge outpouring of grief from the country when he passed away. From there I started paying more attention to Canadian politics in general and realized that it's important to know what's going on and to vote. I tried using my sister's I.D. to vote when I was 16, but got totally busted. Somehow I didn't get in trouble for that. It was technically an attempt at election fraud. Studying seems to be all I have time for during the school year, but right now our TA's at U of T are on strike and one of my classes has been cancelled. It is extremely frustrating as both sides are using the students as leverage against each other. Eventually when they finally come to an agreement, which they will, it will be the students who will be left facing the most consequences. Some are trying to graduate and move on with their lives, some will have to redo courses that they already paid for and set back their education, some face potentially losing their spots in grad school because they wont have their marks in time. All of us have missed out on learning, which is supposed to be the reason to go to school. They are coming up with solutions so that we can pass and get the credits, but for the classes that have been on hold, we have missed lectures and assignments that would have translated into knowledge and learning opportunities. They can't give that time back to us, even if they do let us pass the classes. I'll say it again, it is extremely frustrating, and the uncertainty and anger affect our ability to learn properly in the courses that are still running. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens and keep up with the readings.

Lake Ontario Shore

These are the rest of the photos from my walk yesterday.

Toronto Skyline

Seagulls

Geese

Buildings

Ducks

,

7 Photos - 7 Days (Day 1)

This was taken on my regular Sunday walk home from Etobicoke. It is approx 15km of walking and I like to take the path along the water front. Couples put locks on this bridge with their initials on them, in an imitation of a bridge in Paris. There aren't that many locks yet, but the number has been growing every year. The waterfront path is probably one of my favorite places in Toronto, especially on cold days like today when there are few people around. The downside is I had to keep putting my camera inside my jacket to warm up because the cold was affecting the battery. There were a lot of geese. Some of them were really angry.

Kept

Part of my massive cleaning up/getting rid of things I didn't need efforts meant getting rid of a lot of necklaces. I usually shop at a thrift store in Toronto called "Kind Exchange" and they occasionally have massive sales. Even on a regular day their jewellery is quite cheap and is usually interesting and eclectic. As a result, I had a huge collection of necklaces; different colours, designs, etc. I had a hard time parting with them because I always thought, what if this necklace goes perfectly with some hypothetical future outfit that I might wear? Admittedly, not a great reason. I ended up getting rid of about 75% of my necklaces and only keeping the ones that made me feel like matching the outfit to the necklace just so I could wear it, instead of matching the necklace to the outfit. Honestly, I don't really wear jewellery that often anyways so it seems ridiculous to keep more than I want. I still have more than I need; jewellery is not a necessity. I at least enjoy what I have now though. This is what I have left.

View From my Bedroom Window -- 2015.03.21

This is a photo of the view from my bedroom window. I feel like that is pretty evident from the title, actually. The point of it is really just to remind myself to take more photos, be more creative, and to look around for inspiration.

I recently read a book called "The life-changing magic of tidying up", and it really is life-changing. I'm a tidy person. I clean houses to make money for school, and I keep my own house clean. I'm the type of person who likes to alphabetize my books, and make my bed properly every morning. I bought the book because it sold 2 million copies, and while I don't normally choose books because of their position on the bestsellers list, I thought it was such an unexpected subject to be so popular that I was intrigued. I had assumed that tidying would not be a subject that would become a bestseller, and that it was something I already knew enough about. I was wrong. I learned a lot from this book, not just about how to tidy, but about how to enjoy my things, and feel good about my life. The book is basically an instruction in how to get rid of things, and not feel bad about it. There are always things people keep because they feel guilty or anxious about letting go of them, either because they think they might be useful one day, they were given as a gift, or they were expensive. Whatever the reason, most people have way too much stuff and it prevents us from enjoying any of it. It also tells you how to organize your things, but the key is throwing out or donating everything that doesn't "spark joy" and then going from there. I'm not doing it justice, but it really is fantastic. I got rid of 16 garbage bags worth of things and clothing that I did not need and I feel so much better.

So, back to the photo. Part of purging and tidying up was looking through a lot of things I had packed in boxes and forgotten about. I re-discovered a lot of old art work, writing, and photographs from the past and came to the realization that I used to love doing creative things. Taking photos and writing especially, but I also enjoyed drawing, painting, sewing, and just trying out different artistic and creative mediums. Somewhere along the way I think I got self-conscious, or scared, or embarrassed, or something else, and I kind of stopped making things. What I should be embarrassed about is letting my insecurities prevent me from doing things that I love, and sharing them with people, even if they aren't perfect, and could be better.

