home: an unexpected discovery

It’s been a busy week/month over here. But to start it all off, I would like to make the following work related comment: I officially survived my first conference hosting experience with no major disasters (or even little ones to be honest) and I’m pretty stoked with it.

I have a couple amazing colleagues that helped smooth the way and for that I’m incredibly thankful.

But what I really want to talk about, aside from my conference hosting stress relief, pride of a job well done, is a conversation I had with a colleague who I’d invited to speak at said conference. The topic was about diversity in education and her presentation was about integrating diversity into your curriculum. Overall, one of the points she wanted to stress (this is a very reductive version of her presentation) was to see students beyond their culture because they are so much more than that.

For instance, she asked me, do you only identify as being from BC or are you more complex than that? The answer of course, is that I’m FAR more complex than that… but that’s not what I want to talk about right now. What I wanted to explore was my actual identification as a BC’er.

In Oct 2011, I will have lived in Quebec for 11 years. 11. How crazy is that? And for years I’ve talked about BC as home and let’s face it, it’ll always be home. That will never completely go away. However, I find myself realizing, more and more every time that I return to BC, that I am no longer really a BC’er anymore.

So in spite of my proud declarations of being from BC and my secret pleasure over people’s awe about my great French skills for a BC, it’s come to a point where I might actually have to rethink my identity proclamations.

I’m not a BC’er anymore and I haven’t been for a while. My heart is in Quebec. Both literally and metaphorically. My French is fine, but not great for someone who has lived here as long as I have. It’s time for me to take it to the next level. No more hiding behind my pseudo BC status. And honestly, every time that I go home, I realize that I don’t belong in BC anymore. Sure, I could go back, but my home is here. I love Quebec, shitty roads and all. I love that my province didn’t vote Conservative and that my values are reflected, in large part, by the things that are practiced in this province (ok, not all… )I love that I live in a place full of so many cultures and that speaks 2 languages and is a little Euro, a little Cdn, but all entirely it’s own: Quebecois.

Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver.

And even though I fracken hate winter and cold, I’d take it any day over months of grey rain. I don’t know when it happen, but Quebec, for better or worse, you’re home, which is perfect given that I’m about to buy a house here!

food for thought on racism, anti-semitism, and anti-Muslim sentiment

I'm in a more pensive mood lately. Maybe it's in the air... maybe it's astrology, maybe it's converging Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish holidays. I don't know, but I'm a thinking a lot lately...

And this post is right up my alley today. I couldn't agree more with how scary the rise of anti-Islam/Muslim sentiment is becoming in the world. And while I never made the link myself to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and the scary places that leads to, I believe she's right in drawing the link and that's a very very terrifying thought.

and the snow begins....

photo taken in the plateau neighbourhood 2 winters ago

Only a little while ago I was writing about how the weather was a topic of conversation, and this morning I need to be ready for said conversation to begin!

It's weird, while I dread the snow because once it starts I know they'll be months of the stuff, there comes a point in November when I start longing for snow. In the beginning, snow is just plain beautiful. And if it weren't for the hibernaty, inconvenience of living in it for 4.5 months, I'd actually have to admit to loving it. And even preferring it to the months of rain I grew up with on the wet west coast.

The warm glow from the street lights as the streets get all hushed, the bright, crisp days, the way that the holidays feel like a Hallmark holiday, and all of the city's ugliness hidden underneath this white layer.

But then the snow turns grey, we hear the sloshiness of tires against it, people slip on the sidewalks.... and then it's not so great any more.

Let the fun begin!

A Comedy of Errors

I've been thinking about posting for a couple of days now and in the process I've realized that I feel like I have writer's block. But then again, maybe it's not actually writer's block but just the fact that I don't want to always be writing about wedding stuff and that life has suddenly started to feel extremely busy.

At work my days are full of diversity projects. I'm starting a new contest for students at the college that is meant to get them thinking about Montreal as a multicultural city and how that impacts their lives. I'm pretty excited to see what kind of response I'll get (the deadline is a long way away though). They can write, create a graphic novel, or take a picture. I hope they get creative. Being on the other end  (mean the judging side of many of these competitions) it's sort of sad to see how few students go off the beaten track and use the creative allowance given them, which is not to say that their stories aren't personal and so forth, but just that they all tend to follow the same format. I've purposely tried to prompt them to think more outside of the box while designing this contest, so I really hope that they take advantage of the fact and submit works that show how creative they can be.

In terms of wedding stuff, I think Paul and I have managed to finish our DIY projects (I just have to print and assemble the last one) which is great. Ceremony programs, ring books, assembling bonbonnieres, seating cranes, and Montreal booklets. All pretty much finished. Both of us have our outfits and hair appointments (someone convinced him to go see his hairdresser on the wedding day..... my boy is fashion conscious!).

We were actually joking the other day about his "beard" and the wedding: I've asked him to keep his goatee for the wedding but his mother is going to hate it.

She's going to be all like (add an Italian type accent for better effect, or if you know how, use a Slovenian accent): "what's wrong with you? Are you crazy with that thing on your face, you don't look clean!"
Paul: "but mom, Marya likes it and wants me to keep it"
Paul's mom: "ah you, you're both crazy"

Trust me, we were both laughing because it's soooo true. It doesn't matter that he'll go to the hairdresser and have it done for him along with his hair, she'll be expecting him to come home clean shaven and will be horrified when he comes home with facial hair. Maybe I should start thinking of the wedding day as a series of comic events meant to make our parents groan! Especially since my period came early this month which means that I'll have it during the wedding. Which also means I'll be pms-ing the week before the wedding!

Marya + period+ white dress = a comedy of errors!

Creating travel guide booklets for wedding guests

I'm currently working on a special project for my wedding guests: Personalized guide books for Montreal. Above is a guided walking tour of Parc Lafontaine and surrounding areas and below are Montreal brunch suggestions. The process is slow going. I had originally made one by hand for one couple, but realized that I would save more time if I did it on the computer. So here I am, trying to learn how to create a booklet in Publisher so that I can make the booklet once for all of my lovely out of town guests! Here's hoping that it'll work out!

Any Montrealers out there who have suggestions of things to do that I should add to the book, feel free to let me know!

If I can figure out how to upload the entire booklet online when I get it done, I'll be sure to do so.

rollercoaster emotions

From 2009-08-16 Crafting

Photo from Paul's 33rd birthday...


While the world goes mad about Mad Men and soon to be declared east coast heat wave of 2009, I am quietly enjoying the dog days of summer, finalizing wedding details, and squeezing in as much swimming as I can before there weather gets cold again.


I noticed the other day, after scrolling over my recent posts, that I've been talking less about my life and thoughts lately and re-posting links quite a bit. Normally I'd say that this is due to my life being pretty quiet lately, but that's not really the case. I think I've just been so busy with everything that I haven't had time to really sit down and process anything long enough to have something worthwhile to write about in the past month. I'm not really sure if this is due to wedding planning, the heat, or just the frame of mind that I'm in. I suppose it's probably all three.

I'm trying desperately to not turn into a bridezilla but my emotions are just all over the place these days and so I can't tell if I am having moments of emotional instability or becoming a bridal monster. I'm really not joking or being overly dramatic in that statement, I swear. One moment I am filled with Pollyanna like enthusiasm and squishiness and the next I'm ready to bite someones head off. The last few weeks have found me feeling very short tempered and put out by the things that I normally might bitch about and then shrug my shoulders at. Is this a normal wedding experience? Or is it due to the fact that I just feel pulled in every which way possible and stretched too thin? School is about to start so everything at work is amping up, my car needed expensive repairs that I couldn't really afford, and we're trying to finalize the last details/logistics but having to wait for everyone to get back to us (I'm not a patient person at the best of times, so be forewarned if you're on that list of people we're waiting to hear from ...... hell hath no temper like Marya, stressed out and in limbo mode!).