"When you feel inspired, or have an idea, stop whatever you are doing and follow the inspiration. It's very difficult to rekindle the spark once it goes out and impossible to conjure up on command." -- Margaret Qiao, The Photographer's Playbook 

14.11.22

When I was a child I believed I could do anything. I hadn't failed yet. I was lucky enough to have parents who encouraged me to be myself and who never let me think that anything was out of my reach. I wanted to be a lot of different things. I wanted to be an author most of all. 

When I was twelve I went on a class trip to Toronto. Our class stayed in the residence of Erindale College, which is a sub-section of University of Toronto, Mississauga. I wanted to live there. After that my best friend, Kayla, and I made a pact that we would move to Toronto and attend Erindale college. We didn't really get that it was part of U of T, or that it wasn't technically in Toronto. I don't think she ever really had any interest in our plan, that's just what twelve year old best friends do. 

In Highschool, I still hadn't lost my desire to move to Toronto, but I was more flexible about the school I went to, and I had stopped writing. I was lost. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I'm not sure and high school student does. Maybe the lucky ones with the drive and focus to get good grades, while playing school sports, and keeping up relationships with a large group of friends. Fuck those people. I'm not convinced they really knew what they wanted. They were just better at faking it. I had a new best friend in high school. We made the same pact. We were going to move to Toronto and be roommates. Six months after I was already in Toronto, still waiting for her to save up enough cash to meet me there so we could get a place together, she got pregnant and decided to stay in our hometown. That kind of thing happened to most of the girls I knew in high school. Small towns, right? 

I moved to Toronto to go to school for fashion design. I still don't know why I thought that was a good idea. I had no talent. Worse than that, I didn't care about fashion. I just felt like I wanted to be creative. I was scared of writing by that point. I had met the world, and the world isn't always kind to dreams. It wasn't that I had faced any rejection specifically to do with writing. I had just developed this sens that I wouldn't be able to do it, and I didn't want to try. Fashion Design seemed safer. In my very weak defense, I was seventeen. 

Not surprisingly, the whole fashion school thing fell apart. I entered an essay contest and won a prize. I started a school magazine and wrote interviews with faculty and students. I became depressed, medicated, and confused. I dropped out. I felt like a failure. Because I was. I moved to London and started working for a call center and writing small environmental posts for a website. I got paid $5 for each post. I missed a lot of deadlines and eventually gave up on that. I gave up on school for a while too. This is getting depressing, I know, but there is a happy ending. Maybe even a lesson, to my twelve year old self, at least. 

I worked for a fundraising company for a while. I ran the London office, mostly into the ground, but that was actually an improvement from where it was when I took over. I transferred back to Toronto. I worked for a year and then quit. I waitressed, I cleaned houses, and eventually I went into the U of T admissions office on a whim. I was walking by and thinking about my future. I found out what I needed to do and I got in. I didn't have a major on mind yet. English still seemed too impractical to me. Maybe it is, but at this point it seems inevitable. In my first year of trying a sample of everything, English was the only class that felt familiar. I got decent marks in the rest of my classes, But English was the only one where I felt like I had some idea of what I was doing. So I'm giving it a shot. 

I guess my point here is that if we really ask ourselves what we want to be doing, and we aren't afraid of giving an honest answer, we will end up where we should be. I should have listened to my six year old self, my eight year old self, my twelve year old self. When insecurity took hold, I should have stopped listening and started believing. I would have been here sooner if I had felt like it was ok to try. Instead of trying at something I really wanted, and risking failure with a vocation that mattered to me, I sort of tried with something that didn't matter because at least failing wouldn't hurt as much. But it didn't feel good to pursue something I didn't care about and eventually I ended up hating it. I've always enjoyed sewing and drawing, but I stopped both for years after that experience because failing did hurt, even if I didn't really want what I was going after. It took me a long time to admit to myself where I wanted to be, but I somehow kept going back to writing when I was trying to do other things. I may never get there. I might not be good enough, I don't know. I do know that I've got to keep trying. I did eventually make it to Toronto, so who knows.