Mostly I think, I just wish the day were here already so that we could move on to other things in our life. Everything is waiting on the wedding being done and I think it'll just be a relief to have the ceremony over and be able to actually enjoy the time we'll have with our loved ones. When I think about all the people coming and sharing the day with us, I just constantly feel filled with awe and happiness. And like a kid waiting for Christmas, just wish the day were here already so I can enjoy it instead of worrying about sorting out our flowers and readings.

Even within this post I've done a 180. I'm just feeling a little manic lately, so please bear with me and forgive me my emotional eccentricities at the moment. I promise that I will soon return to a calmer state of mind, post wedding.

ode to montreal

I just sent an email to be my soon to be sister in law (my baby brother is getting married next July...) to reassure her about Montreal weather in the fall and once again, thinking about fall reminded me just how much I love this city. Seriously, no where in the world even begins to compare to Montreal (or the east coast) in the fall.

I'm already excited to share the season with friends and family back home. I can't wait for them to see how gorgeous this city is at that time of year!

ode to home

I loved Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels Persepolis (I & II), they touched me a in a profound way, educated me about the situation in Iran (which I admit to knowing very little about) and inspired a new found interest in the graphic novel genre.

In a recent Op-Ed piece for the New York Times she wrote:

Six years ago, I went to listen to a man, whom I will not name, in a café in Paris.
He said it had been 24 years since he had been back to Iran, that he had to leave right after the revolution of 1979 for political reasons.
He talked of many things, and he ended by saying: “Once you leave your homeland, you can live anywhere, but I refuse to die anywhere other than Iran — or else my life will have had no meaning.”
His statement touched me very deeply. I’ve thought about what he said, not just understanding him intellectually but feeling his meaning with all my heart. I, too, was convinced that I must die nowhere other than in my country, Iran, or else my life will also be meaningless.
At the time I heard this man speak, it had already been four years since I had been home.
Yes, I call Iran home because no matter how long I live in France, and despite the fact that I feel also French after all these years, to me the word “home” has only one meaning: Iran.
I suppose it’s that way for everyone: Home is the place where one is born and raised.
No matter how much I am in love with Paris and its indescribable beauty, Tehran with all its ugliness will in my eyes forever be the “bride” of all cities around the world.

Although the location of our "homes" are different, she couldn't have put it better. No matter how long I live in Montreal, the west coast will always be "home." And while we are expats for very different reasons, I still identify with the sentiments she expresses. Although it's still the same country, it's a different culture and the ocean, mountains, trees, even the rain, are all home to me. I can find a million beautiful things in this city, or in another, and yet home will always be, ironically, Nanaimo, BC. Loathe it though I may for many reasons, the river, the lagoon, the ocean, the BC Ferries, Arbutus trees are all things that I associate with home. Even in our debates about moving out of the city, I find that many of criteria I claim to need in terms of creating a space/location called home, echo back to these things. Montreal, with all of the things I love so much, will never offer me the fresh bodies of water that I crave swimming in, nor oceans that I can sail on, or mountains I can hike and climb. And I guess, even after 9 years, home remains the place I grew up in.

Of course the rest of her article goes on to talk about the current Iranian political situation and is well worth a read...

Death, torture and prison are part of daily life for the youth of Iran. They are not like us, my friends and I at their age; they are not scared. They are not what we were.

They hold hands and scream: “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! We are together!”
They understand that no one will give them their rights; they must go get them.
They understand that unlike the generation before them — my generation, for whom the dream was to leave Iran — the real dream is not to leave Iran but to fight for it, to free it, to love it and to reconstruct it.

Given that I just wrote a couple of days ago about feeling ashamed of my country, for all of its little and big hypocrisies, her words "shame" me. They make me realize that we, who have so much, bitch about so little and never bother to fight for the things that matter most to us. The fact that 85% of the Iranian population came out to vote when less than 60% of the Canadian population could be bothered... particularly my generation. I know that our options weren't attractive and that many of the issues seem contrived to screw us over, but how do we expect politicians to ever listen to us if we don't stand up to make our voices heard? How do we expect to get detailed, accurate, and reliable media coverage of the issues that are pertinent to us if we don't even pay attention in the first place. Our apathy, in the face of all the things we have and take for granted, is disconcerting (and dare I say it: disgusting) when we look at the challenges that other nations and groups face.

montreal

Photo Credit: Tourisme Montreal

As Paul and I talk more and more about the idea of buying a house (or rather, I talk about whether I want to move off the island or not, and he listens oh so patiently - I love my boy... he's so very zen-like in his patience for my indecisive angst)... anyways... as we/I talk about the merits of leaving the island in search for a house vs a condo, I find myself contemplating the wonder that is Montreal. Because for all that I complain about the weather or bad drivers and traffic or the metro commute or whatever else I find to complain about, I love this city.

I [heart] Montreal for oh so many reasons. For its ethnic and cultural diversity, its ability to constantly confound me, the beautiful architecture, the strange predominance of wartime bungaloes outside the downtown core, its amazingly intricate history, new neighbourhoods and surprise discoveries, la joie de vivre, the amazing myriad of restaurants, the fact that really I have no excuse to ever be bored in this city, and oh so many more countless reasons.

Every time I discover a new corner of the city, I am surprised and intrigued. Will my love affair with Montreal never end? As much as I miss the great outdoors, the ocean, home (the west coast), Montreal is the only other place in Canada that could ever be home to me. I love learning all of her secrets and a recent website discovery has been feeding my obsessive curiousity:

http://spacingmontreal.ca/

From this site I've learned that Chinatown used to be a Jewish quartier until 1920, that the Expo dome covering burnt down, that the old St Henri area that I lived in is called la village des tanneries (a past I had no knowledge of when I lived there), and various other interesting tidbits about the city. Yup, it is fodder for my curiousity. And after almost 9 years in this city (Oct 2009 = 9years), it's gratifying to learn more about the place I've chosen to live.

Rubik Cube Wonder

I am in rubik cube wonder this morning. For those of you familiar with the Montreal metro system, I watched a guy solve his rubik cube in the time it took to travel from Lionel Groulx to Villa Maria. (Say 7 minutes max).

I have NEVER solved a rubik cube, not unless you consider peeling the stickers off as counting. Yes, that's right, I'm sticker peeler!

Anyways...

What was particularly amazing about this was the concentration he had when everyone around him was secretly watching him. He'd get close and then seem to lose it and then all of a sudden seem even closer to completing it. Everyone around him all had these small smiles on their faces as they realized that he was actually going to do it! I felt like clapping when he did it! Yup, clapping. The little girl inside of me was filled with secret mirth over his triumph over the rubik cube... vicarious vindication over that tricky hunk of plastic at long last!

Every now and again the metro ride to work is really a wonderful thing!

Monday Morning Meanderings

My thoughts this morning are sort of all over the place, so I apologize in advance if this post seems somewhat chaotic.

First, on the most girly of topics: I now have my wedding shoes, which means that my clothing part of the day is complete. Yay for crossing one more thing off the never-ending list of wedding planning.

Next, I have the means, I have the car picked out, now I just need it to pass the inspection tests and Lucy will be mine. I'm so excited about owning my own (used) new Beetle that I'm giddy. Yes, that's right, I said giddy. Like pee your pants, jump up and down, wave your hands in the air like you just don't care, giddy! I can't wait. Can't wait, I tell you! Whoo hoo... Fuzzy dice here I come (though maybe I should be exploring my options, maybe I could find something even better than fuzzy dice in terms of kitsch factor - think Sophie's Cosmic Cafe kitschy).

And last (cause I'll end here), although I try to avoid work related topics in the public realm of blogland, this topic I feel is suitably neutral that it's ok to explore it. One of the things that I love about teaching is watching students come to new realizations about the world around them; things that we may already be aware of are new to them and fill them with wonder/thoughts. If I were into psychology, I would totally be into the cognitive psychology of higher education learning because it is truly fascinating to watch these students go through this evolution. Depending on their backgrounds, these realizations may be very significant or not but they are common to all of my students thus far. It really is an intriguing aspect in education that I never thought of or was aware of before teaching. Watching young people grow and learn about the world around them and current social issues is definitely the most rewarding part of my job.